Sacred Souls Scholar, Online!

Finally, Jiang Qiao’s party completed the level in forty-eight minutes and twenty-one seconds, currently at the fifth place on the leaderboard.

This result was all due to FreeMilk’s insanely effective buffs and InkFlashback’s commands.

They kept going at this pace multiple times for the whole night, and Jiang Qiao leveled up from Level 28 to Level 30.

At six in the morning, InkFlashback finally tapped out, saying that he had to go have some rest—hence ending their dungeon crawling session this time.

Jiang Qiao didn’t continue to strategize on how to beat the first level more efficiently, and instead chose to go back to the Astrology Tower with Ocean Blue.

This was because in coming into contact with these professional and experienced players, Jiang Qiao noticed a great shortcoming of Sacred Souls.

It was that it didn’t have a main story that could allow players to get more immersed in the game.

“Weren’t you the one who said that as long as we gave those players equipment and rewards, they would do jobs for us?”

Ocean Blue learned new words quite quickly, and she had been ecstatic the whole day because she had continued to consume energy from the Tower of Trials as the players invaded it.

At this point, Ocean Blue could get a bit of energy every other second. Since noon, the limit of the Sacred Souls server had increased from 400 people to 1532 people, and even at the wee hours in the morning, there were around 1200 people online.

“This is different. A good storyline is paramount to giving players a sense of glory and commitment,” Jiang Qiao explained.

In this aspect, Jiang Qiao thought that World of Warcraft back on Earth did the best. The best proof of this was that when players from different clans and guilds met, they would still get into small fights even after so many years.

“I know how to give them a sense of glory! Just let them worship me~” Ocean Blue puffed her small chest in pride. She knew that the best way to control someone was by making them worship her.

“Players wouldn’t worship a goddess that throws tantrums when she doesn’t get to eat shrimps or hamburgers!” Jiang Qiao materialized a magical bun in his left hand, and stuffed it into Ocean Blue’s mouth.

“Huh? Oof!” Ocean Blue finished the bread in her mouth, and was about to say something before Jiang Qiao clicked open a web browser.

He logged onto a forum called Players’ Community—Hua Nation’s largest forum.

This forum had lots of sub-communities for different games, and after seeing that there wasn’t one made for Sacred Souls yet, he clicked into the VR subforum.

In this subforum, he saw the post that he wanted to see the most on the top of the page, the title of it being ‘What’s the Plot Behind the Recently Popular VR Game, Sacred Souls?’. The ID of the person who created the post was StarlightScribe.

“Did a Sacred Souls scholar appear so quickly? Lemme see…”

Jiang Qiao clicked into the post, and the contents gave him a little shock.

‘It’s me again, your favorite Scribe! Today was another day of discovering unknown plots of games, and our topic for today is the currently vastly popular VR game, Sacred Souls! The beta test qualifications for this game are still high in demand, and I’ve been lucky enough to snatch one, and play this game for around ten days… And I realized that the storyline for this game isn’t as easy as it seems.

First of all, is the world view! The world of Sacred Souls is very possibly a post-apocalyptic world, which means it’s a world that has already gone through destruction. As for why there are so many well-kept magnificent and historical looking buildings, it’s because this destruction wasn’t physical, but on the degree of the natural laws of the world itself!

The most direct proof is the lines by King Messi, an NPC from Lionheart City.’

Here, he attached three screenshots of the NPC in question, showing the readers the exact lines he was referring to.

‘The lines were: “I haven’t seen any new faces in such a long time, ahh…How long has it been? There’s no life nor death in this world, and even time itself is in a never-ending loop… 

“How many years ago was it, that we had lots of countries and cities too? But ever since the cataclysm that struck, we have all become lonely… O sacred soul, are you lonely too?

“O sacred soul, please free us from this neverending loop under the guidance of our great Goddess Ocean Blue!”

The lines above are the exact ones that the NPC says, and perhaps these lines could also further explain why monsters can respawn, as well as why NPCs repeat the same actions every day. Another such NPC that got me thinking was an NPC from the Cathedral of Resurrection, the Vigilist Floria.’

At this point, there was another picture attached to the post, showing a young lady standing in the sunlight, and her features were somewhat reminiscent of Ocean Blue.

This NPC was the one that every Sacred Souls player was first acquainted with, because if players died and they didn’t have any revival skills handy, they would definitely get resurrected in this cathedral.

And the first person they would meet upon revival would be this vigilist.

‘The setting of this NPC is that she is a doll made in the image of the goddess Ocean Blue by the natives of this world…Leaving that aside for a moment, for now let’s call her Miss Doll! Miss Doll is the prettiest NPC that I have met in this world, but that’s not the point. The chilling part about this character is that she knows that you’re from Bluestar! She knows that you’re a player, too! Please refer to the evidence below.’

Here, Jiang Qiao came across another bunch of screenshots.

‘The lines that she said were: “Oh gentle sacred soul, how does this world differ from yours?”

“Sacred soul, our goddess Ocean Blue has told me that… Your world is bountiful and flourishing with life! What… What kind of world is it?”

“Tenderhearted sacred soul, thank you for giving your all to save our shattered world, but I feel a malevolent force surging towards your world, threatening to destroy everything you love! Please become even stronger to prevent your world from peril.”

Do you see this, guys? Not only does Miss Doll know that the player is from our world, but she predicted that our world would be plunged into danger too.’

This thread stopped at this point, probably because this person called the StarlightScribe was still composing the next post, but there were already a lot of replies under the post.

LostPassenger: ‘Our world is going to be destroyed? How would a VR game destroy our world? With a virus?’

DaggerShielder: ‘You don’t say! I joined an Abyssal Hunt event in Sacred Souls, and the map was an exact replica of Food Street of River Town. That time, a whole bunch of beastmen stormed the place and wrecked it! If I hadn’t known it were a game, I would have thought that it was real life, the immersion is insane!’

Wocky: ‘I don’t want to listen to anything right now! I just want to talk to my Miss Doll! Open the registration for the public right now!’

At this point, Jiang Qiao glanced at Ocean Blue who was munching on bread at the side.

This setting of Vigilist Floria definitely shot a cupid’s arrow into the hearts of the players, and in his humble opinion, this NPC’s allure was about a hundred times stronger than the real goddess she was based on.

With a frail and tender character, a tone that was like a lullaby, and of course her pretty face… It evoked the protective instincts of every player.

It was at this moment that Jiang Qiao noticed how scary his Maker state was. The world view and setting of Sacred Souls was perfectly fitted for the real world, no, more like the world itself was the real world!

What was the best way to increase a player’s immersion? By letting the players play as themselves—Not their normal and mediocre selves, but their selves that have been given supernatural powers and abilities.

StarlightScribe seemed to notice the players’ enthusiasm towards Miss Doll, and so he started to dig up more lines that the character said in the game.

‘New discovery! Miss Doll can talk to you, and she knows what hamburgers and Coca Cola are! She will also ask you how your life is going!

This is what she says: “University? Is that the way you call the education institutions in your world? Gentle sacred soul, if you ever feel tired, please come to our world and relax, alright?” 

“Perhaps in your world, you’re normal to the point where no one knows you, but here… Gentle sacred soul, you are our savior, our strongest beam of hope! Please… Please save us…”‘

Jiang Qiao didn’t even need to see the comments underneath to know that just the last line by itself would be enough to tug at the heartstrings of the players so that they would… Go to work willingly.”

One minute after this post was uploaded, Jiang Qiao refreshed the page and it was exactly as he expected, with a torrent of comments gushing in immediately.

SacrificialWildGod: ‘Let me in! The strongest swordsman in War server 1 is going to save the Sacred Souls world!’

AquaticBoss: ‘I now declare one-sidedly that Miss Doll is my waifu!’

SinnerOfAThousandPigeons: ‘What are you saying? Have you asked the shielder in the top ten of the Sacred Souls level leaderboard?’

Jiang Qiao saw that they were even about to start fighting in the replies, and he really wanted to reply, “Don’t fret, all of you will have your waifu once you enter the game.”

The Vigilist Floria was a special NPC, just like those navigation fairies that players would have in other video games. Every player would have their own ‘Vigilist Floria’ which is why the preset lines for her were the most.

But Jiang Qiao never thought that she would bring about such an uproar on game forums, and at the current pace that the replies increased at, it had definitely become a hot topic.

Looking at the popularity of Miss Doll, Jiang Qiao glanced back at the actual goddess herself.

“Wha?” Ocean Blue asked almost unintelligibly while she kept on munching on a chocolate stick, looking dazedly at the man that had glanced at her with a weird expression twice already.

Jiang Qiao could only sigh and lower his head, directing his attention back to the post.

The replies on the post had already passed 700 replies, and at this point StarlightScribe posted a new message.

‘About Miss Doll, I found out another scary setting! Because I’ve been studying and exploring the lore of these stories the past week, I haven’t really been grinding for levels! It was at this point that Miss Doll started growing weak and started coughing and becoming wobbly! I asked her why, and she said that her energy comes from our power as sacred souls, meaning that if we don’t grind or level up, Miss Doll might die!’

“How vicious.” Jiang Qiao knew this was the setting that he made in Maker mode, but he couldn’t help sighing.

After this was posted, the replies on the post immediately broke through the thousand mark, and one that said ‘Please give me an activation code, my wife…She’s going to die!’ The likes on this reply had already passed 500 likes, and it was continuing to rise.

“Sacred Souls is going to get its big break…” Jiang Qiao muttered to himself.