Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“Great!”
The Gray Fog Village Chief seemed to be in excellent spirits. “I’ll be eagerly awaiting your good news.”
“Mm, I’ll be off now!”
Ye Kong cupped one fist in the other hand to gesture farewell, then turned to leave the Gray Fog Village.
When he stepped back into the Dark Mist Forest, he immediately pulled out the system menu and looked for his backpack—
“The Swordsman Skill Book – Tempest Sword… As expected, this precious movement skill is the story event reward for ‘The Gray Fog Village Chief’s Request’!”
Tempest Sword (not upgradeable): Charge toward a target with three times your Movement Speed, and dispel any speed-limiting effects. At the same time, Tempest Sword deals 120% damage to the target. The cooldown time is 30 seconds. This skill does not require Soul Essence.
A movement skill!
These kinds of skills were highly valuable, because, generally speaking, they could be used offensively, or as a means to escape. Whether it was getting in the first move in a battle, or escaping when the situation seemed dire, a movement skill was the best choice!
For these reasons, movement skills were considered more valuable than blocking skills. A skill book for the “Tempest Sword” skill would cost at least three times as much as a skill book for the “Interrupt” skill!
Yet, even with people offering so much money for movement skills, there wasn’t enough supply to meet the demand, and it was rare for even a single copy of the skill book to appear on the market!
There was only one reason for this—
The drop rate of movement skills was too low!
Even though Warrior classes were known for their Charge skill, not every Warrior had this skill. To put this in perspective, this was the case even though Charge had the highest drop rate out of all the movement skills!
Other classes’ movement skills were even rarer!
This was especially true for the Swordsman class. As far as Ye Kong was aware, aside from “The Gray Fog Village Chief’s Request,” the only other way for players to obtain “Tempest Sword” was to get the fifth expansion pack. Players would then need to form a party to clear the level 90 Instance Dungeon – Ancient City of Purgatory, which was at a Nightmare Grade difficulty level!
Only players ten or more levels higher than the instance dungeon’s level could unlock The Nightmare Grade instance dungeon. If players didn’t meet this requirement, they couldn’t enter the Nightmare Grade instance dungeon! Any party that could clear a Nightmare Grade instance dungeon was full of legendary game experts!
Even with all this, the drop rate for “Tempest Sword” in the instance dungeon was less than 2%. This should make it clear to anyone how precious this skill truly was!
Aside from the Gray Fog Water, the most important story quest reward for completing “The Gray Fog Village Chief’s Request” was the skill book for “Tempest Blade.”
It should be noted that floralteapot’s small squad (of Yokai Legion Guild members) had already completed three smaller, separate quests before starting “The Gray Fog Village Chief’s Request” story event. Despite all the time they had spent, the only reward they got out of it was some points of experience!
This was because the story event reward had been saved for the “end”!
Just in terms of rewards alone, this story event was much better than most Elite Grade story events. It was one of the “exceptional cases”—In the world of Demon Realm, the rewards for some lower grade story events were, counterintuitively, better than those of higher grade events, though the odds of this happening were as slim as hitting the lottery.
Still, “The Gray Fog Village Chief’s Request” was one of these exceptions!
Unfortunately for everyone else, Ye Kong was the only one to benefit from this!
Without a moment of hesitation, Ye Kong immediately learned the skill, and the next moment, “Tempest Sword” appeared in his Character Overview Window.
“Now that I’ve learned the ‘Tempest Sword’ skill, I’ve completed half of the Luna Lake plan.
“The remaining half of the plan is to get the ‘Gray Fog Water’!”
Ye Kong rubbed his wrists as he muttered to himself. “If I’m remembering this correctly, according to what happened in the original timeline, the skill book for ‘Tempest Sword’ fell into aosagibi’s hands, and became his signature skill!”
Aosagibi was aotabo’s younger brother, and he was vice guild leader of the Yokai Legion Guild. He was also in the Swordsman class—The reason being that he liked using swords.
For this reason, aotabo was angry at him for a long time. However, aosagibi was extremely lucky, because he not only got his hands on “Tempest Sword,” but also inherited the “Spirit Swordsman.” This allowed him to become one of the most outstanding players in Qingmu Town in one fell swoop.
The Swordsman class was very weak in the early stages of the game, and the Hidden Character Classes available to the Swordsman class were just as weak. Only a few Hidden Swordsman Character Classes could unleash their full potential in the early stages of the game!
Coincidentally, the Spirit Swordsman was one of these Hidden Classes.
However, Ye Kong had now snatched away aosagibi’s “Tempest Sword,” cutting off one of his greatest advantages. Even if he managed to become a Spirit Swordsman, he wouldn’t be able to reach his full potential, unlike in his previous life!
“As the vice guild leader, aosagibi forcefully took ‘Tempest Sword’ for himself, and floralteapot didn’t dare to utter a single word of complaint.
“On that note, the in-game guilds of ‘Demon Realm’ are indeed a huge platform for ‘pooling resources.’ The business model is different from guilds in other online games, and much closer to a real-life company.”
As he thought about this, Ye Kong’s eyes turned cold. “Unfortunately, it’s also a model that exploits players and sucks them dry.”
Due to the large amount of capital involved in setting up a guild in Demon Realm, guilds weren’t as disorganized and uncoordinated as in other online games. On the contrary, they were managed like a company, and they had an even more rigid structure than most offices.
To put it simply, guilds recruiting for the game Demon Realm all followed the “real-name registration system” and required all members to join their company in real life. At the same time, all the guild members ate and lived together; the gaming equipment was provided by the company; and the members also received wages in real-world currency at regular intervals.
It seemed like everyone was happy, right?
Yes, the conditions looked good at first, but in reality, when the game was first launched, countless people were taken in by this trap. They were blinded by what they thought was a good opportunity and unthinkingly signed the contract to join the guild in the game.
If one were to look closely, one could see through their lies—What was “Demon Realm”?
It was the second world developed by the Federal Government—or in other words, a second life for players!
It was a game for anyone and everyone, and it changed the entire structure of human society. It was an even greater and more historic invention than the Internet, which was created in the last century!
The invention of the Internet gave rise to many derivative enterprises and products like e-commerce (such as online shopping and food delivery apps), online live-streaming sites, smartphones, online social media software, online novels, and more. All of these things changed people’s living habits!
“Demon Realm” had an even greater influence than these! It was more influential than the entire Internet!!
It was a second life for players!!!
“Demon Realm” was a world full of endless opportunities, welcoming players to unearth their own fortunes. However, the moment players joined a guild in the game and signed the contract, they lost that chance.
All equipment in the game would be assigned to players by the guild.
All the money earned in the game would be managed by the guild.
When the guild put out an urgent order, even if members were in an instance dungeon and fighting the last boss, they had to immediately leave the instance dungeon and follow the guild’s orders!
Freedom?
It didn’t exist for them.
If this was any other online game from the past, players could just decide to quit the guild, change their game ID, and get back into the game. However, “Demon Realm” had a unique ID system, and each person was only allowed to make one character. Players weren’t allowed to delete and reroll a new character, and they also couldn’t change the ID of an existing character.
The choices a player made at the very start of the game would determine how their “second life” played out.
In the real world, if players wanted to quit the guild of their own accord, it was also extremely difficult. Not to mention contract disputes, the guild’s powerful financial backing alone was an incredibly scary thought.
You were thinking of joining a guild, getting some good equipment, then leaving?
In the real world, the powers that be would skin you alive!
Literally skin you alive!
If a player was an insignificant low-ranking member, and the guild they were a part of wasn’t a powerhouse, then it might be easier for them to leave. Worst case scenario, the player would leave the guild without bringing anything they had with them. They could still make a living for themselves after the fact, but becoming successful was out of the question.
If a player was a professional, and the guild they joined was one of the top-tier guilds… then they were in deep trouble.
In the real world, your life was in the guild’s hands. How could you think of leaving the guild with your life intact?
Ye Kong’s situation in his past life was pretty much like this.
Thankfully, in “Demon Realm,” the Federal Government did an excellent job of keeping players’ personal information secret. All information was managed by the game’s Main AI, and all other access to the data was denied. Even high-ranking officials of the Federation couldn’t find out a player’s real identity!
As long as the player didn’t self-destruct and join an in-game guild in real life, nobody would know who they were!
In the world of “Demon Realm,” even if someone was a financial magnate, if they didn’t know who you were, they couldn’t do anything to you!
Ye Kong was going to use Demon Realm to make up for the regrets of his past life!
In this life, Ye Kong wouldn’t join any large guilds, and he wouldn’t set up a large guild for himself.
The only thing he would rely on was his own two hands!
Swish!
Ye Kong was weaving his way through the Dark Mist Forest at high speed, when he suddenly stopped in his tracks—Ye Kong had seen a familiar player, with two other teammates, surrounding a player he didn’t know.
The person Ye Kong recognized was—
Floralteapot!