the Leader said, “Brian, you don’t play games much so you don’t know—nowadays, hidden quests are one of the main features in online games. Hidden quests often give unique rewards you can’t get anywhere else, so people are desperate to find them. According to what you said, no one has found a hidden quest in ‘Jianghu’ so far, and the way you completed this quest is a bit odd. Even though the three of us didn’t finish all the newbie village quests, there must be plenty of people who did them all like you, yet none of them triggered anything. There must be something more to this.”

“Come on, the Leader, you’ve only played martial arts games for a few days, but you’re already talking like a sage—‘there must be something more to this’ and all that. Kevin, hurry up and tell us in detail again how you did your quest!” Brian shouted.

Kevin had no choice but to explain everything in detail once more.

The three of them analyzed it for a long time, but still couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation.

“Damn, what’s the point of thinking about it? My head hurts. I’m going back to the newbie village right now to try it again.” Brian was the first to get impatient.

“What’s the rush? Let’s finish our noodles and go together. Kevin, you come too!” Paul Brooks said.

“Let’s eat first, we’ll talk after. Get me a bowl too!” Kevin shouted. “I haven’t eaten all day!”

the Leader handed a bowl to Kevin, then turned and joined the other two to eat the instant noodles, which had now swelled several times and taken on the flavor of cold noodles.

While eating, Brian couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “Kevin, you just don’t know enough about games. This is the only free time I have today, so I’ll give you a quick introduction to ‘Jianghu’ while we eat.” Without waiting for Kevin Young to respond, he launched into his explanation. “‘Jianghu’ doesn’t have character classes. The differences are all in each person’s martial arts and equipment. Everyone has four basic attributes: constitution, strength, agility, and dexterity. Constitution affects health and defense, strength affects attack, dexterity affects movement speed and accuracy, and agility affects attack speed and evasion. Every time you level up, you get five points to distribute among these four attributes. The actual stats are health, internal power, attack, defense, evasion, movement, action (attack speed), and accuracy—eight in total. Only internal power can only be increased by practicing internal skills, and supposedly, the amount of internal power also affects attack and defense. The other stats can be increased by adding basic attribute points, equipment, or training. Speaking of equipment, there’s a story there. When ‘Jianghu’ was first developed, they wanted to make it as realistic as possible and considered removing equipment altogether, but in the end, they didn’t. The equipment system is huge. After all, it’s still a game—what’s the fun without equipment…”

“I actually think it’d be better without equipment. Imagine wandering the jianghu in a full suit of armor—what’s that supposed to look like!” Paul Brooks interrupted Brian.

“Come on, equipment isn’t important? Last time I gave you the Longquan Sword, you were over the moon!” Brian scoffed at Paul Brooks.

Before Paul Brooks could retort, Kevin Young cut in, “Hey, when you guys came back this morning, you were making a fuss. Isn’t Little Paul practicing staff? Why does he want a sword now?”

the Leader laughed and said, “That’s his hobby. Little Paul is a martial arts fan, so he wants to try every martial art he sees in the game. But mainly, he’s practicing swordsmanship, because he has a ‘Sword Control Technique’ manual that increases his attack speed by 20% and attack by 20% when using sword skills. He got it when he was with a group farming a boss. When the boss dropped a bunch of loot, everyone scrambled for it, and this manual just happened to land at his feet, so he picked it up. Everyone was so jealous!”

“Tch, what’s there to be jealous of? He’s so unlucky—never brings back any good equipment, just some useless manual!” Brian jumped in again to fully express his disdain for Little Paul, then signaled to Kevin Young, who had been about to speak, that he could go ahead.

Kevin Young glared at him and said, “Hey, my ‘Insight’ also increases attack speed, and the other thing is accuracy, but it doesn’t say which martial art it boosts!”

“Of course it boosts all martial arts! How much does your ‘Insight’ increase? We forgot to ask! And what about your ‘Wind Walk’? What does it boost?” Little Paul couldn’t wait to ask, already forgetting Brian’s disdain.

“‘Insight’ increases attack speed and accuracy by 50%. ‘Wind Walk’ supposedly has seven moves, but I only know the first one, ‘Swift as the Wind’, which increases movement by 100%! How about that, not bad, right?”

The three of them stopped eating and stared at Kevin. Their burning gazes swept over Kevin even more intensely, making him break out in a sweat. Only then did the Leader sigh, “Not just ‘not bad’—I don’t think there’s anyone in ‘Jianghu’ right now with martial arts more impressive than yours. If I hadn’t heard it from you myself, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

Brian said, “the Leader, you’re sounding more and more like a character from a wuxia novel! Enough, what are we still eating for? I’m going to try it now!”

Little Paul chimed in, “Yeah, yeah, let’s go! Why are we still eating?”

“Wow, you two actually agree on something!” Kevin laughed.

The three of them acted as if the sky was falling, ignoring Kevin’s words and rushing out the door. As they left, the Leader called back, “We’re going ahead, come find us after you finish eating!”