Chapter 64
The news that the sauna room could gain experience bonuses spread throughout the hot spring in less than a day.
Everyone was excited.
For a while, the sauna even overshadowed the large bath outside.
Many people came here because of its reputation. The sulfur bath, which had become deserted due to the appearance of the new pool, was once again crowded with people who came to replenish their energy.
"It seems that I underestimated how much players value experience."
At dinner time, Shu Mo bit the spoon, looked around, and spoke hesitantly after a while.
Many of the players coming and going in the restaurant had a conspicuous big bump on their heads, which was an extremely funny scene.
When Shu Mo was building the sauna room, she saw the efficacy description in the system mall, but she did not expect it to be so popular when it officially opened.
She reflected deeply and felt that maybe she had not been in the game long enough, and usually relied on the barriers and it was too easy to upgrade, so she did not realize how difficult it was for ordinary players to accumulate experience.
"It's not entirely for experience."
Shu Mo heard the voice, looked up, and saw Zhao Yu standing in front of him with a plate, "Boss, can I sit here?"
"Sure." Shu Mo nodded and moved the food towards himself. "Didn't you come here with your family? Why are you eating alone?"
"My sister thought I was embarrassing and kicked me out."
Zhao Yu sat down opposite her and said aggrievedly, pointing not far away.
Sure enough, Shu Mo followed the direction of her finger and saw the Zhao family.
"Why do you think you are embarrassing?" She was puzzled. "By the way, it's so hot inside, why are you wearing a hat?"
Zhao Yu wore a heavy winter hat on his head and a thin long-sleeved shirt on his body. His whole outfit made him look top-heavy and looked particularly unnatural.
Shu Mo asked, taking a sip of soup, and saw Zhao Yu looking around, lifting his hat a little bit to cover up his mistake. "Boss, please judge for yourself! Didn't I just faint twice in the sauna? Are they so embarrassed that they won't leave with me?!"
When the hat was lifted, two large symmetrical bags were revealed underneath.
Shu Mo: “Puff——”
She almost spit out a mouthful of soup and choked for a long time: What's wrong with this girl!
How can it be so neat and symmetrical? !
Shu Mo hurriedly wiped his mouth, and warned himself in his heart that he must not laugh in front of customers. Then he forced himself to speak: "I really shouldn't... By the way, you just said that they are not all for experience, what do you mean?"
"Boss, don't you know? Everyone is treating this as an endurance challenge." Zhao Yu put his hat back on and said seriously, "This afternoon, the first person who lasted for an hour appeared. It is said that he tried three times to achieve this achievement."
She was very well-informed and even knew who that person was. She looked around the restaurant and finally locked onto her target, "He's there."
Shu Mo turned around and saw a guy surrounded by a crowd of people in the corner.
He looked very proud, if you didn't mention the three bags stacked on his forehead like a unicorn.
Zhao Yu: "So cool! An hour! The best I could last was 30 minutes."
Shu Mo: “…”
I gradually began to not understand it all.
When they were almost done eating, Zhao Yu's sister came over to look for someone.
Zhao Yu took off her hat and put it aside because she felt hot. Her sister looked at her little sister with an expression that she couldn't bear to look at, "Your head looks like a butt."
Zhao Yu slammed the table angrily, "What do you know? This is a medal of honor for the challenger!"
"Whose medal of honor is so shabby?"
Her sister sighed and asked Shu Mo, "Boss, when will the bump on my sister's head go away?"
"It will be gone soon." Shu Mo suppressed a laugh. "It should disappear on its own within a few hours."
In the sauna room settings, probably because they expected that some players would faint in it, they deliberately made this comedy special effect prompt.
But probably even the system didn't expect that there would be players who would treat the sauna room as a challenge, and would stay there until they fainted before coming out, and many people even piled on top of each other.
...as a result, every hot spring tourist has a big bump on his head, and they all look not very smart.
Those players were trying to hide it at first, but later they realized that everyone was the same, so they just let themselves go.
When I sat down, I also asked the people around me, "How long have you been in there?"
"About forty...forty-two minutes."
"How can you calculate so accurately? Did you time it?" The person who spoke did not believe it. "I think it would only take about thirty minutes."
"Who said that? I feel like it's almost forty-five minutes!"
"But I've been here longer than you."
"Bullshit, I clearly saw you come in later than me..."
Several people were arguing over a one-minute difference.
Shu Mo looked thoughtful.
Putting aside the funny fainting effects, she could understand the players' mentality.
Let me ask you, in the game, what can stimulate players more than titles, records and achievements?
This grading mechanism of the sauna is a complete player trap. Zhao Yu has proven that even without experience cards, many people are willing to take on challenges just to break records.
Is it possible for her to go a step further and add some small settings to increase customer stickiness?
For example... add a ranking list or something.
Shu Mo's mind was working rapidly.
Currently, each session is divided into fifteen minutes, which is too long and the gap between players cannot be widened. Adding leaderboards, even if it's just staying for an extra minute or even a few seconds, could lead to a rise in the rankings, and this will surely increase player enthusiasm.
Since some players like to collect achievements, Shu Mo doesn't mind providing them with more positive feedback.
Of course, if this is the case, there will also be a limit on the number of challenges.
There are currently only two saunas in one bathing area, which can accommodate a maximum of twenty people in total. There was a brief queue this afternoon when there were many people. In the future, when there are more customers and many people repeat the challenge, it may lead to long queues in front of the sauna room, which is something Shu Mo does not want to see.
The challenge mechanism of the sauna room is just a small entertainment. If it affects the bathing experience of normal guests, it will not be worth it.
[System system.] 】
Shu Mo thought it over and shouted in his heart.
System: [I’m here. 】
Shu Mo asked: [Did you hear what I just thought? Is this function possible? 】
The system loads in two seconds:
[Among the requirements you raised, two are advanced features that require payment to unlock. 】
[Spend 1000 points to add custom function 1: "Time Statistics". 】
[Spend 3000 points to add custom function 2: "Ranking". 】
[Tip: "Limiting the number of times a single player can use a single purchase" is a free feature and can be changed in the sauna room settings. 】
It actually costs extra points to unlock it.
Shu Mo cursed the system for being stingy in his heart and clicked "Yes" reluctantly.
[Consumed: 4000 points]
【Loading……】
[The "Time Statistics" and "Ranking" functions are now implemented in the facility [Sauna]! 】
*
The annex is open until 11pm, just like the main building. After dinner, another group of players went to the sauna room to challenge.
There were even a few who were particularly addicted. They had already come once during the day, and just during dinner they heard the guy who had lasted an hour bragging about it. They couldn't help themselves, so they spent another 100 to try it again.
"I don't believe that we can't last less than an hour this time!" one person said indignantly, "Looking at that guy's arrogant look, my fists are hardened."
"Who said it wasn't? There are still more than three hours left until closing time, and we can still challenge at least four more times. Let's hurry up."
"You say, it would be great if we could move the hot spring into the sauna room." Another person suddenly had an idea, "Soaking in the hot spring while having a sauna, my physical strength would decrease and then increase, wouldn't that make it possible to realize a perpetual motion machine?"
"? You wish..."
His companion laughed and cursed, while pushing the door and entering the sauna room——
[Warm Tips: This facility has been updated with new features. Now you can count time and view rankings in real time! 】
[(This reminder will only pop up automatically when you enter for the first time after the update, click here to close it)]
Several people stopped and were stunned.
“Functional updates?”
"It says that time can be counted now." They looked at the prompt carefully. "This is quite convenient. Otherwise, we have to wait until fifteen minutes are up to know how long it has been... Wait, there is also a leaderboard?"
After closing the prompt, an inconspicuous list symbol appeared in the upper right corner of the field of vision. Several people clicked on it, and a long list immediately appeared in front of them.
The names of all the players who have entered the sauna since morning are listed on it.
You can also switch the rankings at the top of the page, there are three rankings in total:
[Top 100 rankings in women's bathing area/top 100 rankings in men's bathing area/top 100 rankings in all players]
Several people stared with their eyes wide open.
"I found myself. It's marked in green."
"Ah! I'm in 9th place!"
"Damn it, I'm number 21..."
"I'm better than you. I'm 15th."
"There's still time later."
[No. 15: Wu Yu 0h43m32s]
When Wu Yu saw this, he curled his lips, flipped up again, and found the companion who was ranked 13th.
【No. 9: xxx 0h45m10s】
The time difference was only one and a half minutes, but the ranking difference was six places!
Wu Yu immediately felt unbalanced.
It's only a minute and a half, it's easy to get through it. As long as I stick to it, I can get into the top ten.
Looking at the top ten players on the leaderboard, the numerical formats of their rankings are all different, which immediately sets them apart from the players below.
In front of the names of the top three, there are exquisite logos in three colors and designs: gold, silver and bronze, which look extremely impressive.
Wu Yu completely forgot how much pain he was in at the time and sat down with full morale.
"At least we have to be in the top ten!"
He couldn’t make it onto the leaderboards in the Doomsday game, but was there anything he couldn’t do to get on the rankings of a mere sauna room?
He really didn't believe it!
*
"What do you think of the new sauna room that the hotel has added?"
Back in the room, Fu Yiming pulled Jiang Qing over and discussed the matter.
When the sauna was mentioned, Jiang Qing's expression became indescribable.
She recalled the scene during the day when they met in the hotel lobby after taking a bath, and Fu Yiming and Chen Hui came out with two identical bags on their heads.
Jiang Qing and Zhang Li almost left on the spot amid Xu Ruixi's wild laughter.
Who are these two disgraceful men? Do they know each other?
Fortunately, after an afternoon, the bump on Fu Yiming's head finally disappeared automatically, and Jiang Qing was able to look at her husband with normal eyes.
"You mean the experience bonus?" She frowned and thought, "It's really powerful. And don't you think that the hotel is actually upgrading step by step?"
Fu Yiming nodded, "That's right. Many of the products here have effects that are actually in the game."
"For example, the Rock Sugar Tremella and Snow Pear Soup can remove the silence state, which can be done by the priest and the dispelling powder."
"The sulphur hot springs can also restore physical strength for players through rest and taking medicine, but the speed is not as fast."
"There is also the agility increase of the foot bath. The priest skill can do the same, but the increase is less."
"——Excluding limited edition items like the Beast Pendant that are given away on a small scale, in summary, the main function of the items sold by Hot Springs before was basically to further upgrade other props, settings, and player skills in the game, providing better and more efficient services at a lower price."
"But the experience bonus of the sauna room provides an unprecedented function in the game."
Jiang Qing corrected, "To be more precise, it makes up for an important missing function of the Doomsday game."
Although "Arctic Cold" is called a game, in fact many of its settings are designed to torture the players to death. Compared to "game", its "doomsday" attribute is obviously stronger.
——How can there be a game where you only have one life and can’t even reload the game after you die? How can there be a game that doesn't even have a safe zone to rest temporarily, requiring players to be tense all the time and never have a break? How could a game player have to go through so many long, dark and cold nights?
...Isn't this intentional torture of the players' mentality?
Even if you can just set up a bonfire, it would be nice if you can automatically jump to daytime after you fall asleep!
Also...is there any player of a game who would spend ten years slowly upgrading?
Generally, when a game has been open for a long time, people are worried that new players may have difficulty catching up, so they will provide experience cards or even one-click upgrades. However, children who grew up in the extremely cold apocalypse, when preparing to officially become combat players, also have to start from scratch and slowly go through the difficult novice period.
No one is exempt, no one is spared.
However, the emergence of Nuannuan Hot Springs has quietly and little by little made up for the shortcomings in the Doomsday game settings - just like an upgrade patch, or a belated update package several years after the game was released, which improved many unreasonable things that the designers deliberately left in the game settings.
Provide safe areas.
Provides immunity to special status effects.
Provide cheaper, more effective consumables that reduce the difficulty of the game.
Provides experience cards that speed up upgrades...
Jiang Qing feels that with the existence of Nuannuan Hot Springs, "The Coldest Days" seems to have become a little more like a "game".
Although it is still a hellish game...
But as long as it's a game, there's hope of completing it.
Just like walking in a dark tunnel for a long time, he finally saw a little light from the far side. Jiang Qing exhaled softly, "You came to talk to me about the sauna room, is it because you think so too?"
She raised her eyes and found Fu Yiming with his mouth slightly open, looking a little dazed.
Shocked by my wife's ideological awareness.jpg
Jiang Qing: “?”
"Actually, that's not what I wanted to say..." Fu Yiming lowered his head in shame, "I wanted to say... we can use this experience doubling function. From now on, before going out to level up every day, we should go to the sauna first and take the buff with us."
Jiang Qing frowned. "Isn't it not worth spending an extra 200 points a day just to get about 1.5 times the experience bonus?"
"Two hundred points a day is indeed a lot. Add to that the expenses of living in the hot springs, and our income can only cover part of it. If we keep doing this for a while, we may have to use up a lot of our family savings..." Fu Yiming paused, "But I think it's worth it."
"The sauna experience doubles, plus the hot spring combination brings many buffs, our leveling efficiency will be greatly improved. If we persist for a while, at most a few months, we will be able to open up a clear gap with the other players in the town."
"——Of course, this is assuming that others don't play this way."
Fu Yiming said: "But I think there are not many people who have the courage to use their savings to do this."
The battle power and level rankings of Guangming Town are public, and every resident in the town can view them instantly. The list of the top players has not changed for many years.
These people were all familiar faces to Fu Yiming, and he knew their personalities too well.
I don’t know if it’s because they have been in high positions for too long, or because they have reached middle age and started families, but their behavior has become more and more conservative. They no longer have the fighting spirit and courage they had in the early days of the game, and it is even less likely that they would be willing to squander their savings like this.
"Widely widening the level gap between us and other players in the town means we can go to areas they can't go to," said Fu Yiming.
Jiang Qing immediately understood what he meant, "You mean, we should go open up wasteland?"
"Yes." Fu Yiming nodded. "By opening up new areas, we will have the opportunity to obtain more undiscovered resources and new monster materials. The former can be sold to players in need in the town to replenish the deposits consumed in the early stage, while the latter can make our weapons and equipment more advanced, increase damage, and have the opportunity to fight more high-level monsters."
Finally, a virtuous circle is formed.
This was consistent with the idea of the town officials when they sent people to open up the wasteland, except that Fu Yiming and Jiang Qing were operating as a player team.
"The average level of our team is even higher than that of the official pioneering team. It is entirely possible that we can form a monopoly within a certain period of time."
The official team has more people, and the average level is destined not to be too high, but the advantage is that it is steady and solid, and the output is much more stable than the team formed by individual players.
"We won't compete with the official team in terms of quantity, but will focus on providing high-level monster materials that are not available on the market. As long as we can survive the early stages, I think the subsequent income will not be small. To put it another way, in the game, the higher the level, the safer it is. Upgrading early will not be a disadvantage anyway."
This was an idea that Fu Yiming had been thinking about since Chen Hui told him about the function of the sauna room. He told Jiang Qing all at once and looked at her with bright eyes, trying to seek his wife's approval, "...what do you think?"
He was a little nervous.
Jiang Qing was silent for a while, and Fu Yiming became even more nervous when he saw this.
He listened to his wife slowly speaking: "I think... it's pretty good!"
Fu Yiming was stunned for a moment, "Really?"
"Yeah." Jiang Qing smiled, "I didn't expect that when you had a big bump on your head, you were actually thinking of such a reliable idea."
"It's not enough for just the two of us to participate. We have to convince the rest of the team." Jiang Qing pondered, "Ruixi shouldn't have any problems. She'll be so happy to be able to explore new areas. Let's go and persuade the rest of the team separately."
"good!"
After the discussion, Jiang Qing did not rush to leave the room to find Xu Ruixi.
She walked to the balcony and looked at the villa shrouded in the night.
Outside the barrier, a team actually pulled a monster nearby and started fighting it. After several brilliant skills were used, faint cheers could be heard from the night.
There may not be many people who can do it as thoroughly as this couple, but after knowing the existence of the experience doubling function, the other teams in the hot spring must have had similar thoughts to a greater or lesser extent.
The impact of hot springs is subtle.
In the long run, the player level of Guangming Town may be much higher than that of other towns.
By that time, it wouldn’t just be their team that had a monopoly...but the entire town.
Jiang Qing was secretly looking forward to it.
I wonder what expressions the people from other towns will have when they come to visit Guangming Town?
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