After confirming his guess, Sun Fei decided to exit the mage character.
It wasn't that he didn't want to level the mage, but mastering one thing was better than being mediocre at everything. Time waited for no one in the real world, and Chambord City faced a deadly enemy. For now, he decided to focus on the barbarian's skills. Only by choosing one game character and leveling it up as quickly as possible could he play the greatest possible role in the battle to defend the city.
With a thought, Sun Fei instantly exited the game and returned to the screen before the game began.
By now, Sun Fei had basically figured out how to operate this miraculous game: it was controlled entirely by thought. It was a little like having his wishes come true. As long as he silently made a choice, he could do almost anything that would previously have required a mouse in a computer game.
Sun Fei came before the same 3D virtual holographic screen.
This time, he selected his previous level-five barbarian character and confirmed that he wanted to enter. A feeling of weightlessness came over him, and his vision blurred. Less than a second later, he entered the game without a hitch.
This time, he had finally arrived at the [Blood Moor].
"Barbarian Sun Fei," who had already completed the task of clearing out all the monsters in the [Den of Evil], appeared in the deepest part of the cave. Monster blood and severed limbs littered the ground, and he stood before an oval sphere of blue light about two meters tall-the portal from the [Scroll of Town Portal] that Sun Fei had opened last time but hadn't gotten around to using.
Some battered equipment lay scattered on the ground.
Sun Fei checked the barbarian's backpack. He had already packed away virtually all the valuable equipment. He looked around again and found nothing he had missed, so he stepped into the blue portal. His vision flashed, and the next second he appeared in the [Rogue Encampment].
The rain that had fallen incessantly over the [Rogue Encampment] had finally cleared.
The sky was still a little gray, though, like a heavily polluted industrial city in his previous life, and it remained deeply oppressive. The only thing that lifted Sun Fei's spirits was the exceptionally fresh air.
Sun Fei found Sister Akara.
After a conversation no different from the one in the video game in his previous life, Sun Fei received his reward for the task: one skill point, which he could assign to any skill on the barbarian's skill tree.
Without hesitation, Sun Fei put it straight into [Axe Mastery].
The current situation left him no room to develop into a jack-of-all-trades. Sun Fei first had to improve his strongest skill and raise his combat strength to the limit. After all, Langde was clearly not the only expert among the enemy, and Sun Fei had to grow stronger as quickly as possible.
After adjusting his skills, Sun Fei kept Sister Akara from leaving.
"Honorable Sister Akara, I have a few questions I'd like to..."
"I know what you want to ask, young adventurer..." The spiritual leader of the [Rogue Encampment] seemed to have seen through Sun Fei's thoughts. She smiled. "I'd be very happy to answer your questions, but first you must understand that in the Rogue Encampment, you must pay a sufficient price to obtain anything. So the key question is... do you have anything that interests me?"
Damn, this woman sure is direct.
Sun Fei was stunned by how bluntly Akara had put it.
He had thought a sister would be the self-denying, ascetic type, untouched by worldly things. Who would have guessed that Auntie Akara, the spiritual leader of the [Rogue Encampment], would openly demand a bribe? Sun Fei felt defeated.
"Um... all right, then. Would gold coins be an acceptable price?" Sun Fei asked.
"Yes." Akara smiled so broadly that the wrinkles on her face nearly blossomed into a chrysanthemum. "Each answer starts at 2,000 gold coins. Of course, the actual price depends on the value of the question. For the answers to some questions, you might not be able to afford the price at all right now."
Sun Fei was delighted to hear her agree.
But when he finished checking his backpack, he was dumbfounded.
He had accumulated only a little over 1,100 gold coins so far. That wasn't enough to buy even one answer... What was he supposed to do?
Sun Fei couldn't help wanting to curse. This thieving woman was far too greedy. Two thousand gold coins for one question? Why didn't she just rob him?
Looks like I'll have to sell some equipment... Huh? Wait... equipment?
Sun Fei looked at the two pieces of green equipment in his backpack, and an idea suddenly struck him.
If gold coins work, then equipment should work too, right?
Suppressing a bellyful of complaints, he turned and asked respectfully, "Honorable Sister Akara, I don't have enough gold coins. Could I use these two items instead?"
As he spoke, he took out the mage's staff and katar, both shimmering green.
Akara's eyes lit up.
Green equipment?
"Yes, you can... Equipment of this grade hasn't appeared in the [Rogue Encampment] for a very long time. Young adventurer, this 'Mage's Staff of Deep Blue' and 'Concealed Katar' are worth 8,000 gold coins. You may ask four questions!"
Akara was a senior sister with the special ability to identify equipment, so she didn't need to use a [Scroll of Identify]. A single glance was enough for her to name the two pieces of blue equipment.
She looked quite serious as she identified the equipment, giving off a hint of sacred solemnity. In this guise, she finally did justice to the purple sister's robe she wore, a far cry from the penny-pinching, black-hearted old peddler she had seemed before.
"Only 8,000 gold coins? That's too little!"
Sun Fei cried out in exaggerated surprise.
In truth, he didn't know the exact price of the two items either.
But given his earlier impression, he always felt that Auntie Akara's prices had plenty of room for haggling. So Sun Fei thought it was absolutely necessary to push the price up. "Honorable Sister Akara, how about this? Let's stop talking about gold coins every other sentence. It's so vulgar, and it doesn't suit your honorable status as leader of the [Rogue Encampment]. Let's just trade these two items for five questions. If I get similar equipment in the future, I'll bring it to you too. What do you think?"
When Akara heard that, a row of black lines appeared on her forehead, and she nearly spat.
This young adventurer is far too crafty and shameless. He calls gold coins vulgar, then raises four questions to five in one go-that's a price increase of 2,000 gold coins. Why doesn't he call that vulgar?
After thinking it over, however, she agreed to Sun Fei's proposal.
In all these years, the young adventurer before her was the only person to set foot in the [Rogue Encampment], and the first who could survive in the monster-infested wilderness. Although the [Rogue Encampment] still had plenty of capable female rogues, their strength was barely enough to keep the camp safe, let alone survive in the monster-infested wilderness and bring back this highly useful equipment.
What was more, Akara could clearly sense that, as time passed, Diablo's power was corrupting this world's energy at an ever-increasing pace. She still had too many important plans that required the young adventurer before her to carry them out.
"Thank you for your generosity, honorable Sister Akara. My first question is, why did I come to this world for no apparent reason?"
"Young adventurer..."
Akara gave Sun Fei a strange look and slowly said, "I don't know where you came from, because as far as I can tell, you clearly aren't from this world. But I can be certain that you came here by the will of the gods. This world needs you!"
"Huh? The will of the gods? That's... the answer?" Sun Fei was dumbfounded.
"That's right, that is the answer," Auntie Akara said with conviction, nodding solemnly.
Sun Fei's vision went dark, and he was so angry he wanted to curse. The will of the gods? What's the difference between saying that bullshit and saying nothing at all? Who knows what corner the gods are in, farting holes in the ground, pissing in the dirt to make mud, and playing house? For an upstanding young man raised from childhood on the Party's atheism, Akara's answer was as useless as saying "people eat so they won't be hungry."
But when you were under someone else's roof, you had no choice but to bow your head.
After all, the auntie before him was the spiritual leader of the [Rogue Encampment].
With tears streaming down his face, Sun Fei quietly sang Jordan Chan's "You Win" in his heart.
He endured it.
He soon thought of his second question-
"Second question: if I'm killed fighting the monsters in the wilderness, will I have a chance to come back to life?"
This was one of the questions that concerned Sun Fei most.
The series of quests in Diablo World was only the beginning. If he wanted to keep leveling up and grow stronger, facing those powerful super bosses was only a matter of time. When that happened, a single moment of carelessness could leave him dead and his dick pointing at the sky. Kicking the bucket was entirely possible.
So before anything like that actually happened, Sun Fei had to find out whether this world was like the computer game in his previous life, where game characters still had a chance to revive after death.
Akara suddenly gave Sun Fei a strange look.
"Young man, I have to admit that you know far more than I imagined. That's right. A long, long time ago, adventurers who appeared here could receive the gods' salvation after death and be brought back to life..." At this point, Akara suddenly slowed down. "But too much time has passed. Diablo's power has been polluting this world every second, and no adventurer has come here for fifty or sixty years... So the answer to this question is-I don't know!"
Sun Fei was dumbfounded again. "You... don't know? That counts as an answer?"
"It does, because I told you everything I know truthfully!"
Red flames began to blaze from Sun Fei's eyes, black smoke began to pour from his mouth, and white steam began to shoot from his nose. A little devil holding a pitchfork was about to appear over his head. Amitabha, this auntie isn't playing me, is she? Diablo bless me, may the monsters capture this greedy sister and x her, then x her, then x her again and again!
Sun Fei grumbled to himself.
But there was nothing he could do. He could only keep enduring!
I'm fucking close to becoming a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
The second update today.
Thanks for the support, brothers. Daozi is working hard on the writing.
I'm still working hard to ask you to add this to your collections.