Mr. Zhou smiled awkwardly and turned his gaze aside: "Sir, how should I address you?"
The skeleton mage in human form smiled: "Grandpa Qian of Bone-Touching."
Flatulence glanced at Mr. Zhou who was changing the subject, then turned his gaze to the skeleton beside him: "Brother, how should I address you? Are you sure you don't want a deep hug that reaches the bone?"
"Sea Flip." The skeleton player took two steps back, creating some distance from Flatulence: "Just call me Somersault, and also, I only like lady NPCs, don't like man-on-man action, so please keep your distance."
Flatulence grinned: "Brother Somersault, no need to be so tense, just kidding, I don't like forcing anyone either."
Grandpa Qian of Bone-Touching turned his gaze to Fang Ka: "The quest should be picked up from the new player guide, right?"
Mr. Zhou nodded: "Following the usual game quirks, the quest is definitely picked up from the new player guide, but this game is quite special; it has an innocence like a lotus emerging unstained from the mud. I'm not quite sure, let me give it a try."
Mr. Zhou walked up to Fang Ka and then showed what he thought was a polite and elegant smile: "Hello, may I help you?"
"Of course, my loyal subordinates, I do have some things here that need your help." Seeing these silly players finally return to the right track of thinking, Fang Ka smiled reassuringly.
Quickly, the four players in attendance were surprised to find a semi-transparent game panel appearing before them, accompanied by a quest prompt.
Mr. Zhou looked at the quest prompt before him and couldn't help but fall into contemplation.
'Level 1 Task: Find 100 Purple Patterned Flowers and deliver them to Mage Fang Ka (0/100). Task reward: 5 experience points, 1 Copper Coin, 1 point. Attached is a picture of the flower [Purple Patterned Flower.jpg]'
'Accept? Yes / No.'
Flatulence ran up to Mr. Zhou and whispered: "Brother Zhou, I actually have a game panel too now? And a task popped up asking me to find a hundred Blue Glow Grass."
"I wondered why there was no game panel at first, looks like it needs to be activated by finding this NPC."
"By the way, this NPC intelligence is pretty high, it even knows how to infer without needing us to repeat queries for activation."
"Still... isn't this task reward absurdly low? It's completely different from other games?"
Mr. Zhou snapped out of his contemplation, then turned to look at Flatulence beside him: "Seems like the game panel should be activated when dealing with this newbie guide NPC; in the game's background setting, this newbie guide should be quite important, otherwise the game planning wouldn't do this."
"Besides, its intelligent logic is indeed impressive, I suspect it might be an advanced AI being tested by the game company."
"As for the reward, quite frankly it's fine; with this game experience, not charging per second is good enough, and now you're not only playing for free, but getting rewards for doing tasks, be content."
Flatulence stroked his chin: "I suspect you're trying to PUA me, but I have no evidence."
Sea Flip also approached: "Exactly, what Brother Zhou said was spot on, you should be grateful."
Turning towards Flatulence with a nonexistent white-eye roll, Sea Flip looked fawningly at Fang Ka: "Honorable Mage Fang Ka, I'm very willing to serve you, I'm eager to help you with the search."
Fang Ka maintained his NPC dignity: "My loyal subordinates, what you need to find is the West Asian Fruit, which is in the southwest, there is a grove of West Asian Trees there."
"You need to be aware that only those West Asian Fruits that are entirely pink and mature can meet my needs."
Sea Flip glanced toward the southwest, then patted his pelvic bone: "Hey, brothers, I'm heading off first to pick fruits. While I'm at it, I'll scout around for beautiful NPC sisters on this island."
"That's what you really meant with that last sentence..." Flatulence gave Sea Flip a disdainful glance, then also expressed his acceptance of the quest to Fang Ka.
Soon, all four of them accepted the quest.
Mr. Zhou called the other three players to his side,
The four players gathered together, Mr. Zhou spoke: "The introduction of this game states that the main focus is on realism; now the various aspects of this game's experience reveal a tendency towards realism, for instance, when we look at people or items, no information is displayed above them; this must have been intentional by the game planners, and not just incomplete."
"Think about it, if everything we looked at had a string of information above it, no matter how realistic the surrounding scenes were, it would still feel chaotic and unreal, right?"
Secretly eavesdropping nearby, Fang Ka couldn't help but glance approvingly at Mr. Zhou, very satisfied with his making things up in his mind.
He was indeed intentional about it, although pursuit of realism was one aspect, another aspect was that if he were to let these players see strings of information everywhere, he would find it extremely exhausting.
Given that, why not simply skip this and improve the sense of realism, so he doesn't have to be so tired?
After all, with these players bound by the Soul Contract, it's easy to identify each other without worrying about mistaking similar-looking skeletons.
Of course, to these players, it seems as though it's special and easy to distinguish each other naturally.
Grandpa Qian of Bone-Touching nodded in agreement: "Yes, I feel this is really good, it makes an old man like me feel like I'm in a second world."
"Just thinking about strings of information over everything I look at... I already feel uncomfortable."
"Considering this game is completely different from regular games, this experience, tsk tsk, it's too realistic."
"Regular games can't give you a genuine game experience, and having such elements enhances convenience for tasks without damaging the already nonexistent realism."
"Also, this game doesn't have health bars, I suspect it likely simulates a realistic injury and death mechanism, and a game panel that increases playability and achievement can also be hidden or revealed anytime, always moving towards realism—truly worthy of being called an adventure game with a primary focus on realism."
Indeed, the small note at the bottom right of the game panel says: [Silently think 'hide panel' and 'show panel,' and you can hide or reveal the game panel anytime; silently think 'log out' to leave the game, outdoor log-out at random locations is not recommended.]
Sea Flip raised a thumb: "Absolutely, I can brag about this game non-stop. Everyone, let's talk about our own game panels? See if they're all the same? Especially you, Brother Zhou, your alien race female skeleton must be somewhat different from ours, right?"