Da Qing's Invitation

In the valley, a long line of players had already formed in front of Lin Feng.

Lin Feng warmly received the players one by one.

Most of the veteran players had come to learn skills. Beginner skills cost only 100 experience points each, making them incredibly affordable for them.

Of course, some veteran players had just leveled up and did not yet have 100 experience points in their experience bars. After logging in, they were diligently chopping trees or gathering resources to build up experience.

After all, compared to hunting quests that depended on luck, chopping trees and gathering offered the most reliable experience gains.

Lin Feng happily taught the players their skills.

For every skill he taught, he received twenty percent of the experience points the player spent as a reward—twenty points.

He had already been only ninety experience points away from reaching level 7. After teaching five players, he had reached level 7 and was steadily advancing toward level 8.

The new players, meanwhile, had come to collect beginner quests.

After receiving beginner quests and stone axes from Lin Feng, they immediately rushed excitedly toward the woods in the Outer Valley, embarking on their great logging endeavor.

"Ha ha, skills! I finally have skills! Let's see who still dares to say us Intelligence Class players are trash!"

Wind Flower Snow Moon had successfully learned the skill Magic Missile from Lin Feng. Unable to contain his excitement, he shouted in delight.

No one could understand just how much he had suffered inside.

Of the five players who had entered the game in the first batch, he was the only one who had chosen the Intelligence Class.

The other four—Da Qing and After Three Rounds of Drinks from the Strength Class, Wanhuatong from the Constitution Class, and I Shoot You Innocent from the Agility Class—had all reached level 5 after wiping out the Jackalmen Tribe. They were undisputed T1 players across the entire server.

Only he, unable to find a party for hunting quests, could slowly level up through gathering quests. His damage had also been low when fighting Jackalmen, so naturally, he received less experience. Even now, he was still stuck at level 4.

He was doing even worse than players from other classes who had entered the game after him.

They could all go one-on-one with Jackalmen and beat them down, while he was the one getting beaten down by Jackalmen.

But now that he had an offensive skill, he had finally turned his life around!

If the tribe leader had not specifically warned them while teaching skills that they absolutely could not use them to damage the valley's environment, he would have been unable to resist firing a few Magic Missiles at the big tree beside him.

Gate of Trial.

After learning their skills, Da Qing's group of five gathered together.

"What skills did you all learn?" Da Qing asked.

"I learned Swift Step and Tiger Strike," Ranger said first.

"Me too." Shooting A Bit Like Kobe wore a smug expression.

With skills, he felt like a completely different person. If he ran into Jackalmen again, he even felt he could take on two at once!

"I learned Powerful Strike and Tiger Strike," Pili Pa La Super Invincible Tyrannosaurus Warrior said.

"I only learned Magic Missile." Su Ziye smiled.

Before this, she had merely been dead weight in this party, doing nothing but coasting.

Although Da Qing and the other three knew her well and did not mind, she herself had always felt somewhat ashamed.

But now things were different.

With the skill Magic Missile, she would be heavy damage output from now on too!

"I only learned Powerful Strike," Da Qing said.

"What? You didn't learn Tiger Strike?" Shooting A Bit Like Kobe looked at him in surprise.

Wasn't Tiger Strike stronger than Powerful Strike?

"I wanted to, but I only reached level 5 right before logging off yesterday, so I'd only saved up a little over a hundred experience points." Da Qing sighed helplessly.

The experience he had saved was only enough to learn Powerful Strike.

"It's fine. In the early stages, having one more or one less skill doesn't affect a Strength Class player's combat power much. It's not like the Intelligence Class," Ranger said.

Strength Class players mainly relied on basic attacks for damage. Offensive skills merely added flowers to brocade.

Unlike the Intelligence Class—where having skills meant powerful damage output, and having none meant they could only coast.

"Let's enter the illusion realm."

Shooting A Bit Like Kobe said impatiently.

He could not wait to test the power of the two new skills he had learned!

"Wait, let's fill the team first," Ranger said. "A party instance can hold up to ten people. If just the five of us go in, that'd be too much of a loss."

"That's right." Da Qing nodded in agreement. "Let's aim to claim the first clear of this instance!"

Every instance had two records: the first-clear record and the speed-clear record.

Both records would be engraved upon the instance selection screen for all players to admire.

The speed-clear record might be broken time and again, but once the first-clear record was claimed, it was permanent.

As the strongest team on the entire server, they naturally wanted to take the first clear of the game's first instance and make a name for themselves.

It would also lay the groundwork for establishing a guild in the future.

"After Three Rounds of Drinks' team and I Shoot You Innocent's team are both pretty strong. We could ask them to join us."

Su Ziye suggested.

"I asked I Shoot You Innocent earlier. He said I Am A Fish in their team has an elective class tonight, so they have to wait until he gets here before challenging the instance."

Ranger spread his hands.

"I asked After Three Rounds of Drinks too. He didn't have enough experience to learn a skill, so he went off to chop trees. He said he'd challenge the instance after gathering a hundred experience points to learn Powerful Strike."

Tyrannosaurus Warrior said, scratching his head.

Aside from them, the other two strongest teams would both need to wait a while before they could challenge the instance.

"So what do we do? Wait for them, or recruit other people?"

Su Ziye asked.

As they spoke, they saw Wanhuatong approaching the Gate of Trial, a shield in his left hand and a wolf-tooth club in his right.

"We can bring Wanhuatong in. He doesn't have a fixed team!"

Seeing Wanhuatong, Su Ziye's eyes lit up as she made the suggestion.

"That's right. Our team happens to be lacking someone from the Constitution Class. Wanhuatong can be considered the number-one Constitution Class player on the whole server. Bringing him into our fixed team would be a union of the strong!"

Ranger agreed.

"I'll go talk to him."

Da Qing said with a smile.

He also felt that bringing Wanhuatong into their fixed team was an excellent idea.

When the five of them had created their characters, they had not coordinated properly, and not a single one of them had chosen the Constitution Class.

Finding a powerful Constitution Class player to join the team was imperative.

As they spoke, Wanhuatong had already reached the foot of the stone platform, and all five of them went up to meet him.

"Huā Tong, have you found a team yet?"

Da Qing stepped forward and asked directly.

"Not yet. I was just about to recruit some people."

Wanhuatong shook his head.

"Come join our team. We're just missing someone from the Constitution Class. Once the six of us casually recruit four more people, we can get started."

Da Qing said.

"I can, but I need to bring Full Han Chinese Banquet and Liubai Dianmo along. They'll be here soon."

Wanhuatong said.

Full Han Chinese Banquet and Liubai Dianmo were both his friends in real life, and he had brought them into the game.

But those two had neglected their proper business after entering the game. One had become a chef, while the other spent all day making bows and arrows, leaving him without even a fixed team.

"Of course, no problem."

Da Qing said with a smile.

They needed to recruit more people anyway. Whoever they recruited made no difference.

Besides, they were fairly familiar with Liubai Dianmo and Full Han Chinese Banquet as well.

"Once those two get here, we can casually recruit two more people and enter the instance."

Da Qing said.

"Okay."

Wanhuatong nodded.

"Oh, right. You still don't have a fixed team, do you? Would you like to join ours? Once the guild system opens, we can establish a guild together."

Having settled on teaming up to challenge the instance, Da Qing struck while the iron was hot and invited Wanhuatong.

"Uh... I think I'll pass on the fixed team."

Wanhuatong hesitated for a moment, then unexpectedly refused Da Qing's invitation.

"Why?"

Da Qing stared at Wanhuatong in surprise.

He hadn't expected Wanhuatong to turn down his invitation.

This kind of alliance between two powerhouses was nothing but good—there seemed to be no reason for him to refuse, did there?