Bab 30: The Crazy Poison-Antidote Potion
Editor: Atlas Studios
Two days after Castle Wood was launched, all the Poison-Antidote Potions in the market, including those stored by guilds were depleted. Castle Wood was a difficult dungeon. Even if one downed Poison-Antidote Potions non-stop throughout the exploration process, they might not be able to pass through it. Every step must be taken with caution, or else it would be a waste of all the Poison-Antidote Potion consumed previously if the whole team was wiped out.
All players wore bitter looks on their faces when they drank the potions. That was in no way just a simple potion, it's a massive depletion of hard earned money.
The Triumphant Midnight team fared the worst. None of the potioneers belonging to their guild had learned how to make low-level Poison-Antidote Potion before, and hence all their potions were purchased from stores. However, it just took less than one day for them to consume all the potions, and the team had just barely reached 35% of the dungeon.
The prices of the low-level Poison-Antidote Potions surged like crazy!
At that point in time, a place known as the Sky Provisions Shop became famous. Although no one knew who the owner of that shop was, they were certain that the owner must be some extraordinary figure to be able to accumulate such a huge amount of the potions! A lot of people tried to find out who was the boss behind the scenes, but they failed. The furthest they could get to know was just a young counter staff named Seven Ears.
However, this Seven Ears was the most pedantic person they swore they had ever met. Even if they promised to give him benefits in the form of rebates, he wouldn't yield to anyone's requests of buying the potions solely. All the guild leaders were simply maddened. With their status, when had they ever been rejected?
"Either use your reward points to exchange or else you have to pay for the potions with money." Seven Ears adhered strictly to Lin Jie's rules and spoke sternly.
Exchange? Exchange it with equipment that was worth at least 3 gold coins? Who else could play in the dungeon then? Out of no choice, the guild leaders resorted to raising funds from their members just to buy the potions and its recipes.
Witnessing this whole series of events, the other merchants became anxious whenever they saw the Sky Provisions Shop put up stock for the potions. They started to put up their available stocks with lower prices for auction.
"Unscrupulous merchant, you ought to die from poverty!" The guild leader of the Owners of Daybreak Guild, Vicju spat and cursed loudly at the Sky Provisions Shop before rushing off to the auction house. However, even if the other merchants were farsighted enough to predict market trends, how could they win against the prophetic Lin Jie? All they could put up was at most 10 plus recipes, which was too little to suffice the larger guilds' needs.
Once there was stock put up at the auction house, it would be bought away by the headhunters of the major guilds within a few seconds.
After rounds of running back and forth from the auction house, all the players turned back to the Sky Provisions Shop, only to discover to their horror that the recipes' prices were increased by five silver coins, while the potions and ingredients' prices were increased by 10 bronze coins per set.
"Do we buy?"
"Buy!"
Out of no choice, they gritted their teeth, raised funds and bought the recipes and potions. Thus, Sky Provisions Shop reaped huge amounts of revenue. Yet, they had only sold off a small portion of their available stocks. The prices of the potions and its ingredients were simply too expensive even for guilds. Most of them could only just buy enough amounts to suffice their exploration in the dungeon. After gaining some valuable equipment, they would come back to exchange for the potions again, hoping to achieve self-sufficiency of the potions with this method.
To be honest, most of the guilds' gains would end up with Lin Jie after the 10 days of redemption period, as most of them were not able to fork out the money to redeem back their valuables.
Resigned, Vicju passed his money over the counter and said, "Give me two sets of the recipes."
"Sorry, we are not selling them to you," replied Seven Ears flatly, his face void of emotions.
"Damn, what do you mean by this?" Vicju was angered and slammed his palm on the counter, spilling a bottle of the potion. After which, the patrolling guards came by and marched him off to jail.
Players' shops were being protected by NPCs and the laws of the city.
…
Boom-
The ogre's enormous body fell down. Lin Jie searched for the items spawned beneath the lifeless corpse, forehead creased up tightly. Piecing up the Shemendes Iron Cloak was a long-time effort. The 'lucky' Lin Jie got another broken rag after finishing off the orge for the second time, and that piece… was exactly the same piece he had gotten from his first attempt! It was indeed 'very lucky' of him to get such pieces consecutively! Lin Jie could not help but make a sardonic remark to himself.
Other than that, there was nothing else at all. There was not even any sight of bronze coins, let alone silver coins.
'It's literally, not even a penny left.'
The goblin's curse had come true.
Lin Jie resigned to his fate. 'Well, at least it was guaranteed that the monster would spawn the cloak's rags.'
"Boss, we have sold a portion of the potions, and earned a total of 21 gold coins and 37 silver coins!" Seven Ears reported ecstatically. It was the first time he had seen such a large sum of money, and he nearly couldn't believe his eyes!
Lin Jie brightened up. "Oh, transfer me the money now."
——'Seven Ears had transferred a total of 21 gold coins and 37 silver coins to your personal inventory. You can withdraw it from the Inventory Manager.'
——'You have broken the Goblin's Life Curse! You received 10 silver coins, and you will have 20% more gains in the following 12 hours.'
——'You have made an accomplishment - [Purification], your Mana levels +50, Resistance +2.'
One could get rewards for breaking a curse! Of course, it would not be counted as breaking a curse if one used Dispelling Spells. To be honest, it was not difficult to break the Goblin's Life Curse. One just needed to get an item that had the value of 20 gold coins by killing a monster or earn 20 gold coins directly to break the curse.
In reality, though, that was even harder to achieve than reaching the stars. To earn 20 gold coins at that stage of the game? Most large guilds were still searching for ways to get a few pieces of gold coins, let alone for solo players.
Of course, Lin Jie was the exception.
Other than that, breaking a curse could increase one's Stats. Surely, this must be what was commonly known as a blessing in disguise.
Lin Jie's communication device rang. It was a call from Midnight.
"Brother Fu Sheng, will you be interested in coming with us to explore the Castle Wood dungeon?" asked Midnight in a testing tone. Could he by any chance also know the attack strategy for Castle Wood?
Lin Jie shook his head. "I have searched one round on the official website…"
"And?" asked Midnight hopefully.
"I can't find any reliable strategies. They were all made up," Lin Jie appeared to be exasperated. "The fellow who wrote the strategy for the Cat Demon Lair was even more absurd, he just mentioned that one could conquer the dungeon by using loads of Magic Scrolls. Darn it, why would I still be stuck at this level in the game if I have that much money?"
Midnight, "…"
'What, so this fellow had derived his artful gaming strategies and skills by reading up the posts from the supposedly beta test gamers?' Midnight felt cheated.
He put down his communication device and shrugged his shoulders. "He doesn't seem interested."
Dumb Fox took up his own communication device and called Lin Jie personally. "Brother Fu Sheng, do you remember me?"
"Yes, yes, sure I do," replied Lin Jie. He had not forgotten that Dumb Fox had fought for him against the Ironwall Empire in the past.
"If you come with us to the Castle Wood dungeon, we will give you all of the Berserker Gold equipment spawned." Dumb Fox put forth his offer in a resolute manner. His guild members widened their eyes in disbelief when they heard his comment.
'Is Leader crazy? To give Gold equipment to an outsider?'
There was silence on Lin Jie's side. After a moment, he replied, "I don't need anything from Castle Wood. However, I can offer you some potions, its ingredients and recipes: 5 recipes, 200 sets of potions and 300 sets of its ingredients. Fox Guild Leader, do state a price."
Dumb Fox was shocked. To get such a large amount of the potions and its raw ingredients? What's the real identity of this Fu Sheng, exactly? He probed cautiously, "The Sky Provisions Shop…"
"Oh, that's opened by a friend of mine. I can get some of the items at a lower price. Since Fox Guild Leader had treated me sincerely, I must return your favor."
"Okay, but this amount is too much, I can't take them all," replied Dumb Fox decisively. "How about this, I can give you 5 gold coins, and pay you the rest in cash?"
Lin Jie pondered and replied, "Maybe you could get me a Magus Berserker's Power Skill Book in exchange then? As for the money, it's up to you to decide how much you want to give me."
"I have one of that Skill Book now. I will send it to you straight away." Dumb Fox was delighted.
Three seconds later, Lin Jie received a notification from his personal bank account that was linked to his game account. There was a transfer of 800 dollars.
800 dollars was approximately the amount after deducting the value of five gold coins. This meant that the Magus Berserker's Power Skill Book was given to him for free.
The number of recipes and potions Dumb Fox got was probably enough to support them for two continuous days of exploration in the dungeon. This would help them progress much faster in the dungeon. On the other hand, Lin Jie finally got hold of the Magus Berserker's Power Skill Book.
That Skill Book was bronze in color. There was an image of a six-handed Magus Berserker embossed onto the book cover, making it seem extremely creepy.
Skill Book: Magus Berserker's Power
Casting Resource: Action, Warrior's Roar
Skill Description: You can let out a Primordial Roar, and increase your Strength temporary by 50 points, lasting for 20 seconds. The cooldown period for this skill is five minutes.
Job Restriction: Warrior
There were few Skills that could temporarily increase one's Strength, and most of them could be used directly for dealing damage and for attacking purposes, etc. Most of them also had much better effects than the Magus Berserker's Power.
Lin Jie tried activating the skill. His face flushed red, and his muscles bulged out. Following that, a weird roar came out from his throat!
Strength Increase!
The moment his Strength surpassed 80, Lin Jie equipped himself with the Shield of Courage. When the skill effect wore off after 20 seconds, the Shield of Courage did not come off. However, as a penalty for not meeting its requirements, Lin Jie's Movement Speed was decreased by 5%, and the attributes of the Shield of Courage were also decreased by half.
Even so, that shield was still very strong!
Cladded in a mixture of Bronze and Gold sets, with a shield in his left hand, a sword in his right hand, Lin Jie finally felt he looked somewhat like what a proper Warrior should look like.
Ding~
"Fu Sheng… We progressed to 40% of the dungeon, but we are stuck at the No.2 Boss." A somewhat awkward voice was heard from Lin Jie's communication device. That was the effect of a normally aggressive figure trying to sound more intimate and polite to someone.
Lin Jie nodded his head and replied, "No. 2 Boss is the Viscount of Fear, Mugarh, correct? You arrange for three MTs to stand separately at the corresponding positions, and activate Forward Charge every four seconds. Keep up the pace of the attacks that will do."
This person was The Heavenly Shield! He was now cooperating with Lin Jie. The latter would supply his team with the required low-level Poison-Antidote Potions, while the Ironwall Empire acted as his hatchet man. They would stop before the final Boss and wait for Lin Jie to come and collect the EXP points.
This was cooperation based on the principles of reciprocity and mutual benefit.
"I will be offline for the next three days. You will need to use a few small tactics to conquer the subsequent Bosses. I am going to send a summary of these tactics to you, you can only read them in private. Remember, don't show them to anyone else," Lin Jie instructed and added, "I don't know how much manpower the Kingdom of Glory had arranged in your guild, what I can advise is this—try your best to sieve out the betrayers, get rid of them and their connections to your guild completely."
The Heavenly Shield replied in a stern tone, "Alright."
The Mage Heavens, Dark-robed Knights, and the Kingdom of Glory were like butterflies still in their cocoons—they had made use of Ironwall Empire as their nutrients, and would emerge as beautiful butterflies at the sake of the Ironwall Empire! As such, Lin Jie and The Heavenly Shield had conducted a massive cleanup within the guild, and would rather dismiss anyone who showed the slightest resistance to their orders than to forgive them.
As the saying goes, "I would rather wrong thousands of people, than let off a suspicious
That incident would happen after half a month. Lin Jie inhaled deeply. He must get enough funds and resources before that!
Walking into the auction house, Lin Jie started to search for Augmenting Gems. The prices of Augmenting Gems did not fluctuate much, and it cost five silver coins per piece. This was Lin Jie's main motive for this trip!
After Castle Wood was launched, the players would level up very fast, reaching Level 10 in no time. At that time, they would need Augmenting Gems to complete their Job-Changing Missions.
Following the normal set patterns of games, changing jobs should be an easy task. However, a job change in The New Age would be similar in comparison to the evolution of life forms in the real world. The difficulty levels of the quests for job changing was simply unimaginable! First of all, the cap for Gold equipment was already sealed for normal players. Unless the players could get hold of Dark Gold equipment, it would almost be impossible for them to improve their equipment.
At that stage, the powers of the Augmenting Gems would come in handy! Whereas one could not afford Augmenting Gem before, now most of them could do so!
At that moment, there was another commotion going on at the auction house.
The monsters in Castle Wood were simply too strong. They would even regain health points with every attack, and thus it required teams to deal team attacks of high damage points. For example, No. 1 Boss Princess Helen was constantly in "Empathy for the Weak" state, and would only take in one attack at any time.
Players required weapons of high attacking power! Other than the low-level Poison-Antidote Potions, the prices of weapons with high Attack Power were also beginning to increase. However, there was a weapon which was the exception, and it attracted the attention of many players—Enhancement +2, with an Attack Power cap of 70 points, it was a powerful weapon known as the Spiked Club!
Bab 31: The Dark Monastery
Editor: Atlas Studios
'An Augmenting Gem priced at four silver coins?'
As Lin Jie browsed through the pages, he suddenly saw Augmenting Gems that were priced at four silver coins. In fact, if one bought it in a package of 30, the seller would give one Augmenting Gem for free. He quickly bought them.
The prices of Augmenting Gem would not fluctuate much now. He decided he shall buy all available Augmenting Gems that were priced at below five silver coins, and ignore those that were priced more than that amount. After all, it was not a good idea to benefit those calculative merchants too much. That would just encourage them to continue the trend of anyhow pricing items.
A weapon was being marked in red and occupied the topmost row of the panel beside the Auction column. Everyone could see the item right away once they looked up—the item was the spiked club which Lin Jie had put up for auction!
In the beginning, this weapon was not eye-catching within the midst of items. It was only noticed by most players when its price was classified under the "Hot Auctioning Items" column.
A warrior with full Stats points using this weapon with an Attack Cap of 70 would be able to pass through No. 1 Boss in Castle Wood easily!
This weapon's fabulous attributes were fairly attractive to many players, even if they did not have any intentions to explore Castle Wood!
Currently, the price of that spiked club had already risen to 75 silver coins. That was comparable to Gold equipment with similar attributes! Everyone gasped when they saw that price.
Donning his cloak, Lin Jie looked in anticipation along with the crowd while making his purchases of Augmenting Gems.
"Darn it, some rich people are just plain crazy. If I had that much money, I would just buy Gold equipment directly, then go and enhance it. Isn't it much worthy?" Someone commented in jealousy within the crowd of onlookers.
"Are you dumb? The success rate of enhancing Gold equipment isn't high, what if that equipment breaks in the process?" Someone else replied in a disdainful voice.
"In any case, when did you ever come across a piece of equipment that has an Enhancing Growth rate of 10? A low-grade equipment's Enhancing Growth rate will be capped off at 5 normally. If a piece of equipment can be enhanced by a growth rate of 10, it will mean that it can have twice the attack capacity of normal equipment!"
Enhancing Growth rate was a measure of the extent to which a piece of equipment could be enhanced. How much a piece of equipment could be increased by a Level 1 Augmenting Gem would be the unit growth rate for that equipment. Normally, low-grade weapons would be capped off at Enhancing Growth rate of 5.
However, the reason why that spiked club seemed so robust was solely due to Blue's special enhancing methods. Even if its attributes could double that of a normal weapon, that equipment could also only reach a maximum Enhancing Growth rate of 5, which was, in essence, the same as any normal equipment.
This was a fact which Lin Jie was careful not to reveal when he put it up for auction. The other players had not discovered it, and thus the price of the spiked club had been rising steadily.
"Does anyone know who the owner of this spiked club is? Our chairman is interested in buying it with real cash," shouted some players. This made the headhunters from the other guilds anxious, and they followed suit immediately.
'Cash?' Lin Jie curved up his lips. The stage for the exchange of real cash would be set half a month later. The game's coins were more important than anything else at the current stage in the game!
He browsed through the items available for sale in the auction house casually and bought the rare ingredients and gems which had high-earning power. These were the real stuff that would upvalue in time to come!
"Qiu Yuan, why wouldn't you listen to my advice?" The sound of a familiar name attracted Lin Jie's attention. Not far away, a woman who wore heavy makeup and holding on to a staff which gave off silver glimmers was trying her best to persuade Qiu Yuan.
"Look at this, a Silver Staff! How much can you progress if you continue staying in that small team? This was given to me by Mighty Wings. You might even get Gold weapons if you join his team."
A look of contempt flashed across Lin Jie's face. So, this woman was a lobbyist for Mighty Wings! Come to think of it, wasn't Mighty Wings a member of the Ironwall Empire?
He could even give out Silver equipment to other players. It seemed like he was leading a pretty good life now.
Lin Jie checked through the members' list of Ironwall Empire and located the name 'Mighty Wings of the Heavens' under the guild's Team 5 Elites. 'That sly chap, he has managed to climb to the position of a vice team leader as time passed.'
"Oh, Fu Sheng!" Qiu Yuan spotted Lin Jie and looked at him as if he was her savior. She gave a wave of her hands and made a move to run over to him. She really could not stand this woman's words anymore. Wasn't Mighty Wings just a mere team captain? What was there to boast about?
Lin Jie shook his hands, made a gesture and turned to leave.
Qiu Yuan blinked. She turned back and replied, "Contact Mighty Wings for me, and say I am in."
That woman was delighted. She finally managed to persuade this young madame to join! Mighty Wings had promised her a position in the elites' team and 500 dollars labor fees for persuading Qiu Yuan. Now she got it!
Yet, in less than half a minute, her face turned sour, and she cursed involuntarily with her hands waving madly in the air, "F*ck him, that b*stard just got dismissed?! I got no position in the elites' team now and couldn't even get that 500 dollars…"
"What 500 dollars?"
"Oh, oh nothing…"
After Lin Jie left, a notification rang in his ears.
——'The August's Rage which you put up for auction is successfully sold off at the price of two gold coins.'
'Good fellow, I wonder who was this rich sucker?'
Turning back, he saw a lot of players with anguished expressions on their faces. Those were the players who had promised their guild leaders that they would bring the weapon back even if they had to sell their blood, kidneys or wives.
A warrior was elated as he swung the spiked club around. 'This face os… Dominance? Oh, so that was the reason the spiked club could be auctioned off at such a high price.'
After all, who could beat the largest sucker in the game?
After depositing most of his gold coins in his inventory, Lin Jie bought huge amounts of health potions, magic potions and escape scrolls. Following that, he also bought the rare low-level Invisible potions at the price of four silver coins per bottle before teleporting to the Northshire Town.
He would require a lot of materials to break the seals on Broken Blade so that it could reach its true attributes. All of those materials were mostly found in Expert-level dungeons or at some secluded places. Lin Jie could still conquer the Cat Demon Lair with Broken Blade's current attributes and his skills, but what about other superior dungeons?
In his previous life, Lin Jie had achieved his peak only after six years. This time, he was determined to minimize the time spent!
The Northshire Town had a nickname known as the Tragedy Town. A missionary had come by this town where kind and humble villagers were once dwelling in. He gave the villagers a type of wheat seed which could grow rapidly and be harvested eight times per year and thus was much loved and respected by the villagers. As the quality of life of the villagers increased, they decided to build a church to repay this 'kind-hearted' missionary.
A catastrophe befell on the town soon. Upon the request of this missionary, the villagers began to pray daily. Everything seemed fine in the beginning, until a month later, some of the villagers discovered that they would be in pain if they stopped praying. The symptoms worsen as time passed, and the villagers ended up moving into the church and listening to the orders of the missionary.
Other than the Teleporter's station and a small campsite to store additional supplies, the whole of the Northshire Town was occupied by a magnificent castle-like church.
The Dark Monastery!
The Monastery was the living quarters for the village folks of Northshire Town. In Lin Jie's previous life, this map had not been a dangerous place, as there had been news of Sub-Legendary equipment pieces sighted there and it had attracted numerous players to clear this map. There had been nothing left when Lin Jie had finally come to explore that place.
At that time, Lin Jie had just casually strolled around the area and then left without any achievements.
That was one of the rare places which had sightings of Sub-Legendary equipment's broken fragments before most players reached Level 20. Though unsure of whether that piece of news was accurate, Lin Jie would rather believe it to be true. He consumed a bottle of low-level Invisible potion, and his figure gradually turned clear within three seconds.
"Who's there?" A shrill voice rang out. A beam of Holy Light which had no hostile intentions was shone upon his face, and with a brief flash, his concealed figure was discovered.
Kind Yatasha: Level 15 Priest, Health points 450.
Yatasha looked at most 13 years old. There was a pair of clear blue eyes fringed upon her doll-like face, and her shiny blond hair fell down to her waist level. She wore a Beginner's Robe and held a delicate Staff in her hands.
An image appeared in Lin Jie's mind eye, and a saintly light shone upon the ground as she waved her staff ever so lightly. Thousands of dead soldiers were revived, their eyes brimming with tears of happiness. A figure stood at the tip of the Atlas Peak, her white hair flowing in the wind. That was the Light Priest Hero, Yatasha!
The small fellow in front of his eyes would turn out to be the Light Priest Hero a few years into the future.
In The New Age, as the game developed further, the NPCs would also grow accordingly and follow their designated life paths. The life path of that little girl would be to turn out as the Light Priest Hero in the future.
Lin Jie opened his arms to show his alias. "Little girl, I am not a bad person."
Yatasha commented vigilantly, "I sense terrible violence from you."
Lin Jie had killed players and NPCs before. This was unforgivable in the eyes of Yatasha.
Lin Jie was thinking of ways to make the atmosphere less hostile when a believer donning a long black hooded robe walked out from the monastery. He opened his arms and made a gesture to embrace Yatasha.
"Beware!" Lin Jie let out a terrible roar. The Outraged Roar stunned the believer, while he activated Hunter's Forward Charge to bring the believer under control swiftly. Lin Jie sliced the Broken Blade around the believer's neck, making a perfect circle, and its blade aura ripped through the believer's neck. The believer on the outskirts of the church was only of Level 5 and had 250 health points, and thus was easily killed.
"You, darn it, you ought to die!" The little girl was angered. She pointed her staff at Lin Jie and conjured up the Chains of Light around his hands, locking them together tightly. The Chains of Light was a skill which could be learned by priests who reached Level 30. It was a directive type of skill which could lock the movements of one's target.
"They are all kind people, how can you kill innocent people!"
Lin Jie glared at her. "If it weren't for me, you would have been bitten to death by that fellow."
"Liar!" The little girl was angered.
Lin Jie struggled to get free of the chains. The specialty of the Chains of Light lies in the fact that it will do one more damage if they struggle continuously. Many people were trapped until their deaths. However, this little girl was obviously a typical angelic-type of person. When she saw Lin Jie was hurt by her chains, she immediately dismissed the skill and even helped him to regain his health points.
Lin Jie walked swiftly to the lifeless corpse which was not yet refreshed by the system and had not disappeared. He tore its hood away, revealing a rotten face hidden beneath.
The little girl gaped and covered her mouth. "This…"
"As a warrior, I had serious doubts in your beliefs," commented Lin Jie sternly.
"It is your rule to purify the souls of the living, but it is a warrior's principle to let the dead rest in peace!"
The little girl lowered her head, and said in a heavy tone, "Do save those who are still alive."
"I will," promised Lin Jie.
——'You accepted a request from the Kind Yatasha. You will proceed to the Dark Monastery to save the 10 surviving believers.'
——'You received a Light Talisman.'
Lin Jie took a brief look at the Light Talisman's attributes and stuffed it secretly into his bag.
Light Talisman: It is a unique mission tool. It can revive a dead target and return him to 30% of his health points, or restore an injured party to his full health. (Note: if used on oneself, the effect will be reduced by 70%.)
The most important part lied in the last comment!
Reduction in effect? It didn't matter! What was most important was that it was an item that could allow him to revive himself on the spot!
"If you save the villagers, I will promise you a favor that is within my capabilities," Yatasha implored, her delicate little face solemn.
"I will." Lin Jie nodded his head heavily before he turned and entered the monastery.
The little girl ran a few steps away, stopped and turned back again. In her eyes, the doors of the monastery seemed like the bloody mouths of the Undead, which swallowed Lin Jie up in a gulp!
Hadiah
-- Hadiah diterima Status Power Mingguan
200+ Peringkat
Power 
0 Power
stone Anda mungkin juga menyukai
Komentar Paragraf