"Let's see what it dropped." Out of envy, Chen Guo leaned over to look at what the Night Cat Demon had dropped. "Five cat nails, trash; one cat leather chest armor, wearable for now, low-level gear doesn't matter anyway; two Night Cat nails, one Night Cat claw, one Night Cat eye gemstone—hmm, these are all pretty good, Hidden Boss materials, they'll definitely sell for money if we keep them; one skill book…… Holy crap, what kind of luck do you have?"
Chen Guo had already cried out, and Ye Xiu at this moment was also greatly surprised. To have gotten a skill book from this lowest-level Hidden Boss—just how much luck did that take?
What is a skill book? It's not for learning skills, but for increasing skill points. The orange-colored text alone tells you its value—after reaching the full 4000 skill points, wanting to continue raising your skill points, this thing is one of the ways to do it. But it's non-tradeable, so you can't buy it with money; you can only rely on your own luck. The one Jun Moxiao had just picked up didn't add much—the minimum of five points—but dropping from the lowest-level Boss, it was still absurdly red-hot luck.
The skill book was used up the instant it went into the bag. Additionally, among the materials the Night Cat Demon dropped, the Night Cat eye gemstone and Night Cat nails were both materials needed to continue completing the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella. Ye Xiu was in an excellent mood, and with a casual click, he actually had Jun Moxiao exit the dungeon directly.
"You're not going to finish it?" Chen Guo was surprised. Although only Jun Moxiao remained in the team, it was a newbie dungeon, after all—plenty of people could solo it at this low level. Though she had witnessed Ye Xiu's crippled-level controls, Chen Guo certainly hadn't thereby pegged him as a low-skill player. This was a guy who had defeated in 40 seconds the opponent she couldn't beat across 52 rounds—and that feat hadn't happened all that long ago!
"I need to switch computers!" Ye Xiu said, already preparing to log out. Chen Guo was scanning the screen when she suddenly reached out a hand to stop him: "Wait, what's going on here?"
The current chat window on the screen had been flooded by swaths of identical text, the content completely uniform.
"Jun Moxiao is a shameless scoundrel. To hog the Hidden Boss for himself, he deliberately withheld healing from the whole team, getting everyone killed. Everyone be careful."
"Jun Moxiao is a shameless scoundrel. To hog the Hidden Boss for himself, he deliberately withheld healing from the whole team, getting everyone killed. Everyone be careful."
Mixed into this uniform format were some other expressions of contempt and curses. Although the system auto-censored profanity, the wisdom of the masses is boundless—homophones and the like were ably carrying out the mission in this regard.
Ye Xiu looked carefully a few times and spotted Yue Zhongmian among the names flooding the screen, and even saw Yangguan and a Mage from his earlier team. This guy had come out a step ahead and was actually turning black and white upside down here, confounding right and wrong.
"What's going on?" Chen Guo asked Ye Xiu.
Ye Xiu, having no choice, could only explain the whole story.
"Holy crap, how shameless, has he no face left at all!" Chen Guo was furious after hearing it.
"Yeah, so shameless." Ye Xiu said.
"Why aren't you angry?" Chen Guo found it strange.
"I am angry." Ye Xiu said.
"You're angry? How come I can't tell at all?" Chen Guo was puzzled. Ye Xiu was staring at the screen full of slanders against him, and his face hadn't changed at all.
"Being angry doesn't mean it has to show on your face." Ye Xiu, far from angry, was even smiling. He casually logged out of the game and shut down the computer. Heading to the smoking area was still his greatest aspiration at the moment.
"I say, what kind of luck do you have? First time in a dungeon and so many things happen—run into a Hidden Boss, get a skill book drop, and on top of that make an enemy. I'll come by tomorrow morning to see if you're dead or not." Chen Guo said.
"Take care, boss."
Chen Guo went off to rest, and Ye Xiu went to the smoking area. Sure enough, this side was wreathed in smoke. Even the high-powered exhaust fans working frantically couldn't purify the air; all they did was stop the smoke on this side from invading the non-smoking area.
Even the most hardcore smokers have no affection for secondhand smoke. Ye Xiu quickly lit one up himself, merging into the ocean of smokers. A glance around showed this side was clearly much more crowded than the non-smoking area. Rare was the all-nighter who didn't need cigarettes to stay alert.
Fortunately, the internet cafe was big enough. After circling around, Ye Xiu still found a computer, and without being picky, went over and sat down. Xingxin was a rather upscale cafe, with some partitioning between each computer, which counted as protecting privacy. Even without that, everyone at the moment was wearing headphones, immersed in the world of Glory, paying no attention to anything external.
Ye Xiu connected back into the game and put on his headphones.
Jun Moxiao was still outside Green Forest. Even though the place was packed with people, wearing headphones meant it wasn't so noisy that you couldn't hear anything. It was no different from walking through a bustling market—it wouldn't get so lively that you couldn't hear people around you talking. As for those persistently repeating messages like party invites, those still came as text flooding the screen.
Ye Xiu glanced over the message area. The messages flooding to Jun Moxiao were already gone. Using the search function, you could find out whether a character was online. Yue Zhongmian was a veteran and was quite familiar with these tricks. Right after searching and finding Jun Moxiao not online, he stopped his work. Players can only leave the newbie area after level 20; that's when the world channel, PK, and other functions unlock. Below level 20, this kind of verbal squabbling was all it could amount to.
But Yue Zhongmian's move was fairly vicious even by current standards. Jun Moxiao was someone who had just appeared in the system announcement for a first kill, known to the whole world. Yue Zhongmian flooding the boards with his name here easily drew attention. The result was that Jun Moxiao now couldn't get into a party at all—every application he sent out was rejected. The players might not have believed Yue Zhongmian's claims, but they had all already begun to guard against Jun Moxiao.
Ye Xiu smiled helplessly. He wanted to party up, truly only for the Hidden Boss—he needed those materials. But since he couldn't get into a party, that just meant forcing him to level up fast.
In Glory, the fewer people in a dungeon run, the more experience each person gets. But considering efficiency, more people still worked out better. But Jun Moxiao was different—with a level 5 Silver weapon, the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella, in hand. Ordinary players? At this point, their weapons were still mainly blue and green, and blue-green gear was a full three to four tiers below the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella. In Glory, every five levels was one tier, which meant the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella was equivalent to a level 20 blue weapon, a level 25 green weapon.
This advantage was absolutely heaven-defying at low levels, because Jun Moxiao's single weapon dealt the output of four to five weapons of the same level. Setting aside the effect of character attributes, Jun Moxiao alone was worth three people, and adding Ye Xiu's skill on top, solo-running dungeons didn't lose out to five-man teams at all—probably even faster than newbie teams.
Jun Moxiao strode off, preparing to solo a dungeon, when after only a few steps someone suddenly cut across his path. Ye Xiu looked—it was actually Yue Zhongmian. This guy's eyes were sharp indeed, to be able to pick him out of such a sea of people.
"Hey, hey." Ye Xiu adjusted his headset, testing whether the voice connection worked.
"Hey your sister!" Yue Zhongmian was rather impolite.
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The second chapter as promised. The third one will probably be around 11 PM—there needs to be a six-hour gap between chapters for clicks to register. During new-book period, my typing skills remain as they were, but my arithmetic skills are advancing by leaps and bounds!