Chapter 22: The Third Stage of the Collection Quest
The name hovering above his head had turned bright red — the color for a Sin Value of 5. And once Sin Value reached 10, it would begin taking on black… a red so deep it verged on black.
Sin Value was the thing Ye Tianxie cared about least, because it was something that could be scrubbed away with money. Though not many people could bear a “price” of 1,000 gold per point, to him any problem that could be solved with money was no problem at all.
100 gold — after currency exchange opened, this might become a sum everyone would sneer at, but in the early days of the game it was an enormous fortune that money couldn’t buy. This hundred gold he’d landed was by no means merely Ye Tianxie’s way of disciplining them; it would become a tremendous boost for him in the novice village.
The Novice Class-Advancement Trial!
When a player reached Level 10, they could go to the novice village chief to take the class-advancement trial, and only those who passed it earned the qualification to be sent to a city of the World of Fate. The trial wasn’t a single fixed thing, but was divided into five difficulty tiers: Easy, Normal, Hard, Nightmare, and Abyss. The player chose the trial difficulty themselves, and passing any one of them was enough to clear the trial. What differed were the rewards obtained after passing:
Easy: upon passing, each of the four basic attributes +1.
Normal: upon passing, each of the four basic attributes +2.
Hard: upon passing, each of the four basic attributes +3, Luck +1.
Nightmare: upon passing, each of the four basic attributes +4, Luck +1, Charm +1. One random Level 10 Bronze-grade piece of equipment.
Abyss: upon passing, each of the four basic attributes +5, Luck +1, Comprehension +1, Charm +1, and you will obtain a Novice Village Hero’s Badge. The names of all heroes who pass the Abyss-tier trial will be publicly announced by the system across the entire battle zone, and forever recorded on the novice village Hero Roll.
The five trial difficulties could be undertaken solo or in a party. Party members could not exceed 12.
Right now the average player level was still a considerable distance from Level 10, but Ye Tianxie had already begun preparing for the class-advancement trial. These 100 gold coins were one part of that preparation. His conduct might seem careless and wickedly wanton, but in truth it all carried purpose — just as his adjusting his looks up 20% wasn’t to satisfy vanity, but to raise his Charm value in another form. It was like the real world: the more pleasing a person’s appearance, the more easily they win others’ goodwill, whereas talking with someone whose face is covered in pockmarks would make anyone wish to send them packing at once… It was the same in the World of Fate. Every NPC here was, in human nature, no different in essence from a person in the outside world.
Making his way back to the sealed old woman, Ye Tianxie took out 100 wolf eyes — and there were still a full two hundred-some in his backpack. He was full of anticipation that this old woman would next have him gather two hundred wolf eyes, so that he could very happily whip out the two hundred already sitting in his pack in a grand, showy flourish. Potions and small common items like these took up only one backpack slot per hundred.
“Ding… You have completed the quest ‘The Sealed Old Woman’s Request.’ Quest reward gained: 100 experience, 1 gold.”
Ye Tianxie: “…”
Ten wolf eyes had given only 10 experience and a single silver coin as reward. A hundred, meanwhile, gave 100 experience and 1 gold. Ye Tianxie was suddenly struck by a feeling of not being able to breathe properly.
“Thank you, young man. These wolf eyes will be a great help to me. Young man, I can see you’re very warmhearted, and very brave — would you be willing to gather 1,000 more wolf eyes for me?” The old woman looked at him with hollow eyes devoid of any spirit, her words essentially a complete repeat of what she’d said before… the one difference being that the number she wanted jumped straight from 100 to… 1,000!
“Ding… The Sealed Old Woman asks you to help her gather one thousand wolf eyes. Quest type: Ordinary. Time limit: None. Quest reward: Unknown. Accept?”
10 to 100, 100 to 1,000… tenfold growth each time. So would the next one be…
Ye Tianxie hurriedly strangled the thought in his mind, chose to accept, and quietly left. A thousand — at his collection speed, he could gather the full amount in under a day. This ought to be the final stage of the chain quest. Ten thousand? That was absolutely impossible: a player’s backpack held only 50 slots, and counting 100 wolf eyes to a storage slot, ten thousand would need at least 100 storage slots. In the novice village, with no item or method to increase backpack capacity, then even with genuinely sufficient patience, no player could possibly manage to gather ten thousand. Five thousand was already the ceiling.
Ye Tianxie returned to Fierce Wolf Valley the way he’d come. The fierce wolves’ territory he’d cleared out earlier had once again respawned to a ground packed full of wolf packs, and as if recognizing the Ye Tianxie who’d nearly wiped out their kind, the fierce wolves came pouncing and biting in howling packs, as though their ancestral graves had been dug up. Facing these fierce wolves that could no longer pose any threat to him, Ye Tianxie tormented them without the slightest pressure, swinging the Hour of Eternal Fate, his figure drifting leisurely through the wolf packs with easy footwork. Over half an hour passed, and the freshly refilled fierce wolf territory was once again cleared until not a wolf hair remained. Ye Tianxie stood on a rock, dragging the Hour of Eternal Fate behind him, the fierce wolves’ respawn rate leaving him waiting until he grew drowsy.
Worthy of praise was that the five Red Leaf Pact players Ye Tianxie had once again sent back didn’t come running over to throw their lives away a third time. In his boredom, Ye Tianxie glanced at his level-up experience — then was startled enough to nearly fall off the rock. The experience to go from Level 3 to Level 4 was actually five times that from Level 2 to Level 3!
If leveling was this hard even at the novice stage, then what it was like after leaving the novice village could well be imagined.
Time slipped quickly past amid the dull wolf-slaying. The fierce wolves’ territory lay at the mouth of Fierce Wolf Valley; further in would be more powerful wolf-type monsters, but for Ye Tianxie, these fierce wolves he could dispatch in exactly two strikes were without doubt the most suitable leveling targets right now. In the game world, if you wanted to become a true powerhouse, you had to learn to endure the dull, flavorless grind of killing monsters to level up. Ye Tianxie had long since grown used to it, and had even begun to learn to enjoy this kind of tedium.
The opening of Fate had left the once-clamorous streets of Jinghua strangely quiet. Its enormous influence spanned all of humanity, and would only grow greater. Perhaps in the future, mankind’s ways of life and the very shape of the world would change because of it.
From the noon opening of Fate, the wheeling hands of time swung in ever-greater arcs without people noticing — from afternoon, on into the first fall of night.
(End of Chapter 22)