VRMMORPG: The Other World Online

Cheng Xiu looked at the NPCs who were too busy fighting with each other to look towards her and San Zhe.

"So how do we defeat them?" Cheng Xiu whispered to San Zhe.

The man in the blue robes frowned and then thought of the way that the dungeon was set up. Even though he knew that fighting them would be hard, he could guess a bit of where their powers were at. "Maybe we can attack their Spell Books?"

Cheng Xiu looked towards him. "You think that their power source are their Spell Books?"

"Yeah," San Zhe said to her. "Think about it. The first woman attacked you after taking out her Spell Book. The second woman attacked me after taking out hers. They could maybe only trigger the Spells in the book if the book is near them?"

"Isn't that condition a bit too strict?" Cheng Xiu asked him.

San Zhe shook his head. "This is a high rank dungeon but it is still restricted by the Clock Tower rules. That is, the players can only fight those who are within their Quest limit. For example, your Quest ends at the Queens. That means you can only attack NPCs up to the power levels of the Rat Queens. And only NPCs upto the power level of the Queens can attack you. The King of the Dungeon will not attack you."

Cheng Xiu nodded in understanding. "That is kind of interesting."

"It should be. The system will not give you missions that are not within your limit. That is why most people use the Quest Pillars."

Cheng Xiu noted what he was not saying at that moment. "There are ways to enter these dungeons without that Quest Pillar thing?"

San Zhe nodded. "Through hidden plotlines that are strewn across the world, and there are also commissions. There are also player issued Quests."

"How would they do that?" Cheng Xiu asked.

"Through the system. After you have completed your first Quest, you can use the System interface to commission to do your works for you. You can use the in-game currency to make the system issue the quests," San Zhe said.

"It is one of the methods to make the players use money in the game, isn't it?" Cheng Xiu asked.

San Zhe nodded.

"So because the Quest was issued to us, people who are low levels…" Cheng Xiu said and looked at him in surprise.

San Zhe nodded his head. "The NPCs will also be of that level. The fact that we encountered the hidden Plotlines without anything though…I think it might have to do with the quest delay…"

"Quest delay?"

San Zhe nodded. "This quest should have been finished in two days in-game time. At most it would take 4 days in-game time. But seeing as we spent more than a week and haven't completed the quest yet, means that the system is trying to train the player to finish the Quest as quickly as they can."

"Oh," Cheng Xiu said in surprise. "Wouldn't the system know that I did not log in for so long, and that was why the Quest was delayed?"

"This is supposed to be your first Quest," San Zhe whispered in embarrassment.

Cheng Xiu scowled. She understood. She was supposed to finish the first quest quickly. But she didn't. Since the player had not completed the first quest yet, the system decided to put the game in easy mode, giving the players advantage by showing the sub-plotlines that the players usually have to look for on their own.

This system was far more user friendly than she had first thought it was. But it only began its help after a week had passed, which meant it will only help if Cheng Xiu really delayed the Quest for too long, and this might have been the only time that she received this kind of help. After all, her first Quest would unlock a lot of game features that were locked for now. Perhaps the only reason the system had helped her at the moment was because it wanted the player to start using money online and the only way that she could do that was if she finished her first quest.

Cheng Xiu sighed. What a complicated System.

"This game is not very user friendly, is it?" Cheng Xiu asked San Zhe in whisper.

San Zhe smiled. "It is…usually. You were the few unlucky ones who somehow ended up attracting unwanted attention."

"So their powers should definitely be their spell books?"

"I think so."

"Or maybe they can only remember the spells they want to access if they use the book. Maybe the condition to use the books for these NPCs might be having the book at hand. Maybe it costs Qi…like the can activate the spells by simply applying the Qi to the book. This would make them lazy and they would not learn the actual way to use the spells independently and they would become even more dependent on the Spell Books. What an interesting way of implementing restrictions!"

San Zhe really wanted to know what really went on when Cheng Xiu was thinking. Why was she able to predict the conditions of the NPC powers so well?

He had been playing the game for a long time, it made sense for him to reveal such secrets, but for her to be able to guess it too…he wondered if she was used to playing VR games more often than he had guessed before.

He looked towards the two NPCs who were still bickering. Did they not get exhausted? He got tired just by looking at them.

"Why are these two so engaged in fights?" San Zhe wondered. "Could it be that the real Queens are also like this? Maybe that is the clue that we should get from this sub-plot?"

Cheng Xiu looked at him in disdain.

What? San Zhe wanted to ask her. Did he say something very stupid? Why was she looking at San Zhe like that?