Chapter 64: Hyping Up

Translator: Atlas Studios  Editor: Atlas Studios

It was a boring task to farm monsters in order to level up, especially killing of over-level monsters. One needed to stay on their guard constantly, coordinate their muscles flexibly and robotically repeat their actions for long periods. That was a challenge to the players’ willpower.

As opposed to farming monsters and leveling up, the fun and interesting parts of the game would only be exposed to the players when they changed jobs. There would be a variety of missions, all sorts of dungeons, multiple hidden maps, and monsters which players could choose to play with. Those would definitely invoke the interest of players more.

One could help to make some deliveries, have the chance to try their hands on a few monsters from missions, explore a mysterious map, etc., then. If one was lucky enough, they might meet some cute and single girls while completing their missions, and they could arrange to meet in real life to enjoy meals over hotpot, etc.

Saying that the takeaways from farming monsters and leveling up were invaluable too. For starters, killing monsters was a sure way of allowing players to learn many battle techniques! In Lin Jie’s previous life, the first few batches of players with high levels had often expressed that they had learned much from battling with monsters.

In his previous life, Lin Jie had been more used to wielding a single sword and hence was rather unfamiliar to the Dual Wield skill that most Berserkers would choose to use instead. However, as he battled on hard and long with the monsters during this trip, he felt as if he was getting back all the familiarity with his skills from his previous life!

Standing in between two Druids in the forms of giant bears, he reverse-gripped the Withered Leaf Sword with his left hand and slashed past one monster’s furry tummy. At the same time, he raised the Broken Blade up in a parallel motion with his body in his right hand, and parried the incoming attacking sharp claws from the other monster!

Rebel’s Fight!

The power of the Rebel’s Fight skill surged into his arms. Lin Jie turned his body around in a smooth motion, and both swords slashed across the eyes of the giant bears simultaneously. The next moment, both monsters’ corpses dropped down to the ground!

Ding~

A shiny silver arm guard fell out.

[Coordinate Arm Guard] (Silver)

Can be used by Warriors, Paladins, and Bandits.

Requires: Level 8

Defense: 5-10

Agility: +5

Critical Hit Damage: +5

Strength Judgement: +2

Weight: 2.5 pounds

It was much better than the arm guard’s attributes that Lin Jie wore now. He equipped himself with it, ate a loaf of bread and continued killing monsters.

As the Tip of Flames’ difficulty level was too high, not many players had explored that area yet. As such, there were a lot of monsters around. It would take at least one week for Lin Jie to clear the map of monsters just by himself.

Even if it was just to create a path for himself, it would take at least one or two days’ efforts.

Taking a look at the Circle of Flame uncompleted set in his bag, Lin Jie heaved a sigh of resignation. He was once ridiculed by Qiu Yuan and given the nickname ‘Unlucky Prince’ as he would never be able to gather a complete set of equipment if it was in pieces. All the same, pieces would be spawned repeatedly no matter how hard he tried, and this fate simply made him feel like crying.

Take the Shemendes Iron Cloak for example. He had farmed the monster which spawned it for at least 20 days, only to get the same fragment for eight times consecutively.

The same thing was happening with the Circle of Flame set. He had been getting three pieces of the Circle of Flame Breastplate consecutively since the first time he got it! A set was known as a set, precisely because it would only be able to release the greatest power when it was completely gathered. A single piece of a set was not even as good as an one-piece equipment of the same grade.

“I guess I am not good at farming and gathering sets,” Lin Jie concluded, as he gave up on his plans of gathering the set and leveling up with the monsters on the outskirts of the Tip of Flames. He chose a path which looked more promising that led into the forest areas and began his advance inwards.

Killing a Druid of the Flame which was in leopard form skilfully, a piece of shiny equipment fell out and dropped in front of Lin Jie suddenly.

[Circle of Flame Breastplate] (Silver)

Can be used by Druids and Bandits.

Requires: Level 10

Defense: 11-19

Health Points: +50

Tear and bleed: +3

Armor Penetration: +2, Magic Penetration: +2

Additional: It is part of the Circle of Flame Set.

“This… what the…” Lin Jie let out an exasperated laugh as he picked up the breastplate.

———

At a rented apartment near a certain university in Jiang City, a tall guy with messy hair was scratching his head in an agitated manner as he sat before his computer. Dander was flying all around with his actions, making it seem like the room was snowing.

He wore an outfit that made him look like a typical diaosi. 1 He was wearing a white top, floral pants, and his hair looked as if it had not been washed for ages. However, he had angular features, and if one looked closely, they would discover he was as good-looking as any popular male artists.

This person was a famous persona who once owned The New Age’s players’ forum—Junior Mo! No one would have believed that the reporter, who could accurately capture all the news trends in The New Age and signed off each post with an Insta-worthy photo of himself, would lead such a disorganized lifestyle in real life.

It was commonly known that there were at least three times more male gamers than female gamers in any games. As such, pretty female reporters were always more sought after than dashing hunk reporters. Ever since the pretty female reporter An Xiaoran became famous in the game, Junior Mo had lost the favor of the crowd. Even if he published a new post personally, An Xiaoran’s posts could get millions of hits just by repeating and reading aloud his original post, without editing a single word!

In fact, many players would rather wait until the Game News Protection Period of three hours passed and listen to An Xiaoran’s posts, rather than reading the original forum posts.

As such, Junior Mo’s once well-planned route to fame was destroyed.

“No one can stop me from making a name for myself!” Junior Mo stood up suddenly and rubbed his face with a towel roughly, lifting up his hair at the same time.

“At most I will just make a trip to Thailand!” 2

Ding~

A notification sound rang out from his gaming helmet. Junior Mo logged into the game curiously and realized it was a message from a player named Seven Ears.

‘Ah, I know this player. He is the ‘Boss’ of the Sky Provisions Shop. It’s rumored he has a nasty temper. Why would he come and find me?’

‘I am not someone who will be bought over easily just by a few sweet words, help to do dirty tasks, and then seal up ugly news for you! At the very least, I still have my basic integrity as a reporter, hmph!’

“I am giving you a piece of big news here,” said Seven Ears.

“Aye, Seven Ears leader, please commence, I am awaiting your orders!” replied Junior Mo earnestly as he fished out his pen and paper hurriedly. The hell with the ‘reporter’s integrity’! Could it help to fill an empty stomach? Or allow one to add on a delicious piece of ham sausage with his plain instant noodles for every meal? No! He would do anything as long as there was good news!

Seven Ears was rather shocked by Junior Mo’s reactions. He coughed a few times dryly before continuing, “Nowadays most players are leveling up, and will be reaching Level 10 soon…”

“Yes, yes, please continue…” Junior Mo inhaled deeply. He had a feeling that this person might be his savior!

“I will first tell you some information regarding the Job-Changing Missions. Now here is a list of all the mission rewards for every job in the game, and… the corresponding coordinates of the NPCs to look for.”

“The Job-Changing Missions can be divided into the levels of…”

Junior Mo noted all of these down as he listened. When the conversation ended, his notebook was full of words.

‘Completion of Normal-Level missions will allow players to learn an extra normal skill, and give him training suggestions!’

‘Completion of Difficult-Level mission will require players to complete a specialized mission for that job. Upon completion of that mission, one can receive specialized items for that particular job!’

‘Completion of Expert-Level…’

Junior Mo’s eyelids twitched uncontrollably. He hurriedly logged out of the game and drank a whole bottle of mineral water to calm himself down.

At this crucial point of time, when all the players were looking for information related to Job-Changing Missions, he had just received what they needed exactly!

No, it was not only that. Just imagine, what would be the next piece of information players sought for desperately after they knew all those? The locations of the various corresponding NPCs! He would just need to find the correct timing to release the news, and then… fame would return to him!

‘Hahaha, I am rich! Cough, cough…’ Junior Mo was choked by water, but he still could not contain his elation as he laughed cockily at the sky. He logged into the game’s forums and started writing the first post…

The legal Game News Protection Period had passed after three hours.

An Xiaoran smiled as she switched on her audio and speech recording devices. Her sweet voice enticed many players as it announced, “Dear players, a very good evening. I am An Xiaoran. Today I will be reading the news for everyone, let’s see… hmm, the first piece of news today is from our old friend, Junior Mo.”

“Hahaha…” Many people from the audience laughed knowingly. They knew of the current predicament of this once famous Number 1 reporter.

“Hehe, enough of this, I shall report the news formally now. Junior Mo published a post: ‘Exclusive: The difficulty levels of the Job-Changing Missions and their respective rewards (the locations of the respective NPCs will be revealed in the next post)’…” An Xiaoran’s voice became softer and softer as she read out the title of the post, and eventually reduced to the volume like the buzzing sound of mosquitoes… She hurriedly threw the script she held in her hands down and announced, “Everyone, please wait, we will gather the relevant information and announced it to you…”

Yet, it was too late!

Once the title of Junior Mo’s post was announced, the number of audiences who had signed in to her channel dropped to a bare minimum from the previous hundred thousands. Except for the few guys who really liked listening to the girl’s voice, all the rest rushed to the game’s forums and started searching for Junior Mo’s posts.

At the same time, the second piece of news had already been published: “Formal Announcement of the respective NPCs to look out for Job-Changing Missions! The first batch: for Mages, Warriors, and Paladins!”

Junior Mo was a clever reporter. Mages, Warriors, and Paladins were the three jobs which concentrated most on leveling up at the beginning stages of the game. He would announce the news relevant to those jobs first. That would not only allow other players to help to verify the credibility of the news he announced, increasing his posts’ popularity, but it would also make people want to read on.

Once the rewards of the Difficult-Level and Normal-Level Job-Changing Missions were made known, the term ‘Simple-Level’ became synonymous to the act of ‘degradation of oneself’ in the game. The logic was simple: why would one want to lose out to others by having one less skill? Would a Paladin enjoy the feeling of running around with his two legs when they saw others riding on their mounts?

In less than five minutes within the publishing of the news, tens of players replied and verified that the news released by Junior Mo was true!

Junior Mo rose to fame instantly. Numerous players were waiting for him to announce the next set of coordinates for their jobs’ corresponding NPCs.

As each of the coordinates became verified by the players, Junior Mo made a successful comeback, and every single word in his posts captivated the players’ attention. When the last three jobs, Druids, Bandits and Shamans’ corresponding NPCs were being verified, Junior Mo’s words were revered as instructions from Heavens!

Just when everyone thought this would be the end of the news, the first few batches of players, who tried to attempt their missions, began to complain on the forum that the trials for changing jobs were too hard to complete!

For both the Normal and Difficult trials, players would be required to tackle the mission’s Boss single-handedly.

The stats of the Bosses for those missions were average, but trouble was it required players to be very skillful to beat those Bosses. At this current stage in the game, even the experts who enjoyed great fame in Lin Jie’s previous life were just like kids who were only beginning to explore their talents. Naturally, it was even more difficult for normal players.

What to do then?

Junior Mo published another post named “Methods to conquer Boss in Job-Changing Missions” at that timing.

In summary, the contents of this post were very simple. If one didn’t have enough skills, then use robust equipment!

Yet, how to cover up with that method? Go and get a set of Golden Armor Set from Castle Wood?

No! Junior Mo pointed to an item – the Augmenting Gem!