Universe Infinite Canteen

"Character upgrades, of course we have them. Players just need to have their characters roam around the town a bit, and they'll find an Old Sorcerer named Heim. Help him collect ten Abyssal Blood Clams, and he'll tell you the path to evolution for the Skeleton Soldiers."

Baldy gestured for Happi Bear to directly give Zhen Ye ten Abyssal Blood Clams to speed up the completion of her task.

However, Happi Bear reminded, "Producer, she hasn't completed the 'bag obtaining task' to receive a bag yet, so we can't give her anything."

"Ah, you have to receive the bag too? Isn't it something you're born with?" Ma Lu said, surprised after hearing this.

"Oh, it's just that our game is rather special, striving for realism."

"Stop striving for realism, games that pursued realism are all but done with." Ma Lu said earnestly, "Although your game starts with a disc, I see that you guys care a lot about online player rates, so sticking to the online gaming routine is more suitable for you.

"Quickly arrange daily sign-ins and day-to-day tasks. Every day, just by logging in, players can get something as small as a mosquito's leg, offer something bigger after 7 consecutive days, and perhaps something slightly valuable after 30 days. Whoever keeps it up for a year gets a big reward.

"The main focus is to ensure players find a routine, of course, that's just the base. You need to keep up with more exciting developments later on…"

At this time, Zhen Ye had already reached an NPC named Quartermaster next to the Magic Circle and received the bag quest.

The task required her to collect 500 portions of Black Mud at the Mire Pond north of the small town.

Zhen Ye controlled the Skeleton Puppy and ran to the Mire Pond, where she saw Slime Monsters casually strolling and rolling about in the mud.

There were hundreds of them gathered in groups of threes and fives; some even stacked on one another, it was unclear what they were doing. At that moment, one of them opened its mouth and sneezed.

A blob of black mud flew out of its throat and landed not far from Zhen Ye. Seeing the label of "Black Mud" on it, Zhen Ye knew this was the quest item.

Thus, she maneuvered the Skeleton Puppy over, but the moment its front paw stepped into the Mire Pond, its speed drastically reduced, and a -90% movement debuff appeared above its head.

With that debuff, it took almost 10 minutes just to reach the Black Mud. Since she didn't have a bag, the Skeleton Puppy had to pick up the mud with its mouth, which made its body even heavier.

The debuff above its head then changed to -95%, making movement even more difficult.

Ma Lu's eyes widened, "The values, who input these values? They're unbelievable! Just look, does this make sense?"

Everyone turned their gaze toward Mengmengda, whose face instantly flushed red, "I... I might not have calculated seriously, but, but it shouldn't be much off."

"No, I'm not saying the debuff values displayed are different from the actual ones, I'm asking why you would input it like this?" Ma Lu helped Mengmengda do a quick calculation.

"Bro, just think about it. Zhen Ye has to spend 30 minutes to pick up one piece of Black Mud and return, and if it's further away, it's probably going to take an hour. Players are tired from a day's work or school, they come home and turn on the console.

"They spend an hour controlling a character to slowly pick up Black Mud in this Mire Pond, all in hopes of one day collecting 500 Black Mud to exchange for a backpack, which is standard in almost all games. Does this sound reasonable to you?"

Mengmengda wanted to nod and say it was reasonable, but seeing Ma Lu's expression, he swallowed the words instead and turned to look at Baldy, complaining.

"But... but the town really does need people to collect Black Mud."

Ma Lu was also amused by this, "Really, who wrote your script? Picking up Black Mud is tied to the core worldview, right?"

Little Wei was originally sitting on the sidelines, eating melon seeds and watching the excitement, but unexpectedly, the trouble landed right on his own head.

Looking around and seeing no one speaking up for him, he had no choice but to toughen up and say,

"Ah, about the Black Mud...indeed, that thing, it's really important. The main purpose of this task is... mainly to let players realize how hard labor is and to have more empathy for the workers."

Little Wei had already started talking nonsense there.

In the end, Baldy couldn't stand it anymore and took the initiative, "Black Mud is an essential material for making Rock Giants, and Rock Giants are important war weapons. Lord Aisagon has issued an order.

"He has demanded that we, uh, Red Ridge Town must deliver a certain amount of Black Mud every month, so I designed this task. However, the process is indeed a bit long, Skinny Cat, just help Miss Zhen Ye complete the task."

"Okay."

Upon receiving the order, the backend engineer Skinny Cat quickly took out a piece of parchment, wrote a few sentences with a goose feather pen, snapped his fingers, and the parchment spontaneously combusted, soon turning into a pile of ash.

Ma Lu frowned, "There's no problem with the rationale, but can't you change the setting or reduce the quantity a bit, at least drop a couple of zeros? Otherwise, if players enter the game, they won't be able to get a backpack for a whole year, which is really too discouraging."

"If you work 12 hours a day, you could get the backpack in about 20 days, not needing a year," Mengmengda chimed in today.

"Good fellow, I only talked about giving players a job, but you've gone straight to cyber-black coal kiln here. The problem is that no one would go hard in a game day and night for half a month just for a backpack."

"There still are some..." Little Wei murmured.

As soon as he finished speaking, a Skeleton Soldier, whose ID read "Liver Explosion," holding a Black Mud in each hand, started moving towards them from not far away at an incredibly slow pace.

While running, a text bubble appeared above his head, "New player? You have a pretty unique look."

Zhen Ye was still unclear about the game's PK (Player Kill) mechanism, which generally offers a protection period for newbies, but this game was different from the previous ones she had played, full of quirks everywhere.

Moreover, since the Black Mud was so difficult to obtain, Zhen Ye was worried that the other party was there to rob her, so she controlled the Skeleton Puppy to cautiously step back.

Seeing this, the Skeleton Soldier also stopped his steps, and another text bubble appeared above his head, "You don't need to worry, I won't steal your Black Mud.

"I've been grinding for 15 days now, and it's almost over in two more days."

Ma Lu took a sharp intake of breath upon seeing these words. Who was this formidable person under his command who was so fierce?

If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he truly couldn't imagine someone enduring the boredom here for 15 days just to complete such a trivial task.

This damn game had such beautiful graphics and god-level optimization, but its online rate being so low surely had a reason.

Liver Explosion probably also got too bored from playing, and though Zhen Ye didn't respond, it didn't stop him from continuing to speak.

"Actually, quite a few people have come over these days, but after trying, they all gave up. Most of them never logged on again after logging off, heh, probably because they thought this task was too boring.

"But from my veteran gamer's experience, such abnormal tasks usually hide some unknown secrets behind them."