章 42: Mysterious Ancient City
編集者: Atlas Studios
The following morning, World's Best demolished the Guild Residence and left Lotter City in disgrace with the World Guild's elite players.
With the World Guild's players departing, the ambiance around Lotter City suddenly improved greatly.
Although the other guilds' players weren't as arrogant and domineering as those of World Guild, there were still incidents where the major guilds' players bullied the ordinary players.
For example, they would vie to occupy the better leveling points and snatch other ordinary players' Boss-level monsters. Although they did not commit such acts as often as the World Guild's players did, they had done such acts several times before.
However, not only were the various major guilds' players no longer bullying the ordinary players, they even took the initiative to team up with them. This caused many ordinary players to be confused.
One of Qingfeng Pavilion's blabbermouths accidentally blurted out the reason, which allowed many ordinary players to understand the situation.
It turned out that the major guilds' players had suddenly begun behaving themselves, purely because they were afraid of provoking solo players like Liu Ming.
All of a sudden, the ordinary players of Lotter City deemed Liu Ming as their spiritual idol.
On the other hand, Liu Ming had actually left Lotter City on the night the battle was over. In fact, Liu Ming had already planned on temporarily leaving Lotter City after he finished the Second Promotion Quest and adapted to his new Skills.
The reason was related to the quest chain that Liu Ming had received in the novice village.
After arriving in Lotter City, Liu Ming completed nine rounds of the quest chain in the past month. However, the quest chain did not seem to end even after completing nine rounds. Instead, two branch quests appeared when the tenth round began.
One branch quest was simpler and could be completed on the spot. However, the reward was merely a Purple weapon. The other branch quest was more difficult and could only be completed after the second promotion. The reward was also unknown.
With the mentality 'the harder the task, the better the reward must be,' Liu Ming decided to wait until he had successfully completed his second promotion before beginning the quest chain's tenth round.
The venue of the quest chain's tenth round was not within Lotter City. In fact, even the location of Liu Ming's quest this time was not associated with any of the main cities.
Liu Ming could only rely on the system map and follow the route given by the system, which eventually led him to a vast desert.
After walking for a while, Liu Ming finally saw a small oasis. A shabby and dilapidated campground was located in the middle of the oasis—it was the first destination of Liu Ming's mission.
However, after discovering that the entire camp was so run-down that not a single soul was in sight and did not seem like a place anyone had been in recently, Liu Ming did not enter the site rashly.
After looking around and observing for a while to confirm that there were no hidden monsters, he slowly stepped into the camp.
However, the scene before Liu Ming changed drastically the moment he stepped into the camp.
The shabby and dilapidated camp immediately disappeared and was replaced by a flourishing and bustling city in the oasis. The time of the space Liu Ming was in also turned from night to day.
The sudden changes in the surroundings suddenly made Liu Ming even warier of the things around him. After all, the occurrence of such a situation basically meant that he had fallen into some sort of illusion, or he had been taken to some other place by some sort of teleportation portal.
Either way, it meant that he currently faced an unknown danger. However, even if he was keeping his guard up, he definitely could not stay put and wait foolishly. Hence, Liu Ming quickly approached a passerby in the unknown city and asked, "Sir, where is this?"
At first, the passerby was stunned to see him. After a moment, he then smilingly said, "This is Tucker City, one of the three bustling cities of Kerri Desert. If you don't even know about this, how did you find your way here?"
Upon hearing this, Liu Ming pretended to be helpless and said, "I was teleported here by a teleportation portal. I don't know how to go back now."
After hearing Liu Ming's words, the passerby was a little surprised. He said, "I don't know if I should say that you're lucky or unlucky to be in your current situation. Kerri Desert's environment is special, and unknown magical resources are abundant here. Hence, it is almost impossible for a shift in space to happen properly. The vast majority of people teleported to the Kerri Desert had either been teleported to uninhabited areas to starve and die of thirst or to the dens of monsters, which eat them."
At this moment, a system prompt floated across Liu Ming's eyes to indicate that the city was his quest location.
[Congratulations, Adventurer, you have activated the quest chain's tenth round—Investigating The Mysterious Ancient City!]
[Due to an accident, you have arrived in a mysterious, ancient city known as Tucker City. It may look bustling and prosperous on the surface, but you will discover that something strange lies hidden in every corner if you take a careful look. Hence, you are determined to find useful clues in the city.]
[Quest Requirement: Find at least three locations where you feel the strongest sense of unrest in Tucker City.]
[Quest Reward: The more locations found, the greater the reward.]
The quest hints had all been given, and they proved that something was very wrong with the city, just like Liu Ming had guessed previously. However, Liu Ming was not a Bandit. Thus, it would still be difficult for him to avoid the people in the city and find the locations with the strongest sense of unrest.
After all, what would happen if they were real NPCs and not monsters in disguise?
If the passersby were real NPCs and Liu Ming's actions caused them to be displeased and unwilling to provide information, it would be difficult for him to continue with the quest.
Of course, Liu Ming did not have any hesitations. After bidding farewell to the passerby, Liu Ming began strolling around in the city.
……
The time flow in the ancient Tucker City was clearly faster than that of normal maps. Before Liu Ming could even stroll for a long time, night had descended. However, the quest didn't seem to have taken the abnormal time flow into consideration because Liu Ming didn't receive a new system prompt after night fell.
Fortunately, although Tucker City was called a city, it was only a few rounds larger than the novice village. That short period of time was enough for Liu Ming to stroll around Tucker City once.
Although no changes occurred in Liu Ming's quest progress at all during the stroll, he had actually already assessed all the buildings in Tucker City and selected a few of them that he thought to be suspicious. By doing this, Liu Ming didn't have to eliminate them one by one when he searched for peculiar or suspicious things at night.
As the sky turned completely dark, the residents of Tucker City returned home one after another like normal NPCs.
The streets were soon completely deserted, leaving behind only the city guards, who occasionally passed by.
After seeing the deserted streets, Liu Ming knew that he could begin to take action.
-- 贈り物
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