Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
—’Congratulations, you have completed the achievement [First! Explode the Tower of Plague!], you have received 1 Accomplishment Point!’
—’You have destroyed the Tower of Plague, please head to the Holy Church to receive your reward.’
Exploding the Tower of Plague was equal to saving many people, it was a good deed. The Holy Church had always considered themselves to be protectors, so, of course, they would reward Lin Jie!
Lin Jie searched around the ruins and even used Thunderstorm to clear off the debris to find Eighteen Massacres’ corpse.
Don’t forget that he still had the dark blade of Broken Blade on him! That was the item that Lin Jie needed the most! However, it was a pity that beside Eighteen Massacres’ corpse, there was only a level 25 Gold wrist guard, which was shining gold light, beside the [Holy Light Grace] that shone with a charming light. The value of that wrist guard was not even 1/10 of the Earth Elemental Wrist Guard.
Meanwhile, Eighteen Massacres was not in the game currently.
Yes, he had gone offline. He had gone offline the instant he had died a second time from the explosion of the Tower of Plague as he was forcibly revived 10 seconds after his first death. He had finally understood Lin Jie’s intention—the Holy Light Grace was not “to cultivate an interesting opponent” at all. Instead, it was a vicious trap, which would force Eighteen Massacres to revive endlessly and die from the explosion of Tower of Plague an unlimited number of times. It was all in order for him to drop all his equipment and make his level pummel!
Lin Jie was clever in his means. Originally, players would use Holy Light Grace to challenge Bosses, as it was a rare item from dangerous grounds in high-end maps. The best item for stealing treasures from dangerous places with powerful Bosses had actually been turned into a murder weapon in the hands of Lin Jie!
Eighteen Massacres’ losses were even more shocking! He had experienced a three-level drop and lost a Gold belt, as well as a Gold wrist guard. If the loss of the secret scroll in that opposing mission was included, then he had lost an additional Epic Skill! That loss was as large as heaven!
“Lone Wolf, Lone Wolf!”
Eighteen Massacres’ heart thumped vigorously. He could feel that he had violent inclinations, his footsteps were hurried as he walked quickly to his desk and brewed a cup of tea. He took a sip, and the bitter tea taste lingered on the tip of his tongue. Eighteen Massacres would drink tea to calm himself down every time as that was the way he kept his head cool.
“It’s fragrant…” Eighteen Massacres’ attention had completely transferred onto the tea. However, the scenes of his Immortal Body being destroyed, the first clear being snatched, and his head getting chopped off by Broken Blade, which shone with cold light, flashed in his head from time to time… Finally it stopped within the explosion of the Tower of Plague!
“F*ck!”
Eighteen Massacres finally could not control his emotions and smashed his blue-white porcelain cup. A very special cup, which he had obtained two years ago, created from being tempered in a kiln. Eighteen Massacres panted heavily. He, who had not spoken loudly in these few years, released his pent up rage. Even so, he was still extremely upset and depressed in his heart!
Knock-knock.
As the knocking sound ended, a middle-aged man, wearing a suit and leather shoes, with a stern face, walked in. He glanced at the teacup on the ground before he smiled and asked, “Why? What is annoying you? I have already told you many times, calm down, calm down!”
Eighteen Massacres took a look at that man, and a complicated look flashed in his eyes. “Understood, Boss Zheng.”
…
At the Jobs Hall.
Warrior Mentor sized up Lin Jie, with an expression as if he was looking at a monster, and exclaimed, “You’ve completed your Job-Changing Mission? There was no seal on the secret scroll at all?”
Lin Jie nodded solemnly. “Yes, I’ve completed it and learned the Epic Skill [Armor Removal]. Please give me my mission reward, I seem to recall that after completing an Epic Job-Changing Mission, I can also learn a few free skills, right?”
Warrior Mentor looked at him with despise. “You still need to learn them for free? I have asked around about you after I returned. So, you’re the renown Codename Lone Wolf, the one who rose in fame in the midst of the alternate realms’ humans. How is it possible that you would lack such a small amount of money? Whenever you alternate realms’ humans learn skills for free, it’s all from the wallets of us mentors, can’t you just sponsor me a bit?”
“No!” Lin Jie glared at the mentor. “Money is obtained from saving! Don’t forget, I saved your life. Not asking you to let me learn all the skills for free is already me being kind!”
“Let us talk about the matter of mission reward.” The mentor instantly changed the topic as he felt guilty and said, “You have completed your Job-Changing Mission, this is your reward!”
Ding~
—”You have completed your Job-Changing Mission. You received 1,000 Guild of Light reputation and the Job Mount [Iron-Willed Blood Horse].”
Warrior Mentor was still quite generous, as he actually gifted Lin Jie a mount, which could be counted as an extremely valuable reward. The Movement Speed of the Iron-Willed Blood Horse may be 5% slower than Tiger King Bangalash’s, and it was not intimidating enough, but it was able to provide 5 points of Strength Enhancement for its master. Thus, it was also one of the best mounts. It was very handsome, its mane was blood-red and filled with the aura of the battlefield. Indeed, very suitable for men to show their manliness.
Not only so, but Lin Jie also learned a few Warriors’ Basic Skills.
[Blood of War]: This is a passive skill. Permanently increases 6 points of Strength and 6 points of Agility. Requires 3 gold coins to learn this skill.
[Whirlwind]: This is an active skill. You swing your weapon with you as the pivot point and deal 70% damage to any enemy within a 3-yard radius. Cooldown period of 3 seconds. Requires 5 gold coins to learn this skill.
[Disarm]: This is an active skill. You consume one attack action to snatch the weapon of your target, causing the target to be unable to obtain the enhancement from the weapon. Cooldown period of 60 seconds. Requires 2 gold coins to learn this skill.
“That’s daylight robbery! You evil profiteers are really shameless!” exclaimed Lin Jie in front of Warrior Mentor, ignoring the latter’s long face, which was as black as coal.
The income of a normal player from killing monsters was about 20 silver coins on a daily basis. One would really have to spend all of their fortunes to gather enough money to learn the skills—that was also the reason why Skill Books were in such great demand. The selling price of the same skill in the Auction House would be quite a few times lower, and the Cash Exchange System was allowed to be used.
Meanwhile, nobody showed interest in the job mentors, which were clearly ripping money off players. Therefore, besides being able to learn one to two Basic Skills for free, all of the players’ other skills basically relied on the Skill Books from the Auction House.
Lin Jie blinked his eyes. “Mentor, can I learn three for free?”
“You can’t! Only one!”
“Two!”
“One! There’s no room for negotiation!”
“Two!” Lin Jie’s eyeballs turned, and he sized up the sexy Mentor Miya with a grin. “Oh right, I learned Armor Removal, right? What if my hand accidentally slipped and landed on a certain kind and beautiful mentor…”
“I’ll give you three, scram, scram now! Don’t ever appear in front of me again!” Warrior Mentor was furious. ‘You used Miya to trick my Secret Techniques of Clomaros, now you come to cheat me of my skills, can you be even more thick-skinned?’ He waved his hand and stuffed the three skills into Lin Jie’s skill column and then kicked him out.
A crowd of onlookers had gathered as they had been surprised that someone could make a job mentor so furious. They were curious who in the world could complete such a feat.
Lin Jie touched his butt and clicked his tongue. “I’ll leave! Anyways I have already earned enough!”
Even if it was buying Skill Books from the Auction House, it still cost around one gold coin, which was equals to a hundred dollars in reality. All Lin Jie had done was to be thick-skinned and to be kicked once, which equaled to earning like 100 dollars for free. It was totally worth it! One would be an idiot not taking advantage of such a profitable bargain!
Since the release of The New Age, the players were very polarized, making the difference between high-end and low-end players quite vast. The reason being—the cost. As Living skills such as Potionery and Forging were extremely hard to increase their levels, in the whole of The New Age, the number of players who reached mid-level Potioneer could be counted in one hand. Meanwhile, potions were essential to players leveling up!
A normal level 20 player’s health points would be around 1,000. The 120 health points that Low-Grade Health Potions recovered was just a drop in the bucket. If one wanted to raise their level, then Middle-Grade Health Potions must be used. Meanwhile, the selling price of Middle-Grade Health Potions by NPCs was easily a few silver coins, how could players afford them? What’s more serious was that the potions mid-level Potioneers created were also just nicely below the NPCs’ selling price. As long as the price of potions was slightly lower than the NPCs’, then the Potioneers didn’t need to worry that their potions would not be bought. Hence, this had caused the market price of potions to be overly high in the present situation, but players had to accept such a price. Therefore, most of the profits from leveling up went into the hands of Potioneers and Blacksmiths, who repaired equipment.
It was only when one or two Silver items were dropped that one would be able to make a good profit. However, the money earned had to be used to buy skills to learn and change equipment, which resulted in the savings the players had to be very little. Only when the game gradually progressed, and the players grew where their skills and equipment slowly matured would the gold coins produced increase. As such, the exchange rate would also gradually stabilize.
“Three skills raised my strength quite a bit, but my level… looks like I need to train properly, or else I won’t have the confidence to do the mission Secret Techniques of Clomaros,” muttered Lin Jie in a serious tone.
As Lin Jie had not purposely raised his levels, and even though he was still in the front of the Rankings Board, compared to those dedicated to leveling up, he was still far from them. Amongst them, the two old friends that Lin Jie was familiar with had finally appeared.
Ophadi Wantless! Level 33, first on the Rankings Board!
Legendary MT Inksnow! Level 32, second in the Rankings Board!
Not needing to mention Inksnow as it was a given since she had the support from her guild; currently, Ophadi Wantless was a real lone wolf. Alone with his staff, he could go anywhere as his mastery of Arcane spells had reached the acme of perfection! He had finally stood out amongst the many players, radiating his own brilliance.
Wantless, his name described him perfectly! Besides level, he had no wants! He was the person who shared the most experience regarding the major dungeons. He had written down all his knowledge and experience gained from the dungeons. Afterward, there had even been people who had sorted out his experience and created a book, the “Encyclopedia of Wantless”, which could be called a must-read for new players. Even Lin Jie had gained much from it.
“Old friend, long time no see.” Lin Jie looked at the Leaderboard with a smile. “In this life, let us have a proper battle, putting in our all!” he said.
‘Then, let’s start from the Rankings Board!’
Lin Jie had decided the next leveling ground long ago—it was Midolhaar Town to the south of The Land of Plague. There, players could accept large numbers of missions dealing with Dark Shrine Undeads. The experience points were exceptionally rich, and it was an extremely dangerous area! It was the money tree to the strong, but the grave for the weak!
Also, maybe, he could meet Eighteen Massacres there! The matter of his blade still bugged Lin Jie. If it was not in his hands, he would not be able to be free from worry.
However, before that, he still had something else to do.
At the Sky Provisions Shop…
“Boss is here!”
“Hi, boss, welcome, boss!”
Big Brother and his two underlings smiled as they greeted Lin Jie.
Bella smiled slightly and said, “Here to take the Element Volatile Potion?”
“Yes, where are Seven Ears and Potion Maniac… Take it as I didn’t ask.” Just as Lin Jie asked, Bella’s face turned bitter like a sorrowful and hateful married lady’s. It could be deduced that those two squabblers were yet again crazily creating potions upstairs.
After bidding farewell to Bella and the three of them, Lin Jie packed up the potions and immediately headed towards the port.
He still had not given the promised potions to Naga Gion.
