Novel Bin Chapter 8: Gathering Materials
Zhang Yang jogged all the way back to Beginner Village and found Warrior Class Instructor Farion. Panting for breath, he could not help but miss the teleport reagent that could only be bought after Level 10 in the Capital.
“Greenhorn, I’ve got to admit that I’ve underestimated you!” Farion was still wearing a smug face as he received the Iron Ores delivered by Zhang Yang. “But you’re still just a greenhorn! Here! Take your shield and get out!”
Farion threw over a shield gleaming with black luster to Zhang Yang.
“Ding! You have completed the Class Quest: A Warrior’s Test. Gained 5,000 Experience Points!”
[Thick Iron Shield] (Black-Steel, Shield)
Defense: +10
Vitality: +5
Level Requirement: 5
“Wait!” Farion’s smug expression had suddenly changed into a surprised one. “You actually have Refined Iron Ores?”
“That’s right, honorable great master!” Zhang Yang took out 10 Refined Iron Ores from his inventory and handed them to Farion, knowing full well that he had successfully triggered the hidden quest.
“What beautiful luster, it reminds me of the diamonds in Dofus Mountain!” Farion reveled, his gaze towards the Refined Iron Ores in his hands as indulgent as a lover’s.
Only after a short moment did Farion say, “I was once a blacksmith before I became a great warrior! Greenhorn, these Refined Iron Ores made my hands tingle. If you agree, I would like to use them to make an indestructible blade!”
“As you wish, honorable great master!” Zhang Yang immediately nodded and agreed.
“Very well!” Farion was delighted and said, “However, just these Refined Iron Ores are insufficient, you will also need to collect another 3 types of materials!”
“Ding! Farion has a quest for you: Materials to Craft a Blade (I). Will you accept it?”
“Accept!” Zhang Yang checked the quest log immediately after he had accepted the quest.
[Material to Craft a Blade (I)] (Difficulty Level: C)
Quest Description: Farion needs the Incisors of the Ivory Fanged Boar as crafting material for the blade. It is said that these monsters appear in the Watermelon Farm south of the village.
Progress: Collect Incisors of Ivory Fanged Boar 0/10
Ivory Fanged Boar. That would be a Level 10 monster, would it not? Zhang Yang did not leave immediately. Instead, he talked to Farion again and learned Level 5 Warrior skills: <Block> and <Shield Bash>.
[Block] (Level 1): Raise your shield, blocking one frontal attack from the enemy for 1 second. After a successful block, it will cause 100% damage to the enemy, generating a huge amount of aggro. Builds some Rage. Cooldown time: 10 seconds. Requirement: Shield.
[Shield Bash]: Bash the target with your shield, dealing 200% damage and generating a huge amount of aggro. Can only be casted after a successful Block. Cost: 10 Rage Points. Requirement: Shield.
Block would definitely be a Guardian’s most divine skill! When the cooldown time reduces to 1 second after leveling it up to Level 10, be it the immunity to offense or the burst damage that would come right after with a <Shield Bash>, its might would be utterly terrifying!
After equipping himself with the Thick Iron Shield, Zhang Yang went to Village Elder Hu An and handed him the Black Panther King’s skull.
“Ahh! Is this – is this the skull of the Black Panther King? This damned beast which had killed so many of our villagers!” Elder Hu An was absolutely delighted, looking at Zhang Yang with elation, “Praise the Lord, you are indeed a brave and kind young man, all of the villagers will be so very grateful to you!”
“Ding! You have completed the quest: Removing the Villagers’ Threat. Gained 10,000 Experience Points!”
“Ding! Your Human Race Reputation has increased by 200 points!”
200 Reputation Points! Zhang Yang pursed his lips. Reputation had been a confounded system in the game. Each race had their corresponding reputation divided into 7 levels in ascending order – Hostile, Unfriendly, Neutral, Friendly, Respect, Admire, and Worship. If a player’s reputation level in a specific race is lower than Neutral, he would induce attacks from that specific race whenever he entered their territory; if the reputation level had reached Friendly or higher, the player would be able to purchase items corresponding to their reputation level. Basically, the higher the reputation of a person towards that specific faction, the better the quality of items one would be able to purchase!
Zhang Yang arrived at the south of the village. There were wild boars everywhere gnawing watermelons in the 3 existing watermelon farms. To the side was a farmhouse and a white bearded man pacing around anxiously.
“Elder one, is there anything I can do for you?” Zhang Yang ran forward to strike a conversation as soon as he saw the yellow exclamation mark above the NPC’s head.
“Look at those damn wild boars trashing my watermelon farms! Kill them all and I will reward you!” the old man bellowed.
[Kill the Boars] (Difficulty Level: C)
Quest Description: Kill those damn Ivory Fanged Boars!
Progress: Kill Ivory Fanged Boar 0/10
[Ivory Fanged Boar] (Normal)
Level: 10
HP: 500
There were another 4 or 5 player parties in the watermelon farms. As the Ivory Fanged Boar’s level was slightly higher, most of the Level 5 players could not go solo when fighting the monsters and thus formed parties. Even so, the huge level gap had still made killing a single boar difficult for a team of 5.
These people showed no intention of leaving even with their slow pace. To them, at least this place still had monsters and was far better than places where a freshly spawned monster would instantly be stabbed by more than 10 swords simultaneously.
A few of them had started laughing when they saw Zhang Yang coming alone.
“Fool, are you seriously grinding here alone? A donkey must have kicked your brains out!”
“Haha, I wonder how many donkey kicks does it take to make one so stupid.”
“Let’s just wait and see how he’s gonna get his ass kicked by the wild boars!”
Of course, there were kind hearted players too.
“Buddy, the monsters around here are all Level 10. You can’t do it.”
“Our team’s Spellcaster is about to leave. There is a slot in our party, how about joining us?”
Most of them seemed to have overlooked the shield on Zhang Yang’s back. It would have been a reward received only after one had completed the Level 5’s Class Quest! While there were an incredible number of players who had already reached Level 5 currently, the number of players who had cleared the Class Quest could only be counted with less than one hand!
Zhang Yang smiled and rejected their party invitations. He gripped his Beginner Sword and moved towards the closest wild boar. He then activated the skill <Charge> when he was in its effective range.
Stunned!
“-30!”
Streams of blood gushed out as Zhang Yang swung his weapon and slashed the boar.
“Hu! Hu! Hu!” the Ivory Fanged Boar recovered and roared angrily. It stabbed towards Zhang Yang with both its sharp fangs.
Zhang Yang activated the skill <Block>.
“-27!” Successful block and counterattack!
“-64!” <Shield Bash>!
“-31!” Another normal attack!
“-29!” Rage increased to 30 points, <Force Strike>!
Dodge!
<Block> entered into cooldown. Zhang Yang easily evaded the attack of the wild boar with just a swift move – a Level 15 Black Panther King could not even come into contact with Zhang Yang, let alone a common Level 10 monster!
In just 4 to 5 seconds, Zhang Yang had delivered 181 damage points, decreasing one third of the boar’s HP. All of the players could only stare at him wide-eyed on the sideline as if they had seen a ghost. Those damage numbers were unbelievable! Was this dude really a Guardian?
Guardians actually had pretty good nuking1 power. The keypoint was the skill <Block>! The timing for using <Block> would then be the key factor during the early stages to tell the difference between an outstanding Guardian and a regular Guardian!
Characters would gain an additional effect after activating <Block>, allowing the player to block another attack for the following 1 second! Since the follow-up effect only lasted for one second, if the skill was activated too early and the attack had yet to come, the effect would have had disappeared by then! And if the activation was too late...
<Block> would have been invalid, thus the devastating <Shield Bash> that followed could not have been activated.
Of course, when <Block> had reached Level 10, these restrictions would have been nulled so one could easily keep spamming2 the button.
Zhang Yang had been changing his position with ease until <Block>’s cooldown time had been fulfilled. He then activated another chain-skill. The Ivory Fanged Boar wailed and died with a white flash, granting Zhang Yang 500 EXP. His hands reached out and with luck, he had gotten an Incisor!
“F*ck, this guy is mighty!”
“Yeah, he killed it so quickly and did not even suffer from a single drop of HP!”
“I just finally realized that you can evade a monster’s attack by moving around!”
“Eh, I thought it’s a given that a character depends on Evasion, Parry and Block to gain attack immunity?”
“Bro, this is a virtual reality game, not a traditional online game. Gotta learn more!”
“...”
The surrounding players were having a heated conversation. Luckily, Zhang Yang had chosen to hide his name, otherwise he would have gotten famous here. Still, there were nosy players who had used the in-game recorder to record how Zhang Yang had fought the monster and posted it to the forum titling the post, ‘Unexpected Godly Player, Unscathed Killing’, raising a public commotion.
Everyone was but a beginner at this current stage of the game. How could they not be impressed when they saw Zhang Yang’s advanced skills that was at least 5 years ahead of the current game’s standard? Within a short period, countless players had turned Zhang Yang into their idol worshipping him.
Zhang Yang killed the wild boars consecutively. Although his killing speed was considerably slow compared to a 5-men party, he was killing without suffering from damages, and thus, there was no need for him to rest, increasing his efficiency.
About 7 or 8 minutes later, he had already slain 10 wild boars but had only collected 7 Incisors, requiring him to continue grinding.
Another 5 minutes had passed before Zhang Yang finally succeeded in collecting 10 Incisors. He first submitted the quest ‘Kill the Boars’ and rushed back to meet Farion. Behind him, the players had long been dumbfounded, their own fights long forgotten as they only cared about observing Zhang Yang’s fight.
“Well done. You can now start searching for the second material!” Farion granted Zhang Yang 5,000 EXP and continued instructing.
“Ding! Farion has a quest for you: Material to Craft a Blade (II). Will you accept it?”
A new entry was added to the quest log after Zhang Yang had accepted the quest.
[Material to Craft a Blade (II)] (Difficulty Level: C)
Quest Description: There is a pack of Fire Elementals wandering in the Scorched Valley. Upon death, the Fire Elementals condense into potent Refined Fire Essences! It was said that the Scorched Valley is at the end of the road towards the west of the village.
Progress: Collect Refined Fire Essence 0/3
Towards the opposite direction!
Zhang Yang sighed and followed the quest instructions, going west from Beginner Village. After about half an hour, he finally arrived at the valley, ground burnt and fuming soot. Flaming red elemental monsters wandering around his destination.
[Fire Elemental] (Normal)
Level: 10
HP: 500
This place was too far from Beginner Village and no quest would have led anyone here, so there were no one around besides Zhang Yang.
Let the killing begin!
Translator Notes
1 Nuke (Nuking) is a term used by gamers to describe a massive amount of damage. Nuking an enemy would generally mean killing it in one go, usually to prevent them from reacting, whether by healing, fleeing or retaliating. E.g. “I was nuked and died on the spot! I didn’t even know who did it!”
2 Spam (Spamming) is a term used by gamers to describe repeated casting of a spell or usage of an item. It is somewhat similar to, but is not an abuse of the system to perform a specific task. Players could be dealing good damage by spamming their highest damage dealing skill, or spamming potions to heal while tanking a high damage-dealing enemy. E.g. “Stop spamming potions and fight me like a real man!”