As for how to escape classes officially, that requires careful consideration.

Previously, Pei Qian had created an official class-skipping weapon for himself, "Pu Du" (Salvation), only usable in the first playthrough for the Six Paths of Reincarnation ending, and he had painstakingly hidden it.

But he never expected that, even hidden so deeply that it required dying seven times at the hands of a weak monster to trigger, it would still be discovered by the players.

It can only be said that he underestimated the boredom of the players!

"Is There No Turning Back?" already had a large player base, and these players were particularly fond of delving into the game's content, so hiding it deep wasn't safe at all. As long as the item existed in the game, there was a chance that it would be found by the players.

And with "Eternal Reincarnation," the situation was even less optimistic.

After two years of accumulation, the player base of "Is There No Turning Back?" far exceeded what it was when the game was first released, and the vast majority were veteran players who had turned the game inside out.

Once the DLC came out, these veteran players would definitely search for this new official cheat like they did for "Pu Du," using every means possible.

Just like in "Diablo," the previous game had the Cow Level, and in every sequel after that, players would painstakingly search for the Cow Level. Even if they were told that there was no Cow Level, they wouldn't believe it and would continue searching tirelessly.

So, the method of hiding Pu Du was definitely not going to work; he had to change his approach.

Moreover, Pei Qian felt that, given the current changes to the game's combat mechanics, simply hiding a powerful weapon probably wouldn't save his clumsy self.

Because the previous combat system was relatively simple: dodge the monster's attack, then touch it once. As long as you weren't greedy for hits and understood the enemy's attack pattern, you could basically pass the level.

And the Pu Du weapon had a long attack range and a fast attack animation, which allowed it to easily slaughter most enemies in that combat mode.

But now the situation was different. He had to pay attention to his Qi (vital energy) value, and simply relying on dodging was useless. He couldn't deplete the Boss's health at all; he had to find a way to disrupt the Boss's Qi and trigger an execution move.

If he were to grind down the Boss's health little by little, given the current Boss's health pool, it would take forever, and it would be easy to fail halfway.

But wanting to execute multiple perfect parries in a row?

Pei Qian knew himself very well; he felt that he definitely couldn't do it.

In that situation, what good would giving him a Pu Du do?

After all, even an official weapon cheat had its limits. It could be overpowered, but not too overpowered. One-shotting a Boss was impossible; the system wouldn't allow it.

In other words, the new method of skipping classes had to meet two conditions.

First, the hiding method had to be different from Pu Du; he had to hide it in a novel way, making it as difficult as possible for players to find.

Second, it had to start from the game's mechanics. The damage didn't necessarily have to be overpowered, but it had to help Pei Qian, the clumsy player, successfully defeat the Bosses under the new combat mechanics.

With a clear direction, things became much easier, and Pei Qian quickly came up with a good solution.

"The game's difficulty really needs to be adjusted."

"Now that we've introduced the Qi value setting, we can no longer use the original method to fight Bosses. If the Boss's Qi value is full, and its stamina is also full, yet it's slowly grinded to death by the player, that's just unreasonable."

"So we should set it so that when the Boss's Qi value and stamina are in good condition, the player won't lose much health even if they hit the Boss."

"And when the Boss is at its peak state, the player's attacks are more likely to be parried by the Boss. We'll use an artificial intelligence system to randomize whether it's a perfect parry, a normal parry, or a mistake, and how much health and Qi value is lost, so that the player's combat experience is slightly different each time."

Hu Xianbin: "Uh…"

He was a bit speechless for a moment.

When he asked whether the difficulty should be adjusted before, he was actually asking whether the difficulty should be lowered a little.

Because the current combat system was obviously more complex and challenging than the previous combat system. If the difficulty remained the same as before, it would probably be even harder to beat.

But Pei Zong actually increased the difficulty instead!

According to Pei Zong's design, players even completely lost the option of slowly grinding the Boss to death. They could only go up and fight head-on, killing the Boss quickly if they won, and being killed quickly by the Boss if they lost.

This made things easier in a way. Every battle shouldn't drag on for too long, but the vast majority of players would probably be the ones getting quickly killed by the Boss…

What would be the result of this change?

When the DLC was released, there would probably be wailing everywhere, and even the veteran players would be虐哭 (abused to tears).

Because these veteran players were already very accustomed to the combat mode of the "Is There No Turning Back?" base game. When they encountered a Boss, they would first observe its movements and fight steadily. As long as they weren't greedy for hits and tried a few more times, they could pass steadily.

But when they got to "Eternal Reincarnation," they would find that the more they observed the Boss, the more excited the Boss became, the more chaotic their own Qi value became, and the smoother the Boss's Qi value became…

And then, they would be executed by the Boss.

Although he knew that the players of "Is There No Turning Back?" liked to suffer, this was a bit too tragic. He didn't know if they could handle it.

Li Yada, who hadn't said much, suddenly spoke, "Then… Pei Zong, should we also arrange a weapon similar to 'Pu Du' in the game?"

"The tradition of mercy can't be lost."

"Is There No Turning Back?" was developed when Li Yada was the main planner, so her understanding of the game was much deeper than Hu Xianbin's.

"Pu Du" not only gave players a way to skip classes but was also an important part of the game's setting. It could be said that it had become a tradition of the game "Is There No Turning Back?".

With such a big change to the DLC, shouldn't there be a new class-skipping weapon?

Hu Xianbin's eyes lit up.

That's right, there's also "Pu Du"!

Pei Zong was very merciful to the players. The reason he arranged "Pu Du" before was because he was afraid that clumsy players would be abused too much and wouldn't be able to complete the game, so he deliberately hid it in the game waiting for players to discover it.

Now that the difficulty has been further increased, he definitely has to continue to show some mercy, right?

Pei Qian laughed inwardly.

Mercy to the players?

Why would I show mercy to the players?

I'm showing mercy to myself, okay!

Without a class-skipping weapon, how am I supposed to beat this broken game?

But then he thought that it was also good for everyone to think that he was showing mercy to the players. Saying that "Pei Zong makes class-skipping weapons so that he can skip classes himself" wasn't very appealing and would damage his glorious image.

Pei Qian cleared his throat and said, "This time, we won't make a weapon like Pu Du."

"The protagonist of the original 'Is There No Turning Back?' is set as an ordinary person, so it's reasonable to use Pu Du to skip classes. But the protagonist of 'Eternal Reincarnation' is a Martial God. Is it reasonable to use this kind of weapon to skip classes?"

"Of course, the Martial God should be able to easily cut down everything with any weapon."

Everyone looked at each other.

Hu Xianbin said, "Pei Zong, you're right. If we follow the plot setting, that's indeed the case, but not all players are Martial Gods…"

Pei Qian smiled. "I know, don't worry."

"There are other ways besides not making a weapon like Pu Du."

"I saw in the plot setting that the Martial God protagonist, in his later years, exhausted all the wealth and rare treasures he had collected throughout his life to have skilled craftsmen create a demonic sword that could destroy souls, and had it stained with the blood of enlightened monks."

"After that, the protagonist had a warlock create a pill that could put him in a state of near-death, floating between Yin and Yang, and used the demonic sword to kill Black and White Impermanence, and went all the way into Avici Hell (the lowest level of hell)."

"According to the original setting, the power of the demonic sword is limited. The more souls it slays, the more its power will gradually weaken."

"At the same time, in order to highlight the protagonist's identity as a Martial God, we also encourage players to use a variety of weapons in combination. Different main and off-hand weapon combinations can have different combat skill effects and attack animations."

"So, the final design becomes that the demonic sword is equivalent to a special item for execution. Players usually use various other weapons to fight, and then use the demonic sword to execute when triggering an execution move."

"And as the plot progresses, the power of the demonic sword will continue to weaken."

Everyone nodded. This was the consensus of the development team's designers.

If they only used the demonic sword, the gameplay and flow of the entire game would be too monotonous. So setting it as "ordinary weapons for fighting monsters, demonic sword for execution" would not only encourage players to use a variety of weapons but also restore the plot to the greatest extent possible.

At this time, Yu Fei, the original author of "Eternal Reincarnation," said, "Pei Zong, actually, the setting of the demonic sword becoming weaker the more it's used was just something I came up with on a whim. I simply felt that this kind of setting would help highlight the tragic effect of the entire story."

"Moreover, the demonic sword becomes weaker, so the protagonist's mind becomes clearer, and he realizes that he has made a big mistake and eventually becomes the first Warden of Hell. This makes more sense logically."

"But the plot definitely serves the gameplay."

"If necessary, it can be changed to the demonic sword becoming stronger the more it's used…"

Pei Qian raised his hand. "No! The current setting is perfect, and it can't be changed!"

"I just think we can do some further development on this basis."

"According to the current design, the demonic sword has completely become a plot item and can't be held in the hand."

"But I think we can make it an item that can be held in the hand and used in battle."

"It's just that its initial damage, attack range, and other attributes are weaker than other equipment."

"Not only that, as the plot progresses and the protagonist slays more and more Bosses, the attributes of the demonic sword will become lower and lower, and weaker and weaker."

"By the later stages of the game, it might not even hurt to cut people with it."

"However, let's add a special effect to the demonic sword."

"When the player only holds the demonic sword and doesn't dual-wield any other weapons, each death will increase the degree of demonic possession by a certain amount."

"And a certain amount of accumulated demonic possession will cause the protagonist to automatically perform parry moves under the control of the artificial intelligence system."

"The deeper the demonic possession, the more frequent the automatic parries will be."

"Of course, the damage value of the demonic sword is still very low, but through frequent automatic parries and disarming moves, even if the damage value is very low, it can still disrupt the opponent's Qi value and achieve execution conditions."

"In different stages of the game, there are limit values for demonic possession."

"In the beginning, when the demonic sword's power is very strong, even if you die a lot of times, the effect of demonic possession won't be very obvious. It will only turn some of the player's ordinary parries into perfect parries, which is almost imperceptible."

"As the plot progresses and the demonic sword's power weakens, you have to continue to die in order to continue to increase the effect of demonic possession."

"By the very late stages of the game, you have to die enough times to achieve the effect of fully automatic parries."

"But in this way, the player won't be able to achieve the original ending but will instead achieve an 'Eternal Reincarnation' ending, where the protagonist eventually turns into a hellish ghost, completely loses himself, and the entire world turns into a living hell."

"Only if the player's demonic possession value is not high and they clear the game with their own strength can they enter the normal Warden of Hell ending."