Black Obsidian Martial Arts Hall, morning, the first rays of the sun have risen.
As players emerged from the underground tunnels, getting ready to report to Lin Qi and settle their Martial Arts Hall Points for the night, they unexpectedly discovered that Lin Qi wasn’t sleeping in the lounge as usual.
Instead, he was in a freshly repaired sparring room, tinkering with something unknown.
"Hall Master, what are you planning to do with this mechanical mannequin?"
Twilight of the Gods approached, filled with curiosity and anticipation, hoping to trigger a new storyline or receive a new task from Lin Qi, the NPC.
The mechanical mannequin in front of them wasn’t very big, only about one meter eighty, like a wooden stake, with wires connecting it to the generator in the lounge, leaving them puzzled about its purpose.
But since it was created by Lin Qi, the NPC, it probably signified some new event.
Lin Qi adjusted the mechanical mannequin a few times, then turned towards the crowd who had gathered and pointed at the bulletin board in the training field.
"Starting today, for the future development of the Martial Arts Hall, besides opening up some disciple training features, there are also new regulations, and the Martial Arts Hall Contribution Points system will be activated. If you don’t understand, you can check over there."
Lin Qi could only use the major game’s trump card—the Contribution Points System—to deal with these overly independent players.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t know when his Martial Arts Hall could be fully repaired.
Notice 1: New Martial Arts Hall regulations, no combat activity or destruction of any hall property is allowed. If discovered, the first offence results in a warning and a penalty of 200 Points, the second offence results in confinement and a penalty of 2000 Points, and the third offence leads to direct expulsion from the Martial Arts Hall.
Notice 2: Activation of the Martial Arts Hall Contribution Points, which is different from Martial Arts Hall Points, acts as a special currency that can only be obtained by completing specific tasks.
Notice 3: Activation of Skill Realm testing, head to Instructor No. 1 to spend Contribution Points for a guided test.
For the current players, Instructor No. 1 is quite a lethal weapon.
Lin Qi was initially troubled about managing these battle-hungry individuals who, when idle, couldn’t resist damaging the hall, making repairs insufficient to keep up with the destruction, while these players showed little interest in repairing the hall.
Now, this mechanical mannequin could be considered a perfect solution.
Aren’t these players fond of practicing techniques they’ve mastered from other virtual games?
The current mechanical mannequin can accurately analyze a player’s Skill Realm and proficiency through their practice, and compare it with data from a hundred years ago to yield precise scores.
It’s like a Martial Arts instructor assigning a student a test and scoring it accurately, even if the test is set by the player themselves.
This way, players using self-developed martial arts can get a general direction for improvement, and even though limited by data, it’s already sufficient for the current players.
The crowd gathered around the bulletin board, fervently discussing the Martial Arts Hall’s latest notices.
"Great! After all these days, there’s finally a chance to test our skills."
"But what does this Instructor No. 1 mean by Skill Level?"
"It should refer to our combat proficiency, after all, physical conditioning is one thing, and combat is another. But the guidance is so expensive, just for one session, it’s ten Contribution Points, and the reward for completing a wall repair task is only one Contribution Point."
"At least the repair task provides Contribution; you see the underground exploration tasks don’t even offer a single Contribution Point."
The players discussed the new game features, also expressing some dissatisfaction with the scarcity of Contribution Points from tasks, realizing they’d have to take on hall repair tasks to earn Contribution Points.
"Sister Wu, do you think the Hall Master’s sudden new regulations and the activation of Martial Arts Hall Contribution Points might indicate a new storyline?" Twilight of the Gods asked, somewhat excited, looking at Instructor No. 1 in the sparring room.
"A new storyline?" Luo Wushang took a careful look at the new notice, also having some thoughts, "What do you think?"
Repairing the Martial Arts Hall was originally the game’s main storyline task, and the sudden addition of Martial Arts Hall Contribution, with rewards only for hall repair tasks, was indeed peculiar.
"Sister Wu, didn’t we have a conflict with the White Feather Gang recently?" Twilight of the Gods smiled, whispering, "Now that the Hall Master has introduced Instructor No. 1, which is clearly for assessing our combat power, do you think our Martial Arts Hall is preparing to battle the White Feather Gang? Otherwise, why test our combat power?"
"Indeed, we currently have no monsters to fight. Testing combat power now should be the game preparing for the upcoming mainline battle." Fang Zhen nodded in strong agreement, "Since this game is still in experience testing, the next opponents can’t be too strong, or we’d all lose, nor too weak, or there’d be no challenge."
"So, by using Instructor No. 1 to assess our current combat power, they can arrange suitable opponents afterward."
"There’s really that possibility. In the gaming companies I visited before, they’d gather a group of top gamers for testing." Zhang Qingwei thought for a moment, looking toward Lin Qi still making the final adjustments, with some expectation, "It’s normal for this game’s company to use us for testing, considering previous battles were too lackluster, the gaming company likely saw this, hence they specially set up Instructor No. 1 to give us more challenges later."
"Wow! Are you guys monsters? You could figure all that out?" One Leaf Floating Cloud listened to the conversation, completely taken aback.
Originally, One Leaf Floating Cloud thought it was just a minor update, unaware that this gaming company had so many tricks up its sleeve.
Fortunately, they also had plenty of skilled people around.
Through small details, they managed to discern the game’s future developments.
"Since that’s the case, let’s also make more preparations." Fang Zhen said with some anticipation, "The last mission yielded significant rewards, I suspect the next mainline battle mission rewards won’t be small either. If we perform well enough, maybe our future weapons will be secured."
"Mainline battle mission, huh?" Outer Gunman couldn’t help but clench his fists, "Last time, I didn’t get the chance to see it firsthand. This time, I’m determined to have a blast!"
But no matter how much the players speculated, Lin Qi couldn’t hear them, and even if he did, he’d only think these players were battle-crazed to the point of madness.
He’s not a Demon; he simply wanted players to repair the Martial Arts Hall, with no other agenda or thought.
Black Obsidian Martial Arts Hall, sparring room.
"Finally, it’s all set up!"
After nearly three hours, Lin Qi finally completed all adjustments for Instructor No. 1.
"Who wants to try it first?"
Lin Qi looked at the players who had each repaired dozens of walls, quite satisfied, and invited them.
"Then I’ll go first."
Luo Wushang walked out from the crowd, being the first to step forward.