Chapter 65:

TigerLeopardRiderSoldier: 【Damn! New quest again? Some of us are still waiting to resurrect. Brothers, take it slow, leave some soup for us to drink.】 TigerLeopardRider: 【Yeah, yeah. Brother Onboard Joy Stick told us to come do some business, but this? Very poor gaming experience. All the fault of the incompetent commander, can’t even prepare basic equipment for us, just making us tank monsters with our physical bodies? @Onboard Joy Stick, where is your conscience!】 NorthForestDog’sPaddle: 【Strongly recommend offline PK against Brother Stick. Brothers who want to join, sign up with me! I know where his house is, already buying tickets. Let’s charge, brothers! We’ll ambush him at the community gate and give him a beat down! If we move fast enough, we can still make it for the resurrection in a day and a half.】 TigerLeopardRiderLin: 【I’m in! I can provide lube too, but Brother Dog, can you reimburse the travel expenses? It’s a bit far for me to get there.】 In the new group pulled by Meow King and Brother Stick, the unlucky guys who died came in swinging curses, giving Brother Stick a huge headache, though he was also at fault. The reasoning is simple. When you invite brothers to play a game, preparing some startup funds for them is basic etiquette, right? The brothers gave you face by filling out applications to join, but ended up being scammed to death. Don’t blame the brothers for flaming you then. However, the group Brother Stick had Meow King pull wasn’t for discussing this. OnboardJoyStick: 【Quiet down! This group is for discussing serious business. @Meow King, I suddenly feel our mindset for this game is flawed. The guild experience from other games can’t be applied to《Reality Realm》at all. If we keep doing this, the two of us will probably suffer big time. We need to change our thinking quickly.】 MeowKing: 【I have the same feeling. Ever since we started preparing for a team, everything has been going wrong. Brother Stick, elaborate on your thoughts.】 OnboardJoyStick: 【The reasoning is simple. Right now, who is the biggest force among our group of players? Not me, not you, but Dump Truck Iaido and his two friends. The NPCs under their control add up to over 400. If each of them just grabs a stick, they could bury us ten times over. So I think at this stage when there are still few players, we can put our recruitment plans on hold. Let’s build up our own reputations first. Even if there are more players later, establishing a large force would still be inseparable from NPC support.】 EastRiverLion’sRoar: 【That’s not right, is it Brother Stick? NPCs can’t resurrect after dying, so they’re bound to be no match for players.】 MeowKing: 【What you’re talking about are the ‘artificial idiots’ from other games that can’t even path around terrain. Not the smart, astute NPCs in this game. The NPCs here, although they can’t resurrect either, their behavior logic is even more precise than us players. I heard you guys got terrain-blocked by two water ghosts in the sewers today and almost got team wiped. Just from this you can see that the NPCs and monsters in this game are not stupid at all. As long as logistics and protection are ensured, the NPCs won’t die easily. But this also means you can’t treat them as cannon fodder to zerg rush mobs. If pushed into a corner, they might even rebel and turn against us on the battlefield. So I think the future large guild mode should be a combination of players + NPCs. NPCs handle the ordinary and low-intensity confrontations, while the hard battles and vanguard rely on the fearless players. This means we need to start laying the groundwork now.】 EastRiverLion’sRoar: 【Be more specific, Brother Meow, give an example.】 OnboardJoyStick: 【This is exactly what I mean. In the current situation where the faction reputations haven’t opened yet, we urgently need to raise Favor with some key NPCs. Like Maxim’s civilian militia, like Miriam’s survivor camp, I estimate once we reach a certain Favor level, we can recruit NPC soldiers from them. Though with how hardcore this game is, I bet even if we recruit them we’ll still have to train them.】 MeowKing: 【Right! That’s the idea. For high-level NPCs like vampires, we’ll probably have to recruit from the young ladies or Lord Murphy. My suggestion is to stop the guild preparations for now and push the story progression! The faster we progress, the quicker the game function testing will go, and the quicker our personal strengths will improve. At the very least we can’t fall out of the T1 ranks, otherwise we won’t have any influence among the player group. Additionally, that Sister Pomegranate is an enigma. She’s pulled all the student players to her side. But those pure-hearted students are single-mindedly grinding monsters, so their strengths are high. So let’s divide the work. Brother Stick, your buddies are low level, go to the survivor camp and do some grunt work. I’ll take my brothers to grind Favor with the civilian militia. Let’s cooperate for now instead of scheming against each other.】 TigerLeopardRiderSoldier: 【Come on! We didn’t come here to do grunt work in-game! How are we supposed to get combat experience without fighting?】 MeowKing: 【Facepalm. Brother Stick, could you at least explain this game’s basic mechanics to your brothers? Always thinking about fighting, fighting. This game doesn’t give experience for killing monsters. Hmm, wait, I think I know why you guys died so quickly.】 OnboardJoyStick: 【It’s my fault! All my fault. Let me explain to these newbies right now. @all members, in this game, leveling up doesn’t rely on killing monsters. Your job level increases based on the proficiency of your main skills. Your character level increases based on your current mastery of your respective strengths and skills. In other words, the speed at which you randomly swing a sword around won’t be slower than mindlessly hacking away at a monster pile. If you practice wholeheartedly, it might even be faster. Doing chores and labor can also help you better control your character’s strengths. Theoretically, this is actually a good, safe and fast way to level up.】 MeowKing: 【Reading books is important too! So she let out a scream to psych herself up, raised her sword and rushed forward, only to unsurprisingly be batted down by the Astral Wolf’s paw. She had already closed her eyes awaiting death when she suddenly heard a whistling object smash into something nearby, followed by the Astral Wolf’s pitiful whimpers. Lumina opened her eyes, dusted herself off and looked up to see the towering figure of Precipitation Niuniu jumping down from a nearby wall, his crimson crest shield having slammed into the wolf’s feet. But this was no “heroic rescue.” Because behind Niuniu followed a slender, long-legged girl with long hair wearing strange crimson knuckle-dusters. “Lumina Yanghen?” Sister Pomegranate confidently walked over to Lumina, friendly extending a hand to pull her up and getting straight to the point: “As the only two female players in the game, I think we should get acquainted.” Lumina didn’t say anything. She brushed the dust off herself while observing Sister Pomegranate. From this girl’s demeanor, she could tell she was definitely no ordinary person in the real world either. “Thanks.” Lumina politely responded, but was thrown off in the next second when Sister Pomegranate shrugged and said: “No need to thank me. Niuniu and I were about to log off anyway. We came over after seeing the coordinates on World Channel specifically to rescue you. I quite like you, Lumina. Why don’t you join my team?” “Uh, no thanks.” Lumina waved her hands and said: “I don’t do guilds, I’m just casually playing this game. Plus I have friends who might join in the next batch, we agreed to play together.” “Alright, then how about I join you guys?” Sister Pomegranate hit her with another line, then remarked with pursed lips under Lumina’s surprised gaze: “Playing with a bunch of half-grown kids offers no gaming experience at all. They’d even blush if I told a dirty joke. If your girls’ team is still recruiting, I could join you all. I don’t actually want to do any guilds either, I just find this game quite interesting. Interesting in every way, if you know what I mean?” “Oh, a troublemaker, I get it.” Lumina hesitated briefly. She glanced at the dashing Sister Pomegranate, then asked a very strange question: “What’s your IQ?” “Huh?” Now it was the usually unpredictable Sister Pomegranate’s turn to be thrown off. She gave Lumina an odd look and said: “What? There’s an IQ requirement to join you guys?” “Yeah.” Lumina nodded seriously: “It’s a basic requirement. Don’t look at me like that, when I joined them before I also had to take a test. It’s not a rule I made, I’m just a pretty ordinary person among us. Sister Concrete requires us not to play with idiots, even in a game.” “Uhhh, sounds interesting!” Sister Pomegranate grew more interested, saying: “I’ve never tested my IQ, but I don’t think I’m dumb.” “Alright, I’ll send you a test after logging off.” Lumina happily extended her hand to Sister Pomegranate: “135 and above can join us. I’m trying to convince Sister Concrete to play with us too. If she comes, she’ll be the leader of our little team. If she doesn’t come, then it’ll be me.” “Then let me lead you all instead.” Sister Pomegranate laughed heartily, extending her hand to forcibly pull Lumina into an embrace using her height advantage, making the little girl blush as she pushed her away. She wasn’t used to such close physical contact with the same gender. “Hey, Sister Lumina, come over and finish it off!” Ahead, Niuniu had beaten the Astral Wolf to an inch of its life with his fists and called back to Lumina: “This is the rare monster you found. Hurry up, maybe you’ll even get lucky and loot materials. Sis! Let go of her, reign in your crazy antics, you’re going to scare her. Every time I come out with you, it’s so embarrassing.”