An Unknown Decision

Chapter 23: An Unknown Decision

Li Wei hesitated.

Reason told him not to accept such a dangerous mission. An A-rank difficulty rating was no laughing matter; if he simply continued with the previous main quest, completing a mere C-rank mission with this Dread Knight would be effortless.

Furthermore, Li Wei already had a detailed plan for "Reclaim Dawn City." Giving up a mission with a clear strategy and a high chance of success to choose one that was two difficulty levels higher—and lacked any mission clues—was, he believed, an easy choice to make.

Yet, Li Wei hesitated.

This was an A-rank mission, an opportunity that was absolutely rare and hard to come by. Everyone who arrived at Shadow Street had their fate governed by a mysterious power. To survive, one had to keep growing stronger. High-difficulty missions inevitably brought high rewards. Just like in the "Initial Trial," when Li Wei had given up going to Fairy Spirit Island to stay and look after Aunt Li, he had ultimately received the C-rank martial art Cloud-Piercing Palm. That in itself was a perfect example.

After a long while, Li Wei reached his decision.

He glanced at the Crossbowmen behind him, tucked the Yellow Paper away for the time being, and led the Dread Knight directly toward the next resource point.

It was a Gold Mine entangled in vines, the last resource point in the forest. With the tier-6 Dread Knight, Li Wei had no trouble disposing of the few Stone Men guarding the mine.

"You have occupied a Gold Mine. You will receive 1000 units of gold daily!"

After securing the mine, Li Wei didn't stop to rest; he hurried to the previous Withered Wood Guardian recruitment point. This time, he didn't hesitate. Leading the Dread Knight and three Crossbowmen, he charged into the territory of the Withered Wood Guardians.

Guarding the area were three tall Withered Wood Guardians. Li Wei quickly ordered the Dread Knight to step forward and engage the opponents, while the three Crossbowmen focused their fire on ranged attacks. Li Wei himself used the Cloud-Piercing Palm to strike at the guardians.

Even with the Dread Knight, the battle was brutal. The Withered Wood Guardians were, after all, tier-5 units; their powerful special abilities and high defense forced Li Wei to put in quite an effort. However, the Cloud-Piercing Palm technique seemed to have a suppressive effect on this unit type. After several consecutive palms, one Withered Wood Guardian was crippled, and the unlucky fellow was finally hacked into two by the Dread Knight's blade.

Using the same method, he dealt with the remaining two Withered Wood Guardians.

"You have occupied the Withered Wood Forest. Do you wish to recruit Withered Wood Guardians?" Only when he saw the message pop up on the Yellow Paper did Li Wei reveal a satisfied smile, though his face quickly twisted into a grimace.

He was out of gold!

Recruiting a Withered Wood Guardian cost 800 gold coins. Fortunately, he had just occupied a Gold Mine, but it was only enough to recruit one. Still, this was a tier-5 unit, and the combat power of even one was quite considerable.

Leading the five-meter-tall, massive Withered Wood Guardian, Li Wei returned to the place where Bai Jie was resting.

The woman was clearly waiting with some anxiety. Upon seeing the giant Withered Wood Guardian, she was stunned for a moment, and then she prepared to order the Militiamen and Crossbowmen to attack (before leaving, Li Wei had already handed the command of the units over to her).

However, she quickly spotted Li Wei.

"My God, I thought you weren't coming back!" Bai Jie was clearly terrified. It was no fault of hers; anyone would be intimidated upon unexpectedly encountering a creature as tall as a Withered Wood Guardian. But what shocked her even more was yet to come.

A three-meter-tall Dread Knight emerged from the thicket, wreathed in faint black mist. Although this black-armored knight was quite a bit shorter than the Withered Wood Guardian, the moment he appeared, his presence instantly overwhelmed all other units.

"What is this? Li Wei, what exactly have you been doing?" Bai Jie stared at the man before her, dumbfounded. She could never have imagined that in just over an hour, he would return with two powerful creatures.

Li Wei gathered his thoughts and spoke: "Bai Jie, there is something I need you to do."

He paused, then continued: "This is a tier-5 Withered Wood Guardian. I will leave it, along with the remaining five Crossbowmen and three Militiamen, in your care. Also, I am handing over the control of the Withered Wood Guardian recruitment point and the three resource points to you. You must immediately head to the Knight Training Ground and rendezvous with Zheng Yutong and the others. Tell her that I have to leave because of a task I must complete. There is a letter here; give it to Zheng Yutong as well. She will know what to do!"

Li Wei took out the letter he had just written and placed it in Bai Jie's hands. Inside were all his plans for how to complete the reclamation of Dawn City.

In the end, Li Wei had decided to accept the mission from the Dread Knight, Mordel. He could not let this opportunity slip by. As for Zheng Yutong and the others, this was all the help he could provide.

"What is going on?" Bai Jie looked at Li Wei, at a loss. "Are you coming back?"

Li Wei, who had already swung himself onto the back of the Dread Knight's steed, thought for a moment.

"Perhaps. Good luck!"

This sentence was meant for Bai Jie, and for himself as well.

At the same time, Li Wei selected "Accept" for the "Redemption of the Dread Knight" mission on the Yellow Paper.

Only by accepting a mission could the specific details be learned from the plot characters. This time, the one responsible for explaining things to Li Wei was, naturally, the Dread Knight, Mordel.

Mordel's family was a knightly house with a heritage spanning hundreds of years. Counting from their ancestors, the family had produced dozens of great knights. They were loyal guardians who had sacrificed everything for the human kingdom, and the King had placed enough trust in them to settle their family in the frontier town—which later became Dawn City.

Originally, glory and brilliance would have continued to grace this family, but after a war broke out, everything changed.

That day, Dawn City was shrouded in pitch-black clouds, and monsters that only appeared in horror stories used to scare children emerged outside the city walls.

The Undead!

It wasn't just one or two, but undead creatures covering the mountains and plains. Even more terrifyingly, the soldiers guarding the town discovered with horror that among the undead forces, there were Vampires, Liches, and even creatures as terrifying as Bone Dragons.

No one knew what kind of horror Dawn City experienced that day. By the time the human kingdom dispatched a large force seven days later, there wasn't a single living soul left in the entire city.

The Mordel family, who guarded Dawn City, had fallen.

No one knew that this was a conspiracy—a conspiracy aimed at the knightly house of Mordel. The youngest and most promising knight of the Mordel family had overheard fragments of this conspiracy from an Undead Necromancer. He was filled with rage; although he was on the verge of death at the time, that did not diminish his hatred for the person who had orchestrated this plot.

So, when that Undead Necromancer offered him the chance to become a Dread Knight, he agreed without hesitation. For his family, for revenge, he was willing to do anything.

From that day on, there was one more Dread Knight in this world named Mordel.

"I still remember the expressions on the faces of those innocent people before they died..." As he spoke, the crimson flames in Mordel's eyes flared significantly brighter. "The one who orchestrated all of this was a knight. To gain greater power, he betrayed his kingdom and his faith. As far as I know, he later became an Undead Necromancer!"

Hearing this, Li Wei's eyes lit up. It seemed the crux of the mission had arrived.

"The Undead Necromancer, Sand. That is the only name I remember. Master, please help me kill this despicable undead!"

Li Wei was stunned.

It was him! Wasn't this the same guy who was currently attacking Dawn City?

"Mission 'Redemption of the Dread Knight' requirements: Kill the Undead Necromancer, Sand. Time limit: seven days. If the mission fails, you will suffer the wrath of the Dread Knight!"

Damn it!

Li Wei nearly tore the Yellow Paper to shreds; this was nothing but a trap! But it was too late to say anything now. This was an uninterruptible mission, and it had to be completed, otherwise...

Stealing a glance at the Dread Knight Mordel, Li Wei shivered. Being hunted down by a monster like this would be anything but pleasant, yet killing Sand was certainly no easy task either.

No wonder it was an A-rank difficulty mission; it was truly a challenge!

"Master, if I may be so bold, you are far too weak. Never mind the Undead Necromancer Sand, I fear you couldn't even handle the few vampires under his command!"

The Dread Knight's sudden interjection left Li Wei feeling deeply ashamed. It was true, just as the Dread Knight had said; Li Wei only held an E3-rank rating. He likely couldn't even deal with a single vampire, let alone Sand.

Li Wei had only heard a rough estimate of how strong Sand was from the Dread Knight Mordel, but that didn't stop him from making a judgment: compared to Mordel, Sand was only stronger, never weaker.

"Mordel, do you have any suggestions then?" Li Wei asked, following the other's lead.

The Dread Knight let out a dull, hollow laugh: "To exact my revenge, I offered my soul to the God of Death in exchange for two skill scrolls. I learned one of them, 'Fatal Strike'..."

As he spoke, he raised the black war blade in his hand and swung it at a massive tree nearby, one so thick it would take several men to encircle it. A crimson flash streaked through the void, and in an instant, the absurdly thick, towering tree was severed at the waist. The falling trunk slammed into the ground with a thunderous boom, startling countless birds and beasts.

-800

This was the damage caused by the Dread Knight's strike as seen through Li Wei's Eye of Perception. It was a full eight times that of the Cloud-Piercing Palm. Under normal circumstances, a stamina value of 10 was equivalent to 100 health points, which Li Wei could kill in one palm strike. But this Fatal Strike from the Dread Knight would likely be impossible to withstand, even with a stamina value of 80.

Seemingly satisfied with his skill, the Dread Knight Mordel nodded and continued: "After I learned the attack skill, I kept the remaining scroll. Although it is just a 'Craftsman Skill' of unknown utility, its rating reached A-rank. Now, to enhance your strength, I shall offer this skill scroll to you, Master!"

The Dread Knight Mordel produced a scroll glowing with a ghostly blue light and handed it to Li Wei.

"Craftsman Skill, [Art of Stacking], Rating A, Unique Attribute. Can be used to stack target creatures or items/props. The objects being stacked must share the same attributes. The level and attributes of the resulting item change randomly based on the number of stacks... 'This is a technique that only gods can master!'"

Looking at the attributes of the skill scroll, Li Wei was momentarily confused. It was actually a Craftsman Skill.

Craftsman Skills were not rare in Shadow Street. Li Wei had often seen skill books for things like 'Forging' or 'Engineering' for sale, but generally, no one paid them any mind.

It wasn't for any other reason than the fact that learning a Craftsman Skill required extremely harsh prerequisites. Take Forging, for example: it required a Strength value of 10 or higher, and one had to first master the 'Novice Blacksmith' skill before it could be learned.

A Strength of 10 was manageable, but 'Novice Blacksmith' was troublesome. There were no ready-made skill books for that; one had to train in the real world. In other words, to earn the title of 'Novice Blacksmith,' you had to be an experienced blacksmith in the real world.

Other Craftsman Skills were similar. Even for a true artisan, in Shadow Street, they would prioritize skills that could improve their own combat power. After all, strength was what mattered most; no one wanted to settle for being a 'craftsman' under someone else. This was why Craftsman Skills were ignored.

Now, the Dread Knight Mordel had gifted Li Wei a Craftsman Skill, leaving Li Wei feeling a mix of amusement and frustration.

"Stacking items? What use could that possibly have?" Li Wei looked at the learning requirements for this Craftsman Skill: "...Requires 15 Mental Power and mastery of at least one 'Perception' type skill to learn this Craftsman Skill!"

(Thanks to brother Wanxiang Xingchen for the tip!)