I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!
Chapter 736 - 229: Initial Plateau! (Asking for monthly votes in the last few minutes! Thank you!)

Chapter 736: Chapter 229: Initial Plateau! (Asking for monthly votes in the last few minutes! Thank you!)

He turned all the ingredients he had gathered into dishes in one go.

He made three servings of Stewed Fruit that restore one heart each and two servings of Grilled Mushroom Skewers.

Also, there was one serving of Fruit Mixed with Mushrooms that restores two hearts.

Suddenly, he felt he had some room for error.

Saying farewell to cook-it-yourself Deng, French Fries directed Link straight down the mountain path.

He arrived at the ruins of a dilapidated Ruins of Time.

There were several monsters, Pokoblins, featured in the trailers, surrounding the perimeter.

But since the name was a bit of a mouthful to say, French Fries preferred to call them Pig Pig Monsters.

It was his first encounter, and since he didn’t understand the situation due to their initial clash, French Fries fought with caution.

He pulled the aggro of one Pig Pig Monster, then whipped out his Rusty Sword and engaged in a duel.

The Pig Pig Monster, with deep red skin, didn’t have much health.

With the Rusty Sword that added 6 points of attack, he could basically chop it down in three hits.

He could tentatively guess that the monster’s health ranged between 13 and 18 points.

After a Pig Pig Monster died, it would consistently drop the weapon it was holding.

And there was a chance it would drop Pokoblin tusks, teeth, and liver.

These monster materials could be sold for money or combined with certain herbs to make various special medicines that added attack, movement speed, health, elemental power, and elemental resistance.

After stashing the loot, French Fries cautiously eyed the other two Pig Pig Monsters not far away.

His overly cautious appearance inadvertently drew ridicule from the danmaku comments.

"Playing too much Elden," one danmaku teased.

"Elden Ring PTSD, right?"

"To be honest, I don’t quite agree with Baby Ke placing another Pig Pig Monster on the wall of the ruins to ambush players. /pout/ /pout"

While the danmaku made fun of him, French Fries boldly dragged over the remaining two Dog Heads.

After a bout, it indeed confirmed something.

This game’s positioning was completely different from Elden.

It was no longer that Souls-like style of torturing players’ morale.

These Pig Pig Monsters had low health, and their attack power was also very low.

Even if they attacked Link, they only caused a quarter heart of damage each time.

Link, who originally had three heart containers of health and thanks to the several heart-recovery dishes in his bag, French Fries was not scared at all.

Quickly dispatching the monsters, he removed any threats near the Ruins of Time.

Picking up the items dropped by the Pig Pig Monsters, French Fries suddenly realized something was off.

"Wait a minute... I killed several monsters, how come I’m not getting any experience points?" he scratched his head.

He checked the details section again.

Aside from the inventory, and the display of Link’s character model on the right,

That was it.

There were no character stats.

"Ah?" French Fries was taken aback.

No character levels?

"Could it be this game doesn’t have experience points?"

"What is this...?"

After a thorough search, French Fries was completely baffled.

Well, damn.

It seemed like this game... really didn’t have experience points?

What the hell??

Anyone who could be a game streamer, having played many games, wouldn’t be too unfamiliar.

And on Blue Star, 99.99% of games have EXP.

It’s just that they manifest differently.

The vast majority of games show EXP through direct monster-hunting leveling up—this is a core selling point that provides players a sense of progression.

But a small number of games, like Hollow Knight’s Geo and Elden Ring’s Rune,

These are deeply tied to the currency, integrating coins with experience points.

Even though they don’t give experience directly, by providing players with coins, they can turn into experience or progression.

This can be understood.

But...

This Zelda, right now, has no experience points.

And even the Pig Pig Monsters didn’t drop any Gold Coins.

This was the first time French Fries, who had played many games, encountered such a situation.

The feeling was like Louis XVI’s execution—baffling.

Not only was French Fries confused, but the viewers in the live stream were also shocked.

"Geez... you can always trust Baby Ke to spice things up! Just go play his new game, and if it isn’t innovative, come back and kill me! /Dog Head"

"But a game that gives neither experience points nor Gold Coins... how does one even play that? Won’t the players lack motivation?"

"Is there a possibility that monsters naturally don’t carry Gold Coins, and since Gold Coins are a human currency, it makes sense that Pig Pig Monsters don’t drop them. /smirk"

"True, even if there were real monsters in the world, killing them wouldn’t give you EXP bars in real life, quite reasonable!"

Even though the danmaku was teasing, what surprised French Fries the most was...

If another game didn’t give experience points or Gold Coins, he might have stopped playing then and there.

But Zelda seemed to possess an inexplicable magic that other games couldn’t compare with.

It always gave him the feeling that ’even if it doesn’t give anything, I still want to keep playing.’

With so little experience of the game so far, French Fries couldn’t say why he felt that way.

"Let’s keep exploring."

Inside the Ruins of Time was a broken statue of a goddess, similar in purpose to the Marika Church in Elden Ring.

Players could collect specific materials and come here to exchange them for upgrade rewards from the goddess.

Rewards were divided into two types: one was for increasing the max limit of hearts for health.

The other was for increasing the player’s stamina bar limit.

From French Fries’ experience thus far, he believed that stamina was more beneficial in the early stages than health.

Because in Zelda, many scene interactions consumed stamina.

Like climbing, where stamina could not recover automatically while clinging to rocky surfaces.