Qiao Liang, who quickly started a new save file, ran to the broken temple and, after dying several times, successfully obtained Salvation.

Looking at the glowing golden zen staff in his character’s hands, Qiao Liang felt completely refreshed.

“It is a hidden weapon!”

“Who would have thought you need to die six times to get it?”

“After all, this old monk is so weak, even weaker than the small monsters in the graveyard. If it weren’t for a player who liked to run around naked in the group, forcing me to try it myself, I definitely wouldn’t have figured it out.”

“Could this weapon be a powered-up version of the Zen staff?”

“Damn! What kind of damage is this?!”

Qiao Liang tried using the glowing golden zen staff to hit a soldier-type monster with more health. With one strike, he directly knocked the monster to the ground!

With two strikes, the monster’s health bar was completely emptied!

Qiao Liang clearly remembered that using other weapons to kill this monster required at least four or five slashes, as this was already the second scene, and the monster’s attributes had been further enhanced.

In other words, if he used this staff to hit slightly weaker monsters, the effect would be even better, perhaps even an instant kill!

The only regret was that this weapon didn’t have any exclusive combat skills. Its combat skill was the same as the original Zen staff—a normal heavy attack effect. Although the damage was very impressive, it wasn’t very flashy.

Qiao Liang had thought that the combat skill of “Salvation” would be something like raising the staff high to emit Buddhist light, causing an AOE effect on all surrounding enemies, but it wasn’t.

In this respect, Salvation’s flashiness couldn’t compare to the Mourning Stick that dropped when defeating the Black and White Impermanence.

But after all, the Mourning Stick would only drop after defeating the Black and White Impermanence, and new players couldn’t get it so easily.

Moreover, even the Mourning Stick probably wouldn’t be as practical as “Salvation,” because “Salvation” had higher base damage than the Mourning Stick.

Qiao Liang took “Salvation” to beat a few more small monsters and found that this weapon was simply invincible!

Although the regular attack animation wasn’t good to use, it could use jump attacks and dash attacks like other weapons, greatly increasing the attack speed.

In the hands of a skilled player like Qiao Liang, this thing was practically cheating—long attack range, fast attack speed, explosive high damage, and also with a strong stagger effect. Small monsters were knocked down and unable to move with just one hit.

Those small monsters with short knives and daggers couldn’t even touch the player; they were knocked down by the Zen staff from far away, suffering one-sided abuse.

And for the occasional small monster with a pitchfork, although their attack range was about as long as the player’s, as long as the player casually rolled to dodge the attack, it was a one-sided beating afterward.

It didn’t even need so many fancy techniques; just continuously smashing the ground with “Salvation” would do the job.

Looking at this flamboyant weapon, Qiao Liang felt a moment of bewilderment.

“If I had known there was such a useful weapon, why the hell did I suffer so much?”

Qiao Liang recalled his bloody history when he first explored the game, crawling forward with a trash weapon, having to be extremely careful whenever he encountered any small monster, fearing that a moment of carelessness would get him killed.

And now?

He could casually beat those monsters that had been riding on his head!

Looking at the fan group, it had also completely exploded.

“Damn, I got this weapon too! You just need to ignore everything and run all the way there, then die at the old monk’s place!”

“This weapon is invincible, isn’t it pure domination against small monsters?”

“This is too awesome? Official cheat code?”

“Bro who discovered this, quickly post it on the forum, you must be the first to discover the hidden weapon!”

“Damn, what if I’ve already killed this old monk? I’ve already used the prayer beads.”

“Start over, creating a new save file is quick.”

“I declare Salvation is the strongest weapon, no exceptions!”

Someone had already gone to the forum to post. This kind of hidden weapon was a major discovery!

Many design teams create hidden storylines, hidden weapons, easter eggs, etc., for games for various reasons. Most are to give players some surprises or to complement the game’s world view or plot through similar content.

Among these, hidden weapons have the best topic potential.

Because such content mostly doesn’t affect the gameplay itself, and it’s not very difficult to find. Once there are enough players, it will be found quickly.

But “Salvation” was different because, as a hidden weapon, its attributes were too good, fundamentally changing players’ gaming experience!

Moreover, this weapon was also hidden very deeply, giving it strong topic potential.

Soon, this post became popular on the forum, and players began to repost it. The news spread quickly!

……

……

At this time, Pei Qian was staring at the game’s refund rate, encouraging the newly bought water army.

There was a post that perfectly matched his intention, almost making him want to give this water army brother extra money.

The title of the post was: “Everyone Must Not Fall Into the Developer’s Trap, Be Sure to Get a Refund!”

“The design team understands player psychology well. They deliberately extended the refund time, which seems considerate on the surface, but it’s an out-and-out scam!”

“With the refund time extended, many people will also extend their playing time, which is tantamount to forcing you to get used to this feeling of suffering!”

“When time is almost up, they put out a line of passive-aggressive text to annoy you, along with that constantly appearing epitaph… all to provoke the player’s rebellious psychology!”

“Once you have a rebellious psychology, you’ve been tricked! Not getting a refund is exactly what the design team wants!”

“Think about it, just because of your momentary impulse, one hundred yuan is thrown away. Why bother? What can’t you do with one hundred yuan? Why must you torture yourself?”

“So, everyone must resolutely get a refund, don’t be blinded by the design team!”

Seeing this post, Pei Qian almost wanted to bang the table and shout.

Great!

This hero, would you like to leave contact information? With your extraordinary talent, being just a water army member is truly a waste!

This post was like sending charcoal in snowy weather for Pei Qian!

Although the comments below the post were still in chaos, with many people cursing the original poster, it was very clear that such a high-heat post also contributed many refunds to the game.

And there weren’t just this one post. On Weibo, various forums, and some gaming groups, there were water armies continuously leading the public sentiment, urging everyone to hurry up and get a refund, saying there was no need to suffer in such a game.

Pei Qian could only silently marvel: the money wasn’t wasted!

Although there was also a batch of misguided water armies continuously and mindlessly praising “Turn Back to Shore,” causing some trouble for Pei Qian, the overall situation was still good!

The refund rate still hadn’t significantly increased. From the current situation, it seemed impossible to reach a 35% refund rate.

But stability was good news!

As various information about “Turn Back to Shore” spread, new players knew this game was suffering and had mental preparation, so naturally, fewer and fewer players asked for refunds.

But under the persistent influence of the water armies, the game’s refund rate stabilized, which was good news!

Pei Qian didn’t expect the officials to take down “Turn Back to Shore.” After waiting so long without even a warning, it was clear that the officials were determined to protect this game.

Anyway, persuading one more person to get a refund meant earning a few dozen yuan less, which could be said to be infinitely meritorious!

“Hmm, strange.”

“In the past hour or so, why has the game’s refund rate started to drop again? Are the water armies not working? Is it time to renew the contract?”

Pei Qian was puzzled. Hadn’t he just renewed the water army contract not long ago?

He hurriedly opened various forums to see if the direction of public opinion had reversed.

After clicking in, he found a hot post.

“I Found a Hidden Weapon in the Game! Salvation, Simply Invincible!”

“What the hell????”

Pei Qian felt a surge of blood, almost having a heart attack.

What is this?

He quickly opened the post to view it.

The main content of the post was quite simple. The original poster briefly described how he discovered Salvation. He was a player with poor gaming skills who just wanted to try running around to open nearby Buddha statue teleportation points. By accident, he entered the broken temple and was killed many times by the old monk.

The post also gave detailed instructions on how to obtain it, screenshots of Salvation, and how powerful this weapon was.

Looking at the comments below, they had already been pushed to over a thousand floors!

“Damn, it’s true! This game has a hidden weapon!”

“I got it too! Thank you, OP, you’re a great person!”

“This weapon is simply official cheating, too invincible!”

“Even someone as uncoordinated as me can one-shot small monsters now?”

“It feels like it’s turned into a Dynasty Warriors game!”

“Haha, with this weapon, I have the motivation to continue. I was originally thinking of getting a refund, but now I can complete the game!”

“This weapon is overpowered. Does this game have any balance?”

“What balance? This is the officials knowing that players are too pitiful, so they deliberately hid a powerful hidden weapon to let even the uncoordinated complete the game.”

“Is this the designers’ mercy?”

“The designer is truly a kind person. I cursed your mother before, I’m sorry, I was wrong!”

In this post, it was simply a scene of jubilation, like it was New Year’s!

Not only that, but many people also created variations, like… memes.

Someone had taken a screenshot of a battle scene in the game: the protagonist wielding Salvation directly smashed down three small monsters gathered together, with a line of text below the image: Let me Salvation you!

There were also other memes, such as “Salvation is number one,” “Salvation warning,” “The other party doesn’t want to talk to you and has Salvation’d you,” “Don’t talk to me about Soul-Calling Banners or Mourning Sticks, I’ll just use Salvation, smashing is all that matters”…

Pei Qian slapped his forehead.

Damn, these silly netizens create so quickly!

Looking at the post time, it had only been posted for about three hours, but these silly netizens had already made many memes!

Wait, the concern now isn’t about memes!

Pei Qian instantly understood why the game’s refund rate was rapidly declining.

Because more and more people knew that this game had an official cheat guide!

Previously, many players were forced with no choice; they couldn’t defeat elite monsters and kept dying, plus their mental state exploded, so they could only get a refund.

But now, with Salvation, they had found hope to live!

As long as they endured the early stages, desperately ran to the old monk’s place, and died a few times to get Salvation, the game’s difficulty would be greatly reduced, and they could play happily again!

“It’s over, a major problem has occurred!”

Pei Qian’s hands and feet turned cold. The world instantly became not good!