Chapter 148 (The Harvesting Skill)
“Hold on!” Never Surrender quickly stopped me and said, “Green Veggies buddy, I appreciate your helping hand. But this fight, I want to do it myself, okay?”
“You…”
I was speechless. This guy was just at level 32 and his equipment wasn’t very good either. According to my observation, he shouldn’t have any blue equipment. Just counting on his own strength, he simply couldn’t stand against the Justice Family.
Seeing me slowly stepping back, the Justice family immediately rushed up. Never Surrender didn’t hesitate to meet them up. The sword in his hand immediately hit the level 30 Mage, Justice 4.
Almost in the same time, Justice 4 and Never Surrender transformed into white lights.
This kid, would he be satisfied like this?
“Let’s go!” Justice 1 looked at me, but in the end, he didn’t dare to do anything and left with all his brothers.
I continued to search for the elusive NPC. At this moment, I received a friend request from Never Surrender and I accepted. His message followed, “Brother, thank you! You’re the first person to help me after I played this game for so long.”
“Don’t you have any friend? Why are you involve in this killing by yourself?”
“I have friends, but I don’t want to get them involved. After all, this was caused by me alone.”
For a while, I didn’t know how to argue so I said, “Maybe you’re right, everyone has their own principle, but people need to face the reality. Although I admire your dedication and courage, but I still advise you. If you want to take revenge, then you should get stronger as soon as possible by joining a guild or get some help. Then kill those Justice people until they don’t dare to walk out of the city, isn’t this more fun?”
“You’re right…”
“Why don’t you join Murong Shan Shan’s guild. Just tell them that I recommend you.”
After a few minutes, Never Surrender’s message finally came in, “Currently, I don’t want to join any guild. Perhaps, after you establish your guild, I’ll consider it.”
Thereupon, I didn’t say anything further and continued to look for the NPC.
I looked at the time and it was already one in the morning. Terrible, I was so sleepy, but it would be impossible for me to sleep before I finished the mission.
After looking for nearly half an hour again, finally, under a banyan tree, I saw someone called “Idle Drake”. He was lying on the green grass with a piece of grass leave in his mouth.
“Young man, is there something? If not, don’t block the sun!”
I went straight to the point, “I want to learn Alchemist!”
“Oh, so it’s like that. Then, go buy a cutting knife first!” Drake said quietly.
“Damn!” I cursed inside, but still quickly went back to the city to buy the special knife for harvesting herbs.
This time, Drake stood up, “Since you’re so sincere I’ll first teach you the basic Alchemist skills!”
“Ding~!”
System Notification: You have learned Inspection. Go to a nearby place to the north and look for a tomato garden. Harvest 100 tomatoes and bring them back to Drake. He will then teach you more advanced alchemist skills.
Thus, I went straight to the north. Not far away, there was indeed an area with wild tomatoes. Upon my arrival, few small animals looked frightened and fled in all directions. In the blink of an eye, the place was calm again like before.
I began to harvest and the system immediately announced the harvesting information:
You collected Tomato x2, gain Harvesting Experience +2
You collected Tomato x3, gain Harvesting Experience +3
…
It was very fast. In only a few minutes, I had acquired the 100 tomatoes required for the mission, and then immediately went back to find that Idle Drake.
Drake really taught me the regular alchemist skills and also gave me the title Alchemist Apprentice. In addition to the previously Miner Apprentice, the two sub-class position were all filled already. Thus, there wouldn’t be any chance for me to take another sub-class. And even if I could, I wouldn’t have the time to practice all the skills then.
It had cost me 20 gold coins for the learning fee. No wonder that it was rarely to see a player learn a sub-class. At the moment, most players had tight money to even learn the main skills, so how would they had the money to learn these sub-class skills.
The Harvesting Experience had turned into Harvesting level 1. I tried to collect tomatoes again, but found out that it no longer gave me any Experience anymore. Cauldron Boy said that in Silvermoon Mountain, you could find a lot of resources, then I should go there!
When I got to the East gate, I noticed that it was almost three in the morning already. Originally, I didn’t intend to play all-nighters, but really didn’t expect that I would be playing for so long.
After pondering for a while, I decided to go up the mountain. Anyway, it was already this late.
Although normally people were sleeping at this hour, but at the moment, there were still quite many people leveling at the Silvermoon Mountain foothill. Just a few days ago, this place was accepted by others as the training area of Swords and Roses, so those players that weren’t members of Swords and Roses would rather go further to the Twilight Forest to level, unwilling to kill monsters in other’s ground.
Several people from the guild saw me and greeted, “Going through the night?”
“Yeah,” I nodded to greet and then directly went up the hill.
I still went to the place of those Bewitched Grasses. That was when I discovered that some herbs would appear sporadically in the bushes. It seemed that they would re-spawn from time to time. I just felt strange. As I recollected, why didn’t I find any of these herbs when I came here previously?
There was only one possible reason: Those who didn’t learn the alchemist skills wouldn’t be able to see these herbs!
So, I immediately began collecting. After experiencing it, I found out that getting the herbs by this way was really less difficult than killing monsters. Not to mention that the monsters wouldn’t always drop herbs. These bewitched grasses should be an exception!
The system constantly prompted the harvesting information:
You collected Lemon Grass x2, gain Harvesting Experience +2
You collected Apple Mint x3, gain Harvesting Experience +3
You collected Apple Mint x2, gain Harvesting Experience +2
You collected Lemon Grass x3, gain Harvesting Experience +3
After half an hour, I had cleaned the resources in this place already, but I still hadn’t found any of those Iris Flowers that I needed. What’s going on here?
I waved my sword to kill several monsters and was excited to find a few clusters of light-blue flowers next to a large tree on the opposite side.
It was when I was excitingly waving the knife to collect that I discovered that something went wrong. Damn, the names of these flowers were in red color. It was definitely weird! And sure enough, the harvesting information disappointed me very much:
You can’t collect Iris Flower, need Harvesting skill level 2!
No wonder!
I opened the skill details to take a look. Just now, when I collected for half an hour, the level 1 Harvesting skill’s Experience only increased less than 10%. Calculated this way, I would need at least another half day to increase the level. However, that was an ideal calculation. Right now, the area where I’d been collecting the herbs had been cleaned, so if I want to collect, I would need to find another area with resources. I was worried that to increase the level of the skill wouldn’t be as simple as to just practicing for a day or two…
Fortunately, the herbs that I collected would already be enough to let me refine a level 2 Life Restore potion. This potion could instantly at 1,200 points of Health, which for now, would be sufficient. Even Murong Shan Shan’s eyes would turn red from jealousy.
Entering into the stealth mode, I wandered in the lower part of Silvermoon Mountain for a few hours (with my current level, going up would be too dangerous), and found a few area to collect herbs. However, the herbs were too few and I collected them in a flash. Every time, it wasn’t satisfying.
At six in the morning, I finally couldn’t bear it anymore. So I went back to the open area to see if the herbs had re-spawned already in the bushes. The outcome was disappointing. After three hours, it still hadn’t re-spawned. It seemed that the re-spawned frequency was 6 hours or 12 hours. No wonder that nobody wanted to learn a sub-class at the current since it was really a test of patience. Because my own level was high enough, I could give up my leveling time to do this. It would be different for other people. All they want to do at the moment was to train their level. Only with high levels then someone could get high-level equipment and skills, and enticed a flirtatious girl to invite you to bed.
I went into stealth mode and then got offline.
This time, I didn’t want to eat instant noodles, so I walked out the door to go downstairs to buy a few bags of buns and soy milk to bring back. With this, Xin Yu and the others wouldn’t need to make any breakfast, and I didn’t have to eat those high-preservative junk foods.
Maybe I was too tired that I slept really tight until noon when I was wakened up by the phone ring. Taking a look, it was Murong Shan Shan on the phone.
“Have you seen my message that I sent you this morning?”
“Not yet, I just woke up…”
“Ah, doing all-nighters again? I’ve told you not to stay up all night!”
“Okay, okay, why are you looking for me?”
Murong Shan Shan chuckled and said, “Come out first, the lunch is on me. I’ll meet you at the platform downstairs!”
I didn’t know what she was up to, but I still played along.
Lu Xue Han was cooking. When she saw me from behind the glass, she said, “Already awake?”
“Yes, I have things to do at noon, I’ll be eating outside.”
“Is it with Murong Shan Shan?” Lu Xue Han said, laughing.
I asked in surprise, “Xue Han, how do you know?”
Lu Xue Han smiled with her pursed lips, “This morning, I saw a text from Murong Shan Shan on your cell phone, but I didn’t open it. So I guess, she must have some matters to do with you.”
“Yes, indeed. I’ll be heading out first. Please tell Xin Yu and sister Lin for me.”
“Okay.”
…
After walking out the door, I directly called a cab. Murong Shan Shan’s place wasn’t far away from our place, only about 15 minutes walk. But I was already starving and really didn’t have any strength to walk.