Chapter 001 has been shot in the head

At the moment the red line snapped, Roland's consciousness was ejected from the game body, and then he was astonished to see that with a crisp sound, his game character's head exploded

In the past, VR games, no matter how realistic the characters were, the variation in expressions has always been a significant flaw in NPC behavior. Even with the use of muscle texture capture, no matter how rich the NPC's expressions are, the transition between expressions often evokes a sense of the uncanny valley.

The elderly man across from Roland paused for a moment upon hearing him speak, then waved his hand and slowly uttered a phrase in a language that Roland had never heard before

As he was planning to continue observing his surroundings and adapting to his new body, the old wooden door of the church creaked open

The headless corpse fell heavily to the ground, and the screen was splattered with 'mosaic' everywhere

Amidst the creaking sounds of decaying wood, an elderly man with a stooped back entered. His eyebrows were white, long, and drooped diagonally down to his gaunt cheeks. His eyelids sagged to the point of nearly covering his pupils. He was also dressed in a white robe, which bore an embroidered emblem of a large green tree in the center.

I went! Roland felt a toothache, and then he inwardly cursed the game development company. Are they really that obsessed with perfection? They even set different languages for the NPCs in this world? If the introduction on the official game website is correct, this game world has dozens of human nations and dozens of different races. If each nation and each race has its own language, then how immense would the workload be?

This is the spellcasting roadmap

Just as Roland was contemplating this possibility, he noticed the red silk thread between the two nodes suddenly begin to tremble, and then the frequency of the vibrations increased. As the speed of the vibrations intensified, Roland felt an increasing pain in his head

He quickly dismissed this idea. ... He was among the first to enter the game, and it was impossible for a player to become a priest so soon, and most importantly ... . ... Players could only enter the game in the form of a young human, while in front of him was an elderly man in his twilight years.

He pinched his own arm, feeling a pain... However, it was not significant. This is not surprising, as the official announcement had already stated before entering the game that the pain experienced in the game is only one-tenth of that in reality.

Is there really a scent? And a tactile sensation? Roland touched the altar again, feeling its rough and cold surface. He took a deep sniff, and this time he not only detected the strange fragrance of burning grass but also caught the faint, astringent scent of the stone architecture in the air

A peculiar fragrance permeated the air. He glanced around and noticed that not far behind him, beneath the statue of the goddess, a bundle of strange herbs was burning. It resembled mugwort, but the edges of the leaves had additional serrations.

So real ... Roland sighed, stroking the altar, feeling the genuine texture of the stone, his fingertips able to touch the granules on the surface of the material, indistinguishable from reality. He had not expected that the game was indeed as Penguin Company had advertised, a truly authentic virtual game, rather than a deceptive sensory VR inferior product

The rich gaming experience proved to be beneficial, causing Roland to exclaim his good fortune. He summoned the system in his mind; initially, it felt somewhat awkward, as virtual games differ from VR games. However, he quickly became adept at navigating to the spellbook option, opened the magical skills within, and found the language comprehension skill, locking onto it with his thoughts.

Roland stood up on the stone platform and looked around. This was a stone structure, featuring a statue of a goddess, an altar, and several rows of neatly arranged stone benches in front. From the layout and furnishings, it appeared to be a small chapel

Roland opened his eyes and saw above him at an angle a massive female statue. Its black rocky surface seemed to have a faint green light flowing, but upon closer inspection, nothing could be seen.

Though he cursed inwardly, Roland did come up with a solution. He remembered that when he created his game character, he had preemptively learned a second-level magic: Language Comprehension.

The old man, simply by standing there and looking, gives one a sense of a living person, a living being with a soul, rather than a cold, lifeless data NPC clad in a guise of personification

Roland's consciousness was as transparent as a soul, standing beside the corpse, his face a mask of shock and numbness, not knowing how to react.

A blue node, resembling a starting point, begins to glow, and then emits a red beam of light directed towards another node. The speed is very fast, occurring in an instant.

The elderly man's hair, face, and clothes were covered in 'mosaic', and he had an old mouth with only a few teeth showing, looking completely bewildered

Because he had played many sandbox games in the past, in these games, even though everyone used the same language and script, due to the game settings, players from different countries or factions would see garbled text and hear sounds like 'beep beep beep' if they did not possess the language skills to understand the other party's language or lacked proficiency in language-related skills

If this is truly the case, what Frost Game Company and what BiYun Game Company are, in the presence of Big Penguin, merely trembling little novices

Roland has been playing games for twenty years, but this is his first time playing a virtual online game, and he has no experience at all. When faced with such situations, he does not know how to handle them

When will our country also have such exaggerated black technology... Moreover, it was the Penguin Company that first applied it to games. Roland sighed deeply, the 50,000 yuan virtual cabin was indeed worth the purchase.

soul

Roland is not a professional in game development, but he has played many games, from the classic Pac-Man to the current high-quality VR games. Even though today's games can render NPC appearances vividly, they still lack the most crucial internal elements

However, the other party resembled a real person so much that even if they did not speak and merely stood there quietly watching, Roland felt that the other party was a real person

Even if he cannot understand, Roland can discern the meaning in the other person's expression, which surely conveys: I do not understand what you are saying

He sat up and discovered that he had just been lying on a cyan stone platform, somewhat resembling a ritual altar used for sacrifices in the Middle Ages, its surface cold and rough

Upon seeing Roland, the old man was initially taken aback, but then his expression shifted to one of relief

A brief change in expression, whether it is the movement of the muscles on the cheeks or the gaze itself, is indistinguishable from that of a real person, and is nothing like a game NPC

Is this a guiding NPC? ... The official game website did not mention any guiding NPCs ... ... With doubts in mind, Roland took the initiative to speak to the other party: "Hello, old man, what is this place?"

Wait... what is the taste

The gaze, the posture, the tautness of the skin due to the muscle contractions when blinking, age spots, skin that is yellowed and appears to lack moisture, and one can even see the subtle pulsation at the temples of the elderly, a result of blood flow.

Is it really a virtual online game, and not a result of being hypnotized? ... And it feels so real ... Roland looked at his hands, which were white and slender, perfectly fitting the image of a spellcaster

But now, Roland feels that he has encountered a real person... Could it be another player

A ceiling never seen before

Jumping down from the altar, Roland examined his body, dressed in a coarse gray-brown linen garment that was quite rough and uncomfortable against his skin. On his feet were a pair of unsightly linen shoes with very thin soles, and standing on the ground, he could feel the cold and piercing chill of the stone beneath him

What has happened

After a few seconds, the red line finally snapped amidst the intense vibrations. Prior to this, Roland's head had been aching as if it were being pierced by needles, making it somewhat unbearable.

Before entering the game, Roland had reviewed the basic knowledge of this game world on the official website. If I remember correctly, this outfit is the standard attire of the Church of Life, typically worn only by the priests of the Temple of Life

Then a strange number line graph appeared before me, with many blue nodes on it