Poverty makes me capable of anything.

She increasingly felt that Night of the Stars was not just a cold, impersonal game. The NPCs here had their own joys and sorrows, and even their own thoughts, just like the female member of the resistance she met in the detention center, whose hatred for the empire was so real.

Putting aside the game-like settings, such as the player's gun having a crosshair, for Anran, "Night of the Stars" is a living, breathing world.

Her presence here is proof!

An Ran walked to the back of the workshop and quickly found a fist-sized piece of metal. Combined with what she had in her bag, it was more than enough to forge an alloy dagger.

With the passive skill of Basic Mechanical Proficiency, Anran quickly completed all the work from metal smelting and casting to blade forging, handle making, and short sword sharpening. Compared to making swords in the real world, it was much simpler in the game.

"Ding! You have successfully crafted the [Alloy Dagger] and gained 30 experience points."

[Alloy Short Sword: Quality - White, Attack Power 5-9, Overall Blade Length 30cm, Blade Length 19cm.]

The wavy curve on the back of the blade near the handle makes this slightly rough alloy short knife look more aesthetically pleasing.

"It's just a blank sheet of paper." An Ran was a little dissatisfied; she was still rusty. But luckily, she hadn't used up all the materials she had collected earlier.

So Anran started a new round of production.

"Ding! You have successfully crafted the [Alloy Dagger] and gained 60 experience points."

This time it's finally a green-grade item. In terms of appearance, it's not much different from that white-grade short sword, but the attack power has increased to 7-11.

In 【Night of the Stars】, equipment durability is a hidden attribute and is not shown in the equipment description. Whether the equipment will be damaged still depends on experience, which is a very realistic setting.

I gained a total of 90 experience points from the two manufacturing attempts. With the experience gained from repairing various tools for customers over the past two days, I now have over 800 free experience points, which is almost enough to upgrade my mechanic to level 3.

Several precision components were placed in the corner. These were things that the boss, Colin, had been working on in the workshop recently, but it was unclear what their purpose was.

However, these devices look very advanced, so they must not be simple things.

An Ran's expression turned somewhat strange when she thought about how Colin's favorite book was "Practical Techniques of Bionic Machines".

She glanced down at the time: 11:57 AM on June 6th.

Wait, isn't the open beta just around the corner? Players are coming!

What will happen at 12 o'clock?

Upon thinking about this, An Ran immediately became interested. She put down what she was doing and quietly waited for 12 o'clock to arrive.

Ten, nine, eight... three, two, one!

The countdown ended, and a notification suddenly sounded on the game panel.

"【Night of Stars】Open Beta Officially Launched!"

"Mission system unlocked!"

Trading system unlocked!

"Affection System Unlocked!"

"Professional Mentor System Unlocked!"

Forum system unlocked!

Leaderboard system unlocked!

Map system unlocked!

……

A barrage of voice and text prompts overwhelmed An Ran, and it took her a minute to read through all the system names. This time, the prompts essentially unlocked all the NPC functions for her, meaning An Ran had become an all-powerful NPC.

Quests, mobile shops, career mentors—and even due to the game's setting, Anran is not only a functional NPC but also a story NPC, as she is the future BOSS, and her past and present lives are crucial to the advancement of the major plot of "Night of the Stars."

Of course, An Ran was not only concerned with these things; she discovered that she had actually unlocked some systems that were only available to other players.

With features like leaderboards, maps, and forums, she can even predict player actions to some extent, creating many opportunities for herself.

An Ran became excited at the thought.

The chances of surviving have increased.

Unlike players who can respawn infinitely, she only has one life, and if she dies, who knows what will happen to her.

An Ran's only question now is why she is different from the other NPCs. Could it be because she is an X-factor who transmigrated into this world?

This is not important for now.

Chapter 03 A Request from Colin

Since there are no other players around, the NPC functions are currently unusable, but the player functions are always available.

An Ran first opened the game map. Apart from the places she had been, the entire panel was now completely black. It seemed that she had to open the map herself.

Anran then opened the leaderboard, which was currently empty, probably because the players had just entered.

That leaves only the forum.

The official forums of any popular game are always bustling with activity, and the official forum for [Night of the Stars] is no exception.

The simple forum homepage features many different sections—

[Imperial Summit Council], [Alliance Square], [Night of the Stars Water Zone], [Cosplay], [Starry Sky Map Handbook], etc.

Since players haven't yet divided into factions, the chat section is obviously the most popular area, and An Ran clicked on it without hesitation.

Sure enough, even though the public beta had only been going on for less than ten minutes, the forum was already packed with people.

[Location: Donor, Chia Nebula, W8-145, S43-13. Any pretty girls want to team up and play?]

[**This is truly pathetic.** In real life, I painstakingly saved up enough money to buy the lowest-level gaming helmet, but now that I'm in the game, I'm still grinding for money.]

This game is so realistic and amazing! Once you get past the initial stages, it's quite friendly to casual players!

I've found myself in an incredible place. It's full of robots, and they even have male and female counterparts! It's terrifying.

"..."

A quick glance revealed mostly useless posts, but Anran continued searching and finally found a relatively interesting one.

[I just did an experiment. Wearing the beginner's set, I was free-falling from a 10-meter-high building. For a player with 40 health points, the average death time was about 1.5 seconds. If the height increased to 20 meters, the death time was 0.6 seconds.]

First floor: "Brother, aren't you in pain?"

Second floor: "Mad scientist! Laughing and crying.jpg"

Third floor: "emmm... just now a guy stabbed himself with a knife and did a similar experiment."

Fourth floor: "5 points of endurance. Stab the chest with a knife that has 5 points of attack power, causing fatal damage. 20 points of health are lost per second, and the death time is 2.5 seconds. It's a pity that my knife was stolen, otherwise I could have studied it further. The experiment of jumping off the building is very informative, I'll write it down first."

Fifth floor: "Holy crap, my own brother has appeared?"

Sixth floor: "Let's light some incense first and watch the madman."

Seventh floor: "This is probably what a hardcore gamer is like."

Eighth floor: "I was in room 1886, and I witnessed this epoch-making experiment firsthand. I believe I witnessed the birth of a great scientist."

puff--

It turns out that the player was born in 1886.

Although there was no useful information at the moment, An Ran couldn't help but laugh out loud when she saw this group of unreliable players spouting nonsense on the forum.

What a lovely group of players! It brings back so many memories. But now that her role has changed, if the game forces her to become a BOSS, she'll inevitably fall into the wrong path sooner or later.

[Ruins Town], [Xindu County], [Cloud and Mist Mountain]

An Ran noted down three names, all of which were from the starting villages in the region where Twin Moon City was located.

Twin Moon City can be considered a traditional main city, and novice players cannot be born here. Although Anran was eager to interact with other players and test the newly unlocked NPC functions, she knew she couldn't rush it.

She learned from the forum that new players were all extremely poor, and it would probably take them a while to save enough money for the journey to Twin Moon City.

During this lull, I need to put in all my effort to improve my strength and figure out how to get enough benefits from the players.

No players know that she is the boss of the upcoming 2.0 version. Using this to get close to players and then make money off them is a pretty good idea.

Hehehe—

"Anran, what are you laughing at? Business is coming in, hurry up and get to get off work. You can only leave after you finish taking orders!" The door was pushed open again, and this time Colin didn't give Anran a friendly look.

When you're under someone's roof, you have to bow your head. An Ran quickly nodded seriously, turned around, and went out to work.

Working allows me to gain experience and earn money at the same time, which is alright.

An afternoon passed, and after repairing several small appliances brought in by customers, Anran discovered that her free experience had finally reached one thousand.

She immediately upgraded the trainee mechanic to Lv3, increasing his stamina and intelligence by 1 point.

With 6 free attribute points remaining, An Ran added 2 points to Strength and 1 point to Agility, leaving 3 points in reserve.

In 【Night of the Stars】, the stat allocation is not as rigid as in typical games. Since you can master multiple classes at the same time, and each class gains attribute points upon leveling up, attribute points are not particularly valuable in the later stages of the game as long as you are willing to spend the time.

Mechanics who control machines in combat can, if they can endure loneliness, increase their strength to the same level as warriors.

In other words, as long as you are willing to spend time, have decent skills, and a bit of luck (note: at a certain stage, there are prerequisite tasks for career advancement, and the difficulty of learning new professions will increase), everyone can be a happy pentagon warrior.

Of the six attributes, only Charm cannot be increased by attribute points.

Generally, one can only enhance their charm through special equipment or titles; of course, makeup and plastic surgery are also options.

……

As evening approached, Anran tidied up her desk and was about to go home when Colin, who had spent the afternoon in the workshop, suddenly poked his head out of the workshop.

"Wait a mininute."

"What's wrong?" An Ran stopped in her tracks upon hearing the voice, and when she turned around, she was almost startled by Colin's appearance.

Although he had a mustache, Colin's overall image was still quite clean, but his dim eyes made him look a bit listless.

But now Colin's face is covered in black on one side and yellow on the other, and his hair is greasy, as if he just crawled out of an unwashed pot.

"I need your help with something. I'm working on something here, and I can't manage it all by myself."

What kind of sophisticated equipment is Colin working on?

An Ran was slightly surprised.

"Ding! Hidden quest chain triggered: [Colin's Mechanical Engineering], accept?"

Whether to accept?