These stats were seriously badass. None of the monsters in the Novice Village posed much of a threat to me anymore. Too bad I couldn't grind my talent now. I needed to hurry up and reach level 10 so I could head to the main city.
I'd head back and store the skill book and weapon first. Every player had a personal storage vault in the game. They could leave items they had no immediate use for with the storage keeper. It had a hundred slots, and players could pay to expand it if that wasn't enough. Storage was shared across all cities, meaning items deposited in the Novice Village could also be withdrawn in the main city. There was no risk of dropping anything stored there, either.
I'd turn in the boar and toad quests while I was at it, since I already had the items. Forget the quests that needed me to go kill more monsters. I wasn't hurting for those few copper coins anymore.
In an excellent mood, Wu Shaozhen made his way back to the Novice Village with a spring in his step. He found the storage keeper and deposited the skill book and weapon, then went to the farmer and turned in the boar quest, earning 500 EXP and 200 copper coins.
Then he found the village's old healer and handed over 50 portions of toad saliva, earning 800 EXP and 300 copper coins. The two quests had netted him 1,300 EXP and 500 copper coins. Honestly, quests really did make leveling faster. Unfortunately, each quest could only be completed once.
At the potion shop, he reluctantly spent 10 silver coins on 20 bottles of Medium Red Potion: restored 50 HP per second for 10 seconds. At 50 copper coins a bottle, the prices were as outrageous as ever.
After buying his potions, Wu Shaozhen was about to head out to grind silver wolves when he saw a woman wearing a white veil walking toward him.
This woman has quite an air about her. Too bad I can't see her face, Wu Shaozhen thought.
The woman walked straight up to Wu Shaozhen and asked tentatively, "Dustseal?"
Wu Shaozhen froze for a moment. How did she figure out who I was? Or was she just trying to bluff me?
Although surprised, Wu Shaozhen didn't show it. Instead, he said calmly, "You've got the wrong person, gorgeous."
Su Muxue studied the man before her, hoping to glean something from his expression. Unfortunately, he remained perfectly composed and showed nothing unusual.
Did I guess wrong? Su Muxue wondered, then apologized, "Sorry, I may have mistaken you for someone else."
"All right. If there's nothing else, I'll be going." With that, Wu Shaozhen walked around her and continued on his way.
"Hey, wait." Su Muxue hurriedly said, "Can I add you as a friend?"
Whether he was Dustseal or not, this man was probably a strong player. Since she wanted to establish herself in the game, she had to make connections whenever the opportunity arose.
With such a beauty wanting to add him as a friend, Wu Shaozhen almost nodded in agreement. Then he suddenly remembered that once they were friends, she would be able to see his information. Wouldn't that immediately reveal that he was Dustseal?
Forget it. Women will only slow down my sword draw, Wu Shaozhen thought. He waved a hand and said, "Let's skip the friend request. If we run into each other again, we can talk about it then." Then he left.
"Uh..." Su Muxue looked bewildered. He just left?
She discreetly sent him a friend request anyway, only to receive the notification, "This player has disabled friend requests from strangers."
Su Muxue frowned. It was the same notification she'd received when she entered Dustseal's ID to add him as a friend.
Coincidence? Or do all expert players prefer that setting? Su Muxue wondered.
Her gaze sharpened as she watched Wu Shaozhen leave. "That speed...!"
After running out of the village, Wu Shaozhen was still full of questions. How did she start suspecting me? I took off my equipment both times I returned to the Novice Village. I shouldn't have given anything away.
Just then, a figure suddenly appeared behind Su Muxue, clearly having just logged in. He walked over to her and said, "Miss, your father agreed with my suggestion. He intends to establish a serious presence in Oracle. He'll soon arrange for a large number of elite gamers to enter the game. He told us not to be afraid of spending money in the early stages. We must get ahead of everyone else if we want more opportunities to expand later."
"Mm. Have people keep an eye on the auction house, especially Dustseal's equipment. Make sure we grab it as soon as it's listed," Su Muxue said.
"Dustseal? The first person to kill the Boar King? Miss, do you suspect he's the person in our Novice Village who keeps selling equipment with high stats?" Uncle Liu asked.
"Most likely. No one in the other Novice Villages has been able to sell high-grade equipment yet. If someone could kill the Boar King, it would most likely be that player in our village. And I may have figured out who he is," Su Muxue said.
"Really? In that case, is there any way you could recruit him to our side, miss? Having an expert like him with us would be an unparalleled advantage for our business," Uncle Liu said excitedly.
"I'll do my best," Su Muxue said quietly. In truth, she wasn't confident at all.
Wu Shaozhen headed straight to Silver Wolf Valley. The level 10 silver wolves had once been an insurmountable obstacle to him. Now, they posed no pressure whatsoever.
He lured out a silver wolf and slashed it twice in quick succession. Now that he could stack two layers of poison, he couldn't let that go to waste. Two stacks dealt 46 damage per second, so a silver wolf with 6,000 HP would go down in just over two minutes. As for taking two hits, that only cost him about 200 HP. With his current out-of-combat recovery of 6 HP per second, 200 HP was nothing.
Then Wu Shaozhen began grinding monsters nonstop. Once he decided to focus on leveling, he progressed quite quickly. Including the time spent luring monsters, it took him two hours to reach level 8. His HP reached 640 and his MP reached 130, while everything else remained unchanged. He left his stat points unassigned for now. He could check the stats of the next monsters he wanted to fight and allocate them accordingly. Those few extra points wouldn't make much difference anyway.
Perhaps the Boar King had dropped too much loot. Aside from the guaranteed five copper coins and one wolf fang from each kill, the fifty-odd silver wolves he killed over those two hours dropped only one piece of equipment. Worse, it was a bracelet he didn't need.
[Silver Wolf Bracelet] Quality: plain Attack +10 Attack speed +1% Equipment requirement: none
Honestly, he really looked down on those stats. He wondered whether other players would feel the same. With two pieces of black iron equipment on him, Wu Shaozhen had started getting picky and no longer thought much of plain equipment. He casually listed it in the auction house for bidding and left everyone else to bid on it. Whatever it sold for was fine.
Meanwhile, in Boar Forest, Jun Lin and his companions brought down another wild boar and finally saw a piece of equipment drop. They picked it up for a look. Sure enough, it was one of the boar items most commonly listed in the auction house.
"Looks like that equipment really did drop from wild boars. But I just can't figure out how he managed to fight wild boars while we were still fighting goats. Even now, with all of us at level 5 and wearing full sets of equipment, they're still a real struggle," Hao Ran said.
"Who knows? At least we've finally started catching up. With our strength, we'll catch up eventually if we take it one step at a time," Nan Feng said.
"We're probably still a long way from catching up. Take a look at the auction house," Jun Lin said flatly.
"Huh?" The two hurriedly opened the auction house.
"Holy shit, a [Silver Wolf Bracelet]? Could it have dropped from a level 10 silver wolf?" Hao Ran asked in surprise.
"Have some confidence. Drop the 'could.' If he really killed the Boar King, wouldn't killing level 10 silver wolves be child's play?" Nan Feng said.
"What a freak!"
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