No Tara Under The Horizon
Chapter 18's
The Frost Mound was as cold and sinister as ever. A bronze pole protruded from the ground, an image of a demon engraved on its surface. Human heads, beastmen, succubi, and so on were impaled at the ends. Succubi are naturally seductive, and most of them are female. That is also why most succubus in the game are female players.
I entered the Frost Mound and stopped in front of Sentinel Leader Fark. As I spoke to him, the careless skeletal warrior swung his hand and laughed. “Small frame, your growth is really impressive. Seeing your current strength, I decided to entrust you with a very difficult quest!”
I lowered my head slightly and replied, “Give me!”
“For the past few days, an Undead Lord has been lingering around the Frost Mound Necropolis. Before he died, this Undead Master was a human noble and knight. Since he has invaded our territory, I want you to kill him, little skeleton. Of course, this Undead Master is very powerful, so the strongest undead swordsman of our camp, Suren, will accompany you. However, you should bring him 40 Spiky Skeleton Fingers first. Otherwise, he wouldn't have agreed to help you kill the Life Corpse Master, Cyan Rain!”
Ding~!
System Notification: You have received the [Undead Lord Cyan Rain] quest! (Quest Rank: E)
Description: Go to the inside of the Frost Mound Necropolis and kill 200 Spiky Skeletons. Collect 40 Spiky Skeleton Fingers and pass them to the Suren Life Corpse Swordsman.
I'm very excited. E rank quests are very prestigious, quite possibly the highest ranked quests a player could receive at this stage of the game. Heh, looks like I'm going to be rich!
I entered the Frost Mound Camp, bought some pots from the NPCs and repaired my equipment. Once everything was ready, I set out to do my search!
As I trudged along the small path in the forest, I could see Gui Guzi moving away from the distance. He leveled up very, very efficiently, killing skeletons every two or three blows before using some sort of skill to gain additional experience.
I'm not bothering him. I continued to walk deeper into the grave for nearly ten minutes until the ground became darker, and the stench grew thicker. A bunch of tombstones appeared in front of me.
There were monstrous figures everywhere, and I focused my attention on a skeletal warrior I had never seen before. Sharp spikes protruded from all over his body, and were dyed with a cold green light. I wonder what is so special about this Level 21 skeleton?
Uh, more action, less thinking. Here goes!
I rushed towards the enemy and hit Spiky Skeleton's shoulder hard. The crack! The Forest Green Blade sank right into his body.
170!
My attack inflicted considerable damage, taking up more than half of his HP. However, I also felt pain when my attacks were connected. I actually lost 8 HP from my own attack!
It sounded!
Combat Log: You use “Slayer Slash”, deliver 170 damage to Spiky Skeleton. Spiky Skeleton use “Damage Reflect”, deliver 8 damage!
Fuck those! Reflection Damage?
Fortunately, 5% is still within my limits. If it's as high as say, 20%, then I can log off and go to bed now.
Now that my opponent is at a higher level, the attack power of the Forest Green Blade is starting to fall behind. It took me almost half a minute to kill the Thorny Skeleton, and it was slower than I wanted.
Even so, the experience of a Level 21 horde was not something that could be booed. I could see my experience bar looking up after the murder. At this rate, I will probably reach Level 20 once this quest is complete. I will be one step closer to my goal of reaching Level 30!
After killing the other 3 Spiky Skeletons, I finally got my first Spiky Skeleton Finger. There was nothing special about it; just bones that happened to be search items.
I roamed the forest and kept searching for isolated enemies to kill. The attack power of the Spiky Skeleton was very high, and I received considerable damage even with 37 Defense. In general, I have to drink 1 health potion for every 3 kills, which means I spend my money at an astounding pace. Fortunately, I had a lot of silver to spare, and the item drop turned out to be better than I had imagined!
Pop!
I stuffed the Great Magic Stone into my bag and went back to killing. Ten minutes later, my luck appeared again and gave me 67 Great Quality Magic Stones! This one is even more expensive than the one before!
I continued grinding for another two hours, but I never got the Great Magic Stone again after that. I did obtain the 4 Little Magic Stones, even though they were no longer considered valuable at my level. Still, every copper is counted, and there is no reason not to store it. Raw money is a hot commodity in the early stages of the game, and there is still no way to exchange real money for in-game currency. The only way is to trade offline. But everyone is a noob now, so how many people have the luck and skill to amass a fortune worth almost 1 gold like me?
……
It was late at night, and I was still killing monsters while checking the latest ranking list. Floating Ice City was one of the nine tier 2 cities of China's servers, and the gaming elites of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai were all gathered in this place. If I really want to establish myself in Floating Ice City, I should familiarize myself with the players on the list!
It sounded!
I turn the page, and the ID column enters my view. These were the top 10 players of Floating Ice City—
NameClassFantasy Wind25Light WandererDominating Witch God23 WitchesDemanding Knight God23Magic KnightsDominating Archer God23High Warrior God Dominating23High Warrior Warrior Warrior Warrior Warrior222fightersGui Guzi22Virgin Corpse KnightWandering Dragon21Magic KnightBening Perfume21Corny Cloud River Healer21
For a moment, I was completely speechless. Who would have thought that the water in Floating Ice City was this deep? Also, I was very surprised to find four people from the Domination Clan in the top rank. Who're they? So far, it seemed like they had the highest chance of mastering Floating Ice City…
But of course, true pros don't show themselves until they're ready.
Gui Guzi himself looked excited. Despite sleeping only three hours a day and having been killed by me many times, this crazy leveler still stuck to the top rank. He really deserves a crazy leveling degree.
Of course, the ID that caught my attention the most was Wind Fantasy. Not only was the Light Wanderer not an ordinary Wanderer class, the level of Wind Fantasy was higher than the others. He is the creme de la creme, and it was revealed on the official forum that Wind Fantasy was among the Top 3 even when compared to all the other players in the nine cities! This guy deserves my full attention. He could be the biggest barrier in the way the Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls guild headed for the dominance of Floating Ice City!
I also noticed that the strongest of our four elders, Xu Yang, was in the 6th place of the Heavenly Rankings. It seems like he grinds like a madman too! Personally, my impression of the three Ancient Sword Dreaming Soul elders is not very good. Half a year ago, on He Yi's birthday, they came to me to make a collaborative effort to send He Yi a happy birthday. We are supposed to send respective syllables—”ha”, “ppy”, “birth” and “day”—to his phone and finish the message “Happy Birthday”. However, they pulled one over to me and did not send their message as promised. I was the only one who did my part and sent my message, “birth”.
You can imagine how He Yi looked at me the next day. I met the first requirement of the search quite quickly, but the drop rate of the search item was very low. Despite grinding for almost 8 hours in a row — is already morning — I still lack 3 Thorny Skeleton Fingers.
Now, I have killed almost all of the Thorny Skeletons that were in the grave, and standing in the middle of the sea of withered bones and wielding a sword is none other than the Lord of the Undead I was assigned to kill, Cyan Rain!
I dare not attack him. I am now Level 20, and I have entered the Top 100 again. I grind for another half hour and get 2 Thorny Skeleton Fingers in the process. Just one more, and I can drag my coach to help! I checked the time and noted that it was 10:30 in the morning. Surprisingly, I did not feel the slightest bit of fatigue. Then let's continue!
……
In the bustling business district of Shanghai, inside a conference room on the top floor of an office building.
Eight elites were sitting on two sides of a table and talking about business. Young lady at the farthest end of the table wearing a coffee-colored uniform and a badge with the name “He Yi” on it.
“Night? Now it's your turn. What do you think about this? ” insist a middle-aged man.
However, He Yi's attention was completely absorbed by the sky outside the window. Her beautiful eyes were tinged with sadness.
“Eve, what do you think about this month's performance decline?”
“Night?”
He Yi's long eyelashes slowly fluttered in front of the directors, and tears streamed down his pale and tender cheeks. He opened his mouth as if he was going to answer, but the words that came out of his mouth were, “But ... But Lu Chen ... he ..”
