Reign of the Hunters

Chapter 36 What is a Player?

From the day the forum was invented, it became the place where gossip and news originated.

Wasn’t there a saying? Forums were like the People’s Square. No matter what it was, everyone would know so long as you hung it up.

The second night after the brutal dungeon was cleared, three B videos had been edited and posted up on the forum as usual. These video recordings had always been a timely help. Of course, he was still very wise to post it in the technology exchange forum and not in the busy gossip forum. Even on these kind of forums, however, the page views were already climbing to seven million on the second day!

There were only two reasons. Reason number one, he never played with a guild and therefore had never learned from other’s experiences within a team. Reason number two, the elf huntress inside was literally like a BUG. She had excellent controls and her positions were accurate. Suddenly, she became a target of examination and study for many hunters.

There were even some players who liked to mind other people’s businesses and screenshotted all of Gongzi You’s controls. They made a section which provided explanations on how to improve a hunter’s skills.

This post suddenly became the most popular in the hunter’s career forum. For the hunters who seemed unable to play any further, it looked like they all found a new learning target and a direction to develop their skills upon seeing this post.

The following days would be a little different.

To be exact, Ye Ci’s days in the association would be a little bit different.

As the guild channel will notify when a member goes online, many people greeted Ye Ci as soon as she came online.. She wasn’t aware of when this had started, but numerous people greeted her everyday. It made Ye Ci, who was naturally aloof and lonely, weary of dealing with this situation. At most times she just replied: “Hello everyone.”

Not only that, Peacock Blue was abnormally quiet, even though she still managed the big and small matters in the guild, she left Ye Ci alone.

The matter of her asking for equipment wasn’t even mentioned and her attempt of kicking Ye Ci out of the guild hadn’t been mentioned. It seemed as if the rage from that day on the guild channel had never existed.

Although she didn’t know the reason, Ye Ci was nevertheless happy by the quietness. Everyday, she just rubbed the arrow, picked herbs, and practiced life skills.

Two or three days passed in a flash. Ye Ci was currently rubbing the arrow, having just reached the most important stage. She only needed 1% more to receive the intermediate level of arrow crafting, so Ye Ci held in a vigorous effort to finish it in one hour.

Coincidently, her private messages started ringing at this time. After a look, it turned out to be Jiangnan.

“Miss Gongzi You, if you don’t mind me asking, do you have time tomorrow?” These few days, Wang Jiangnan was online every day to wait for Ye Ci’s call, but he hasn’t even seen a shadow. Every day, he looked up to his boss who always kept a straight face and seemed like he was punishing him for lying. It made him very irritated.

Due to the BUG repair matter, Wang Jiangnan paid especially close attention to Ye Ci, therefore he knew that Gongzi You recently suicided in the brutal dungeon and helped someone else kill the Wild Boar King. She had probably already forgotten about his matter, so he felt that he really shouldn’t carry on waiting for her message. He could only contact her voluntarily.

Ye Ci was rubbing the arrow when she heard Wang Jiangnan asking very carefully. She couldn’t control her laughter. This lead designer, one who would control the future destiny and attain a worldwide reputation, always has a high and vigorous spirit with a condescending attitude. When did he ever talk to someone in a distressed attitude?

“You will know the day after tomorrow of what happens tomorrow.”

Wang Jiangnan was so embarrassed. How is he meant to answer after this sentence? “Then when can we kill the Sandstorm Scorpion again?”

Ye Ci didn’t want to be too harsh on this future lead designer. If she offended him now, what if he held a grudge in the future? In the end, her arms were still no match for the thigh. After rubbing a few more arrows, Ye Ci snorted: “I am rubbing arrows now. At the very longest, I would take half an hour to upgrade to intermediate level of archery craftsmanship. How about I go after that?”

“Then I will go first to contact the development team.”

“There are also people observing from the sidelines?”

“Yes, it needs to be judged.”

This time it was Ye Ci’s turn to be confused. Why did she feel so strange? She felt as if she was going to participate in a talent show and perform a talent in front of the judges.

This fact proves that her feeling was completely correct. When Ye Ci rode on her little red horse to the Sandstorm Scorpion’s new location, she could see from a distance the level 1 subsidiary characters from five or six different races, just standing there.

Her eyesight was very good, so she could see a Human Cleric smurf from far away. He waved at her. Ye Ci waved back and dismounted, but she didn’t walk towards where the crowd of people were gathered. Instead, she walked in the opposite direction to where the Sandstorm Scorpion was hidden.

She believed that the Sandstorm Scorpion should have respawned after so many days. Even if it hadn’t respawned, the crowd of developers gathered there should would already have made it respawn.

The soft but burning hot sand covered Ye Ci’s steps. It seemed that with every step she took, it sunk into the ground.

Her footsteps were slowing down, slower and slower. Then, she suddenly faced back and sprang away. The Falcon’s Protection, Empowered Hunter’s Mark, Snake Venom Needle, and the Ol’ Three’s Taunt were casted simultaneously. Before she landed on the ground, the Sandstorm Scorpion was still underground and it’s head had already trailed with big red words that showed the damage.

—1729！

A few evaluating developers stared at Ye Ci with mouth agape.

They had seen a lot of people with good mechanical skills, but there were not many as swift and as ferocious. The number of such players could be counted with the fingers of both hands.

After this, there was something that happened which surprised the designers even more. That Sandstorm Scorpion was like a chicken trying to find its chicks just after opening its eyes. It was following behind Ye Ci without missing one step. In less than fifteen minutes, it got pushed by Ye Ci to the edge of a pile of dead Cottonwood trees.

In a flash, the Sandstorm Scorpion got stuck in the Cottonwood forest without being able to move. After that, the huntress didn’t show any more of her skills. She just stood somewhere near the Cottonwood forest to shoot using the stationary, no-brainer shooting style.

That ferocious Sandstorm Scorpion, stuck there like a gigantic bullseye, began hissing. It wasn’t able to move, not to mention getting out of combat.

Following this procedure, it would be shot dead in no time. There was no point to carry on watching from here. A few designers sighed because they had to admire the player’s ability to discover something. They thought that they tested the game hundreds of times and repaired numerous BUGS. However, there were still many BUGS from the player’s perspective.

“Miss Gongzi You, we are very thankful for you to spend your precious time with us, doing this important evaluation. We will repair this BUG.” There was a leader among the designers who walked in the front. This was a gnome. Ye Ci had to look down when talking to him, which made her neck very uncomfortable.

“Anything dropped by it belongs to me.” Ye Ci mentioned it again. Some things have to said face to face. Otherwise, who knew how these fellows would change the condition: “including the carcass.”

The few developers looked at each other, the Gnome that was their leader nodded his head. “Of course. This was what we agreed on in the beginning.”

“You won’t go back to change the drop rate now, right.” Ye Ci squinted her eyes and looked at a few people with mistrust.

A few developers acted as if Ye Ci read their minds, and they repeatedly waved their hands. “No, no. You gave us such a good tipoff, we wouldn’t do these kinds of things.” They didn’t wait for Ye Ci to speak. Instead, they turned around and told Wang Jiangnan to accompany Ye Ci until she finished tidying up the carcass before going back. The just disappeared without a trace into flashes of white light.

Wang Jiangnan could actually just help Ye Ci finish up the Sandstorm Scorpion in one action, but he didn’t know why he didn’t want to do it. He sat down on a piece of rock nearby and quietly looked at Ye Ci using her skill non-stop.

Neither person said anything. It felt like the whole world’s time just solidified like that.

Who knew how much time had past before Wang Jiangnan suddenly turned his gaze from Sandstorm Scorpion to Ye Ci. He asked, “Gongzi You, is this game fun?”

Ye Ci was slightly taken aback. She turned her face to look at Wang Jiangnan a little puzzled. “Wasn’t this game designed by your team? Why would you ask me?”

“It was designed by us and we think it’s fun because we see a lot of people coming to play, so we thought it should be fun.”

“Then why do you still ask me?”

“Don’t know. I just wanted to ask a normal player what this game actually feels like.” Wang Jiangnan sighed and gazed at the distant desert. His gaze was a little confused. “I suddenly don’t have much confidence. I don’t know if people actually like the things we create.”

Ye Ci quietly stared at Wang JIangnan. She couldn’t tell how old he was from that randomly generated Human character. From Ye Ci’s memory, however, Wang Jiangnan should only be 20 years old now, the youngest designer on the designing team. Although he was known as genius by the historians, geniuses probably had their own confusion and distress.

“If you don’t know what it’s like because you’re the one designing it, then go experience it as a player.” Ye Ci lightly said as she turned her head around and looked at the Sandstorm Scorpion with only 10% of blood left.

“I already tested this game.....”

“No matter how many times you test it, be it a hundred or a thousand times, you will always be one of the developers. You have the highest ranked weapon, wear the coolest equipment, cutt bosses down like you would vegetables. Even one person can just solo the LORD God. This is not called a player, this is called a evaluation machine.” Ye Ci immediately interrupted Wang JIangnan.

“A so called player means that from the start of the game, they are full of anticipation for it and they take every option seriously. For example, things like whether the eyebrows look good or whether the name sounds nice. Players think about how to earn more coins and how to level up faster; they laugh around with friends and fight with opponents for revenge. Players fight over each other for a single equipment and battle between millions of people. This is a player. The game is their life.”

When Ye Ci spoke up to this point, she turned to look at Wang Jiangnan with a smile. “The lovely customer service number 094, do you still need to ask me this simple question?”