Chapter Forty-One: So Why Did Those Game Characters Become Ugly?

"Let's go!"

Baicai made a slightly affected yet undeniably cute sound and clicked to start the game.

Right from the beginning, a combat CG played out.

"Ooh~~"

Just like in *Legends of Wulin: Zero*, it started with a cinematic.

However, unlike the rudimentary animation generated haphazardly by the system back then, the visual quality this time had been upgraded to an epic level.

To be frank, *Zero* looked like a game from twenty years ago, but this time it was powered by Phantom 5, and not just any Phantom 5, but one fine-tuned by the system itself.

Speaking of which, some animations nowadays also used game engines for rendering; for instance, the animation *A Mortal's Journey* utilized Phantom 4.

Phantom 4 already delivered fantastic results, provided it was used properly rather than slapped together crudely, otherwise even Phantom 5 would be of no use.

...

On the mountain path.

Several top-tier martial artists made their grand entrances one after another, accompanied by flashes of combat memories.

Guild Master Qiao's fierce battle at the Julian Manor, Invincible Asia being ambushed while embroidering in her chambers, the Solitary Sword Demon testing his sword against the entire realm, Ximen Chuixue and City Lord Ye's heaven-defying flying immortals at the Forbidden Peak, a flash of electricity dancing across Little Li's flying dagger...

Then came the Mount Hua Duel.

This time, it wasn't just the Five Greats; there were fifty greats.

Without any warning, the fighting broke out.

A crowd of martial arts masters engaged in passionate combat at the mountain peak, constantly switching opponents to showcase all kinds of divine skills and ultimate techniques.

You Meng had even deliberately added the highest-tier special effects to the opening sequence.

Although using internal energy moves to strike further than a yard away in actual gameplay was basically harmless, the visual effects were designed on a scale of thirty-yard qigong and forty-foot sabers. Players who needed to judge distances could toggle off this effect range in the settings.

Such massive special effects didn't quite fit the original novels, but hey, that was artistic license for you.

Damage output aside, the visual effects still had to be there.

Just treat it as something only visible from the player's high-dimensional perspective, while the people inside the game world couldn't see anything that exaggerated.

For a moment, the sounds of roaring dragons and clashing swords echoed ceaselessly in the air.

"We're getting this right at the start?"

"Is that the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms?"

"Awesome! Dragon-subduing! Awesome!"

"Come to the left and draw a dragon with me, draw a rainbow on your right side."

"That Lion's Roar actually produces a literal lion!"

"Why is the one using the Lion's Roar Little Deaf Girl instead of the Golden-Haired Lion King?"

"Who's doing Tai Chi?"

"This opening is way more refined than the one in *Legends of Wulin: Zero*. This CG must have cost a pretty penny."

"So they spent all the budget from *Legends of Wulin Zero* on *Legends of Wulin True* (doge head)."

*Zero* was already a flawless masterpiece as a free-to-play game, so I won't ask for too much.

They put their effort into the CGs and used their feet to make the games. The promotional PV from last time was the same. I can only say, truly worthy of Edamame Media, they've gone back to their roots haha, so damn cool.

...

"What if I told you that this opening CG is actually real-time in-game rendering?"

"No way, absolutely impossible!"

"It's possible, totally possible! Trust the Dragon King! Their official website already stated that the last PV was real-time!"

Amidst the lively discussions, Baicai had already entered the starting character selection interface.

For a first playthrough, this section carried over nothing, allowing players straight into choosing their background origin, molding their faces, and selecting innate traits.

Aside from the default transmigrator, players could also choose characters from among the NPCs whose starting martial arts weren't particularly high as their initial avatar.

The advantage was having a baseline of martial arts; the disadvantage was lacking the freedom of the original protagonist archetype with an "outlander" background.

Take Monk Xuye with a Shaolin background, for instance; although he was a protagonist from *Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils*, he was selectable on the first playthrough.

However, choosing him made it extremely difficult to change certain plot points in the early stages of the game.

First of all, just getting through the Wooden Man Alley to graduate from Shaolin was immensely challenging, and clearing the Eighteen Bronze Figures was even harder: "I can't hear clearly," "You must be punished," "Ah—," "Strange background music"...

If your martial arts stats fell short, your only option was to research and trigger story events to find ways down the mountain.

For instance, being sent down the mountain to deliver letters and do chores, following elder masters down the mountain to travel, or following the main force down to pressure the Wutang Sect, besiege Bright Peak, uphold justice everywhere, and so on.

Or simply turning traitor and getting hunted down by Shaolin, which offered no real benefits.

As for characters like Guild Master Qiao, who were absolute war gods right out of the gate, they were unselectable on the first playthrough.

If achievements were unlocked on subsequent playthroughs—such as defeating or befriending martial arts masters during the first run and completing corresponding quests—players could choose to start a new game as a tremendously powerful Grandmaster.

Choosing Zhang Sanfeng, for instance, granted a starting Wutang Sect headquarters and a level of peerless Grandmaster cultivation that shook past and present, with martial prowess second to none.

A normal peerless master had a martial arts proficiency of one hundred simply because they had reached that realm through relentless hard work, repeated fortuitous encounters, and exceptional talent.

Meanwhile, supreme grandmasters like Zhang Sanfeng had a martial arts proficiency of one hundred simply because one hundred was the game's maximum limit.

World limitations.

Overpowered characters like Ah Qing and Dog Brother only ever appeared in places like the "Ancient Dungeons" and the "Knight-Errant Dungeons," otherwise, bringing them casually into the Song Dynasty world would render armies meaningless and completely shatter the plot.

Martial might capped out around Old Zhang's level. Naturally, completing the corresponding quests for such masters was exceptionally difficult.

Choosing to start as Old Zhang would quickly trigger the storyline where Zhang Cuishan returned from overseas and the Six Major Sects came to disrupt the centennial birthday banquet.

In the original novel, Zhang Sanfeng was advanced in age and possessed high self-cultivation, so Zhang Cuishan committed suicide before Old Zhang's true anger could flare up.

If it was under player control, though, hehe.

A bloody massacre!

Let's see if Old Zhang could single-handedly take on thousands rushing forward all at once.

That was a matter for later playthroughs; right now, it was just the first run.

For ordinary players, the majority would opt to customize their own characters at this point.

After all, the game featured players' absolute favorite character creation and face-molding segment.

Gu Meng had spent one million to acquire the face-molding technology from *Pure Love* which generated protagonist faces based on photographs.

It also included slight beautification functions; the technology wasn't very expensive and came packaged with numerous face templates.

Frankly speaking, Gu Meng simply couldn't understand why everyone was unwilling to do something so straightforward.

Nowadays, the protagonists in games from major Western studios inexplicably kept getting uglier, performing even worse than games from a decade ago.

It baffled him. As technology kept getting better, shouldn't character appearances be improving as well?

...

Even if worse came to worst, modeling faces after real people, it wasn't like there were no beauties among real people.

Why did they deliberately make them look ugly?

It was completely intentional!

What the hell, why did the Western gaming circle turn out like this?

Even if you defeat them like this, what's the point?

Anyway, Gu Meng hadn't bothered with any of that. For the exceptionally gorgeous female characters in the game, Gu Meng felt Edamame's face models weren't even enough.

Peerless beauties like Little Deaf Girl, Huang Rong, and the First and Second Mistresses of the Migrating Flower Palace were all directly beautified by Gu Meng using the system.

In Gu Meng's simplistic mindset, peerless beauties in the pugilistic world ought to look as stunning as celestial immortals.

Popular male characters like Li the Flying Dagger enjoyed the exact same treatment, with the beautification dialed all the way up.

For ordinary NPCs, Gu Meng would have actors provide face models to make data collection easier, but crucial characters with the "Astonishing Charm" attribute were left entirely to Brother System.

Brother System possessed an exceptionally high aesthetic sense, causing Gu Meng and Little Gu Meng to spiral up into the stratosphere.

Gu Meng had even secretly redirected ten million in funds to extract the body models of all female characters in the game.

He generated a fan game version where the plot was heavily altered, wildly erotic and violent, with outfits having very "distinctive" styles, featuring no proper martial arts, only improper ones—

*Legends of Wulin Ancient and Modern X: Unmatched Edition*.

The only male character in it was the player-controlled protagonist, making cuckoldry utterly impossible...

Behold, the moe-girl martial arts world!

However, such fine treasures were played exclusively by Gu Meng alone.

Pure bliss.

It wasn't that he refused to share with the bros, but he had already made up his mind not to dabble in edge-play, let alone an even more unwholesome game like this.

Releasing it would nail him to a strange world with no way back.

Once those clothes came off, putting them back on would be terribly difficult.

He could only steel his heart and ignore the voices crying, "Dragon King, lead us into battle one more time!"

The female characters all had lives of their own, and the Dragon King had his own aspirations. My apologies.

Making that *Legends of Wulin X* fan game had still been charged to the company's accounts, logged under game development costs such as art assets and game testing budgets.

Protected by the system, Gu Meng's embezzlement of public funds would never be discovered.

Though, come to think of it, the company's money was essentially Gu Meng's money anyway.

The reason Gu Meng still made the system initiate a confidentiality agreement just to be overly cautious...

Was for face.

With a confidentiality agreement in place, even if he got hit by a truck-kun's iai strike again, his hidden folder would never be discovered by anyone!

...