Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The 15 Thieves were taught a new lesson that day.
After he made sure that the bandit leader was going after their equipment, ShadowWolf wanted his party members to scatter.
There were black jackals further away. If they could get close to one and allow the black jackal to kill them, they could return to the city with their equipment intact.
To their surprise, the bandits equipped their weapons and killed all the Thieves without any equipment on them. All that remained were Square, ShadowWolf, and two more Thieves to open the treasure boxes.
ShadowWolf and the two other Thieves escaped rather swiftly.
Square had it the worst. After everyone else was killed, a dozen bandit goons ambushed him for a good five minutes. All the equipment he carried was snatched before he was eventually killed by a bandit goon.
He felt like a little sheep whose wool was completely shaven before being ravaged by a dozen hunks over and over again and ultimately killed after it had served its purpose of satisfying their desire.
Square was physically and mentally traumatized.
…
Under a towering old tree back in Guggenheim, ShadowWolf met a middle-aged man.
ShadowWolf seemed respectful beside the man whilst he narrated about the incident earlier.
He looked up to the middle-aged man before him because the latter was one of the persons in charge of The Richest in Guggenheim and one of the experts of the guild.
He was DemonMarshal, a name that everyone in every single game in the past knew.
After ShadowWolf’s explanation, DemonMarshal thought for a while before coming up with new orders for the entire party.
“Losing a bit of equipment isn’t a big deal. Tell the members to calm down. The guild won’t hold them responsible. You guys can stop opening treasure boxes from now on. Bring the members to get some equipment and level up at the Second Brigade. I’ll tell the person-in-charge there to reserve a spot for you and the members. I’ll take over this matter, so you don’t need to worry about it anymore, and remember, keep this a secret.”
“Understood. I’ll proceed as you say.” ShadowWolf nodded. He had a feeling that DemonMarshal wanted to use this incident as a catalyst for something, but since the man did not mention anything, he would not ask either.
“EnlightenMoon, I have something to discuss with you.”
After ShadowWolf left, DemonMarshal contacted another person in charge of the guild in Guggenheim—BrightMoonOfYesteryear.
Outside Guggenheim, a female Sorcerer in black robes stopped fighting a monster to answer the call, “Hello?”
“Something important has come up. I need a hidden mission player from you, but if this goes well, we might be able to get that weapon.”
“Are you talking about that growth-type staff of Dark Gold grade from GrayFox?” BrightMoonOfYesteryear was moved and asked with excitement.
GrayFox was a Sorcerer expert from the Fortune Alliance. An hour ago, the two of them had received news from their spy in the Fortune Alliance about GrayFox clearing an S-rank difficulty occupation test in advance and acquiring a growth type staff of Dark Gold grade, which could be equipped at Level 5.
It was only the first day in the game and a top expert had already acquired a growth type equipment of Dark Gold grade, which could grow into a piece of Legendary equipment in the future. It was anything but good news to The Richest.
The Fortune Alliance and The Richest shared great similarities as a large guild, and the rivalry between them was always fierce, especially in Origin which held a different meaning, allowing their rival to acquire too much of an advantage was not great to their future development.
They had thoughts about that Dark Gold weapon but had no plans to get it.
GrayFox was heavily protected, so killing him by outnumbering him was impossible. Moreover, if they had a spy in the Fortune Alliance, the converse was possible. Any commotion would startle the opposite party.
At the current stage of the game, the odds of a player dropping equipment upon his or her death was extremely low, so spending a lot of effort killing GrayFox might not reward them with the Dark Gold weapon as well, but if GrayFox leveled up too fast, he would be a lot harder to kill.
As a top expert from a super guild, he would be fully geared with high-end items and killing him would be harder than flying to the moon.
On top of that, they were still troubled by that same question. Currently, without any ways to remove suspicion, carrying out a single kill might not mean that much.
“Yes. I remember that there’s a mission player on your contact list who has acquired the title ‘the Heart Of Nature’.”
“The Heart Of Nature? Hmmm, there is someone, but the Heart Of Nature effect only works on low-level monsters…”
…
The number of spoils surpassed Mohai’s expectation. He never thought that Square would have carried that many pieces of equipment on him.
Mohai managed to snatch a total of 24 pieces of equipment, a potion recipe, and some rare material from the Thieves.
Among the 24 pieces, there were 3 pieces of Level 10 equipment that Mohai kept for himself.
As for the other 21 pieces, he shared them with all the bandit goons, especially the few Level 5 bandit goons. Mohai especially took care of them, so he gave them all the suitable equipment.
Mohai could no longer retrieve the equipment from the bandit goons after giving them away unless they were killed by the players and dropped the equipment.
However, Mohai did not feel anything when he gave the equipment away.
He carried out a test earlier in the morning, and to his surprise, he noticed that giving the bandit goons equipment could increase the [Ruler] XP bar.
Leading them into battle and equipping them appropriately could increase the [Ruler] XP bar. From there, Mohai speculated that if the bandit goons leveled up, he might be able to gain some XP for the [Ruler] ability as well.
Therefore, Mohai gave the equipment to the Level 5 bandit goons since they were the easiest to level up. He might be able to verify his speculation after a few more kills with them.
If it worked, he would equip all the bandit goons with full sets of equipment and bring them to level up at a better leveling spot. The special ability, [Ruler], might be able to be increased to E-rank by then.
The three pieces of equipment Mohai kept for himself were a Level 10 staff of Black Iron grade, a leather shin guard of Bronze grade, and a common ring.
A lot of equipment in the game did not have occupational requirements, but despite that, different occupations equipped with the corresponding equipment would provide an extra buff to one’s skills or stats. No one would be dumb or free enough to equip themselves with equipment for other occupations.
However, the Level 10 Black Iron staff had a Physical Attack of 5-15. It was even better than the iron sword Mohai had. On top of that, it even added 5 Intelligence points and 3 Mental points. More importantly, it even had the extra effect of reducing the cooldown time of skills by 10%. It was obviously a quality good. At least, it was a lot better than the lousy iron sword he had.
Therefore, Mohai equipped the staff without any hesitation, and with that, he became a bandit who wielded a staff.
“Next…” Mohai pondered.
According to his plan, he should be leading the bandit goons to kill the players for leveling them up.
However, the Level 5 bandit goons only had 500 HP, so they were still weak. Their deaths would surely affect the progress of his [Ruler] ability, so the optimum plan would be to equip all the bandit goons with better equipment before moving out.
“Let’s get some equipment first!” Mohai made the decision after some thought.
He had a better way of getting equipment: the Reincarnation Pool.
He had a lot of iron and black iron ores, and he could easily convert them into equipment using the Reincarnation Pool. However, he would need a lot more Magical Crystals. Otherwise, before he could get the equipment, the Reincarnation Pool would be contaminated.
As someone with experience, Mohai knew that the Magical Crystal was a rare item.
However, he believed Rexus the tortoise might take some time to recover. He could simply blackmail the tortoise again after using the Magical Crystal. Then, he could probably get two to three more pieces.
“How long can a Magical Crystal with 30% purity last?”
Mohai took a piece of Magical Crystal out and tossed it into the Reincarnation Pool while shaking his head.
It was a lavish way of using the Magical Crystal. Players usually used Magical Crystals to forge quality Magical equipment. When a Boss used them, the latter could recruit stronger Magical subordinates.
The water in the pool slowly turned sky blue.
Mohai then poured in more iron and black iron ores.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Soft noises of something bursting came out from the stone house frequently, but as seconds turned into minutes, the frequency of the noises grew lesser.
“A piece of Magical Crystal can only get more than 20 pieces of Level 5 Bronze equipment. What a waste!”
The water in the pool had transformed back into black, and Mohai was looking at it, sighing with heavy emotions.
The 20-odd pieces of Level 5 Bronze equipment might be worth a bit of money at the early stage of the game, but their true value was not even close to that of a piece of Magical Crystal.
Mohai’s astounding experience in the game saved the disastrous result by a hair’s breadth. He was able to quickly find a recipe with a decent success rate. Otherwise, the number of equipment would be even fewer.
He summoned the five Level 5 bandit goons over and equipped all of them with full sets of Bronze equipment. While their Attacks did not skyrocket, their Defences surged.
Mohai was ready to head out and kill more players, but then, one of the goons came in with an update.
When Mohai looked up, he noticed a player further away.
The player had a glowing green aura around him, and when he walked past the black jackals, none of them attacked him.