Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 120 Very Imaginative

Chapter 120: Chapter 120 Very Imaginative

Instructor Ding had never imagined that he would inadvertently initiate a formidable BOSS battle.

Moreover, the difficulty of this BOSS battle was outrageously high!

Xia Mi, with her power of the Holy Light fully activated, had become overwhelmingly strong. Even though the City Lord controlled by Instructor Ding had gained demonic power, he still ended up being beaten to a retreat!

Under the purifying force of the Holy Light, the summoned demons and undead were easily wiped out; even merely getting close to Xia Mi would result in continuous damage due to her powerful holy aura.

The Holy Light from the Crusader Paladins had been an insignificant nuisance to the City Lord, but Xia Mi’s Holy Light felt like a knife stabbing directly into an artery!

"Damn it, shake them off!"

"I refuse to believe that you can turn the tables in my own city!"

Instructor Ding fought and retreated at the same time, beginning to summon more garrison soldiers and demons to join the battle.

He thought he could quickly end the fight with numerical superiority, but to his astonishment, after Xia Mi stepped out of the Castle Lord’s Mansion and into the city, more and more people began to gather around her!

[God! An Angel has descended!]

[I have been blinded by demons all along! Now, I shall regain the honor of a knight and fight for the Holy Light!]

[Demon, meet your demise!]

More and more people joined Xia Mi’s side, including previously secluded civilians, garrison soldiers who had served the City Lord, and even devotees who had been brainwashed by Demonic Knowledge!

The bitter fruit of low satisfaction levels began to emerge!

Since discovering the "Demonic Knowledge" skill, Instructor Ding had relied solely on it to handle affairs within the city, making some very inhumane decisions.

After all, why worry when you could brainwash the populace with Demonic Knowledge and keep them in check, regardless of how low the satisfaction levels dropped?

Turning everything into data and desperately expanding the demonic legion seemed to be all that mattered!

But now, those once obedient civilians instantly rebelled, standing on the side of righteousness!

Although demonic legions kept pouring in to support Instructor Ding, more and more people stood behind Xia Mi.

Fighting on, Instructor Ding grew puzzled – how was it that the enemies seemed to be multiplying??

The Crusaders had not been this troublesome!

As the balance of power continued to shift, Instructor Ding’s forces eventually fell into complete disarray!

The evil City Lord was ultimately overwhelmed by the enraged populace, and Xia Mi, now a being of pure divinity, passed her final judgment on him: she dispatched him with a scorching blast of Holy Light from the heavens!

A blinding white flash passed by, and the game once again displayed an interlude CG.

It was still in sand painting style. Xia Mi, surrounded by a crowd, left the City Forsaken by Gods. She resembled the prophet Moses leading people to seek a new homeland.

Shortly after her departure, a vehement Holy Light struck from the sky, reducing the City Forsaken by Gods to rubble.

Of course, the number of people Xia Mi took with her was clearly less than the number shown in the first CG being led away by the Crusaders.

This could be because, in this ending, the City Lord played by Instructor Ding had already tainted most of the city’s inhabitants with demonic power. During the civil strife, these people were purified by evil, and only a minority of those still pure and kind followed Xia Mi.

[The 3rd round of the game has ended!]

[After 6 years, 1 month, and 9 days of holding out, the City Forsaken by Gods was destroyed, the cause being "Angelic Awakening."]

[As the City Lord, you made decisions with ruthless indifference, conserving the city’s scant resources in an almost extreme manner, without a care for the lives of the common people, inciting widespread resentment.]

[You used the power of the demonic unabashedly, turning the City Forsaken by Gods into a true demonic city-state, and your ultimate fate was well-deserved.]

[Through the Demon’s Vision, you saw Xia Mi’s true identity, and consequently, you were highly wary of her, your relationship inevitably heading to a split. In the face of an irreparable situation, you came up with a brilliant idea to solve it all: corrupt an Archangel’s human incarnation with Demonic Knowledge? Imaginative, to say the least.]

[What if you could do it all over again? Would anything be different?]

[Click to enter the 4th round of the world.]

Instructor Ding was dumbfounded.

What the hell!

What do you mean "the ultimate fate was well-deserved"? Are you trying to interrogate my conscience?

I was just playing by the rules of your game, wasn’t I?

I didn’t want to use the power of the demons from the start, but without it, I couldn’t have continued the game!

The last part was particularly unbearable for Instructor Ding.

What does it mean to have "a stroke of genius"? What does it mean to be "highly imaginative"?

Is this some sort of official mockery?

Clearly, the officials seemed to have anticipated Instructor Ding’s choice, knowing that players would associate the use of "Hell’s Bounties" and "Hell Knowledge" skills with the manipulation of the Wolong Strategy and couldn’t wait to try them out on Xia Mi.

And the outcome was naturally, try it and die.

Instructor Ding was like an overly clever primary school student who tried to flip to the last page of his holiday homework to copy the answers, only to find there were no answers, just a line of small print: Please complete the homework independently!

All one can say is that his mindset took a bit of a hit.

Instructor Ding took a deep breath, moved the camera away, and then silently lit a cigarette.

"Don’t rush it, brothers, let me calm my emotions a bit.

"Who says I’m tilted? There’s no way I could be tilted, my mindset is fantastic.

"Let me put it this way, no matter what happens, as long as I chant three times in my heart:

"’This is a game from Nitiandang! ×3’

"Then my emotions will be as tranquil as still water.

"Give me a moment to recover. We still have time tonight, and we’ll continue analyzing the game’s hidden mechanics later."

...

In the movie theater, Lilith glanced at Gu Fan with some surprise.

Gu Fan shook his head somewhat impatiently: "Ah, why don’t you learn from your mistakes after falling into a pit?

"Similar features have caused issues in ’Destiny of the Sleeping Dragon’ before, so why didn’t you make it clear in the design document this time?

"I helped you plug the loophole on the fly, no need to thank me."

Lilith didn’t say much else, just nodded slightly, said "not bad," and then opened another bag of potato chips.

Her demeanor was as casual as if there had been no bug encounter, completely without tension.

And Gu Fan himself couldn’t help feeling somewhat thrilled.

His suspicion had been confirmed; this was indeed a loophole deliberately left by Lilith in the design!

And her real purpose was to test the developers’ motives!

Why say so?

The setting of "Angel’s Descent" was clearly outlined in the design document by Lilith from the start, including the final sand painting CG, which had obviously been prepared in advance.

But the outcome produced by Instructor Ding was not the standard punishment for this ending.

The standard way to trigger it was when Xia Mi’s friendliness toward the City Lord was low enough, Xia Mi would opt for a more aggressive form of resistance, and upon killing enough demons, would complete "Angel’s Descent."

All Gu Fan did was to make the action of "using Demonic Knowledge on Xia Mi" also lead to the outcome of "Angel’s Descent."

Most of the reviews were generated by the fake-AI, where the system would apply a set of fixed phrases based on the player’s performance and piece together a commentary.

But comments like "a stroke of genius" were casually added by Gu Fan when he was writing the settings.

Why did Gu Fan do this?

Because the loophole was too obvious!

’Destiny of the Sleeping Dragon’ had failed before because of "Strategic Dragon Synergy," and Lilith was all too aware of this, but she came up with a similar move again this time.

And more importantly, she didn’t make any specific restrictions on this feature in the design document!

This was highly inconsistent with the intellect of a crafty demon.

If Gu Fan had really gone ahead and inserted a bug here as logically expected, it would have been very difficult to explain. Even if Gu Fan stubbornly insisted it was still a design flaw, Lilith would definitely not have believed him.

That’s why when Gu Fan saw Zhou Yang add this bug, he corrected it immediately, completely sealing off the loophole.

Otherwise, the consequences would have been unthinkable!

Such a change not only plugged the loophole but also maximized compliance with the gameplay that was already designed without adding any extra workload.

From Lilith’s reaction, it was clear she was quite satisfied with it and her suspicions of Gu Fan lessened once again.

As for Zhou Yang, sitting in the corner and watching the live stream while sneakily checking out the situation with Lilith and President Gu,

Though he couldn’t hear a word they were saying, Zhou Yang still managed to roughly guess a few things through his own conjecture.

"As expected, I’m still far from being on the same level as President Gu!

"Looks like I need to keep working hard!"

Zhou Yang quietly made up his mind, while also looking forward to what kind of bug President Gu might insert into this game.