Chapter 8: Ambush!
Translator: Halcyon Translation Editor: Halcyon Translation
Right now gold coins were valuable but there wasn’t a big market for them. If you were to trade it, it would be roughly 1 to 1500 times in terms of value. After taking into account the 20% discount, Lu Li would be able to attain about 25,000 real life money if he were to give Star Moon Union the skill book.
“With this bit of cash, we could rent a nice small suite near a park, and find a decent school for my little sister,” Lu Li thought.
As for Drinking Alone?
The price that Square Root 3 has offered was higher and fulfilled the weekly gold quota. Lu Li really had no reason to reject him, after all, Drinking Alone and he were not really friends.
However, this did not get Drinking Alone down, as he warmly said: “Brother Lu Li, add me as a friend. Next time you find some good equipment, don’t forget me. I hope for an opportunity to work together in the future.”
Lu Li felt like it would be rude to refuse, so he hastily accepted the friend request.
Ao Jian and I am Richy Rich both felt ashamed, so they found a reason to leave. Square Root 3 was left with the responsibility of trading the skill book from Lu Li and dealing with the financial transfer.
25,000 in actual money!
This was almost the monthly wage of a high position office worker.
In addition, Lu Li also gave one of the bronze equipment that he found to Square Root 3. Back when he had lost everything from dying too much, Square Root 3 gave him a Sharp Dagger and supplies. At that time, he also pledged that he would return a weapon that had additional attributes. Naturally, he couldn’t break this promise.
Montreal’s Sickle (Bronze): Damage 15-23, Strength +1, Required Level 4, Durability 12/18.
This weapon had high damage, which was very useful for the early levels. Even the cool headed Square Root 3 couldn’t remain completely emotionless.
After the trade had completed, Lu Li disconnected. To professional players, getting an appropriate amount of rest was important. Lu Li didn’t want what happened last time, where after 2 to 3 months he had damaged his body.
The next day when he woke up, his sister had already left for school.
Lu Li would have to wait for her to come home before telling her the news of the money he had made. They could finally move out from this low class worn out room.
First, he went out for a run around the block, and then checked his account for the money before returning to have some breakfast. By the time he went online, the daylight was already shining in-game.
The game time and real world time had a 1:1 relationship. But the darkness in game was fixed to be from 12am to 8am no matter what. Whether it was windy or raining it would still be daytime out of those hours.
Speaking of rain, when Lu Li logged on, the Dark Ravine was raining.
The rain was fine, continuously falling and blurring the sky.
He repaired his equips and bought some bread. Then, Lu Li who had recently made a decent sum of money continued on in his journey to practice his occupation.
At this time, the highest level players would be around level 4, diligently working towards level 5. Lu Li wasted a lot of time getting the Supreme One Ring. He also spent quite some time practicing Skill Completion and opening treasure chests. In addition, the Thief occupation was not one that was easy to train up; it would in fact be stranger if he didn’t fall behind.
He was already level 3, so farming Shadowmaw Panthers would not be efficient. Instead, he decided to go and farm the LV4 Young Forest Wolves.
While he was walking, Lu Li suddenly discovered a patch of grass that was unnaturally hollowed out.
There’s a thief here!
Lu Li’s heart jumped, he hastily took 2 steps back and planned to cast Stealth.
Unfortunately, before he could do so, he heard the shifting of air behind him.
A short dagger that emitted a white light flew out at him from the void. This was obviously Shadowstrike, one of the thief skills.
Lu Li didn’t even think, reflexively turning to the side and tumbling in that direction as far as he could.
This would allow him to dodge the strike but also prevent further attacks of the thief from behind.
When the game ran for longer, even new players would know that you shouldn’t turn your back on a thief. The additional 30% dealt because of that was no joke.
The dagger grazed Lu Li’s shoulder, dealing more than 30 damage. At this stage, this was a very scary attack.
System: You have been attacked “lawlessly”, you have 10 minutes to retaliate!
He got up and started running away.
What rubbish; in this situation where there weren’t many skills to be used, both thieves knew each other’s skills. Moreover, the other thief was nowhere to be seen. Once one of them was hit by Cheap Shot, it would all be over.
“Dammit, grab him!” his assailant was decisive and followed in pursuit, holding a small dagger with him.
Because moving in stealth reduced movement speed by 30%, the other thief no longer maintained his stealth. He also started hurtling towards Lu Li wielding a dagger.
Because he was attacked, Lu Li’s movement speed was reduced and the two thieves would soon be able to attack him.
He started to despair, trying to work out why someone would just randomly decide to kill him and whether he would have an opportunity in the future to exact revenge.
In that moment, there was a rustle and a silhouette of someone ran into one of the thieves. The impact was great and the while the thief didn’t get knocked back, he was instead stunned on the spot.
Charge!
This was a warrior skill!
The swishing of two blades could be heard, and not waiting for the stun duration to end, the warrior faced his shield towards the thief.
Pa! Continue being stunned!
The blades continued to swish and the thief that was attacked fell.
At this time, Lu Li and the other thief finally reacted.
What happened next was rather anti-climactic. It was 2 on 1 and one of them was an expert Warrior. This lucky thief was also quickly taken care of.
Then, Lu Li looked at this friendly warrior, dumbfounded.
It wasn’t because seeing a Night Elf Warrior was rare… Night Elf Warriors were truly rare like beautiful flowers. This was because the race had high Agility and Intelligence but very average Strength and Constitution.
It also wasn’t because this friendly warrior had demonstrated 2 very rare skills.
The reason Lu Li was dumbfounded was very simple: he knew this warrior.
Well, he knew him from the previous game.
Azure Sea Breeze! The guy who had the bad luck of obtaining the Supreme Ring.
“I said, brother, are you dumb?”
“No you’re dumb.”
This was the first conversation between two fellow sufferers in a 2 person gold collecting group.
“I said, I saved your life, how are you going to repay me?”
“The fact that you can live the rest of your life is enough, oh yeah, this is for you.” Lu Li raised his hand and threw a ring.
Sturdy Ring (Bronze): Damage 2-6, Constitution +3, Equipment requirement: 8 Strength, Durability 20/20
Lu Li kept this ring and didn’t sell it because of this guy before him; after all, he took someone’s Druid God Ring. Hopefully it would be a bit of a consolation because ever since he got that ring he had started having bad luck.
Azure Sea Breeze instinctively caught it and after taking a glance he excitedly said, “No way brother, are you really giving me a bronze ring!”
It’s not like he had never seen a good item before. The weapon he had in hand was bronze which he traded for with a skill book that teaches the Magician skill ‘Ice Gun’. Moreover, he had also learnt ‘Charge’ and ‘Shieldstrike’.
The number of people who had obtained 3 skill books in game were very few right now.
But he hadn’t seen a ring like this before, especially a ring that has such good attributes.
“Thank you for saving my life” Lu Li said with a laugh, “If you get something good in future I hope you will return something to me.”
In this game one death costs 10% exp, but at such a low level this was only a matter of a few tens of minutes. It really wasn’t worth a bronze equip.
But Lu Li wanted to make friends with this person he once knew.
“Okay, I accept your friend request. My name is Azure Sea Breeze. Warrior, level 5,” said Azure Sea Breeze straightforwardly as patted Lu Li’s shoulder. He didn’t say anything that wasn’t necessary.
“You’re level 5” Lu Li was surprised, “I’m Lu Li, Thief, newly level 3.”
“How are you only level 3? No wonder you were attacked by the two thieves. Let’s go, I’ll help you level up.” Azure Sea Breeze was this kind of person; once he made a friend he was immediately very warm and open towards them. Otherwise, Lu Li would have never found out about the secret of his ring.
Speaking of, that ring was really just a mess.
In some sense Lu Li had made a friend, but this wasn’t completely the case. That ring didn’t make Azure Sea Breeze stronger, but resulted in lowering him to a point where he had to farm gold to get by.
Of course you don’t want to make too many requests if you are being led. But Azure Sea Breeze was already level 5, so Lu Li didn’t want to go farm Young Forest Wolves anymore.
“You’re already level 5, how about we go to an Instance Dungeon”.