I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!
Chapter 518 - 170: May you travel half your life and still return as a youth!_4

Chapter 518: Chapter 170: May you travel half your life and still return as a youth!_4

He really could plant it!

The moment the seed touched the flowerpot, it turned into a small green sprout.

Moreover, the sprout would grow gradually over time.

It made Ma Yang feel as though he had planted an actual flower, prompting him to always find time to return and check on his little flower, no matter how far he ran in the Sand Nation.

Until about ten minutes later, when it fully matured, hitting the ripe fruit with his hat would yield Purple Coins.

What really dazzled Ma Yang, however, was that,

the first two flowerpots yielded Purple Coins,

but the third pot did not bear fruit for a while, and after tossing his hat at it with some confusion,

he discovered that Mario had directly possessed the flowerpot.

And it began to grow wildly and rapidly until it became a towering plant,

soaring into the skies and delivering Mario up into the clouds in one go.

This place was actually a hidden airborne instance, where players could obtain the moon hidden here through a series of mini-games.

At the moment when he surged into the heavens, Ma Yang was utterly dumbfounded.

Just three flowerpots, and even if they all yielded Purple Coins after blossoming and fruiting, players had already been satisfied.

But the lead player, Riot, was never content.

He always had to add even greater surprises!

Who the hell could have anticipated that?

And when Ma Yang finally defeated the minions of the Cool Tyrant who dominated the Sand Nation, he thought that he had cleared the stage.

But then, the huge inverted pyramid that pierced the ground of the Sand Nation began to rise into the air.

The ground it had been inserted into formed a sand vortex, growing larger and larger until it revealed a big hole.

A rainbow light beam soared from the hole, beckoning players to enter and discover its secrets.

It wasn’t until he leaped in that he found a whole new world, a floating bridge made of ice blocks.

The real BOSS of the Sand Nation was hidden at the end of the bridge.

A stone sculpture with the head of a Buddha floated in mid-air, ready to engage in a battle with the player.

Mario’s hat attacks would be utterly useless against this colossal Buddha head.

The player needed to time it right to possess its two fists and use its own fists to smash its own head.

It was like offering a fist to the Buddha himself.

The BOSS still had no health bar; the player only needed to possess the fists three times and strike the Buddha head three times.

Striking a balance that was neither too easy for the player to feel trivialized, nor too long to become tedious, was enough to complete the BOSS fight.

And as exploration extended to a Forest Country,

the player’s possession ability also began to change with the scenery.

There was a ’Leg Stretching’ that could make one’s body elongate wildly, a characteristic of a vine.

So when the player possessed it, they could use its trait of reaching up to climb from one branch to another, all the way to the treetop.

Without a doubt, rewards for the player were hidden there.

There was also a coin frog that could spit out Gold Coins as a form of attack.

The bubbles of Sea Nation allowed the player to dash through the water as if they had installed nitrous oxide, enabling them to rush into challenging currents which were impossible to navigate by normal swimming, reaching hidden spots to find new collectibles.

In Cool Tyrant’s Nation, the woodpecker let the player cling tenaciously to walls and then move up, down, left, and right with the tension of a ruler pressed to the edge of a desk—a novelty in itself.

There was even a Culinary Nation where players could play the role of a piece of meat in a gourmet contest.

The rolling snowman from Snow Nation could engage in the ’Rolling Snowball Race’ with its round body.

The caterpillars of Lost Nation could stretch and contract their bodies like rubber to crawl into various tree holes.

There were even taxis and manhole covers in Metro Nation,

All the bizarre possessions made Ma Yang, as he played further, unable to help himself from tossing his hat at anything and everything, wanting to try if this could be possessed or if that had new tricks.

The countless fresh ideas and the clever level designs revolving around these possessions kept Ma Yang’s smile curving upwards throughout the gameplay.

He even felt that it had been far too long since he had experienced the relaxation and comfort he felt now, since he had started working.

Among them, the most touching for Ma Yang was the festival in Metro Nation.

After accomplishing a series of tasks for Mayor Bao Lin, bringing the city’s power plant back to operation,

Bao Lin would invite the player to the annual city carnival.

Amidst the sky filled with fireworks and the roaring cheers of the crowd, Bao Lin, wearing a wine-red dress and holding a microphone, joyfully sang to the rhythm of lively jazz music.

And the Mario controlled by the player would also dive into a pipe, transforming from 3D to a 2D sprite, moving along to the sweet singing voice by hitting blocks above his head and stepping on Chestnuts.

The obstacles encountered along the way were now swaying to the music’s beat; the columns of fire seemed to become rhythm-coordinated ambiance lighting, and even the Chestnuts stepped in time.

When the song reached its climax, the phrase ♪odyssey-yes see~♪ Bao Lin repeatedly sang made Ma Yang’s spirits soar.

Soon after, Mario emerged from the pipe to arrive in front of Bao Lin, finishing with the song’s ending notes, standing beside the tall figure of Bao Lin, his small body swaying to the beat.

It made Ma Yang instinctively tap his foot along to the rhythm.

Then at the end of the song, amid Bao Lin’s words of thanks,

the player would receive a Noble Moon from her.

This celebration felt to Ma Yang like a thank-you festival that "Odyssey" had organized especially for the players.