Conquering OtherWorld Starts With a Game

Chapter 23.2: Lord of Taranthan's Reputation

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 maintain until a player's Potential value increases by about 30% of the initial.

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. Unrecyclable 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 all the same!

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 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 also 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 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."

That's 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 clacking 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.