Startled, I turned around and saw a warrior wielding a green-coloured blade, glaring daggers at me as he coldly claimed, “This Fruit Forest has already been occupied by the Shadow Clan, so it would be sensible to leave now my friend. In this map, there are still many other fruit trees scattered around for picking.”
Shadow Maple LV-23 Warrior
Glancing at them, I couldn’t help but chuckle loudly: “Are you joking? This Fruit Forest is a public map; it’s definitely not your clan’s private map. Furthermore, there are so many fruit trees here, are you guys even able to pick everything up?”
“It’s none of your business!”
Shadow Maple coldly replied: “You will need to leave in three minutes. Otherwise, I will personally send you back to the city!”
My gaze froze. I didn’t expect that harvesting apples would result in provoking a PK. This world is too crazy, was it really hard for people to be satisfied? Do you really have to have everybody bowing at your feet to prove your might?
At that moment, two other players also appeared.
Shadow Volcano LV-22 Knight
Shadow Ocean LV-24 Archer
Obviously, these people were together. They intended to gang up on on me, a solo player, with their greater number.
Shadow Ocean looked at me a smiled: ” Fallen Hero? Tsk tsk, I think I saw you yesterday in the city’s rankings, but you’re only LV 25. Alright, I’ll give you two choices now; 1. join our family or 2. die. Make your choice now!”
I couldn’t help but laugh: “I choose the second opinion, but the ones who are dying are you!”
“So c.o.c.ky!”
The knight, Shadow Volcano, angrily brandished a long sword and charged towards me. Thinking about it, this black-tier weapon with that shiny green glow, looked very familiar.
“Sha……”
Amongst the scattered gra.s.ses, at lightning speed, I disappeared from my position and suddenly re-appeared in front of Shadow Ocean. In the next moment, my Weeping Fireblade stabbing his stomach in one stroke, like a deathly viper. Without pause, I continued to push, the tip of my blade penetrating through his armour. I stabbed him without mercy as a blue glow suddenly enveloped my Weeping Fireblade.
“Death Blade!”
With a “Ca” sound, the sharp end of this bronze-tier sword almost chopped Shadow Volcano’s body into two parts. A large damage number flew up — 375!
Too powerful!
“Ah?!”
As Shadow Volcano collapsed to the ground, his face was filled with shock and disbelief. He never thought that such a high leveled knight as he was could be killed with just one attack from another player!
“Fu*k, this brat actually dared to kill Volcano!”
Shadow Ocean shouted loudly as he suddenly raised his bow, releasing an arrow accurately targeted at me!
I stood my ground and received his attack, suffering 71 points of damage. This archer’s strength was not weak, I must kill him first. Otherwise, he would cause me lots of trouble!
My body flew forward, splitting the air, as I threw in another ruthless attack.
“298!”
The damage numbers was so high that it left the archer in shock. He didn’t even have the time to react before I moved to his side and quickly struck him again!
Archers didn’t have much health originally, so I was fairly surprised that he was still alive even when my sword had dealt him around 300 damage. However, with another attack, Shadow Ocean dropped dead on the ground, and dropped a glittering leather wristguard to boot.
“Bang!”
Behind me, Shadow Maple unleashed [Heavy Slash] at my back. A searing pain runned through my back as I saw that I had lost 187 health. Quite obviously, my defense left Shadow Maple in shock: “d.a.m.n it! Why are you so hard to kill? Die already!”
I turned around quickly, picking up the leather wristguard that Shadow Ocean dropped on the way while downing a bottle of health potion.
“Shua!”
Clad in a murderous aura, I rushed towards Shadow Maple. Activating Death Blade, my sword, which was glowing with a cyan colour, illuminated Shadow Maple’s face. Shock, unresignation and indignation flashed across his face, almost twisting his expressions.
“Pu tong!”
Shadow Maple fell to his knees and died. In just a blink of an eye, the entire Shadow Clan, who had arrogantly hogged the Fruit Forest Map to themselves, had been destroyed, not a single survivor was left.
I coldly stated: “I already said to not anger me; I only came to pick some fruit.”
……
That wristguard was white-tiered, I would just throw it to the NPC store later.
Walking deeper into the apple orchard, I found that each tree could be harvested once, and each harvest would only yield 1-3 apples. Truth to be told, the yield wasn’t very high!
Not far away, I spotted another player picking some apples; it was one of the members of Shadow Clan. But when he saw me approach, he immediately ran away; I did not pursue him, it would just be a waste of time.
After almost half an hour, I had almost emptied the whole forest of apple trees. I could only wait for the next resp.a.w.n of the fruits, but my inventory was now full of apples. Twenty apples could be grouped in one inventory slot, and I have a total of 21 slots filled with apples.
Walking to edge of the woodland, I took out my empty bottles and activated the cooking interface. Adding 5 apples and a empty bottle into the compounding materials, I started to cook!
“Ding～!”
System Announcement: You have successfully made Apple Jam x 1, and gain +2 exp in cooking!
A bottle of apple jam appeared in my inventory. It gave +1 in satiety and +100 mana. This was a very important consumable to players in the early stages of the game.
I continued to make the apple jam for another ten minutes, making a total of 80 bottles. This made me feel a explosive sense of accomplishment.
At this time, there were lots of people who had come to harvest materials for synthesising already. But there was no sight of the Shadow family, they were probably scared away.
While I walked out, I saw a large amount of people synthesizing. One of the players was a beautiful girl of the human race called “Beauty Raising Her Legs”. (Shiro: -.-) A few lines appeared on my news bar —
System Announcement: Beauty Raising Her Legs has created an Apple Jam!
System Announcement: Beauty Raising Her Legs has created an Apple Jam!
System Announcement: Beauty Raising Her Legs has created an Apple Jam!
(Shiro: doesn’t make sense in English but the sentence meant something like “Beauty created an apple jam when she raised her legs” in Chinese)
……
Wha…t? Looking at this string of messages, I didn’t know what to think.
Continuing on my way, I once again found some apple trees. I harvested a few dozens of apples and started to make another batch of apple jam again. Soon afterwards, a “Ding~” sounded and my cooking skill rose to LV 2. Now I could create LV 2 Sticky Rice. With regards to my hunting skill, it had also rose to LV 2 long ago. I was one of the first few players who came here, and after killing a few players, I almost emptied the whole of Fruit Forest by myself. My hunting nearly rose to LV 3!
When I returned to Floating Ice City, although my name was red, but I wore a full set of high quality equipments. As I stepped into the city, the red colour in my name disappeared. Then, I boldly stood in the middle of the city square and started to shout: “Freshly made Apple Jam! 1 silver a bottle! Friends who are mages that needs this, come and buy it, it’s cheap!”
My offered price wasn’t very high; it didn’t even reach half the price of others. I just wanted to earn some money.
Soon after, a bunch of people surrounded me. A level 20 something mage had less than 300 mp, yet their skill, [Fire Dragon], required 20 mp with each cast at level 1. Hence their mp was definitely not enough without consuming mana potions. Even in parties, players would first check if their mages have enough mana potion rations before they set off. This was also one of the main reasons why potions were in high demand.
In just a short ten minutes, I had already earned one gold. Then I shamelessly raised the prices of the last dozens of bottles to 2 silvers, but to my surprise, people kept on buying them clean.
At that moment, someone started to advertise their wares: “Selling LV 10 leather equips with no attributes! 2-8 defense and all are of the best quality. Everyone is welcome to buy. Also buying LV. 1 leather skins, such as the Big-eared Rabbit furs and Goblin Skins, all for 20 copper each!”
Quickly, I walked over to this LV 17 player called “Domineering Little Tailor”. He had obviously chosen one of the craftsman’s skills; which should be tailoring. Furthermore, he should be part of the Domineering Clan too. This clan was really quite amazing; they practically made up most of the top rankings in Floating Ice City.
“Brother, do you want this bearskin?”
I walked forward and smiled while I showed him a piece of bearskin; these were the spoils of war I recieved from my [Corpse Pillage] skill earlier. I had acc.u.mulated over 250 of these in my inventory.
He just stood in shock as his jaw dropped: “Im…Impossible. Are those LV 2 materials…?”
“Do you want it or not?” I replied, pretending to be annoyed.
“Yes, of course!” Squinting his eyes, the little tailor said: “50 copper each. Brother, how many do you have?”
My lips twitched, “Go away, one for 50 coppers? Who are you trying to cheat? One LV. 1 material can already sell for 30 coppers each, yet a LV. 2 material is only worth 50 coppers? Forget it then, I don’t want to sell it already. I’ll just find other buyers.”
The little tailor hurriedly stopped me and smiled: “Brother, where are you going to in such a rush? How about you name a price for it then?”
Muttering, I said: “2 silvers per piece……”
The little tailor’s complexion paled greatly. Clearly, the price was a bit high for him.
I smiled slightly and added: “It’s okay if you don’t want it. Anyway, I have over 200 of them. I can always find another buyer!”
“What? Over 200?”
This caused the little tailor to panic. As a game player belonging to a clan, it was important to have a monopoly of the tailoring market early in the game. If another clan were to own more than 200 LV. 2 leather, they would definitely be able to produce a high quality Tailor. If that happened, then the Domineering Clan would fall behind without a doubt.
“Brother, could you please wait for a minute, OK?” The little tailor begged me.
Nodding my head, I moved to the side to wait.
It looked like the little tailor was reporting the news to his superior. Soon after, he walked over towards me and said: “2 silver each, deal! How many do you have in total?”
I swiftly calculated: “257 pieces, but I’ll give it to you for the price of 250 pieces.”
“Done!”
The Little Tailor then initiated a trade with me. I inputted 250 bearskins are 2 silvers each, whilst he imputed 500 silvers, making it a full 5 gold!
Trades were instantaneous, and with this, my total fortune was now seven gold. At the present stage, I’m practically a millionaire. You could also say that the Domineering Clan was very rich and powerful. The game had only opened for a few days, and yet they were already monopolizing some markets and could even give out large amounts of money.
Waving my hand, I said: “Farewell, if fate allows it, let us meet again brother!”
In fact I could make enough money just from selling forest bear skins. Currently the exchange rate is more than 1 gold for 50 RMB. Just from these skins, I could earn at least a thousand dollars day!
Unfortunately, my ambition was not limited to bear skins, because I knew that my current strength allowed me to continue to challenge harder tasks. I had no limit!
From behind, the tailor asked: “Brother, if you don’t mind me asking, where did you obtain such a large amount of bearskins?”
I turned around and smiled: “No comment. How can I possibly tell you, hahaha……”
I secretly smiled in my heart. Even if I were to tell them the location of the forest, none of them had the [Corpse Pillage] skill. So what’s the point?
……
Afterwards, I went to the Floating Ice City Warehouse to open up an account, but the elf Storage NPC actually said: “Since you are an Undead, the cost of opening a warehouse is doubled. You must pay 2 gold coins to open a 100-slots storage!”
“What? Isn’t that too expensive?!”
I glared at the elf, but she just stared coldly back, not saying anything.
Just pay, it’s your own bad luck that she’s an official.
After opening my warehouse, I once again ran back to the city square and shouted: “Black-tier weapon, Green Forest Blade is for sale right now! Great for melee players, quickly come and get it!”