Zhan Long

The next morning, I woke up bright and early, not to play games but rather to perform my duties. After dressing and brushing my teeth, I headed out.

My first task was to buy 3 servings of breakfast. Afterwards, I headed to the girls dormitory and called Lin Wan Er. Within minutes, she came down, wearing a sky blue miniskirt along with a dress shirt. Her two sources of pride were precariously pressuring the buttons on the dress shirt. Thankfully, she had also noticed this and wore a T-shirt inside of her dress shirt.

I stood in front of the gate, glanced at her, looked away, and then couldn’t resist and peeked at her again. She was truly gorgeous, but unfortunately she also held a grudge against me.

Like before, Lin Wan Er gave me the evil eye as soon as she saw me: “How long are you going to stare at me? I’ll be taking the breakfast and you should hurry back and raise your level in . After all… after all, you work for me… If your level is too low, I would feel ashamed.”

I took a deep breath and promised: “I promise to not disappoint, I’ll be taking my leave now.”

“Wait…” Lin Wan Er suddenly called out, she paused for quite a bit before articulating her next words: “Li Xiao Yao, I want to ask you…before, were you really a part of Special Ops?”

I was taken aback by the question: “Huh, why are you asking about that?”

“I only want to understand. I don’t trust what Wang Xin says, how can a Special Ops who’s killed someone before be as shameless as you? All you do every day is leach off of our food and game time…” ( costs about 1 yuan, 16 cents per minute to play)

While speaking, she kept peeking at my face, widening her smile when she saw that I started looking downcast. As expected, Lin Wan Er was still out for revenge. Her happiness was built from my pain.

I tightened my fist before replying: “It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe what Wang Xin said. All that matters is me being able to protect you. I’ll be heading back now.”

Without so much as a glance at Lin Wan Er’s, I started to walk back to my dorm.

“Oh, you’re angry? You can’t be that easily angered right?”

I turned around and mustered the sunniest smile possible and said: “M’lady, you really know everything! Don’t you?”

Looking at my face and hearing my voice, dripping with sarcasm, she knew that she hadn’t gotten under my skin. Her frustration at having her victory taken away made her stamp her foot in anger: “Hmph, that’s enough, I’m going back to raise my level.”

“Okay, have fun playing!”

On my way back to my dorm, I nibbled on a meat bun and thought about what I would do today in . So, my goal today should be to get to Ba Huang City. Thus, I would be able to at least keep pace with the majority of players in . At the very least, I should leave Newbie Village. Staying there would be pinning myself as a loser.

…

After returning to my dorm, I immediately logged into , sliding the metallic helmet over my head.

“Shuaa”

Instantly, the darkness was replaced with a blinding light. I was still in Wild Bear Forest. I carefully looked around. Yup, Tyrant of Western Chu and his companions had left. It was probably because they knew that I had logged off and waiting around for me to respawn was useless. After all, they, like me, were trying to get to Ba Huang City, so any grudges could be settled there.

I revived in peace after I checked my surroundings one last time.

After a golden light, I was in control of my body again. In the empty forest, I opened my inventory. Phew, when I died I only lost a couple of potions and not any of the important things. From my inventory, I took out Bramble Thorn Sword.

The sword caught the light and shined brightly –

[Bramble Thorn Sword] (Black Iron Tier)

Attack: 21-35

Strength: +3

Level Requirement: 8

…

The 21 to 35 points of attack from the Bramble Thorn Sword were godly compared to the 1-3 points of attack that my Lv 1 Steel Sword gave me. As I held the Bramble Thorn Sword, I could clearly feel the power welling up in my arm, coming from the sword. At the same time, my stats increased by a huge chunk –

[Xiao Yao Zi Zai] (Trainee Healer)

Level: 9

Attack: 69-83

Defense: 23

Health: 180

Mana: 150

Charm: 0

…

69 – 83 attack. Incredibly, swordsmen of the same level who put all of their stat points in strength probably would be jealous of this attack. Mm, with the Bramble Thorn Sword, the possibilities were limitless.

With Bramble Thorn Sword in hand, I plowed forward. Currently, I was only at Lv 9 with 57% experience. I would be able to get to Lv 10 after killing a couple of monsters. Afterwards, I would go back to Newbie Village, restock on some potions, repair my equipment and then head out to Ba Huang City.

On a hill back to Newbie Village, a Lv 9 Thorn Bear was peacefully basking under the sun. I smiled at the bear; let’s see what my 83 points of attack could do.

“Shuaa”

I sprinted towards the bear and did a simple slash when I got close enough. The hit flew true and landed on the bear’s forehead. A damage number flew up from my strike, my attack didn’t disappoint –

“117!”

Incredible.

While the Thorn Bear hadn’t reacted to my first strike, I landed my second strike!

“114!”

The Thorn Bear was immediately enraged. It raised its sharp claws and slapped at me. I took the hit head on and took 37 damage but at the same time, I landed my third strike onto the Thorn Bear. With that it was defeated. Hmph, this damage wasn’t anything to be laughed at.

I picked up the 4 copper coins that dropped from the corpse of the Thorn Bear and continued on my way. After killing about a dozen Thorn Bears, a light appeared above me, signaling my level had increased to Lv10. With the new level, I gained 10 stat points and put them all in strength which boosted my damage by 5-5. Alright I was ready to go back to the village, recuperate and head out to Ba Huang City.

…

After getting back to the Newbie Village, I sold a couple of White Tier leather armors. With this, I had 2 silver coins! After I repaired my equipment, I went to the pharmacy. Since I was a Healer, I didn’t need any potions that would recover health, instead I needed potions that would restore mana.

But when I asked for the prices of the mana potions, I was heartbroken –

[Mana Potion Lv 1]: Recovers 50 mana, 5 copper coin/potion

[Mana Potion Lv 2]: Recovers 100 mana, 50 copper coin/potion

[Mana Potion Lv 3]: Recovers 150 mana, 5 silver coin/potion

…..

What the heck, I couldn’t even afford a Lv 3 potion! Ugh whatever, I just bought lots of Lv 1 potions, they should be enough while I headed to Ba Huang City.

When I got to the village’s gates, the village elder who was stationed beside these gates sent me off. The elder shakily used his bark-like hand to mess up my hair and in his eyes, tears were welling up: “Child, you’ve grown and now you’re about to leave this village. I truly feel happy for you, remember, you are our pride. In the future, you will definitely be a great adventurer (the name NPC’s call players) and help Tian Ling Empire defeat its enemies.”

I nodded: “I understand, elder.”

“Child, I have 3 letters of recommendation, you may choose one of them…”

In front of me a table lit up,

[Fan Shu City] [Ba Huang City] [Jiu Li City]

With your letter of recommendation, you could go to the city that you chose and after showing the letter of recommendation to a teacher of your profession, you would be able to learn the skills unique to your class!

It was a no-brainer, I chose Ba Huang City. As soon as I finished, the elder started talking again: “Go, my child. No matter where you go, even if you become an ordinary soldier or a commanding general, don’t forget today. You will always be our source of pride…”

…..

Ba Huang City was located at the northern point of Tian Ling Empire. In fact, it was located at the northernmost tip of the human continent. It was also the city that was closest to the unknown lands to the north. It was more like the first line of defense against monsters in the north rather than simply being a city. This was one the reasons that I chose Ba Huang City as my home city. Another more important reason was that the monsters around Ba Huang City were probably more savage than the monsters around the other 2 cities. Under these conditions, players at Ba Huang City would have more chances to improve.

After confirming Ba Huang City’s location on my minimap, I began heading towards it. On the way, I saw quite a few players also heading to Ba Huang City with most being also Lv 10. Everyone seemed to be in a rush to get to Ba Huang and challenge some strong monsters even if their levels couldn’t support them, as if there wouldn’t be enough monsters for them if they were late. In reality, was designed to be able to support 100,000,000 players online at the same time and there were at most 1,000,000 players that were playing right now. Therefore, there was no need to hurry and challenge strong monsters.

Along the way, I saw a warrior with White Tiered armor that was followed by a female Healer. The Healer wore cloth armor and held a healing staff which had the outlines of a Medicine Pot on top of it. This was a real Healer unlike me.

In addition, I met many players that chose to be Wind Elves; they were mainly Archers, Mages or Healers. Because Wind Elves could fly, many players chose to be Wind Elves. In fact by one estimate, about 35% of all players chose to be Wind Elves. But I didn’t choose to become a Wind Elf because Wind Elves were basically sitting ducks while in the sky. In addition, the growth of Health and Defense for Wind Elves was extremely bad, while spell damage had decent growth, but fighting in the rear didn’t fit well with my play style.

…

Traveling with other newbies that were heading towards Ba Huang City ensured my safe passage. In fact, majority of monsters blocking the paths had already been killed. After traveling for about 70 minutes, a towering castle appeared. In front of the castle was a huge rock knife. That was Ba Huang City’s main landmark, the legendary Ba Huang Knife, maybe it was a god-tier weapon…

After entering the castle, with some directions, I found the teaching association.

Beside a dark green pool were a dozen of female Wind Elves who congregated together while holding healing staffs. They all were Healers and at the center was a level 50 NPC Wind Elf who was the professions instructor.

I walked up to her, took out my letter of recommendation and said: “Teacher! This is my letter of recommendation. I’m an adventurer from Grass Dog Village, please let me study under you.”

The instructor stared at the Bramble Thorn Sword in my hand, her shocked face betraying her calm voice: “Okay, from now on you are a Trainee Healer of Ba Huang City and a part of our empire’s pride.”

…

*Ding*

[Encourage] Encourages target. The target gains 1% extra attack damage per level in Encourage.

Requirements: Level 10 – Healer Professions Only

Cost to learn: 1 Silver Coin

There was only 1 skill that I could learn!

But the skill itself was pretty good. At Lv 1 it would raise 1% damage but at Lv 10 it would raise 10% damage. At the same time, it was incomparable to [Turmoil Sword] which raised 10% damage instantly without any proficiency.

It pained me to part ways with 1 Silver Coin but I did in the end, dammit.

…

After talking with the instructor, I decided to go raise my level and proficiency of [Encourage]. But I remembered something. There was something that I had to do before heading out.

I needed to get a production profession. I needed to become an Alchemist.