Chapter 237: Pudu (Salvation)
After weighing the pros and cons of various weapons, Pei Qian decided that if he wanted to modify weapon stats, he still had to do so in a way that fit the weapon's inherent properties—and the changes also had to make sense based on its appearance.
Otherwise, the game would look shoddy and inconsistent.
Pei Qian's eyes swept across the list of available weapons.
At first, he considered choosing a one-handed sword. It was convenient and easy to use, but on second thought, its attack power couldn't be raised too high, and the attack range was short—too dangerous overall.
In the end, his gaze settled on one of the longer weapons—a rather obscure one—a monk's staff.
Pei Qian searched for the weapon's ID and found that it was originally just an ordinary item found in a ruined temple.
After leaving the novice village and heading toward the nearby town, players could encounter this ruined temple as part of an optional area just outside town. Inside was a deranged old monk—a small boss of sorts.
Defeating the mad monk would drop this monk's staff, and inside the temple's treasure chest was a string of damaged prayer beads.
The prayer beads were a special early-game item—they could briefly control monsters and even grant a resurrection effect after a cooldown, making them quite valuable early on.
As for the monk's staff, its stats were mediocre. From the looks of it, the original design intention was just to make it a collectible weapon, nothing more.
That was only natural. With at least a dozen weapons in the game, some were bound to be better than others—perfect balance was nearly impossible.
This particular monk's staff clearly fell into the "filler garbage" category.
"Alright, you'll do."
Choosing a low-profile, unpopular weapon would make his modification less noticeable—minimizing the risk of anyone finding out.
Pei Qian didn't alter the existing weapon data directly. Instead, he created a new entry, copied the original monk's staff stats wholesale, and then drastically increased both its base and upgrade attack power.
He then checked the weapon's attack animations.
They were about what he expected—normal attacks were slow and clumsy horizontal swings, while jump slashes and dodge attacks were overhead smashes that struck faster.
Next, Pei Qian had to decide how the player would actually obtain this upgraded monk's staff.
He didn't plan to make it too complicated. Creating a new scene or quest would require custom assets and coordination with the whole dev team—too much work.
So Pei Qian decided to hide it within the existing framework.
In the original design, the ruined temple was merely an optional side area connected to the town. The insane old monk inside was a mid-tier enemy—somewhere between an elite monster and a mini-boss.
Defeating him would drop the monk's staff and allow the player to loot the prayer beads from the chest.
Pei Qian slightly rewrote the monk's setup.
First, he drastically weakened the old monk's combat ability—making him even weaker than regular mobs.
This change was narratively reasonable. After all, he was an elderly monk—having him fight like a boss didn't make much sense. It was more fitting if he was frail with age.
Any player who reached this point would already have endured the blood and chaos of the novice village and town battles, so they'd naturally be cautious toward such NPCs and attack on sight.
Of course, even if the player didn't attack, the old monk was still hostile and would strike first.
If the player killed him, they'd receive the same items as before—the normal monk's staff and the prayer beads.
Since the prayer beads were quite powerful and the staff was a unique weapon, almost every player would instinctively kill the old monk—never realizing there might be another, hidden outcome.
Pei Qian planned to give the old monk a special mechanic: if the player died to him six times in total, then on the seventh attempt, the monk would no longer be hostile—instead, he would turn into a friendly NPC who would not attack the player.
From a lore perspective, this was easy enough to justify. Since the player repeatedly died, the old monk absorbed fragments of the player's three souls and seven spirits, gradually regaining a trace of sanity.
Of course, the player could still attack him if they wanted. Killing him would yield the same rewards as before.
However, if the player chose to talk to him instead, the old monk would deliver a short monologue: he would speak of the approaching end of the Dharma era—the extinction of Buddhism—and how there was no longer any path forward. Yet, he would add, remnants of the Buddha's power still lingered. If the protagonist could once again enter the cycle of reincarnation, they could be freed from the sea of suffering.
At that moment, a flash of golden Buddhist light would radiate from the old monk's body. The prayer beads in the chest and the monk's staff in his hands would merge, transforming into a new weapon—"Pudu (Salvation)", the enhanced weapon Pei Qian had created.
Compared to the ordinary monk's staff, Pudu wasn't drastically different—the only visual change was a glowing golden aura around its head, symbolizing divine Buddhist light.
When equipped, the weapon would not only grant the player a significant combat power boost, but also allow them to skip several late-game areas on the path of the underworld—bypassing the Bridge of Helplessness, the Stone of Three Lifetimes, and other intermediate scenes—and directly reach the Six Paths of Reincarnation, triggering the Reincarnation Ending early.
According to the game's lore, the Six Paths of Reincarnation ending was actually a false ending.
In the game's starting village, there was an old man the player had to kill in order to follow his soul onto the underworld path. Subtle clues—such as certain item descriptions—revealed that this old man was, in fact, the player's future self, reincarnated.
In the second playthrough, this old man's model would change—he would take on the appearance of the player's first-playthrough character, complete with the same outfit and weapon, only frailer and emaciated.
Thus, if the player cleared the game with Pudu, that same old man in the second playthrough would also be holding Pudu—but stripped of its glow, now just an ordinary monk's staff.
Moreover, Pudu could only be used to achieve the Reincarnation Ending. Against other route bosses, its attack power would sharply decline, functioning no better than a regular weapon.
And in the second playthrough, the weapon could not be upgraded at all.
After all, Pei Qian's goal was simply to reach one ending as fast as possible. Once it fulfilled that purpose, the weapon's "historical mission" would be complete.
Pei Qian wasn't a masochist—he had no desire to challenge other endings or play multiple runs.
After tinkering all afternoon, he finally managed to complete the changes, albeit in a clumsy fashion.
The edits themselves weren't complex—the in-game editor made this sort of thing fairly straightforward—but Pei Qian hadn't used it in a long time, so it took him a bit longer than expected.
Once he was done, he gave everything a quick review.
No need to check too thoroughly—if any bugs cropped up, someone else in the team would surely fix them for him.
Pei Qian then submitted the changes and went to find Li Yada.
"I made a few minor adjustments to the game content," he said casually. "They don't really affect the gameplay. No need to worry about it, and don't make it public."
Of course, the design team would notice the new weapon—there was no way Li Yada, as the lead executive designer, would overlook an extra item entry in the database.
Since discovery was inevitable, Pei Qian decided he might as well be upfront about it.
And besides—if he said it was confidential, the design team would naturally help him keep the secret.