14. Level 100 Player A dreamless night.
As morning came, Bai XiaoYu received a message. In it were a few grilled fish skewers. The message was "To comfort the big and small lucky cats" and came from I_Am_A_Poor_Man.
XiaoYu"s mood instantly rose. When he woke up and saw the torn up clothes from yesterday, he"d remembered the torment he went through. His mood had instantly swooped down. All of that sadness was now like that cloud high up in the sky. Floating, floating and gone in a flash.
Although it was meant to comfort himself and the little cat, XiaoYu still decided to leave it all for the tiny one. After all, it"s just a matter of Hunger levels. Once he reached Level 40, he can accept a Profession quest. Then, he can eat whatever he wanted.
From today onwards, he"ll be rooted down in the Zombie Cave. May G.o.d protect him so he never meets that swordsman again.
He crossed himself then went rummaging in his storage and selling off some items for silver. All because he doesn"t have the money to repair his equipment T-T
After leaving the Exchange, he headed to the smith to repair his equipment. However, he didn"t think he"d b.u.mp into an unexpected person in front of the shop - NonMeta, all alone.
"NonMeta, morning."
Mn. NonMeta nodded in acknowledgement. He then saw the ragged clothes on XiaoYu, they were only slightly better than a beggar"s, and frowned. "Clothes?"
"Oh, I"m here to repair them." Without CopperPlate acting as translator, XiaoYu could only guess what NonMeta meant.
"PvP. Who?"
"Hm?" How did the other know this was from PvP?
"Sword."
"Oh…" So that"s why. There were a few tiny slashes on his robes that were probably left behind from BattleOverlord"s stabbing.
"Give them to me." NonMetaa.s.sa.s.sin saw that XiaoYu wasn"t willing to explain so he didn"t continue questioning the other about it. Instead, he spoke a rarely heard complete sentence.
"?" While XiaoYu didn"t understand what NonMeta wanted his equipment for, he still took off his clothes and handed them to NonMeta. When he saw the other staring at his shoes and wand, he hurriedly handed them over too.
Well, that"s just great. His main equipment were all off. Bai XiaoYu was now standing in the middle of the main street barefoot, wearing only the tiny underpants and tank top that were forced onto him by the game. Thank goodness there weren"t a lot of people who play in the morning. >///
"Clink. Clink. Clank. Clank." NonMetaa.s.sa.s.sin took out a set of tools identical to the one in the NPC smithy and began hammering at XiaoYu"s equipment.
(⊙o⊙) So NonMeta"s Profession was a Smith, and a refining type too. Smiths are separated into refiners and creators. The first could repair and refine equipment. The prime choice for solo or party players. The latter could create their own named equipment with special stats. The equipment crafted would be as good as the better equipment dropped by elite monsters of the same level. These were only inferior to the special equipment sets dropped by boss monsters.
Not long later, NonMeta was done repairing.
As XiaoYu accepted the three equipment handed back to him, he realised not only were they fully repaired but they were also refined to +5.
"Thank you. The money…" Refining took quite a bit of cash. This was also why XiaoYu had never refined a single item before. He didn"t have the money or the materials needed.
"It"s fine." NonMeta put his tools back into his inventory. "From now. Equipment. Find me."
"Okay." XiaoYu"s impression of NonMeta rose day by day. He was thankful to have such a good friend…Wait. He hadn"t added NonMeta as a friend yet! As of now, there were only a measly 3 friends on his list and all of the requests were initiated by the other. Naturally, NonMeta wouldn"t send a request himself.
Then let him be the active party for once. XiaoYu sent the other a friend request. NonMeta was obviously startled but soon agreed.
After bidding farewell to NonMeta, XiaoYu set off for the Zombie Cave. Even though he was curious as to why CopperPlate wasn"t online, even an extremely gossipy person wouldn"t be in the mood to gossip when faced with NonMeta. Furthermore, XiaoYu wasn"t one to gossip.
The remaining days pa.s.sed by in an extraordinarily pleasant whirl. He never met that swordsman again. Everyday, he"d wake up, head to the Zombie Cave, grind for a whole day, then sort and mail the items he found to I_Am_A_Poor_Man. Sometimes, the other would mail back a few fish skewers and cake in comfort.
In the meantime, CopperPlateKing had also mailed over the money gotten from the crown and even sped up his grinding along the way. He never mentioned the issue about PvP. Seemed like NonMetaa.s.sa.s.sin didn"t tell CopperPlateKing.
As XiaoYu looked on at the few dozens of crystals in his storage, he worked harder at grinding. Because he was now also considered rich among the new players. His gaming future looked bright.
Half a month pa.s.sed by and XiaoYu was soon Level 30.
The first stages of a game was always easy. But later on, especially after Level 40, levelling up would take longer and longer. Otherwise, how could no one be at Level 100 after over a year? Of course, that ridiculously outrageous and perverted Level 100 Quest was also an important reason. Apparently nearly all players would fail at least once. If anyone was so unlucky as to draw S rank or higher quests a few times in a row, they"d probably rage-quit and delete their account.
Still, XiaoYu"s levelling speed could be said to be rather fast. Not only was it due to him using a game pod (he could sink all 24 hours into the game), but also because of something he never realised. Undead monsters give out more experience than normal monsters of the same level. In the long run, the amount acc.u.mulated was shocking.
That was an adjustment made in a patch long time ago. The company saw that the Undead zones were very unpopular. After some discussion, they decided to not change its realism but to use increased experience to draw players in. It was effective. The high level Undead grinding spots began to have parties running in and out of them. However, they"d never stay for long. No matter how much the players love horror movies, no one was willing to stay in such a place for long. Most of them still need to go offline to eat and live. Seeing ghosts and terrifying creatures day and night would affect their real life, excluding a few exceptions.
XiaoYu wasn"t one of those exceptions. He just had a goal. With the tiny cat being so happy from collecting money that it"d start acting cute and play with the monsters, even the most tedious repet.i.tive motions became interesting.
After changing to the Silver Staff, it was much easier to kill zombies. On average, he could kill a mid-tier zombie with 3 blows now. He had been pondering whether to continue downwards and challenge a higher level zombie or not. But that ranged acid spitting skill would be very troublesome and there were no absolute safe zones down there. It"s something he must plan carefully. As XiaoYu was working hard on recalling the map, surroundings and monster distribution of the lower level, a server-wide notice sounded out from above.
"Congratulations, Player GloryOfTheWorld, for being the first player in the server to reach Level 100. Rewards are: 30,000 Crystal Coins, Stat Points +5, Double experience and drop rate for 1 week."
"Ping. Due to the appearance of Level 100 player(s), the game will be in maintenance for 2 days from midnight tonight. New content will be updated. For details, please visit the forum announcement. All players, please prepare to log off on time."
A new update. However, midnight was still quite far off. XiaoYu didn"t immediately rush back to the city. Once the maintenance finished, he"ll continue grinding here.
XiaoYu had never opened up the World chat so he didn"t now that the whole server was buzzing in excitement. It"d been over a year. Finally, someone finished that insane quest and brought hope to all the Level 99-ers. Still, rumours spread of the player having some backing in the company, their mission was ultrsimple, so and so forth. These made the World channel be filled with joy and gunpowder smoke. Every second, there would be a huge number of messages being sent through as if they cost nothing. (Every character sent to World chat costs 1 gold coin.)
"Congratulations, Player HereticKing, for being the second player in the server to reach Level 100. Rewards are: 5,000 Crystal Coins, Stat Points +3."
"Congratulations, Player WolfKing, for being the third player in the server to reach Level 100. Rewards are: 1,000 Crystal Coins, Stat Points +1."
Another 2 more server-wide notices rang out. The server"s atmosphere was hyped up to the extreme. In an instant, 3 Level 100 players appeared. What an inspiring sight!
XiaoYu was stunned. He had heard a familiar name. So that HereticKing player was that awesome. No wonder he didn"t care for that tiny amount of 1 gold of his. Should he send a congratulatory message?
After thinking about it, there was a chance the other would ignore all Whispers but XiaoYu still sent one anyway. The message was just one simple word: Congratulations.
That"s how XiaoYu acts. If someone treated him well, then he"d treat the other well too. Even if he had never seen that player before, the other was nice to his cat. He took that gesture to heart.
He thought his message would be drowned out but unexpectedly, a few minutes later, the other replied. The message was also just a simple word: Thanks.
Spirits were that easy to be lifted.
Translator"s Nonsense:
Chekhov"s gun appears!