Chapter 384: Ming Hou Starts Class: If You Think You Can Do Better, You Take Over

Bo Yan's release of "Jin Quan You Ji" sparked a wave of exploration fervor on the forum.

History has proven that while Exploration Faction players are usually impoverished, finding an opportunity allows them to become instantly wealthy.

Just as the saying circulating on the forum goes: "No business for three months, but one deal feeds you for three years."

Bo Yan's experience undoubtedly proved the validity of this statement.

The day before yesterday, he was a down-and-out Exploration Faction player surviving on cheap pet food; after returning from the Jin Quan Space, he could afford high-performance flying swords in full, buy evolution pills in bulk, and eat spiritual food at will... completing a leapfrog surge in wealth.

Similar experiences frequently play out among Exploration Faction players on the forum, but Bo Yan's recent encounter was particularly typical.

In just a brief experience, he earned 3.38 million units of Sacrificial Power.

The entire process was overwhelmingly dominant, Kancheng the most satisfying "monster grinding" experience among all recorded opportunities on the forum.

This also attracted more players to join the exploration gameplay.

For other players, the growth in the number of Exploration Faction players could indirectly bring them wealth as well.

For instance, early opportunities like the Snake Ancestor Temple, the Dark Yi Space, and the Game Space... including establishing a deep mutual-farming friendship with the Lord of Extreme Bliss, were all opportunities unearthed by Exploration Faction players.

And this Jin Quan Space discovered during the latest exploration was also seen by A Lan as an opportunity.

Once the timing is ripe in the future, he will make his move to seize it.

Just as A Lan clarified his new future goal, Ming Hou, who was currently preparing the casino planning on Dream Island, also devised a new layout.

At this moment, he was browsing the heated discussions on the player forum regarding "Jin Quan You Ji," and subsequently keenly realized a key point.

The player forum was not only a hub for intelligence exchange and discussion but also the heart of public opinion within the player faction.

Those exploration discussions, battle analyses, and even complaints or gossip that were pushed to the top of the hot posts list were invisibly shaping the trend of public opinion among the player group.

The legend of Bo Yan becoming overnight rich, along with other major events that ignited the forum, were all accompanied by a rapid surge in the influence of the posters behind them.

He also noticed that the player IDs who frequently published high-quality guides possessed a calling power no less than that of some top guild masters.

The most famous among them was "Night Is Coming," an early guide expert who was very active on the forum.

After becoming a player, he had already learned from A Lan's teachings to change his own Cultivation Mode of thinking.

He also began to ponder the significance behind many of A Lan's layouts.

During this period, he discovered that A Lan would often speak on the forum, providing various forms of assistance to the players in their faction.

This even included creating the Gold Coin plugin to help players understand market prices, as well as launching various welfare projects.

These actions seemed like mere expenditures, but in essence, they were enhancing the influence of the Gold Coin Merchant Guild within the player faction.

Multiple trading centers that imitated the Gold Coin Merchant Guild's model failed to make any splash.

This was related to the influence of the Gold Coin Merchant Guild.

The output of Dungeon Faction players, and even the output of other groups, would first consider the Gold Coin Merchant Guild as their cooperation partner.

Even if other guilds were willing to offer higher prices, players were still only willing to cooperate with the Gold Coin Merchant Guild.

This resulted in many imitators finding it fundamentally difficult to catch up to the influence of the Gold Coin Merchant Guild.

Aside from the Gold Coin Merchant Guild's powerful sales channels, this was also due to the boost from their reputation and influence.

Therefore, within the player faction, influence was extremely important.

Because influence meant the power of speech, and the power of speech meant the ability to mobilize more resources within the player faction, including combat power.

It was just like when A Lan previously recruited major top-tier guilds to help a player protect the safety of the Dragon Wing Clan.

This was one method of monetizing influence.

While browsing forum information, Ming Hou suddenly realized that he too needed to initiate a layout regarding forum influence.

If he wanted to lead the Fate Clan to become a top-tier power within the player faction, relying solely on the "Fate Casino" as a resource acquisition channel was not enough.

He also needed to plant seeds in this battlefield of public opinion known as the player forum and cultivate his own basic disk.

As for exactly how to do it, there were many reference cases on the forum.

The most convenient method was to become a bestower of knowledge.

This was also the method by which many Guide Faction players gained player fans.

With his idea clarified, Ming Hou immediately decided to publish his first guide post on the forum.

The content had already been planned in advance.

He intended to use this post to teach players combat techniques.

This included usage techniques regarding the conversion of spiritual energy.

The most popular technique on the forum was the usage method of telekinesis, but this technique was still too basic, far inferior to the spiritual energy conversion into deadly wind that he used.

Besides deadly wind, spiritual energy could also generate various types of elemental energy by communicating with the elements of heaven and earth.

These techniques could significantly enhance the combat power of the players on their side.

With his idea clarified, Ming Hou immediately began recording the teaching content.

One hour later, Ming Hou's first combat technique tutorial post was published on the forum.

Ming Hou's game ID, "Throat of Reversed Fate," was already somewhat famous on the forum.

The first time it sparked heated forum discussion was during the previous round of novice recruitment, where this ID took first place on the novice leveling activity leaderboard with absolute dominance.

The second time was when he seized the rules of the Game Space and crafted a special Fate Soul: Fate City.

But before this, no matter how many players @ him on the forum or asked for detailed processes, Ming Hou never paid them any attention.

So, upon suddenly seeing "Throat of Reversed Fate" post, quite a few players immediately clicked to view it.

The post's Redu (heat) grew along with views and replies, quickly stirring up heated discussion on the forum.

In the post, the content displayed in the teaching video covered fields that players had never understood in detail.

The title of the video was [Longque Casino: Absolute Authority Spiritual Energy Usage Tutorial, Lesson One: Basic Usage Methods of Spiritual Energy].

At the beginning of the teaching video, Ming Hou stood on the uninhabited beach on the west coast of Dream Island and extended a single finger.

The next second, vast spiritual energy condensed into substantial black deadly wind, roaring past like an angry dragon, instantly eroding distant reef rocks into sky-filling dust.

After completing the demonstration, Ming Hou looked at the camera and said with a calm expression:

"What we need to understand is that spiritual energy is not brute force, but an extension of self-will, and also a bridge for us to communicate with the elements of heaven and earth; when you learn to use your consciousness to guide the elements of heaven and earth, it can transform into any elemental form you desire."

Having spoken, Ming Hou held his palm upward, and a wisp of formless, quality-less spiritual energy flowed out from between his eyebrows, diffusing in the air like a thin mist.

"Before starting the formal teaching, I need everyone to forget all the posts you have previously seen on the forum regarding introductions to elemental affinity; this part of the knowledge is meaningless, and the viewpoints in many posts are misleading, making you think that resonating with elements is the best path for spiritual energy conversion."

"Therefore, from this moment on, regarding your judgment on spiritual energy usage techniques, take me as the standard; my teaching content is the authority."

Without any beating around the bush or humble pretense, after expressing his thoughts, Ming Hou in the video went straight to the substantive content:

"Now let's get to the main topic; first, we need to understand a concept: what is spiritual energy?"

"So-called spiritual energy is essentially a currency; how much currency you pay determines how much elemental energy you acquire; higher spiritual energy intensity means the purchasing power of the same numerical value of currency is stronger, while more spiritual energy means you have a larger reserve amount of currency on your person."

"After we monetize spiritual energy, we can very intuitively understand a principle: converting spiritual energy into elements is actually an interaction process of spending money to buy elements; whatever element you want to buy can be obtained by paying spiritual energy."

"As for elemental affinity, you can understand it as the intimacy level with a single element; if the intimacy is high, you can purchase this type of elemental energy at a discounted price."

"The reason I say elemental affinity is useless is because we players already purchase elements at the lowest discount price, so enhancing spiritual energy is the core, while improving affinity is not important; what you need to do is issue the command for which element to purchase, and then conduct a Yishoujiaoqian ， Yishoujiaoyuansu (money for goods) transaction with the world."

"Once you understand this concept, you will know that the essence of element gathering is equivalent exchange; you can use spiritual energy to purchase nearly all elemental energy in the Monster World, and the price required to be paid for each type of elemental energy is also different."

As his voice fell, Ming Hou began to demonstrate the process of converting spiritual energy into elements.

The black deadly wind spinning on his fingertip suddenly became dyed with a touch of blazing red.

Fire elements from the surroundings gathered actively like moths flying into a flame, condensing at Ming Hou's fingertip into a dancing lotus-shaped flame, every petal clearly visible, yet completely unable to burn the skin.

He flicked his finger, and the fire lotus rotated upward into the sky, suddenly exploding into countless flowing fires, only to obediently extinguish before hitting the ground.

"This is the conversion of fire elements."

Ming Hou changed the rhythm of his spiritual energy release, and instantly the star-like fires scattering from his fingertip turned into a blue halo.

Moist water vapor was drawn from the sea surface, condensing at Ming Hou's fingertip into ice crystal prisms that refracted a seven-colored halo.

"This is water elements; unlike the explosive characteristics of fire elements, water elements possess higher plasticity; when using water elements, you can endow them with more forms."

Having spoken, the ice crystals suddenly melted into liquid, then instantly froze again into an array of fine ice needles:

"This is the process of changing its structure."

The ice crystals shattered, turning into water mist that suspended in his palm.

Raising his hand to draw an arc, the water mist in his palm suddenly contracted, condensing in mid-air into a transparent water ribbon.

Countless light points could be vaguely seen within the water ribbon.

In Ming Hou's narration, at this moment spiritual energy was undergoing high-speed exchange with water elements; every flash represented a portion of spiritual energy being converted into an equivalent amount of water elemental energy.