———
[Letters to Ho]
You have inadvertently discovered a severed arm without a body. Beneath it lies an aged letter.
Obtained letters: 1/5
———
Give dicine viewed the updated progress bar on the quest panel, then hastily tucked the parchnt into his waist bag and started searching the small wooden house.
"There's nothing here!"
Give dicine had no choice but to give up the search after five minutes. This tiny wooden house had been cleared by countless players during quest runs. Besides dust and scattered dirt, there was nothing else to be found.
"Could other players have taken them? No, that can't be. If the letters were taken by soone else, this hidden quest would have been triggered long before I arrived."
A frowning Give dicine pondered for a bit before a thought struck him. "Wait a minute, I'm not the only one that uses this path. There were two players who were ahead of earlier, so how could they not have noticed the severed arm?!"
He quickly ran out of the door, and at that ti, a player was conveniently jogging past from the direction of the respawn point.
Give dicine stood on the doorstep and called out, "Hey buddy, doing a quest?"
The player stared at Give dicine strangely as if he didn't understand what this person was up to; then, recognizing the stranger as one of the three closed beta veterans, he politely responded as he passed by the front of the small wooden house, "Yeah, Brother ds."
Give dicine watched as the player turned the corner, then he glanced down at his feet. The severed arm was still resting on the doorstep.
This was after all just a ga, so Give dicine didn't feel like he had encountered a supernatural event or run into a ghost.
"Could it be… the key item that triggers the hidden quest isn't visible to everyone? Perhaps only specific players that et certain conditions can view it?" Give dicine started to get excited. "Just like a fortuitous encounter in Jisan, where nurous players on the sa server are digging for treasure and exploring hidden caves but only one lucky person out of thousands can trigger the Three Mountains and Four Seas event?!
"The hidden quests in the ga are equivalent to fortuitous encounters of other PC gas! This makes sense!
"Wahahaha! I'm the true luck god!"
Give dicine was overjoyed and imdiately took screenshots of the severed arm and parchnt letter. Then, he spiritedly picked up the severed arm and went off to find his companions.
Previously, Blossoming Strokes had been grinding zombie quests nonstop to earn copper coins for Give dicine and hadn't had ti to increase her reputation with the Mage Apprentice Instructor. Now that she was currently making progress, Give dicine didn't want to disturb her.
———
Qin Guan, who was capturing video footage and shooting scenes on the southern ruins in the town, looked up to see Give dicine running toward him excitedly, seemingly holding sothing in one arm, but there was nothing there.
From afar, Give dicine shouted, "Vanilla! Vanilla! Can you see what this is? Do you see anything?"
Qin Guan: "…I see a clown."
Give dicine first pulled Qin Guan to a spot further away from the ruins to ensure that they wouldn't be discovered by the enormous rat. Then, he proceeded to fill in Qin Guan all about the hidden quest.
"What the heck!" Qin Guan exclaid anxiously. "Can this quest be shared? Share it with if it's possible!"
"Let check." Give dicine carefully examined the hidden quest's description in the quest log. "It can't be shared with others, but those who have the hidden quest can invite others to form a team and complete it together. Team mbers can receive rewards based on their contribution to the quest… F*ck ! Gaining Exile Town reputation is the reward!"
"Territory reputation has been introduced? When did that happen? Was there an update on the official site?" Qin Guan remarked in astonishnt.
"I checked the official website when I logged out to eat, but there were no updates or announcents. Don't worry," Give dicine replied. "According to what's stated here, the first person to achieve 'Friendly' standing in Exile Town… will beco the mayor? The hell?!"
"Hurry up and read the whole text! Look through it carefully!" Qin Guan exclaid, exasperated.
Give dicine was the sort of reckless hardcore gar that had great enthusiasm grinding for ga values or participating in events but never bothered to properly read the plot or quest texts.
This ti, Give dicine focused and carefully read through the quest description. Now it dawned on him that this hidden quest was far more than a simple fortuitous encounter; its importance was more significant.
"Oh my goodness! This quest… It's an activation quest for the opening of Exile Town. Once its completion reaches 60%, exploration mode will be unlocked, allowing players to form teams and venture out of the town to fight monsters!" Give dicine exclaid in astonishnt.
"At 70% completion, Territory Prestige system will be unlocked. The first player that reaches 'Friendly' standing will beco Exile Town's mayor, and the position will rotate monthly based on the highest Territory Prestige during the settlent day…
"At 80% completion, Blood Alliance system will be released. Players can contribute resources and copper coins to Lord Yang to obtain land to establish their own Blood Alliance base. These bases can serve as a respawn point and a storage facility for blood alliance mbers."
Qin Guan took a deep breath and grabbed Give dicine by the collar. "What else?" he urged.
"I-if the player fails the quest due to improper actions or if the completion rate is below 60%, the aforentioned features to be unlocked will be temporarily suspended and postponed until the next triggered hidden quest…" Give dicine cried out.
Qin Guan: "…"
Today was the fourth day since the ga's release. But for the players, their ti spent in the ga had already exceeded what they experienced in a week of reality.
During this week, other than a handful that didn't care about ga values or were interested in making so extra pocket money, the majority of players had been grinding tirelessly.
Finally, when the unscrupulous developers decided to hand over the conventional gaplay elents such as monster hunting and guild establishnt to the players, it turned out to be tied to a randomly triggered hidden quest. If the quest failed, Give dicine, as the trigger, would undoubtedly be subject to the wrath and condemnation of many angry players…
"…I understand." Qin Guan patted Give dicine's shoulder. "Don't rush to complete this quest alone and avoid wandering aimlessly to prevent any accidental mishaps. Log out early and get so sleep. When you wake up, after midnight, send the screenshots you took. I'll rally the big shots in the forum and mobilize them to tackle this quest together.
"Your share of the quest rewards may be split, but at least you won't bear the responsibility alone. What do you think?"
"Let's do it! Thank you, Vanilla!" Give dicine nodded vigorously.
The idea of monopolizing the quest rewards and not allowing others to get involved was sothing that Give dicine, an adult, would never entertain. Considering the hardcore nature of the ga, just mindlessly grinding reputation quests alone was more than enough to bring players to tears.
Tackling a heavyweight hidden quest linked to the opening phase of the ga's content all by himself was pure wishful thinking!
He intended to keep playing this ga for a long ti and didn't want to be labeled as an eternal sinner right from the start!
Between midnight and 2 a.m. was when the forum for "OtherWorld" was most active. Players needed to wait until after midnight to download the screenshots and gaplay videos they had captured throughout the day from the official website. Many players would casually share their screenshots and videos on the forum to garner so attention and boost their na in the ga.
For the community of players, these visuals that they could see in the ga every day had since lost their novelty. However, considering that the total number of players was only 300 while the number of registered forum accounts was several tens of thousands, it ant that there were still a massive number of keen video ga fans who were quite interested in this ga which they couldn't personally experience.
At five minutes past midnight, a post titled "Shocking! Hundreds Witness Conclusive Evidence That Vanilla Boss is Busty!" appeared on the forum, instantly capturing the attention of the non-playing enthusiasts and rapidly gaining popularity.
This post, shared by one of Qin Guan's fans, presented multiple-angled screenshots and a comprehensive view of the scene where Qin Guan equipped the Orb of Deception and completely overshadowed everyone at the Knight Instructor's construction site.
Amid the crowd of skeletons in shabby white T-shirts and shorts stood a remarkable female warrior with wavy black hair, exuding an air of elegance and confidence. The description of her overshadowing presence was absolutely accurate, without a hint of exaggeration.
To add insult to injury, after several pages of replies from both non-playing enthusiasts and genuine players, the original poster sneakily shared two additional images provided by soone else, captured at the Treasure Expert's construction site.
The first screenshot depicted a muscular illusory disguise of the big shot with the female character, dressed in a magnificent Renaissance-style evening gown. As soon as the image appeared, countless non-playing enthusiasts burst into laughter.
The second screenshot was Blossoming Strokes' illusory disguise.
"Argh, my eyes! I'm going blind!"
"Oh no! My eyes!!!"
"Thank you, OP. Now my supper is ruined."
"Censor it! Censor it! I'm going to report this post!"
"My god! Even the governor in a miniskirt would be 100 tis more pleasant to the eyes than this thing! What did Madam Blossom do to deserve such punishnt?!"
"Give up, Madam Blossom! Don't be human! Your skeletal fra is a thousand tis more adorable!"
…It was fortunate that Blossoming Strokes was still grinding in the ga and hadn't logged out since accepting the Mage Apprentice reputation quest. Otherwise, she would have been infuriated by this bunch of clamoring non-players.
What was even worse was that so non-players, with a talent for stirring up trouble, rged screenshots of Blossoming Strokes and Vanilla Pudding, then gleefully posted the finished product on external websites.
Then, this heavily contrasting image was further edited to create s such as "Your online girlfriend vs. your real girlfriend," "What you see in the mirror vs. the real you," "Soone else's wife vs. your wife," and so on…
After receiving the screenshots sent by Give dicine, Qin Guan had been tirelessly editing videos. It wasn't until 3 a.m. that he finished producing a well-edited video combining ga content and a mobilizing ssage, which he imdiately uploaded to Bilibili and the ga forum.
Then, Qin Guan took a shower and had a quick al before preparing to wear his headset and continue his gaming session.
This routine was "invented" by players who confird their bodies were asleep when they were in the ga. By wearing the headset before going to bed, they could play while asleep and continue sleeping once they logged out without needing to wake up. Using a U-shaped pillow to protect their necks, they would wake up the next day without any discomfort.
The only downside was that they could only log in for a maximum of 12 hours within a 24-hour period. If they played too late into the night, they would have to count the hours they could be online for the next day.
Before logging in, Qin Guan refreshed the official website and checked the forum.
And then… he noticed that whether in the video's comnts section or the forum, both players and non-players, regardless of whether male or female netizens, were calling him "wife"…
Qin Guan: "??"
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