[ID: Great Wei Boxing Champion Level: 0 ---Basic attributes--- Strength: 3 Agility: 7 Constitution: 8 Willpower: 2 ---Special attributes--- Plant compatibility: 1 Animal compatibility: 0 Mechanical compatibility: 0 Psionic Energy compatibility: 0 ---Innate abilities--- [Soul Returner]]
Cui Yuan's consciousness was hazy, and so was everything before his eyes. Only the player information panel displayed directly in his field of vision looked clear.
In his daze, he heard calls drawing closer from afar. It took him several seconds to realize that his hearing was actually gradually returning.
At last, he gained complete control of his body and forced himself to sit up.
At the same time, he heard the clearest line of narration since entering the game:
"A new Soul Returner has joined us, joining the ranks of those restoring order to the world. This is an honor for me, and for this world."
To solve that web puzzle, [Great Wei Boxing Champion] had gone through the compendium no fewer than twenty times over the past two days.
As a result, he knew some of the world's basic lore like the back of his hand. The moment he heard the words "Soul Returner," he recalled the players' role in this world-
Ancient souls who neither aged nor died.
This setting neatly explained their ability to respawn endlessly without letting the players' arrival compromise the integrity of the worldbuilding.
Under this setting, a player's death was merely damage to their body. As long as someone could repair the body and reestablish the contract, the soul could return again.
As for the souls themselves, the lore described them as wise, intelligent, kind, thrifty, and seemingly synonymous with everything good...
What a stroke of genius. This even explained the players' abnormal behavior while farming. It could practically explain anything.
He looked around and, sure enough, saw a young man with extremely distinctive features watching him.
The young man looked sixteen or seventeen, with white hair that barely covered his eyes but still failed to conceal his emerald-green iris. A sapling sprouted from his other eye socket, not only flourishing but seemingly moving without any wind.
He looked toward the other side of the hall and saw five players smiling at him.
Their IDs floated above their heads, making them easy to recognize.
[Great Wei Boxing Champion] froze for two seconds, matching their IDs one by one to the entry editors on the website. He was fairly certain these were the guys who had been making the compendium increasingly comprehensive.
The veteran players warmly welcomed the newcomer and shared their group number in this virtual world, planning to add him to the closed beta discussion group after logging out.
The newcomer soon understood the current situation as well. With fewer than ten players, pioneering was naturally painfully slow. Today, they planned to explore northeast from the castle, because that area was marked by a blurry highlight on the website's map.
They could scout the route, mark locations, and kill a few monsters along the way.
As for Ed, the players treated him entirely like the sort of guide in a normal game who liked staying at home. It never occurred to them that they needed to bring him along.
Ed was happy with that too. After the players left, he planned to quietly grind monsters and build up the castle's biomass reserves.
He was currently level 3 and could accommodate at most eight players in the game. But after last night's hunting spree, he already sensed that his next level-up was close, at which point he could release another batch of closed beta slots.
But before that...
Surrounded by the others, [Great Wei Boxing Champion] had already reached the castle entrance and was about to suffer a shameless sneak attack from the previous unlucky fellow, [Shit Appraisal Master].
Just then, however, Ed's voice rang out behind them again:
"Soul Returners, after you left last night, I added some new abilities to your bodies. They're all things I've developed recently. Please give them a try whenever you have the opportunity."
As he finished speaking, a pop-up appeared before everyone:
[Dear closed beta players, today's optimizations: (1) Added an in-game area map display. Players can adjust the map's size and transparency and mark basic resources. (2) Added an in-game photography feature with three basic filters. Players can freely record their favorite scenes. (3) Added low stamina alerts. Please replenish your nutrition promptly. Enjoy the game!]
"Holy shit, more optimizations?!"
Amid bursts of astonished swearing, the players began adjusting the layout of their field of view to display the map just how they liked it.
[Howling Pothos] was the first to open the photography feature, taking several pictures of Ed to update the compendium after logging out.
These new features were actually no big deal for Ed. At most, they slightly increased his and Little Green's "power consumption." Eating a little more at mealtimes would take care of it.
[Great Wei Boxing Champion]: "Guys, how are my starting stats? Can you take a look?"
[Zhongde]: "Everyone has one point in special attributes, so there's no need to check those. Just tell us your basic attributes."
"[Strength: 3, Agility: 7, Constitution: 8, Willpower: 2]. What would suit me?"
"Holy shit."
Another exclamation came from the players.
[Good Times Don't Last]: "I don't know why you picked a boxing champion ID when you only have three strength, but dude, your constitution is seriously high."
[Great Wei Boxing Champion]: "What's the difference between constitution and strength?"
[Good Times Don't Last]: "Strength and agility mean exactly what they say. As for the other two... from what we've worked out grinding monsters over the last couple of days, constitution is pretty similar to the real-world concept. The higher it is, the less easily you exhaust yourself, and the faster you recover. You can think of it as a certain amount of damage reduction, or thicker health and stamina bars. It's also related to poison resistance."
[Shit Appraisal Master]: "[Willpower] is pretty unusual. It doesn't do much under normal circumstances, but it's extremely important in events that require a check. We tried controlling Deadwood Vine before, but our willpower was too low, so it corrupted us instead, and we nearly died. Oh, right, we also need to tell you about this world's special power system. But dude, with your two willpower... you can pretty much kiss controlling mutated bodies goodbye... just don't turn into a monster and backstab us."
Watching the players gradually walk away, Ed couldn't help feeling a sense of wistfulness, like he was watching eaglets leave the nest.
He'd felt the same way yesterday, but since the eaglets had all died afterward, that was that.
Today, however, the players had set out on a route Ed himself had traveled once. He really wanted to know just how much these level 0 players armed with simple melee weapons could accomplish.
After some thought, he set out to grind monsters as well, while speaking in his mind:
"Little Green."
"What is it?"
"Let's take the server down for a day tomorrow."
"Huh?"