Arsonist Staff

Lu Yang's eyes turned green at once. If not for the bison respawning nearby, he would have jumped down immediately.

In Second World, equipment was divided into common, bronze, black iron, silver, gold, dark gold, epic, and legendary tiers.

Generally speaking, ordinary monsters only dropped common and bronze equipment. Elite monsters dropped bronze and black iron equipment, while boss-level monsters dropped black iron and silver equipment. The Golden Wyrm was a special boss in the beginner village, and Lu Yang was greatly looking forward to the Arsonist Staff it had dropped.

After spending an hour clearing out the surrounding monsters, Lu Yang slid down the rope. He quickly picked up the Arsonist Staff and the other equipment, then returned to the mountain.

Arsonist Staff (Gold-grade)

Attack 4-8

Constitution +2

Intelligence +10

Spell Damage +24

Spell Critical Chance +12

Spell Hit Chance +12

Attached Spell: Fire Wall

Looking at the Arsonist Staff's exceptional attributes, Lu Yang could not help laughing loudly. "I knew it. I'm incredibly lucky after being reborn."

Among all the equipment in the beginner village, the gear for other classes was bronze or black iron at best, with silver being the highest tier. Only mages had a gold-grade staff, but its drop rate was less than one in a hundred thousand. Lu Yang had not expected to be lucky enough to obtain it.

The staff's attributes were practically outrageous for this level. Ten points of Intelligence were equivalent to a mage gaining the Intelligence of two extra levels, and it also came with 24 points of Spell Damage. Normally, a bronze-grade staff of the same level only added 4 points of Spell Damage, which was already considered impressive. His staff gave six times as much.

More importantly, the Arsonist Staff's attached skill was Fire Wall, the only area-of-effect attack spell in the beginner village.

Rain of Fire

Type: Fire Spell

Cost: 30 Mana

Duration: 30 seconds

Range: 30 yards

Description: Cast a 2×2 Fire Wall at the target location, dealing 36 points of fire spell damage each time.

With this skill, Lu Yang believed his leveling speed would increase dramatically. Excited, he hurriedly equipped the staff, and his Spell Damage immediately rose to 77.

He walked outside the concave area of the valley and found a place filled with bison. Raising his staff, Lu Yang used Fireball to gather the bison below him, then cast Fire Wall. Before long, Fire Walls ignited beneath dozens of bison at once, and strings of "-71" appeared over their heads.

When an area-of-effect spell was cast, having too many monsters caused the damage to be spread out. In fact, the spell damage formula in Second World was not simply base skill damage plus Spell Damage. It was actually (base skill damage × skill level + Spell Damage) × spell coefficient.

This spell coefficient was a variable value determined by the number of monsters. If there was only one monster, the spell coefficient was 1. When there were many monsters, it could drop as low as 0.6.

While waiting for the spell to take effect, Lu Yang opened his inventory and checked the other items dropped by the Golden Wyrm.

Hexagonal Ring (Black Iron-grade)

Spell Damage 2-5

Intelligence +2

Required Level: 3

He had not expected another fine mage item to drop. Lu Yang was just high enough level to use it, so after casting Rain of Fire once, he equipped the Hexagonal Ring and gained another 3 points of Spell Damage.

He continued checking the other equipment, but as soon as he looked further down, Lu Yang's eyes widened again. He could not believe he had been lucky enough to obtain the Wyrm Battle Shield—and it was silver-grade.

Wyrm Battle Shield (Silver-grade)

Defense 7-22

Strength +2

Constitution +3

Block Value +8

Shields had always sold for high prices in Second World, especially during the early stages. The purchase price offered by major guilds for this shield even exceeded the value of the Arsonist Staff in his hands. To clear high-end dungeons, a main tank needed a good shield, and in the beginner village, the Wyrm Battle Shield was unquestionably the best shield.

Black Iron Helmet (Black Iron-grade)

Defense 3-6

Strength +1

Constitution +1

Its attributes were average, but at this stage, it was definitely one of the best pieces of equipment. He could sell it for a good price after returning to the beginner village.

Among the remaining items was a fire mage skill book, Scorch, which Lu Yang immediately learned.

Scorch

Type: Fire Spell

Cost: 12 Mana

Cast Time: 1.5 seconds

Range: 30 yards

Description: Release a stream of fire at the target, enveloping its entire body in flames and making it more vulnerable to fire damage. Stacks up to 5 times. Each stack increases fire spell damage by 15 points and deals 10 points of fire damage for 30 seconds.

This skill was useless for now. It only had an effect when fighting bosses. The other drops were 6 Small Instant Mana Potions and 7 Small Instant Health Potions.

Small Heal Potion: Instantly restores 60 Health.

Small Mana Potion: Instantly restores 80 Mana.

Compared with the other items, Lu Yang cared more about these thirteen instant health and mana potions. He only had 100 Health in total, and one Small Heal Potion could restore more than half of it. During the early stages of the game, these were items capable of turning the tide of battle. After carefully putting them into his consumables bar, Lu Yang continued killing monsters...

Lu Yang was leveling like mad, but what he did not know was that the outside world had gone mad once again.

While Lu Yang spent two hours killing the Golden Wyrm, other players had surpassed him, and he had temporarily fallen out of the top 100 on the Level Rankings. Killing the Golden Wyrm had only given him 1,100 experience points, which still had not allowed him to overtake the other players. But once he began leveling with Fire Wall, each cast struck twenty to thirty bison, the equivalent of twenty to thirty people helping him kill monsters alone. His leveling speed immediately soared.

One hour later, Lu Yang returned to the top 100 on the Level Rankings.

Three hours later, Lu Yang had risen to tenth place on the Level Rankings.

Five hours later, Lu Yang returned to first place on the Level Rankings. At the same time, he reached Level 4, leaving Xiong Ba in second place a full level behind.

If everyone had initially thought Lu Yang reaching first place on the Level Rankings was merely luck and not worth much attention, they could now be certain that Lu Yang had found a very good bug that allowed him to level rapidly.

At this point, Xiong Ba and the leaders of the major guilds had slowed down in leveling because Level 3 monsters were extremely difficult to kill, and leveling up required five times as much experience as Level 1. More importantly, his own level had risen, but his subordinates' levels had not kept up.

Faced with this situation, Xiong Ba said to the people around him, "Find Lu Yang immediately. The first-place player on the Level Rankings on the first day is the face we use to recruit high-level players into our guild. We absolutely cannot let another guild take him before us."

Old Twilight, the leader of the Purple-Gold Dynasty guild, issued the same order.

The other guilds did the same.