Chapter 20.1: Game Developer Yang Qiu

First day of open beta, 8 p.m. Earth time. Three hundred players were all logged in.

Yang Qiu, stationed in the Town Hall, sensed the connection from the souls of Earth inhabitants represented by the 300 glowing light spots. He could feel his mental limit greatly elevated, and a sense of peace came over him.

"I definitely wouldn't have been that miserable then if I had this current state when resisting the incursion of the elder god's tentacle."

With much satisfaction, Yang Qiu made himself a cup of milk tea and rested comfortably in his armchair, relishing the rare tranquility of his mind.

While he had narrowly made it through back then, it didn't mean that the elder god's tentacles were easy to deal with. These tentacles, which carried a portion of the elder god's will from the void, were also known as "elder god's seeds"; beings that couldn't resist the contamination of an elder god's will would be assimilated and become "divine envoys" of the elder god. Unable to control themselves, these "envoys" would spread fear and wreak disaster on behalf of the elder god as they turned into mindless walking corpses.

Wise men of this world refused to acknowledge these twisted wills lost in the void, the ancient dominators, and deities that were isolated beyond dimensions. Thus, positive connotations like "divine seeds" or "divine gods" weren't used to associate with elder gods. Instead, these were referred to as "elder god's tentacles" to distance them.

In any case, regardless of what it was called, Yang Qiu didn't pay much attention. He was largely indifferent toward those legitimately recognized gods, let alone elder gods..

"A pity we can't stop players from being reckless, nor can we keep them online 24/7.. Even Ou Huang, who has the highest mental power, can only stay in the game for about 12 hours before needing to log off and rest," Yang Qiu sighed.

As for increasing the max number of players.. That wasn't possible at present.

The imprint matrix was already full of complex miscellaneous functions and was at its limit, with the souls of 300 players and 19 natives connected to it. Yang Qiu's mental power wouldn't be able to sustain the matrix if more imprints were added to it.

Even essential game features like chat channels, private messages, and friend lists could only be activated when the majority of players had advanced to level 1, and these operations on the matrix could be sustained by harvesting the mental energy of players..

"Elder god's tentacles aren't common and probably won't appear for the time being. Having a minimum of 50 players online as anchors should be stable enough for now."

Yang Qiu then observed the light spot representing the mind link to Charlie Rex and confirmed that the latter, whose mind had been on the verge of collapse, was now much more stable after a large number of players joined the matrix. His light spot was brighter than before, and Yang Qiu felt more at ease.

If someone at such dire straits could be rescued, then there was no doubting the effectiveness of the imprint matrix's anchor points.

"Now, it's time to verify the effect of the matrix on me." Yang Qiu set down his milk tea, calmed his mind, and entered a state of meditation.

"Magic Technique: Meditation" was a commonly used technique to concentrate the mind and open up all of one's senses to quickly absorb magic factors. The threshold to use it was really low, and ordinary people could use it normally with the assistance of runes.

And precisely because of its low threshold to use, the rune of "Meditation" was mostly a strictly forbidden magic, whether it was in the realm of humans or the realms of orcs and elves.

The reason for it was simple. Even without invoking evil gods or conducting occult rituals using certain forbidden ancient texts, the act of simply activating a meditation rune and coming into contact with magic would cause the user to come into contact with the "madness" within, which an average person's mental power was unable to resist.

When the gates to perceive magic were opened with the assistance of runes, what was gained wasn't just immense power but also a terrifying mental storm that could instantly cause fragile minds to be lost..

Legitimate spellcasters were extremely cautious when it came to using meditation to absorb magic, often relying on potions to maintain their sanity. So, what about ordinary beings whose mental prowess was far inferior to spellcasters?

Yang Qiu had little knowledge about the races from other territories, but in the Navalon continent, where humans were the predominant race, there were always rumors every year about some idiots indulging in mysticism and misusing runes, only to end up sacrificing themselves, their families, and even their neighbors..

In short, in a world where gods walk among mortals and the exceptional are insignificant, power comes at a price.

Moreover, this was often a heavy price that was difficult to bear.

Ten minutes later, Yang Qiu opened his eyes, revealing a joyful expression.

"All the hard work wasn't in vain. The matrix anchor is indeed strong!"

Absorbing magic quickly during meditation was burdensome for Yang Qiu. Even though he wasn't as worried about losing control as other native spellcasters, he still had to expend significant mental effort to resist the contamination within the magic.

Put in a simple analogy, a spellcaster absorbing magic was like a thirsty man enduring the continuous punches of a strong man while drinking water in pain.

As for Yang Qiu's case, it was like being beaten by a group of mischievous kids with pillows while trying to drink water and suppressing the urge to spit it out.. While it was much easier than what regular spellcasters experienced, it was still uncomfortable, and there was still a risk of choking if he wasn't careful.

And when Yan Qiu meditated with the support of the anchors of the matrix, it was akin to having a glass barrier put up between him and those crazy kids. He would be able to drink in peace while observing their ugly antics..

"After a prolonged delay of 60 years, I can finally make the spurt to Great Mage!" Yang Qiu clenched his fist and began another round of meditation..

Then another..

And yet another..

After four consecutive rounds of meditation, Yang Qiu's magic was so abundant that it enveloped him in a faint blue light as if he was about to ascend on the spot.

"That's enough, I can't be too excessive." Yang Qiu shook his head, suppressing the urge to meditate again, and withdrew a finely polished bone fragment the size of a fingernail from his spatial ring.

He concentrated with his mind and diligently inscribed runes on it..

The basic runes of "Basic Meditation," "Basic Battle Roar," and "Basic Wind Manipulation" that players could unlock at random upon reaching level 1 and completing the job advancement task were engraved on such bone fragments. Once players were qualified to learn these "skills," these bone chips would be loaded into the players' "game characters" as skills.

That's right, even though "Job Instructors" had been arranged, Yang Qiu didn't expect these players to learn legitimate combat skills of their particular job through guidance from the instructors. If players were forced to spend years in real time to learn a skill, they would definitely curse the development team to no end.

Thus, Yang Qiu could only resort to this cheating method of physically adding hardware to the "game characters," allowing these players to have an easy "one-click" power-up..

Runes were the most straightforward and destructive way to utilize power. Players that "grew" with this approach would be akin to alchemical puppets, though it would require about 10 players to take on a legitimate professional powerhouse.

But this didn't mean that players couldn't fight. They were unafraid of pain and death—an army of unlimited resurrections with a one-hour cooldown!

More than an hour later, Yang Qiu finished inscribing the bone fragments, and his dissipating magic power was nearly all used up.

After making himself another cup of milk tea, Yang Qiu, who was taking a breather, vaguely sensed that something was off and hurriedly immersed his mind into the imprint matrix..

"Not a single player has died in nearly two hours of game time? Have this bunch changed their ways?!"

Yang Qiu curiously peered at the light spots representing the Fourth Crisis.. historical

Then, he discovered that apart from a few unique players who sought individuality, 90 percent of the Fourth Crisis were engaged in diligent work at the various construction sites.

While it was something that Yang Qiu had orchestrated, witnessing such a spectacular surge in construction activity filled him with a great sense of accomplishment.

"To reach a friendly status with an advanced NPC, one needs 5,000 reputation points, which translates to a solid 50 hours of intense labor.

"Even if the most hardcore players pushed themselves to the limits, spending the full 12 hours (real time) online every day solely on reputation grinding, it would still take them at least three days to meet the initial bidding requirements."

The maximum daily usage time of 12 Earth hours was clearly displayed on the helmet. If a player exceeded this daily limit, they would be disconnected from the game and be unable to log back in.

The reason for imposing such a restriction was mainly due to Yang Qiu's concern about encountering stubborn players refusing to log off and rest despite being mentally drained.. The game itself was designed to be played on the edge, pushing boundaries for players' enjoyment. However, if incidents with casualties were to occur, it would undoubtedly attract scrutiny and lead to investigations or bans.

Within three days, those who can achieve the bidding rights will find ways to get the copper coins produced by players, which in turn, motivates idle individuals to engage in labor-intensive activities.. Looks like there's no need to worry about online rates until the end of the National Day holiday.

Once this frenzy subsides, it will be time to release hidden quests.

Via the imprint matrix, Yang Qiu leisurely scanned through the players online, focusing on 26 individuals with a Potential value of 40 or above.

The majority of these 26 individuals, including Yang Qiu's older sister, Yang Ying, were engaged in hard labor.

Yang Ying seemed to have made two friends in the game, spending most of her time online with them. At the moment, all three of them were diligently completing quests near the fourth NPC on the southeast side of the town.

"Looks like Sis has befriended some wise players," Yang Qiu surmised, seeing that the trio had selected this NPC for quests.

It wasn't that Yang Qiu thought his elder sister lacked intelligence; rather, she was the type of person that wouldn't pay attention to details unless they involved matters of principle..

The quest assigned by the fourth zombie NPC was to clean the river, which was similar to quests given by other zombie NPCs and was basically hard labor. However, as the one who personally set repetitive tasks for these zombie NPCs, Yang Qiu was well aware of the intricacies involved. The gravel and silt produced during the quest "River Cleaning" could serve as quest items for the "Collecting Building Materials" quest, which could be submitted in turn to the sixth zombie NPC a short distance away.

In other words, the trio could complete three quests in the time others took to complete two.

Seeing his sister chatting happily with her two newfound friends while working diligently on quests, Yang Qiu felt somewhat relieved and shifted his gaze elsewhere.