Chapter Seventy-Nine: One Has Already Lost Their Mind So Soon

The night in Lingxiu Village was eerily silent. Perhaps the incident with the Bai family had already alarmed the villagers. Su Jian paid no mind to these trivial details and quietly slipped back home.

Zhao Qianxue, seeing his return, hurried to greet him. “Little Jian, if anything like this happens again, I can help you. Don’t shoulder everything alone. Have you forgotten that I’m also a Nascent Soul cultivator?”

At her words, Su Jian coughed lightly to change the subject.

“Ahem… It was a matter a single talisman could resolve. There was no need for you to intervene. You’d better focus on the new shop’s grand opening tomorrow.”

Zhao Qianxue gave a muffled reply, instinctively wanting to nestle against him.

Su Jian, however, refused her righteously. “Not tonight. I have some things to ponder.”

He truly did have things to consider. Ever since obtaining the Ultimate Version of Player Mode, he’d been itching to try it out.

A trace of grievance flashed in Zhao Qianxue’s eyes as she turned away.

Su Jian first set about dealing with the spoils he’d taken from the Bai residence. Although it was merely a Nascent Soul family, their years of accumulation were considerable—no less than the foundation of an ordinary Soul Formation cultivator.

The storage rings of the Bai family’s younger members held little of value. Su Jian converted their contents at once—it amounted to just over two thousand points of spiritual energy.

The true bounty lay in the Bai patriarch’s storage ring.

Strictly speaking, these were stolen goods… Best not to keep them.

Su Jian converted over thirty thousand points of spiritual energy in total.

Within the patriarch’s ring was also a secret technique titled “Soul Refining and Spirit Transformation.” A cursory glance revealed it was not an evil art per se, though the patriarch had used it for sinister ends. This cultivation method allowed one to devour wandering souls to strengthen oneself, making the breakthrough to Soul Formation far easier.

Su Jian’s interest quickly waned. He tossed the manual into his own ring and thought no more about it.

[Current remaining spiritual energy: 117,465]

At that moment, Su Jian noticed some activity on the player communication channel.

Cui Wenzi: “Fellow Daoists, are you also ascended beings?”

The Holy Lord: “Could you be one of the other Chosen?”

Ouyang Feng: “Are you in Yingdu City as well?”

The “Chosen” mentioned by the Holy Lord were those referred to in the notices posted in Yingdu City a few days prior.

The Holy Lord: “It seems we’re all Chosen. What are your missions?”

Ouyang Feng suddenly realized—the so-called communication channel must be the link between them, the Chosen.

Ouyang Feng: “Ke’er?”

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Ouyang Feng: “Ke’er, where are you?”

Ouyang Feng: “Ke’er, don’t be afraid. Your uncle is coming to save you!”

Ouyang Feng: “Ke’er…”

He sent nine messages in a row, but none received a reply.

Ouyang Feng was plunged into despair, utterly bereft of hope.

Just as he was about to try once more to summon Ouyang Ke, a message suddenly flashed in the channel.

[Each player may send ten messages per day. From the eleventh onward, each message costs one spirit stone. From the twelfth, the cost doubles with each additional message.]

At the same time, a line appeared in Su Jian’s mind.

[The host is not bound by this rule.]

That sentence was for his ears alone.

The system, at least, had some humanity.

At this point, Ouyang Feng had likely concluded that the Chosen Alliance was responsible for Ouyang Ke’s death. He would stop at nothing to seek revenge against them—there was no need for Su Jian to issue any additional task.

The Holy Lord: “Being a Chosen is no easy matter… One’s already gone mad so quickly.”

That was the last message in the player channel.

Su Jian paid it no more heed and opened the player summoning interface.

A thousand points of spiritual energy were enough to summon a Blue Star player. Compared to a Five-Thousand Spirit Elite from the myriad worlds, this was certainly cheap.

Moreover, the interface for summoning Blue Star players was quite different from that for the others.

As he pondered this, several new system messages appeared in his mind.

[Blue Star Player Summoning Explanation: A randomly selected Blue Star player will instantly descend to the host’s current location with a reasonable identity.]

[Each player, upon first entering the channel, will have a one-time chance to change their nickname for free. Each subsequent change will cost one thousand spirit stones.]

[The host is the sole issuer of player tasks. Ordinary players will appear as ‘white names’ before the host, and cannot see each other.]

White names?

So the Holy Lord and Cui Wenzi might be blue names, or even purple?

Su Jian couldn’t help but mutter, “This is starting to look more and more like a game… Unfortunately, it isn’t. There’s no endless respawn or repeated attempts.”

He immediately chose to summon ten players at once. Sending these powerless Blue Star players to war with the Chosen Alliance would be nothing more than sending them to their deaths.

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“But putting them to work making money for me—that’s a different matter entirely.” Su Jian chuckled to himself.

[Player summoning successful. Ten have descended near the host’s location, each with a suitable identity. The host may now assign tasks.]

Su Jian blinked—assign tasks himself?

Cheap goods indeed, but at such a cost in simplicity.

Clearly, the system wanted him to pay out of pocket.

His position was akin to that of an NPC, but with far more authority—life and death for the players was his to decide.

He could simply issue an impossible mission with a fatal penalty attached.

Furthermore, there was no basic introduction to the players’ abilities.

But then, the same had been true when summoning the myriad worlds’ players. It was just that those he’d summoned before were all characters he knew well.

[Please set the contents of the new player’s starter pack.]

“Give them nothing,” Su Jian almost said aloud.

But on second thought, he didn’t even know where these players had landed. Last time, Cui Wenzi had ended up deep in the wilds.

Better to provide some guidance.

Su Jian intended to make Lingxiu Village into a new player hub, assigning different tasks based on each player’s circumstances.

Ultimately, his aim was to maximize profit.

He decided against typing out a message, and instead edited the task remotely.

[Go to the entrance of Lingxiu Village by tomorrow morning. There may be an opportunity waiting for you.]

[Please set the rewards and penalties.]

Su Jian recited silently, “No reward. Penalty: complete baldness.”

[Task generated. Awaiting player acceptance.]

Su Jian was quite satisfied with the system’s flexibility—otherwise, he’d have had to prepare ten awkwardly conspicuous rewards.

Besides, remote task assignment felt odd as well, though whether that mattered depended on the situation. Su Jian wasn’t inclined to dwell on it now.

What he needed were a batch of bold, determined players.

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