Jiang Chen and the others had already finished the quest line.
According to their story progress, in their world, Ling Huai went off with the little gremlin to treat his ailments. As such, no matter what they threw into the river, it was useless. However, other players haven’t started this story quest yet, so they can still summon the NPC.
After accepting the first mission from Ling Huai, they needed to go to the Main City to find the designated person. For the moment, Fractured Star City was packed with people.
However, when Jiang Chen and the others were playing the last part of the quest, there were plenty of players observing on the bridge. A lot of people recorded videos and could tell that one of the NPCs was dressed as a city guard. Therefore, they went specifically to converse with the city guards.
Only one person from a small squad had a sharp eye and discovered the guard looked like Indulge’s old man gatekeeper and ran over there.
The game’s programming logic was very strict.
Judging from the feedback of the other nine servers, if the old man gatekeeper is not hired, he climbs the roof of the city guard’s dormitory.
After being hired, because Jiang Chen and the others were members of his guild, he climbs the roof of his guild member’s dormitory. If it were some outsider, he climbed the roof of the guest house.
When Avian Ruler logged in today, he looked up and immediately saw their old man gatekeeper sitting on the roof crying while being surrounded by four players silently watching him.
He gave a sympathetic and pained look at the old man and went to clear a dungeon with a friend. When he returned, he saw the old man still crying.
After that, he went to the Main City’s shop to buy some items. When he returned, the old man was still crying. Somewhat unable to bear the sight, he ran out to wander around for a while, only returning after hearing Love Escapist say he was going to hold a meeting. When he entered the door, he saw the players howling together with the old man.
“Is there a fucking end for you?!”
“You’ve already cried for an entire morning. Are you trying to be Meng JiangNu, who collapsed a part of the Great Wall of China crying three days and nights?”
“Real men don’t cry so easily, so easily. You should be done by now.”
“Drink a bit more wine. Hurry up and finish drinking this wine so we can talk business!”
Avian Ruler: “…….”
Seeing him in the yard, the four players instantly cried even more tragically.
“What’s going on? Did we do something wrong?”
“Saving a life is more meritorious than building a seven story pagoda. Can you give us a hint? Did we buy fake wine?”
Avian Ruler was pretty honest: “Our deputy guild leader is calling for a meeting. Perhaps it’s to discuss the old man. You guys wait a moment.”
Afraid of being soft-hearted, he entered the conference room after saying this, leaving the players to continue wailing on the roof.
When Jiang Chen and Fang JingXing returned, this was the scene that greeted them.
Their hearts were much more resolute than Avian Ruler’s. Completely ignoring the pleas for help from up above, they went straight through the garden and walked off without even looking back.
Love Escapist was already there and indicated for them to sit wherever they wanted.
When the online guild members were pretty much all present, he started today’s main topic and asked: “You guys all saw the old man at the entrance, right?”
The guild members nodded their heads in unison.
Gou Cheng said: “Looks like it’s the shadow clone mechanic. So how come he didn’t stay at the entrance last time?”
The so-called shadow clone mechanic is when the NPC creates shadow clones to cooperate with players in story quests.
In Wandering Dreams, some story quests require the assistance of NPCs to complete.
But if the NPC leaves with a player and another player comes to accept the mission from them, wouldn’t they end up finding no one?
As a result, to prevent this from happening, the shadow clone mechanic is utilized. The NPC accompanying the player on the quest will have a temporary ID of squad XX‘s [name].
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
For example, a bunch of players throw shoes inside the river. This results in a bunch of squad XX's Ling Huais.
Similarly, the old man gatekeeper can’t just serve one squad and make the rest of the squads queue up and wait until he finishes crying. As such, he also follows this mechanic.
That’s to say, after the 4-man squad outside acquired the mission, went off to buy wine, and came back, they could no longer see their squad’s old man gatekeeper at the door because the clone that they had established the story quest with already climbed onto the roof. However, if another squad came over, they’d still see a NPC at the entrance.
But last time when the two Ace were playing, the old man gatekeeper had no shadow clone. None of the guild members could see him at the gates.
Love Escapist said: “I feel like it’s due to the employment.”
He had spent money to hire the city guard to serve the guild.
If a member has an issue, seeks the old man gatekeeper for help, and leads him over to the garden, the other members naturally won’t be able to find him at the gates. As such, last time when Fang JingXing and the others were doing the quest, it was similarly categorized within the limits of providing service to the guild.
In other words, if outsiders accept this mission, the NPC can still be seen at the gates at all times.
But if small squads in their own guild are doing this mission, these squads can only line up and wait for the old man gatekeeper to finish crying.
Avian Ruler said: “Now this is a bit immoral.”
5cum said: “Every advantage has its disadvantage. How can we encounter every good thing out there?”
Fang JingXing rubbed his chin: “Then when a lot of people accept this mission in the future, the roof will be covered with shadow clones?”
The group thought about this for a moment and then instantly felt horrified.
Even though other people can’t converse with squad XX’s NPC, they can still be seen.
Then once the news of the old man gatekeeper spreads, countless squads will come over to converse with the old man and countless shadow clones will appear on the roof. If all of these shadow clones cried at the same time…… 500 ducks won’t even be able to compete with that.
Xie ChengYan could experience the noise just thinking about it. He asked: “What’s your plan?”
Love Escapist said: “I have two options. One, I fire him and he can cry wherever he wants in the future, returning our peace and quiet. Two……”
He smiled and looked at them: “I will move him to our warehouse and order him to guard our warehouse, then make this news public.”
Everyone: “……”
Too vicious!
If you must know, outsiders couldn’t enter without their permission.
Unable to enter also meant that they cannot converse with the NPC. Unable to converse with the NPC, the quest will get stuck at this stage.
Fang JingXing said with a smile: “You plan to charge tickets?”
Love Escapist said: “Not much, only 5 gold. The money collected will be used as our guild’s funds.”
He looked around: “Vote, which one do you guys want?”
Everyone spoke unanimously: “2!”
The servers were usually rowdiest right after launch. Because of the presence of the two Aces, Mercury Reflects Fate was the server with the most players at the moment.
With this many people doing the quest, even if they formed squads, it’s a huge sum of money to receive 5 gold from each squad.
“Then let him cry!”
“In the words of my father. Go ahead and cry. It’s not a sin for men to cry.”
“Worst comes to worst, I just won’t come back for the moment, to avoid hearing the noise.”
“Me too.”
After they spoke, they fell silent. Immediately, they realized a serious problem.
“Wait, if none of us are willing to return, who will collect the money?”
“Not to mention, what if we encounter something that requires collective involvement, and players just happen to come to do the quest at the same time. If they discover there’s no one to collect the money, won’t they curse us? We can’t always leave someone behind to watch the guild, right?”
“Right. What if some night owl is doing the quest at 3 o’clock in the morning, what then?”
Love Escapist said: “That’s something to think about in the future. Let me take advantage of this wave of enthusiasm to collect some money first. Once all our guild members complete the mission, and pretty much all of the money has been collected, I can fire him.”
Everyone felt this was reasonable and instantly gave their admirable deputy guild leader a round of applause.
Love Escapist said with a smile: “Then let’s arrange shifts. Not too much. Everyone will be on duty for one hour.”
No one had any objections.
It’s just listening to 500 ducks crying. For this sum of money, there’s nothing they couldn’t tolerate.
If it really doesn’t work out, they can just block the game’s sound effects. Not to mention, they will be guarding the gates. Perhaps they won’t even hear the activity inside.
After the crowd finished discussing, they dispersed happily.
Love Escapist went to change location for the old man gatekeeper and then sent out a message.
[Horn] Love Escapist: The first part of Ling Huai’s quest is to search for a city guard in the Main City, a NPC named Kirk. After talking to him, buy him wine and come back to kick him off the roof. Then you can successfully proceed to the next part of the quest [screenshot][screenshot][screenshot]
The players in the Main City were all searching for this NPC to the point of almost having mental breakdowns. Seeing this, they hastily clicked into the pictures and discovered that a small 4-man squad had already received the mission and was currently sitting on the roof with the NPC. Instantly, their eyes were filled with tears of excitement.
[World] Flames of War: Oh fuck!
[World] Stunted: Oh fuck, what a generous person!
[World] Ninety-nine: Thank you, Ace [Weep]
[World] I Like Summer: People from Indulge are really too amazing!
[World] The Person in the Mirror: Why do I not believe this?
[World] Gloomy and Annoyed: Are you blind? Can’t you see the images?
[World] Book Collection: In the past, I’ve always heard that Indulge was a group of weirdos and salted fish. Now it looks like that’s not the case at all. It’s hard to be a good person in this kind of world. It must be large guilds like you guys who slandered them!
[World] The Person in the Mirror: …….Are there any from large guilds who want to come out and cry as a group?
[World] Love Takes Precedent: [Weeps]
[World] Hamster Ball: Aces, ignore these petty villains. Look at me. Begging you please tell me the location of this NPC [starry eyes]
[Horn] Love Escapist: This is a very good question. This NPC has long been employed by me. He’s our guild’s gatekeeper, but now I’ve moved him to guard the storage room. If you want to enter our gates, you must acquire our permission. The entry ticket, 5 gold.
The entire server: “……”
Fuck!
[World] The Person in the Mirror: [Lighting a cigarette wearily]
[World] Book Collection: I was wrong. The rumors were indeed true [Bawling]
[World] Sunny and Clear: You guys are holding the entire server hostage here!
[World] Until the End of Times: Shameless, I’m reporting you guys!
[World] Gou Cheng: We used real gold to hire the old man gatekeeper. Since he can be employed, he has to listen to our arrangements.
[World] Sprouting Old WuTong: That’s right. What guidelines did we break?
[World] Negative One Meter: Does Savant Initiate know what you guys are doing?
[Horn] Love Escapist: He knows. He said to collect 15 gold, but I felt that’s not very good. If you guys miss him so much, how about I tell him to get online and let him set the price.
[World] Ninety-nine: Don’t!
[World] 5cum: Why didn’t you say that before?
[World] Deep Love and Longevity: We can break even, 10 gold.
[World] I like Summer: Shameless [Bawling]
[World] The Person in the Mirror: As expected of you guys [thumbs up]
Watching them haggling over prices in chat, Jiang Chen glanced at the guild members’ information.
RuYi was established by two people.
The Guild Leader, Ru Chu (Savant Initiate), and the Deputy Guild Leader, Yi XinRen (Love Escapist).
But after the days they joined, they’ve never seen the guild leader log in.
Savant Initiate was still level 35, as if he had only leveled until he was qualified to leave the realm to establish a guild, and then after completing this task, he just went off and stopped taking part in anything.
Jiang Chen asked: “What’s going on with the guild leader? Do you know?”
Fang JingXing said: “He’s been busy lately. You should be able to see him in a few days.”
He explained in detail: “He’s stronger than A-Yi, but doesn’t really manage things. Even when he’s online, most of the time A-Yi takes charge of things.”
Jiang Chen said ‘oh’ and followed him into a dungeon.
By this time, the entry ticket was settled, still at a price of 5 gold.
Love Escapist didn’t step on any of the player’s bottom-line when he set the price. Anyone could afford 5 gold. As such, it was accepted very easily.
Seeing this, the 7 big guilds beat their chests and stamped their feet.
Such a large sum of money, why were the people of Indulge so lucky!
They had clearly established their guild earlier than Indulge. If they were also vicious enough to purchase city guards instead of normal bodyguards, this money might have been theirs!
“What kind of dumb shit luck did they step in!”
“Not to mention, they had even recruited the two Aces.”
“We already know how to pass the first part, Guild Leader, so why aren’t we starting the story quest yet?”
“Wait a bit longer.”
With Total Annihilation’s taunting personality, for him to pop up several times in chat, clearly meant that there must be a pitfall in this hidden story quest.
Of course they needed to observe first and let other players step on this landmine for them. The first clear in this server was already gone anyways. So it’s fine to do it later.
They needed to shorten the time required to clear the quest and increase the amount of rewards they receive to make it worthwhile.
Plenty of people had this thought.
At this moment, in the guild “Old But Vigorous”, several members were also discussing this matter.
“Zezeze, the young people these days. Impressive.”
why do i feel like.. maybe the old guild leader might be someone who played on jiang chens old competition team? maybe he will recognize him? 🫣
+1 I think so too😌🙈🧍🏻♀️
I swear your theories are always one of the best and most accurate- 💅
Be honest, have you read the MTL? 🧐
Thank you for the chapter!!
Thanks for the update 🤣❤️
Thank you for the chapter!!! ❤❤❤
Also god knows how long the players will wait there, howling with old man gatekeeper 😂