BXBX NOVEL Chapter 77:
Hmm, this wasn’t the first time he had found himself in such a predicament, was it?
Although Murphy’s body could no longer withstand the ravages of sunlight plus Jed’s final counterattack and was forced into a deep slumber to recover, his spirit was unusually active at this time.
He found that in this unconscious state, he could still connect to the game forum through his consciousness link, but this time it was not to share the good news with his lovely and ferocious little players.
Because he himself had not yet seen his own gains.
“Good! Let me take a look!”
In his conscious activity, Murphy summoned his admin interface, and with the joy of opening a loot box, he looked at the long string of prompts floating in front of his character card:
【Newbie Guide Quest (6/6): Return to the beginning and the end, completed!
Details:Complete the Black Iron Trial! (Completed).
Trial target is Silver Rank, evaluation: Perfect!
Own your own territory! (Completed).
Current territory is the outer city area of Kadman City, current population is 1078, current territory status is Neglected – Roughly Stable, evaluation: Perfect!
Overall evaluation: Perfect!
Rewards: +10 test invitation codes, remaining basic admin system functions: dungeon snapshots, reputation system, world map system, save point function etc. all unlocked.
Perfect evaluation bonus: Achievement system unlocked, territory management system unlocked to advanced level, “Spirit Convergence Stone” blueprint unlocked.
Developer’s note:
Perfect!
Perfect?
Are you sure?
You little rascal must have cheated, right?
You better not have, or I’ll ban you!
But well done, congratulations on completing all the newbie guide quests, you are now a mature and qualified test admin. Apart from the main storyline, there will be no more deliberate challenges for you.
I guess you must be dying to know the secret behind all this now.
Well, come on then.
I’ve put everything at the beginning and end of all things.
As long as you can get there by yourself, you’ll know it all.
Enjoy the rest of the game, my alpha.
——
Love from【DATA REDACTED】.】
Murphy blinked his eyes.
His character card had now become very complicated, with the newly unlocked functions taking up two new pages as they couldn’t fit on one. But the vampire didn’t immediately go to read those verbose function explanations.
Because after the six-cycle newbie guide quest ended, all that remained was a fairly simple “main storyline quest”.
【Test Admin Main Storyline Quest (1/N): The Dawn of Transia
Quest Objective: Become the de facto ruler of the Transia region before the next imminent danger arrives.
Time Limit: Six months.
Quest Reward: Flattery from subordinates and love from subjects.
Developer’s Note: Ha, didn’t see that coming, did you? I’m back again, that farewell just now was me joking with you. I wouldn’t miss recording your entire growth story for the world.
This feels like an old father watching his son grow up step-by-step into a man, getting married and having kids.
Uh, don’t flip me off, it’s just a metaphor.
But I advise you to be on your toes.
Really, the sooner the better! Because you’ll soon realize what kind of cruel world you’re in, and then you’ll know that everything you’re experiencing now doesn’t even qualify as the light breeze before the storm arrives.
Oh, and to take care of your ‘gaming experience’, I’ve left you some ‘admin assistance tools’.
But I seem to have forgotten where I put them.
Go find them yourself, after all, treasure hunting is fun too, isn’t it?】
“F**k!”
In his consciousness, Murphy flipped a mighty middle finger at the sky.
Especially that last reminder made him realize that no matter who made this admin system, that guy was definitely an ultimate troll. Isn’t this like telling me you left me a 10 billion inheritance in the bank, but you forgot the password so I have to try one combination at a time?
This is definitely messing with my mentality!
It has to be, right?
F**k!
Murphy cursed again.
But he was already used to this test admin system’s way of not playing by the rules, so he quickly calmed down and carefully observed the changes in his character card’s attributes.
He had risked his life to complete the Black Iron Trial, if you don’t give me a super powerful upgrade for that, it wouldn’t be fair to the hand I lost!
He took a deep breath and opened the in-depth data view of his character card to observe his attribute increases:
Name: Revnor Murphy Lessenbra
Race: Vampire【Blood Vulture Clan – Descendant of Desire】
Template: Dark Spirit Oriented – Rare Individual
Rank: Level 10 – Black Iron Body
Profession: Level 10 Blood Vulture Swordsman / Level 10 Dark Spirit Apprentice / None
Talents: (Omitted)
Specialties: Otherworld Creature Summoning 【40/50】
Racial Specialties: Sky Mastery, Vampire’s Touch, Bat Heritage
Skills: Blood Vulture Sword Arts【Grandmaster】 / Tomb Guard Sword Arts【Proficient】 / Mejeva Family Secret Sword Art【Proficient】 / Spirit Blast【Master】 / Summon – Astral Direwolf【Proficient】
Detailed Data:
Strength: 10.5 → 12.5
Agility: 16 → 20
Endurance: 13.5 → 14.5
Intellect: 8.5 → 10.5
Perception: 13 → 16
Charisma: 1.5
“Not bad, the 12 fixed attribute points are distributed towards agility, strength and perception according to my combat style, and it’s normal for charisma to be unimprovable due to my Eternal Sin Descendant vampire status.”
Murphy examined his newly refreshed attributes, and glanced at the 6 additional free attribute points he gained, enjoying 1.5x growth as a test admin perk.
After some thought, Murphy decided to continue enhancing his advantages while also boosting his endurance to avoid being one-shot due to high attack but low health.
After some adjustments, Murphy’s full attributes at the Black Iron rank changed again:
Strength: 13.5
Agility: 22
Endurance: 15.5
Intellect: 11.5
Perception: 17
Charisma: 1.5
The final result satisfied Murphy, and he could confirm that his current attribute panel was top-tier for the Black Iron rank.
A total of 81 attribute points!
50% higher than a normal 52 point Black Iron vampire, and only 11 points below the 92 point elite Black Iron vampire template. The weak disadvantage “inherited” from Tris was nearly caught up. If he could obtain an elite template later, he would definitely become the most dazzling at this rank!
By then his total attributes would reach 101, already rivaling the attribute totals of elite creatures at the Silver rank!
Punch above his weight?
Heh, by then such higher rank battles would be a fair fight for Murphy!
Of course, as a former professional software tester, Murphy knew numbers could rarely directly translate to combat power in most cases, not to mention in this real world, even elite Silver ranks like Jed could be killed in unfavorable terrain.
But seeing his attributes far exceed ordinary creatures, he still felt a sense of pride swell in his heart.
“The new starting point has finally arrived. Next I’ll have to carefully plan my job tree progression and find a way to learn some cooler spirit tricks from Tris.”
Murphy rubbed his chin in his consciousness, imagining the future while casually opening the new functions he just unlocked.
The reputation system was nothing special.
Any well-developed MMORPG has this feature that players love to hate but must engage with.
Unfortunately, the reputations Murphy unlocked were only “Blood Vulture Clan”, “Pioneer Army (Goldflower Kingdom)” and “White Oak Witch Hunter Battalion (Avalon Church)” as respected, hostile and neutral respectively.
This showed that only factions he had interacted with would appear in the reputation system.
However, the world map system unlocked alongside it finally showed Murphy the full extent of the continent and world he was in.
But when Murphy opened the world map, he cursed out loud!
Because everywhere on the entire map was covered in unexplored fog areas. The Kadman region he was in didn’t even cover 1% of the map. Even the long, central region of Transia only covered about 1/40th of the world map.
This fully demonstrated just how vast this world was!
At the very least, it wouldn’t be smaller than Murphy’s homeland from his memories.
What really surprised Murphy was the “Dungeon Snapshot” function.
Its explanation stated that by crafting a grand illusion, it could generate a virtual experience based on the “game records” of Murphy and all the little players, allowing latecomers to participate in those events.
Players could choose what “roles” to play in the generated snapshot instance, or simply join as mysterious adventurers.
The prerequisite for generating a dungeon snapshot was that Murphy or the players had to fully complete the event flow and survive. Based on this condition, there were currently three event options that could be snapshot instances:
The “Morland Village Ambush Battle”, the “Smuggler’s Woods Interception Battle”, and the “Jed’s Group” event.
However, generating this illusion-like dungeon snapshot required the blueprints for the “Spirit Convergence Stone” unlocked alongside it.
Murphy checked the blueprints, finding it was a rather sophisticated spirit artifact. Even with complete manufacturing instructions, it required a Grandmaster Alchemist to craft.
You know, isn’t this convenient?
It just so happens to give the idle, perpetually drunken monster lady Tris something productive to do, while also allowing me to show off a bit to the little players on the forum, letting them realize that this “development team” of mine is actually working hard behind the scenes.
See, haven’t I already completed and launched the much-awaited dungeon feature you’ve all been craving?
So stop pestering for development progress on the forum! Your nagging demands are life-threatening, but the problem is, we, this “development team” that currently only has one person who also has to double as the entire Alpha Company’s tester, hardware, and maintenance staff, are already working really hard!
Finally, there’s the save point function.
This feature allows little players to choose Murphy’s currently owned core territory buildings to bind their location, so they don’t have to revive right next to Murphy after dying.
Of course, the description makes it clear that the prerequisite for enabling save points is that Murphy must have a territory. At this moment, Murphy’s consciousness was frowning at the territory system specifically listed on the third page of his character card:
Territory Name: Kadman City Outer Ruins and Survivor Camp
Territory Size: 1078/30000
Territory Evaluation: Neglected
Camp Allegiance: Portia Federation / Transia Region / Blood Vulture Clan / Kadman County
Lord: Revnor Murphy Lessenbra
Administrator: Miriam
Secondary Administrators: Dump Truck Iaido, Bulldozer Man Charging, Half Off With Full Coverage
Functional Positions:
Camp Architect: Heaven’s Chosen Grayman
Camp Guard Captain: Phil Portman
Camp Head Chef: Franks Chowan
Camp Chief Physician: Sister Juliette
Camp Warehouse Supervisor: Blanche Pallen Fedor
Subordinate Territory Forces:
Kadman Civilian Self-Defense Force【51/60】- Commander: Maxim Cena Vlad
Key Camp Personnel:
Tracy Cavendina Chia Lorraine Lessenbra, Femis Cecilia Lessenbra, Bella Bernice Adele Lessenbra.
Current Territory Manpower Feedback: 1%.
The entire territory system was concise and clear in summary, but what caught Murphy’s attention the most was this “Territory Manpower Feedback” at the bottom. He realized this was an extremely important function, so he immediately opened the detailed explanation:
【Term Explanation – Manpower Feedback:
For every territory owned by the Alpha test admin, he will receive a certain reserve of test personnel manpower based on the territory’s conditions.
The feedback level for different territory states is:
Neglected – 1%
Stable – 2%
Prosperous – 3%
Since test personnel are living beings, they cannot be split into fractions, so this manpower feedback is rounded down based on the current total manpower.
Note!
Each territory has a maximum population limit based on area and resources. Once the limit is reached, the population can continue increasing, but the total feedback manpower will not increase. Therefore, the lord should make appropriate arrangements based on each territory’s situation.】
“A 1% feedback level, so the abandoned Kadman City ruins and survivor camp combined can give me a feedback manpower of 1% of 1078 people? Which is 10 people?
But why round down?
I feel rounding up would be more reasonable?”
Murphy scratched his head and glanced at his reserve manpower, which had changed from【40/50】to【40/60】, filling up with the 10 spots awarded for completing the sixth newbie quest.
It was at this moment that the vampire lord truly understood this demonic system’s main means of recruiting test personnel.
The good news was, he had guessed correctly.
He really wouldn’t need to painstakingly do quests to recruit test personnel in the future.
The bad news was, his understanding of this “game” had never seemed quite right.
For example, when he first transported over he thought he was playing The Witcher. When he could recruit adorable little players, he felt it was Mount & Blade. But now the truth was finally revealed!
Turns out he was goddamn playing Civilization 6 all along!
F**k!
“Why couldn’t it be a chill beach building game? Why couldn’t I start with mech suits and deathray cannons? Why can’t I have a toggle for summoning neutron sweeps?”
Murphy tilted his head back, cursing the heavens. At that moment, he felt a summons from his physical body on the spiritual plane, causing his soul to return in the next instant as he painfully opened his eyes once more.
What entered his vision was a soft, tender…
“Tris! Let go of me…cough cough, you’re suffocating me!”
“Ah, little Murphy, you’re finally awake! You little brat, you scared me to death, did you know that? I just knew sending me away meant no good could come of it!
Just for this little patch of ruins and those people who have nothing to do with you, you’re risking your life?
Could you bear to leave me suffering all alone?
You naughty child! You scared me to death!”
“Don’t hit me, it hurts…”
“Mmm, it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt. Good Murphy, it doesn’t hurt, I’ll blow on it and it won’t hurt. Drink some blood and it won’t hurt. Good boy, open wide, ahhh…”