The same day.
In other villages and commanderies of the Holy Dynasty, and even remote areas such as the Western Regions and overseas, there were also transmigrated Players doing the same thing.
After their descent, these Players would directly inherit the identities of some common folk in the world.
In Jiang Dali's view, this inheritance felt somewhat similar to the soul transmigration and body possession described in fantasy novels.
Every Player would gain an original identity.
This original identity was key to the Players establishing themselves in this world.
Otherwise, without an identity, you were as good as a ghost materializing out of thin air.
In his previous life, some Players had superior beginnings as soon as they appeared, being born into an escort agency to do miscellaneous tasks, or directly into a sect as a disciple performing miscellaneous duties—these were considered exceptionally auspicious starts.
The vast majority were only born in ordinary villages, as common villagers.
A tiny minority would be born directly in a commandery or even in Mengyin County, with slightly better conditions.
But one commonality was that every Player started off as an orphan - quite the protagonist template.
And essentially, every Player was like an NPC, though none of the Players would think so.
Jiang Dali knew, however, that the biggest difference between Players and NPCs was that NPCs' names were tinged with a green color overhead, while Players had black-colored names.
By that afternoon,
some mountain bandits sent out to gather news about the newcomers had all returned.
Jiang Dali was sitting in the spacious meeting hall, already having received some message prompts.
"Player Li Jianfeng requests to join Black Wind Village. Do you agree?"
"Player Ancient Color Strange People requests to join Black Wind Village. Do you agree?"
"Triggered mission 'Recruit': Recruit a group of fresh blood to join Black Wind Village. Completing this will reward you with Cultivation Points and Potential Points depending on the stage completed.
Current stage: 0/10"
Faced with these prompts, Jiang Dali did not immediately choose to agree.
Given the Players' characteristic ways, it was clear they only intended to use Black Wind Village as a stepping stone.
And Jiang Dali was not about to allow such trifling matters to happen.
Once the chives were planted in his field, they shouldn't even think of leaving.
At this moment, Jiang Dali was enjoying himself, comfortably having his shoulders and back pummeled by two subordinates, listening to a group of mountain bandits animatedly reporting.
"Great Master, you're truly brilliant. Today, indeed, there were some villagers from the surrounding villages acting strangely. Some even inexplicably killed chickens and ducks in the village and were chased out, and it seems there are such people in Mengyin County as well."
"Yes, yes, but those dogs serving in Mengyin County don't welcome us at all, so we didn't dare to linger."
"Among them, two guys who spoke very oddly wanted to follow us up the mountain, saying they wanted to join our Black Wind Village. I thought I should ask you, Great Master, so I didn't bring those two."
The mountain bandits relayed the information they had gathered, talking over each other.
Jiang Dali tallied up the reports mentally, arriving at a count.
"By this count, there are as many as fourteen Players who've descended near Mengyin County. That's not a small number of able-bodied recruits."
He remembered that the first batch of Players who participated in the public test was only about a hundred thousand.
A hundred thousand Players scattered across the vast Mixed Martial Arts World, from the Central Plains to the Western Regions, to overseas and the Southern Border, was like a ladle of water splashed into the sea - insignificant.
The appearance of more than a dozen Players in Mengyin County already felt extremely lucky to Jiang Dali.
"You've done well. Everyone go down and get a bowl of alcohol to drink and a piece of cured meat; consider it a reward for today. I'll assign new tasks to you tomorrow."
"Alright!"
"Great Master is generous!"
A group of mountain bandits left the hall jubilantly, clamoring for alcohol.
Ordinary village farmers were lucky to eat meat or drink alcohol once a month.
Although the mountain bandits lived somewhat carefree lives, being able to drink and eat meat once every three days was already considered a luxurious life.
Hence, Jiang Dali's rewards were very satisfying to the group of bandits.
After sending the subordinates away, Jiang Dali's eyes flickered, and he opened his personal attribute template.
Now, with the arrival of the Players, a special section had been added to his template—the Jianghu Forum.
The emergence of this new panel was something Jiang Dali couldn't explain the origins of.
Originally, he thought that reincarnating in this world as a native and possessing an attribute template was already strange enough; he couldn't possibly have anything else from outside this world.
But now, the appearance of the Jianghu Forum broke some of his assumptions and added a new layer of complexity to certain things.
However, knowing that it was difficult to find answers now, some speculations could only be buried in his heart for the time being.
Since the Jianghu Forum had appeared, he was just in time to find out whether the batch of Players who descended today were the same as the first batch of Internal Test Players.
...
Perhaps because the internal test had only started a short while ago,
there weren't many people posting on the Jianghu Forum.
After trying for a while, Jiang Dali discovered that he couldn't post like the Players and reconciled with this reality.
"I am, after all, an NPC with a green name. The proper Village Chief of Black Wind Village. I'm not any of the Internal Test Players, so it's normal that I can't post. The fact that I can see the Jianghu Forum is what's abnormal."
Jiang Dali felt somewhat uneasy.
He wondered if his browsing the Jianghu Forum incognito would be discovered by officials.
But even though he felt uneasy, he thought that this was unlikely.
Meanwhile, he had seen some familiar names in some of the posted forum threads.
The threads posted by these familiar figures were clearly game progression logs, as inexperienced as before.
From this, it became clear that his reincarnation in the Mixed Martial Arts World had no noticeable impact on these familiar Players; they were still following the trajectory of their historical path.
After browsing for a while, Jiang Dali came across an interesting thread.
The poster was named Drunk Green Robe, a name he was very familiar with.
Seeing the name, relevant information from the person's past life popped into his head.
"Drunk Green Robe, a disciple of Huashan Sect, diligently studied Hua Mountain Life-taking Linked Three Immortal Swords, later learning the incomplete Dugu Nine Swords.
He once dominated the Martial World with the Dugu Nine Swords for half a year, yet due to betrayal by friends and relatives, was slain multiple times by the era's dominant force 'Tyrant Hall,' his Martial Arts and Realms reset to nil, leading to his disheartened departure from the Mixed Martial Arts World."