Chapter 50: Is Yuxuan Still Hiding His Strength? (With a Heart Full of Gratitude~)

When inventing a supreme divine martial art, a player could bypass certain restrictions. All martial arts and even irrelevant miscellaneous studies could be fused into it, with no requirements for tier or category.

It was very easy to roll overpowered, all-encompassing attributes.

Originally, the creation mechanic was supposed to give players a choice: either reduce the fusion materials to increase the success rate, or take a gamble and add a few more martial arts as materials.

The randomness was quite high, and an option was added where the inspiration would single out and disappear after the creation, preventing players from save-scumming. You only got one chance, coupled with a massive array of special effects. It felt like it would give players stronger feedback, similar to those Vampire Survivors-like games.

Every playthrough allowed for different developmental routes and ultimate weapons.

As long as you figured out the mechanics and looked up guides, avoiding the foolish mistake of tossing in a bunch of unrelated martial arts, you generally wouldn't end up with trash. The balance had been adjusted through the skill tree, and there was a lot of depth to it.

What kind of martial art could be created followed certain rules.

But now, with this bug in play, there was no need to study those nuances. Naturally, you could choose to have it all. When unlocking the supreme technique, you just threw in every single skill you had. Ignorance brought its own bliss, and the player stumbled straight into the correct way to play.

Players on higher playthroughs didn't care, as they already had achievements that boosted the success rate of martial art creation anyway; they could operate like this from the get-go. For players on lower playthroughs who wanted to forge the ultimate divine art, all they had to do was pick a suitable expert and die repeatedly.

Gu Meng had pondered over this back then. Everything had its pros and cons.

This bug also had a high threshold: dying dozens of times, first having to train to the strong first-class level to meet the minimum requirement for martial art creation, and then dealing with randomness. Dying dozens of times only gave a ten percent chance to trigger the hidden easter egg, and you had to keep dying over a hundred times to guarantee a hundred percent chance. It was enough to make someone sick of grinding.

Normal players still wouldn't force-trigger it.

Besides, low-playthrough players didn't really need to force perfection. Just like some early-game side quests where player strength fell short, achieving the optimal solution required multiple attempts.

If you didn't want to use your brain, higher playthroughs naturally made it simple. If players insisted on playing this way, there was always a path. The system provided solutions for all storylines; spending a bit more time on the first playthrough allowed for a perfect, 100% completion.

This was also a reflection of the freedom in Tales of Heroes. You could play however you wanted.

If the supreme divine art were actually patched, it would be part of the skill tree system.

Ordinary people couldn't modify it; the system had to handle the changes.

He looked up the cost: an eight-figure price tag. It was right in the middle—a lot of money, but not as absurdly high as the nine-figure sum last time. It was an amount he could afford. Gu Meng had made ten million from Tales of Heroes X, after all, and this was an eight-figure sum.

In the end, Gu Meng still chose not to spend the money. It wasn't because he was stingy, but because it was unnecessary. He felt this wasn't a malignant bug, nor did it change the nature of the game.

It was entirely a normal game mechanic—consider it compensation for players with slow reflexes. There were so many divine arts and fortuitous encounters in the game; it didn't restrict the protagonist from pursuing rapid growth.

Players who learned the North-Searing Divine Art didn't necessarily level up any slower than this.

It was just that this playstyle had a higher ceiling and more comprehensive traits. It could stitch together every skill and make it much easier to become the undisputed number one under heaven. Nothing more.

Master Gou's guide had been released in advance, which, in the eyes of the players, proved that this really wasn't a bug, but a game mechanic.

Everyone should thank the Dragon King for his mercy in leaving an official backdoor, allowing players to trade one hour of continuous deaths for a path of invincibility.

Players certainly had no idea that fixing this bug would cost so much money.

...

"Anyway, this isn't any bug; it's a hidden mechanic."

"You sound so convincing, I believe you, I totally believe you."

"What the heck, it's the Big Sun bigwig! He's that veteran insider uncle who used to constantly leak behind-the-scenes info about Maodou games. For years now, he's been able to get inside info on any Maodou game. I reckon his dad is practically a senior executive at the company by now."

"Bigwig, be careful your dad doesn't get doxxed and implicated."

"These companies all have non-disclosure agreements. Be careful not to screw over your old man."

Oh boy.

Outside the screen, Gu Meng scratched his face. Netizens these days were surprisingly kind.

...

Inside the screen, the Fiaming Blade was still outputting damage, but Xiaozhi's expression now was a mix of knowing he was about to lose and that feeling of "having heard the Dao in the morning, I can die content in the evening."

After being tipped off by Gu Meng, the viewers also understood why he had such an expression.

Could it be that... White Cabbage was actually going to do it?

Sure enough, the next moment, White Cabbage made a tentative move.

Sword qi special effects shot straight out of the screen. Judging purely by the visual effects, it firmly belonged to the realm of a hundred paces flying sword, tearing the cloudy sky background to shreds.

A single sword hung in the empty sky and flew once more, startling the old sleeping dragon of Dongting Lake.

Such immense aura.

Its actual power was also terrifyingly great, slicing the Flaming Blade directly in half.

...

"Wow, the Exorcising Divine Sword! I'm the number one under heaven!"

White Cabbage cheered!

With a few swift flashes, she struck Xiaozhi into a critical state.

Every movement was filled with the demeanor of a grandmaster, and every gesture materialized the feeling of a sword god.

This thing belonged to the highest-tier motion capture and animation sequence in the system's library.

It had a somewhat similar feel to the late-stage Zhang Sanfeng from the movie Tai Chi Master or Ah Xing in the late-stage of Kung Fu, but the grandmaster martial arts made by the system were even better.

The barrage of bullet comments dwindled; everyone watched in dumbfounded silence. Even the viewers who only watched gameplay streams wanted to download the game just to act cool like that.

"Coach, I want to play a wuxia game."

"Say no more, I want to play too."

"It's back, the real wuxia is back."

"The Dragon King really pulled off another great stunt this time."

"I unilaterally declare this a divine masterpiece."

"Although in many aspects it still can't compare to top foreign masterpieces—such as perfunctory map modeling, exaggerated special effects that feel a bit templated, and innovation being a matter of opinion—the plot of Tales of Heroes completely fits my preferences. The action combat is an absolute super strong suit, far surpassing previous wuxia titles. Maybe even without the nostalgic filter, it's already a top-tier masterpiece. Is this really a game made in our country of China?"

"Being able to compare with foreign masterpieces is already incredible. This is already China's best single-player game."

"So moved, thank you, Game Metaphysics."

"White Cabbage, while you're at it, show off a couple more sword forms. Make them look pretty!"

White Cabbage was also stunned, not expecting the animations to be so cool, but she quickly snapped out of it:

"Xiaozhi, how are you feeling right now?"

"I'm begging you, please don't open your mouth. You looked so cool just a second ago, and all your aura vanished instantly."

"I can't even, you're way too cheesy."

"Exactly, exactly, this White Cabbage is just trash."

While Gu Meng was watching with relish, on the other side, in Nandi City...

...

Word had already spread that the special self-created martial art mechanic, "The Dragon King's Mercy," was being successively triggered by lucky streamers who went crazy grinding supreme experts for program effect. Gou Tong also released the complete guide at the opportune moment.

As an early-access streamer and Gu Meng's super fan, he had been playing the game day and night after getting his hands on the early-access version.

He was already on his seventh playthrough and was confident he had figured out most of the mechanics.

Gou Tong had also been drawn in by the true ending in the game, which had the most character development and was the most touching.

What felt most intoxicating when first picking up the game was the unimaginably excellent action system, followed closely by the storyline.

Just like the pure love story last time, the mini-games and urban management had been insanely fun. He had focused solely on making money, only to grow deeply invested in the plot, discovering upon deeper digging that there was a massive plot twist.

What Gou Tong was pondering now was: could the true ending left behind in this game truly not change the grand sweep of history?

Xuan You still hadn't published any official strategy guide this time; all the game guides were summarized by them after playing. Was President Gu still holding something back?

Opening his save file once more, his transmigrator protagonist, the hero "I'm a Dog-shit Merchant Not Xun Yu," had grown as strong as Brother Gou.

Although the end-of-days law in the main world capped his upper limit, preventing him from acting like he did in the Heroes' Island instance, he was already the strongest under heaven.

Moreover, the special effects of his supreme divine art surpassed even White Cabbage's, having fused all the martial arts and military theories of the world, making him invincible on the battlefield.

He could single-handedly guard an isolated city for decades in the game, having already charged and killed two successive Great Khans of the Mongols. Now, the high-ranking Mongol-Yuan nobles didn't even dare to approach.

Truth be told, there were really so many solutions in this game.

As for siege warfare, killing the Great Khan if you were lucky could alleviate the offensive for a few years. Then came catapults; if Shift Stars and Universe Shifting were trained to mastery, or if the supreme divine art contained relevant traits, those attacks could be reflected.

You could also burn grain supplies or wage guerrilla warfare. In short, as long as you kept trying, you could hold the city.

There were two troublesome things.

The first was the Great Song.

If the war went too well, they would backstab the player. Figures like Wanyan Gou would issue imperial edicts ordering him to abandon the city, forbid him from pursuing enemy forces, cut off provisions and grain, and even poison the water, dragging him down like a rabid dog.

Returning to the capital triggered the "Sun and Moon Shines Bright" ending.

If you defied the imperial decree, a swarm of imperial experts—a bunch of old immortals from the Zhao family who knew supreme divine arts and massive groups of eunuchs—would besiege the protagonist.

There were simply too many imperial experts, and they excelled at combo attacks. Even the number one under heaven had a high probability of dying, and they specialized in sneak attacks.

Gou Tong had also died numerous times before finally beating them back.

Wait a minute, with this kind of strength, why didn't you fight the Liao, the Jin, or the Mongols? Instead, you fight a patriot like me?

Feeling the hardships of Marshal Yue, he suddenly wished for a Liu Chan.

Not that Liu Chan was a good emperor, but everything was relative thanks to his peers.

To be honest, with a protagonist whose personal combat capability was off the charts—"fighting across three thousand miles of battlefields in a single lifetime, a single sword once holding off a million soldiers"—supported like a colorful limited-edition card, even Liu Chan could have restored the Han Dynasty for a third time.

He had no idea what the Zhao-Song court was thinking.

The other, even more unsolvable problem was time.

The protagonist was human. If he didn't time-travel back, guarding an isolated city for decades amidst internal and external pressures left him physically and mentally exhausted. Countless assassination attempts and poisonings had filled his body with hidden injuries and stagnated his meridians.

In this world where the upper limit of martial arts was forcibly capped, no matter how heaven-defying a person's martial arts were, they couldn't casually shatter an army like Ah Qing could.

It was already sheer luck that Gou Tong had managed to assassinate the imperial carriage twice in front of enemy lines. Afterwards, the opposing group of experts and military AI would figure out how to deal with a peerless martial artist, making it harder and harder.

Bearing this defense line bitterly all by oneself, even as the number one under heaven, would eventually lead to the exhaustion of one's oil and the drying of one's lamp in this boundless sea of bitterness, dying of old age in one's fifties.

It could only buy thirty years of time.

Time was a formidable enemy indeed.

The initial sacrifice had been very touching, after all, the reasons leading up to it were displayed very clearly by the game.

It was seeing people plunged into misery and suffering through the protagonist's perspective.

Seeing bones littering the wild.

Seeing the cruelty of foreign invaders.

Massacres, cannibalism, rape—all sorts of bestial acts too hideous to behold.

In black-and-white imagery, if the game's bloody censorship standards hadn't been partially relaxed for parallel worlds, it probably wouldn't have passed review.

Gu Meng had actually made all of this.

Amidst the black-and-white, displaced commoners were numb, in pain, wanting to survive, missing their families, protecting their homes, waiting for the sun to rise...

Amidst this despair and hope, the protagonist chose to stay.

And so, the picture regained its color.

A great hero of chivalry, serving the country and the people.

A true warrior dares to face the trickling blood.

I shall be the sole torch.

The protagonist burned himself, swimming against the current of the era to defend a dead end, his heart as hard as iron, his single sword once holding off a million soldiers.

Fighting until the very last moment.

Even in death, the hero's bones remain fragrant, not ashamed to be a hero among men.

...

At the time, Gou Tong had been deeply moved.

But now, on his seventh playthrough, new thoughts inevitably arose.

Was staying behind truly worth it?

Why did things turn out this way?

Was there truly no way to change this ending?

How could the common people of the Great Song be saved? Where was that solution?