Chapter 418: Chapter 405: Old Grandma (First Update)

Thorne assassinated Queen Mei in public during the award ceremony, conveniently rescuing the old King in the process. This completely set off the nerves of all “Spirit” players worldwide.

“Spirit” players went straight into revenge mode to look for Thorne in the other world to confront him, but Thorne’s response was still very deadpan.

“Anyway, you can’t touch me unless you climb up the stage, so I don’t care what you say!” Another response was, “I don’t know anything about it, it wasn’t me. Maybe it was done by my twin brother from another father and mother.”

In short, Thorne’s reaction was to play dumb, remaining untouchable on the stage, his only retort to the die-hard fans and personal guards of Queen Mei is shouting from below, “Come up and fight me properly!”

As for true fans like Can Xin, they simply incorporated dueling Thorne into their daily gaming routine.

Luckily, Queen Mei remained unscathed after the plot animation… continuing to appear on Biland Island as Miss Cat.

This slightly pacified the players’ resentment.

The reason for the international players’ furor was… they were wondering who exactly Thorne is? A player? Or an NPC?

It all came down to one question, “Why is this character so strong?”

Caramel was somewhat famous among the players of various countries, and after his video dominating the White Emperor before attending the ceremony was uploaded on international video websites and faced cheating accusations.

Caramel’s popularity suddenly skyrocketed, and before the netizens on the international web could validate the cheating accusations against him, an even stronger character from “Spirit” struck him down instantly.

Although many netizens on the international web argued it was not the same game and the situation was not a fair 1v1 duel.

Indeed, it wasn’t a fair 1v1–aside from the five random players by Queen Mei’s side, Thorne was up against Lu Wei, Juan Canyun, and Caramel, three top professional players. Lu Wei from the Titan team was even internationally recognized as the soul of the team.

Yet, these top professional players barely stood a chance in front of Thorne.

Many cited Thorne’s stats as overwhelmingly strong–his movement speed, attack speed, and power far surpassed those of ordinary players.

But beneath these comment discussions, a flood of videos of Thorne dueling with professional players from various major clubs in the domestic scene were uploaded to the international web.

In just under three hours, these videos showcasing various fighting techniques–swordsmanship, boxing, shooting, and so on, akin to professional textbooks of their respective systems–caused a sensation in the neighboring countries.

“We have an AlphaGo challenging the limits of humanity in Go; does “Spirit”, this VR game, really have a Beta Dog?”

“There are indeed a few professional VR game players who have trained in real-life swordsmanship and boxing. Can AI really simulate such master-level swordplay?”

Jiang Qiao didn’t mind Thorne dominating the international web’s hot searches. Among them, one interesting search term was “If Thorne participated in the World Conflict Tournament, which team could defeat him?”

The top two most liked comments below were “All teams are advised to unite and challenge him. This is a showdown between humans and artificial intelligence!”

“If top players like Lu Wei can be easily defeated by an AI, does the World Conflict Tournament still truly represent the world’s highest level?”

As the real artificial intelligence, Thorne is currently happily welcoming… a long line of “Spirit” players coming to challenge him.

The scene next to Thorne’s stage is as bustling as when Jiang Qiao had just “updated” him, with players packed tightly inside and outside the Flourishing Plaza, a whole bunch of them holding Challenge Vouchers to face Thorne.

They no longer care about that so-called 630,000-player Eye Mainframe; no one has been able to defeat Thorne in almost two months, and that console has probably started to collect dust.

The thought of most players is simply to hit Thorne, even if it’s just once to vent their frustration!

But most players can’t even manage that…

“Aren’t you going to wear your Unparalleled National Knight medal?” Jiang Qiao was standing on the edge of the crowd, asking Caramel.

Both Cola Fanatic and Dynamic Nucleus collectively flew to the Eagle Country to participate in the World Tournament, only Cola Fanatic’s flight was at midnight, and the Dynamic Nucleus players had already boarded their flight. Caramel still had two hours to squeeze in a match with Thorne.

He had already fought once while in the queue, but due to his disturbed heart, he lasted less than ten minutes under Thorne’s hand before facing a crushing defeat.

Caramel was about to enter the second match, and Jiang Qiao suggested that Caramel should wear the Unparalleled National Knight medal before going on stage.

“I’m simply not worthy of wearing that medal right now,” Caramel replied, somewhat dazed. He didn’t even hear who was talking to him, only instinctively answering Jiang Qiao.

Jiang Qiao, observing his expression, could feel the heavy blow that Caramel had suffered, but he wasn’t the kind of player to fall into despair after being hit. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have become a top professional player.

Under Jiang Qiao’s watch, Caramel once again stood before Thorne in the two hours before his flight.

Without discussing skill, Caramel’s character attributes were actually quite inferior to Thorne’s.

The Unparalleled National Knight medal could barely make up for some of the difference in attributes. This medal was one of the most overpowered pieces of equipment designed by Jiang Qiao, without equal.

This equipment couldn’t even fall into the hands of low-level players, because such players simply couldn’t withstand the enhancement brought by the equipment.

The actual strength of the players themselves was still a very vague concept to Jiang Qiao, just as Zhao Mingwei could wear an item that doubled all attributes without a problem, feeling only a bit of discomfort. In contrast, for some ordinary players, wearing a set of legendary equipment and two pieces of Special Equipment was already the limit.

That was the upper and lower limits of a max-level player.

“That’s about all there is to see here, let’s go,”

Amid the crowd, Jiang Qiao heard Yin Hui’s voice and turned to look at him, who was also standing on the edge of the crowd.

The professional players with pulsating cores had all boarded the plane. Yin Hui looked a bit like a loner, with only a Starry Night following beside him.

“Boss Yin, aren’t you going to confirm whether this Eternal is an enemy or an ally?”

Starry Night had been wanting to ‘interview’ Thorne for a moment since earlier, but unfortunately, Thorne’s business had been too busy; he hadn’t had a break since then.

“Confirmation is meaningless now. What we need to do is build a city,”

Yin Hui turned around and left the bustling plaza. He hadn’t gone far when Can Xin, the president of the Abyss Temple, popped out from somewhere.

“Hey! Yin Hui, I saw the question you asked in the Saint Spirit Debating Group. I have a suitable candidate to recommend.”

Can Xin was not here to cause trouble. As a member of the ‘Round Table Council’ for city planning, he was here to recommend talent to Yin Hui.

“Actually, we don’t need Saint Spirit players; the recently introduced Cloud Player system can let engineers observe the terrain.”

What Yin Hui had asked in the Saint Spirit Debating Group was… “Does anyone know a professional urban planner?”

The response in the group was, “City building in the game also needs an urban planner? Isn’t that too hardcore?” “Saint Spirit seems to be that hardcore of a game…”

While the city building system in Saint Spirit had not been revealed at the current stage, Yin Hui guessed that it would probably be like the base building system, coexisting with hardcore and gameplay. However, it wouldn’t hurt to ask a professional about it.

With Yin Hui’s connections, it wasn’t difficult to find an urban planner or two. The difficult part was finding one who enjoyed playing games.

Little Feather was good at stacking blocks to construct buildings. During city construction, he would be responsible for individual significant buildings, but the overall construction of the city would require collaboration between Little Feather and others.

“My candidate isn’t an urban planner, but she has extensive connections in the academic world. She’s my grandma, and she can help you find some very talented people,” Can Xin said.

“Your grandma? Does she play Saint Spirit?”

Yin Hui was momentarily surprised. Most of those who played Saint Spirit were young people, at most middle-aged people in their thirties or forties.

But for those over fifty to still play Saint Spirit… there were hardly any. Can Xin was also nearly twenty-five this year, so his grandmother must be over seventy, right?

Could this elderly lady really handle playing Saint Spirit?

“Of course, she plays. I just don’t know if she can be of help. Her game ID is Li Hua with an orange; it’s a name she casually chose after my granny raised an orange cat,” Can Xin said.

Before Yin Hui had time to search, Jiang Qiao had already started looking up this ID in the Saint Spirit player search.

As a game developer, Jiang Qiao had access to far more information through ID searches than ordinary players did.

Granny Li Hua, let’s call her that for now… In the game, she was only level forty-five, but she had completed the awakening quest. Her awakened class was a branch advancement of the Hunter, the Beast King.

This class differed from the Hunter’s archery specialization, focusing instead on the training of pets and was one of the few professions in Saint Spirit that relied on pets to fight.

Her main battle pet was a Dragon Vein Sabertooth Tiger, equipped with a common mix of blue and purple gear common among players. As for her life skills… they were all over the place.

All her life skill levels were at the apprentice level, and she had no life profession. Looking at the various game data, this old grandmother was just a very ordinary Saint Spirit player.

However, her IP location caught Jiang Qiao’s attention. She logged in from Jiang City, and even more precisely… from Jiang Qiao’s alma mater, Wu University.

Could it really be such a coincidence?

Jiang Qiao didn’t say anything on the side, while Yin Hui told Can Xin that he had added the granny as a friend. For some of the detailed regulations, they still needed to talk to her in person.

Just from this IP and the player’s age, Jiang Qiao was almost certain… she was the Wu University professor who played Saint Spirit mentioned by his own dad.

Her appearance also reminded Jiang Qiao that he should properly settle the rewards from the final battle, especially those for Taming Insects… Taming Insects hadn’t been online for almost thirty-eight hours.

He was very likely being held under house arrest by his own mother, or had run off somewhere to sulk… and couldn’t be reached in-game either.

In this situation… Under the name of the Saint Spirit Fund, Jiang Qiao issued a public bounty mission to all the participants of the various funds.