When You Become an NPC That Might Die Any Moment in the Novice Village

No matter from the aspect of the video's production dedication or the topic's popularity itself, Kitty Head's video thoroughly trounced the others released at the same time, and Digging Girl felt her loss was completely justified.

Who wouldn't be confused after watching that video?

Talent, or a hidden profession?

If it's a hidden profession, damn, that's just too awesome!

The players in the community all got fired up.

"I'm not mistaken, this has to be the first traceable hidden profession on Ancestral Origin Star, right?"

"Some player on Fertile Star unlocked a hidden profession and now they're the darling of the NPCs, living it up with food and drink every day—must be nice."

"Can we learn that hidden profession if we increase our affinity level with Bai Fu?"

"It might not necessarily be a hidden profession, could be a Talent Ability."

"Talent Ability is awesome too. Prayer Cards, ah, looks like from now on you can only buy them from Silent Court."

"How are we supposed to compete in the arena now? I've nearly been baffled by players from the Silent Court using Prayer Cards these past few days."

"I give up, can't we ban Bai Fu? This is just too disruptive to the game's balance."

...

When Bai Fu returned to the research institute, she noticed the players looking at her with eyes burning like they were beholding a rare treasure.

Looks like the players have let their imaginations run wild in the few hours she'd been away.

She loudly praised all the players present before handing out the gold-skinned Eye of Heaven Medals she had brought with her.

"This is the Explorer Badge awarded to explorers, may you comprehend the true essence of life amidst the silence!"

The players guarding the research institute never expected such a treat and cheered ecstatically.

"Yay, now I've got a special Eye of Heaven Medal too!"

Bai Fu nodded to herself.

Reskinning was a bit lazy, but there's no denying it works.

Too bad, if she could custom-make titles to give to players, the effect would surely be ten times better than it is now.

Bai Fu struck while the iron was hot to announce her new plan—

Limited-time opening of the defense instance for the research institute!

Of course, she couldn't bluntly tell the players this was an instance—that would reveal she knew Stars was just a game—so she announced this exciting news from an NPC's perspective.

To put it simply, the Spiritual Ability Prototype inside the institute was very important but couldn't be moved yet. Considering it would keep attracting sandworms, she intended to turn the research institute into a defensive line. Black Fu would stay on guard here, working with the players to wipe out the incoming sandworms.

After announcing the good news, Bai Fu casually changed the research institute's name in the camp management interface to [Special Scenario: Spiritual Ability Prototype Defense Battle], and with that change, the institute's name on the map interface changed as well.

The players present could tell at first glance—this was definitely an instance.

Just now, Kitty Head had proven Bai Fu's uniqueness with the angle of Prayer Cards, and now Bai Fu was proving she was unique in other ways by opening the first instance on Ancestral Origin Star.

"Awesome!"

News about the instance opening spread through the community like a world-ending flood.

By then, even the slowest players knew what it meant: before the instance closed, players from Silent Court had a solid leveling spot and could more easily gather Sand Worm Materials to exchange for cash.

Leveling up, making money...

In one fell swoop, Bai Fu had solved two major issues for the Silent Court's players. Should she get a Cyber Karma Stele or what?

"I'm unilaterally declaring Bai Fu a saint in my book!"

If Digging Girl was called that because she liked to dig into storylines, then Bai Fu had indeed transformed into Popularity Harvesting Girl.

Harvest, harvest—what a headache!

But amid the enthusiastic discussions, there were also some naysayers, mainly those feeling the gap was too wide, and players who couldn't experience these perks were bound to feel some imbalance.

"Crack down on Bai Fu!"

"The planners have lost their marbles."

"Give me a Bai Fu, and I'll forgive you; otherwise, let's all explode together!"

Bai Fu, browsing the community, helplessly shrugged.

You win some, you lose some—not even money can make everyone happy, let alone her. The current situation could be considered an incredibly lucky starting hand; she had done almost all the preparatory work she could. Whether she could capitalize on this set of cards for a big win depended on how well the continuing storyline and deeper character development she presented to the players would be received.

At this point, Bai Fu got a bit of a headache.

She too wished she had a main storyline like other "main characters" with themes like millennium-long love, grudges that span lifetimes, love-and-kill dynamics, youthful passion, or the rise of a nation, but she simply couldn't manage it!

The planners' way of giving her more screen time was by increasing her power and status, not by crudely altering her backstory or giving her all sorts of additional personal relationships out of the blue.

If she wanted to captivate players through the storyline, to shift their affection from "chasing power and benefits" to "being charmed by her personality and excellent backstory," she'd have to work hard on her own.

"Should I find a few NPCs to put on a big performance with me?"

Bai Fu shook her head—would be pretty embarrassing if she gave herself away.

She closed the community window. While she didn't mind some players disliking her, it was still something to guard against, just in case any of those haters acted as guides and led the Truth Society or Genetic Primordial her way.

Recently, both the Truth Society and Genetic Primordial had run into significant trouble—multiple Truth Society bases had been blown up, forcing them to contract their influence, while Genetic Primordial had suffered attacks first from the Truth Society then from Bai Fu, losing a large amount of research data. For now, the Railroad Guild had not yet revealed Genetic Primordial's secret creation of Artificial Humans. If that news came out, Genetic Primordial would be in the same boat as the Truth Society, turning into public enemy number one.