Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
With the addition of new players, God Domain opened up more than 50 new main cities.
With so many main cities opening, many guilds—which were dejected after suffering setbacks during their early development—continuously left Lotter City.
After all, the crowding of hundreds of major guilds in a single city would not be conducive to their development. Besides, it would also result in conflicts.
However, Lotter City was an open main city after all. After more than 20 days of exploration, Liu Ming discovered that the monsters around the city could be killed easily. He could also find the resource points easily. Although there would be more opportunities if he went to one of the new cities, there would similarly also be risks.
Besides, it was not like he would be able to get exclusive rights to an entire main city’s resources by heading to one of the new main cities.
Previously, hundreds of guilds could barely secure a footing purely because the resources of Lotter City were just sufficient for that number of guilds to survive.
Some guilds could not successfully develop because they were too late and did not get a share of the resources.
Now that the new main cities had been opened, it was a chance for those ‘losers’ to rise. Hence, a portion of the guilds decided to stay and compete with Despising The World—which was recognized as the best guild by the 12 major guilds.
After all, they might as well choose to fight with the strongest guild if they still had to fight someone at the end of the day. By then, they would still be able to gain popularity even if they lost.
Speaking of God Domain’s best guild that others recognized, the Guild Residence Token that Liu Ming obtained had to be mentioned.
Given Magma Valley’s difficulty level, it would have taken at least a team of players—who were above Level 20—to clear the dungeon’s Hell-level.
If the team of Level 20 players had enough chemistry with each other and good equipment, they could completely kill a Level 25 Boss-level monster in the wild.
Under such circumstances, clearing Magma Valley (Hell-level) and being rewarded with a Guild Residence Token would only let a certain guild have a small headstart.
However, due to the appearance of Liu Ming the genius, the Guild Residence Token—which was supposed to appear in the next few days—had appeared half a month in advance.
That also allowed Liu Ming to fulfill his dream of making ten million yuan a month when he sold the Guild Residence Token.
That Guild Residence Token was finally purchased by Despising The World for 120,000 Gold Coins. At the current exchange rate, 120,000 Gold Coins was worth nearly ten million yuan. However, it was all thanks to Despising The World’s members that the Guild Residence Token could fetch such a high price.
If not for the fact that they had raised the bidding price to 30,000 Gold Coins and provoked plenty of major guilds, causing them to raise the price secretly and eventually inflate it, the final transaction price would have probably been 10,000 to 20,000 Gold Coins.
Originally, Liu Ming was only in charge of collecting the money. He did not know about the twist during the process. However, it couldn’t be helped since some people wanted to spread the word about the matter.
Besides, Liu Ming would inevitably get a few more Guild Residence Tokens as his level increased, even if he did not intentionally kill the Level 25 Boss-level monsters in the wild.
The value of the second and subsequent Residence Tokens naturally would not be worth as much as the first one—which had the aura of being the first Residence Token.
Hence, Despising The World’s senior executives became the silly people who overpaid for an item after being urged by the major guilds.
The few Guild Residence Tokens that Liu Ming sold afterward also became the courage for certain guilds to compete with Despising The World.
…
The enmity of the major guilds in Lotter City did not affect Liu Ming for the time being. The more intense the conflicts in Lotter City were, the more Liu Ming could earn. After all, in a situation where two opposing forces could not beat each other, making secret moves would become the norm.
Among methods like killing the elites of the opposing faction and maliciously raising the price, the most disgusting but most effective were also such small moves.
Competition between players would cause their levels to drop. Those who were weaker or infamous would also drop their equipment.
The gap between those players’ levels and Liu Ming’s level would widen even more if the players’ levels dropped.
Dropping equipment meant that they would have to purchase equipment again.
As for maliciously increasing the price, it would genuinely be considered as additional income for Liu Ming. After all, at least 70% of the high-end equipment produced in Lotter City was in Liu Ming’s hands now.
Although Liu Ming was not interested in the equipment he now had, their basic Stats were better than that of the normal equipment that ordinary players obtained.
Ordinary players might not care about those Stats. However, it would not matter to those major guilds’ players if the price doubled as long as their Stats could be a few more points higher than others.
…
Liu Ming’s level was still far ahead of the mainstream players. Liu Ming had now reached Level 30, and he was about to get a second change in profession soon.
The highest-leveled person among the mainstream players was only Level 25 now. The gap between them and Liu Ming seemed to have closed a little, but their EXP was worlds apart in reality.
Besides, Liu Ming had given more than half of his EXP to his Purgatory Nightmare. Otherwise, he would have already gone through his second promotion and continue to advance in levels.
At this point, Liu Ming’s basic Stats were much higher than when he killed Invincible and the others.
Liu Ming’s HP increased from less than 6,000 to 12,560. His Attacking Power had also nearly reached 1,700 points.
Although Liu Ming’s current Defense of 833 points was quite low compared to his other Stats, it was still far higher than the mainstream players’ Defense.
After looking at his Stats panel and item backpack to confirm that he did not miss out on anything, Liu Ming went to the Guild of Professions and looked for the Knight Mentor.
After several meetings, the Knight Mentor and Liu Ming were considered acquaintances.
Upon seeing Liu Ming, the Knight Mentor smilingly said, “Indeed, you’re the first to advance to the elite stage, kid. Since you’re so competent, I shall give you something. As long as you can complete quests above the Difficult level, I’ll pick out an item from my cherished collection and give it to you. Of course, if you can complete inauguration quests of higher levels, my reward for you will be better.”
[Congratulations, Adventurer, you have activated a special hidden quest: Greater Challenge.]
Greater Challenge: After activating this quest, the Second-Promotion inauguration quest must be above the Difficult level.
Quest Reward: Varies according to the difficulty level of the quest the adventurer has to complete. The reward will be no less than Level 30 Blue equipment.
…
The Greater Challenge quest added two levels of difficulty to the original three for Second-Promotion inauguration quests. They were quests of the Expert level and Hell level.
Originally, Liu Ming already wanted to pick the Hell-level quest. After all, the greater the inauguration quest’s difficulty, the more rewarding they would be.
Now that there were additional rewards, Liu Ming naturally had nothing to hesitate about. Hence, Liu Ming smiled and said, “Mentor, please announce the quests.”
Upon hearing this, the Knight Mentor nodded.
A screen appeared in front of Liu Ming immediately afterward.
On the screen was a list of quests that were either easy or difficult. Some of the quests required one to run to a dragon’s lair and steal the dragon’s eggs, clean up the magical beasts in the main city’s underground sewers, and many other tasks.