Yang Qiu had also considered allowing players to choose their own appearance and customize their characters; players that spent a lot of their time and effort into creating their own characters would have a strong sense of immersion and attachment to the game.
The reason this plan couldn't be realized was that the materials for alchemical puppets were too expensive. Setting aside the difficulty of finding a safe channel to purchase materials for Yang Qiu, who was currently a wanted man, filling a skeleton frame to make it presentable on the outside and stuffing it with random junk to pass off as a "poor-made" alchemical puppet would still cost at least ten gold coins in materials alone.
So… such a plan was shelved. Anything that required extra money was a hassle for Yang Qiu. It was easier for him to focus on producing and selling items like the "Orb of Deception" and "Undead Horse" that he could create himself.
After having his cup of milk tea to alleviate the awkwardness, Yang Qiu once again immersed himself in the imprint matrix and observed the situation at the Knight Instructor's construction site.
The fifth player managing to achieve the "friendly" reputation with the Knight Instructor, Jerome, had emerged. He had just turned in a quest, and before he could express his joy, he was immediately surrounded by several skeletons and taken aside…
There was only one Undead Horse, but evidently, there was more than one person who wanted it. Before this player could react, a bag of copper coins was dumped before him. "Three hundred copper coins to give up your bidding rights, deal?"
"Deal!" the player answered decisively. "There's no need for copper coins. Let's settle it in RMB!"
"Using such tactics to eliminate competitors! How shameless!" Onlookers, who had no qualms about joining the commotion, immediately started jeering.
The bunch of skeletons, who had successfully eliminated a competitor, paid no heed to these passerby troublemakers and immediately had their companions drag away the fifth grinder that had achieved the bidding rights.
And so, when the Knight Instructor NPC announced that the official auction would take place in half an hour, there were still only three players with bidding rights on the scene.
Of course, these three players weren't the original reputation grinders but wealthy big shots that had bought their bidding rights.
While the participants of Orb of Deceptions' bidding had initially managed to come to a harmonious agreement, the interested parties of the Undead Horse couldn't do so.
However, these wealthy individuals had reached a unanimous consensus before the auction began—to contribute a small amount of money each and buy out the other player's bidding rights on the spot.
And this was only the later part of their plans. In the initial stage, these rich players had already seized the majority of the in-game copper coin sources, fundamentally preventing the emergence of new competitors.
That was the reason the final player who achieved the reputation requirement could agree so readily because he, among others who had spent quite a long time here, knew very well that no one could produce enough copper coins to compete with these wealthy individuals.
"It's still gonna be very difficult!" exclaimed one of the three wealthy individuals, the big shot who collaborated with Qin Guan.
The ID of this player was "Wild Geese Mound," and one could tell he was a rich youth with quite a solid background just by looking at his ID.
He originally had little interest in things like mounts, but he was amazed four days ago when he saw the Lord of Taranthan NPC riding the flashy Undead Horse. On the spot, he used the pocket money he had been saving for a camera and exchanged it for copper coins instead. With Qin Guan's help, he monopolized about 20% of the copper coins produced by the laborers.
"Let's do our best," Qin Guan comforted him. "Give Me Medicine only spent 900 copper coins and brought back the rest of the money."
To avoid further provoking Blossoming Strokes, Qin Guan had already returned the Orb of Deception. However, Blossoming Strokes still seemed quite affected and logged out early to go have a meal.
"Yeah, let's just try. We need to drive up the price even if we can't win the bid. Otherwise, we won't be doing justice to our hard work these past few days," Wild Geese Mound grumbled, shifting his gaze toward the competitor who had managed to recruit the most laborers and posed the greatest threat.
Qin Guan followed Wild Geese Mound and felt the twinge of a toothache…
The one who the two felt most threatened by was a player with the ID "Brother Lahong."
Brother Lahong wasn't a typical tycoon who solved everything with money. He was a charismatic and popular figure, a big brother sort of tycoon, with whom many would feel a strong sense of affinity with. When he entered the game, he brought along more than a dozen brothers he knew from another online game. Within just a few days of the game's launch, he had gathered over 50 players of varying types around him, more than what Qin Guan, an influential veteran of the closed beta, had.
When Qin Guan glanced over, Brother Lahong noticed his gaze and waved to them.
"He's showing off before even getting the horse. How rude," Wild Geese Mound grumbled resentfully.
Qin Guan. "…"
Qin Guan thought Wild Geese Mound was slightly overthinking it. In fact, he actually knew Brother Lahong. In real life, the latter was a small business owner named Liu Shuang and had the same flamboyant style both online and offline. The earlier gesture was simply a friendly greeting.
It was just the harsh reality that artistic privileged youths and honest self-made businessmen couldn't be friends.
After half an hour, Knight Instructor Jerome walked directly to the center of the players and raised his hand to announce the start of the auction.
The bidding process was quite simple since there were only a few players with the rights, so simply shouting out their bids was fine.
"3000," Wild Geese Mound was the first to bid, instantly raising the starting price threefold.
"4000," another rich wallet warrior called out.
Businessman Brother Lahong casually threw out a figure that shook the entire venue, "10,000."
The onlooking crowd immediately burst into a frenzy.
"What the heck!"
"Is this f*cking for real?!"
"I've been playing for days and only have several dozen copper coins, and someone can easily produce 10,000!"
"That's not surprising. Can't you see he has more than 10 money bags (backpacks)?"
Wild Geese Mound turned to Qin Guan who shrugged helplessly.
After all the hard work and effort to qualify for the auction, they now couldn't even produce enough to raise the bid… No one could have anticipated this.
The money made by Xiao Zhou's studio as well as other players that were roped in by Vanilla Pudding, on top of copper coins Wild Geese Mound had collected from others combined, wasn't even close to this amount…
Wild Geese Mound wasn't the only one affected. The other remaining bidder was frustrated as well and cursed multiple times. After nervously discussing with his companions, he reluctantly made a bid. "10,100."
Brother Lahong raised his hand. "11,000."
"F*ck!" the other bidder cried out. "Are you even leaving any room for others to participate, Lahong?"
Brother Lahong chuckled. "Don't get so worked up. I'm just saving everyone some trouble by quickly closing the deal on this horse."
"I also want this horse. I've farmed over 2,000 reputation points with the Knight Instructor!" the other bidder resorted to pleading.
"Well, if it's not possible, you can come to our side. I can't give the horse to you alone, but we can negotiate when there's a need, like for completing missions and such. We're all brothers and sisters here, so it's all good," Brother Lahong said with great generosity. "Besides, this horse won't be the only one available. Next month, when more mounts are released, we can all support each other."
"Whoa?!" All of the other players in the vicinity were astonished. The two sides were still engaged in fierce competition, yet Brother Lahong was already extending an olive branch.
"Was the game supposed to be played like this?!"
The other bidder was also stunned. "W-what the… Are you saying that if I don't join your group, I can dream on when it comes to getting the next horse? Is that a threat?"
"Hey, hey, don't overinterpret. It's just not fun that way." Brother Lahong hurriedly put his hand up to calm the situation. "I was just considering how difficult it must have been for you to raise so much money and still not be able to buy a horse. The tasks in this game are so hardcore, and I bet the job change at level 1 is going to be quite challenging. Who knows, maybe the Knight Apprentice's job change requires a horse or something. If you were an outsider, it wouldn't be easy for me to lend you the horse that our brothers and sisters worked hard to obtain, right?"
"Fine! You win!" the other bidder immediately gave a thumbs-up. "Okay, you convinced me. If I can't beat you, then I'll join you. Does Brother Lahong need more followers to serve him tea?"
"Whoa! What the heck?!" All the bystanders were once again astonished.
When two armies faced off, cutting down the enemy's general with a single blow was nothing compared to persuading the enemy general to switch allegiances on the spot. That was the epitome of true military cunning!
Wild Geese Mound, the artistic youth, had probably never seen such tactics in his life. He stiffly turned his head and looked blankly toward the only person he could still trust, Qin Guan.
Qin Guan felt a twinge of heartache…
As cunning as he was, he couldn't match the methods of a popular businessman adept in the ways of society. Just being a popular live streamer who played female characters unfortunately wasn't enough.
And thus, less than two minutes after the auction for the game's first Undead Horse that was sold for a winning bid of 11,000 copper coins, the two groups of players who were once enemies now gathered together, ecstatically celebrating and taking screenshots with the magnificent horse. Only the bystanders and the third group who were left out shambled around in a confused daze.
Yang Qiu, who witnessed this cunning move, didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"I never imagined I missed out on such a big fish." Yang Qiu had to pay special attention to Brother Lahong from now on.
This player's Potential was rather ordinary. It was currently at 41 points, barely reaching the average passing mark for Earth players, and just enough to use the "Identify" skill.
Yang Qiu shook his head seeing this Potential value…
On the fourth day since the server opened, most of the three hundred players had gained an increase of 3 to 7 points in their Potential values. Among them, the number of players with Potential values of 40 or above and were able to activate "Identify" increased from the initial 26 to 68 players.
This was a very normal level of Potential growth, just like how an overweight person who hadn't exercised for a long time lost weight relatively quickly once they started dieting. Earthlings who hadn't specifically enhanced their mental power had their souls sent here to "train" every day, so there would inevitably be a phase of explosive growth in the early stages.
According to Yang Qiu's reckoning, this phase of explosive growth should probably be maintained until a player's Potential increased by about 30% of the initial value.
After the peak of this initial growth phase passed, players would then hit a plateau.
Brother Lahong's Potential value of 41 indicated that he was in the midst of his peak growth. Judging from the circumstances, it seemed unlikely that he would reach 50 Potential value in this spurt. There was a significant chance that while the majority of players completed the first job change, this guy might not even have reached level 1 yet.
But judging from his performance, it was clear that Brother Lahong wasn't the sort of player that cared about game values. Uniting so many players around him had nothing to do with his gaming ability.
While this guy's Potential value was even worse than Qin Guan's, Yang Qiu has confidence in him. "It doesn't matter if a Leader-type player can fight or not!"
Yang Qiu added a special marking to this player's bright spot on the imprint matrix, categorizing him as a special labor force.
Similar special labor forces had already been marked out by Yang Qiu… He wasn't intruding on players' privacy and monitoring them out of boredom or curiosity; it was to identify special talents!
Yang Qiu's coercion and enticement had already reached their limits in enlisting the natives of this world as advanced NPCs. If the Taranthan territory was to expand and the Undead race was to grow stronger, it was necessary to make better use of the players—the group that would eagerly come running for quests, work tirelessly, and sacrifice themselves for the sake of "game values"!
Just like this time, if Yang Qiu had hired natives to clean up the partially ruined Exile Town instead, he would be overwhelmed just by providing them with food, shelter, and wages and organizing their labor.
But when turned into a grinding activity, all it took was some effort to create three crystal balls engraved with the "Illusory Disguise" rune and release the Undead Horse that wasn't particularly useful except for looking cool. The players took care of the rest!
Now, Exile Town no longer looked like its desolate and abandoned state from before—dilapidated buildings that were completely unusable had been demolished, and all the garbage and waste materials on the streets had been recycled. Non Recyclable waste had been transported and buried at the foot of the mountains west of the town, and even the river, which had been clogged with trash for years, had been cleaned up!
Next, all that was needed was to continue issuing quests to force these players to build the place up brick by brick.
Questing to increase reputation with the various job instructors would go on continuously, and it wouldn't be an issue getting these players to work hard and construct their respective class's guilds.
As for the areas outside the designated construction sites of the guilds and the vacant land cleared by the zombie NPCs' quests… that was also easy!
Releasing the blood alliance system, allowing players to create their own alliance strongholds, and they would work hard again!
Of course, just forcing players to slog wouldn't work; there were still things Yang Qiu needed to do as a game developer.
Hidden quests had been arranged for, and he was just waiting for the right time to drop it onto the designated trigger's head.
As for the more critical job advancement quests…
Yang Qiu's gaze turned to the first tier of players ranked by Potential.
There were a total of five players in the first tier, all of whom had reached level 1, which was the primary condition for job advancement.
Firstly, there was Ou Huang who logged in with a Potential of 54 and had directly jumped to level 1.
Ou Huang had a unique style. He spent the entire first day wandering around, abstaining from doing any quests until the second day. While others were working hard grinding copper coins, he had been farming Yang Qiu's reputation at a leisurely pace. While others were busy speculating on the ownership of the undead horse, Ou Huang had focused on his own matters, as if he belonged to a different dimension from the other players.
After him was Blossoming Strokes, whose current Potential was 54. This lady had achieved a Potential value of 50 two days ago, but she had been busy grinding zombie NPC quests to help her friend earn copper coins. As of now, she had yet to report to Yang Qiu.
Third was Yang Qiu's older sister, Yang Ying, with a current Potential of 53 points.
After the forced labor event started, Yang Ying actively focused on completing zombie NPC tasks. It would probably take her a few more days to achieve the reputation requirement for her to undertake the job advancement quest.
Fourth was Win By Grinding, the leader of a small team of players.
Fifth was Unceasing Entropy, a friend his sister had made in the game. She, too, was busy grinding zombie NPC tasks, delaying farming reputation despite hitting the level requirement. Both Unceasing Entropy and Blossoming Strokes had approached Yang Qiu before, as they were players determined to play as a spellcaster class.
"Looks like the first one to start the job advancement quest can only be Win By Grinding," Yang Qiu mused as he rubbed his chin and turned his attention to the glowing light spot representing the said player.
Then he noticed that… this player hadn't gone to accept the job advancement quest from Tuttle and was instead rushing over to the Town Hall alone.
"…Hmm?"
Minutes later, Win By Grinding, who had achieved the required reputation with the Ranger Instructor, pushed open the Town Hall's door and came straight to Yang Qiu without even looking at anything else. Then he casually extended a hand and said, "Hello, Yang. Do you have any quests available?"
NPCs were just NPCs in the eyes of players. Using polite words during interactions was considered good player etiquette, but respect or anything like that for NPCs didn't exist. Even Yang, with titles of "Lord of Taranthan" and "Undead Resurrection Master," didn't have any authority.
Yang Qiu: "…"
He didn't really care about the player's attitude. What bothered him was that he never imagined this guy, who had ground a friendly reputation with the Ranger Instructor, actually had no intention of doing the job advancement and had come over here instead…
"…Hello, undead compatriot," Yang Qiu put on a serious face and recited his lines. "You have been awake for some time now and should be aware of the plight of our race, trapped in this barren land, surrounded by enemies. Are you willing to sacrifice everything for the revival and glory of the undead race?"
Win By Grinding mumbled, "This NPC sure talks a lot," and cut in before Yang Qiu could finish, "Yes, give me the quest."
This was why the NPCs often had such uncontrollable impulses to kill players, huh?
Without saying another word, Yang Qiu issued the quest for raising reputation with him as the Lord of Taranthan and Mage Apprentice Instructor.
"Manage the herb field?" Win By Grinding glanced at the information displayed on the quest panel and didn't waste time talking to Yang Qiu, following the quest guide as he left.
Yang Qiu watched this rude fella leave before taking a sip of his milk tea. "Grinding the Ranger Instructor's reputation just for the opportunity to bid on the Orb of Deception. I must say he's quite the talent… Hang in there and don't give up easily, the Lord's reputation isn't that easy to farm!"
Jiang Wei, who was oblivious to this, followed the instructions and arrived at the back of the Town Hall. Sure enough, he found the dilapidated warehouse indicated in the quest panel.
Upon entering the warehouse, he saw a row of covered iron buckets and an entrance to the underground cellar.
Jiang Wei picked up an iron bucket marked as a "quest item," then stepped onto the wooden ladder that led into the cellar. After several minutes of walking along the dark underground passage, a naturally large underground cave the size of two basketball courts appeared before him.
"There's actually still this sort of place beneath Exile Town?" muttered Jiang Wei in astonishment as he stepped out of the tunnel and looked all around.
This place appeared even larger than what his eyes could make out. In the innermost part of the cave was a flowing underground river, and above it, the cave walls were densely covered with several dark and deep passages that led to unknown destinations.
The underground cave had no light source, but darkness wasn't anything to the undead, so Jiang Wei could still see the environment clearly.
And that was why he quickly discovered that the entire cave floor was crawling with extremely eerie vines. Jiang Wei felt his scalp tingle when he saw the bizarre shapes of these plants.
The ground vines, resembling sweet potato vines, were covered with dense layers of white leaves. These leaves were extremely thick and had a shape that closely resembled human palms. At first glance, it looked like countless pale hands piled up on the ground.
For a moment, Jiang Wei was completely dumbfounded. Then, he heard some clicking sounds coming from behind him, originating from the tunnel he had come from.
The tunnel floor had been moist mud, and walking on it wouldn't produce such a sound. This crisp sound was the result of bones knocking against something when a skeleton moved.
Although Jiang Wei was familiar with this sound, he couldn't help but shiver in fear…
Stiffly turning his head back, Jiang Wei saw a skeleton with "Ou Huang" atop its head walking in while carrying an iron bucket.
…This guy has been grinding the Lord's reputation for some time, huh? Naturally, Jiang Wei knew that Ou Huang was the player with the top Potential in the game, and he silently observed the other party.
Ou Huang only glanced at him and showed no intention of talking before walking to those eerie leafy vines.
What followed was… Jiang Wei personally witnessed how frustrating the quest for farming the Lord of Taranthan's reputation was, and his jaw dropped even further.