Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 586 - 569: This Task Will Produce Offspring

Chapter 586: Chapter 569: This Task Will Produce Offspring

Soon, Chen Tingquan arrived at the target area for this mission.

In the distance, an NPC lay on the ground, carrying a basket on her back and seemingly clutching a few herbs in her hand—likely the "missing herbalist" mentioned in the mission description.

Really though, the scenery in these mountains is quite splendid.

The Earth Country Daliang covers an extensive area, hence the diverse terrains and landforms.

Previously, players around King’s City were mainly dealing with the Xun Xiang Cult on the plains.

However, in the northern part of Daliang, perhaps due to some borders shared with the Water Country, a unique water environment has formed.

Mountains, deep valleys, waterfalls, rivers are everywhere, making the scenery picturesque, like a haven from the outside world.

And this mission is located in one such mountain ravine.

Just as he got close to this NPC, monsters around refreshed, including evil spirits and Xun Xiang Cult followers among others.

However, since these are all familiar foes for Chen Tingquan, who now wielded the Time Element as a Hero, he quickly cleared them up.

After driving all the enemies away, the NPC lying on the ground still showed no signs of awakening. At this moment, a spirit creature emerged from the ground, triggering a new subplot.

In the game, the Hero is assumed to be accompanied by Xi Yun, so many hints or conversations with other characters are often assisted by Xi Yun.

In the dialogue, the main background of this series of side missions was gradually clarified.

Overall, although the issue near King’s City was temporarily resolved, the evil spirits throughout the land had not been thoroughly ousted, with sporadic Xun Xiang Cult members still causing trouble.

This area, located among the northern mountains of Liang Kingdom, rich in resources and complex in terrain, made it difficult to clean up all the hidden Xun Xiang Cult members.

These cultists might still be engaging in malevolent schemes.

Moreover, these mountains are also a paradise for spirit creatures.

These spirits are inherently non-confrontational, born from the essence of the world and valuable as herbal essences themselves, which makes them targets for dangerous poachers.

However, this NPC herbalist named "Benevolent Heart," was not despised by the spirits; rather, their relationship was quite good.

This is because most herbalists in the mountains respect these spirits, fostering a symbiotic relationship.

But with the emergence of evil spirits and non-stop disturbances by the Xun Xiang Cult members, the natural balance of the land was disrupted, leading to an increase in monsters.

Local herbalists were also trying to resist these monsters with the spirits, but to little avail.

At this time, "Benevolent Heart," while collecting herbs, was attacked by monsters to protect one of the spirits, leading to severe trauma and unconsciousness.

To save her, one must venture into the mountains to various special Blessed Land Cave Heavens to collect diverse precious herbs.

These Blessed Lands, often occupied by evil spirits due to their rich spiritual energy, had caused the original spirits to either be parasitized or displaced.

Thus, the Hero’s mission is to cleanse these lands as much as possible, save the spirits, and gather the precious herbs.

The goal was not only to revive Benevolent Heart but also to purify the remaining evil spirits and restore peace and harmony to the people of Liang Kingdom.

"Cleanse the Blessed Lands, huh? Shouldn’t be too hard."

Chen Tingquan didn’t think much of it, as in the process of rescuing Benevolent Heart, he had effectively cleansed a piece of Blessed Land and saved a spirit.

It wasn’t too difficult, just a matter of clearing the evil spirits and monsters upon arriving at a place, destroying three altars that continually spawned monsters, and then defeating a big boss that appeared.

However, when Chen Tingquan opened the mission list, he was momentarily confused.

"Wait, how did the mission turn into four??"

The original main mission was still there, but the description had changed to "Purify the Four Great Blessed Land Cave Heavens."

Under the main mission were four separate tasks, clearly corresponding to the four different Blessed Land Cave Heavens.

He had already cleared one, so three remained.

"They shouldn’t be too difficult either, five minutes for each, roughly fifteen minutes should get it done."

Thinking this, Chen Tingquan began to trek toward another main Blessed Land Cave Heaven.

Just like before, it was procedural work, quickly cleared.

And he rescued another new spirit.

These spirits all seemed to have some kind of herbal prototype; for example, the first spirit looked like a ginseng spirit, and this one looked even more abstract—probably an angelica spirit, with many interwoven roots and feathery green leaves sprouting on its head.

After a round of mutual flattery for business, this angelica spirit decided to find the ginseng spirit, and these spirits planned to find a safe place to hide for a while, waiting for all the evil spirits in the area to be cleared before returning.

As a reward, they indeed provided special herbs that could be used for alchemy.

But the following words from this spirit surprised Chen Tingquan.

"Oh! But to bring out the perfect medicinal effect of this thousand-year-old angelica, it needs to be used together with codonopsis, astragalus, and goji berries.

Moreover, to blend these herbs together, special water and an alchemical furnace are needed..."

Chen Tingquan was stunned.

He had a vague premonition that things might not go so smoothly.

Indeed, upon opening the task interface, there were five more different subtasks added: finding Codonopsis, Astragalus, Goji berries, special water, and a special alchemy furnace.

"Uh-oh, something’s off with this quest!

"How can it even spawn spawns?!"

...

Meanwhile, Zhuge Jun was looking at the video he posted, somewhat speechless.

This video went viral!

After the new version update, this video was dug up like a prophecy foretelling the future, and it became a critical battleground for players to criticize Nitiandang.

No choice, it was too accurate in prediction.

Previously, many people didn’t believe it, questioning what right does a small content creator with only dozens of fans have to critique Nitiandang?

Your assessment, it only holds water under several prerequisites, and if these prerequisites are met, it implies that Nitiandang is fooling around, purposely annoying the players.

How could that be possible!

But as the version of "Endless Fantasy Legend 2" updated, it proved Zhuge Jun was right.

No one understands Nitiandang better than him!

Indeed, all those prerequisites were met: the next Chapter’s area is the Earth Country, Earth Country has numerous Earth Element shield monsters, and these shield monsters indeed needed Wood Element, Water Element, and Time Element to be tackled!

Ningyun Monarch was indeed a mandatory gacha, no doubt about it!

With Xing Ying and Ningyun Monarch, playing this version was like a fish taking to water, chaotically slaying and turning the game into a mowing session.

But obviously, Nitiandang’s counter-intuitive operations didn’t stop there.

If that were it, players pulling Jiye in the new gacha pool, who also has the Time Element, could still have played.

But who would have thought, Nitiandang actually updated a special training quest and enhanced the Hero!

Now those who impulsively pulled Jiye became the ultimate clowns.

While they could also use Hero, a team only has four slots, and any extra characters would just be storage managers.

Then remembering that their Jiye took hundreds of gachas to pull out makes it even more frustrating.

So, players were exploding in fury, attacking Nitiandang everywhere.

Some even began digging up old issues from the beta version; after all, they had done something similar during the beta and were severely criticized then.

It’s surprising that Nitiandang didn’t learn from the past but instead intensified their tactics.

And Zhuge Jun’s video naturally became the bastion for these people, serving as concrete evidence in their attacks against Nitiandang.

Seeing the overwhelming criticisms, Zhuge Jun frowned slightly, "This... shouldn’t be criticized so harshly."

Although the comments were all praising him and criticizing Nitiandang, Zhuge Jun still felt something was off.

Because his video actually wasn’t meant to criticize Nitiandang.

On the contrary, he thought Nitiandang’s actions had deeper meaning, it’s just that he hadn’t pointed it out in his previous videos.

After all, back then he didn’t even know if the next country would indeed be the Earth Country; if his prediction was wrong, wouldn’t his analysis turn into a joke?

But now, Zhuge Jun thought he should share his subsequent guesses.

...

In the evening.

Lilith was flipping through online public opinions, thoroughly enjoying the expressions.

"Good!

"Very good!

"Extremely good!

"Everything is unfolding exactly as I envisioned! This harvest of negative emotions is simply wonderful!"

Players were intensely criticizing Nitiandang online, from gachas to Earth Element shields, then to the Hero mastering the Time Element and bursting five-star characters like Jiye’s Gold Coins.

Every post they open, the criticisms are uniquely fierce.

Among these, there were also a few complaints about the new subtasks, though they hadn’t scaled up yet.

After all, many players hadn’t even had the chance to complete the main quests of Chapter Two, and haven’t experienced what it feels like when subtasks spawn.

Currently, the main firepower still concentrated on gacha and card pool arrangements.

This, for Lilith, was rather good news as it meant the collection of negative emotions would continue smoothly, and subsequent income would be substantial.

Flipping through online posts, Lilith suddenly frowned.

"Who is this Zhuge Jun anyway?"