Master of Kaidan
Chapter 413: Players

Chapter 413: Chapter 413: Players

"Dear viewers, a whole month! Do you know how I got through this month? What kind of game requires a month of maintenance?"

Liao Yunhuai looked around to confirm his location while muttering to his live-stream audience.

Two months ago, he was just an ordinary self-media streamer, barely making enough to live on. But the moment he successfully drew a "Jianghu" activation code, everything changed.

He didn’t know how, with his usual luck of never winning an extra bottle with a soda purchase or not hitting the guarantee in card draws, he managed to get one of the globally limited one thousand game beta activation codes. But it was undeniable that after he streamed this game, which would otherwise only appear in novels, his destiny had changed.

"Oh, viewers, as you can see, we’ve appeared again at the entrance of the ancestral hall in Dahua Tree Village. Although the number of testers has increased to ten thousand this time, it seems our newbie spawning point hasn’t changed... Hmm, maybe I’m just lucky?

While Liao Yunhuai glanced at the bullet screen comments looking for notable questions to answer, he walked towards the village entrance based on his experience from the last beta test.

"Why isn’t the streamer accepting quests?"

A bullet screen comment from an obvious newbie flashed past, but seeing the blinding VIP effect on the comment, Liao Yunhuai immediately responded,

"This game is a lot like those in online novels, focusing on realism, and doesn’t have regular tasks like other games. Plus, these NPCs are very cunning and always demand negotiations for payment upfront, otherwise, you might end up working for free..."

As he spoke, he pulled out a few copper coins from his coarse clothing,

"Money in this game is as hard to earn as in real life. You get five copper coins for a day’s work in the fields, and just one copper coin is barely enough to buy a steamed bun. And you know, to apprentice at a martial arts school in the county city, it costs five taels a month! Hmm, you don’t know how much a tael of silver is in copper coins? One to a thousand, dear!"

With that, his eyes suddenly brightened, and he waved to someone on the side,

"Wusha! Wusha! Let’s go hunting!"

"Fog my sister! I’m called Wukill!" A young man carrying a bow glanced at him disdainfully, but considering he was a streamer, he toned down his typical aggressive speech. Liao Yunhuai didn’t seem to mind; he simply shrugged and then told the viewers,

"The fastest way to make money, as summarized by the experts, is to go hunting in the mountains. We can’t mess with tigers, but a rabbit sold to a tavern can fetch twenty wen. Kill two hundred and fifty rabbits, and you have enough to apprentice at a martial arts school. What? Don’t underestimate it! The tavern owner won’t even buy them if they look bad!"

"Are you coming or not!" Wukill, unable to see Liao Yunhuai’s live streaming panel, impatiently wrapped up the monologue. Just as Liao Yunhuai was about to respond, the sound of a guqin echoed in the air.

Although he wasn’t much of a music connoisseur and couldn’t judge the quality of the music, he could at least tell whether it sounded good.

And if one thing could be said for sure, it’s that the beta testers in Dahua Tree Village had definitely investigated every NPC in the village before, but during the previous month, they had never heard anyone playing the erhu!

"There’s a new NPC!"

Wusha and Liao Yunhuai exchanged glances before following the sound of the erhu, soon spotting a thatched hut that hadn’t existed a month ago.

At that moment, many players who hadn’t yet left the village hurried over, pointing and gesturing at the young man playing the erhu on a stone stump.

"What are you all just staring for?" Wusha asked a familiar player immediately upon seeing this. The player, upon hearing the question, responded softly,

"Just now, Brother Yeqi tried to strike up a conversation, but he was bounced back by an air wall when he was just five meters away!"

"Air wall? This crappy game has air walls now?" Wusha was shocked. Generally, it was normal for games to have air walls, but the problem is, during the last internal test, a prominent player had walked westward from Dahuai Tree Village for over twenty days without encountering any air walls!

"It’s not certain; maybe this NPC fended him off using True Qi? After all, it’s pretty standard for starter villages to have hidden experts. Look at the presence of this grandmaster, fully brimming with blood while playing the erhu; he’s definitely a Martial Arts Legend level expert."

Listening to the player’s words, Liao Yunhuai also focused his attention on the man playing the erhu. He appeared fairly young, only around twenty-eight or twenty-nine at most, with a trace of contemplative stubble on his face and a look of melancholy in his eyes, which gave a strongly intense impression. The only oddity was his rough garb, matched with the wood shavings scattered nearby on the ground.

"Even if he’s not a Martial Arts expert, this must be a hidden mission, right?" Liao Yunhuai thought secretly. The surrounding players seemed to share this thought. After all, they hadn’t seen any air walls in the game for a month. Now that there was one, whether due to game mechanics or NPC actions, it certainly wasn’t something ordinary.

Unless the game had updated and directly integrated an air wall system.

As the barrage of comments about poisoning, seeking a master, or even taking off pants bizarrely swirled around, the man suddenly stopped his movements and nodded slightly, then placed the erhu down on a nearby stand and picked up a piece of wood, starting to carve.

The moment the music stopped, the air wall vanished. A player who had been standing close to the air wall didn’t maintain his balance and fell forward, landing solidly right in front of the young man.

Feng Xue looked at the player who had prostrated himself fully in front of him and was somewhat at a loss for words. He carefully sensed the "Martial Arts Legend" and "Senior Expert" identities flowing from them toward himself, becoming more certain they were real people.

"This would be a good time for an idiot to show up," Feng Xuexin muttered to himself while also pondering whether to help this lad up or continue to act aloof. However, before he could act, he heard a loud shout—

"Hey! Watch the punch!"

As the words fell, a young-looking player jumped out from the crowd, powered by his left foot and twisting his body. Though a bit rough, his movements undoubtedly had undergone martial arts training.

Seeing his clumsy actions, Feng Xuexin was slightly pleased. From this posture, even newer than a novice, it was clear this wasn’t someone practiced in the real world. And if this was a skill in the game that could be utilized like this, it at least proved that the game system likely didn’t assist players with their skills—

If there was a game system, that is.

His thoughts raced, but the player seemed to think he had been stunned silly. His punch continued without diminishing force, heading straight for Feng Xue’s face. Feng Xue, already wanting to test out a few things, slightly furrowed his brow and then flicked his finger lightly.

The player suddenly felt light as a feather, and as the scenery on both sides rapidly flew past him, waves of intense pain swept through his body. Concurrently, a voice slowly entered his ears—

"Form is no form, intention is no intention, go and practice some more."