CHAPTER 373

Speaking of Brother Meow’s hidden quest, one can’t help but mention this guy’s incredibly bad luck that makes people’s hearts ache and brings tears to their eyes.

After clearing the high-level dungeon Blood Vulture Halls back then, players experienced the first in-game equipment chest opening, with everyone getting something good, and some even getting mounts, but Brother Meow’s group almost got nothing decent.

It was as if they were cursed by something dirty. Of course, this was the disastrous consequence of their private gossiping, and no matter how bad it got, they had to endure it themselves.

But Brother Meow’s situation was special.

He received an incomplete design blueprint at the time, which started a long quest chain for finding the “Replica of Necessary Evil”, but the first step of the quest almost stumped him.

The quest required him to create a weapon blank for a Necessary Evil replica, but the blacksmith in the camp couldn’t handle it, so he had to invite two “Master Bladesmiths” from his social connections into the game to complete this step.

However, after submitting this blank to Lord Murphy, the quest got stuck.

No matter how he tried, he couldn’t get the continuation of this hidden quest. Brother Meow thought he was unlucky, but it wasn’t until now when the third phase of this quest was activated that he realized it wasn’t his bad luck, but rather that this hidden quest could only be triggered after the major version update to 3.0!

Holy crap!

That was scary.

Brother Meow let out a sigh of relief, and with a joy of “losing and regaining,” he reached out to grab the replica magic sword in the weapon box that had been personally enchanted by Lady Tris. He gripped this single-handed sword that was already distinctly different and looked very cool, then activated item identification.

This thing had completely different attributes from before:

Name: Scorpio – Classic Vampire Magic Blade

Quality: Masterwork – 【Prototype】 Veteran – Master Enchantment

Traits: Reinforced Durability – Reinforced Sharpness – Weak Spirit Control – Blood Edge – Flying Spirit Blade – Will-Controlled – Incomplete Item

Special Effects:

1. Blood Edge:

This item was strengthened using an unknown rune combination during crafting, which, combined with the ebony stone embedded in its hilt, produced quite remarkable effects. After killing enemies with this weapon, it absorbs some spirit essence to strengthen the blade and applies 【Spirit Blade】 and 【Magic Breaking】 effects to itself.

This effect can accumulate to give the weapon additional magic-breaking attributes, or can release all stored spirit essence at once to deal massive damage to enemies when the ebony stone is full.

Current accumulated spirit essence: None.

Maximum accumulatable spirit essence: 100% of ebony stone capacity.

2. Blade of Will:

Lady Tris, the Grandmaster Alchemist, was very interested in this replica of Necessary Evil, and personally applied quite advanced enchantments to it, giving it 【Flight】 and 【Will Control】 effects.

After establishing a spirit bond with its user, this item can automatically kill enemies under the user’s mental control, just like the miracle artifact Necessary Evil.

However, the flight agility and attack precision when controlling this weapon depends on the user’s spirit control technique.

Note!

When controlling this weapon to fly and kill enemies, if the weapon is knocked down, it will cause mental shock to the controller, potentially leading to unconsciousness in severe cases.

3. Incomplete Item:

As a replica of the magic sword Necessary Evil, this weapon can only be called ‘excellent’ at its current stage. You might be able to find ways to further strengthen this weapon in certain places on the continent and make its power closer to the legendary magic blade.

Lady Tris’s suggestion is that you might want to visit those legendary Moon Priests in Moon Holy City of the Origin Land.

These spellcasters, who have profound research in death forces, have very unique insights into the subject of ‘how to give intelligence to dead objects’.

Note!

Lady Tris is very curious about the prospects of this replica magic blade, so if you happen to lose it, you can bring back the Scorpio weapon blank and come to Lady Tris to pay some money for restoration.

Usage requirements: Due to the extremely advanced enchantments Lady Tris applied to this weapon, using it perfectly has become a challenging matter.

Requires Intelligence ≥10, Agility ≥11.

Creators: Master Broken Blade, Hundred Forging Great Horse

Item Description:

【A young person’s first compact downgraded light luxury magic sword, you deserve to own it!】

“Damn!”

Brother Meow’s eyes widened.

He finally understood why this quest chain had to wait until the current 3.0 version to be updated, this sword is incredible!

He quickly completed the spirit binding with his downgraded magic sword, then rather unskillfully controlled it to float up from his palm, and tried to imitate Lord Murphy’s stance of controlling Necessary Evil by making it fly around his body, but almost sliced off the “Brother Dan wooden carving” that was on Murphy’s desk as an “Easter egg”.

“To perfectly use this kind of spirit blade, you still need practice, especially when using it to dodge attacks from enemies. But when your mind is connected to it, it also becomes part of your body, so the damage it takes will be transmitted to your body.

This is an extremely risky thing.”

Murphy casually waved his hand, and the whistling Necessary Evil only needed one collision to knock away the spirit blade controlled by Brother Meow, which was quickly caught by the handle in mid-air by the Oak Knight who was suffering from a splitting headache.

That single collision made Brother Meow’s spirit feel like it had been heavily hammered, almost making him lose his balance.

He realized the risks of using this spirit blade, but Brother Meow still didn’t want to give up his newly acquired “player benefit”.

He chuckled while expressing gratitude to Lord Murphy, then proudly left Murphy’s office with his “flying sword”. Brother Meow was editing a post on the forum to show off his “lucky draw” to whitewash his identity as the “Black Hand Clan Chief”, while also planning to quickly go to the blacksmith shop to discuss the Scorpio weapon blank matter with Master Broken Blade.

From the current situation, Brother Meow’s hidden quest has already created a “family silver benefit” for players. It remains to be seen whether other players carrying the Scorpio spirit blade blank can get the same “upgraded version” when they find Lord Murphy?

If possible, this would be a good path to wealth!

Monopoly!

Monopoly business is always the easiest to do!

Murphy watched the slyly smiling Brother Meow leave with great satisfaction in his heart. Through Brother Meow as a “promotional player”, perhaps this type of “spirit sword” only needs to appear once or twice on the battlefield, and many envious little players will inquire about its origins.

By then, his Blood Vulture Clan will have another incredible “special gameplay”. Heh, all according to plan!

————————

On the road near the five collective farms around Crimson Citadel, a large group of administrative players were riding various vehicles, led by civil servants from the administrative office, heading to their assigned work locations to take office.

The top five administrative players from the recently concluded administrative assessment were assigned to these five points that were quite important for Transia to serve as village chiefs, while other administrative players were assigned to administrative positions in places like the Morland Village quarry and the mines in the Baroness of Shadow’s territory.

This batch of management-specialized little players were “precious eggs” in Regent Miriam’s hands, and she knew she must use their power properly even without Murphy’s reminder.

And these five collective farms happened to be the “blueprint” of Murphy’s future administrative base planning for Transia, so naturally, the best steel should be used on the blade’s edge.

“Look, this is our first territory besides ‘Torrent Fort’!”

Honorary Knight Typal, riding on an armored warhorse, said expectantly to his two administrative player companions “Archmage Marin” and “Goblin Tax Officer Goldflash”:

“Look! The third farm in the distance, that’s where ‘our dream begins’! I want to name that farm ‘Newbie Village’!”

“Strange idea.”

Archmage Marin pouted and said:

“This name isn’t RP at all, and why did you have to pick me as your deputy? I was doing fine as Lady Tris’s apprentice in Crimson Citadel. I still have several basic recipes to learn.”

“You can learn recipes anytime, and it’s not like you have to stay in the village permanently. You can go back to continue playing later. The main thing is that today is the establishment day of Newbie Village, we need to have a sense of ceremony.

Besides, as the village chief, me as the village doctor, you and Tax Officer Goldflash as the village accountant are the three most important officials in our currently developing Newbie Village, we must attend today no matter what.

The first duty of a lord is to make their subjects understand who their administrator is!

And whose orders they need to obey.”

Typal, riding on his horse, was full of confidence, clearly having already thought through the development plans and strategies for his “Newbie Village”.

He instructed Marin and Goldflash:

“I carefully studied the past production modes of this Transian land in the Blood Vulture Halls library before, and I found that during the dark age of vampire rule, they never cared about the locals’ living conditions, nor did they ever think about reforming local agricultural and commercial modes.

I specifically asked Professor Chen, and he told me that while Transia’s land isn’t particularly fertile, it’s not terribly poor either.

Working hard to farm here, even with backward agricultural production methods, getting enough to eat isn’t a problem for farmers, but to further develop on the agricultural level requires introducing external forces, but our Torrent Knights still need to build Torrent Fort soon.

We don’t have that much energy to spend on my Newbie Village.

As the current leader of the Knights, I also can’t use public resources for private benefit.

Therefore, I hope to find a way to effectively increase my territory’s income without interfering with the construction of Torrent Fort, and after much consideration, I finally found the most suitable development path for ‘Newbie Village’!

That is alchemy!

More precisely, being suppliers for alchemy!”

Typal said kindly to the stunned Archmage Marin:

“Next to my Newbie Village is a woodland that can directly connect to the forest near Morland Village, and the Witch Hunters produce excellent alchemists, their achievements in natural alchemy even make Lady Tris marvel.

When Uncle Fording was recovering from his broken leg there, he accidentally discovered that the Witch Hunters would plant many herbs in the forest and use special methods to make them grow quickly.

We need to take advantage of this!

My idea is that Newbie Village will give up agricultural production! Only keep a small portion of people farming just enough to meet basic food needs, and the rest of the villagers will all go to the forest to plant various alchemical herbs.

This will be the village’s future development direction.

We will strive to become the largest alchemical herb production base in the Transia region!

Only in this way can my villagers live a wealthy life more quickly.”

“Your idea is good, Knight Typal, but it’s not realistic.”

On the other side, “Goblin Tax Officer Goldflash” pursed his lips. Of course, he wasn’t really a goblin, just a shorter middle-aged man with shrewd and worldly eyes.

He said to Typal while riding:

“You’ve also interacted with locals during our administrative internship. Their cultural level is too low. They can do farming, but taking care of delicate alchemical herbs might be too much for them. They barely know any words, but herbalists in the medieval era were absolutely expert professions.”

“But Marin can teach them!”

Typal said very seriously:

“This is also why I sent Marin to learn alchemy before. Marin is responsible for going to Morland Village to learn from the Witch Hunters’ alchemists, then teach what he learns to our villagers.

We must plant all the herbs that can survive winter before the first snow falls!”

“Two problems!”

Archmage Marin didn’t refuse, but frowned and said:

“First, I have no connection with the Witch Hunters, why would they teach me? Second, are you sure the villagers will understand your good intentions? They’ll probably make trouble if you don’t let them farm, right?”

“Two answers.”

Typal said confidently:

“First, you can join the Avalon Church to become one of them. You’re already on the spirit energy path and not passionate about the Holy Light faith.

For you, this is just a choice of benefit.

Second, I don’t need the villagers to understand. I am a medieval lord, I only need to give orders and they must follow them.

There are no laws protecting their human rights here!

I will drive out those who are unwilling to comply from my village. This is for the benefit of the majority, a small portion of stubborn individuals can be sacrificed!”

“Holy crap!”

This answer made Marin and Goldflash look at each other, he said quietly:

“This is too… no, Typal, you weren’t like this before, have you learned bad things from the NPCs in the game?”

Faced with this question, Typal sighed and said helplessly:

“No, if possible, I also hope my villagers would respect and understand me, but we don’t have that much time to influence them, so we can only use forced measures to make them obey.

For a king, what he desires most is respect and fear from his subjects. If the two cannot be achieved together, then fear comes first, respect follows.

When the first batch of herbs is sold for shining silver coins, they will understand my orders.

They’ve had it too hard.

Poverty and humbleness have bent their backs making them unable to see that far, but as a lord and administrator, I must be responsible for my subjects.

I must see farther than them to better lead them!

No!

Not me, but ‘us’.”

Typal stretched out both hands on horseback and said emotionally to his two deputies:

“Let’s work together to make our Newbie Village the best place to live in all of Transia!”

While the Newbie Village chief Typal was explaining his future plans for his village, the chiefs of the other four farms were doing the same thing.

Scholar Xiao Zhou was chatting with his dormitory mates about exploring for minerals around their Village No. 4. They were geology graduates and planned to use their advantages to help their subjects get rich.

The chief of Village No. 2 was an administrative player called “Pink Cat Rabbit”.

This guy had been very low-key since entering the game.

So low-key that he had almost never appeared in players’ highlight moments, but this quiet young man was indeed someone who kept his abilities hidden, as evidenced by his second place in the administrative assessment.

He had no player companions.

But the four NPC assistants that could be exchanged with the formal village chief appointment were all exchanged for administrative students from one class, all local Transians.

This was the “administrative team” he chose for himself. He was now sitting in a carriage with his four assistants, holding piles of blueprints and planning documents discussing plans to build a lodging area on the commercial route connecting to Bataxin City. His Village No. 2 was the closest area to Transia’s current “commercial hub”.

It was right in the middle of the road from Bataxin City to Crimson Citadel.

He felt he must grasp this advantage to get the first bucket of gold in the commercial exchange between Transia and the northerners.

From his orderly arrangements and how the four NPC deputies submitted to him, it was clear that this guy was definitely no pushover in real life either, definitely belonging to that small group of “successful career” people.

In fact, he got second place in the administrative test not because his ability was such, but because he hadn’t given his full effort.

He wasn’t someone who liked to stand out.

And he had already reached a “secret contract” with Village No. 1’s chief Life Is Pretty Good – the future development of the two adjacent villages was destined to be tied together.

So what was Village No. 1’s chief Old Huo doing now?

“Look, you’re all professional management talents, right?”

In Old Huo’s carriage, the freshly minted “administrative test champion” Life Is Pretty Good frowned at his four female secretaries beside him and said somewhat dissatisfied:

“Why are your plans so terrible? There’s no executability at all! We need to be based on Transia’s current situation, deeply explore local ecology to find advantageous plays.

Go, take them back and redo them.

If they’re still not good enough, I’ll have to dock your pay~ If your development plans aren’t good, people in my village will go hungry!

So, ladies, please be more serious, okay?”