Absolute Death Game

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The color of an NPC's name represents their strength, while the border around the name indicates their relationship with the player.

Yellow signifies neutral, green means friendly, and red indicates hostility. While a player's name is white, the border around it is blue, which is a unique color for players.

However, at this moment, Xia Zuowei had a white name with a green border, meaning he was now a friendly NPC rather than a player.

'Xia Zuowei (Follower of True Person Wudao)', not only had he become an NPC, but he had also become a follower of True Person Wudao. This was certainly strange. Could it be that a player becomes an NPC after being resurrected in the game? Xiao Buli couldn't help but think.

He stared intently at Xia Zuowei. Feeling Xiao Buli's gaze, Xia Zuowei glanced at him somewhat embarrassed, then his expression changed, "Eh, why doesn't your name say Xuan Zhenzi, Xiao Buli? So this is your real name."

Xiao Buli wondered, "You can see my name?"

"Yeah, it's floating right above your head. This is really odd." After saying this, Xia Zuowei looked around again, "I'm dizzy. I just realized that the world in this game is completely different from the real one; it's full of oddities."

Xiao Buli felt a surge of curiosity, "What's different about it?"

"I can't quite put my finger on it, just feels strange," Xia Zuowei said, then seemingly did something and suddenly exclaimed, "Ah! I can actually issue quests! Let's see, huh, I have to provide rewards to issue them." After fiddling for a while, Xia Zuowei suddenly spoke, "Done. Hey Xiao, can you give me some clothes to wear?"

As soon as he finished speaking, a system prompt appeared on Xiao Buli's screen.

System prompt: Quest triggered, 'Xia Zuowei's Request'. Do you accept? Yes/No.

Xia Zuowei's Request: Provide Xia Zuowei with clothes to cover his body.

Xiao Buli opened his inventory and threw two useless white-grade equipment to Xia Zuowei.

System prompt: You have completed the quest 'Xia Zuowei's Request.' Your personal prestige with Xia Zuowei has increased by 300 points, reaching a level of Reverence.

There was no quest reward, but the prestige gain was substantial. Xiao Buli's interest piqued as he asked, "Did you set this favorability yourself?"

"No, it seems the system automatically did it. When I issued the quest, the system asked me to submit a reward. I didn't have anything, and it just tripled the favorability instead. Hehe, this is quite interesting. From now on, I might as well not offer any rewards for my quests and just give favorability."

Xiao Buli thought to himself, so that's how it is. This must be the general rule when NPCs issue quests, but if favorability can replace actual quest rewards, why do NPCs rarely do this? At least the NPCs he encountered on a daily basis usually offered equipment or gold coins as rewards.

At that moment, True Person Wudao said to Xia Zuowei, "Hey kid, I don't have any clothes yet and you're already dressed. Quickly take them off and give them to me."

Xia Zuowei seemed to want to protest but ended up taking off his clothes and handing them over to True Person Wudao.

"Eh, what's going on? Why can't I control my body?"

Xiao Buli observed this with a start; he suddenly realized why this was happening. Now that Xia Zuowei had become Wudao's follower, his every move was under Wudao's control. It wasn't just a matter of asking for two pieces of clothing; even if Wudao demanded his life, Xia Zuowei would probably have no chance to resist. Is this the price to pay when an NPC's prestige reaches a level of worship?

No wonder Jingci would rather offer Contribution Value or Gold Coins rather than favorability as a quest reward.

Xiao Buli glanced at Wudao. Wanting to confirm this, he asked, "I've helped you resurrect, so shouldn't you give me the quest reward now? How about a nice piece of equipment for me?"

Wudao replied, "You're not looking at me—I don't have anything on me, what reward can I give you?"

Xiao Buli said, "I don't want any other reward, just tell me what happened during the upheaval at Xuantian Palace."

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True Person Wudao gave Xiao Buli a once-over, then suddenly raised a hand and a beam of white light enveloped him. Xiao Buli didn't have time to react and was caught squarely by it. He originally thought the other party meant him harm, and he stepped back only to discover that there was no discomfort at all, nor any loss of health.

Surprise showed on Wudao's face, "Huh, you are actually a disciple of the Mystic Hollow Palace, no wonder you wanted to inquire about this matter. However, this is something I cannot disclose to you. Should your master learn of it, I cannot bear that responsibility."

Xiao Buli was momentarily stunned, thinking that Wudao even knew Xuanxu Zi, "How do you know I'm a disciple of the Mystic Hollow Palace? Could it be that the spell you just used was the 'legendary' 'Appraisal Skills'?"
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The reason for using 'legendary' to describe it was because Xiao Buli remembered that almost every protagonist in online gaming novels seemed to possess this spell.

Wudao replied, "Close enough. Anyway, it's something that lets me see what titles you have, how high your Attributes are, and the like. How about it, do you want to learn? I could teach it to you and then we'd be even."

Xiao Buli was just about to agree when he suddenly felt something was odd and asked, "Why don't you just use favorability as a reward?"

Wudao snorted coldly and said, "My favorability isn't something I give away lightly. There have been too many precedents before, I'm not about to make the same mistake. So, do you want it or not? If you don't, I'll just leave."

Xiao Buli thought to himself that this favorability must really be something crucial for NPCs. But then he also understood that once Prestige reached the point of Reverence, the person being 'revered' could turn you into their follower. Even 'respect' or 'reverence' had various downsides. Whoever it was wouldn't want to give away their favorability casually.

Moreover, the higher an individual's Prestige was, the more disadvantaged the NPC would be toward the player. From this perspective, favorability was both a vital resource and a fatal weakness for NPCs.

However, since he didn't plan on raising Wudao's Prestige ― this fellow clearly wasn't easy to deal with, and raising his Prestige wouldn't be so simple ― Xiao Buli agreed.

System Prompt: True Person Wudao offers to teach you the spell 'Mind's Eye'. Do you wish to learn it?

Naturally, Xiao Buli chose to learn and directly mastered this Level 1 spell.

Mind's Eye: 'Heart as Eyes', able to discern the true nature of an individual. The higher the skill level and spiritual power, the more you will see, (if the target's spiritual power is too high, they might perceive your action). Using this consumes 10 True Yuan Points, current skill level LV1, requires 15 points of spiritual power to learn.

After imparting the spell, Wudao added, "Seeing that you have done me a big favor, I'll give you a piece of advice. Don't use this trick on your master, the consequences can be quite severe if you are discovered."

With that, he walked towards the exit, his back to them, and gestured casually towards Xia Zuowei, "Let's go, kid."

There was Xia Zuowei, naked from the waist down, covering his lower body and pulling a face as he followed with no room for resistance.

Xiao Buli mulled over Wudao's words ― why would the consequences be very severe if using Mind's Eye was discovered by his master? Could the master be hiding some unspeakable secrets?

Could this secret be related to the changes at the Xuantian Palace? It was utterly baffling.

As Xiao Buli left the Nuwa Temple, his mind was still analyzing the information he had just acquired. Wudao and Xuan Zhenzi; the thoughts were similar, but then another question struck him: since the Nuwa Temple allowed for the reconstitution of the flesh through Merit Points, could other Temples also perform certain acts with Merit Points?

Speaking of which, Nuwa seemed to be one of the Ancient Gods. If such powerful Divine Powers were wielded by the Ancient Gods, why weren't they more famous? Instead, the Heavenly God Race, whose individual strengths couldn't compare to the Ancient Gods, held a significant ruling power in this world.

Lost in thought, he wandered outside. After circling for a while without seeing a Temple, what he did see was a group of refugees, old and young, coming from the direction of Nine Dragons City towards his location.

He normally wouldn't have paid much attention to such a scene, as he had seen many such instances of refugees displaced by the Demon Clan invasion, each one a vision of war. However, when he was passing by the group of refugees, someone from within suddenly shouted, "Oh my, isn't that our benefactor? Benefactor, it's me, Zhang Zhixi!"

Looking over, Xiao Buli saw an NPC dressed in Studded Leather Armor looking like a soldier. The name was 'Zhang Zhixi (Thousand Pines Town militia captain)', a blue name which meant he was an Elite Level fellow. Behind Zhang Zhixi were a few more soldiers in leather armor, some with sabers and wooden shields, some with spears adorned with red tassels, and some with hunting bows.

They looked much shabbier compared to him, even nameless, all addressed as 'Thousand Pines Town Militia', all with White Names.

Xiao Buli recalled that he had some impression of this NPC. Back when he helped evacuate refugees from Thousand Pines Town, many NPC soldiers had joined the escort, some were from the official Golden Dragon Legion and others were local Militia from Thousand Pines Town. At that time, they helped him fight the Demon Clan. Although their fighting ability wasn't much, they still played a role.

Zhang Zhixi was the leader of those militiamen, who, to his recollection, had decent combat strength. Unexpectedly, he ran into him here.

He stopped and approached, "Where are you headed? Why not enter the city?"

Zhang Zhixi expressed righteous indignation, "Don't get me started. Not only has the Lord abandoned all the outlying villages, but he also issued an order recently that anyone entering the city must pay a 'City Defense Donation' fee. We barely escaped with our lives, so how could we have any money to pay it?

That's why we had no choice but to leave Nine Dragons City and head south, hoping to find a safe place." (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it with recommendations and monthly tickets at qidian.com. Your support is my greatest motivation.)