Absolute Death Game

Upon arriving at the Longquan Sword Pavilion, Xiao Buli was surprised to find Liu Xing was also there.

"You're here to learn swordsmanship too?" Liu Xing looked at Xiao Buli who appeared in the Sword Pavilion and asked with some surprise, "Aren't you a Mage Profession? Why learn swordsmanship?"

Xiao Buli explained, "Yeah, but this game doesn't have restrictions on basic professions, so I also took up being a Swordsman."

"I see, no wonder you initially asked about learning swordsmanship," Liu Xing said with sudden realization, "But this isn't good for you, one of the biggest taboos in gaming is being indecisive. It's always better to focus on mastering one profession. Only by maximizing the potential of one profession can you become truly powerful. I think you should stick to one and focus on that.

Besides, even if you want to have a side profession, you should choose one with abilities that can stack with each other."

Although Liu Xing meant well, Xiao Buli just laughed it off, "I believe there are no strongest professions, only the strongest players. 1+1 is not as simple as equal to 2, you know. Besides, who says the abilities of Swordsmen and Taoists can't stack? Take my Fire Blade Skills, for instance. You should remember them."

Seeing he couldn't persuade him, Liu Xing didn't say anything more. After all, they were not novice players, and it was understandable to have different interpretations of the game.

"If you want to learn swordsmanship, I suggest you first learn a set of Inner Strength. With the enhancement of internal energy, the full power of your swordsmanship can be displayed. Just having sword techniques for close combat isn't enough; it's best to combine them with some martial arts moves," Liu Xing recommended.

At that, Liu Xing clicked on Xiao Buli's avatar, "Eh, you've already learned Inner Strength? That's not right, you're not a Qigong Master, so you should only be able to learn level-one inner strength. How come your internal power value is two hundred points? Don't tell me you've learned the Flower Shifting Great Technique?"

Xiao Buli responded curiously, "Yes, you know about it too?"

Liu Xing replied, "Heh, of course I do. That Yan Beifei is always wandering around the various martial halls, peddling his Flower Shifting Great Technique. If you're lucky, you might run into him. But at a price of ten Gold Coins, it's something most people can't afford."

"It was five Gold Coins, NPCs can be bargained with."

Liu Xing, surprised, said, "You can bargain?!," and seeming to find it amusing, he added, "Heh, this is new to me. Maybe I'll give it a try later, but even at five Gold Coins, it's still too expensive. After learning that, you can't learn any other Inner Strength techniques. It's too much of a compromise."
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Xiao Buli replied, "Isn't it all right if you just forget the skill?"

"Forget skills? You think this is World of Warcraft? There's no such function to forget skills in this game," Liu Xing retorted.

What! On hearing Liu Xing's words, Xiao Buli was instantly dumbfounded. He opened his Skill Bar to check, and sure enough, there wasn't the kind of function seen in typical games for deleting skills.

(But Yan Beifei clearly said that skills could be forgotten, and he did so with an air of certainty. Could it be that he was intentionally deceiving me this way? But how would he know about the forget skills function in real games?)

With this thought, Xiao Buli also remembered Ji Xiangyun's initial conversation with him, where she had vaguely revealed her awareness of the 'favorability' concept.

Combining this with his recent conversation with Yan Beifei, Xiao Buli began to hypothesize two possibilities.

The first possibility was that the game designers had intentionally designed NPC dialogs this way, a sort of humorous parody, which was not uncommon in other games he had played.

The second possibility was that the NPCs in the game really did have self-aware intelligence, and they were also aware of things in the real world.

This theory seemed somewhat supernatural, but wasn't the game itself rather supernatural? It wasn't entirely out of the question.

As he pondered, Xiao Buli observed the NPCs around him practicing martial arts and swordplay. Perhaps it was just a psychological effect, but he felt like these NPCs were glancing over, seemingly eavesdropping on the conversation between him and Liu Xing.

"This game is getting creepier and creepier," he murmured to himself, finding that the inability to learn other Inner Strength techniques seemed less important by comparison.

Whatever, since he did not plan to focus much on Inner Strength anyway. If he couldn't learn it, then so be it – less stress for him.

As the saying goes, 'A broad heart ensures no big troubles,' Xiao Buli didn't dwell on it and decided to continue with his original intention of coming here – to acquire the title of swordsmanship master. Since Liu Xing was here, he took the opportunity to ask for advice.

"You want to get the swordsmanship master title? That won't be easy. You have to earn the title of Swordsman, then advance to a high-level Swordsman, and only then can you obtain the title of swordsmanship master. See that NPC over there named Mu Zhiqi? Just talk to him, and choose to challenge for the Swordsman title," he advised.

Upon hearing Liu Xing's words, Xiao Buli glanced in that direction and indeed saw an NPC with the golden name 'Mu Zhiqi (Sword Saint)', obviously the owner of the Longquan Sword Pavilion.

When he clicked on Mu Zhiqi, a series of dialog boxes immediately popped up, with options like becoming an apprentice, seeking sword techniques, and challenging for the title of Swordsman.

The same thing again? Xiao Buli was slightly taken aback. The NPCs he had encountered seemed to fall into two categories: those with a high degree of freedom that required typing to converse, and those that could interact with preset response options through clicks, somewhat like traditional online game NPCs, just like his teacher Xuanxu Zi, and now this Longquan Sword Saint.

Could there be some sort of pattern to it?