286: Conspiracy

There are many players in the Xuanhuan World.

Different players have different game goals.

For example, Wang Long, his goal is to constantly become stronger to prove himself, and ideally, defeat Ye Chun.

So, after he achieved Golden Core, he constantly fought against Great Yao, and even had to go into seclusion to heal due to severe injuries.

Other professional players are also constantly looking for Opportunity to become stronger, or profiting by live-streaming Golden Core-level battles.

They played wonderfully.

Then there are players like Old Potato, Midnight Gao Sou, and the Mage.

They initially joined for streaming purposes, liking to create some showy effects.

But as the Xuanhuan World continued to develop, they repeatedly died and restarted, and were unable to Breakthrough to the Golden Core level.

They temporarily fell into a period of confusion, somewhat unsure of their future direction.

So they simply continued to stream, continuing to have fun and play.

Players like Kumu Daoren are willing to do anything for Cultivation Technique progress.

Their eyes only see the word 'cultivation'; whether it's Righteous Path Cultivation Technique or evil cultivation methods, as long as it helps improve their cultivation, they accept all comers.

They also especially like to hide their identities, not streaming, not seeking the limelight, and not even making teammates.

Many of these players have a relatively firm 'Dao-seeking heart'.

And then there's another group of players.

They enjoy role-playing.

They like to experience the local customs of the Xuanhuan World and understand the stories behind different characters.

The Last Great Jiang Person is one such player.

As his name suggests, his identification with his character's identity is very strong.

He feels that he is a new character in the Xuanhuan World, not just a simple player.

Therefore, after the state-stabilizing seal announced the game update,

Many players began to weigh the pros and cons, wanting to gain the most reputation as quickly as possible.

Some streamers even stayed up all night to produce guides on how to gain reputation.

The Last Great Jiang Person, however, was too lazy to read these guides.

He simply immersed himself in playing his character.

He left the Newbie Village and learned his current identity:

An ordinary outsider who came to a village in the Immortal Dynasty, killed a Yao Race member, and saved a girl.

But the girl was corrupted by the Yao Race's methods, her Qi and blood constantly depleting, making it impossible to save her successfully.

Before she died, the girl gave him a jade pendant as a token, asking him to find the corresponding NPC outside Great River City.

This quest mentioned a reward, but it was only a pitiful amount of reputation, completely incomparable to tasks like going to the front lines to kill Yao, or exploring Secret Realm in the mountains.

Most players, after leaving the Newbie Village, simply pretended not to have accepted the quest, and some even put the token up for sale in the auction house.

Some players did the quest and reported that it was a teleportation array, requiring them to teleport to a new area, meaning everyone was independent.

Eventually, they would see a dilapidated house and a few ordinary Immortal Dynasty residents; after handing over the token, the quest would end, with only reputation rewards and some ordinary food rewards.

There were no follow-up quests.

From an efficiency perspective, this quest definitely should not be done.

After all, the top players have already reached Golden Core, middle-tier players are also farming reputation to attempt a Golden Core Breakthrough, and even bottom-tier players have their own Opportunity.

Doing such a quest was truly a waste of time.

But The Last Great Jiang Person still held the token and headed towards the location the girl mentioned.

The Xuanhuan World is an open world, and all characters are unique.

It's impossible for later players to complete quests that previous players have already done.

However, the appearance of the state-stabilizing seal's private server broke this rule.

The state-stabilizing seal thoughtfully created independent special instances, allowing each player to have their own exclusive NPC, thereby allowing the same quest to be completed by different players.

In this way, the players actually felt that the Xuanhuan World had a bit of an online game feel to it.

The Last Great Jiang Person arrived at the teleportation array, and a flash of light passed.

He appeared in a pleasant pastoral setting.

Not far away was a small wooden house, and he could see a few farmers chatting outside.

The Last Great Jiang Person walked over and showed the token.

The farmers immediately burst into tears.

Soon, these farmers insisted he stay as a guest.

During the banquet, the farmers cried again, continuously recounting the girl's background.

After the banquet ended and The Last Great Jiang Person left the place,

He stood by the teleportation array, dazed for a long time.

"It seems... something isn't right?"

He liked doing quests and interacting with NPCs.

Because the NPCs in the Xuanhuan World were no different from Immortal Master.

They wouldn't say rigid lines or perform fixed actions.

They had their own thoughts, their own considerations.

They had difficulties, and they had imagined futures.

The Last Great Jiang Person really liked this world, and he liked the NPCs in this world.

But the farmers he just met made him feel a strong sense of incongruity.

They were like NPCs... This sounds a bit strange, since these people were originally NPCs.

But in any case, The Last Great Jiang Person felt that these people were very incongruous, unlike Xuanhuan World NPCs.

"Could it be, as Huan Meng officially reminded, these were created by the state-stabilizing seal itself?

"Are these farmers actually Puppets?"

The Last Great Jiang Person couldn't help but frown at this thought.

If it were other games, he could accept this level of NPC.

But in the Xuanhuan World, he truly felt that such NPCs were too terrible, and interacting with them was a waste of his time and life.

"From this perspective, all the NPCs and quests in Great River City were designed by the state-stabilizing seal?

"And his skill is limited; the design feels too heavy-handed..."

The Last Great Jiang Person suddenly felt very bored.

He somewhat didn't want to continue playing on the state-stabilizing seal's private server and wanted to go somewhere else.

Just then, the teleportation array suddenly flickered.

The farmers from before suddenly appeared in front of him.

The Last Great Jiang Person asked in surprise, "You can come out?"

The leading farmer said, "We can come out... Alas, originally we could have stayed in the Secret Realm and lived out our lives. But now that the Yao Race is rampant, everything we cherish has been ravaged by them, so how can we just live on?"

Another farmer also said, "We've decided to join the army! To kill Yao!"

Looking at these farmers, the slight sense of incongruity in The Last Great Jiang Person's heart completely vanished.

He grinned and said, "Good, let's join the army together, let's kill Yao together!"

...In the Cloud Palace.

The state-stabilizing seal looked at the screen.

"So that's it. Although these players are role-playing players, willing to do quests and play their roles,

"If the NPCs are too incongruous, too rigid, they will also find it dull.

"It seems they don't just value the process of role-playing.

"More than that, it's the people and events they encounter while playing their roles.

"If I make them develop unique feelings for these NPCs, then I can control them..."

"Make them willingly sacrifice themselves, and they won't even realize they're being manipulated by me... Tsk tsk."

"Moreover, these players are essentially kind-hearted to the point of being naive and innocent.

"Even those seemingly reckless evil cultivators haven't truly immersed themselves; they just treat this as a game, treating others as enemies they can kill at will, which is why they can be so reckless.

"If I were to design some immersive plots for them, design some characters they become attached to, tsk tsk..."