"Sure, but I'll need plenty of monster-spawning grounds. I want a ton of experience." Gao Linzhi agreed without hesitation.
Since East Wolf Village had acted dishonorably first, he had no reason to return the favor.
Another protagonist would probably have wiped out the whole village at a time like this.
But Gao Linzhi wasn't going to take out his anger on innocent villagers.
He would only kill the Great Elder and the Fourth Elder, who had set him up. The Fourth Elder had done him some favors, too, so he'd let him die with a little dignity.
That was because he was kind, after all.
"Of course, that's no problem." The old leader was overjoyed.
The two of them then settled a few details.
Watching the satisfied leader leave, Gao Linzhi couldn't help smiling.
East Wolf Village wasn't reliable, but was West Wolf Village?
You could only rely on yourself!
Depending on some faction to be reliable was practically a joke played with your own life.
As a transmigrator, he'd seen more than enough lessons like this in both his past and present lives.
With that in mind, he decided to spend his experience points right away.
Over the past week, his noble rank had risen to 8, increasing the experience he gained from killing monsters by 100%. He had earned a total of 200,000 experience points (100,000 + 100,000).
That amount would be nothing in an ordinary game, but Skyfall Game was a realistic one.
He chose to log out, and his Game Character went offline as well. Spending points outside the game was the safest option.
He returned to the cavern, closed his eyes, and began spending points through the data panel.
Last time, he'd learned five basic elemental skills. His current status was:
Basic Metal Element, Basic Wood Element at level 100, Basic Water Element, Basic Fire Element at level 45, Basic Earth Element at level 100
He immediately raised every skill to level 100.
Simple and crude. That was the beauty of keeping his level low.
There were, of course, drawbacks. He couldn't get skill slots for free, change classes, or learn advanced techniques.
But it didn't matter. He understood the nature of games perfectly well: every problem came down to whether you'd spent enough money.
Spend enough, and the game could even tailor content just for you and provide a personal gaming companion.
This cost him another 55,000 experience points.
The three basic skills cost 25,000, and the three spell skills cost 30,000.
"Your Basic Metal Element has reached level 100. You have learned Sharp Metal Art."
"Your Basic Water Element has reached level 100. You have learned Water Creation Art."
Great. He raised those to the max, too.
That cost another 20,000 experience points.
He had 125,000 left.
He now had a total of 24 skills, with a skill limit of 25.
He checked his basic attributes.
[Player: Gao Linzhi.] [Constitution: 5 (+110)] [Spirit: 7 (+100)] [HP: 1150 (Constitution X 10)] [MP: 1070 (Spirit X 10)] [Level: 1] [Experience: 0/100] [Talent: The Only Ordinary Player (Unique Dark Gold Quality)]
Not enough. Still nowhere near enough!
A single BOSS had 15,000 HP. He only had 1,150. The gap was enormous!
He checked his Skyfall Stones. He still had 232,500, which was a decent amount.
He immediately thought "Shop," then searched for basic physical skills.
After looking through the options, he realized there were quite a few he hadn't learned.
Basic Saber Technique, Basic Sword Technique, Basic Staff Technique, Basic Whip Technique...
If this were any other player, they'd definitely be gloating.
He'd completely ruined his build!
From what Gao Linzhi had learned over the past few days, each level granted one skill slot.
Skills also had further tiers: Intermediate, Advanced, Expert Level, Master Level, and even Grandmaster Level.
Once you reached level 10, you could also change classes and gain even stronger class skills.
The skills you learned had to work well together, enhancing one another and giving you the best value for your investment. Only then could you grow strong enough.
Learning a bit of this and a bit of that just to raise your Constitution would leave you lacking in every area. You'd have no damage, no defense, and not even much health.
That was the most common mistake beginners made. They'd learn one skill because it looked easy, then another because that looked easy, too. Without any long-term vision, they'd never build a strong character and would eventually quit and start over.
But Gao Linzhi didn't care about any of that.
His core advantage was Revive After Death. He could pay his way through any obstacle.
Naturally, he had to stay at level 1.
The higher your level, the more Skyfall Stones you needed to spend, and the cost would rise exponentially.
He was guessing, but it should be about right.
And exponential growth had no limit. Before long, he wouldn't be able to afford it.
Even if you poured all the gold on Earth into the game, it could still drain every last bit.
So Gao Linzhi spent Skyfall Stones to unlock more skill slots.
He spent another 50,000 Skyfall Stones in one go, raising his skill limit to 35.
The 26th skill slot cost 4,100 Skyfall Stones, then 4,300, 4,500... all the way to 5,900.
Each additional slot cost 200 more Skyfall Stones than the last.
Fortunately, it was an arithmetic sequence. If it had been a geometric sequence, he really couldn't have afforded it.
He had 24 skills now, so he could learn 11 more.
The basic physical skills in the shop were cheap, too, at just 100 Skyfall Stones apiece.
That was far cheaper than spell skills, which cost 50,000 each.
No wonder people called them spellcasters.
He learned every basic physical skill in the shop.
Basic Saber Technique, Basic Sword Technique, Basic Staff Technique, Basic Whip Technique, Basic Axe Technique, Basic Hammer Technique, Basic Hunting, Basic Gathering, Basic Horsemanship, Basic Lockpicking, Basic Traps...
Good grief, the list of skills seemed endless. There had to be hundreds of them.
For a moment, he felt like he really didn't have enough Skyfall Stones.
He learned every physical skill available, bringing his total back up to the limit.
That brought him to 35 skills.
There were 10 magic skills.
He had two support skills: Disguise Art and Heavenly Sight, Earthly Hearing, Person-Judging Art (Incomplete).
Now he knew why the latter was incomplete. The Fourth Elder couldn't possibly have given him the complete version. That would have exposed him.
The rest were physical skills, 23 in all.
Maxing them all out would give him 230 points of Constitution!
He still had 125,000 experience points. Learning and maxing out 11 more skills cost another 110,000, leaving him with 15,000.
Nobody else could learn skills the way he did.
That brought his Constitution to 235.
Even if someone found a Skill Stone to unlock more skill slots, it would be pointless.
The game had another rule.
[Normal people have a Constitution limit of 10. Ordinary Players have their bodies digitized, ignoring the limit and calculating bonuses based on 11 points; Incomplete Players can only calculate bonuses up to the 10-point limit and must further study external cultivation techniques to break through the Constitution bonus limit.]
His body was digitized. His Constitution could exceed the limit, and whatever value he had would be fully reflected.
Players were still made of flesh and blood, so their bonuses could only be calculated up to 10.
After spending the points, Gao Linzhi got up and adjusted to his new physique.
The first thing he noticed when he opened his eyes was that the cavern, previously pitch-black, had only been faintly lit by a few glowing minerals, enough to support a sparse growth of moss.
But now he could see everything clearly.
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