Chapter 719 – NPC Point of View
Miaomiao turned to Mu-Nyang Statue. The latter winked at him and sent a sound transmission.
'I should introduce how the game works, munya. When players enter the game, they can choose one of the three worlds to join. The first world is a fantasy world with fancy races, such as elves, dwarves, orcs, and so on, munya. The second world is your world, where cultivators reign supreme, and the last one is a mixed-race world, munya.'
Miaomiao got a general idea, 'So, cultivator-wannabes are coming to this world.'
'Correct, munya. Oh, by the way, you can give quests to the players, but you have to fork reward items yourself, munya.'
'Why should I give them quests? Shouldn't I eradicate them all and be done with it?'
'They can keep resurrecting without a penalty if you wrongly kill them for no reason, munya.'
'So I need a reason to kill them?'
'Yes, munya. Well, you don't have to start a genocide right now. Wait for protagonists to show up and take notes of top players in your world. When they start to expand their territory or form an organization, waste them and hinder their growth for me, munya!'
'Why hinder though?'
'If you kill strong players and hinder their growth, we can farm their luck energy from their repeated death, munya. But since killing noobs will earn us nothing, let's wait for our piglets to grow into fat pigs and harvest their luck and lifespan, munya!'
'Ah, I get it. So, even regular players have luck energy?'
'Games are good for this reason, munya. Gamers sell their souls for gacha luck, and we passively suck their luck with this system. But if you clap them when they are about to run out of competitors, their angst and frustration will ignite their competitive spirit, and they will spend more luck in gacha gambling for better P2W items, munya!
'Ha! Like I thought. Gacha is the source of all evils. Roger that.'
While Miaomiao was conversing with Mu-Nyang, a young player approached him.
"H-Hello, sir."
Miaomiao glanced at the player, "Yes?"
"You seem troubled. I-Is there something I can do for you?"
Miaomiao smirked and inwardly laughed at the player's attempt to trigger a quest.
"What can a weakling like you can possibly do for me?"
"O-Oh."
The player drooped his shoulders in embarrassment. The other players laughed at him.
"Hahaha! There is no quest icon on that NPC. Look carefully noob!"
"Yeah. Didn't you read the guidebook? Purple-named NPCs and gold-named NPCs are either strong bosses or major characters in story quests. You can't talk to them and hope for a quest unless they want to talk to you!"
Hearing the player's words, Miaomiao had a funny idea. He opened his system menu and thought of quest content.
DING
<A quest has been created. You may offer this quest to players.>
Miaomiao coughed and muttered.
"Well, although you're weak, you can still be useful as an errand boy. If you can find the whereabouts of any people on the list and report back to me, I'll give you something nice."
.
Intel Gathering Errand
The prodigy of the Mao Clan, Mao Miaomiao, is searching for his missing companions. If you manage to locate one of them and report back to him, he will give you rewards for your trouble.
Quest Difficulty: Unknown
Quest Objective: Find clues of the following people: Wei Yuan, Xu Chu, Diaochan, Chang'e, Kang Yan, Ma Xingjuan, Liu Guang, Dian Wei, Wei Yuan, He Mingzhu, Fan Xiu, Lai Wen, Shen Niu, Kong Xifeng, Long Meifang, Qi Ning, Qi Hong, Xie Fan, Eurobeat, Queen Gu, Clem, Jiang Lan, Pan Xiaofan, Ju Chen, Ju Shoufen, Fang Meirong, Hopea, Sun Yun, Wu Guotai, Mao Lan, Houtu, Xu Xiuying, Xu Lanying, Xu Huang, Mao Xueyan, Mao Dandan, Zhao Yun, Lilith, Lilim, Eve, Devil, Leviathan, and Zhu Qiao.
Time Limit: None
Failure Condition: You abandon the quest.
Quest Reward: Unknown (Depending on the quality of information and the number of located companions).
.
Miaomiao inwardly laughed and handed the quest to the player. Although the list of his 30ish wives was incomplete as he didn't include the wives of Kishin Douji and Tang Ting to the list, he believed that it was enough to keep these gamers busy for the time being.
The young man stared at the long list of Miaomiao's wives. His expression got brighter.
"Of course, I'll help you, sir!"
"Good. Now go. Once you find them, come back and report to the Mao Clan Manor."
The young gamer smiled and rushed out.
Seeing how the player took the quest from Miaomiao, the other players asked for the quest as well.
"Sir, let me help you as well!"
"Can you give me a quest, senior?"
"Do you have a quest for me, sir?"
Miaomiao sneered at them while he handed them the same quest. Now, he got free laborers to do his biddings.
'This is fun. I wonder if they realize that I scammed them. I'll just give them one spirit stone for the first guy with the info and be done with it. Or rather, should I brainwash a few female gamers and turn them into a sex army?'
Although the inspiration sounded fun, Mu-Nyang shut him down.
'Don't convert my protagonists and local population into your sex slaves, please, munya. Just kill them if you have to so that we can harvest their luck, but don't take their souls out of my karma river, munya.'
'How about regular souls?'
'No. Just be satisfied with your wives, munya.'
'Alright.'
'Thanks, munya.'
Mu-Nyang might sound nosy and annoying, but Miaomiao didn't hate him for it. He understood why the cat reacted this way. After all, cutting karmic ties with the local population could fatally injure him.
The cat god had been honestly helping Miaomiao for a long time. He couldn't bear to backstab or trouble Mu-Nyang when the latter always politely and politely asked him.
.
For the entire day, Miaomiao gave out quests to new players to expand his little intelligence network. The gamers were also organized as they formed queues, waiting to take their quests.
At night, Miaomiao excused himself. He stopped giving quests and guided Mao Hao back to the clan's manor.
Thousands of new players were dejected that they didn't get the quest. Some of them followed Miaomiao, but Mao Hao shooed them away.
After Miaomiao had left the city, the gamers spread Miaomiao's quest content to the game community. It got many players curious.
"Zhao Yun, Dian Wei, Xu Huang, and Diaochan? What era is this? Why do Romance of the Three Kingdoms' characters show up here?"
"I bet Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and Sun Quan exist here."
"Their country names said it all - Wu Dynasty Empire, United States of Wei, Shu Han Republic, Yellow Heaven Kingdom, Xiongnu Prairie. It's a cultivator world with three kingdoms setting!"
"Hahahaha! Where is my lord Lu Bu? I want to serve Lord Lu Bu!"
"What audacity. Who is this NPC? How dare he pursue Diaochan! I'll find Lu Bu and let him kick his ass!"
"Second-worlders are so lucky. Our third-worlders haven't triggered a scenario quest yet. All quests here are trash!"
"The third world got stuck with this silly Yuan Empire though. Guess what? Yuan Shao is the king here, and we have the magical girl Yuan Hua as the princess. Hahahaha!"
"Dear second-worlders, what city is that? I haven't joined the game yet, but I'll join the second world. I got a UR dual cultivator character, by the way. Is it good?"
The forum exploded, but Miaomiao and the local population couldn't access this part of the information.
.
The next day, ten thousand new players joined Pirate Hunter City as their starting point for the sake of obtaining Miaomiao's quest. Unfortunately, Miaomiao didn't show up today. All players scrambled and searched for him, but they couldn't access the Mao Clan Manor.
As a result, everybody complained to the game company. New players whined while gamers that had obtained the quest laughed at them.
Meanwhile, Miaomiao and his clansmen stayed in their manor, exploring the NPC system, especially the quest handling options.
The clan held an emergency meeting today. Miaomiao and all clansmen were assembled, but Mao Shan and Mao Cheng couldn't attend as the Celestial Sword Sect suddenly got busy.
The patriarch, Mao Handan began today's meeting agenda.
"I believe everybody has learned about the mysterious blue screens that you can summon and read the guidebook. Is there anybody who hasn't seen your inventory menu?"
Nobody raised their hand or answered the question as they had read the guidebook.
"Good. I assume that everyone has read the book. I'll skip the trivial detail and get to the point. We can take advantage of the otherworlders."
Mao Handan opened his palms and a large screen appeared in front of him. He flipped his screen panel 180 degrees and let the others read it.
It was a long list of quests that Mao Handan had drafted. They consisted of resource gathering quests, wild beast capturing quests, monster beast subjugation quests, and man-hunt quests.
The servants of the Mao Clan gasped as these duties were what they usually got assigned to do. They sweated profusely, afraid of losing their jobs.
"Normally, we always assigned our clansmen to handle these trivial tasks. But now, we can entrust these duties to otherworlders without jeopardizing our clansmen's safety. Of course, we will not fire our soldiers or servants since we will assign them to a more important task, such as sacred ruin exploration, forging artifacts, or harvesting herbs from a secret realm."
The clansmen wiped the sweat on their faces as they didn't lose their jobs.
Mao Handan continued, "That's the first agenda. Now, the assignments - All available elders will finalize the quests according to my draft. Once you're done, report it to me, so we can allocate our clansmen to hand the quests to the otherworlders!"
The four elders in the hall stood up and cupped their fists.
"Understood!"
"Moving on to the second agenda, this relates to the benefits of commissioning otherworlders. I want everybody to open your system menu and check the premium shop tab."
Even though Mao Handan was a local cultivator with no game knowledge, he quickly adapted to the changes and understood all game jargon by studying the guidebook.
Miaomiao had seen the shop menu, and he had already explored it. He opened it anyway to follow the patriarch's instruction.
Several perks, season pass, consumable items, elixirs, fashion clothes, pets, inventory expansion set, maps, and various items were on sale in the premium shop. Even the NFT gacha machine was added to the mix. However, it required a cryptocurrency to exchange for the goodies.
"Whenever otherworlders complete our assignment, we are obliged to hand them rewards. However, we will gain a token, PACT, in exchange. We can exchange the tokens for life-saving elixirs or expand our inventory slots! I'm sure you all know how valuable they are!"
"…"
Miaomiao gazed at his current tokens, which he had farmed during the previous beta test. He had over a billion PACT tokens in stock. That didn't include five million Dao Stones.
"If you look carefully, you can see several tabs in the premium shop. At the last tab, you can exchange Dao Stones for a random mythic treasure or technique once a month!"
The clansmen were excited as they browsed the item list of the mythic gacha machine, which required Dao Stones to use. However, the elders that had done their homework and read through the guidebook thrice didn't look happy.
"These items are godly for sure, but the only way to acquire Dao Stones is to win a cross-server arena event. The god will hold this event once every three months, and otherworlders can participate! The rewards depend on the strength brackets."
Mao Handan opened another screen, showing the details of the event.
"The arena event is separated into three groups. The first one limits the strength of participants to 3rd-stage or lower. The second bracket is 7th-stage, and the last one is under the immortal realm! Of course, the last arena gives more Dao Stones than the others."
Miaomiao snickered and shook his head. He had seen the arena event detail and the rewards.
He belonged to the nascent soul bracket. However, had Miaomiao won, he would have gotten only ten Dao Stones, which was enough to use the mythic gacha machine once. As for the pseudo immortal bracket, the first prize gave out 100 Dao Stones.
'I can use the gacha machine 500,000 times, but I need Dao Stones to develop Connate Qi in the future. Well, it won't hurt if I play it once.'
While listening to Mao Handan, Miaomiao exchanged 10 Dao Stones for a mythic NFT ticket. Then, he used it.
CHING-CHING
A rainbow ball came out.
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