The old woman looked at him with hollow eyes devoid of any spirit, her mouth once again repeating what she’d said before… the one difference being that the number she named this time was…
10,000!
“Ding… The Sealed Old Woman asks you to help her gather 10,000 wolf eyes. Quest type: Ordinary. Time limit: None. Quest reward: Unknown. Accept?”
Were it not for the basic principle that you must never anger an NPC in the game world, he’d have loved to spit out two words in the flattest possible tone: “Drop dead.”
Earlier, he’d even calmly assumed that 1,000 wolf eyes ought to be the final stage of this chain quest — and that even if it wasn’t, the most it could climb to was 2,000; there was no way it would reach 10,000. Because a novice player’s fifty-slot backpack simply couldn’t hold a quantity as enormous as 10,000, which meant no one could possibly complete this quest at all… unless someone could reach a city, find a way to expand their backpack capacity enough to hold 10,000 wolf eyes, then actually go gather 10,000 of them, then drop their level back below 10 and die their way back to the novice village to complete it.
Ten wolf eyes gave 10 experience and 1 silver; 100 wolf eyes gave 100 experience and 1 gold… so would the reward for 10,000 be 10,000 experience plus 100 gold? If that really was the case, whoever designed this quest could go straight to hell.
“Accept.” Ye Tianxie said the word with perfect composure and turned to leave. He was afraid that for every extra second he lingered, the old woman would be one degree closer to the danger of being hacked to death by the Hour of Eternal Fate.
And that very night, a thread titled “The Most Disgusting Quest in Novice Village No. 60001” appeared on Fate‘s Huaxia Region forums. In the most grief-and-indignation-filled language, the post laid out the whole process of this wolf-eye collection chain quest, then, in the most venomous language, paid its respects to the quest NPC — that pitiful old woman — and the quest’s designer down to ten generations of ancestors. The instant it appeared, the post set off a flood of replies from countless Novice Village No. 60001 players who’d suffered brutally at this quest’s hands. Indeed, when — after untold hardship and toil, hearts brimming with excitement — they’d finally gathered 1,000 wolf eyes and handed them to the old woman, the quest’s reward and the hint for the next stage had nearly made every one of them vomit three liters of blood on the spot. Later, a reply from a certain “gaming expert” finally put the matter to rest: “Everyone chill out. You lot haven’t grasped the essence of this quest at all. This lovely quest is designed to raise everyone’s Gathering skill… See, haven’t all you friends who completed it noticed your Gathering skill has gone up quite a bit?”
Over the next few days, the most popular line in Novice Village No. 60001 was: whoever takes that old woman’s wolf-eye quest is a certified idiot.
And so, that old woman with the sealed lower body became the most woebegone NPC of all. The other novice village NPCs were always ringed three layers deep by their “sons and daughters,” while she alone sat neglected beneath that crook-necked tree, all alone, no one knowing what she was thinking.
But to some of the experts in Novice Village No. 60001 — those with rich gaming experience and a keen nose — this seemingly prank-like quest wasn’t something they simply ignored the way nearly every other player did. Would the World of Fate really arrange a quest of this nature? What’s more, that old woman gave off an indescribable strangeness at every turn; perhaps a hidden quest lay concealed within her after all.
Not everyone gave up on the quest. Some had already begun scheming to have the players under them expand their backpacks in the city, then die their way back to the novice village to complete it… They were waiting for an enormous surprise.
……
……
Seven days passed.
Today was already the ninth day since Fate‘s opening. Over these days, the number of players entering the World of Fate surged higher with each passing day, and the increasingly jaw-dropping figures spelled out a miracle in the history of virtual online gaming. Even those so-called experts and scholars who’d rated Fate extremely highly before its launch were crying out “unbelievable.”
And in eight days, the average player level, climbing steadily, had at last drawn near Level 10. Those never-log-out powerhouses and gaming fanatics had all pushed their levels up to 10 one after another — the level at which, after passing the novice class-advancement trial, one could be teleported out of the novice village to a great city to advance their class. But the strange thing was that, up to now, while the number of powerhouses across the entire Huaxia Region who’d reached Level 10 was hardly small, not a single one had yet advanced their class.
The World of Fate‘s drop rate was extremely low, making it very hard to open up gaps in equipment. At present, anyone with even a single Bronze-grade item would draw envious, jealous, hateful stares wherever they went, and as for Silver-grade items… even out of the whole world’s enormous player base of several billion, those who owned one numbered no more than ten. Add to that the completely identical starting point in the game’s early stage, and it became difficult for large level gaps to open up between players. But those who could take the lead and reach Level 10 under such conditions only proved themselves true powerhouses. And powerhouses hold themselves to exacting standards; they would never allow themselves to start a length behind others at a new starting point.
A procedure that must be passed to leave the novice village — the novice class-advancement trial… Easy, Normal, Hard, Nightmare, Abyss. Different trial difficulties meant entirely different rewards:
Easy: upon passing, each of the four basic attributes +1.
Normal: upon passing, each of the four basic attributes +2.
Hard: upon passing, each of the four basic attributes +3, Luck +1.
Nightmare: upon passing, each of the four basic attributes +4, Luck +1, Charm +1. One random Level 10 Bronze-grade piece of equipment.
Abyss: upon passing, each of the four basic attributes +5, Luck +1, Comprehension +1, Charm +1, and you will obtain a Novice Village Hero’s Badge. The names of all heroes who pass the Abyss-tier trial will be publicly announced by the system across the entire battle zone, and forever recorded on the novice village Hero Roll.
Every difficulty tier of the trial meant the granting of at least 4 basic attribute points. And if one person passed the Easy trial while another passed the Abyss trial, the attribute gap between them would be a full 16 basic attribute points and 3 fixed attribute points. The basic-attribute gap would take a lead of more than three levels to barely make up, while the fixed-attribute gap was next to impossible to close at all.
No one wanted to fall behind others at this new starting point, and so those powerhouses banded together and went, without hesitation, to attempt the Abyss-tier trial… Abyss — it meant that once you set foot inside, there was basically no hope of coming out alive. But the temptation of this difficulty tier was likewise immense: 20 free attribute points, 3 fixed attribute points, and a badge of unknown attributes. Badges were among the hardest special equipment to obtain, and at the same time the equipment every player craved most. This was because a badge not only generally carried special attributes other gear didn’t have, but — more importantly — a badge could be worn without limit, with no cap on quantity whatsoever. If you had the ability to obtain a hundred badges, you could absolutely wear all hundred at once. And this likewise showed just how hard badge-type equipment was to come by.
And then there was an opportunity to make one’s name known across the world — everyone who passed the Abyss-tier trial would be publicly announced across the entire battle zone, and forever recorded on the novice village Hero Roll.
(End of Chapter 32)