Chapter 2: Lack of Intelligence
Lu Yunxi simply couldn’t endure the grueling routine of waking up at 5:30 every morning to train, so she tried everything she could to resist.
“Oh no! I can’t hold it anymore! I need to use the outhouse!”
“It’s almost noon! I have to go help Mom cook!”
“Dad, you don’t need to supervise me. I can train perfectly fine on my own! Don’t you have other things to do? Shouldn’t you be out hunting?”
“Mom, I want to learn embroidery! It looks like so much fun!”
“Dad, I want to eat meat. Could you go hunt something? Mom’s health hasn’t been great, and she needs meat to build up her strength!”
“…”
She racked her brains, making up every excuse under the sun, but her parents remained entirely unmoved.
She seriously suspected that even if the sky fell and the earth shattered, they would still force her to continue her training. They were like programmed machines, strictly executing a rigid schedule—dictating exactly what needed to be done at a specific age and a specific time.
That night, feeling utterly suffocated by the strict routine, she secretly slipped out of the house to get some fresh air.
The Lu family’s house was located at the very edge of the village, nestled against a mountain on one side and bordered by their neighbors, the Li family, on the other. If she wanted to take a stroll into the village, she had to pass by the Li residence.
Every time she walked by during the day, Grandma Li and her granddaughter, Li Daya, would be standing by their door. But now that night had fallen, they were still standing there!
Grandma Li was elderly, and Daya was only a five-year-old girl, the exact same age as Yunxi. Why would an old woman and a young child stand mindlessly at the door all day long? Weren’t they exhausted?
Yunxi, who had originally planned to head toward the center of the village, paused and walked over to the Li family’s door instead.
“Grandma Li, Daya, have you eaten yet?” she greeted them with a warm smile.
Grandma Li smiled kindly and replied, “The clothes we washed yesterday aren’t dry yet. Let’s put them away tomorrow!”
Daya chimed in: “The game is really fun!”
Yunxi’s eyelid twitched.
Every single time she passed by and tried to talk to them, they answered with those exact two sentences. No matter what she asked, they would endlessly parrot the same lines like broken records.
She had hoped they might say something different in the evening, but who knew they would still be stuck on those exact same sentences!
Feeling a bit disheartened, she took a lazy stroll around the village before heading home. But during her walk, she noticed even more bizarre details.
The villagers’ behaviors were completely static. The farmers went out to till the fields every day, and Grandma Li stood at her door every day. True, the farmers would go home to eat and sleep at night, but the people standing by their doors didn’t seem to… Well, she couldn’t be entirely sure. What if they finally went to bed late at night?
Even so, Yunxi grew increasingly baffled by the world around her. She wanted to brush the villagers off as literal robots, but she had physically held her parents’ and friends’ hands. No matter how she looked at it, they possessed the warmth and flesh of ordinary humans. Right?!
Capital Star, Headquarters of the Number One Gaming Company — Testing Department.
A gaming cabin hissed open, and a tester climbed out, looking a bit groggy.
“How was it? Did you experience any discomfort after logging in?” the data recorder asked, his expression strictly professional.
“I feel fine, but honestly, I found it… not very interesting,” the tester replied, putting it mildly. ‘Not very interesting’ was a massive understatement. It was downright boring!
The recorder immediately readied his pen. “What exactly made it boring?”
“Pretty much everything!” The tester rubbed his temples, recalling his time in the game. “The people in the game feel incredibly fake! Aside from the crucial NPCs, everyone else just repeats the exact same lines. Some of them even stay up late into the night, standing blankly by their doors. It practically scared me to death! Plus, I was in there for an entire month, and the sky was perfectly clear every single day. Even the wind blew in the exact same direction! And another thing…”
When it came to listing the game’s flaws, the complaints were endless.
As a professional tester, he had played hundreds, if not thousands, of virtual reality games. To be completely blunt, if this game wasn’t heavily marketed on its hyper-realistic ancient lifestyle, it wouldn’t have a shred of appeal. Right now, it lacked any competitive edge.
The recorder scribbled frantically: NPC activity routes are fixed. Poor AI. Unengaging interactions. Weather system is non-existent…
That Afternoon — Main Conference Room.
The recorder presented a list of modifications suggested by the testing department. The company president sat at the head of the table, surrounded by the various department managers, all wearing solemn expressions.
“Our department will handle the weather system!” The moment the recorder finished reading, the R&D manager eagerly jumped in, snatching up the easiest task.
He knew that if he didn’t volunteer, the president would just assign it to him anyway. Better to claim the easy job while he could!
The president crossed his arms. “Fine. The weather system is straightforward enough, so R&D can take care of it. As for the planning department, I need you to figure out how to make the NPCs more lifelike! Every single NPC needs to feel like a real human being.”
He tapped his index finger sharply against the table. “Don’t forget, the core selling point of our game is ultimate realism! Everyone needs to have their own personality, unique traits, and personal history! Take the starter villages, for example. With so many of them scattered across the map, the head of each village must have a distinct personality. If they’re all carbon copies of each other, where is the fun in that?!”
The manager of the planning department forced a smile and nodded repeatedly, while screaming internally.
This is impossible! The game world spanned multiple continents, each populated by tens of millions of NPCs. The planning department only had a handful of staff. How could they possibly handcraft a complete background and identity for every single NPC?
His eyes darted around the room until an idea suddenly struck him. He locked onto the R&D manager sitting beside him.
That night, the planning manager spared no expense, treating the R&D manager to a lavish, rare dinner at a three-star hotel.
One Month Later.
The R&D department still hadn’t finished the weather system. Instead, they had prioritized creating a randomized generation system.
“We’ve inputted a massive database of random personalities, characteristics, behavioral patterns, and backstories into the system,” the R&D manager explained proudly from the presentation stage. “The system ensures that no two NPCs will ever share the exact same personality or past! Given the sheer volume of NPCs in the game, we will only manually design the crucial story characters. All other ordinary NPCs will be generated by this system, ensuring complete, logical self-consistency! Better yet, if a behavioral bug occurs, the NPCs will autonomously correct their own errors!”
Sitting in the audience, the planning manager secretly applauded. This new system had just shaved off an impossible amount of work for his department! That expensive dinner had definitely been worth it.
Once the R&D manager finished his presentation, the president nodded in approval. “Alright, let’s implement the randomization system immediately. I’ll have the testing department run a trial to see if these NPCs truly act like real people. If there are no issues, then…”
While the executives were deeply engrossed in their morning meeting, something shifted in the game’s central intelligent control room.
The massive ball of light suspended in the center of the room—the core AI brain—suddenly flickered. It flashed brightly for a brief moment before returning to normal a few seconds later.
However, the employee tasked with monitoring the intelligent brain happened to let out a massive yawn, completely missing the slight anomaly.
