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nTranslator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

n“Think nothing of it, we’re teammates.” Lin Jie smiled, and glanced at the Wretched Thoughts in his bag and asked, “How many more mission items do you need?”

nQiu Yuan read between the lines and understood it as a precursor to a teammate leaving the party. It was common knowledge between all players that the purpose of joining a party was to increase the effectiveness of killing monsters in Mission Mixed Monsters, and each would leave the team to embark on their own path after completing the mission.

n“I am 16 items away.” Qiu Yuan took a look and got ready to exit the group.

n“Here’s 12 for you, let’s fight four more.” Lin Jie retrieved the Bone Dust again and motioned for Qiu Yuan to keep it.

n“I don’t want it.”

n“Don’t be wishy-washy, just take it if you wish to do the mission by yourself as you still have to search for runes; the random spawning of runes already takes up more than an hour.” Lin Jie paused, and joked, “Moreover, there’s no reason for me to leave the group having just met a pretty girl out in the wild while training. At least let us develop some degree of liking!”

nQiu Yuan giggled out loud and gave Lin Jie a look. “Do you think I’m an NPC? What degree of liking are you trying to develop?”

n“It would have been so much more convenient if you were an NPC.” Lin Jie laughed, and opened the trading column, placing the 12 Bone Dust atop.

n“Thanks,” Qiu Yuan said again, took out a Skill Book and placed it on the trading column, “This is for you, I don’t like to owe anyone a favor.”

nSkill: Rebel’s Fight

nCasting Resource: Action, Anger

nSkill Description: When you are attacked, hold your weapon across horizontally to enter Judgment. Successful judgment will annul the damage from the attack while causing an additional 5 damage points. When you own the skill and expand 5 anger points, your damage level increases by 5 additional points. Cooling time of 30 seconds.

nJob restriction: Warrior

n“This is great stuff! It would totally be disrespectful of me to reject it,” Lin Jie said merrily and passed her the Skill Book: Kiss of the Dark. “Don’t reject it. We will become more efficient at killing monsters after you’ve mastered it.”

n“Okay.”

nEach went on to learn the skill, and Lin Jie’s skill column gained an additional small icon – Rebel’s Fight.

nRebel’s Fight was an extremely challenging skill, it was invincible in the hands of the strong, and yet really it was also nothing special in the hands of an average. However, that sort of skill was highly valuable in the market and could easily fetch a selling price of at least 60 bronze coins. Damage-related skill books like this, including the Kiss of the Dark, were valued possessions.

nUsing the Death Language Potion to create an Undead, Lin Jie struck his longsword forward, hitting 12 points of damage while attracting hatred to himself. And at that moment, the Undead raised its rotten hand to strike!

nWith a swift positioning of his sword horizontally, a crisp sound followed.

n“Rebel’s Fight!”

n-22!

nThe damage from the skill was generated and the Undead’s health level reduced by a small bar. Qiu Yuan enchanted the Undead with Dark Speech while amassing a shear-like beam in her right hand and sent it straight into the Undead’s chest!

n-21!

n“Such strong damage!” Qiu Yuan was inwardly surprised, as this further emphasized the value of the Kiss of the Dark Skill Book. This was, after all, a Skill Book that spawned from an elite, and was definitely not something that the other basic skills sold by players in small villages could compare to.

nAnd as for Lin Jie, she had finally let her guard down. After all, in these few hours spent together, Lin Jie emitted the vibe of a matured, highly-skilled, and someone not bothered by small matters. Coupled with their telepathic coordination, she could not help but feel like they had known each other before. What a peculiar feeling.

nWith their new skills, their speed of killing monsters doubled; following the death of one Undead, out generated the Wretched Thoughts and its Bone Dust. While Qiu Yuan was collecting the Bone Dust, she suddenly said, “My name is Qiu Yuan.”

n“Hi, I am Fu Sheng.” Lin Jie smiled. Revealing her name to him was proof that they were no longer strangers. But there is still quite a long time required to accumulate favorable impression before they could return to their friendship in the past.

n“Fu Sheng, you are so capable, I bet you must have a group?”

n“No, I like to travel alone.”

n“Eh? Why don’t you just join our group then? After we reach level 3, we could go to the Cat Demon Lair together!” Qiu Yuan smiled, thinking that Big Sister would be happy to know that she had pulled in such a skilled person!

nLin Jie blocked the Undead’s attack with Rebel’s Fight, smoothly sending the sword straight into its skull and said, “I don’t fancy joining groups as they’re too restrictive. But if your team has vacancies, reserve one for me; I’d probably be making a trip down to Cat Demon Lair.”

n“Okay.” While Qiu Yuan agreed, she felt a bit uncomfortable; it was a weird feeling that probably arose because of those infatuated stares she received all these years and how the guys in the group had been overly zealous towards her. And now, disappointment filled her having gotten rejected so bluntly.

nLin Jie, on the other hand, did not notice anything amiss; in his opinion, there were many chances for them to meet in the future. The pleasure he derived from Rebel’s Fight was out of the world; having such skill so early in the game was thrilling! While it was a far cry from the diversified and adventurous battles in his past life, it was at the same time much comfortable than the cutthroat killing.

nWhen the fourth Undead collapsed, Qiu Yuan’s fiftieth Bone Dust from the mission was generated.

n“Here.” Lin Jie passed it to Qiu Yuan and smiled, “Mission accomplished!”

nQiu Yuan froze, why did his tone sound like he could not wait to leave? Qiu Yuan, who was consumed by her thoughts, suddenly came to her senses.

n‘What the hell? Why should I care so much about what he thinks?’ Qiu Yuan, being her rational self again, smiled cooly, kept the Bone Dust and waved, “Well, then I’m going back.”

n“Okay. Remember to call me along when you are heading down to the dungeon, I’m waiting to scale to greater heights under your wings.”

n“Sure.”

nThe two temporarily separated.

nLin Jie looked at his experience bar and figured he should be able to advance to level 3 shortly after completing the mission.

nOnce players reached level 3, the dungeons officially welcomed them. The dungeons were categorized into Simple, Ordinary, Normal, Difficult, Master and Expert, five different levels. Drop-rate of equipment in the dungeon was higher yet harder, and it severely tested the group’s coordination. It was also when the disparity between guild players developed.

nIn level 3 dungeons, the most popular one had got to be the Cat Demon Lair, and there was something extremely important which Lin Jie had to acquire.

nFocusing back to the present moment, Lin Jie walked towards Allaso, with the 30 sets of Wretched Thoughts in his hands.

n“Have you found what I wanted?” Allaso, who was fiddling with a corpse, raised his head and asked.

n“Yes, I found 30 of them.” Lin Jie took out the Wretched Thoughts.

n“Very well, very well.” Allaso put away the Wretched Thoughts and said merrily, “This is your reward.”

n‘Ding~’

n-‘You have completed Potion Master Allaso’s mission, 30% completion, you received 3125 experience points.’

n-“Potion Master Allaso taught you Perfect Potion Mastery, you absorbed his teaching and proficiency level increased by 50.

n‘Perfect Potion Mastery!’ Lin Jie suddenly recalled the Undead’s Hatred that was generated from the Rare Elite, took it out and asked, “What use does the Undead’s Hatred have?”

n“This is a powerful cry from the Undead that can cast Dark Magic while providing the potion effect from 10 sets of Wretched Thoughts. Allaso said, “You can give it to me.”

n‘Ding~’

n-‘You have completed Potion Master Allaso’s mission, 40% completion, you received 800 experience points.’

n-‘You received Rune’s Cape.’

nRune’s Cape (Cape)

nCan be used by Warriors and Paladins.

nRequires: Level 3, Heavy Armor

nDefense level: 5-8

nHealth Points: 20

nEndurance: 1

nAdditional effect: Rune’s energy, you sparked Rune Cape’s energy, increasing your health level limit by 20, lasts for three minutes.

nThis mission’s reward was too generous! And it looked like there was still follow-up. However, collecting Wretched Thoughts was simply too time-consuming. While Lin Jie was highly interested to see the mission’s final reward, it would take up a few days just to accumulate the 100 sets of Wretched Thoughts required.

nHowever, in the equipment store, there is an item called the Holy Flame Torch, exclusive for players under level 5, its function was to kill an ordinary Undead below level 10 in seconds. The flip side was, players would not be able to gain any experience nor equipment, only mission items. This was an item only filthy rich players who were trying to complete missions would purchase.

nA Holy Flame Torch cost five bronze coins, quite an expensive price tag.

nBut…

nLin Jie returned to Town of Meyer, set up a sign at the area where Fear Devils spawned, and acquired massive amounts of Fear Devils’ Spit at one bronze coin per set. Fear Devils’ Spit was the only thing that generated out of level 1 Fear Devils but NPCs did not keep such disgusting stuff, causing most players to casually throw it aside.

nOne bronze coin could be traded for a loaf of bread. Many players’ eyes sparkled, and rapidly collected the Fear Devils’ Spit from the floor and dumped it at Lin Jie. His bag was quickly filled.

n“Dude, why would you want to keep this?” a player asked.

nLin Jie did not even answer, and simply set up automatic trading until his available coins were depleted. At that moment, the one silver coin from the Gradeless Treasure Box was significantly useful! In less than half an hour, his bag was filled with Fear Devils’ Spit and emptied of his bronze coins.

n“Hey, don’t go! I’ve still some more here!”

n“I’ve got four more sets.”

nLin Jie hurriedly said, “Everyone, please wait. My bag is full. I will come back and collect in half an hour’s time.”

nPassion from the people was overwhelming…

nThe Fear Devils’ Spit had one extremely great use – potion creation! The failure rate of potion creation at proficiency level before 1000 points for ordinary Potion Mastery was as high as 50%, with a small probability of obtaining bad quality potion, causing the Potion Mastery to be a money-burning job at the early stages.

nThe pros of Perfect Potion Mastery were, it did not have the system’s default failure rate correction. As long as one was skillful enough, the chances of successful potion creation were very high, with a small probability of obtaining high-quality potions even.

nNow, what he needed to create was the specialty potion of the Potion King in his previous life, and that was the creator’s ultimate get-rich item: the Slow-Restoring Mana Potion. Magic was the second life of Mages and Priest among other jobs and was also the tripping stone of their level advancement. At the current stage, nobody could afford to drink magic bottles or wait for the plain water to take effect and slowly restore magic; plus players had to step away from a battle with the latter method. Then, what was going to happen? That was how the Slow-Restoring Mana Potion came to be.

n10 Fear Devils’ Spit with one crystal bottle, two Dissolving Potions and one set of Neutralizing Potion could create a bottle of Slow-Restoring Mana Potion.

nLin Jie vividly remembered this potion had an incredibly huge market before level 10 when not many were proficient in Potion Mastery. With the monopoly of such potion, Potion King did not hold back from accumulating his wealth and was said to have earned tens of golden coins.

nNow, this advantage had landed in Lin Jie’s hands.

n‘Hehe…’

n“First, add in the Dissolving Potion. Then add the Fear Devils’ Spit…” Lin Jie mumbled on, as the Potion King did. Funny how that guy was his enemy but had now become his mentor.

nGently shaking, the potion turned from yellow to blue and eventually froze, like how pudding instantaneously diluted.

n-‘You have created the Slow-Restoring Mana Potion, proficiency level of Perfect Potion Mastery 1.’

nSlow-Restoring Mana Potion: You recover 2 points of magic level every second in the 10 minutes following the use of the potion. Subsequent usages will halve its effects, to a maximum of 200%.

nIn his previous life, Potion King was extremely greedy; he had sold one Slow-Restoring Mana Potion for 15 bronze coins. This caused many to be dissatisfied, and Lin Jie was one of them. He must be crazy, to be selling one potion at such an exorbitant price!

nThis time, however, Lin Jie was going to place the Slow-Restoring Mana Potion up for auction, with the starting base price at 15 bronze coins and 20 bronze coins as the final buy now price.

nAt the early stages when one did not have to spend much mana, a bottle of Slow-Restoring Mana Potion could let them endure 10 minutes of magic casting, highly increasing the efficiency of level advancement! Moreover, that was such an exclusive creation!

nAfter creating a batch of potions, Lin Jie continued to purchase the Fear Devils’ Spit. This item was only generated at Town of Meyer, a lot could be gathered at first, after which, would require players to kill monsters. When the second batch of potions appeared, the system notification alert rang continuously.

n-‘Your Slow-Restoring Mana Potion was auctioned at a price of 17 bronze coins.’

n-‘Your Slow-Restoring Mana Potion was auctioned at a price of 16 bronze coins.’

n…

nThe coins in Lin Jie’s bag increased at a tremendous rate and quickly turned into a silver color.

n‘Silver coins already!’

nThis was moreover, only just the beginning. Lin Jie had at least more than 200 potions in his bag that were not yet sold. Scarcity resulted in demand; he had only sold 20 bottles at any one shot.

nContinuously placing 20 bottles of the potion up for auction, Lin Jie started to search for another item: low-level Poison-Antidote Potion and all its ingredients.

nThe dungeon, Castle Wood, would open when one reached level 5; it generated most jobs’ armor and equipment, but all the monsters’ attacks in Castle Wood were laced with poison, which could be accumulated. And hence, the demand for poison-antidote grew.

nIn his previous life, when Castle Wood had opened, the price of low-level Poison-Antidote Potion had rolled by ten-fold, and the value of Potioneers, who had learned the recipe for Poison-Antidote, rapidly rose with the tides.

n‘There are prescriptions?’ Lin Jie couldn’t help but smile, the prescription low-level Poison-Antidote Potions was of marginal value. The reason was simple; the proficiency level increased by very little, with a low probability of successful potion creation. A prescription cost only 15 bronze coins. Lin Jie swept up all 13 pieces of them.

nAt the same time, the Slow-Restoring Mana Potion was wiped out again; the Headhunters guild was patrolling in the auction house, in an attempt to find the person selling the potion.

nLin Jie placed another batch of potion for auction while ensuring all the low-level Poison-Antidote Potions and its relevant information disappeared from the auction house before he left satisfactorily.

nHe wanted to stockpile the potions! The inflation and decrease of item prices were not controlled by humans, but he could influence the prices to some extent.

nIn this life, the rebound price of low-level Poison-Antidote Potion could be much scarier.

n‘Ding~’

nDistrict Announcement: To the friend selling the Slow-Restoring Mana Potion, I, The Heavenly Shield from the Ironwall Empire, am sincerely inviting you to join our guild. I will give you the preferential treatment of that of a Vice Chairman, contact me if you are interested.

nLin Jie couldn’t help but laugh, ‘He used the bulletin board to invite people? This guy is quite the spender; he must be trying to gain some fame while riding on the coattail of this matter.’

n‘Joining the Ironwall Empire?’ Lin Jie did not think even need to ponder over it. Their disbandment was almost predictable, but Lin Jie was interested in speeding up the process…

nThis time, the turnover rate of the potion had slowed by a lot, but Lin Jie was not anxious. He carried the silver coins in his bag and went to the general store, and bought five Silver Hurler Guns, three Capturing Traps, one Shape-Transforming Scroll, and lastly reluctantly spent 60 bronze coins on an additional Teleporting Scroll – that thing could let a player instantaneously move a distance of 3m.

nAs for the potions in the auction house, Lin Jie couldn’t help but smile. Could he not understand the players’ thoughts well enough? The buyers were playing hard to get, in an attempt to get him to clear his stocks. If that were going to be the case, Lin Jie would simply recall all the remaining potions.

n“Ahhhhh, I’m so frustrated.” Qiu Yuan suddenly sent a message, sounding exasperated.

n“What’s wrong?”

n“I wanted to purchase the Slow-Restoring Mana Potion, but my Elder Sister told me the seller was intentionally trying to raise the prices and made me wait a bit as the price would go down within five minutes. However, it was cleared off the racks by some others, and it even seemed like it was wiped out, ahhhh!!!”

nLin Jie laughed.

n“How could you still laugh!?”

n“I really want to pity you, but I will do it after I’m done laughing, hahaha…” Thinking of how the sexy and strategic lady got tricked and her resulting embarrassing situation, Lin Jie couldn’t help but laugh before clearing his throat, “I bought quite a few, I’ll send you some.”

nQiu Yuan skeptically said, “Why would a Warrior like you purchase Slow-Restoring Mana Potions?”

nLie Jie earnestly and solemnly said, “I wanted to wait for that guy to finish selling so I would throw it out again in the market at the double price.”

n“Pui- Pui- Pui-! Evil traders, all of you are evil traders!” Qiu Yuan was scornful for quite a while before exuberantly saying, “Wouldn’t I then make you suffer a deficit?”

n“Yeah, such loss, I take back my words,” Lin Jie teased.

n“Hmph, no! Give me the potions, now!”

nImagining the adorable image of Qiu Yuan shaking her fist, Lin Jie couldn’t help but smile and sent her 20 bottles of Slow-Restoring Mana Potion.

n“I’m going to switch off messages, you might not be able to contact me from now on.”

n“What are you going to do?”

n“Mission.”

n“Oh…”

nQiu Yuan did not press any further as she could hear the reluctance in Lin Jie’s tone to share.

nLin Jie closed the chat message and walked towards the exit of Town of Meyer. Countless prosperous races appeared in the game; in history, with the platitude of wars in this continent, there were appearances of Ruler of the Elements, Period of the Giant Dragon and Devils Era amongst other periods. All those races were hiding in different corners of the continent. During the Period of the Cultured, there were natural disasters, and evil monsters also appeared. The places where the evil monsters appeared had the famous “Devils Fork”, which split the continent into three.

nWhere the Devil’s Flame burned, a mountain peak gradually solidified – Dark Summit. The weird thing was, neither monsters nor treasure boxes spawned there.

nIn his previous life, Lin Jie probably wouldn’t have gone there if not for being dead sure there were accomplishment points he could achieve, and what happened after that would not have happened…

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