gen

Awakening from being possessed by the spirit of the tower, the old mage grabbed Jiang Qiao's hands with a ghastly expression on his face.

"It's the end of the world, the apocalypse!" The old mage's wrinkled hands grabbed at Jiang Qiao with a deathly grip, widening his eyes in fear. "I saw the moment the world ended, and the devil's star…The devil's star is coming!"

The old mage's words were the same as one of the astrologers at the Astrology Tower.

"Where is His Highness? I must inform Prince Segman!" The old mage seemed to come to his senses and started looking for Segman, and when he saw the latter at the enhancing stall, he quickly let go of Jiang Qiao's hands and ran over to Segman.

"Forgive me, great Devourer God…It is my duty to inform the natives of this world."

A crisp voice like chiming bells rang in Jiang Qiao's ears, and he raised his head to see a living being that was glowing dimly appear in front of him.

This living being was very petite, and had a body of light gray fur. She was humanoid, but her proportions were around three-heads tall, and even though his eyes and mouth were like a human's but her nose looked like a rabbit's while a pair of furry bunny ears sprouted from her head.

This tower spirit's appearance was enough to be the object of the fantasies of some people with strange hobbies.

"Also, can you tell that old mage something else?" Jiang Qiao didn't mind that the spirit of the tower told the news that the former believers of Ocean Blue were going to invade this plane.

After all, the natives of this world had strong battle force too. There were only 3100 players in the Sacred Souls server at this point, and there were about 300~500 additional players every day. Players could increase the maximum limit of the server by 5~15 every time they cleared dungeons.

The more elite players that were more than Level 30 composed a pitifully small percentage of these players, with only 130 thirty of them. Perhaps these players would be able to become more than Level 40 in fifteen days, while players like FreeMilk would be able to get to Level 50, but it was still way too early to think of defeating the Ocean Blue Divinity Plane that had an average of Level 60s.

If the tower spirit told the natives about the 'apocalypse', they would definitely send their armies and troops to this plane to protect it, and there were quite a lot of natives that were more than Level 40~50.

But borrowing the strength of the natives would only be on the condition that they don't get into trouble with the players.

Small scale conflicts were fine, but large scale ones were troublesome, so Jiang Qiao had to change the view of natives towards players.

The easiest way to do so was to make them think that players were heroes, or saviors, or the chosen ones of the world… Or something along those lines.

This was a common setting in games that players were characters that acted as saviors of the world.

"You go tell that old mage that…We're the sacred souls that you summoned to this world, a and that we're a great presence from a faraway world tasked with the duty to protect this world on the brink of destruction, and basically describe us as high and mightily as you can. In short, you should let them think that we're saviors of the world, and let them call us great sacred souls."

In Jiang Qiao's opinion, the best way to motivate players to do quests was by… having NPCs suck up to them nonstop, in every possible way possible—Call them saviors, call them heroes, call them their one and only hope, and by doing so those players would even do planting and grass-plucking missions willingly.

After all, helping NPCs with chores was Chosen One 101.

"I… think I understand…" The tower spirit was still extremely scared and reserved as she talked with Jiang Qiao, mainly because Ocean Blue had been staring at her the whole time.

Anyone would be hard-pressed to keep their cool when they were being locked on by a lion…No, a tyrannosaurus.

Under the pressure of possibly being eaten, the tower spirit quickly floated over to the old mage who was rushing towards Segman, and possessed him once again.

On the other end, Segman was in a battle of wits with Enhancer Ellie.

"Can I really enhance my weapons by putting it in this strange alchemic apparatus?" Segman was attracted by that woman calling him a 'handsome lad'.

"The effect of my Enhancing Machines is absolute! If you don't believe me, you can try it out~" Ellie teased, her smiling expression hard to read.

Honestly, Segman was in a rush to grow stronger at the moment for a few reasons. The first was because he wanted to reclaim the first sacred record, and the second was to impress the beautiful priestess from earlier.

Segman still remembered when she said to wait for her until tomorrow, and so he did not want to pull the team back. Instead, he wanted to be the strongest in the team!

At his current stage, the fastest way he could enhance his abilities was by improving his equipment and sacred relics, and so he saw a glimmer of hope from these Enhancing Machines.

"I hope you aren't tricking me!" Segman took out a well-made shortsword and threw it into the machine, while the Enhancer Ellie only smiled enigmatically without saying anything.

The first enhancement didn't require any magical stones or any payment of the sort, sort of like a trial run.

The round machine started jumping and shaking as Segman pressed the activation button, and the lights and data on the machine started blinking and flashing.

Seeing these movements, Segman quickly took several steps back, thinking that this strange device was going to blow up.

After two seconds, the enhancing machine returned to normal, and then the machine 'spat' out the shortsword that Segman threw into it promptly.

Segman reached over and held the shortsword in his hand, and it seemed to have been filled with a lively warmth, as if he was holding a living breathing sword. On the blade of the sword, there was a newly formed runic number on it, and Segman could understand that it meant '+1'.

Slashing the blade in the air, it cut through the air with a crisp-sounding 'whoosh'.

The sharpness of the blade had definitely increased!

In Segman's world, it was seen as a given that mages would have to know how to use swords to be considered as a good knight, so he was quite versed in swordsmanship too.

He could definitely feel the enhancement in the strength and durability of the shortsword.

"Can you continue to enhance this?"

Segman immediately asked the Enhancer Ellie, feeling the doors to a new world open up to him.

"The second enhancement requires two magical stones~"

Segman immediately took out two magical stones and stuffed them into Ellie's hand, and then he threw the sword back into the Enhancing Machine. After another bout of vigorous shaking, the sword was spat out again, and the '+1' turned into '+2'.

Segman swung the sword in the air, and he clearly felt the sharpness of the blade increase again. This time, he seemed to feel like he could slash open the air itself.

"Hey! This device…How many times can you enhance a single weapon?" Segman asked, suppressing his excitement.

"An unlimited amount of times, but it ain't cheap handsome~"

A cunning smile appeared on Enhancer Ellie's face. In Jiang Qiao's setting, he would never expose the fact that… there was a risk in enhancing equipment.

Now that he knew the effect of this Enhancing Machine, he didn't continue to enhance the normal shortsword, instead pulling out a sacred item called the Magic Converging Staff.

This sacred item was a rare short-ranged sacred item from the Tower of Trials. Because it had an extremely small range for a sacred item, its effects were inversely quite strong. Within a one-meter radius, all the magic that a mage could release was more than two times than before, and the magic itself was strengthened.

In Sacred Souls terms, it meant that the user's MP would be doubled.

Due to the setting of the game, sacred souls could only be placed in manors or guilds, and so the use of this magical staff was extremely useless to players.

After all, a one-meter radius wouldn't even be enough to reach outside the main city, so what was the use of doubling the MP in this area? To beat up the city guards?

This magical staff actually contributed a lot to Segman breaking the sacred records two days ago.

As he was about to throw this staff into the Enhancing Machine, the old mage finally arrived.

"Your Highness! Your Highness! We must return!" The old mage's wrinkled hands gripped Segman's shoulders tightly.

"Mentor, what's wrong?"

Segman was about to continue stuffing the sacred item into the Enhancing Machine, but his arm was pulled back forcefully by the old mage.

"The apocalypse is arriving! The prophecy is true! It's going to be the end of the world! The deity of the Tower of Trials told me everything, the devil's star… The devil's star is approaching our plane!"

"Mentor, are you absolutely certain?"

Looking at his twisted expression, if anyone else said these words to him, Segman would definitely think they were going to scam him.

But the person standing in front of Segman was the greatest sage and prophet in Aquaflow, and the reason why he was so revered in their country wasn't because he was that versed in magic, but because of his ability to commune with the gods.

Ever since his youth, the old mage had prophesied three calamities that would befall the country of Aquaflow.

The first time, the king didn't believe in his words.

That time, it wasn't so disastrous as to destroy the country, but it still took a massive toll.

And so, the second time, the king chose to believe in him, and Aquaflow was able to evade the calamity unscathed.

The third time, he was already seen as the greatest sage of the country, and so the king followed his directions, turning Aquaflow into one of the strongest countries in the world.

This all happened thirty years ago, and after thirty years of smooth development, this prophet prophesied that the world would be destroyed.

"It's true! Quickly, let us return to inform His Highness!" Blood started to leak from the old mage's mouth, and it gave Segman the impression that the old mage exchanged this prophecy from the hands of the gods at a great price…

Well, it was quite the heavy price—the old mage's hips were sprained by the spirit of the tower, but the old mage was too panicked to realize it.

"What about the way to resolve this?" Segman asked about the key point that they needed to know. "Have the gods told you the solution?"

Every time the old mage made a prophecy, it would come at the cost of his life force and magical energy. This was also one of the reasons why he was revered by the people of Aquaflow, but he wasn't the strongest in the country.

"A solution… A solution…" The old mage muttered, and his neck suddenly twisted at a strange angle. Immediately after, his eyes became pure gold again.

Seeing the old mage's golden eyes, Segman quickly let go of him, guessing that some holy being had taken over the old mage.

"Sacred souls." The old mage's voice became emotionless as he muttered, "These warriors named sacred souls are heroes that I have summoned from a faraway plane. They will reclaim their power from the Tower of Trials, and they… will help you defend the world from the apocalypse!"

Sacred souls? Heroes? Heroes that God had summoned?

Segman looked over at the place where the old mage was pointing, which was where the players were converging around the Faerie Merchant.

"F*ck! I'm only thirty magical stones away from getting a Maned Horse Headmask, how did those high-ranked players get the Rainbow Unicorn Headmask?"

"Bro, give up on getting a headmask and try getting a mount! The Chubby Chocobo is a limited edition mount!"

"Is anyone up for a dance battle? No one?"

"First level of the Tower of Trials! Any strong tanks up for dungeon-crawling? With more than HP4000! Come in quick!"

As Segman glanced at this scene, he could only describe the scene as a bunch of demons raving…

Oh great god of Aquaflow! These bunch of people were the saviors of the world summoned by the gods? Why was it…Hard to believe…

He felt like a random bunch of people from the asylum in Aquaflow would be better than them!

Even though what he saw and heard all told Segman that this bunch of adventurers didn't have the ability to save the world, but his rationality told him that they did.

The most direct showing of this was when they broke Segman's sacred record, and quite easily, at that.

This wasn't something that Segman wanted to admit to himself.

That being said, the wellbeing of their country stood higher than his personal feelings.

"You go report this to my father, Mentor. I have matters to attend to here."

"What?" The old mage finally returned to his senses, and the spirit of the tower had already left his body.

"I…" Segman looked over at the players who had already started a dance battle, and continued confidently, "I want to…No, I will be a hero too!"

"…Don't push yourself too much, Your Highness." The old mage sighed. He knew that Segman was his best student, and the one with the most potential in Aquaflow, but if he had a fatal flaw, it was that he was too ambitious.

His ambition didn't allow anyone to be stronger than he was, and whenever such a person existed he would use any means to make himself stronger.

Those players that broke the sacred record he set undoubtedly stimulated his pride.

Segman acknowledged that these so-called sacred souls had the potential to be the heroes of this world, but he did too!

The old mage disappeared in front of Segman, and the latter looked back at the Enhancing Machine with his staff in hand.

"I can't put shame on myself tomorrow!" Segman muttered to himself, and threw the sacred item into the Enhancing Machine.

Jiang Qiao was spectating on the conversation from a side invisibly, and Ocean Blue floated over to him.

"I'm hungry," Ocean Blue puffed her cheeks and said these words that made the spirit of the tower squeak and cower with fear.

"I know, but I need a little while more." Jiang Qiao pushed the goddess' puffed cheeks away, and looked back thoughtfully at the prince that was in a battle of guts and wits with the Enhancing Machine.

According to the conversation between the duo just now, Jiang Qiao guessed that the old mage was somewhat like a prophet of their country.

If that was the case, then it would be easier to have them believe in his words. Probably not long later there would probably be a bunch of NPCs sucking up to the players quickly. Of course, Jiang Qiao didn't exclude the possibility that they were sent to spy on the players, or test whether players had the ability to be the saviors of the world. They would probably send a bunch of troops as vanguards to protect the front-lines.

This was only a world mission to players, but to these natives, it was life and death.

No matter what…Jiang Qiao needed some time to prepare for the upcoming battles to contest Ocean Blue's divinity.

But before that, Jiang Qiao had something to deal with.

"Ocean Blue, can our world still be invaded?" Jiang Qiao asked.

"Of course. There are lots of invading planes on the star map, and some invading planes seem to have already found the existence of Bluestar." Ocean Blue was quite worried about it too.

At this point, there were two ways to resolve this: The first was by sending players to the invading planes to destroy them before they arrived at Bluestar, but that would bring a lot of unforeseeable consequences.

Every plane had different natural laws, and back when Jiang Qiao let players come to the Tower Plane Fragment, Jiang Qiao spent quite a lot of energy to manipulate the natural laws of this plane so that it could be assimilated into the Sacred Soul system.

The invading plane wouldn't give him the chance to do this.

And so, Jiang Qiao thought of his backup plan.

"Perhaps we should start building an Inner World on Bluestar."

This was the backup plan that he came to.

"Another new world?! I don't have so much energy!" Ocean Blue heard that Jiang Qiao was about to create a new world, and she bristled up like an angry cat.

"Not creating a whole new world, but an inner world based on the natural laws of Bluestar…Well, it's hard to explain, but more of this later when we get offline. Your ginger lobster is here."

After getting offline from Sacred Souls, Jiang Qiao checked on the player's community forum on the sofa in his living room.

Ocean Blue sat at a side, eating the garlic lobster that cost Jiang Qiao 106 dollars happily.

The maximum number of players allowed in the server was 3173 players, and this number could be increased by an average of around 300~500 people every day.

Two-thirds of players were still around Level 1~10, and only around 400 players that could be effectively be deployed in battle.

As for obtaining energy, Jiang Qiao could obtain 500 to 700 points of energy from the Tower Plane, and he currently had 14321 points of energy right now.

The size of the map in Sacred Souls was around 261 square kilometers, and Jiang Qiao invested in real estate (The player manor system) from the first expansions obtained from the invading plane.

Now, Jiang Qiao planned to build an inner world on Bluestar, and whenever monsters from an invading plane appeared on Bluestar, he would let them in and allow the players to 'communicate' with them in depth.

"Augmented…Reality? What's that?"

Ocean Blue asked as she spat out the lobster shell in her mouth, her cherry lips glistening with grease.

"Augmented reality and 3D projection. In short, we project projections of the players into the real world."

Jiang Qiao logged out of the forum, and immediately started searching for data about holograms and projections online.

Bluestar was eight years more technologically advanced than Earth, but there were still some technical questions that were still hard to overcome. For example, 3D projection was still hard to realize, even in this world.

AR technology had already been developed thoroughly on Bluestar, and while 2D projection was commonplace technology in both Bluestar and Earth, 3D projection still didn't exist.

"What does that do, exactly?" Ocean Blue was still a beginner in dealing with technology, even though there was the Mechanic class in Sacred Souls.

In Sacred Souls, the limits of what Mechanics could do was basically 'If I think I can activate a mecha, then I can', meaning that if a player thought it could work, then it could be realized through imagination alone. The mechanism of mechanics in-game didn't have any scientific bearing, neither following the laws of physics.

This could also be used in explaining any sci-fi classes in Sacred Souls.

"Basically, invading monsters will still appear on the streets, and the scene of players battling with monsters would be projected onto the roads and streets of the real world. In the eyes of any passerby, it would be a 3D projection or just a mere game event, and to players, it would be an Abyssal Hunt, and to those monsters, it would be their nightmare."

"But you said…That no one succeeded in creating this technology on this plane?" Ocean Blue said as she deftly plucked off the head of a small lobster.

"No one has succeeded, but they've been doing research on it for many years."

Jiang Qiao closed the search engine on his phone and opened the contact page of his phone, scrolling to a number that he was extremely familiar with.

"From your expression, you want me to ask you to ask who it is. Is this someone you're familiar with?" Ocean Blue asked as she munched on the small lobster in her hand.

"Yes… It's my father."

Jiang Qiao waved around the mobile phone, showing the name of the contact to Ocean Blue.

"Qiao An? Don't the people in this country follow the surnames of their fathers? Why is his surname Qiao, and yours Jiang?" Ocean Blue asked, perplexed at this irregularity.

"Because my father married into the Jiang family."

Jiang Qiao had mentioned that his father worked in a government department before. Jiang Qiao's father was just a normal student, and he and Jiang Qiao's mother met each other in university. They somehow ended up together, and Jiang Qiao's father married into the Jiang family happily.

Jiang Qiao's father had already graduated for years, and was now working on 3D projection technology at a company in Hua Nation.

"What should we do next? You want to tell your father about the 3D projection technology?" Ocean Blue didn't know whether she had related knowledge in Maker Mode.

"No need, and I can't do it in Maker Mode either." Jiang Qiao spoke the truth, because the natural laws of the Sacred Soul plane and Bluestar were different, and some technology even malfunctioned when taken to the Sacred Souls plane.

The so-called high tech in the game were all built on the basis of fake science and technology. In terms of the game, the fake tech in the game only had skill effects and damaging effects, but were just models that had no actual scientific reasoning.

"Then how are you going to let your father create 3D projection?"

Ocean Blue sighed and ate another small lobster, and in this time with Jiang Qiao, she realized that Maker Mode wasn't all-powerful.

"Have you heard of epiphany?"

"You…What?"

"Epiphany, meaning a sudden inspiration." Jiang Qiao pointed at his own head. "Most human creations were based on a moment's inspiration, and epiphany means that the person found an unexpected realization of the solution to a problem, something like an enlightenment from the gods."

"So are you saying that you're going to give your father inspiration?" Ocean Blue understood what Jiang Qiao was getting at, but her words were unintelligible due to the three small lobsters she had stuffed into her mouth.

"Yes. As humans, we have infinite potential. I'm only giving my father a small push on the back."

Jiang Qiao called his father's number, and as the call was connecting, his pupils turned a light shade of gold.

"Jiang Qiao? I told you that I studied material science in university and not finance. I can't help with your homework…" Before Jiang Qiao could even speak, the grumbles of his father rang out.

"I just wanted to ask you how your project is going?" Jiang Qiao was already used to his father's personality.

"Project? Same old same old, no funding and no manpower… In other news, Eagle Nation said they created 3D projection so I went and took a look, but it was all bull! What I wanted to do was…" Qiao An seemed to have drunk alcohol, and quite a lot at that…As soon as Jiang Qiao asked about the project, he started to shout and ramble endlessly.

"Dad, I think you're looking for something that starts with… Forty-two?" Jiang Qiao randomly said this special number which held his Maker Mode energy.

Jiang Qiao didn't change the rules of this world, and only allowed his father to enter an inspired state. This inspired state was somewhat like when James Watt created the steam engine, or when Karl Benz created the automobile.

"What…? Huh, why didn't I think of it! F*ck! Go study a doctorate for your mom, I have to call you back! I'm busy!"

Qiao An sounded unbelievably excited, and after he said so he hung up. Jiang Qiao could only wait and see if his father could break the technical barrier of 3D projection.

After giving his father a burst of inspiration, Jiang Qiao didn't stick his hands into this matter anymore.

Jiang Qiao's father had been researching this matter for five years so, and in this period it was rumored that he had made a 3D projection device, but apparently it was as big as a cruise liner. If that was the case, then his father was probably working on reducing its size.

This was the same as steam engines and calculators, and even the first calculator created was the size of multiple rooms.

As Ocean Blue continued to eat the little lobsters on the desk, Jiang Qiao started to create and test the rules of the Inner World.

Jiang Qiao used around five hundred energy points to turn the space above the living room desk into the beta test version of the Bluestar Inner World.

On the table, nothing had really changed on the surface. The lobster shells that Ocean Blue finished eating piled at a corner of the table, and Jiang Qiao created a miniature version of NoUpdatesToday, which was his avatar in-game.

His avatar that was in the inner world was around the size of a thumb, so he didn't spend a lot of energy on it.

"What are you doing?" Ocean Blue asked, even pausing in eating her small lobster.

At this rate, it seemed that Jiang Qiao would have to spend a lot of energy on this test.

"I want to let the players design this inner world."

As he said so, he created a brick in the Elemental Summoner's hand and piled them together, creating a building resembling a coffin.

"Let the players do it? You mean you're going to let them build stuff in the inner world using their avatars?" Ocean Blue looked at the skyscrapers outside the window. "Would they have to tear down those?"

"It's just going to be projections of players, so they can't actually touch anything in the real world. In the eyes of the players, they would see what was built in real life, but in theory it would only be an infinite expanse of land, suited for building."

Jiang Qiao controlled his avatar and reached over to a small lobster that Ocean Blue hadn't eaten yet.

With supersonic speed, Ocean Blue snatched the small lobster over and raised it over her head.

Sighing in defeat, Jiang Qiao could only command his avatar in the direction of the pile of small lobster shells.

The avatar's hand phased through the lobster shell because it was only a 3D projection in theory, and Jiang Qiao was emulating the effect through Maker Mode.

"If players could make buildings, wouldn't the Inner World be filled with these… coffins?" Ocean Blue put down the small lobster in her hand, and pointed at the 'coffin' that Jiang Qiao built earlier.

"Which is why we're going to connect the manor system to it."

Jiang Qiao made his avatar move to Ocean Blue's lunch box, and immediately the goddess wrapped her arms around the box, holding it protectively.

She resembled a fat cat whose favorite box of dried fish was going to be stolen, and had immediately gone into battle mode.

The Elemental Summoner didn't do anything to Ocean Blue's lunch box, only making a small semi-transparent window appear in front of him with a bunch of data.

[Manor Goddess Ocean Blue's Lunch Box]

[Area: 230 square centimeters.]

[Cost: A hundred magical stones]

Of course, this cost was only a random piece of data created by Jiang Qiao to fill space. In the future, players would have to use different ways to buy real estate and build buildings in Sacred Souls.

"Players can buy buildings in areas that I set, and multiple players could buy the same piece of land at once. That being said, the one displayed would only be the manor that was built the best."

"Why does this feel like a whole different game…? Are the players going to gather materials in Sacred Souls, and come to the real world to… build houses?"

Ocean Blue was actually quite great at grasping new concepts, but she would get a debuff whenever the topic involved food…

"Not another game, but a new version!" Jiang Qiao told Ocean Blue his plans.

"After you get back that divinity fragment, I'm going to update the game so that the inner world and the maximum level would be updated at once. This is another way to save energy, because it would require quite a lot of energy for the players to move the buildings from the Sacred Souls world to the Inner World. It would be more realistic for the players to build stuff by themselves."

"I remember that girl that was boiling water, what was her name again…"

"EverlastingBlackHair?" Jiang Qiao uttered the name that he had quite the impression of. "She's Level 5 now and still working to get a hundred gold coins, but she's a player with quite the creativity. I think she's going to be a shining star in the Inner World."

"But the Inner World doesn't have anything like a bastion or any city walls…Aren't the invaders from the invading plane just going to destroy their manors?"

Ocean Blue was still quite protective of the players. She was akin to a newbie mother that was still somewhat clumsy and didn't know how to properly take care of her children, but she would still protect her babies in whichever way she could.

"Couldn't the players build cannons or turrets in their manors to blast them to shreds?" Jiang Qiao told Ocean Blue his ambition. "Never look down upon our creativity."

The creativity of a single game developer would be limited, but the creativity of the player community was infinite. Taking the game Besiege as an example, this game that was set somewhere in the middle ages was turned into a futuristic game filled with tanks, mechas, and starships.

In consideration of the NPCs and the other players, the original world of Sacred Souls was designed and set with restrictions, so it were detrimental to players who liked to build and create.

But the inner world was completely different! Because it was an expansive world, those types of players would be able to build and tear down buildings as they liked, as long as they had enough money and resources to do so.

"That sounds quite interesting, it's like it turned into a game of… tower defense!" Ocean Blue thought back to a term she had learned from Jiang Qiao before.

"Wouldn't it be normal to build a defensive front when creatures invade?" Jiang Qiao didn't put the gaming experience of the invading plane into consideration.

The building system that Jiang Qiao designed was quite complex and free, but in essence, it was just a game. They wouldn't need a high degree of education to create a cannon in the game, and would only require the corresponding classes or subclasses so that they Sacred Souls system could guide them to build whatever they want. All this was based on a setting called Sacred Crystal.

"Ah, but isn't it too early to talk about this?" Ocean Blue had already finished the small lobster in her hand. "It's still too early to tell whether I would be able to get my divinity fragment back, also…Would 3D projection become commonplace so quickly in the first place?"

"Yes. I have a certain hunch, and even though it'll need some time, but we'll definitely be able to do it. The first step is of course, to raise our levels." Jiang Qiao was extremely confident in his players.

This confidence didn't last for long though.

As soon as he finished testing the basics of the Inner World, Jiang Qiao saw a certain post that attracted his attention in the Sacred Souls forum.

The title was 'There's a newly built NPC battle arena outside the Tower of Trials, and they're all so strong! I've been KO'ed four times already, can some PK bosses help me? This is urgent!'.

Jiang Qiao started browsing the post carefully, and the first thing he saw was a screenshot of a knight in maroon armor carrying his greatsword on his shoulder.

The knight's expression was blocked by his helmet, but Jiang Qiao could somehow feel that the disappointment of the knight towards the player who took the screenshot.

TeaLeaf: 'A bunch of NPCs appeared outside the Tower of Trials, and a new quest to PK with them was issued. I was the first to discover this so I tried my hand at it, but control skills don't seem to work well on this fellow! I've already been defeated three times, and this *sshole keeps on saying things like "You sacred souls aren't all that." And keeps on provoking me, but I can't defeat him no matter how hard I try. Waiting on my knees for a PK boss to help me beat this guy up!'

Backup: 'An NPC PK mission? I got one back in Hawktalon City, but NPCs are so horrendously bad at fighting that I got finished in ten minutes. The guy above is probably too weak…'

DragonBoatKing: 'What rewards are there if you win against this NPC?'

TeaLeaf seemed to be refreshing the page rapidly, and if there were any new replies they would reply immediately.

TeaLeaf: 'I don't think there are any rewards.'

DragonGodBreath: 'Then why waste your time? Better spend your time on grinding levels.'

TeaLeaf: 'But this NPC seems to look down on us, and keeps on provoking us that sacred souls are weak and useless, waiting for a boss to help me out!'

SpittingCurses: 'I've never played Sacred Souls before, but judging from this NPC's equipment it's a character somewhat like a heavy-armor class. TeaLeaf seems to be a swordsman, and I've seen a livestreamer that uses this class… Wouldn't he be able to defeat him with a simple Dual-Wielding Skill?'

Woah, a cloud player 1!

Cloud players could defeat countless enemies using only their keyboard!

Jiang Qiao finished reading all the replies on the post and then logged into the game, teleporting to the Tower of Trials through a transportation gate.

A whole bunch of native NPCs had appeared in front of the Tower of Trials, and they were all natives from Aquaflow. Thirty-two of them were knights, while twelve of them were mages and scholars. They were probably all here to check on the Tower of Trials' current condition, as well as come into contact with the so-called saviors of the world.

One of the ways to do so was by testing their battle ability.

And so, they sent out their strongest knight to challenge the players one-on-one.

There were only thirteen players idling outside of the Tower of Trials at the time, while the rest were still in the starter village or exploring dungeons.

TeaLeaf was one of the players within the aforementioned thirteen, and it was his fourth time standing in front of the native knight.

Jiang Qiao came to the side of the arena, and there were three spectators that seemed to be TeaLeaf's friends.

Jiang Qiao threw an inspection spell onto the native knight on the arena out of habit.

[Name: Solar]

[Level: LV40]

[Class: Warrior type]

[Description: A native of this world, Honor Knight]

A Level 40 warrior-type enemy…TeaLeaf who was fighting against this knight was a Level 33 Swordsman.

He was actually considered a high-leveled player in this game, but because there were seven levels between the two, Solar wasn't using his full strength against him.

Even still, TeaLeaf was still at an absolute disadvantage because of two reasons: The first was because TeaLeaf activated the Battle Support System.

It wasn't common for the regular player to know how to wield swords or guns, and so they would need the help of the Battle Support System to help them with the corresponding movements required to release a skill.

This method was useful, but at the same time there was a great flaw, which was that it was too rigid and inflexible! These skill movements that were supported by the system didn't have variation or flexibility, and could only be used to defeat monsters or NPCs with simple intelligence.

But the enemy in front of TeaLeaf right now was an extremely experienced knight!

More deadly was the fact that this native knight didn't quite play by the rules of formal combat, not to mention that he wasn't confined to the rules of the Sacred Souls combat system.

Sacred Souls was a game and not real life, so it was a given that the battles were completely different than real life.

The combat system of the game was somewhat complex, but could be divided into two parts. The first part was the combat style scoring which was the same system as Devil May Cry, while the second part was the actual combat system itself. The player's combat type could be further divided into Combo, Knock-up, Sweeping, Deflection, Blocking, Redirection, Detection, and Counterattack.

Taking Knock-Up as an example, which was a system that many games had. The most prominent example of this was the Devil May Cry series. Players more or less all had the ability to knock enemies up into the air, and most enemies wouldn't be able to fight back while they were still in the air so players would be able to combo as much as they liked.

But this didn't work for Solar!

Jiang Qiao saw TeaLeaf use a simple Unterhau, which was a basic skill for a Swordsman, and the hit connected!

In the unbelieving stared of the knights and mages behind Solar, TeaLeaf's thin tachi sword flung the enemy in heavy armor a meter into the air.

It was the first time that Solar was hit by this skill, and so he never expected himself to be knocked up into the air with such a flimsy movement.

"What?!" Solar shouted in disbelief, and for a couple seconds when he was floating in the air, he completely lost his cool.

The livestreamer ModaoSwordsman was a Swordsman too, and after he knocked an enemy into the air he would usually follow up with a double-sworded attack, then a Cross Slash followed by a Tsubame Gaeshi, then another Unterhau, then a Crushing Slash…After using a whole set of skills and hitting a high combo, he would wait for the skills to cooldown before doing it again.

TeaLeaf was somewhat experienced in the Swordsman class, so he created a blade of sword qi with his other hand. The Sword Qi Blade ability was a passive ability of the Swordsman class which would attach onto his sword and make it sharper, or create actual blades out of sword qi. He used a double-bladed attack on the knight, and the blades created sparks and marks on the knight's armor for a split second.

His next step would be to use other skills to create combos, but Solar had already adjusted himself and swung his sword towards TeaLeaf.

TeaLeaf quickly retreated and dodged the attack, and Solar fell onto the ground.

This was also a common situation when experienced players fought between each other. Neither players nor natives were stupid, after all, and no one would let their enemy attack them endlessly before falling onto the ground, instead choosing to fight back in mid-air.

As soon as Solar dropped onto the ground, TeaLeaf got into the starting position for an Iai Slash, and when the flash of a blade appeared, Solar raised his own greatsword and deflected the oncoming taichi sword quickly.

This movement was akin to the other combat system in the game, Deflection. It was a skill that most monsters and enemies didn't know how to use, and only a select few humanoid elite enemies could know how to use it.

"Your attacks are childish! If you keep on using the same moves over and over again, only an idiot would stand there and let you attack them as you wish!"

After he deflected TeaLeaf's attack, he kicked the latter to the edge of the arena.

According to the rules, TeaLeaf lost once again, but Solar who had done all this dropped onto one knee.

This was because he was internally wounded.

No matter if it was Deflection, Blocking or Redirection, none of these ways could be used to completely protect the enemy from the player's attacks, and could only be used to decrease the damage.

There would definitely still be damage, the only difference was whether the damage was decreased by the armor and the act of deflection itself.

This was the strongest point of Sacred Souls players, which was that no matter how the enemy blocked or deflected, they would still be able to kill the enemy with one hit if their stats were high enough.

Of course, TeaLeaf wasn't strong enough to defeat the enemy with one blow, but after several of these attacks he somehow still shaved around a thousand HP from Solar.

This was around a tenth of his maximum HP, which wouldn't count as much for the average player, but Solar was a native! No one would be able to withstand it if a tenth of their lifespan were cut off from them.

Jiang Qiao stared thoughtfully at the knight that was being helped off the arena by his comrades.

"Summon the tower spirit, Ocean Blue," Jiang Qiao instructed Ocean Blue.

"You're going to challenge them too?"

Ocean Blue didn't really like how these natives from another plane were bullying her players… Granted, Solar was the one who was actually hurt in this situation, while TeaLeaf could go back onto the player forums after drinking one vial of potion, but it would probably require a couple more days before Solar could accept anymore challenges.

"No, let the spirit of the tower heal this knight up so that he can continue fighting with the players." Jiang Qiao opened the system composition page, and started editing a quest.

"What?"

"We can't just let go of such good sandbags and PVP teachers. Also tell them to bring the other knights here, let's make this a repeatable quest."

Solar refused the help of his comrades, making his way off the arena by himself and going back to the Aquaflow camp.

"Those so-called saviors of the world… Sacred souls, was it? They're so weak that they can't even stand their ground for half a minute. If it were me, they probably wouldn't be able to stand one hit!"

A knight that was carrying a spear went up to Solar as soon as he came into the camp. He was one of the three great knights of Aquaflow, the Spear Knight Kaermo, while Solar was the Sword Knight among the trio.

The three knights of Aquaflow represented the very pinnacle of martial prowess and ability in their country, and were their pride and glory.

"You can go try, if you want."

Solar took off his helmet, revealing his strict looking and square face, and looked at the fickle-minded spear knight with a strict expression.

"With those childish skills and strategies, I wouldn't even have a problem fighting three in a row!"

In the eyes of the spear knight, the battle between Solar and TeaLeaf seemed to be like an adult fighting with a child. TeaLeaf had a bunch of fancy sword skills, but in front of Solar, he completely lost in terms of battle prowess, grasping chances and even their grasp over sword skills.

"Then why don't you do it?"

"Because you're hurt." The spear knight crouched down in front of Solar and stared at his old friend. "I'm curious…The number of times that chosen one's weapon came into contact with you wasn't more than four times, but you were so weak during the fourth battle… It was as if you had gotten some serious inner injuries."

"That swordsman has a strange ability." Solar thought for a bit, before retelling his experiences to Kaermo. "Every time that sword hits me, I feel like it drains me of my life force…"

"Life force?" It was the first time Kaermo had heard this term.

"I… don't have any better way to describe it, but it was like he had a magical sword that could consume the very essence of life itself from me every time he hit me," Solar described, and even now, he still felt a lingering fear in his heart.

The battle just now was just a simple spar, and if it were a no-holds-barred real battle, just this ability that worked to whittle his life-force regardless or defense or armor would be able to make him lose half his life.

In real life, armor could completely block the damage from an attack as long as it wasn't broken, but in the eyes of players, armor was only an equipment that could add onto the defense stat.

"Sword qi?" The spear knight immediately thought of an old phrase. "I saw him create a blade out of thin air in his other hand, perhaps he learned magic to erode the life of the target itself?"

"No…I'm sure that it was an unknown power that all those beings called sacred souls have…" Solar was completely sure that what hurt his life force wasn't magic or anything of the sort.

"Is this special power why they were all chosen as the saviors of the world?"

"Not only this power, but their attacks also have special effects, like that upper swing just now, for example, threw me up into the air even though he didn't put much energy behind that thin sword of his. If I didn't fight back, I would probably have been in the air for a while longer."

The more Solar talked, the more he felt afraid of these sacred souls that completely went against common sense.

"But their battle sense is so laughable it could be compared to a child!"

Kaermo still felt that the battle force of these sacred souls still couldn't be put into consideration in real combat, and according to the way TeaLeaf fought, their knights would be able to kill them with one hit.

"Sir Kaermo, I believe it is your turn to test out their abilities."

The old mage came towards the two knights, and his pupils had been dyed a light shade of gold again. When the two of them saw him, they quickly gave a knight's salute, but Solar's injuries made his movements somewhat twisted.

A light golden flow of magical power flowed out from the fingertips of the old mage and entered Solar's body, and the knight felt his lost life-force return to his body, along with his fatigue from his battles.

"This is a friendly spar, but you don't have to hold back. I will heal you and your subordinate's wounds and fatigue, and if you believe that you are stronger than them, then show them the power that you possess through battle!"

As he said so, the grounds of the resting area outside of the Tower of Trials suddenly started to shake, and fifteen stone platforms rose out of the gound.

"Alright. I hope there's someone who can let me feel exhilarated from fighting again!" The spear knight left with his spear rested on his shoulder, and made his way towards the arena that Solar was battling in earlier.

At this moment, the players at the Tower of Trials all received a quest notification.

[Trial Quest: Provocations from otherworldly knights]

[This is a challenge letter from the knights of a foreign world. They believe that the existence of sacred souls to be too weak and frail to be of any use, so crush their pride using your strength!]

[Quest rewards: Reward of a different sum of magical stones according to the strength of the knight defeated, unlocking the Magical Stone Pool System]

This trial quest was designed by Jiang Qiao to be a gambling battle, and when a player was challenging a knight, they could deposit their bets into the reward pool.

Different level and different difficulties of knights would have different rates, and taking Kaermo as an example, his rates would be 2.3 times along with a prize of 500 magical stones on the side.

500 magical stones were enough to exchange a normal skin item from the Faerie Merchant, and the normal player would have to use four to five days before getting that amount.

This generous reward immediately attracted the attention of every player outside the Tower of Trials.

"Did the developers release this quest because we were working so hard on grinding for magical stones?"

"I've always thought that they were quite nice towards players…"

"Nice my foot! I haven't slept for almost five days grinding for the Rainbow Unicorn Headmask! Not to mention the entire set…Wait, you can gamble on this quest?"

"I smell the scent of scamming in the air, I won't gamble, or else I'm a dog!"

Jiang Qiao saw the bunch of players gather next to the arena, where a deep purple magical stone prize pool had appeared, bubbling like a witch's cauldron.

The players would only have to throw magical stones into this pool, and if the challenging player won, they would be able to get 2.3 times the amount of magical stones as a reward.

These experienced players wouldn't bet so easily, because the magical stones they had were the fruits of their labor, and also because they knew that this sort of event was normally designed as a trap to cheat players.

There were a lot of gamblers within the players, and while the liver emperors(1)(2) were still undecided about it, a player called SilverBullet immediately threw a hundred magical stones into the pull, and stepped onto the arena.

"F*ck! Didn't you say that you would be a dog if you continued to gamble?" One of SilverBullet's friends shouted indignantly now that he couldn't challenge the spear knight anymore.

"Yes, and what about it? I'm not as undecided on this whole deal as you are, and this NPC doesn't look as tough as the earlier one."

SilverBullet's avatar wore a black trench coat and a black top hat, and his class was a Roaming Ranger, which was the most flashy class within the class advancements of the Gunslinger class. Their battle style was based on guns, and two revolvers appeared in his hands as soon as he stepped onto the arena.

His first action upon walking onto the arena was to cast buffs on himself. There was a skill called the Death Smokescreen that could increase attack damage, and as soon as he stood on the arena he snapped his finger, and a buff window appeared above his forehead.

Kaermo wasn't one of those dumb NPCs, and as soon as the enemy stepped onto the arena he entered combat mode, staring cautiously at this sacred soul in front of him.

But he hadn't expected this strange enemy to be full of openings and even try acting cool, and the spear knight didn't let this chance go. His arm that held his spear bulged with muscles, and a blood-red rune appeared on the spear, and the next second he threw the spear towards the flashy player, and SilverBullet had barely finished buffing himself before his heart was impaled.

"Drat!" He had never expected this sacred soul to be completely defenseless, because however weak, they were still the chosen saviors of the world, and it would be a great bother to accidentally kill one of them.

As his spear pierced SilverBullet, a '-1389' floated out from SilverBullet's head, and even his body was pushed out of the arena due to the immense momentum.

[Victory: Spear Knight Kaermo]

A large rune that said so appeared in the air above the arena.

Did he win just like that? Kaermo couldn't even believe it himself, but could these fellows… really be called warriors? He didn't have any sense of caution on the battlefield!

As his mind was filled with these thoughts, the man that was impaled with a spear stood up like nothing happened, and turned around to joke around with his friends.

"This NPC didn't play fair! To attack me like that before I was finished with my buffs…" SilverBullet grumbled in dissatisfaction.

"Players wouldn't give you the chance to cast buffs when you PK with them either… Ah, why hasn't that spear disappeared? Do projectiles in this quest stay on the player for a longer time? Huh, it has physical effects too." His friend even reached out to touch the blood-red spear.

"Oh yeah, can I hit someone with this?" SilverBullet seemed to be quite an eccentric person too, and he even spun around so that the spear hit the faces of his friends.

The spear knight's eye twitched as he watched this scene. They could even joke around with a spear pierced through his heart? Were they all monsters?

But it was still true that they were still too weak.

The spear knight's hand waved, and the spear that was in SilverBullet's chest turned into particles and returned to his hand.

This spear was one of the sacred relics of Aquaflow.

"Next!" Kaermo shouted towards all the players that were spectating.

The spear pierced through a Shielder's neck through the cracks of his armor, and as the spear pierced him a '-723′ floated out of his head, and the Shielder in question turned into particles of light and floated out of the arena.

"Too weak! Next!" The shield knight swung the spear in his hand and shouted indignantly. It was already the fourteenth sacred soul he had killed.

In all fourteen battles, the number of sacred souls that could stand a minute under his flurry of attacks were only four, while none of those four could stand more than two minutes.

Through these fourteen battles, Kaermo had completely gotten a grasp over the average battle prowess of these sacred souls, and he found out that even if they were injured fatally they would be able to turn into light particles and float off the arena, giving him a win.

Other than that, even if he were attacked and his life-force were shaved off with that strange power of theirs, he was healed by a special energy from the old mage hat not only recovered his life energy, and even his mental fatigue.

This made him continue to attack without thinking of the consequences.

The battle style of the shield knight was focused on speed in the first place, and as large-ranged the players' skills were, they were still normal people in the modern age under the skin of strong sacred souls, and so it was hard for their reflexes to follow up with the movements of the shield knight.

In contrast, the shield knight had been through countless grueling battles, and trained every single day to hone his skills in battle, at the same time strengthening his body with magical power.

His battle sense and reflexes couldn't be overhauled by the players, even if they had strong abilities.

"Is no one going to challenge me?" The shield knight shouted, realizing no one was coming up to the stage anymore. The players that were spectating continued to increase, but no one heeded his calls.

No matter how much he shouted, the players seemed to not be able to hear him. In contrast, the shield knight heard the gripes and complaints of the players off the arena.

"I knew it! This NPC was really designed by the developers to scam us of our magical stones! You can't even defeat this monster no matter how much you try!"

"Knock-up combos don't work on him, and he can block and deflect every move we use against him, and he's quick as hell too!"

"SilverBullet, wanna go gamble again? The prize pool has already increased to six thousand!"

One of SilverBullet's friends nudged at him, goading him to battle again.

The magical stone prize in the pool would accumulate along with the players that added magical stones into it, and as soon as a player won against the shield knight they would be able to obtain a whole 6000 magical stones.

These 6000 magical stones were enough to redeem a whole set of Rainbow Unicorn skins, with more to spare in excess.

"Nah, or else I'm really going to go broke! Let's go clear some dungeons." SilverBullet was quite attracted by the prize, but he didn't have the skill to win it, so he didn't rush in without thought.

The players were all smart, and from the past fourteen battles they had all gotten a grasp over his strength the same way he had over theirs. Granted, they could probably defeat this shield knight if they fought him in groups, but it really required skill for them to beat him one-on-one.

The shield knight could somewhat hear what they were saying, but he couldn't quite understand some particular words and jargon, so he thought they were just scared.

"Do you not have any stronger warriors?" Kaermon shouted even louder, but no one paid any attention to him.

"I'm going to complain about the developers on the forum, this NPC is crazy!"

"I've already uploaded my recording up to YouRabbit, you can use it as proof!"

"What's the code to the video?"

"21452."

Jiang Qiao listened in on the conversation, and immediately opened the YouRabbit video sharing site, which was one of the most popular sites of its kind in Hua Nation, and even the whole world.

According to the code that the players said, Jiang Qiao found a video entitled 'This crazily strong NPC from the newest VR game Sacred Souls, can anyone beat him?'. The uploader's ID was FrontlineReporter, and she was an extremely popular YouRabbiter with 1.23 million subscribers.

There were more than ten Sacred Souls related videos by her, and most of them were simple gameplay records of her own account. She started recording her gaming ever since she started the game, and she was already a Level 25 Assassin.

She was probably the second batch of players that entered Sacred Souls.

Jiang Qiao glanced at this player called FrontlineReporter, and from the way she designed her skin to look purple, she looked like a classic night elf assassin from classic RPGs.

The popularity of Sacred Souls had recently seen a boost on the internet, and four out of the top ten most popular videos in the gaming section currently were related to Sacred Souls. This video that she had just uploaded had already gone up to the tenth place in such a short time.

Jiang Qiao pointed into it and checked the half-hour long video himself, and from the first SilverBullet to the last shielder called RedClothes, this Assassin recorded every battle with expert cameramanship.

This was amplified even more by Tiangong Game Platform's excellent recording system.

Glancing at the danmaku, it was all about how 'This NPC is way too strong!', 'Can anyone beat him?', 'I need an autolock.', 'NPC created by the developers to recollect their magical stones.'

A whole fourteen consecutive losses definitely impacted the players' morale, and Jiang Qiao could even feel their collective grudges through the screen.

While not everyone that sent danmaku comments were Sacred Souls players, but if they got the bandwagon rolling it would be hard to deal with, even for him.

After thinking for a bit, he decided to find a trump card.

If the regular player couldn't defeat this shield knight in terms of skill, then what about a professional player?

Jiang Qiao sent a private message to Zhao Mingwei, it was still 9 at night he was still in training, but when he saw how Jiang Qiao described it, he was extremely interested in this NPC and wanted to test his hand later.

This world's professional players were different than the professional players back on Earth.

Other than regular game training, they also had extensive physical training along with reflex training, and so if they were serious they could even compete with professional sportsmen.

After ten minutes, someone pat Jiang Qiao on his back.

"I'm here. Is he the strongest NPC that you told me about?"

Zhao Mingwei had appeared behind Jiang Qiao, and he was already Level 33, which was barely hanging onto the batch of first-class players.

"I'm not sure myself, but fourteen players have already been beaten up by him without any mercy… You wouldn't be the fifteenth, would you?" Jiang Qiao was the one who invited Zhao Mingwei in the first place, but he was still unsure about it.

"I'll give it a shot."

Zhao Mingwei walked towards the arena, where the bunch of players were still standing around and grumbling within each other, and as he arrived RedClothes, the Shielder blocked him.

"Bro, there's seriously something wrong with that NPC! You should be more careful as a cloth-armor character." RedClothes thought Zhao Mingwei was another spectator.

"I saw that video from earlier, and someone dodged an attack with 40 Agility. I use most of my stat points on Intelligence, but my Agility is still 41, so there shouldn't be a problem."

Zhao Mingwei had done his research beforehand, checking on the battle recording of this shield knight before he arrived.

The stats in Sacred Souls helped to amplify the character's battle prowess, and the Agility stat was mostly focused on increasing the character's movement speed and attacking speed. Of course, the player would still have to train their reflexes in real life.

Even if an Assassin had more than a hundred Agility, they wouldn't be able to put it into good use if their reflexes couldn't keep up.

RedClothes didn't block him anymore upon seeing his confidence, and Zhao Mingwei stepped onto the arena under the gazes of more than thirty players.

"You? Are you going to challenge me without any weapons or armor?"

The shield knight stared at Zhao Mingwei who stepped onto the arena, and the latter was dressed in traditional Chinese monk attire. He wore monk's robes on his upper body along with loose pants, and his left arm with an aura tattoo was exposed to the air while his hair was tied into a long ponytail behind him.

In the eyes of the shield knight, anyone who wore this on the battlefield would be looking for death! Not only was there no protection, but these long flowing clothes also restricted movement.

"My weapons are right here." Zhao Mingwei swung his fists in the direction of the shield knight, showing off his Level 30 Purple-grade gloves.

"Your fist? Did you want to defeat my spear with just your fists?" The shield knight laughed, and he wasn't looking down on him or anything of the sort—He was purely humored by Zhao Mingwei. A few moments later, he stopped laughing and got into a serious stance. "Let's try it then!"

Same with how he dealt with the earlier players, the spear knight threw his spear towards Zhao Mingwei the moment the battle started.

Whenever they came onto the arena, these sacred souls would always make some strange poses. The spear knight didn't know what they meant by it, but it was undoubtedly a chance.

Most of the players were insta-killed by the spear knight while they were posing to buff themselves, and after he had done the same to five or six of them, they learned to buff themselves when they had the chance to.

As soon as he stepped onto the arena, Zhao Mingwei joined his palms together in a praying pose, and the spear knight quickly caught this chance to attack.

But what Zhao Mingwei did wasn't a buff skill, but an Aura Barrier!

A semi-transparent energy barrier was created with Zhao Mingwei in its center, and while it had the ability to withstand a certain amount of damage, it would break after the damage surpassed its limit.

The spear threw by Kaermo hit the Aura Barrier, and it immediately shattered into pieces, while the spear knight was deflected into the air.

Zhao Mingwei used this chance to cast the three core buffs of the Aura Bender class onto himself.

Breath of the Wind!

Roaring Tigers and Dragons!

Aura Ring!

The three buffs were cast in 1.5 seconds, and in that time the spear knight had summoned his spear back into his hand, before rushing towards Zhao Mingwei.

This was also a common move the spear knight used against the players, and most couldn't even react in time before they were killed instantly.

But Zhao Mingwei reacted in time, and he stepped back and shifted his position slightly, making the deadly spear miss marginally.

He could have dodged even further, but he turned his body not to dodge, but to attack!

As the spear knight was about to adjust his position and chase after Zhao Mingwei, the Aura Bender landed a heavy kick on him.

This was the skill Side Kick, which was a common control skill that the Fighter class used.

The angle he kicked at was quite tricky, and the spear knight couldn't dodge this kick at his hip, as this kick struck at the weakest spot in his armor, where the different plates in his armor connected. And so, the spear knight was sent up into the air.

At the moment he was flung into the air, the spear knight swung his spear in Zhao Mingwei's direction, breaking the knock-up control he was in.

Zhao Mingwei only lowered his head, letting his long hair get sliced by the blood-red spear in exchange for dodging the attack. The next second, he swung his fist towards the spear knight to use Crushing Fist, followed by multiple punches strengthened by the Roaring Tigers and Dragons buff.

Translucent tigers and dragons accompanied Zhao Mingwei's fists as he swung towards the spear knight in the air, and as it struck his armor it resounded like thunder. The spear knight felt like he was struck by lightning magic and felt a light numbing effect from it, but it didn't affect his movements.

After receiving four attacks from Zhao Mingwei, the spear knight managed to adjust his position to block Zhao Mingwei's fifth punch, and used this chance to push him away with his spear.

He managed to widen the gap between himself and Zhao Mingwei, but the latter managed to use another Side Kick at the same time.

When the Side Kick hit the spear knight's spear, he felt a… terrifying force push him, tossing him higher into the air.

This time, the spear knight changed his strategy, striking his spear against the ground and propelling himself back, out of Zhao Mingwei's attack range.

As soon as he landed on the ground, he was struck in the face by an Aura Blast the size of a basin.

The destructive aura struck the spear knight's face and spread, charring and burning his skin as if it had been on fire. This thoroughly enraged the spear knight, and he raised his spear with a roar. The weapon shone with a blinding light as the floor of the arena rumbled and cracked, and a flurry of spears formed from magic shot towards Zhao Mingwei.

The target felt there was something coming from the ground, and so he jumped into the air, but that was the spear knight's objective all along.

"Die!" The spear knight's spear swung in a blood-red arc in the air like a crescent moon towards Zhao Mingwei, and logically, he wouldn't be able to dodge because he had no foothold.

But in Zhao Mingwei's eyes, the spear that attacked him was a foothold, and his feet shone with a bright aura.

Eagle Step!

Zhao Mingwei didn't have even a tenth of a second to react, but he still stepped onto the spear precisely, and the system gave a confirmation that his actions were safe.

Detect!

The spear knight only felt a weight that was greater than Zhao Mingwei had transferred from the tip of the spear, and it was as if a large mammoth had pressed onto the spear. The great strength made the spear crash uncontrollably towards the ground.

As the tip of the spear pierced the ground, it cracked with the spear at the center.

Zhao Mingwei dropped onto the ground along with it too, but his leg was pressed firmly on the spear's pole.

This scene made the spear knight feel an uncontrollable sense of humiliation. A spear knight's pride was their spear, after all, and nothing was more humiliating than what Zhao Mingwei was doing right now.

As the spear knight pulled his spear back and wanted to attack again, but Zhao Mingwei landed another Side Kick onto him.

Son of a b*tch!

As he was flung into the air again, he suddenly remembered these words that the sacred souls that were insta-killed by him.

This was the first time that he felt that this special skill of these sacred souls was too disgusting.

The spear knight shouted the newly learned curse, but Zhao Mingwei didn't hold back at all, aiming another buff-amplified strike at the weak spot within the spear knight's armor. The destructive aura flowed into the body of the spear knight, making the spear knight feel like his body was being ripped by a wild force from the inside.

The spear knight repeated his movements and thrust his spear at the ground to release himself from being controlled, but Zhao Mingwei had already anticipated his movements. A third of a second before the spear could strike the ground, Zhao Mingwei kicked on the spear again, kicking it off course before he landed another Side Kick on the spear knight.

The spear knight flew higher into the air with a dead expression.

'What's so special about this NPC …'

As he continued to suppress this spear knight, Zhao Mingwei suddenly had this thought.

How could an elite NPC that didn't even have invincibility, control skills, or even self-destructing abilities fight with a player that had the help of the system to knock-up, block, detect, and deflect their attacks?

Zhao Mingwei's Aura Bender class didn't have skills like block or deflect because they didn't have any weapons compared with classes like swordsmen and paladins, and these close-combat classes could only have the deflection skill from equipping arm guards and claws. In exchange, these classes would normally have a detection skill to see oncoming attacks and dodge them. Zhao Mingwei didn't use these skills often when he was fighting against monsters because they had no rule or reason to begin with, but…

Even when he was fighting these humanoid NPCs, he didn't use this skill either. This was because these humanoid NPCs mostly had temporary invincibility skills, and when they were controlled and threw up into the air, they would always use invincibility skills and blow themselves up, or several terribly inconvenient protection skills.

But the problem was that this elite NPC didn't have any of these! As long as he dodged those attacks, Zhao Mingwei would be able to combo endlessly.

The only condition was that he dodged the attacks this NPC swung at him in midair, and while it wasn't something that most players could do with their reflexes, it was something that Zhao Mingwei could do quite easily.

As soon as he got this point, he could continue beating this NPC up without even getting a scratch on him, completely traumatizing this spear knight.

The spear knight managed to release himself from the knock-up control at the last second, and wanted to fight back with a magical spear, but the moment he reached the floor…

"HAH!!"

Zhao Mingwei shouted, and his voice turned into the roar of a lion and stunned Kaermo in place which caused the spear knight to see stars from the overly large sound.

Zhao Mingwei dropped onto the floor elegantly, then threw the poor spear knight out of the arena with a suplex.

After he was thrown out of the arena, the spear knight hugged the spear in his arms dazedly for a while.

The moment he came back to his senses, he realized that he was already on the grass outside of the arena.

"Damn it!" He propped himself up with his spear and was about to jump back onto the arena before his shoulder was pressed down forcibly by Solar who had been watching from a side.

"You've lost, Kaermo."

"I…" The spear knight stood up and was about to refute, but before he could, he grunted in pain from the destructive aura that had invaded his body and kneeled back onto the ground, his face still charred from being hit by an Aura Blast.

The spirit of the tower replenished the spear knight's life-force immediately, but his face still took a while to recover.

"What do you think?"

Solar turned over to the arena, and Zhao Mingwei's aura and tiger-dragon shadow disappeared with the wind. He bowed politely at Solar and Kaermo with his palms held together, before walking back to the bunch of players that had already started celebrating.

"I have no idea, his power was quite strange…It was kind of like lightning magic but not really, and when I was blasted by that blast constructed from that energy, I felt like I was struck by lightning. And that last roar seemed to be some sort of mental type magic." The spear knight was thinking about what Zhao Mingwei's powers were.

"I wasn't asking about that…Within the fifteen sacred souls that you fought with earlier, they all had special powers and abilities. Powers like flame magic, frost magic and lightning magic are all more common, but they seem to be able to control blood, create blades from magic, summoning alchemic machinery and even the power of necromancy…They all have different powers, but…"

Solar had been watching for all the matches, and they all had extremely different powers, and only a few were somewhat similar.

"I know what you mean." The spear knight stared at Zhao Mingwei as he got off the arena and said, "This one is a true warrior, unlike those others that were like infants that had just left their cradle. The battles that he had fought wouldn't be any less than any of us. Even if we fought again, I'm not sure if I can win…"

"There might be other strong warriors like him within these sacred souls, and even those that you called infants that don't have the same battle sense and instincts have great potential too."

"You mean…" The spear knight had guessed what this knight that was in charge of training soldiers in Aquaflow had thought of.

"According to the prophecy, these are the ones chosen to save our world, but they have their own thoughts and desires, which means that they can be hired. From their conversations, apparently what they need the most now are magical stones."

As the spear knight was battling with the sacred souls, Solar was quite focused on checking their reactions. He wasn't able to understand why they reacted the way they did sometimes, but whenever one of them lost against the spear knight they always lamented about losing magical stones.

"Magical stones? Why would they want that?" In the eyes of the spear knight, magical stones were quite useless except for those mages.

"I don't know, but I've deployed people to check." Solar unsheathed his sword and stepped onto another arena. "But now, our duty is to battle with them until the apocalypse arrives."

"About time to educate some children."

The spear knight stepped back onto the arena, where Zhao Mingwei had already stepped down and a Shielder called InkFlashback took his place.

…

HappyGamer Wins!

As these runes appeared on the arena, the players cheered and exclaimed about how fast his fists were, how great he was at playing, and even wondered what skills he used had used.

Jiang Qiao could see a bunch of emojis and stickers popping out from the players' heads, ones that were throwing petals and ones where seals were patting their tummies.

These were the two series of emojis available in Sacred Souls at the moment—The default yellow face, and the seal series that was added by Jiang Qiao.

There was thundering applause for Zhao Mingwei and a bunch of emojis, and some even used items like fireworks and firecrackers, making the whole scene look like some sort of grand celebration.

In response to their cheers, Zhao Mingwei swung his fist in the air before walking down the arena, and at the first moment he stepped onto the ground he was surrounded by the other players.

"What class are you, boss?"

"How did you do those combos and that step you did after using detect? I couldn't even see the movements of that NPC when I went up earlier."

Zhao Mingwei couldn't reply them all, so he only chose one question to reply to.

"My class is an Aura Bender, and it's a class change from the Qi Bender class. The requirements for class change is at least 250 Intelligence and 15 Charm, and the class change quest is actually quite hard. This is a close-combat leather garb class, and I wouldn't recommend newbies to try it because the Qi Bender class is quite strong too." Zhao Mingwei didn't act as if his class was a secret that only he was privy to.

He had been studying the class system in Sacred Souls lately, and he realized that it wasn't as convoluted as people made it out to be. For example, the Aura Bender class was just a Qi Bender that had thrown away their strength in exchange for Intelligence and aura-based powers.

Of course, this also meant that they had pitifully low HP and Defense, and could easily be defeated.

Zhao Mingwei saw a bunch of friend requests flooding in upon getting down from the arena, and after thinking for a bit, he added them all and added them into the 'do not disturb' section of his friend list.

"I actually have things to attend to in real life." Zhao Mingwei looked around the crowd, and locked in on Jiang Qiao who was standing further away.

Jiang Qiao was clapping in response to Zhao Mingwei's win, and Zhao Mingwei made an 'OK' sign at him logging off in a flash of light.

It was already six in the evening, and Zhao Mingwei had only come online to help the Sacred Souls players with their morale.

Zhao Mingwei left a simple message of 'Dungeon-crawling at midnight' and logged off.

"This quest can be continued without any problems now."

Jiang Qiao looked at the Aquaflow knights that appeared on the fifteen arenas, and while the spear knight and the sword knight were still seen as players as machines created by the damned developers to eat their magical stones, but they could still be defeated with the proper skills and professional ability, while the others were somewhat easier to defeat.

In short, players have already realized that this quest wasn't one that could be done by the average player, and once they did they could brag about it endlessly to their friends on their Weibo and on forums.

This was the pride of players that could win against an elite boss or enemies that were considered to be overpowered, and under the attention of so many people too—It was quite the addicting feeling.

As Jiang Qiao was planning on what to do next, a light purple silhouette appeared in his field of vision.

"Hello, can I interview you?" An Assassin character named 'FrontlineReporter' asked Jiang Qiao.

Interview? What was there to interview about a random Summoner?

"About HappyGamer?" Jiang Qiao didn't play dumb because Zhao Mingwei had patted his shoulder before he went onto the arena.

Everyone that saw this knew that Jiang Qiao was an acquaintance of Zhao Mingwei's.

"Yes! I saw him greet you before starting to battle, and even though he was an Aura Bender he fought like a close combat character."

As she said this, a small notebook and a pen appeared in her hands, and for a so-called reporter to do that when she had a virtual keyboard to type with was quite old fashioned of her, if anything.

As she started writing, she continued to ramble on about her thoughts.

"The skills he used were basic skills from Sacred Souls, but from the way he battles you can definitely see that he used to play War, and judging from that unbelievable reaction speed of his he was probably professional, wasn't he? There are only five or six players that use close-combat characters in War…"

Did she guess that Zhao Mingwei was a professional just from that? She should probably be a detective and not a reporter…

Jiang Qiao was just listening quietly, but before he was contemplating whether or not he should just log off, she stepped closer to him, making him take a step back.

"Can I join your guild?" She pointed at the logo of the No Name guild underneath Jiang Qiao's name.

"Uhm, this is just a guild for close friends, not one of those guilds open to everyone." Jiang Qiao quickly declined.

"Then can I be your friend?" She reacted quickly before he could say no. "Then we're friends! If that's not okay then we can go clear some dungeons together sometime?"

"I've added you, but I'm busy today."

Jiang Qiao invited this girl in order to shake her off, and she accepted the friend request quickly like a shark that had smelled blood.

Meanwhile, Jiang Qiao dragged her name into the 'do not disturb' section.

"When are you guys going to challenge a dungeon?"

"Tomorrow, maybe." Jiang Qiao randomly thought of a time, and had already activated the magic spell to go back to the city.

"Tomorrow? What time?"

She hadn't gotten an answer, however, because Jiang Qiao's spell had been finished and he disappeared in a flash of light, reappearing on the streets of Lionheart.

"What are you going to do next?"

Ocean Blue continued to float next to Jiang Qiao invisibly as she always did.

The development of Sacred Souls was becoming quite stable, and there were new players coming in every day, filling up almost every dungeon there was.

The provocation of the knights seemed to serve as a catalyst for them to further hone their skills.

"We're going to pay a visit to those followers of yours on that Divinity Plane." Jiang Qiao walked towards the Astrology Tower. "I just want to do some recon on the situation of that plane right now so that I can arrange the event fourteen days later."

As Jiang Qiao was walking into the Astrology Tower, the Tiangong Game Platform tool told Jiang Qiao that he had a message from real life.

The message was sent by his father, and it said: 'I made it! You guys can immediately step into the 3D projection gaming era!'

"He's much more efficient than I thought he would be. I should start working now…" Jiang Qiao opened the star map at the top of the Astrology Tower, and Ocean Blue's Divinity Fragment Plane was still approaching the Tower of Trials at a steady pace.

...

That night, at the JC Kings battle club.

Zhao Mingwei had finished his training for the day, and was watching the fifth-ranked video in the gaming section titled [The spear knight gets beat mercilessly, watch how a pro does it!].

The videos relating to Sacred Souls had increased on YouRabbit, and Zhao Mingwei thought a great reason for that was because the battles in Sacred Souls were quite flashy and nice to watch. Even though Zhao Mingwei hadn't unlocked all the Aura Bender skills, the battle shown in the video was already on the same level as a special effects movie, and one that was directed by a first-grade fight choreographer at that.

As the main competitor of Sacred Souls, War was quite a well-made game too… In these seven years, Zhao Mingwei had seen too many games that had the goal of surpassing War, but most of them disappeared into obscurity.

Zhao Mingwei knew Sacred Souls had the potential, but he wasn't quite sure himself…

"Old Smiley."Read the next chapter on our vipnovel.com

Lin Xi appeared behind Zhao Mingwei, and handed him the dinner for the night.

"Did the higher-ups say anything again?" Zhao Mingwei knew that Lin Xi gave him dinner at this point because the higher-ups of the game club had something for him to do again.

"They want you to shoot a commercial." Lin Xi pulled a chair out and plopped down next to Zhao Mingwei, and continued, "I heard that the aces of the other clubs were going too."

"The most popular ones, you mean?" Zhao Mingwei knew that his gaming ability had gone down from being the top, but when he played Sacred Souls it made him go back to his peak form.

"Yeah. It's an official commercial, so quite a few familiar faces are going to show up too, I heard."

"An official commercial? But isn't the eight season until half a year later?" Zhao Mingwei knew that it could only be something like a seasonal promotional video that would require all these professionals to join the shoot.

"Not for the eight season! Lemme tell you, the officials of War are going to make some major changes." Lin Xi paused, and continued in a low voice, "They're going to use 3D projection in their contests later."

"3D projection?" Zhao Mingwei was also quite shocked by this term that appeared in sci-fi movies in the past. "Did they really manage to invent it?"

"I'm not quite sure, but the commercial we're shooting is for this, I've heard. If 3D projection was really achieved, the popularity of War would probably shoot up to another level." Lin Xi saw Zhao Mingwei's expression, and continued, "Sacred Souls is a great game, but its popularity is nothing compared to War, and the player base is still too small. Old Smiley, you can treat Sacred Souls as a game, but don't think of going pro on it."

"I won't"

Zhao Mingwei was actually quite sick of the professional gamer job he had right now. Playing War was his job, while playing Sacred Souls was his entertainment when he had the time.

It was quite easy to pick which game he liked more—He wanted Sacred Souls to surpass War in popularity one day.

As the most popular game on the market right now, there were plenty of events and championships held on War, and even if players didn't play the game anymore they would still check on the game through these contests…Call it a player's romanticism.

The appearance of 3D projection would definitely push War into a whole new era, while Sacred Souls was still in its beginning phase with a mere 5000 players.

"I don't have to compare it with War."

Zhao Mingwei looked outside the window, and he could vaguely see the bright neon lights of the River Town Food Street.

Ever since that Abyssal Hunt in River Town, Zhao Mingwei somehow had the premonition that… Sacred Souls would completely change everyone's way of life in the future.

Jiang Qiao didn't go to the Divinity Plane using his Summoner character, instead summoning a ghostly being that looked like a Probe from Starcraft.

Jiang Qiao held the probe and stuffed it into the star map that was projected in front of him, directly over the coordinates of the Divinity Fragment Plane.

This transportation didn't even use up a hundred points of maker energy, because the probe didn't have any battle prowess and was just sent for scouting purposes.

After doing all this, he found a chair and sat down comfortably, leaning back and closing his eyes to connect his vision to the probe he sent out to the Divinity Fragment Plane.

"Aren't you coming?" Jiang Qiao opened his eyes slightly to peek at Ocean Blue, who was fixated on the star map.

Ocean Blue opened her mouth slightly, before blinking and shaking her head.

"Alright then."

Jiang Qiao didn't press the issue further, closing his eyes and connecting his vision to the probe again.

Upon reopening his eyes, he saw a gray sky that was different from the blues and whites of the sky in Sacred Souls. Looking down, Jiang Qiao saw a city with strange buildings, but he could still recognize the city walls, and a building that seemed to be a palace, as well as…The warzone outside the city walls.

"How tragic."

Jiang Qiao floated over to the warzone, and there were only corpses as far as the eyes could see. The scene of two enemy soldiers piercing each other to death was forever frozen in time.

There weren't any living humans on the warzone, and all the blood had thoroughly dried out. Jiang Qiao made his way over to one of the corpses and plucked off the soldier's helmet with one of the probe's 'arms'.

The corpse had completely dried out, but it hadn't been turned into a skeleton. It's dried skin stuck to its bones, and it looked like a mummy from Egypt.

"They're completely mummified…They going to come back to life when the players come here, aren't they?" Jiang Qiao deadpanned, already knowing which enemies are going to come from this plane.

Occean Blue's Divinity Fragment Plane was a Level 60 dungeon, and when the players raid it these dried out corpses would be probably all revived in response.

"Who knows if burning them works, lemme go check the rest of the city out."

Jiang Qiao set the helmet back onto the corpses' head, before floating towards the interior of the city.

What shocked him was that the city was still hustling and bustling…Or seemed to be.

Jiang Qiao could see people in commoner's clothing milling around the city doing their daily activities—The merchants were trading with the citizens on their stalls, the children were chasing each other and playing, the roads were flooded with carriages and there were even robbers and thieves that were extorting victims in the back alleys…

It sounded like the picture of a city filled with life, but it was only a crude imitation upon closer scrutiny…The citizens of this city were all dead.

All of them were dried out corpses like the soldiers outside the city, and were like puppets with gears that repeated the same actions every day.

This reminded Jiang Qiao of a status effect in a game he played before… Zombification.

"Hello miss, you lost your head." Jiang Qiao floated over to a woman that had been turned into a zombie, and waved his hand before her face, wanting to attract her attention to her head that had already rolled onto the ground.

Of course, the woman didn't respond to Jiang Qiao at all, continuing to wave a dried carrot at the merchant in front of her, as if she were asking him why it was so expensive.

"They don't have any intelligence, as expected."

Jiang Qiao looked towards the direction of the palace, and floated over to it to investigate.

In ghost mode, Jiang Qiao easily passed through the walls of the palace, and upon entering the palace he hid in at a corner of the palace when he heard people talking.

There were two zombies in clothes like nobles walking in the hall of the palace, and even though they were already converted into zombies, it seemed that they still retained their consciousness.

"Queen Maya finally found another divinity fragment of the goddess Ocean Blue!"

"Shush! Don't mention that name! Do you want your right the sleep get stripped away by the queen?"

"Ah…How long do we have until we can be released from this endless loop? I'm so sick of it! If it weren't for the fact that we could sleep for decades at once, I would have probably gone crazy."

"Who isn't? The ones that still have their rationality are probably Her Highness' knights and the lictors, yes? Let us go wake them up quickly, to break this damned loop!"

"I just want to taste wine again."

Jiang Qiao was eavesdropping on the zombies discussing this with their hoarse voices, and Jiang Qiao seemed to have come in at just the right time to hear the most important part of their conversation.

There were quite a number of zombies that have their consciousness on this plane, and these would probably be equivalent to minibosses and elite monsters, while the queen that they talked about was the final boss?

According to his senses, Jiang Qiao explored further into the palace, coming to the throne room of the queen.

As he saw the silhouette sitting on the throne, he had an extremely bad premonition.

"F*ck it…" Jiang Qiao threw an inspection spell on the silhouette, and her data and stats were immediately displayed in front of Jiang Qiao.

[Name: Heretic Maya Steyn]

[Level: 68]

[Class: Mage Type/Warrior Type/Priest Type]

[Description: The queen that consumed the divinity fragment of the goddess Ocean Blue. She has been waiting for a chance to repair her broken country.]

These stats aside, the most eye-catching was probably the HP of the queen that the inspection spell fed-back to him.

[66390117/95123511]

Her maximum HP was more than ninety million, but her current HP was somewhere around sixty-six million HP. Perhaps there was an accident that caused her HP to go down?

The HP displayed here was not only the condition of the queen herself, but the entire plane too. In other words, if Jiang Qiao burned all the corpses and zombies outside to a crisp, her HP would go down too.

Of course, that wouldn't work if they couldn't be destroyed with fire.

Her HP was shared with the entire plane.

65 million HP was still quite difficult to shave off even with the Devouring Law that players were blessed with, but the most troublesome fact of the queen was that…

She was way too good looking!

Jiang Qiao floated around the queen in ghost mode, and it seemed like she had already died on her throne.

At least that's what it looked like, judging from the sword that impaled her chest and pinned her to the throne.

But this didn't make her any less beautiful, her appearance seemed to cast a light halo of sacred light in the throne room.

This queen wasn't zombified, and her head was lowered while her eyes were closed. Her hair was a gradient of silver to platinum blonde, and even though he was staring very closely, he couldn't see any blemishes or flaws on her face. Even in her current state, her beautiful face had a solemn expression.

She had an undeniable air of holiness, as if just looking at her were a sacrilege.

Wasn't this a real goddess? Coach! Ocean Blue is definitely a fake!

Jiang Qiao started comparing her with the gluttonous goddess back home, and from each and every angle the queen won!

Jiang Qiao couldn't feel the queen breathing, and blood was still flowing out through the wound on her chest, the blood trickling down her legs towards the ground.

It was at this point that Jiang Qiao noticed that as her blood trickled onto the ground, it seeped in and spread out towards the city in pulses, or towards the whole plane…

She was using this method to keep her country 'alive', to maintain the entire plane.

Jiang Qiao floated closer, and tried to pull out the sword impaled in her chest experimentally.

As Jiang Qiao was about to touch the hilt of the sword, it was grabbed fiercely by the queen's right hand.

Her movements were ferocious at first, but became gentle as she grabbed his arm, and as Jiang Qiao looked towards her face again, he came face to face with a pair of glacial blue eyes.