The Monster is Coming

Chapter 445 The Showdown Begins, Soul Contract Launched
One week later, deep within the Land of No Rest.

Eight figures, having just finished a fierce battle, descended from the sky and landed on the gnarled branches of an ancient giant tree.

Then they raised their hands in unison.

The next moment, the dual-effect premium potion appeared in their palms.

They tilted their heads back and drank it down, the powerful medicinal effects spreading and quickly soothing the exhaustion from the battle and minor injuries, restoring them to their peak condition.

This scenario has been repeated countless times over the past seven days.

At this moment, Soulfire felt the surging power within his body, and his dark blue flames swept over the seven reborn members of his clan beside him.

Recently, something has puzzled it greatly.

When these eight chosen bodies act together, they will grow in sync.

For example, it hunted and killed a monster.

No matter what other members of the race are doing, they can feel the warm current flowing into their bodies, and their physical fitness, including the strength of their rules, can grow in sync.

It seems that these eight bodies are connected in some unknown way.

But no matter where this connection exists, it cannot be found, no matter how hard it tries.

It didn't think about this problem in detail.

These chosen ones possess too many undiscovered secrets.

Now, different rules of power surge within their bodies, giving them growth potential that they never dared to imagine before.

The flame of hope for the Soul Clan has been ignited.

Thanks to their efforts, the Soul Clan will no longer be remnants of souls forced into hibernation in the future.

They will rebuild the Soul Clan city-state, govern stronger rules, and let the "Soulfire Light" shine brightly in the Monster World, a world teeming with powerful races.

But even amidst this intense heat, Soulfire was aware of its predicament.

They are still too weak.

In this world teeming with powerful races and fraught with peril, even those with limitless potential for growth are nothing more than toddlers learning to walk.

Any act of recklessness could lead to utter destruction.

Those top-tier powerful clans that look down upon all living beings can easily wipe them out.

Before they have the strength to protect themselves, they must be patient and strictly control their activity range to relatively familiar areas.

By hunting in small areas repeatedly, one can quietly accumulate strength and must never easily venture into unknown territories.

Concealment, growth, and waiting—this is the only viable path to becoming a powerful race.

Therefore, they have always stayed in this area and have no intention of leaving.

However, Xia Sheng, who had observed and read the Soulfire's thoughts, couldn't help but frown.

From its perspective, Soulfire's stability is undoubtedly the right choice.

Exploring the outside world without understanding its situation could easily lead to disaster.

However, he and his brothers chose to have Soulfire train for them because they valued Soulfire and its people's efficient hunting methods.

If this trend continues, once all the monsters in this area are hunted out, Soulfire will likely shift its focus to the more conservative mining of nearby resources.

At that time, the hunter boosting service can be transformed into the miner boosting service.

In hunting mode, they can gain sacrificial power and life soul experience, but in gathering mode, they can't get anything.

If the Soul Race were to become the 'Miner Race,' power leveling wouldn't be possible.

What he needs are combat power-leveling services that can consistently generate high profits, not a group of cautious resource collectors.

Unless, of course, they can also get a share of the mining profits.

But he clearly couldn't change Soulfire's mind.

This put Xia Sheng in a difficult position.

After discussing it with his brothers, he decided to just lay his cards on the table.

If they want to build a recurring revenue stream in the future, it's only a matter of time before they have to reveal their true intentions.

Having made his thoughts clear, Xia Sheng took the initiative to speak:
“Soulfire, let’s talk.”

Suddenly hearing a voice in his mind, Soulfire was startled.

But it soon realized that the voice seemed to belong to the original owner of this body.

The ghostly blue flames in Soulfire's eyes trembled violently, and a storm raged in his heart.

It always believed that the original owner's consciousness was completely suppressed within the Star Sea Barrier when it possessed the body, making it unable to perceive the outside world.

Unexpectedly, I was able to pass through the seal and communicate with it.

"Don't be surprised. In fact, you never sealed me, or rather, you never truly controlled this body."

The Soulfire's consciousness almost solidified:
"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that your attempt to possess someone failed from the start. The barrier you constructed was only allowed to exist by me, including the pseudo-sea of ​​consciousness that you see connecting to the body... The sudden reshaping of rules that appeared before was not an adaptive optimization of this body, but rather I discovered that this set of rules was more in line with your fighting style, so I actively switched it for you to improve your hunting efficiency."

Soulfire's fiery eyes flickered violently, filled with disbelief.

"By the way, every time your wish comes true, the potion that is generated is also given to you by me after I learned of your thoughts. I can even clearly sense the shock and doubt in your heart right now. And the purpose of me doing this is just to be lazy and let you work hard to grow in my place... The truth is, I have been watching you all along, Soulfire."

Xia Sheng's explanation sent a chill down Hun Huo's spine.

It conjured up seemingly reasonable answers to many questions.

But the truth turned out to be so cruel; it was the fool who had been deceived.

All the plans were built on such an absurd misunderstanding.

"And what about your seven clansmen?"

"Same as above, I arranged them all."

"Just to make fun of us?" Soulfire gritted his teeth.

"Don't misunderstand, my tribe and I initially had this idea, but we changed our minds later. The reason I'm taking the initiative to explain this is to discuss a win-win cooperation with you..."

Xia Sheng then elaborated on his proposed win-win cooperation model.

After explaining clearly, he continued:

"This is only beneficial to your Soul Clan, with no drawbacks. We can provide the Soul Clan with bodies as pure as mine, possessing a large number of rules, or even stronger bodies than mine. In exchange, I need you to provide efficient hunting to support our growth... Of course, we can also use our bodies to mine resources, but we must take most of the resources obtained."

After listening to Xia Sheng's story, Soulfire fell silent.

Although the truth is cruel, the cooperation proposed by Xia Sheng directly addresses the Soul Clan's biggest pain point: survival and continuation.

Faced with Xia Sheng's invitation, Soulfire struggled with his decision.

It feared that this was yet another elaborate scam.

I felt like a fool who had been deceived, jumping around on the route the other party had planned, and even thinking that I was in control of everything.

It is unclear whether this cooperation is a shortcut to revival or another prison.

"There are so many animal (evil) races in the monster world!"

Xia Sheng and his brothers heard the roar from the depths of Soulfire's heart at that moment.

Speechless, they continued to wait for the Soulfire's reply.

Under the onslaught of such a massive amount of information, Soulfire clearly needs time to process it.

Time ticked by, and finally, Soulfire looked up at the seven clansmen beside him, a resolute glint in his eyes.

For the sake of the survival of the group, it seems to have no other choice.

If the other party is not deceiving them, this might be another shortcut for the Soul Clan to rise.

……

Five days later.

On a player forum, a post quickly rose to the top of the popularity charts.

[Sharing a brand new, highly efficient growth method: Soulfire Boosting]

Posted by: Nervous System
Contents:

Fellow villagers, it's been a long time.

I am the nervous system, an unknown little explorer and player.

He's also the newly minted "god of magic" that you guys have been complaining about in the live stream lately: stingy with his medicine and his gameplay is terrible.

I will explain the issues you raised later.

The main reason I'm posting today is to talk about a brand new revenue-generating channel.

This model has been proven to be feasible after half a month of stable operation, and now it is being shared with fellow villagers.

It all started when I struck it rich in the Ash Wasteland.

At that time, something strange happened to me: every time I encountered danger during my exploration, it was resolved by a coincidence.

At first I thought I was just lucky, but gradually I realized something was wrong.

That's incredibly lucky.

Many seemingly insurmountable predicaments can be resolved through liberation.

This made me realize that perhaps there was a mysterious force protecting me in the shadows.

So I asked for directions, and the truth was as I expected: a guy named Soulfire was following me.

It has its eye on my player body and wants to possess me.

They're following me because they want to acquire more player bodies, believing that I'm backed by a race that they can use to resurrect their own kind.

In order to lure him out, I deliberately jumped off a cliff.

The Soulfire was indeed forced out, and in the end, it had no choice but to attack me. The attempt to possess me naturally failed; there's no possibility of us players being possessed.

I was ready to return to the village on my own when it suddenly occurred to me, why not let Soulfire fight on my behalf and I earn the rewards for free?

This experiment opened the door to a new world.

So, the silly things you saw in the live stream were actually Soulfire using my body to do the hunting.

The reason you complained that it was "so stingy it doesn't even use medicine" is because it was completely unaware of the existence of the online store, and even if it knew, it couldn't open or use it.

It has to be said that Soulfire is like a perpetual motion machine.

My sacrificial power gain curve over the past two weeks has been more exciting than riding a rocket; my brother just couldn't stop.

Here's an introduction to the life structure of the Soul Clan. They are essentially a mass of consciousness energy. The so-called "possession" is more like setting up a temporary operating platform inside our body, which won't harm our fundamental nature.

After analysis, I discovered that the Soulfire clan members are currently stored in Soul Beads (consciousness containers) in the form of "consciousness souls". To be resurrected, they need a body that can hold their consciousness souls.

In their eyes, our player bodies are simply top-of-the-line "mechs".

It can grow rapidly and also possesses rule-based abilities.

After spending the last two weeks idling and watching the show, I felt there was no need to keep pretending, so I decided to take the initiative to confront Soulfire.

After friendly negotiations, we reached a win-win cooperation agreement.

My brothers and I temporarily lent our bodies to them, and they were responsible for controlling our bodies to hunt, gather, and build.

The Soul Clan has now established a small territory in the Unending Land of the Ash Wasteland.

I feel the time is ripe, and now I'm officially sharing our win-win account rental model with everyone. People from our hometown can rent out their idle accounts to the Soul Clan in the Land of No Return.

There are three revenue models.

These three modes are all freely allocated by the Soul Clan, and players only need to rent an account, but the output and income of each mode are different.

The first method is resource gathering.
The Soul Clan controls your body to travel to various regions to collect resources. You take 80% of the profits, and the Soul Clan takes 20%.

The second mode is hunting training.

In this mode, you get 80% of the hunting rewards, but you have to pay the Soul Clan a 20% reward fee after the game ends. I'm still planning this scheme because the Soul Clan can't know the player's earnings. To avoid trust issues, I need to create a statistics plugin.

Secondly, players who rent accounts can end the account boosting service at any time and go do what they want.

The third type is the mercenary war mode.

The Soul Clan will deploy their top-tier player accounts to participate in territorial wars, with all war spoils going to the players.

Death in action terminates the cooperation.

This model could lead to immense wealth after a war, or it could result in being sent back to the dark room very quickly.

The proxy trading model mainly provides a way for those who want to take a break occasionally to earn money while browsing forums and watching live streams.

You can confidently hand over your account to the Soul Clan brother and relax in peace.

After you rest, your sacrificial power, resources, and life soul experience will increase significantly.

There's no need to worry about the Soul Clan brothers causing trouble, since the Soul Clan can't use the spatial bag and star vein functions.

At most, it's just a small, dark room for an hour.

As the liaison, I will later create a "leveling plugin" to set a credit rating for fellow villagers who want leveling services.

Furthermore, I solemnly promise everyone here that I will not take a single penny of the profits generated by this power leveling model.

My idol is Explorer, that cowardly guy who developed the free "Fengwu Poetry" plugin.

I always remember what he said: Players should help each other succeed.

This power leveling system, including the "power leveling plugin" to be developed later, will be completely free and open to all players, just like the game "Fengwu Shi".

My brothers and I have a simple goal: to allow every player to rest in peace, relax, and still get stronger.

The Soul Clan gained living space, and we gained the freedom to grow; this is true win-win.

The "Soul Clan Account Rental Hall" in the Land of No Rest has now been completed.

We'll be opening up 100 spots for testing first. If you'd like to try it out, please contact us privately.

Finally, let's give the explorers a little push.

You coward, hurry up and finish making the Fengwu Poetry plugin, I've been looking forward to it for so long.

Comment area:
I don't want to get up: So the spellcasting lag in the previous live stream was actually the Soul Race getting familiar with the skill key bindings? I felt something was off. There shouldn't be any possibility of lag when releasing the Soul's special ability. I even think you were deliberately creating a topic.

Short and small name for easy hiding: OP is a good person. You have this channel but instead of setting up a job to take on power leveling, you're sharing it for free. Toast to you (raises glass.jpg).

Silent Lamb: There are too many players. Is the Soul Clan's scale big enough? I'm afraid that in the later stages, power levelers will have to be selective about the accounts they play on, thinking that ordinary alt accounts are not interesting. The newer the player, the worse the treatment they receive (eating dirt and slamming the table.jpg).

Di Nian's father: It would be great to make a plugin that can track how long the boosting service lasted and how much the earnings were. If the payment is not made according to the rules, reputation points will be deducted, and once all the points are deducted, the user will be blacklisted and will not be accepted again. Since we want to use a cyclical revenue channel, you need to set up the rules in advance so that everyone can follow them. I'd like to sponsor the cost of making the plugin (donation: 3000 points of sacrificial power).

Explorer: Tears welling up. Thank you for your support, brother, and thank you for your contributions to the player community. Also, could you please stop calling me a coward? How am I a coward?

The nervous system (original poster) replied to the explorer: Don't talk, look at the picture (You're coming, butterfly - dive.jpg).

Big Salty Fish: Shared Power Leveling Model? This is one of the greatest inventions of the year. Research enthusiasts can level up by idling and continue to serve fellow forum members. There are also strategy enthusiasts, plugin enthusiasts... When you have tasks that require you to be busy for a few days, you can just send them to idle and earn some extra income. Just thinking about it makes me happy (reward: 100 points of sacrificial power).

……

The post sparked heated discussion on the forum.

Its popularity continued to soar over time, firmly securing its position as the top trending topic on the forum's weekly list.

They even started aiming for the top spot on the monthly charts.

This was followed by a flood of private message requests, with many players hoping to get a spot in the first batch of boosting trials.

Especially for those meticulous players, they feel that this is a growth system tailor-made for them, as they have been frequenting the forums for a long time.

The growth can be completely handed over to the Soul Clan for training.

The explosive popularity also put pressure on Xia Sheng.

Manual coordination alone is simply not enough to manage the impending surge in number rentals.

The daily registration and statistics alone were enough to drive him crazy.

Secondly, manual records are prone to errors, and the trust between players and the Soul Clan is difficult to maintain through verbal agreements.

The only reliable way is through plugins.

Create a plugin using the official "Game Workshop" so that players who want to play the boosting mode can register as members within the plugin and then grant the plugin certain permissions.

In this way, the statistics can be completed automatically.

Just like the delivery plugin for the Gold Coin Merchant Guild, revenue, profit sharing, and order taking can all be handled through the plugin.

However, Xia Sheng knew nothing about how to create plugins.

In order to make this model work in the long term, he immediately contacted his longtime idol: the Explorer.

I hope to get help from him.

As one of the earliest players in the version, Explorer must have connections who can help him solve problems in plugin creation.

After learning the ins and outs of the "Soulfire Boosting" mode, the explorer readily agreed and helped contact a meticulous player on the forum.

Within just a few days, a plugin called "Soul Contract" entered the testing phase.

After players download the plugin and register as members, the plugin can access the player's data permissions and obtain the player's sacrificial power gains, life soul experience gains, and item (resource) gains during the boosting period. All of this data will be recorded and statistically analyzed in real time, and a data report will be generated after the boosting mode ends.

The Soul Clan had no idea how much they had earned through power leveling.

However, the plugin has a pre-set revenue sharing mode.

For example, if the hunting rewards are split 82/80, the player gets 8 and the Soul Clan gets 2.

Once the boosting mode is activated, the plugin will automatically perform the revenue sharing, transferring the portion due to the Soul Clan to the overall management account managed by Xia Sheng.

Players can check the process at any time; it is completely transparent.

This fee will then be directly transferred by Xia Sheng to the leader of the Soul Clan: Soulfire.

Secondly, the plugin also displays the boosting duration.

Although time is not important, players can interrupt at any time or discuss extending the time with the parasitic Soul Clan members.

However, displaying the duration makes it easier for players to know how long they have been boosted.

In this plugin, every newly registered player starts with 100 reputation points.

The original credit score system was designed to prevent players from breaking the rules and defaulting on their debts.

However, the plugin has been set up to automatically pay to the central account, so the credit score will be reflected in the player's behavior.

For example, a player might sabotage and deliberately kill a Soul Clan member who is being leveled up by a third party within their body.

This behavior will result in a deduction of credit points.

Once a player's reputation score reaches zero, they will be blacklisted by the plugin and will no longer be able to use the boosting mode.

Even if you delete the plugin and re-download it, you still cannot register as a member.

Secondly, the plugin also includes a credit information disclosure for the Soul Clan.

Each Soul Clan member who participates in the boosting service will have a public credit score and evaluation page, based on the efficiency of each boost and player feedback rating.

High-scoring Soul Clan members can increase their chances of receiving "top player accounts," creating a virtuous cycle.

All power leveling data in the plugin will be shared.

All players can see the boosting status of other players, making the boosting process open and transparent.

After the plugin is officially launched.

This immediately sparked a surge in player participation.

Seeing the surge in downloads, Xia Sheng decisively contacted Soulfire, urging it to expedite the revival of more of his clansmen.

After the Soul Contract plugin was launched, the power leveling feature officially became one of the vacation modes that players could choose.

(End of this chapter)