Pei Qian carefully considered various weapons.

If he wanted to modify weapon attributes, he still needed to follow the basic properties of the weapons themselves as much as possible, and after modification, they had to match the weapon’s appearance characteristics.

Otherwise, the game would feel sloppy.

Pei Qian’s gaze swept over the existing weapons.

He initially thought about choosing a one-handed sword, but on second thought, while one-handed swords were good, their attack power couldn’t be set too high, and their attack range was too short, making them relatively dangerous.

In the end, Pei Qian’s attention focused on the longer weapons, where he spotted a rather obscure weapon—a monk’s staff.

Pei Qian searched for this weapon’s ID and discovered it was originally a common prop from a dilapidated temple.

After leaving the starting village and heading to a nearby town, this ruined temple existed as a scene outside the town, housing a deranged old monk who served as a minor boss.

After defeating this crazed old monk, players would obtain this monk’s staff, and inside the temple was a treasure chest containing a broken string of prayer beads.

The prayer beads were a special early-game item that could temporarily control monsters and had a revival effect every so often, making them quite important in the early stages.

The monk’s staff’s attributes weren’t particularly strong, showing that it was initially designed merely as an ordinary collectible weapon.

This was normal—the game had at least a dozen weapons, some would be useful and others not, making perfect balance difficult to achieve.

This monk’s staff belonged to the category of relatively useless, filler weapons.

“You’re the one!”

Choosing an obscure weapon with minimal presence would minimize changes to the game, making alterations less likely to be noticed.

Pei Qian didn’t modify the attributes of the existing item but instead created a new item entry, copying the original monk’s staff data intact, then dramatically increasing its base attack and upgraded attack attributes.

He examined the staff’s attack pattern.

The attack style was much as expected—normal attacks were horizontal swings, rather clumsy and slow, but jump attacks and dodge strikes were ground smashes, making the attack motion much faster.

Next, Pei Qian needed to arrange how to acquire this staff.

He didn’t want to make it too complicated. Creating new scenes or overly complex quests would require custom work involving the entire project team.

So after some thought, Pei Qian decided to hide this weapon using existing mechanisms.

According to the original design, this ruined temple was just a supplement to the town scene—players could choose whether to challenge it or not. The deranged old monk inside had a difficulty level between an elite monster and a minor boss.

Defeating him would drop this monk’s staff, and the treasure chest would contain a broken string of prayer beads as a quest item.

Pei Qian slightly modified the old monk’s design.

First, he comprehensively weakened the monk’s combat ability, turning him into a monster even weaker than standard enemies.

This change made sense narratively—after all, the old monk was elderly, so having minor boss-level strength seemed inappropriate; he should be weakened by age.

Any player who reached this area would have already experienced the bloodbath of the starting village and town, naturally becoming wary of similar NPCs and instinctively attacking.

Of course, even if players didn’t attack first, the old monk remained hostile and would attack players proactively.

If players killed the old monk, they would obtain the regular version of the staff and prayer beads as originally designed.

Since these prayer beads were very useful and the staff was a special weapon, most players would kill the old monk without realizing there were other options.

Pei Qian planned to add a condition: if a player died six times consecutively at the hands of this old monk, on the seventh visit, the monk would become a friendly NPC and no longer attack the player.

This could be easily explained in the lore—because the player repeatedly died, the old monk gained a portion of the player’s three souls and seven spirits from these repeated deaths, thus regaining some sanity.

Of course, players could still attack him, and killing him would yield the same rewards as before.

But if players spoke with the old monk at this point, he would recite a line about how the Dharma-ending age was approaching, Buddhist teachings would be extinguished, leaving no path forward, but Buddha’s power still lingered, and if the protagonist could re-enter the six realms of reincarnation, they could escape the sea of suffering.

At this moment, a Buddhist light would flash around the old monk, and the prayer beads in the chest, along with the monk’s staff, would transform into a new weapon called “Salvation”—the new weapon Pei Qian had copied.

Compared to the ordinary monk’s staff, “Salvation” didn’t change much in appearance, except for adding a glowing golden effect—the Buddha’s light—to the head of the staff.

With this weapon, players not only gained increased combat power but could also skip directly from the Yellow Springs Road past scenes like the Bridge of Helplessness and the Three Lives Stone, arriving at the Six Realms of Reincarnation to unlock the reincarnation ending early.

According to the game’s design, the Six Realms of Reincarnation ending was a false ending.

In the starting village, there was an old man whom players needed to kill to follow his soul’s guidance onto the Yellow Springs Road. Through various clues, like item drop descriptions, players could determine that this old man was the player’s self after reincarnation.

By design, in the second playthrough, this old man’s appearance would change to match the player’s character at the end of the first playthrough, including outfit and weapons, though the person would become withered and emaciated.

So, if players completed the game with “Salvation,” this old man would be holding “Salvation,” though without the special effects, becoming an ordinary monk’s staff.

Furthermore, the “Salvation” weapon could only be used to complete the Six Realms of Reincarnation ending. If used against bosses from other endings, its output efficiency would decrease, becoming like a normal weapon.

And in the second playthrough, this weapon couldn’t be upgraded.

Because Pei Qian’s goal was simply to reach one ending as quickly as possible, this weapon only needed to fulfill its historical mission.

Pei Qian wasn’t a masochist—he had no desire to pursue other endings or play multiple cycles.

Pei Qian worked all afternoon and finally completed these modifications with his clumsy technique.

These changes weren’t actually complicated and weren’t difficult to implement with the editor, but since Pei Qian hadn’t touched the editor for a long time, he spent a bit more time on it.

After finishing, Pei Qian briefly checked everything.

He didn’t need to check too carefully—if there were any bugs, others would surely fix them for Boss Pei.

Pei Qian submitted all the changes, then found Li Yada.

“I’ve made some minor modifications to the game content. It won’t significantly impact the game itself, so don’t worry too much about it, and there’s no need to announce it.”

The design team would discover these changes—Li Yada, as the lead designer, couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to miss an additional weapon in the item table.

Since they would certainly notice, Pei Qian might as well tell them directly.

Besides, if Boss Pei requested it, the design team would help keep it confidential.