Chapter 51:

Nowadays, the game《Reality Realm》has gained some fame through word-of-mouth from “closed beta testers” in certain niche social groups. Especially after Cheche shared the few dozens of seconds of CG footage he recorded with his game helmet showing the “Destruction of Kadman City” to his social circles, the number of beta tester applicants surged rapidly. Murphy now has nearly 100 “initial selection” applications in hand. The 24 people in front of him are those he has carefully handpicked from that pool. They all came through “internal recommendations”, having the in-game IDs of existing veteran players listed in the referral section. They filled out basic information and put effort into completing Murphy’s modified 66-question application test, demonstrating their earnest attitude. For those who just randomly filled out the questionnaire to try and sneak in, Murphy would not give them a chance to muddy the waters. As a former professional software tester and a mid-to-high level leader who has managed many projects and is familiar with HR workflows, the questionnaire he personally designed has its own systematic approach. Just a quick glance at the answer patterns and total scores can reveal the applicants’ attitudes. At this stage, Murphy is indeed short-handed, but he won’t go crazy and let in a bunch of troublemakers just looking for fun. His career has just begun, and he hasn’t even taken the first step yet. Those lacking a sense of collective honor, who don’t follow orders and always like to go rogue will have to wait a bit longer. The specific composition of these little players in front of him is also quite interesting. Out of the 24, 13 are real-life friends of “Onboard Joy Stick”, fully demonstrating that Paradox war criminals can organize at lightning speed anywhere, but also showing that Brother Stick does have strong mobilization ability within his own circles, bringing Murphy a batch of “quasi-professionals”. Just looking at their uniform IDs shows they often play together. The 9 men of varying heights and builds all have their IDs prefixed with “Tiger Leopard Rider”, with their specific names differentiated by the 9 over-the-top words “Rank and File at the Vanguard of Battle”. One can tell they are close gamer buddies who often play together. And being able to show up together in a Western fantasy magic game with such chuuni IDs fully demonstrates there must exist some kind of “wondrous bond” between them that Murphy cannot comprehend but is certainly quite rare. Besides the 9 “Tiger Leopard Rider” brothers, there are 4 more burly men who are clearly another small group. The first three are named【East River Lion’s Roar】,【South Mountain Tiger’s Howl】, and【West Valley Wolf’s Prowl】, all quite powerful sounding. But when combined with the last guy’s ID, it takes on a black joke vibe. Because the last guy calls himself【North Forest Dog Paddle】. Well, it does rhyme perfectly and there’s nothing overtly wrong with the wording, but...hey, are you from Minnan? You must be, right? With that name of yours, you’ve totally ruined the majestic aura of your “Lion Tiger Wolf Dog” little group! They must have agreed beforehand on IDs with this style, but this “Dog Paddle” brother played a prank on his other three buddies in the end. The reason Murphy is so sure of this is because this “Dog Paddle” brother is currently being pinned down and beaten by the other three, while the 9 Tiger Leopard Rider brothers are surrounding them, eating melon seeds and cheering on occasionally. It makes the summoning scene look like some street performance, leaving Tris completely baffled. She can’t see player IDs, so naturally she can’t understand why these “Otherworld Warriors” are fighting each other? Did Murphy’s summoning spell go wrong? Did he summon a group of Otherworld mental patients or some bizarre performance artists? Murphy uses his gaze to signal to Tris that all is normal, this is just gamer flavor, so there’s no need to worry at all. He then continues inspecting his little players. “Lion Tiger Wolf Dog” these four brothers, though goofballs, are indeed “professionals”. Their application questionnaires detailed their airsoft interests, even listing awards they won in professional competitions. Joy Stick had mentioned before in Smuggler’s Woods that he knows some very professional airsoft brothers, which must be referring to these four. Lastly, there’s the one female player. At 180cm, she stands out prominently in the crowd. With a slender build, long legs, and long hair draped over her shoulders, she looks like a graceful crane among the generally shorter male players. Her ID is【Sister Pomegranate Uproots The Weeping Willows】. The name is easy to understand, having an abstract silly beauty to it. Her referral on the application questionnaire was listed as Precipitation Niuniu, noted as Niuniu’s cousin and senior from the same university as the Six Dorm Brothers. Moreover, this statuesque beauty is the most low-key of the 24 applicants this time. When Murphy saw her application questionnaire, he was stunned by the “National First-Class Athlete” certificate she attached. If Niuniu is considered a junior martial artist, then this tall girl counts as an advanced one. A real deal. Among the remaining 8 little players are Meow King’s cousin “Don’t Need Hands to Show Off”, one of the middle-aged duo’s old friend “Half Off With Full Coverage”, as well as some classmates of the Six Dorm Brothers from different majors. There are also two guys who are Niuniu’s juniors from the Physical Education department, who Murphy figured might be useful, so he went ahead and pulled rank to bring them in as well. Speaking of which, the differences between students and working adults are quite obvious. On one side, Tiger Leopard Rider brothers and the Airsoft Four are already addressing each other as brothers and arranging offline meetups while loudly quarreling. On the other side, the six students are secretly eyeing Sister Pomegranate’s long legs, faces reddening when she glances their way. You guys are blushing like a teapot! Tsk! Are college students this innocent nowadays? You should be going up to assert dominance and slobber all over her right now, what are you waiting for? “Ahem!” Seeing that if he didn’t say something, these little players would start moving freely, Murphy coughed a few times to draw their attention to himself, putting aside the wondrous thoughts in his mind. I reckon his company will go belly up within a month tops, but getting paid for slacking a month is still a good deal, right?” “Sister, this is a game, don’t talk about real stuff.” Niuniu completely ignored her attempt at conversation. He took out the weapon and armor he had used previously from his spirit pouch and equipped them for his big sis, then casually asked: “Sister, take a look at your player interface, get a grasp of your character’s talents so you can pick a development path. This game is very open-ended, you can do whatever you want.” “Oh, let me see.” Following Niuniu’s guidance, Sister Pomegranate opened the computation bead in her hand. After some contemplation, she asked: “Why do I have four character talents? Is this character busted or something?” “What?” Niuniu, who was busy strapping a leather armor belt for his sister, was so startled he nearly choked her. This earned him another beating from the formidable big sis. But the implication in this fierce sister’s words was a bit scary. Currently, the player with the highest combat stats, Niuniu, only has two character strengths, which already astounded players. Yet Sister Pomegranate has four talents right off the bat, she’s undoubtedly a “chosen one”. “How can there be four!” Niuniu leaned over to look and found that his sister’s four strengths were quite fitting, the same as his【Athletic Master】and【Pugilist】, plus【Swift as a Rabbit】which increases attack speed, and【Supple Dancer】which increases passive evasion rate. Although little players all have a starting attribute total of 30, and Sister Pomegranate can’t just randomly add points no matter how powerful she is, with just these four character talents her combat prowess is almost unmatched among all current little players, with huge potential that even made Murphy take a few extra glances. Players only get an 18 point attribute increase per major level bracket, with levels within the same bracket not increasing absolute strength. Given the current highest player level is only 7, aside from skills, everyone’s combat power doesn’t actually differ qualitatively. If Sister Pomegranate really went all out, she could probably take on four opponents barehanded without breaking a sweat. “This character sheet is just too absurd!” The former student-athlete was shaken. But then he recalled that this is a realism-focused game, and his big sister was a former national first-class athlete, so having such exaggerated initial strengths was understandable. “Yours is a chosen template. Come, let me get you familiarized with the combat system first. As strong as you are at fighting, sis, this game is very realistic, so get mentally prepared.” Niuniu led his sister towards the city. As she walked, Sister Pomegranate looked around and quickly noticed two sheds nearby, four people lying in one, and a girl in the other. “Huh? In this game, are there actually other female players besides me?” She asked curiously. Niuniu immediately introduced: “That’s Sister Lumina, a very cool and formidable international student, wicked with guns. She rescued 13 people in the city last night and has already been hailed as the ‘Heroine’ by the militias.” “Hmm, she does seem worth getting to know then.” Sister Pomegranate became interested right away, rubbing her hands eagerly as she followed her little brother to hunt monsters. As a high-quality human female, she originally had no interest in playing games. Filling out the application was purely out of boredom, plus her little brother’s incessant hyping. But after coming in, she found this game to be unexpectedly decent. At the very least, the realism aspect is on point! Since she’s getting paid at that dumb boss’s place anyway, might as well treat this as a reward for some leisure time. The first 28 years of her life were a bit tiring, so it’s only right to relax now. —— Murphy was busy. As soon as he sent the little players off, he slipped away into Vault No.1 in the outer city, taking out a few things he had prepared from his spirit pouch and casually placing them in the corners of this now emptied treasury. After finishing, Murphy clapped his hands, satisfied with the arrangement before him. “These will be the ‘drops’ for the instance dungeon tomorrow. For the remaining five days, I need to prepare ‘random drops’ for the three treasury instances two to three times per day, and also give them proof tokens to open the doors.” The vampire took out three blood vials, letting a drop of blood from his fingertip split into three and slide into the vials to give to the players to open the treasury doors. At their current monster clearing speed, this area should be mostly clear of Astral Realm shadows in three days. These masterwork recruit-grade gear and weapons casually placed in the treasury are meant as a “surprise” for the newly joined little players. If all goes well, each will get two pieces. Of course, what they get each day depends on Murphy’s mood. This is normal. In instance dungeons, what kind of true “random drops” are there? It’s all just NPCs secretly carrying extra weight, the stuff in those treasure chests you paid exorbitant prices for in the black market was just snuck in ahead of time by NPCs, right? Murphy’s backroom operations here are just paying homage to his industry predecessors. Of course, if the little players run their mouths and provoke Murphy, then don’t blame the vampire lord for being ruthless and just putting a bunch of junk in here instead. He did say he’s quite petty!