"Five Level bonus?!"
"Woah! Dumb Yu! That means you must be Level 60 then!"
"What's an Indistinct skill book?"
Zhang Yang had made the announcement in the party channel, which was why the rest of the gang had rushed over to check things out. He explained the characteristics of his newly obtained skill and the team was floored. For a non-hunter class character to be able to use {Beast Taming}, it made Zhang Yang into half a hunter, and a full tank!
"Warrior, please head back for now! I'll personally reward you in the future!" said Serena with a radiant smile. Her mannerisms and speech towards Zhang Yang seemed a little more than friendly.
‘Ding! Your relationship with Princess Serena is now: Good!'
Zhang Yang almost staggered in surprise. Relationship and Reputation are two different systems. Only an NPC with strong AI programming such as Serena could establish a Relationship system. However, the true function of the system is unknown. Still, it can’t possibly be a bad thing, having a good relationship with Princess Serena!
Now that his quest has been completed, and the rewards collected, there was no more reason for Zhang Yang to stay there any longer. Zhang Yang did an adventurer’s salute and said, "My King, my Princess, Zhan Yu will now take his leave!"
As he stepped out of the palace, he saw members of Lone Desert Smoke occupying the entire courtyard! Faced with 10,000 members who were all cramping together like sardines, Zhang Yang could not help but feel honored. All of the players raised up their weapons and cheered! They had fought as a guild, facing all players from China as the enemy and had successfully helped Zhang Yang achieve his goal in completing his quest! This achievement was truly worth celebrating!
Zhang Yang took out his own axe and raised it up into the sky and cried, "From today on! We, Lone Desert Smoke, will declare war against The Dominators, Pride, and the Axe Gang! Until they leave this city, we shall not rest! For honor!"
"FOR HONOR!"
Hundred Shots, Endless Starlight and the rest of the gang led teams of their own to start the assault. Each of them formed attack teams consisting of at least a hundred members, leading them out of the city and beginning their hunt for the forementioned guilds. While all of that was happening, Humbly Gentleman was still locked up in jail. He had logged out to have his dinner, when he learned of the news through a frantic phone call. Due to the fact that most members from The Dominators were in jail, with the remaining players scattered and divided without a leader, they could not endure the attacks from the very furious Lone Desert Smoke members. Most of them were killed so many times that they were afraid of reviving themselves and eventually logged off the game.
With the rising pressure and stress of being the hunting target, most of the players chose to leave the guild. With such events happening, Humbly Gentleman grew anxious. To speed things up, he spent the entire day and night to let the duration of his punishment run its course. He did not even spare any time to sleep! However, even after his efforts, by the time he was released from the prison, The Dominators had already lost at least 10% of its members.
Unrelentingly, Lone Desert Smoke showed no mercy and no signs of slowing down. Crimson Rage and Sky High joined the fray and participated in the assault on The Dominators.
In just five short days, The Dominators, Axe Gang, and Pride suffered heavy losses. All of them were cowering behind the city walls, refusing to leave the place to go grinding. As a result, many members of the guilds had chosen to abandon their guilds as a result of being unable to handle the massive stress. Now that the situation had escalated to such a level, Humbly Gentleman gave up resisting and was forced to do the right thing. He discarded his ego and faced Zhang Yang to beg his forgiveness.
Zhang Yang agreed to forgive the man, under one condition. Humbly Gentleman would have to kneel down in front of Little Merchandize Shop for 24 hours.
Zhang Yang merely offered the condition as a prank, he knew that a person such as Humbly Gentleman would never accept that level of embarrassment. However, against all odds, Humbly Gentleman did the impossible; He went to the shop, dropped planted his face on the ground and knelt for an entire day!
Unlike him, Zhang Yang was a man of his word. Now that Humbly Gentleman had crossed the bridge, Zhang Yang complied to his wishes and pulled his troops back, issuing a temporary ceasefire on The Dominators. However, things took a different path. Now that Humbly Gentleman's act was witnessed by the entire world, the guild had lost its credibility. Many more players in the guild quit since they believed that the guild will have no future under the so-called leadership of such a spineless bastard! A small internal conflict occurred and the guild lost a handful of elite players.
As such, The Dominators lost a great deal of strength and was removed from the rankings of strong guilds in White Jade Castle. Even though they still had their standards, they had lost respect. Morale was poor.
As for Pride and the Axe gang, they hung on using their own methods. Even if they could not put up a fight, they could still hide! The two guilds had "migrated" to Wild Willow City and Crimson Sky City, to reduce their pressure from Lone Desert Smoke.
At the same time, things got a little rowdy in the real world! There were online arguments coming up in the forums.
Some said the guilds deserved such treatment. You reap what you sow. Why in the first place, did those guilds guard the dead bodies of players from Lone Desert Smoke? Back then, why did not they feel remorse as they hacked at prey that they greatly outnumbered? They should have known what they were getting themselves into when they decided to go to war against Lone Desert Smoke. They should have known what could happen to them if they lost.
On the other end of things, other players mentioned that the actions of Lone Desert Smoke were a little over the top. Conflicts between guilds are a common thing. A minor skirmish between one another is too common to even pay attention to. However, Lone Desert Smoke had driven two guilds out of the city! It was overly excessive no matter how you looked at things!
All in all, the commentators in the forum did agree on one thing. A consensus was established on the authenticity of Lone Desert Smoke’s power, and its implications. They have proven themselves by almost causing the disbandment of a powerful, established influential guild that had left its mark over many games in the past! Because of this feat, they had gained themselves a top-of-the-food-chain status!
Such dominating power!
As the person in charge of liaising with outsourcing parties, Hundred Shots had been receiving many requests and news about company sponsorships. Because of that, Han Ying Xue was rather pleased as she was "the one" who first "found" the guild.
Now that Zhang Yang had gained an extra five Levels, he had overtaken Han Ying Xue and became China's highest Leveled player! After removing and putting on all his Level 60 Yellow-Gold equipment such as the Ring of Raging Blaze and Arcane Resistor, he gained a major boost in his overall statistics.
HP: 24,090
Strength: 730
Defense: 1,000
Damage Absorption: 988
Weapon Attack: (1,929 – 2,138) x 1.05%
He learned a new skill at Level 60, {Killing Cleave}.
[Killing Cleave]: Attempts to kill the target. Skill can only be used on targets with less than 20% of its maximum HP. Requires 20 Rage points to cast. Causes 100% physical melee damage to the target. Every additional Rage point will be converted to 3% extra damage per point. This skill will ignore all Defense, is Unavoidable and Unblockable.
Requires: Melee Weapon
Cost: Consumes all Rage.
Cool Down Time: 15 seconds.
If the skill was activated at 100 Rage (max), it could deal a total of 340% melee damage. That amount of damage is truly devastating! However, it wouldn’t be very practical against a boss. The reason was a such, 20 Rage a hit could be the same as {Force Strike}. If all rage is consumed, each extra Rage point will only be an additional 3.4% melee damage. It's much weaker than the 10% Rage {Horizontal Sweep} or the Level 10 {Tornado Cleave} which only costs 8% Rage!
However, if the target was a player, it would be a different scenario, since the skill can only be used when a target's HP was lower than 20%, which couldn’t amount to more than 1,600 HP, since the majority of non-tank players only had 8,000 HP at most! Any other skill can be used to kill that player! This skill will only reach its maximum potential when the game matures a little more. By then, average players would be at a higher level and have higher HPs. By then, the skill could be used to guarantee certain kills!
When all other skill have been used and are in cool down, this skill would serve greatly as a bonus attack. Unavoidable, unblockable, ignores all defense?! However, Zhang Yang had {Eagle Eye}, it would be like adding salt to the sea!
A skill like this was currently wasted on Zhang Yang. On an inferior player however….a tank would need to constantly kite the boss. Taking damage constantly will basically provide an endless supply of Rage points. Since the skill could ignore all defense, weaker players with lower tiered equipment could use the skill to deal extra damage to kite the boss properly.
After a few days of grinding, Zhang Yang had his Bear King by his side whenever he was in combat. Since pets would require lower experience points to level up compared to a player, Whitey had been gaining levels faster than before. Thanks to Zhang Yang dragging monsters all around the field to kill them as entire herds instead of facing them one by one, Whitey had finally reached the same level as Zhang Yang, Level 60.
By then, Whitey had not procured any new skill. Zhang Yang had to visit the auction house to purchase two pet skill books. As the name states, the skill book was only eligible for pets. By right, Whitey was a mount, not a pet, and therefore unable to learn skills from such a method, but when Zhang Yang learned {Beast Taming}, Whitey had gained the status of both pet mount and normal pet!
[Icy Build] (Passive): Whenever you are attacked by a Frost attack, reduces damage by 90%.
[Wild Recovery]: Coverts 10 Focus points into 5% HP recovery every second. Lasts for 10 seconds. Cool Down Time: 2 minutes.
{Wild Recovery} is extremely common, which only cost Zhang Yang 20 gold coins. On the other hand, {Icy Build} was as expensive as f*ck! It cost Zhang Yang 20,000 gold coins to buy that bloody book! However, after reading the skill description, Zhang Yang felt that the skill was worth its cost.
At Level 60, [Gold-Eared Bear King] was truly mighty! The difference between a pet and a player is that a pet would not require any equipment to gain stats! Levels would be relative to their power! As their levels go up, so do their stats! The stat growth they gain would depend on their rarity.
[Gold-Eared Bear King] (Yellow-Gold Battle Mount)
Level: 60
HP: 16,800
Defense: 1,200
Weapon Attack: 3,692 – 3,892 (Attack Interval: 3 seconds, DPS: 1,264)
After Zhang Yang had acquired the skill {Beast Taming}, the bear had gained a Defense attribute. However, the Defense attribute would only be active when it is summoned as a pet, instead of a mount. The ridiculous bear had actually surpassed its own master in terms of both offense and defensive values.
Right now, the bear had two modes. One, the mount mode. In this mode, {Shared Life}, {Wild Charge}, and {Claw Attack} are the only skills available. As a pet however, it was able to use {Wild Charge}, {Claw Attack}, {Wild Recovery} and {Icy Build}!
The current date was October the 24th. The majority of players around had already passed the Level 50 threshold. Zhang Yang's stockpiled [Solid Iron Plates] had been sold out clean. On average, each [Solid Iron Plate] was sold at around 13 gold coins each. All 17,000 stacks of [Solid Iron Plate] had been sold for a total of 44,200,000 gold coins! The current currency exchange rate was at 1:3 which covert that sum to 130,000,000 dollars! That number had exceeded Zhang Yang's prediction by 50,000,000 dollars!
[Level 3 Fire Resistance Potion] were not as common however. This situation had left Zhang Yang in a huge dilemma. If he placed his efforts in making potions, his current lead in levels would slowly drop. On the other hand, if he ignored the market demand and paid attention to grinding, he would be missing the chance to make more money!
The best way to solve this problem would be to hire a player for their services, the kind that specializes in crafting potions! But…could he find someone he could trust? It's hard to put his trust on anyone, because every recipe that Zhang Yang finds and procures is worth a lot of gold coins! Facing the prospect of such profit, greed would easily change a man's perception.
Fatty Han was his number one choice, but making potion will be a test of patience…someone like Fatty Han will definitely flip the table!
He thought…and thought…and after giving some time, he had an idea. He logged out of the game and picked up the phone.
"Hello…" Yu Li voice was heard over the phone. She sounded a little tired.
"It's me. Zhang Yang. How is your mother?"
"Yes. She's been relocated to the best ward now. A kidney donor is already on the way and the doctor said that she can have her surgery within a week!" said Yu Li excitedly. She giggled a little and said, "So, I don't think you're calling me just to ask about my mother. Have you finally decided to accept my invitation to bed?"
A drop of cold sweat went down his forehead.
What a woman!
"Actually, I have an idea that would help you return the money you borrowed from me!"
"Hm?"
"I want to hire you as my personal potion crafter. In the game, I will have you craft me some potions! I will pay you…60,000 dollars as monthly salary! You will be able clear all your debt to me in just five years, with some personal savings to boot!"
"Zhang Yang…I said that I don't want to owe you anything anymore---"
"Listen to me, woman! Geez! Have you forgotten that I have been selling potions for a while back then? In the near future, there will be many more types of potions for sale! I don't have that much free time, sitting around all say on my ass, crafting bloody potions! That is why I'm hiring you to do some virtual hard labor! Do you understand the situation here, woman? I could earn millions or even billion while all you get is a fixed salary. I'm practically robbing you!"
"…I understand. Thank you so much, Zhang Yang." Yu Li was silent for a while before she finally replied. She understood Zhang Yang's intention. He could have easily looked for other people to do his work but instead, he asked her. She knew that Zhang Yang was just finding a reason to help her.
"Until your mother fully recovers, you best stay with her. You can get back into the game when she's all good. I'll help you increase your Alchemy mastery. Oh! Could you please come over to White Jade Castle? It'll save me a lot of time when delivering the materials!"
"Ok!"
Zhang Yang hung up, a great weight taken off his shoulders. At least that's one problem solved.
Zhang Yang daily routine comprised of making potions and grinding his level. The daily dungeon runs of Poison Fireland and the Palace of Centaur were left to Endless Starlight. That young man had the potential to grow even stronger. After a few days of raiding and training, he was showing the promising skills and capabilities of a great tank!
After Level 60, gaining one level would take eight days at minimum. Since Zhang Yang had to allocate some time to craft some potions, he had only managed to gain one level by the first of November. Currently, the Level Ranking Board’s Top 10 players were as such:
Zhan Yu, Guardian, Level 61
Little Snow, Priest, Level 57
Frost Night, Assassin, Level 57
Slim and Handsome, Beastmaster, Level 57
Drizzler, Berserker, Level 56
Daffodil Daydream, Pyromancer, Level 56
Hundred Shots, Beastmaster, Level 56
One Sword Stroke, Guardian, Level 55
Endless Starlight, Defender, Level 55
Drifting Scent, Bandit, Level 54.
There were three tanks and one healer in the Level Ranking Board Top Ten list?! A normal player would definitely be stunned in disbelief. Everyone would expect a Spellcaster to be the leveling king! Since when was a tank better at grinding than a Spellcaster?
9 am: Zhang Yang logged into the game on time and heard a clear voice of a woman ringing in his ears, "Spectre War Zone has been launched, you may now proceed to enter through Teleportation Points in major cities!"
Spectre War Zone. The name was self-explanatory, it was a war zone filled with spectres. This new map was like a dungeon instance. Even though the map was filled with elite tiered monsters, the monsters inside the war zone were much easier to defeat than a regular common map elite monster. The experience points granted were lesser than the regular elite, they were still substantially higher than the experience points from normal monsters!
These monsters in the war zone do not drop regular drops like coins, materials, etc items, or equipment. Instead, at a fixed drop rate, these monsters will drop Rune Crafting essences and Rune Craft recipes! The war zone will be divided into different level maps to suit the varying levels of players. The lowest tier started at Level 10, and the levels went up by 10 per ascending tier.
Level 10, Level 20, and Level 30 Spectre War Zone's elite monster had a 1% chance of dropping [Level 1 Black-Steel Essence], 0.1% chance of dropping [Level 1 Green-Copper Essence]. The bosses here will have a 1% chance of dropping [Level 1 Green-Copper Essence] and a 0.1% chance of dropping [Level 1 Gray-Silver Essence].
Level 40, Level 50, and Level 60 Spectre War Zone's elite monster will have 1% chance of dropping [Level 2 Green Copper Essence] and 0.1% chance of dropping [Level 2 Gray-Silver Essence]. The bosses here will have 1% chance of dropping [Level 2 Gray-Silver Essence] and a 0.1% chance of dropping [Level 2 Yellow-Gold Essence].
At the current stage of the game, there were plenty of Green-Copper tiered weapons lying around, however, Level 40 Gray-Silver tier equipment were so rare that no one would willingly disassemble them to extract their essence. So, naturally, without materials, there would not be any Rune Stones, which made the new profession rather meaningless.
To counter this problem that was quickly becoming prevalent, the developers had created the Spectre War Zone. The first three days of each month, players would have one chance of entering the war zone at a cost of 30 gold coins per entry for three hours. The entry count would not be carried over to the next month, only resetting when the time came. As such, Rune Crafting players would not have to worry about a shortage of essences. Even though the existence of the war zone would not satisfy the current market demand, it was a solution to lessen the burden of those players that learned Rune Craft. At least, the profession had some meaning now!