After this “major update,” the training grounds at the Star Base had been expanded significantly, now able to accommodate around 1,000 people training simultaneously. With only about 100 players currently, it felt quite spacious. However, considering the future, this size was necessary and might even prove insufficient.
Fourteen instructors stood on the training grounds. Originally, they worked in the same room, but with the arrival of the players, they had all moved to the training grounds to guide the players.
Certain weapons had their own dedicated training areas, such as the ranged weapons training area, located on the far edge (to prevent accidental hits on the players). There was also the classic bullseye target for players to practice on.
“The most basic archery technique is the lateral stance. It's the fundamental, and beginners should master it before thinking about advanced techniques. Don’t be overly ambitious!” The archery instructor, a woman, looked quite stern. “Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, one on each side of the shooting line, slightly outward, keeping your feet close to the target line… You, your stance is wrong, it should be like this…” The instructor went to a male player and corrected his position.
“Y-yes… yes!” This male player, seemingly a bit innocent, turned red in the face after being guided by the beautiful instructor.
Similar scenes were happening across the training grounds.
The instructors were all quite helpless. Before they became instructors, the guild leadership had told them that many of the adventurers in this batch were beginners, and they might need to teach them from scratch. However, the instructors never imagined that these players would be absolute beginners. From some of their actions, it was clear they had never even held a weapon before!
Why send these beginner adventurers to the dangerous New World?
Is the rumor about adventurers being fearless true?
However, a mission was a mission. Since they had accepted the instructor assignment, and the pay was not bad, they would do their best. They could only vent their frustrations about these fearless rookie adventurers in their minds.
So, the instructors were currently teaching the most basic things, such as the basic slashing motion of the katana, the charging technique of the greatsword, and the blocking skills of the shield.
To help the players clearly see their learning progress, Zhang Xing Yu had set up a progress bar. Successful movement execution would increase the progress bar, while failure would decrease it. Once the progress bar reached full, the players would learn the most basic weapon techniques.
With a clear goal, the players were very enthusiastic, striving to fill their skill progress bar.
This was one of the differences between the game and reality. In real life, there’s no such thing as a progress bar. You wouldn't know how your learning is progressing or when you'll master it. If you spend a lot of time learning but still can’t learn it, it’s easy to feel discouraged.
But in a game with a progress bar, you just need to fill it up, the goal is clear, and the motivation is strong.
Therefore, in the eyes of the instructors, these players, despite their poor overall fundamentals, were all incredibly enthusiastic.
In fact, for the Nightmare Lord, teaching players weapon skills was incredibly easy. They didn’t even need instructors, just a little Nightmare Power. Especially with these players all possessing Nightmare Marks, it was even easier to make them comprehend skills; it barely required any power at all.
In the Nightmare Lord’s original world, he had established the Nightmare Cult (known as Nightmare X Cult to others), where the Nightmare Lord used Nightmare Marks to monitor and control his followers.
However, towards his followers, the Nightmare Lord presented bestowing the Nightmare Mark as a reward. Because, the Nightmare Lord could grant various powers to his followers through the Nightmare Mark. This method of granting power was very mystical, making the believers feel like they had mastered it themselves. But in reality, the followers could only use this power through the Nightmare Mark. Once they lost the Nightmare Mark, they would lose that power.
For players with Nightmare Marks, it was as simple as a blink of an eye for the Nightmare Lord to grant them any skill or ability in the Nightmare World. However, in the real world, the followers needed to consume the Nightmare Lord’s power to use their abilities. Every time they used an ability, it would consume Nightmare Power. More powerful skills would consume even greater amounts of Nightmare Power. Therefore, generally, the Nightmare Lord would restrict the number of times his followers could use abilities each day.
This was somewhat similar to the system of deities granting power to their believers… well, in fact, the Nightmare Lord’s church was also a product of him studying the gods, so similarities were normal.
Although Zhang Xing Yu could directly grant weapon skills to players through the Nightmare Mark, as a person who had played countless games and read numerous novels, he knew that directly giving something to the players might not be appreciated. However, something obtained through hard work would be cherished by the players, even if it was insignificant!
This was the flaw of humanity!
Therefore, Zhang Xing Yu designed the skill learning system based on this principle. The most basic weapon skills were achievable through effort, but advanced and higher-level skills were difficult to comprehend. Reflected in the game, it meant the progress bar increased at an excruciatingly slow pace. Some advanced skills even required learning prerequisites!
Just look at the players in the training grounds, their joyful expressions after learning new skills after filling their skill progress bars, you could tell that the energy harvested from this would certainly not be low!
To harvest even more energy, Zhang Xing Yu had also set up “comprehension,” a system where players could have a flash of inspiration, or some particularly outstanding players could directly learn enhanced or advanced versions of skills during the learning process. This comprehension would occur less frequently, but once it happened, it would excite the players even more.
Odilia was a perfect example.
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