Chapter 00008: Haim Village
# Haim Village
Chapter 8
Novel: AFK Game: Portal to Another World
Chapter 8 – Haim Village
On the screen, the chibi-style Viola raised a pixelated orb of light, with streaks of radiance scattering outward—it looked somewhat like a scene from a comic book.
At the edge of the screen, Li Chengxi had already pulled up the character cards for the Royal Female Knights.
He saw that the HP bar was slowly increasing.
He had just added a divine art called "Holy Light" to Viola's skill bar.
It was the most basic of group healing divine arts, and according to the description, it could also deal a bit of damage to evil creatures.
Although Li Chengxi could directly reach his hand into the screen to mess with the pixel people in the game, healing wasn’t something he could just force by reaching in.
And besides, granting divine arts had a really high cost-to-effectiveness ratio.
The first time, he’d only waved his finger inside a little bit by accident, and the starting 500 Faith Points dropped down to the single digits.
But bestowing the Holy Light divine art had only cost 10 points.
That kind of trade was definitely worthwhile.
From his two days of observing and experimenting, Li Chengxi had come to the conclusion that Faith Points were the most important resource in the game—and they grew painfully slow.
He speculated that the growth of Faith Points was probably connected to the number of followers, their devotion, and whether or not they prayed regularly.
Adding Holy Light to Viola’s skill bar served two purposes: one, to test it out; and two, to have Viola use this ability to attract more believers.
After all, Holy Light looked very impressive and also had a healing effect.
People always say utilitarian belief is bad, but let’s be real—why would anyone believe in you if there’s no benefit?
Like how shop owners worship the God of Wealth or Guan Yu, or fishermen offer sacrifices to the Dragon King.
It’s all for a purpose.
Putting down his headset, Li Chengxi stretched lazily.
The in-game time ran at the same pace as reality, but there was about a four-hour time difference.
Right now, it was 5:30 PM in the game, but in real life it was already 9:30 PM.
He checked the locks on the shop one last time, closed his laptop, and went upstairs.
Yesterday, he got too caught up in the game and didn’t sleep well at all.
Tonight, Li Chengxi planned to take a shower and head to bed early.
Of course, he didn’t realize it yet—
The religion he’d accidentally created was starting to develop in increasingly strange and twisted ways…
———
Time passed quickly—in the blink of an eye, three days went by.
At 8 AM, Li Chengxi pulled open the rolling shutter of his shop.
Standing at the entrance, he stretched a bit and watched the streets gradually fill with activity.
“Morning, Brother Li.”
“Morning. Be careful on your bike. Grab a piece of bread before you head to cram school.”
“No time, no time, I'm already late!”
The kid next door from the hardware store jumped on his bike and disappeared around the corner in no time.
Just then, a small delivery truck stopped in front of the shop.
The driver waved at Li Chengxi.
“Xiao Li, you're opening kind of late today.”
“I accidentally went back to sleep.”
Li Chengxi stepped closer and asked,
“Brother Zhang, taking your wife out for a trip?”
“Yeah, the kid’s on summer break, so I figured we’d go to the beach for a few days.”
“Your family really knows how to enjoy life.”
“You should settle down sooner too.”
Brother Zhang gave a wave.
“Alright, I’m off.”
“Drive safe.”
“Sure thing, see you later.”
Brother Zhang’s family ran a small restaurant not far from his shop.
The prices were cheap and the portions generous—it was how Li Chengxi basically survived.
Now that Brother Zhang’s family was off on vacation, Li Chengxi didn’t really trust other takeout places.
He figured he was probably looking at instant noodles for the next few days.
Watching the truck disappear around the corner, Li Chengxi turned back inside and sat down behind the counter.
He lifted the lid of his laptop.
The last three days in-game had been pretty uneventful—nothing major happened, just the usual flow.
Viola had kept busy holding meetings, going out to talk with the residents of Leon Stronghold, and then holding more meetings.
During every prayer, she always said she wished the Demon God would guide her forward.
But honestly, how was Li Chengxi supposed to guide her?
The only thing he actually wanted Viola to do was send some scouts around to check out the surroundings.
She'd already done that.
There wasn't really any need to talk to her again.
The repetition of the last three days was starting to bore Li Chengxi.
As the screen lit up, what appeared was a luxuriously decorated bedroom done in pixel art.
Viola, with her bright red hair, lay sprawled across the bed in a horribly messy sleeping pose.
There was a trail of “zzzz” characters floating beside her head—a classic cartoon-style representation of deep sleep.
Due to the four-hour time difference, it was already 8 AM in real life, but still 4 AM in-game.
Most people in the game world were still fast asleep.
Li Chengxi took a glance at the blanket Viola had kicked to the floor and the pillow she was hugging like a plush toy, then clicked the button at the edge of the screen to exit the current area.
At first, he thought the protagonist of this game was Viola—after all, the opening storyline was told entirely from her perspective.
But after playing for a few days, Li Chengxi realized the game played more like a sandbox without a main character.
If he had to name one, it would be the player themselves—as the Demon God.
Just Leon Stronghold alone had over ten thousand people.
Li Chengxi could observe anyone’s daily life he wanted—there was no need to keep focusing on just one person.
He was already getting a little tired of watching Viola all the time.
He zoomed the camera out to a map view and began checking out the newly explored regions the scouts had uncovered.
As it turned out, Leon Stronghold was indeed located in a mountainous area—surrounded on three sides by mountains and facing the sea on one.
The plains were indeed to the north, but only five small villages had been discovered so far.
Not even a single proper town showed up, let alone a city.
Because the scouts were on horseback, they could only travel along flat terrain or roads.
On the map, the fog of war and the cleared zones looked all jagged and uneven—like someone had bitten chunks out of it.
This uneven spread made Li Chengxi’s slight OCD act up.
He couldn't help but want to tear open all the black, fog-covered zones himself.
Zooming in and out over the wildlands, he could spot animals here and there—mountain goats on cliff walls, wolves lurking in forests, and so on.
In theory, you could zoom in close enough to see bugs resting on leaves.
But bugs were so tiny that in the pixel-style graphics, they only showed up as one or two tiny squares—not something you’d easily notice.
After skimming the newly explored wildlands to see if there was anything interesting, Li Chengxi moved the mouse and clicked on Haim Village—the closest settlement to Leon Stronghold.
In Leon Stronghold, there was Viola, who could at least spread the name of the Demon God and draw more followers.
But out in the surrounding area, there was no one to help out.
Li Chengxi wanted to see if he could bring Haim Village under the range of his divine influence as well.
Though he didn’t have a clear plan yet, shifting his attention away from Viola this time was meant as a scouting mission to Haim Village.
In the game, dawn had just started to break.
But when the camera moved to Haim Village, Li Chengxi saw that someone was already standing outside one of the small houses near the village entrance.
At first glance, it looked like a family of three.
But upon closer inspection, it was probably three generations: a grandfather, a grandmother, and a child.
The old man carried a hoe over his shoulder, the old woman appeared to be giving him some last-minute advice, and the child was huffing and puffing while handing over a large basket.
A big yellow dog circled around the child’s feet.
Because all the characters were done in chibi-style pixel art, to Li Chengxi, the basket looked even larger than the child.
The scene looked like a typical farming family getting ready to head into the fields early in the morning.
Li Chengxi’s own hometown was in the countryside as well—he remembered seeing his grandparents out picking vegetables before the sun even rose.
Thinking about it now, it was kind of nostalgic.
(End of Chapter)