The Fourth Calamity: Starting with Dungeon Slimes

Not far from the tree hole, a large number of players had already gathered.

"So, did you find out anything?" As soon as the two approached, a group of players rushed forward to ask about the situation.

Upon hearing this, the two of them told everyone what they had just overheard.

"I see! It makes sense to have to find out the mission yourself. After all, it claims to be 100% realistic, so that's reasonable."

"Yes, that makes sense! How come I didn't think of that before?"

Hearing the murmurs of the crowd, the aggressive salted fish immediately jumped out and said, "Ahem, everyone look at me, I'm going to show off a bit."

"We've been playing this game wrong all along! We've been playing it with the mindset of a traditional game."

"Little did they know that this was a groundbreaking game, one that could never be played in the traditional way."

Everyone was puzzled by what the salted fish said.

"Traditional games are nothing more than grinding monsters and leveling up. Everything seems to be pre-programmed, and players are like puppets being controlled."

"This game is different. From the way the developers designed this mission, which requires players to dig for information themselves, it's easy to see that they want to make this world a real world, a second life for us."

"So, as a real world, how should we play?"

"Simply put, it boils down to two words: initiative!"

As the attacking salted fish finished speaking, everyone was somewhat puzzled.

"You guys don't even understand?" A figure with a watermelon knife on its head jumped out. "It's about taking the initiative, actively exploring!"

"Take the succubus's storyline for example. In traditional games, we can only passively wait for the plot to unfold, but this game is different; we have to take the initiative!"

"How do we take the initiative?" one player asked.

The person holding the watermelon knife above his head gave him a look of utter disappointment.

"That's easy, of course we'll just go and negotiate payment with that succubus!"

Upon hearing what the player with the watermelon knife above his head said, one player voiced his doubts, "This game is unlike other games. In this game, you can only trigger list quests from the core NPCs."

"As for the other NPCs, they can only sign contracts, but these contracts have many bugs, making it easy to get scammed."

The salted fish, which was about to attack, cleared its throat.

"Sigh, your thinking is too limited."

"It's precisely because of contract quests that we can have them! Because apart from the core NPCs, none of the other NPCs have the authority to kick us offline, so we can target different people at different times."

"What do you mean?"

"Take the earth dragon Moses for example. He is very powerful, so we should try our best to communicate with him and use our superior rhetoric and intelligence to sign a contract and obtain as much reward as possible."

"But the new NPC is a weakling, and seems to be very rich, so we can just hold a knife to her throat and force her to agree to our terms and sign an unequal treaty!"

"As for potential pitfalls? We've already determined the content, why would we be afraid of pitfalls?"

"Will this work?"

"Why can't it work? Why did the developers only set up one NPC to kick us offline, while other NPCs can't? Isn't it to give us more room to maneuver when facing other NPCs?"

"Don't worry, I used to be a planner, I'm a professional at this!" The advancing salty fish was very confident in his guess.

"But what's the point of even if we succeed in negotiating? The monsters outside are so strong, we can't possibly beat them! In my opinion, it's much safer to just do a pointless quest and steal their loot directly," one player said.

However, he was met with the same look that salted fish would give a fool.

"Are you stupid? If she had any money on her right now, I wouldn't be saying all this."

"To get her mission reward, the first thing you need to do is get her back home, but what happens after she gets back? Her family is powerful and wealthy, how are you going to steal it from her?"

"So talk to her first, sign a contract, and then even if she doesn't want to give it to you after you go back, she'll have to because of the contract!"

"As for those powerful monsters we can't defeat? Hmph, I've already thought of a way..."

As he spoke, the attacking salted fish brought up his own interface.

[Name: The Attacking Salty Fish]

【Race: Slime (Stage 1) - Pata】

[Faction: Chaotic Evil]

[Level: LV30 (Racial Limit)]

[Vitality: 700]

[Magic value: 200]

Attack: 71, Defense: 16, Agility: 11, Spirit: 16

【种族天赋（史莱姆）：魔力传输LV5-凝胶身躯LV1-分裂再生LV1-伤害吸收LV4-超强癒合LV1】

[Skills: Math Missile LV2 - Water Ball LV1]

"Can you see my skill bar?"

"I see it. What's wrong? Isn't this the skill book we got by exchanging food and the earth dragon Moses a while ago?" one player asked, puzzled.

"You know how to get to the point. Didn't you see my skill bar showing up with a bright LV5?"

As he spoke, the attacking salted fish sighed.

"Alright, let me tell you. Through my research over this period of time, I've discovered something about this game: the monsters are far too powerful."

"Our level cap is only 30, and our stats are very low, so there's no way we can beat those monsters."

"But don't you guys find it strange? Is it reasonable for a game to be unable to even defeat wild monsters?"

Upon hearing this, everyone shook their heads.

"unreasonable!"

"That's right, it's not just unreasonable, it's downright unreasonable. So I figured out the problem right away: simply put, we lack equipment!"

"You might say that this game doesn't have an equipment slot either."

"And there shouldn't be any equipment that a slime can wear, right? Wrong! Completely wrong! Why would a slime need to wear equipment?"

"So I pondered day and night, and soon discovered the problem. That's right, it's the Magic Transfer LV5 skill. Let me put it another way."

"You know about new energy vehicles, right? Don't you feel like those of us with this skill are like batteries?"

Upon hearing what the attacking salted fish said, everyone immediately realized what was going on.

"Salty Fish, you mean we can build cars or something and go kill those monsters?"

"Yes! But not entirely! We need to broaden our perspective. Why build cars? Why can't we build tanks and airplanes?"

The more they listened, the brighter everyone's eyes became.

"Yes! We can build tanks and airplanes!"

However, someone soon realized a problem: "But we don't know how to make weapons. Let alone weapons, we can't even find the raw materials to make gunpowder."

"Don't worry about that. We have a substitute. Those purple ores on the walls—I've discovered that they explode when you keep channeling magic into them! And they're incredibly powerful."

"That way, all we need to do is find the right size ore, and then each person can carry one and sit inside the tank's cannon..."

Upon hearing this, everyone naturally understood what he meant.

"Salted Fish, do you mean we're using ourselves as cannonballs?"

"That's right!"

"Doesn't this mean we're losing a slime for every shot we fire? If this really starts a fight, the casualties will be off the charts."

However, the salted fish that attacked had a different opinion.

"Let's not go all out. Let's cooperate and split the loot 50/50. Everyone contributes, and if we die and respawn, we can just go back to our base to get more ammo and supplies."

"That's like having unlimited ammunition!"

"How about it, brothers? Let's team up and get a tank first, then go negotiate with that new NPC, help her fight her way out, and get paid!"

"We'll split the profits 50/50!"

Hearing what the salted fish said, everyone present looked at each other in bewilderment.

"We can do it, but the problem is we don't know how to build tanks."

Salted fish had already had an idea about this.

"We can go find that stupid dragon, the one we traded a roasted monster for a box of spellbooks with."

"Go find it to get gold coins, such as materials for making tanks, magic circles that need to be inscribed, etc. It's just a matter of baking it more food."

"As for the tank design blueprints, that's easy. We can post about it on the forums. There are so many people following this game right now, crowdfunding to get a tank shouldn't be difficult, right?"

Hearing the salted fish's explanation, everyone's eyes lit up.

Wow, that actually works!

"Sure, let's do it that way! Forget about the mission, we've been bullied by those monsters for so long, it's time to fight back!"

.........

Just as the players were busily preparing to cause trouble, Jiang Chen was at that moment.