Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

The Bandit holding the post of the quartermaster was renamed as Sixth Blacky. When he saw Lin Jie, he bowed to him respectfully and opened the Exchange Page.

As the main mastermind behind this action, Lin Jie naturally would receive the most rewards. This time round, he would not need to exchange any Reputation points to get the items!

However, the main gains of this robbery were still the 1,000 gold coins. As for the rest, there was still nothing useful… Lin Jie looked glumly at the items such as Rusted Wooden Rod, Smelly Foot Binding Cloth on the Exchange Page and heaved a sigh.

Well, this time round since the Bandits’ Boss still treated him fairly well, he would spare his life and see how he performed for the next action.

At this moment, the Bandits’ Boss came up to him secretly and commented in a low voice, “Bro, by your looks, I guess there’s nothing inside that you will want to choose? Really sorry about this. However, not to worry—a talent like you shouldn’t be robbed of your rewards! Thus, I had snuck these down from the City Leader’s wife. I am not sure if you will find this helpful? Here, take these.”

Ding~

——’You received two pieces of Critical Hit Gem.’

Lin Jie jumped in joy at this. He quickly took a look at the gem’s attributes, and nearly kissed the Bandits’ Boss!

Critical Hit Gem: This can be engraved onto your weapons, and it will increase 7% of Critical strike chance.

Within all the different types of gems, the Critical Hit Gems were the most expensive! This was due to the power of Critical Hits—a single Critical Hit could decide the result of a battle! Normally, a gem which could increase Critical strike chance by 2% would be considered good, one which could increase Critical strike chances by 3% would be extraordinary! Yet now there’s a Critical Hit Gem with a Critical strike chance of 7%… Even in the whole of Lin Jie’s previous life when he had been playing the game for seven years, he had not seen many of such gems around!

Now he received two at a go—it seemed like he was in a dream!

At this point of time, any kinds of gems were considered as luxury items in the game. This was because players frequently changed their equipment, and the engraved gems on their weapons couldn’t be removed. As such, there was a low supply for gems in the market—many players would rather save them up and use them in the future.

However, for Lin Jie, gems were great! As Heritage equipment, he couldn’t engrave gems onto Broken Blade—but he could use them as enhancing materials and let Broken Blade absorb certain attributes of the gems!

The importance of gems would gradually be revealed as the leveling up process of players became slower and slower. A player who donned equipment engraved with gems could have around 10% better Stats than a similar player at the same level. However, right now, the market for gems was like a pool of dead water, and their prices fluctuated a lot. Hence, many people felt it was a stupid action to stock up on gems or sell gems they owned.

Lin Jie looked at Broken Blade’s progress bar: 2%. Broken Blade would require large amounts of materials to upgrade to the next level, and the attributes of these materials had a direct influence on the attributes of Broken Blade when it was being upgraded. Gems were one of the purest materials available in the game, and hence, these would be a good choice of materials to use for upgrading Broken Blade.

Furthermore, the next batch of Dungeons in the game to be faced by players would be of Level 25 and above. Don’t belittle the rise of these levels—even though it was only being raised by 10 levels, the attributes of the monsters within those dungeons were totally different from what he faced before. Even though many players would also have leveled up, they would still find it hard to conquer these dungeons.

Lin Jie kept the Critical Hit Gems into his backpack and summoned the Tiger King to return to City of Light. He practiced using Health Potions and Magic Potions to create massive amounts of the Middle-Grade Natural Recovery Potions. What’s worth mentioning was that Seven Ears had tapped on the principles of the Perfect Potion Mastery, and hence, decoded the potions’ formulas. Right now the Sky Provisions Shop was selling limited amounts of Middle-Grade Natural Recovery Potions, and it attracted another wave of sales.

“Excuse me Brother, you are stepping on my mission’s items,” said a humble-looking Knight to Lin Jie, pointing to a package being stepped on by the Tiger King.

Lin Jie instructed the Tiger King to move away. The Knight nodded to thank him and ran off with the package.

The traffic within the City of Light had not decreased after the city siege, but instead, it became busier! This was because the Construction Missions had attracted numerous players to come to City of Light. Other than that, as the Auction House’s influence became greater, many newbie players decided to try their hands on this game. These players naturally chose City of Light to be their first residency location in the game.

Something worth mentioning was that with the increase of auctions in the City of Light, many well-to-do enterprises in the real world started investing in the game. Brotherhood was naturally one of their main attractions, and many businesses hoped to gain naming rights over Brotherhood.

However, tremors ran down Lin Jie’s spine as soon as he imagined the names like “Sophie’s Brotherhood”. In any case, Brotherhood was an independent organization that did not need to accept any sponsors by enterprises.

Meanwhile, the past of the Auctioneer Bella who appeared briefly during the first Players’ Auction was being revealed. As people had once seen her wearing provocative clothes and showing off her figure when working at the Potioneers Guild, her veiled appearance at the Auction was being jested by shameless fellows who threw names like ‘whore’ and descriptors like ‘pretending to be innocent’ at her on the players’ forums. This negative news spread and some trouble-makers made personal attacks on Bella by using Photoshop to create lewd photos of her.

Junior Mo led a team of media workers and began refuting those comments. However, the opposite party knew how players were hooked to negative news of pretty ladies in the games. Thus, more controversy occurred.

The An Xiaoran team, which was in competition against Junior Mo, made use of this opportunity and tried to usurp Junior Mo’s position in the gaming media world.

Lin Jie hurriedly checked out the forums, and realized the severity of matters!

To resolve this, Lin Jie posted a post on the forum. He did not try to explain anything or make any requests for the media to spare Bella, but just posted one sentence: “Bella is the Chief Auctioneer from Brotherhood, please stop making rude comments about her!”

When the post was published, many attackers immediately backed off. After all, not many people actually dared to challenge Brotherhood.

However, An Xiaoran was furious about this! Seeing how things settled down again, she made an outcry on the players’ forum, “Brothers and sisters, this isn’t the first time Brotherhood has tried to cover up things! We must unite together and resist their forces! Do you all want to be coerced to be part of Brotherhood—even the free forum too?”

Her rants shocked everyone!

Brotherhood was made up by solo players mainly, and of course, there would be all kinds of experts—such as forum supporters, computer hackers within Brotherhood. As such, it was soon that An Xiaoran’s game ID, “Mortal Army” was discovered and posted onto the players’ forum. Not only was An Xiaoran not a pretty girl, “she” was actually a burly, uncouth guy! This person was a member of a guild called “Red Lotus,” and all the members of this guild were players who liked to disguise themselves as girls!

Following which, Brotherhood’s members, who were completing the Arrest Missions, would also kill members of the Red Lotus guild when they saw them along their way. This condition persisted until all the “ladies” of the Red Lotus guild did not dare to show up in the game again.

An Xiaoran tried to use “her lady’s voice” to seek justice, but no one supported her anymore. Instead, everyone laughed and mocked “her.” The gaming media world became full of supporters for Junior Mo’s team, “One Word.” All those people who posted insulting posts about Bella deleted their posts silently and did not dare to make any comments in case they offended Brotherhood again.

This series of events settled down unexpectedly in such a manner. However, Bella was deeply hurt. The numerous players’ insults made her feel like hiding away, and she even thought of deleting her account. If not for Seven Ears’ and Star Kill’s strong persuasions, she would not have appeared in the game anymore.

To this, Lin Jie only left one comment, “If you can’t even handle such a setback, how are you qualified to become the Auction House’s Chief Auctioneer?”

After which, Lin Jie left without turning back.

Bella stared at Lin Jie’s leaving figure for a full half an hour before she wiped her face clean of tears. A radiant smile finally appeared on her face again after so long.

——————

Gulp…

A plum of lava leaped out from the lava pond, and like a living thing, it licked up the fresh air in delight before falling back into the pond.

Lin Jie continued his heavy steps on this live volcano, and a series of 30 damage figures appeared above his head. Even though he wore the Heritage War Boots, it couldn’t stop the hot air from attacking him. He felt as if he was being roasted alive.

After Lin Jie received the Critical Hit Gems in surprise, he recalled a map in the game which was known for producing gems in his previous life.

——’You have entered the Endless Volcanoes.’

The Silver-Feathered Eagle circled the skies in a tired manner. Through the Spirit Vision skill, Lin Jie could see someone enjoying herself while roaming the volcanoes. Her good figure was displayed as she bent up and down to mine ores and took sips of water.

This person was, of course, Miss Silent Grey Sky. Ever since she had gotten the Bronze Miner Hoe—perhaps it would be more suitable to call it the Formidable Hoe—she had made Lin Jie bring her to the Endless Volcanoes map, and began happily mining her ores within all the Fire Demon Dogs and Ablaze Beasts.

Seeing that she was still safe and secure, Lin Jie heaved a sigh of relief. As there were many monsters on the Endless Volcanoes, it was not appropriate to ride on the Tiger King here. Moreover, since they were quite some distance apart, Lin Jie gave up any ideas of visiting her.

Maybe he would go get some ores from her if he turned out successful for this trip.

Lin Jie’s aim for this trip was to visit a map commonly known by players as the Cave of Gems—the Cave of Crystals. The Cave of Crystals was hidden deep within the Endless Volcanoes.

Below his feet, he could see pits which had gushing lava within them. They were like huge beasts opening their mouths, and their breaths sizzled the air around, intimidating anyone who dared to near this place. No one would have guessed that a map full of Crystals would be hidden here!

A dark-red colored lizard lied down flat before the cave’s entrance and drank down the lava in huge gulps.

Red Lizard: Level 40 Elite, Health Points: 190,000

This lizard was extremely obtuse while it was feasting on the lava. Unless one’s attacks could deplete more than half of its health points, it would not do anything to them. However, once it had finished its meal, its strong limbs and narrow tongue would become the most dangerous weapons!

Lin Jie summoned back the Silver-Feathered Eagle and waited silently. The Red Lizard would feast on the lava for 15 minutes and then rest for 1 minute. Its soft tongue was like a whip, and anything within 10 yards would be curled up by its tongue!

One must divert its attention if they wanted to get into the cave!

Burp—

The Red Lizard was finally full, and it licked its mouth in satisfaction. It prepared to lie down to digest its food and for the next round of feasting.

Lin Jie took out his Short Crossbow, placed arrows on it, and shot them out!

The pale-yellowish eyes of the Red Lizard turned, and it fixed its eyes upon Lin Jie. It stamped onto the ground hard and charged like a huge red arc speedily towards Lin Jie! Its red tongue was already stretched out and prepared to curl up Lin Jie!

Forward Charge!

Lin Jie charged towards the lizard without any hesitation too. In the next moment, it had crawled to before Lin Jie with its peculiar motions and opened its mouth!

Lin Jie activated the Feather Drop spell! His body was lifted up, and he made a great leap! The lizard’s tongue struck out at him. Lin Jie’s eyes narrowed, and he thrust out Broken Blade at it, hitting the middle of its tongue tip!

Ssss—

The excruciating pain made the Red Lizard fling out its tongue, and the whip-like red tongue smashed onto Lin Jie’s head.

Lin Jie couldn’t dodge in time, and his body was thrown out like a cannonball against the cave’s walls! After he landed, he immediately opened his eyes and gulped down a Health Potion to recover his nearly emptied health bar. Lin Jie jumped up and made another leap into the cave.