Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
[ Ark ]’s official forum.
“… Bro, I’m dumbfounded! Is this f*cking for real?”
“100 compatibility score? This guy is a hacker, right!?”
“How can this person’s compatibility score still increase? I’m certain his compatibility score was only 90 when I last looked.”
“If would’ve been fine if they only scored 90. After all, we already have someone else in Hualong server who got a score of 90?”
“But this person managed to score 100! I’m certain that they’re the only one throughout all the servers who managed to score this high!”
“I pray that this anonymous big shot reveals himself to us! I’ll patiently wait for his reveal!”
“Ditto, I too, wish to express my reverence towards him!”
…
Magic Capital.
In a villa in the city where every inch of land was ten times their size in gold.
Si Weiwei, who had just finished hunting the purple flame beast with her younger brother, temporarily went offline to ease her tense nerves and to take a bath.
She had just stepped out of the bathroom, and she was dressed in a simple bath towel, her curvy figure laid bare.
Her arms were as white as porcelain, and her legs were as slender and beautiful as characters from comics.
Before entering the bathroom, Si Weiwei had just talked to her younger brother on the phone.
At present, the company had yet to discover who the anonymous player who was second only to her in compatibility scores was.
However, they had received confirmation that the individual was a mage who had chosen the Fire element, which would narrow down their search somewhat.
Nevertheless, it did not change the fact that the tutorial area, the Wasteland City Dungeon, was massive.
It would be near-impossible to locate their target within the dungeon.
At present, Si Weiwei’s character of level 57 was the highest within the Hualong Server.
The runner-up to her in terms of levels was the level 55 Warrior, Duan Leie the level 55 warrior Duan Lei, and the level 54 Swordsman Kong Qiu.
Si Weiwei had the backing of [ Snow Abyss ]’s company resources.
It was for this reason that she was firmly in the first place in terms of levels.
As such, she was wholly unconcerned about anyone else catching up to her in terms of levels. However, that did little to calm her nerves regarding the guild system that would come online in the near future.
There was still one month left before the guild system would come online.
During this month of downtime, she needed to recruit as many players with high levels and the wits to back up their skill to join her guild.
At the same time, she had also made plans to form the strongest four-man party in the game. A pre-requisite to join this party was that all members needed to have a compatibility score of 85 and above.
Si Weiwei’s own compatibility score was 92, and she was a level 57 Swordsman.
Her younger brother Si Luo’s compatibility score was 85, and he was a level 52 Archer.
The party currently had two vacancies.
She was still thinking about recruiting someone to fill the Warrior class vacancy.
The level 55 Duan Lei fulfilled her requirements, but since he was also a player that was backed by a different game company, there was little to no chance of them partying up together.
Therefore, Si Weiwei set her sights on the anonymous mage instead.
His low levels were not a big deal for her. After all, there was still a month of downtime before the guild system’s implementation.
As long as she could successfully invite the individual to her ranks and make him tag along in her hunts, she was certain that she could powerlevel him easily. It would all work out by the time that guilds were implemented.
After sorting out her thoughts, Si Weiwei changed into a nightgown, lay on her bed, and started scrolling through her phone.
Upon picking up her phone, she was instantly bombarded with dozens of messages.
To boil the contents of all the messages down, they were all essentially telling her to visit [ Ark ]’s official website.
Si Weiwei bit her pink lips lightly and clicked into the website curiously.
The moment she saw the content on the screen.
Si Weiwei was instantly dumbfounded.
“Compatibility score… 100!”
H-HOW!?
Si Weiwei’s eyelashes immediately quivered.
HOW WAS THIS POSSIBLE?
After her moment of surprise, Si Weiwei noticed who this top ranker was. It was once again, ‘Anonymous’. Her beautiful eyes began to dart around as she began to think a plan of action.
She needed to locate the individual as soon as possible.
It was no longer just about the person’s aptitude for the Mage class.
She also wanted to find out the why his compatibility score had increased!
She would get to the bottom of this mystery regardless of the costs!
…
[ Ark ].
Wasteland City.
Balls of scorching flames continuously gathered from Su Chen’s fingertips!
Every time they were unleashed, a Level 9 Heartless Bloodwolf would instantly lose half of its HP from the flames. However, even after taking such a huge hit, they would also be plagued by the “Burning” effect, of which would result in a continuous loss in HP!
One by one, swathes of massive wolf-like creatures collapsed.
All of them had turned into exp to assist Su Chen in leveling up.
There was still half an hour left before the level sprint achievement’s deadline.
In the past one and a half hours, Su Chen had successfully killed a single Heartless Bloodwolf Lord, and had dozens of level 9 Heartless Bloodwolves.
He was now level 9 and his experience bar was now half full.
Killing the Wolf Lord had allowed him to successfully advance from level 8 to level 9.
However, the Heartless Bloodwolf Lord had a one-hour-long respawn time. Worse still, the exp that was required to push him from level 9 to 10 could not be supplied by a Heartless Bloodwolf Lord alone.
Therefore, while Su Chen was waiting for the Wolf Lord to respawn, he began hunting the level 9 Heartless Bloodwolves around him.
Under ordinary circumstances, level 9 mages would only have around 180 points of Elemental Power. As such, Su Chen’s 440 points of Elemental Power was more than enough to bring down the monsters around him. Heck, one could even argue that it was like bringing a railgun to a knife fight.
Right now, the only thing Su Chen needed to do was to wait for the Wolf Lord to respawn and then kill it.
There were only 10 minutes left before the Wolf Lord respawned.
There were still 30 minutes left before the deadline for the level-up quest.
Taking advantage of the momentary downtime where all the level 9 Heartless Bloodwolves were respawning, Su Chen decided to check his spoils from the past three days.
“Display the items in my Storage Bracelet.”
[ Bound to: Su Chen ]
[ Storage Space: Occupied 3/10 slots]
[ White-rank Equipment: Beginner’s Staff (Can be sold for 1 Gold Coin) ]
[ Lesser Deformed Wolf Fang: 61 pieces (Can be sold for 122 Gold Coins) ]
[ Advanced Distorted Wolf Fang: 58 pieces (Can be sold for 290 Gold Coins) ]
Apart from the coin from the Beginner Staff, Su Chen had accumulated 412 Gold Coins after spending three days within the game.
Throughout all of this, only eight hours had passed in real life.
If Su Chen were to exchange the Gold Coins into Blue Star Coins and transfer it into his bank account, he would only earn 404 yuan.
After all, every transaction between Blue Star Coins and in-game-coins would be subject to a 2% service tax from [ Ark ]
However, to Su Chen, who had a monthly salary of around 5,000 yuan, this was a decent income.
Of course, Su Chen was one of the very few who could make this much money this early into the game.
A normal player’s combat strength would not reach such a level. Had they spent three whole in-game days hunting monsters as well, they would likely only reach one-fifth of Su Chen’s earnings.
At the same time, most NPC merchants in [ Ark ] would accept all materials dropped by the players. As such, there was no concern that the materials could not be sold.
The only times that players will sell to one another was when the item in question was a high-value item. Otherwise, selling them to NPC merchants in trading cities was much less time-consuming.
Su Chen remembered the uproar that had resulted from from this direct exchange between virtual and fiat currencies.
Most avid gamers would eventually drop their games once responsibilities kicked in. After all, not all players were born with silver spoons in their mouth and had the luxury to carry on with their games without paying heed to anything else.
However, [ Ark ] had changed all of this. It had greatly lowered the barrier of entry for making money through games. Via the innovative system they had in place, not only would professional gaming studios make money, so too would regular players. As such, it was no wonder that [ Ark ] had a high player retention rate!
As for concerns about [ Ark ] losing money, such problems did not exist.
The materials that were collected by shop merchants would be used as crafting materials for equipment. As such, if players wanted to create equipment, they would have to spend Gold Coins to purchase these crafting materials.
Moreover, the price of an [ Ark ] helmet was around 30,000 yuan. Its popularity across the globe made this a highly profitable venture. Furthermore, there was also the service tax that players would be charged with when converting between in-game and actual currency, as well as the release of premium weapons down the line. All of this had ensured that [ Ark ] would not be operating at a loss.
This low barrier of entry to making a living was also one of the reasons why Su Chen had chosen to buy the helmet.
Su Chen slowly retracted his thoughts.
At this moment, it was finally time for the Heartless Bloodwolf Lord to respawn.
There were only 20 minutes left before the deadline of the level sprint quest!
At the same time.
Two figures suddenly appeared.
Their eyes fell on Su Chen who was about to kill the Wolf King..