Building a sect from scratch.

Chapter 48 The Big Pie Plan
Upon hearing this, Wang Xun—also known as Wang Ergou, a famous otaku game streamer—immediately put on a sullen otaku face, his eyes filled with exhaustion and despair.

To be honest, as the first players to be recruited, Wang Ergou and Han Yi trained for at least a week longer than the others. In addition to the courses that were called cold weapon practice but were actually just getting beaten up, there were also a significant amount of physical training and wilderness survival training courses.

These courses are manageable for college students like Han Yi, but for Wang Ergou, a couch potato who used to be glued to his bed or computer chair from morning till night, they're a bit of a pain.

Fortunately, through repeated meetings, the focus of Group Two, which included Han Yi, Wang Ergou, and others, was adjusted, and they no longer pursued muscle development too much, making the course a bit easier.

This relieved Wang Ergou, but also made him a little indignant: "We should let the Great Emperor and the others experience the hardships of life in the group before adjusting the course schedule!"

Of course, despite his words, Wang Ergou had a very good relationship with everyone. After the meeting, he, Han Yi, and Zhao Qing escorted the newly arrived Jade Emperor and Jie Ran to the cafeteria.

Despite the canteen's simple decor, the stainless steel tables and chairs showcase the project leader's distinctively modern aesthetic. However, as a canteen, its food is far superior to most restaurants on the market, which is one of the reasons why Wang Ergou and others chose to welcome the Jade Emperor and Jieran here.

At the dinner table, the group ate and chatted.

"Aunt Wang just mentioned to me privately that during our group quest before, there was a player, the one with five elemental roots, who tricked the local NPC into taking him as an apprentice but ended up not doing so, remember?"

The Jade Emperor seemed to remember the player Wang Ergou had mentioned: "I remember him, that guy was quite talented, what happened to him?"

"Aunt Wang means that there's an experiment that needs our help with. She wants us to try to subtly influence that player to go back and take responsibility, and see if we can bring back the so-called hidden rating, thereby changing his spiritual root. After all, I heard that the player's meditation is much slower than others! I guess he'd be happy to do so!"

The Jade Emperor was greatly shocked: "Hiss... You can do that?"

"Moreover," Wang Ergou said, then suddenly looked around furtively before lowering his voice and saying to the others, "Do you know why the higher-ups set up this project team? I've uncovered a secret: it's very likely that this game company, or rather, this unknown force controlling the game, isn't actually with our superiors. They've only temporarily formed a cooperative relationship, which is why the game is being publicly released online for closed beta testing."

Upon hearing this, Han Yi and the Jade Emperor were greatly shocked, but Zhao Qing and Jie Ran both seemed to be deep in thought.

Wang Ergou looked at the stunned crowd with satisfaction, and then revealed, "So, if we have any ideas that are inconvenient to mention from the higher-ups' perspective, we can try to find out. According to my intelligence, several sect NPCs are also members of the project team, but the senior sister is definitely from that side, so we can directly test her if we need to."

As he spoke, Wang Ergou's eyes kept glancing at Zhao Qing, the meaning of which was self-evident—everyone knew that among all the players in the server, the eldest sister favored Zhao Qing the most, which led to countless netizens on the game forums angrily complaining about the game's unfairness and accusing Zhao Qing of being a "cheater." Of course, the main reason was that they hated that they weren't the ones being cheated.

The Jade Emperor couldn't help but exclaim, "Wow, Dog Bro, you're really wasting your talents by not working for the intelligence agency!"

"Hey, what's this? The information I have is all stuff that's not completely off-limits from above. Those who know, know! But the reason I'm telling you this is because I suddenly had a plan."

"What do you mean?" "Since the NPCs aren't really NPCs, can we go all out?"

Zhao Qing finally couldn't hold back any longer. She shoved Wang Ergou and urged, "Stop being so mysterious! Tell us already!"

"I was thinking, since Jieran was working at the grassroots level in X province before, why don't we turn this Shenyou Village into a pilot village and adopt a completely modern and humane management approach? Moreover, because there is such an unscientific and explosively productive group as cultivators, we don't even need a five-year plan. I think a six-month plan would be more than enough!"

Wang Ergou became increasingly excited as he spoke, even spitting as he talked: "After the technical team was in place, Aunt Wang also let me know that there are quite a few plans related to spiritual energy experiments. We'll add a few smaller projects outside the main plans, like spiritual energy harvesters and spiritual energy seeders to improve productivity. That would completely meet the requirements for large-scale mechanized production of spiritual herbs and plants. There are also plans to build various farms and slaughterhouses for scientifically raising poultry and livestock, cultivate a large-scale system of alchemy and medicine practitioners, build public hospitals in the cultivation world, and even install spiritual energy streetlights to enrich people's nightlife. Building a modern city within a year or two is entirely possible—and I'm being conservative with that timeframe!"
"Putting everything else aside, don't you guys want to play games and drink sugary drinks in the game?"

Wang Ergou's pie had barely been drawn up when the Jade Emperor was the first to express his support. He nodded vigorously, excitedly saying, "I want it! I want it so badly! How awesome would it be to play games in a game!"

"So, what I mean is, when the community function goes live, let's ask Senior Sister if we can take over Shenyou Village under the name of the community and carry out large-scale construction! Because right now, I estimate that the NPCs in the village have the highest favorability towards us, especially that little loli. Her favorability towards Jieran should be off the charts. The other day when he wanted to log off back to the sect, that little loli was chasing after him, trying to follow him! Tsk! What a scumbag!"

As he spoke, Wang Ergou cast a jealous and disdainful glance at the expressionless Jie Ran, making Jie Ran adjust his posture uncomfortably.

Zhao Qing rolled her eyes: "Didn't you also win over the village chief? That village chief is a high-level NPC! And a Qi Refining cultivator at that!"

"How can they be the same! One is an adorable little girl, and the other is a Qi Refining cultivator who's over a hundred years old, about to be buried, with a face full of wrinkles?"

"Alright, alright, I think this is feasible," Han Yi quickly interjected when he saw the topic had gone off track. "Moreover, I've noticed that the overall style of this game actually places a high demand on morality. You've seen it in many details, like how stealing a chicken has such serious consequences. So, for things that benefit NPCs, I think we might not need to wait for the community function and can directly discuss it with Senior Sister."

The Jade Emperor stared with eyes that seemed untouched by knowledge, scratched his head, and asked, "How do we negotiate?"

Wang Ergou glanced at the Jade Emperor with disdain: "Just talk about justice, can't you just make empty promises?"

Zhao Qing smoothly added, "He hasn't experienced the harsh realities of society yet; he doesn't understand."

Han Yi suppressed a laugh and added, "Be confident. He's just intellectually limited. I'm only a sophomore."

The Jade Emperor immediately raised his voice indignantly: "Hey! I scored 271 in the science section of the college entrance exam! I'm qualified to be an emperor!"

……

(End of this chapter)