Chapter 245 - 239: Red Name Bounty
Furthermore, on the eleventh of the third month, he colluded with others in the Black Wind Stronghold quest area to ambush a common merchant caravan, slaughtering every last person. Such actions have severely disrupted regional order and will not be tolerated by the Inspectorate.
[Bounty Details]
Bounty Amount: Anyone who can defeat him and record the event on a Memory Stone as proof will be rewarded with three thousand low-grade Spirit Stones and other additional rewards.
Submit proof to the game’s official administrators to claim your reward.
[Tracking Details]
Last Sighting: The target was last seen in the "Mass Grave" area, three hundred li southeast of "XX City." Hunters should be cautious.
[Red Name Directive]
System Warning: When a Cultivator’s "Evil Value" accumulates to a certain amount, they will automatically be placed on the Nationwide Wanted List and the Regional Wanted List, gaining "Red Name" status.
While in a Red Name state, if a Cultivator dies, the drop rate of items from their storage bag will be greatly increased. The higher the Evil Value, the higher the drop rate.
For those guilty of heinous crimes, upon death, all equipped gear and all unbound items will be dropped. Furthermore, their Cultivation will regress by 50% or even more!
[Imprisonment Directive]
Those with an excessively high Evil Value, in addition to the death penalty, will be forcibly teleported to the Celestial Punishment Prison for confinement upon resurrection. The length of imprisonment is determined by their Evil Value.
All Cultivators are advised to think before they act, lest they bring about their own downfall.
...
After reading the notice, Lin Qingfeng understood everything perfectly.
This harsh bounty and Red Name system was clearly meant to curb the players’ penchant for going on rampages, slaughtering entire cities and wiping out NPCs.
Ashen Heaven’s administration had already stumbled spectacularly down this path once before.
Lin Qingfeng vividly remembered. A long time ago, in an attempt to make players feel a pang of conscience—or even guilt—when slaughtering NPCs, the game’s officials rolled out an update that could only be described as an epic disaster.
During that period, whenever a player killed an NPC, a montage of the NPC’s life would be forcibly projected into the player’s mind.
The trading post owner you’d just run through with your sword? His dying thoughts were of the pearl hairpin he had clumsily presented to his daughter on her wedding day.
The physician you’d incinerated with a Fireball? His last regret was a promise made to his childhood sweetheart beneath the old scholar tree at the village entrance...
The developers’ intention was to awaken the players’ empathy:
Look at what you’ve done!
You’ve ruined a person’s entire life! You’ve torn a family apart!
As it turned out, they had just kicked a hornet’s nest.
While this feature did make players feel a twinge of guilt, it was far more effective at inspiring a collector’s mentality.
Killing NPCs was no longer a simple way to vent frustration; it instantly evolved into a collectible, blind-box-opening experience.
One day, a random NPC’s dying wish was for a "wife, kids, and a warm hearth." The next, a street vendor’s final regret was being "just three copper coins short of buying his son a tanghulu." The day after that, a city guard’s dream was to "save enough money to go home and marry Cuihua."
The twisted pleasure born from this mix of guilt and excitement had countless players hooked, unable to stop.
The game forums were in an uproar. Threads were either debating which NPC’s last words were the most tragic or sharing which NPC’s "biopic" was the most well-produced.
The players’ bloodlust only grew, and it even got to the point where people were holding city-slaughtering competitions just to see all the "blind box" death scenes.
Seeing this, the developers issued an emergency halt and deleted the feature overnight.
This move, in turn, instantly ignited the player community’s fury. The forums were flooded with posts condemning the developers for "robbing them of a gameplay experience."
This time, however, the developers were dead set on going silent. They weathered the storm of player outrage, no matter how loud the complaints got, and the whole affair eventually blew over.
That is, until this brand-new bounty system was officially implemented.
Replacing cheap moralizing with harsh penalties—heavy loot drops on death, Cultivation regression, and even imprisonment—was a heavy-handed blow that finally managed to curb the murderous impulses of most players.
Some players were even slapped with decades-long prison sentences, which was practically a soft ban.
Of course, as they say, a big forest is home to all kinds of birds.
Even with such harsh penalties, two extreme types of players emerged.
The first type was the lone-wolf Red Name player, a believer in the mantra, "Care little for life and death; if you disagree, let’s fight." They reveled in the thrill of slaughter and PvP. Their skill made them bold, and they couldn’t care less about being hunted—in fact, they enjoyed it.
Killing a few NPCs for sport when they got bored out in the wilds was a common pastime.
Anyone who could survive in that environment was, without exception, a ruthless, top-tier player.
The second type was an even trickier proposition.
Red Name Sects.
From the sect leader down to the newest recruit, every single member was a Red Name. They were all walking Spirit Stone treasuries.
Red Name sects didn’t have any "newbie protection" to speak of, so they banded together for survival, fighting off the so-called "armies of justice" who took on bounties to hunt them down.
They would even proactively set traps, staging counter-ganks.
They’d deliberately leak one of their member’s locations. Then, when some clueless bounty hunter came sniffing around, they’d be met with a "warm welcome" from a dozen burly, Red-Named players.
...
Lin Qingfeng looked at the Red Name Sects and lone-wolf players on the Nationwide Wanted List and couldn’t help but shake his head.
Every single one of them was filthy rich; it was enough to make anyone drool.
But they were also incredibly tough nuts to crack.
Trying to hunt them down would likely cost you a few teeth of your own.
On the other hand, you had the unlucky sods who accidentally killed one too many people and stumbled into Red Name status. You could hunt them down, but they were guaranteed to not have much good loot.
"Sigh... what a pain."
Lin Qingfeng sighed, pulling his thoughts away from the wanted list.
He closed the bounty screen and turned his attention back to the sect promotion announcements that were flooding his system feed.
The Spiritual Qi from the Blessed Land now covers the Guixi Sect’s Luohai Peak.
This meant their completely barren Luohai Peak finally had a chance.
At the very least, some grass might finally grow there, so it wouldn’t look so pathetic.
He continued scrolling, and the requirements for the next promotion quest appeared.
[Prerequisites for Promotion to Level 3 Sect]
Sect Prestige: Achieve "Rising Fame" status within the current region.
Sect Size: Recruit 500 NPC disciples.
Further Conditions: Unlocked upon completion of the above prerequisites.
’More recruitment... always more recruitment.’ Lin Qingfeng rubbed his chin.
He opened the detailed rules for disciple recruitment, and one clause caught his attention.
[NPC Disciple Recruitment Rules (Level 2 Sect)]
Recruitment Area: NPCs may be recruited as outer disciples within a radius of eight hundred li from the sect.
Recruitment Methods:
Forced Recruitment: Players may use force, coercion, or displays of profound Immortal Techniques to entice NPCs into joining the sect. The recruiter will receive no commission from any future Cultivation progress or Spirit Stones acquired by disciples recruited in this manner. Furthermore, publicly displaying Immortal Techniques will forfeit all potential commission opportunities from "Voluntary Enlistment" within that area.
Voluntary Enlistment: Induce mortal NPCs to join the sect of their own sincere, free will through a series of non-coercive events. The recruiter will receive a permanent 1% to 20% commission on all future Cultivation progress and Spirit Stones acquired by disciples recruited in this manner.