Standing to the side, [I Am Not Jiahao] silently adjusted his proud center-parted bangs, his voice trembling slightly.
“That monster’s blade…
was too fast.”
“My core logic couldn’t even calculate how it swung.”
“Come on, Jiahao.
Your core logic probably can’t even block a monster’s basic attack.”
[Passing Pure Love God of War] rolled his eyes.
Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he opened his system panel.
One glance was enough to send his blood pressure through the roof.
“Brothers…
check your status.”
“We used up all our free revives in that last wave.”
Everyone sucked in a breath.
“Holy crap!
Are we really out of lives?”
Maluo slapped his thigh in panic.
“I didn’t even touch a single hair on those mobs!
Now I’ve got zero Ash Coins and zero lives!
If I die again, will my character really be deleted and I’ll have to start from scratch?”
Bigshot also pulled two pebbles from his pocket, looking bitter.
“I joined in earlier and managed to smash two mobs to death, so I got a share of two coins.
But a revive costs ten coins.
We’re nowhere close.”
The atmosphere inside the church instantly grew heavy.
Meanwhile, Lynn had witnessed the players’ lightning-fast wipeout from atop the altar.
Though he remained as calm as a stone on the outside, internally, he was panicking like a wild horse.
Is it really that dangerous outside?
Lynn looked at the five dispirited players who had just been resurrected and began to worry.
They hadn’t even been outside for ten minutes before the monsters had chopped them down like vegetables and sent them straight back here.
Worse, they had already used up their only trump card: their free revives.
Adding up all five players’ savings, they could barely scrape together enough for a single ten-coin revive.
Now that they had neither lives nor money, would they be too afraid to leave the safe zone?
If these wage slaves decided to AFK in the church—or worse, quit the game entirely because it was too difficult—wouldn’t his newly established faith-value supply chain collapse on the spot?
Should I…
give each of them a server-crash compensation package and grant them another revive?
Lynn frantically calculated the pros and cons in his mind.
But reason told him no.
Changing game mechanics on a whim was a cardinal sin for a game operator!
It would completely destroy the players’ immersive experience.
Especially for a brand-new game that had just launched.
The players had barely begun to immerse themselves in the world.
If he started handing out cheats in the beginner village, wouldn’t that ruin everything?
How could the players trust the game’s rules in the future?
Besides, Lynn knew exactly what kind of degenerates the Fourth Calamity players were.
If he gave them a free revive today, tomorrow they’d dare to dance right in front of an elite monster’s face.
Then they’d come crying to him for another compensation package.
Once that floodgate opened, there would be no stopping it.
“Let’s wait and see for now.
If things really get bad, I’ll go easy on them.”
Lynn finally calmed himself down.
However, he had still vastly underestimated the mental strength and resilience of the creatures known as the Fourth Calamity.
Just then, [Ji Luo], who had been standing below, also composed himself.
“Brothers, listen to me.”
He clapped his hands to gather everyone’s attention.
“We can’t go to that Abandoned Village for now.
That elite monster is clearly a regional mini-Boss, and its mechanics are far too powerful for us to handle at our current stage.”
“But don’t forget, we didn’t just take mob-killing quests!”
“That’s right!”
[Passing Pure Love God of War]’s eyes lit up.
“That daily quest we just saw, [Sanctuary of the God], was about building a house for the NPC!”
[Ji Luo] analyzed the situation calmly.
“The reward is a full ten Ash Coins!
That’s exactly enough for one revive!”
The moment he said this, the gloom in Maluo’s eyes vanished, replaced by the hungry gleam of a wolf.
“So Boss means…
we don’t go outside and just build infrastructure inside the safe zone?”
“Exactly!”
[Ji Luo] snapped his fingers.
“It’s dangerous outside, but there shouldn’t be any powerful monsters near the safe zone, right?
We’ll chop trees and build houses around the church!
Let me secure those ten baseline Ash Coins first!”
“Once we have those ten coins as our revival fund, we’ll be able to go wild in the wilderness again without any worries.”
“This is what you call: infrastructure lays the foundation, while jungling makes us rich!”
Maluo immediately nodded aggressively.
“Well said!
As long as our minds don’t falter, there are always more solutions than problems!
We can’t mess with the Boss, but can’t we bully trees that can’t move?”
“Roll up our sleeves and get to work!
For our safety net!”
Bigshot nodded heavily, adopting the posture of an old farmer preparing to work the fields.
Even [I Am Not Jiahao], who had been striking poses the entire time, muttered softly.
“I suppose this fits the primitive stage of capital accumulation.”
Seeing the group regain their fighting spirit after just a few words, Lynn finally breathed a sigh of relief from inside the divine statue.
Good thing I didn’t give them another revive.
It seemed these players had their own strategies after all!
Therefore, as a good game designer, the most important thing was to never try to teach players how to play the game!
Letting players discover different playstyles on their own was the healthiest gaming ecosystem.
“Brothers, let’s move!
Time to get to work!”
[Passing Pure Love God of War] took the lead, grandly guiding the other four players out of the dilapidated church and toward the edge of the gloomy Black Forest behind it.
Calling it the edge of the Black Forest was already being generous.
They were still several miles away from the terrifying core region.
Standing before several crooked, twisted trees with dark bark, the five players fell silent for a moment.
“This game…
doesn’t even give us a beginner’s axe.
How are we supposed to punch trees?”
Maluo walked around one of the trees and scratched at its tough bark with his hands.
In traditional MMORPGs, you simply walked up to a tree and pressed a “Gather” button, after which the wood would automatically enter your inventory.
But in this 100% immersive virtual world of Ancient God Awakening, there were no such convenient prompt buttons.
[Passing Pure Love God of War] stared at the tree for two seconds.
Then the blood of an anime protagonist suddenly awakened within him.
“So what if we don’t have axes?
Have you guys played Minecraft?”
“Trees are punched out with your bare hands!”
With that, he shouted, dropped into a solid horse stance, raised a fist the size of a sandbag, and slammed it against the thick trunk.
“Thwack!”
A dull impact echoed through the forest.
Silence.
“Ow!
Ow!
Holy shit!
It’s broken!
My fingers are broken!”
Clutching his bright red right hand, [Passing Pure Love God of War] hopped around frantically like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, tears almost shooting from his eyes.
A tiny red number even floated above his head.
[-1]
“You idiot!”
[Ji Luo] covered his face.
“This is 100% full-immersion VR!
Do you think you’re playing a block game?
Have you never heard of reaction force?”
“It fucking hurts!
Did this trash game crank the pain feedback all the way up?!”
[Passing Pure Love God of War] shook his injured hand, tears glistening in his eyes.
“Since we can’t chop trees with our bare hands, we’ll just use tools.”
Bigshot truly lived up to his reputation as a man of action.
He quietly backed away several steps before hauling over a large, sharp-edged blue brick from the ruins.
“In this game, as long as you’re strong enough, anything can be used as a tool.
Follow my lead!”
Bigshot took a deep breath, lifted the massive brick—which weighed more than ten pounds—and viciously smashed it against the base of the tree.
“Crack!”
A gap appeared in the hard bark, sending woodchips flying.
“It works!”
Maluo’s eyes lit up.
“Brothers, grab your tools and let’s beat this thing to death!”