Chapter 24: Mischievous Player

"What does she want to do?"

"I don't know."

Jiang Qiao and Hai Lan followed behind the black-haired Chang Qing as ghosts; in reality, the player's name was Xia Shan.

The player named Black-Haired Chang Qing had no idea that two GM ghosts were following her.

Today, Holy Spirit welcomed seventy-two new players. Most of these newcomers were outside Lionheart City killing slimes to level up and doing beginner quests, with their minds full of thoughts about improving their levels, getting better equipment, and learning powerful skills after changing classes.

This was also what normal players should be doing.

But some players would never follow the game's predetermined path; they would find other ways to play within the game's rules. Jiang Qiao liked to call this the "dark path" or "trick play."

Back in the PC era, Jiang Qiao also loved playing the trick path, like exploiting map bugs to pass levels, positioning monsters to kill them, or looking for game loopholes.

Xia Shan seemed really set on playing some kind of trick path.

Jiang Qiao followed behind Xia Shan, watching her touch the walls of the buildings in Lionheart City and then tap a wooden crate lightly with her fingers.

"Don't bother trying; map bugs don't exist in Holy Spirit," Jiang Qiao, floated cross-legged alongside Xia Shan and silently commented, slowly spinning in midair free from gravity.

Xia Shan couldn't hear Jiang Qiao's comment. After confirming the different textures of the wall and the wooden crate, she saw a building that made her eyes light up.

Life Profession Guild.

"Does she want to be an architect?" Hai Lan still couldn't understand what Xia Shan intended to do.

"There's no architect profession in Holy Spirit, although there is an estate system," Jiang Qiao floated into the Life Profession Guild ahead of Xia Shan, seeing the most important NPCs within the life professions.

Life Profession Mentor: Glitter.

In Jiang Qiao's setup, players could choose a life profession at level one. Life professions were a vast system in Holy Spirit, including two main categories: gathering and crafting, like alchemists, tailors, cooks, armor forgers, enchanters, alchemy engineers, miners, fishers, and more...

Crafting and gathering had different gameplay mechanics. Jiang Qiao, of course, would not make it as complex as real life; the crafting process for each production profession was like one or more mini-games.

As Jiang Qiao saw Xia Shan about to enter the Life Profession Guild, he used his GM privileges to attach his consciousness to the Life Profession Mentor: Glitter.

Glitter was an old man with a white beard, with a somewhat Gandalf-in-a-grey-robe vibe.

At this time, all the players were still busy leveling up, leaving Xia Shan the only one in the guild.

Xia Shan walked into the guild, looked around, and ran straight to the Life Profession Mentor played by Jiang Qiao.

Under Jiang Qiao's control, a semi-transparent window appeared before Xia Shan as she approached the Life Profession Mentor.

There were four options in the window: learn about life professions, experience a life profession, choose a life profession, and leave.

Xia Shan reached out and clicked on the option to learn about life professions.

"Young Holy Spirit, is there anything I can help you with?" Jiang Qiao began role-playing the activated NPC and communicated with Xia Shan.

If other players wanted to talk to the profession mentor at this time, they would see a different scene of the mentor interacting with them.

"Hello, I want to experience a life profession," Xia Shan verbally expressed her request; some VR games could already trigger options by voice, and Holy Spirit could naturally do the same.

"Then what would you like to experience?" Jiang Qiao's voice fell, and a large number of options appeared quickly in the semi-transparent window in front of Xia Shan.

"Alchemy Engineer."

Xia Shan seemed to have already made up her mind and chose the corresponding option directly.

"Alchemy Engineers make alchemy mechanical devices, a good choice. Enter this portal, and you will experience the charm of this profession."

With a wave of Jiang Qiao's hand, a cyan portal appeared beside him, and a prompt popped up in front of Xia Shan.

'Would you like to enter the Alchemy Engineer life profession experience?'

Xia Shan clicked 'yes,' and the next second, her figure disappeared before Jiang Qiao. Jiang Qiao also walked into the portal, and a new Life Profession Mentor appeared in his original position, waiting for players to arrive.

On the other side of the portal was also within the Life Profession Guild inside the Alchemy Workshop, not a separate space; Xia Shan could directly push the door and leave anytime.

The Alchemy Workshop was equipped with all the basic tools needed for alchemy engineering.

Jiang Qiao faithfully took on the NPC role, standing at the entrance waiting for Xia Shan to finish her experience.

After entering the Alchemy Workshop, Xia Shan started looking for tools, not the basic production tools like the screwdriver and mechanical templates often used by alchemy engineers.

She retrieved a charcoal stove, an iron kettle, and a small iron windmill.

Xia Shan lit the stove, filled the iron kettle with water, transforming it into a 'water-filled iron kettle,' and placed it on the stove to heat it.

"If she wants to drink hot water, why not do it in the real world?" Hai Lan, still in ghost mode, floated beside Jiang Qiao, who was now so surprised he didn't know what to say.

'Oh my... She doesn't want hot water; she's trying to start the first industrial revolution in Holy Spirit!' Jiang Qiao said in his mind to Hai Lan.

"What's the first industrial revolution?" Hai Lan asked.

'You don't need to understand.'

Jiang Qiao felt a strange sense of unease watching Xia Shan excitedly gaze at the water-filled kettle.

Players were truly players; their creativity and ability to cause trouble were incredibly strong.

But Jiang Qiao reassured himself that in creator mode, he had considered this. Holy Spirit boasted both realism and gameplay advantages.

Xia Shan stared intently at the tool named 'water-filled iron kettle' with excitement.

Normal players would get excited about finding epic or divine artifacts; Xia Shan was different because the water-filled iron kettle had another property.

'Liquid temperature inside the kettle: 62°.'

With the continued heating from the stove below, this property steadily increased, and after half a minute, the kettle boiled. When Xia Shan saw steam gradually emerge from the kettle's spout and successfully turn the mini windmill's blades, she jumped for joy. She really jumped!

Holy Spirit actually simulated the physical effect of steam! This was something no other VR game in the world could achieve—not even the most popular game, Conflict, which didn't even have a heating setting; its flames were just flying projectiles for damage!

This game had great potential in manufacturing gameplay!

As the thought excitedly crossed Xia Shan's mind, the flames beneath the stove suddenly extinguished without warning, and the steam in the kettle disappeared.

Extinguished? Why... there were still burning materials below.

Xia Shan checked the system prompt, which showed a series of MP reduction messages.

'You ignited a micro flame, consuming 1 MP per second.'

'You lost 1 MP.'

'You lost 1 MP.'

New players only had a hundred MP, and the recovery rate was just zero point something, so after one hundred seconds, Xia Shan received a new prompt.

'Your MP is exhausted, the micro flame is extinguished.'

"This kind of setting exists too..." Xia Shan gazed at the completely vanished steam, feeling her grand vision for the future dissolve under the MP constraints.