Chapter 18: Professional Footwork Trainer

Xu Yuan's acting had been pretty shoddy just now.

In a normal situation, with his explosive abilities, even if he feared the wolves, his first instinct would have been to kill them.

Running away at the sight of them? That was completely out of character.

But most players only trusted what they saw with their own eyes.

Even if there were inconsistencies, they would rationalize them away.

Seeing that the players had bought into his performance, Xu Yuan breathed a sigh of relief.

Although setting all this up was tedious, it was necessary.

The game world was vast, and the players were scattered.

That made it harder for Xu Yuan to accumulate kill points.

While he had built a mob farm, it could only generate 5,000 kill points per hour.

But Xu Yuan needed a lot of kill points to upgrade his skills and unlock mods. These two were the primary ways to increase his power.

"Intimidation" was only useful for controlling monsters; it wasn't particularly helpful otherwise.

The mob farm alone was barely enough to meet his early-stage needs. As he progressed, the kill points required for upgrades would only increase.

To gather enough kill points, he'd have to extract them from the players.

As the game advanced, players would be killing more and more monsters. One player could be worth more than 5,000 kill points.

Xu Yuan's current goal was to fatten up these players, attract even more to the area, and then harvest them when the time was right.

He pondered for a moment.

"They don't seem to know how to farm monsters yet."

If he wanted to fatten them up, he'd have to teach them how to farm efficiently.

Xu Yuan observed that the players on the plains didn't venture out at night. That meant they likely hadn't learned the art of footwork or how to build a mob farm.

"Looks like I'll have to teach them how to do it."

If the players wanted to farm kill points quickly, building mob farms was the best method.

But sharing that knowledge would accelerate their progress.

And player kill points affected the pace at which mods were unlocked.

Telling them how to build a mob farm would inevitably speed up the mod unlocks.

Without enough strength, the players unlocking mods could pose a threat to Xu Yuan.

So, for now, he wouldn't reveal that method.

Instead, he'd teach them "footwork techniques."

It's like the enchanted item, the Shield Staff, from the Twilight Forest.

When used, five shields float around the player, each able to absorb one instance of regular damage.

Regular damage includes explosive attacks.

If players get their hands on that item, and Xu Yuan only has his explosive skill for offense, then he'd be completely ineffective against them.

That would put Xu Yuan in a passive and vulnerable position.

So, the best strategy right now to 'fatten up' the players is to teach them the Foot-Cutting Method.

This way, the players' kill counts won't rise too fast, but they also won't stagnate.

As more players gather here, the kill value Xu Yuan gains from them would be more than enough.

Of course, the ideal outcome would be for the players to develop a dependency on this area.

Even if they get killed by Xu Yuan once, they'd continue living here—that would be perfect.

However, this isn't something Xu Yuan can control.

Whether the players stay or leave is entirely up to them.

With that thought in mind, Xu Yuan decided to implement his plan.

First, he would teach the players the Foot-Cutting Method.

At this moment, the sky was just starting to brighten.

Xu Yuan left the stone on the city wall and teleported away from the players' encampment.

After searching the surroundings for a while, he found a cave a few meters deep, with signs of human activity, likely where players had previously gathered stones.

"This place isn't bad," Xu Yuan mused.

The cave had no natural light, and even during the day, monsters could spawn here.

Additionally, since players had come here before to gather materials, it was bound to be visited again, especially with the large number of players heading this way.

They'd soon need to expand the walls, meaning they'd definitely return to this spot.

So, building the Foot-Cutting Shelter here was sure to attract their attention.

Having found the right location, Xu Yuan immediately began constructing the shelter.

Building it was straightforward, like assembling a matchbox.

The only real difference was replacing the stones near the ground with half-bricks.

Sure, he could just dig out the stones near the ground, but that wouldn't protect against spiders and baby zombies.

After all, spiders and baby zombies are only one block tall.

By using half-bricks, Xu Yuan could prevent all kinds of monsters from getting in.

With a few quick movements, Xu Yuan had the Foot-Cutting Shelter built.

He also dug a tunnel inside the shelter.

The tunnel wasn't of much use to Xu Yuan, but it would be valuable to the players later on.

After that, he controlled some isolated monsters in the cave and made them gather around the shelter.

Once everything was in place, Xu Yuan concealed himself within the surrounding stones, waiting for the players to arrive.

———

About half an hour later, he heard voices approaching from a distance.

"How many people do you think will show up? How many stones are we supposed to mine, anyway?"

"I'd say at least a thousand, maybe more. Those far away probably can't teleport to this location just yet, so they'll have to take a few detours…"

"A thousand? You kidding me? My stream alone has over ten thousand people watching, and most of them are already gearing up to head over!"

"That's great! We could start a guild and eventually become the number one guild around here!"

"Well, that depends on what kind of resources we get from killing that white-eyed monster!"

"Let's hurry. We've got a lot to do!"

The group of players chattered as they reached the cave entrance.

The player leading them had the ID "Xiao po." After taking a look inside, he stumbled back, startled.

The scene inside the cave was strange.

Several zombies and skeletons surrounded a box-shaped structure, as if something inside was drawing them in.

Xiao po and his group had gotten close enough to trigger the monsters' aggro range, but the creatures didn't turn around to attack.

Seeing this, the players quickly retreated a few steps.

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