Chapter 53: You must have no friends, right?

The closed beta players formed three major guilds.

One was headed by Li Mu and Demacia, named "Heart of Nature," and was the guild with the most members, totaling over one hundred and eighty players.

The president of "Heart of Nature" was Li Mu, but Li Mu did not make any mandatory demands on the guild members, making it sort of a casual guild.

Another was led by Cuckoo and Little Xian Miao, named the "Mengmeng Committee," with Little Xian Miao as the chairperson. Nearly half of its members were female players, totaling over fifty people, and it was a guild specializing in leisure and lifestyle activities.

They were also the main force in the construction of Elf Town.

The last one was the "First Legion" guild established by Fried Tomato, with over forty people, focusing on combat, loving outdoor adventures, and consisted entirely of highly dedicated players.

Although Eve wasn't very fond of Fried Tomato, after a warning last time, he had restrained himself quite a bit.

In addition, this guy worked quite hard, had a quite respectful attitude toward NPCs, and most of the team members he led were highly dedicated players, providing Eve with considerable feedback.

So, because the Goddess was generous, She didn't hold it against this fellow and would wait and see.

Moreover, although Li Mu was quite capable, Eve felt that sometimes he was too laid-back. Setting up a competitor for him could also stimulate his potential.

Beyond them, there were some passersby who didn't join any guild, the most famous of whom was the top expert of the server—Bento.

This aloof powerhouse pulled together a few players to form an adventure squad that wandered the wilderness every day, leveling up rapidly, and was worshipped by players as a big shot.

Even Li Mu looked at him with new respect.

However, compared to monster hunting, Li Mu now was more eager to know when he would make some discoveries in the ruins.

He took a glance at the time on the system interface, pondered for a moment, and said to Demacia:

"We'll search for another hour, and if we still find nothing, we'll head back temporarily."

"Go back? Alrighty!"

Demacia's face lit up with a smile:

"Hehe, I heard there's supposed to be a campfire party in Feilengcui tonight. If we go back a bit earlier, we can join in the fun!"

After the first day of the game, players of "Elf Kingdom" had developed the habit of holding campfire parties regularly.

It was also because the scenery of Elf Forest was too beautiful. Holding parties in this primitive forest has its own unique charm of camping away from the mundane world.

Everyone enjoyed berries and took the opportunity to grill meat secretly when the Holy Daughter wasn't paying attention. They laughed together, played together, chatted, and shot the breeze… It was simply too enjoyable.

A campfire party?

Li Mu's eyes brightened.

If he remembered correctly, this party was to celebrate the re-establishment of the temple in Feilengcui.

The previous temple was severely damaged, and in the past few days, Cuckoo had been leading her construction team, busy repairing the temple, supposedly one of the tasks issued by the Goddess.

Now, it should be almost fully repaired and ready to host the statue of the deity.

With that thought, he nodded:

"Hmm, we'll go back after an hour, and by the way, let's ask Alice again to see if we can get some information about Feilengcui from her."

Speaking, Li Mu pushed aside a pile of rubble in front of him and continued exploring.

"Alice!"

Demacia's eyes lit up, and his expression suddenly became mysterious.

He came closer to Li Mu's ear, chuckled, and said:

"I say, Brother Mu, we've been playing the game for so long, have you figured out the punishment mechanism of this game?"

Upon hearing this, Li Mu raised an eyebrow and said:

"The game is a high imitation of reality, so as long as you play by the rules of reality, you generally won't get punished."

While saying that, he looked at Demacia unexpectedly:

"You're not up to something again, are you?"

"Far from it…"

Demacia chuckled sheepishly, then continued:

"It's just that after that red name alert incident, I got a bit curious, so I did some experiments with a few players."

"Experiments?"

"That's right, the red name mechanism! We tried it out, and this mechanism seems to be based on the player's 'malice' and the extent of the damage to other players to determine the red name, and it can be cleared with contribution points. Moreover, this punishment seems to be graded. According to our guess, if someone kills another player, the punishment might be severe, maybe even leading to a ban…"

Demacia explained.

"Is that so… that severe?"

Li Mu suddenly understood, yet found it incredible.

He just remembered that a few days ago there seemed to be a fleeting system message about Demacia becoming a red name, but soon there was another system message about his repentance. So that was it…

This guy is really bored out of his mind.

Li Mu was both annoyed and amused.

However, if it were the old him, he probably would have been exploring bugs everywhere like Demacia by now.

Now, as the game went on, Li Mu grew increasingly fond of it, and gradually, he completely forgot about bug-hunting.

"Not only that!"

Demacia's expression turned serious:

"We also tried it on NPCs and found out that we can't attack NPCs!"

Hearing Demacia's words, Li Mu gave him a look:

"Isn't that normal? If we could attack NPCs, wouldn't the game be totally messed up?"

"No, what I mean is, when we try to attack an NPC, we lose control of our bodies in an instant, until the thought passes and control is restored. But for now, we've only tried it on the ladies and the beefy ones..."

Demacia shook his head.

Li Mu: ...

"You... tried to attack Alice and Berserker?"

The corner of his mouth twitched.

Demacia scratched his head:

"I was just trying it out, and then I found out that it seems like we can't attack them."

Li Mu: ...

"You should be grateful you can't attack them, otherwise I think you'd be beaten back down to level 1 by now."

He gave Demacia a speechless look.

"Well... it's not like I can salvage my reputation with them anyway... so I thought I'd try... I still have some perfect resurrections left..."

Demacia said sheepishly.

Li Mu: ...

Not being able to attack NPCs, that's actually Eve's setting.

Originally, her plan was to use the red name mechanism to limit players from attacking NPCs, but after some thought, she felt it was still not secure enough, so she just banned players from attacking NPCs.

More precisely, players can't attack her believers.

When a player has the thought of attacking a Natural Believer, they will lose control of their body.

Eve is able to do this because in Her Divine Space there is a link between players and believers, allowing for fine-tuning of the system's program settings to preemptively terminate the control of consciousness over the body when players develop hostility towards believers.

As for other intelligent creatures outside of believers, there's nothing that can be done.

If in the future there are indigenous people who are close to Eve but not Natural Believers, Eve would have to rely on strict punishment systems to restrain players.

As for why player-to-player attacks are not limited... there are reasons for that as well.

The relationship between players is not as simple as between players and NPCs. Forcibly ensuring peace among players is not always a good thing.

Because players who have disagreements can always find ways to undermine each other, and forced peace also means no punishment system.

Instead of that, it's better to have a red name system. If things get out of hand, just ban the account and remove the unstable elements.

It has a bit of a vigilante justice feel to it.

And for those who can reform, offer them an opportunity to repent and pay a fine on top of that.

Yeah, Eve thought she was pretty lenient.

Not only that, but not restricting player-to-player attacks also lets players fully showcase various clever strategies.

Like injured gambits, sacrifice-based gameplay, etc...

...

After hearing about Demacia's experimental experience, Li Mu helplessly patted him on the shoulder:

"Demacia."

"Hmm?"

Demacia looked at Li Mu with sparkling eyes:

"What's up, Brother Mu?"

Li Mu glanced at him, his voice ethereal:

"You must have very few friends in real life, right?"

Demacia looked astonished:

"How did you know?!"

Li Mu: ...

He did not answer but simply shook his head with resignation, sighed, and continued walking.

Demacia sheepishly touched his nose and followed closely behind.

However, after only two steps, he stumbled and nearly fell head over heels.

"What the heck is this?"

He cursed and instinctively shone his torch, revealing a broken stone slab covered in strange writing.

"What's this?"

He picked up the slab curiously.