Chapter 46
Chapter 46: Arranging the Players
Ji Ye asked the rest of the players for their self-introductions.
“Li Qing, 37, used to be a scout when serving the army.” This was the man who stayed silent most of the time.
“An Quan, 30, programmer and designer. Gaming, to be exact.” This was the fat office man. The answer somewhat explained his hair problem.
The strange name reminded Ji Ye of another “outlaw hero” from Water Margin called “An Daoquan,” a skilled physician who served the emperor during the Song Dynasty. He wondered if this hero would show up soon.
“Qin Yueyu, Olympic Archer. I’ve won the national championship twice,” the short-haired woman spoke up next.
Ji Ye nodded in delight upon hearing her profession. This sounded like a wonderful job to have in the settlement, especially when they needed to confront a bunch of “Eagle Men” across the abyss sooner or later.
“Xu Xue. I produced a few well-known songs and movies,” the “popstar lady” spoke while giving Ji Ye a suggestive look, as if she wanted something.
Ji Ye nodded slightly and looked at the next player.
“Su Nongying, business administration. Currently helping my company with human resource management and logistics,” Su Nongying spoke in a very small voice that people barely heard her.
Ji Ye took an extra moment checking this woman, for he just noticed that she seemed to be showing some particular signs of emotion as she spoke.
A professional HR sounded pretty good for the settlement in its initial development stage. Having her in the team was just as important as having a teacher and an engineer. Despite being the “master” of the settlement, Ji Ye still had not come up with a clear plan for properly shaping the settlement. It would be quite beneficial if somebody else helped him with this line of work, because he preferred focusing on training and self-improvement as much as he could.
However, it remained to be seen whether Su Nongying was up for the job when she was blushing so hard, even while talking to the other settlers.
Apparently, the “initial trial” of the new players had been easier compared to the trial done by their predecessors. Also, they were allowed to go home after spending a month in the Land of Inheritance, not three months as in the first round.
None of them had any “starter items” upon coming, though they exclaimed that the mysterious voice in their minds had already told them how to find some, which was by talking to the settlement core and paying 1 Honor point.
As for how to earn their first Honor point… This depended on what kind of work they preferred.
The quickest way to get some points was killing monsters around the settlement. They didn’t have to be powerful monsters; Ji Ye had already found out that weaker ones also yielded Honor points, albeit very slowly. It might be necessary to eliminate multiple monsters to gather one point.
Then there was another straightforward method, which was teaching settlers useful skills. While searching for monsters and resources those days, Ji Ye had taken some time to try this out and successfully earned a few points.
That was a lot harder than he thought, however, because of the poor educational level of the illiterate folk who could barely recognize any characters. Being rogues and peasants from the Song Dynasty only made the situation worse. Not to mention that Ji Ye wasn’t really a teacher.
Ji Ye glanced at the two old men who were passionately exchanging their old stories. At least he had found a solution.
He believed he had figured out how the Land of Inheritance worked thus far. To gain an advantage in whatever was coming next, he had to build an army of capable people using what he had at hand. In this case, he would need players to teach NPCs new stuff and help the settlement grow.
After hearing his proposal, the old men accepted their new jobs without much of a thought because it was clearly the right thing to do. They couldn’t possibly go out there and find monsters to kill anyway.
As for the other able-bodied people, Ji Ye planned to take them all outside and let them see a few monsters regardless of their job intentions, especially the three male players.
“Sure, take me with you!” Ling Qing the retired soldier agreed right away.
Jiang Wenming seemed unsure about this since he wasn’t so good at fighting. He still complied in the end because his knowledge about snakes wasn’t of much use to the settlers.
On a side note, Ji Ye and Lu Zhishen thoroughly searched the Black Serpent nest but without finding any eggs, which meant it was a “he-serpent.”
“Can—can I stay behind?” the programmer named An Quan anxiously pleaded.
Xu Xue complained out loud before Ji Ye could answer, “Aren’t you gamers fighting all sorts of monsters everyday? This is your thing.”
“But a programmer does stuff with a keyboard, not fighting enemies for real! Besides, I mainly handle models and art. I don’t play games much. It will be better if I remain here and help those two old men with chores and errands. They need that, don’t you think?”
“Art… you can paint?” asked Ji Ye. Speaking of art, he suddenly remembered that certain knacks such as painting and music could come in handy, since he had just gotten his hands on a musical instrument which was also a weapon.
“I can!” An Quan nodded happily. “You know that ‘Crossgod VS Serpent’ video, right? I made it. From models to animations. I even drew the thumbnail picture all by myself.”
“Nice.” Ji Ye nodded. “Yeah, you can stay here.”
He turned to the female players next. “What about you four? Kindly tell me your opinions as well.”
He didn’t mean to discriminate against anyone. It was just that, having males handle physical labor while asking females to deal with supportive work at home was human nature.
Also, it seemed that the Land of Inheritance had also agreed to this matter because all the ladies were one rank lower than the men at the beginning.
“I’ll go with you.” Su Nongying stepped up first.
Qin Yueyu also followed up. “I have no problem with participating in some action. But can I take a bow and several arrows? The wooden one used by the guards will do.”
“I—I’ll go as well,” said Shang Yang. “I can be your field medic. But please don’t let monsters near me…”
“Give me a weapon too!” Xu Xue asked excitedly. She made this decision because she had already learned from the forum that there were wonderful items she could find after killing monsters, such as expensive perfumes no longer sold in reality.
Ji Ye was a bit surprised to see all of them willing to participate in the adventure.
“Find ten people and come with us. Bring your weapons too,” he said to the guards outside the shrine. “Oh and, Chief Lu, do you mind if I change the name of the shrine? I want to call it the ‘Shrine of Faith’ from now on.”
“Eh? Well, of course I don’t, master. And… thank you!” The big man looked excited for some reason.
Meanwhile, the two old men heard their conversation and quickly understood what that meant.
“This youngling… he’s really something, you know?”
In the original story of Water Margin, Song Jiang changed “Hall of Faith” to “Hall of Loyalty” before he submitted to the government and sold his brothers out. Wu Song and Lu Zhishen were the two outlaw heroes who suffered most during the incident.
Apparently, Ji Ye intended to prevent the sad outcome from happening there.