Chapter 31: The Dark Monastery

Translator: Atlas Studios  Editor: Atlas Studios

‘An Augmenting Gem priced at four silver coins?’

As Lin Jie browsed through the pages, he suddenly saw Augmenting Gems that were priced at four silver coins. In fact, if one bought it in a package of 30, the seller would give one Augmenting Gem for free. He quickly bought them.

The prices of Augmenting Gem would not fluctuate much now. He decided he shall buy all available Augmenting Gems that were priced at below five silver coins, and ignore those that were priced more than that amount. After all, it was not a good idea to benefit those calculative merchants too much. That would just encourage them to continue the trend of anyhow pricing items.

A weapon was being marked in red and occupied the topmost row of the panel beside the Auction column. Everyone could see the item right away once they looked up—the item was the spiked club which Lin Jie had put up for auction!

In the beginning, this weapon was not eye-catching within the midst of items. It was only noticed by most players when its price was classified under the “Hot Auctioning Items” column.

A warrior with full Stats points using this weapon with an Attack Cap of 70 would be able to pass through No. 1 Boss in Castle Wood easily!

This weapon’s fabulous attributes were fairly attractive to many players, even if they did not have any intentions to explore Castle Wood!

Currently, the price of that spiked club had already risen to 75 silver coins. That was comparable to Gold equipment with similar attributes! Everyone gasped when they saw that price.

Donning his cloak, Lin Jie looked in anticipation along with the crowd while making his purchases of Augmenting Gems.

“Darn it, some rich people are just plain crazy. If I had that much money, I would just buy Gold equipment directly, then go and enhance it. Isn’t it much worthy?” Someone commented in jealousy within the crowd of onlookers.

“Are you dumb? The success rate of enhancing Gold equipment isn’t high, what if that equipment breaks in the process?” Someone else replied in a disdainful voice.

“In any case, when did you ever come across a piece of equipment that has an Enhancing Growth rate of 10? A low-grade equipment’s Enhancing Growth rate will be capped off at 5 normally. If a piece of equipment can be enhanced by a growth rate of 10, it will mean that it can have twice the attack capacity of normal equipment!”

Enhancing Growth rate was a measure of the extent to which a piece of equipment could be enhanced. How much a piece of equipment could be increased by a Level 1 Augmenting Gem would be the unit growth rate for that equipment. Normally, low-grade weapons would be capped off at Enhancing Growth rate of 5.

However, the reason why that spiked club seemed so robust was solely due to Blue’s special enhancing methods. Even if its attributes could double that of a normal weapon, that equipment could also only reach a maximum Enhancing Growth rate of 5, which was, in essence, the same as any normal equipment.

This was a fact which Lin Jie was careful not to reveal when he put it up for auction. The other players had not discovered it, and thus the price of the spiked club had been rising steadily.

“Does anyone know who the owner of this spiked club is? Our chairman is interested in buying it with real cash,” shouted some players. This made the headhunters from the other guilds anxious, and they followed suit immediately.

‘Cash?’ Lin Jie curved up his lips. The stage for the exchange of real cash would be set half a month later. The game’s coins were more important than anything else at the current stage in the game!

He browsed through the items available for sale in the auction house casually and bought the rare ingredients and gems which had high-earning power. These were the real stuff that would upvalue in time to come!

“Qiu Yuan, why wouldn’t you listen to my advice?” The sound of a familiar name attracted Lin Jie’s attention. Not far away, a woman who wore heavy makeup and holding on to a staff which gave off silver glimmers was trying her best to persuade Qiu Yuan.

“Look at this, a Silver Staff! How much can you progress if you continue staying in that small team? This was given to me by Mighty Wings. You might even get Gold weapons if you join his team.”

A look of contempt flashed across Lin Jie’s face. So, this woman was a lobbyist for Mighty Wings! Come to think of it, wasn’t Mighty Wings a member of the Ironwall Empire?

He could even give out Silver equipment to other players. It seemed like he was leading a pretty good life now.

Lin Jie checked through the members’ list of Ironwall Empire and located the name ‘Mighty Wings of the Heavens’ under the guild’s Team 5 Elites. ‘That sly chap, he has managed to climb to the position of a vice team leader as time passed.’

“Oh, Fu Sheng!” Qiu Yuan spotted Lin Jie and looked at him as if he was her savior. She gave a wave of her hands and made a move to run over to him. She really could not stand this woman’s words anymore. Wasn’t Mighty Wings just a mere team captain? What was there to boast about?

Lin Jie shook his hands, made a gesture and turned to leave.

Qiu Yuan blinked. She turned back and replied, “Contact Mighty Wings for me, and say I am in.”

That woman was delighted. She finally managed to persuade this young madame to join! Mighty Wings had promised her a position in the elites’ team and 500 dollars labor fees for persuading Qiu Yuan. Now she got it!

Yet, in less than half a minute, her face turned sour, and she cursed involuntarily with her hands waving madly in the air, “F*ck him, that b*stard just got dismissed?! I got no position in the elites’ team now and couldn’t even get that 500 dollars…”

“What 500 dollars?”

“Oh, oh nothing…”

After Lin Jie left, a notification rang in his ears.

——’The August’s Rage which you put up for auction is successfully sold off at the price of two gold coins.’

‘Good fellow, I wonder who was this rich sucker?’

Turning back, he saw a lot of players with anguished expressions on their faces. Those were the players who had promised their guild leaders that they would bring the weapon back even if they had to sell their blood, kidneys or wives.

A warrior was elated as he swung the spiked club around. ‘This face os… Dominance? Oh, so that was the reason the spiked club could be auctioned off at such a high price.’

After all, who could beat the largest sucker in the game?

After depositing most of his gold coins in his inventory, Lin Jie bought huge amounts of health potions, magic potions and escape scrolls. Following that, he also bought the rare low-level Invisible potions at the price of four silver coins per bottle before teleporting to the Northshire Town.

He would require a lot of materials to break the seals on Broken Blade so that it could reach its true attributes. All of those materials were mostly found in Expert-level dungeons or at some secluded places. Lin Jie could still conquer the Cat Demon Lair with Broken Blade’s current attributes and his skills, but what about other superior dungeons?

In his previous life, Lin Jie had achieved his peak only after six years. This time, he was determined to minimize the time spent!

The Northshire Town had a nickname known as the Tragedy Town. A missionary had come by this town where kind and humble villagers were once dwelling in. He gave the villagers a type of wheat seed which could grow rapidly and be harvested eight times per year and thus was much loved and respected by the villagers. As the quality of life of the villagers increased, they decided to build a church to repay this ‘kind-hearted’ missionary.

A catastrophe befell on the town soon. Upon the request of this missionary, the villagers began to pray daily. Everything seemed fine in the beginning, until a month later, some of the villagers discovered that they would be in pain if they stopped praying. The symptoms worsen as time passed, and the villagers ended up moving into the church and listening to the orders of the missionary.

Other than the Teleporter’s station and a small campsite to store additional supplies, the whole of the Northshire Town was occupied by a magnificent castle-like church.

The Dark Monastery!

The Monastery was the living quarters for the village folks of Northshire Town. In Lin Jie’s previous life, this map had not been a dangerous place, as there had been news of Sub-Legendary equipment pieces sighted there and it had attracted numerous players to clear this map. There had been nothing left when Lin Jie had finally come to explore that place.

At that time, Lin Jie had just casually strolled around the area and then left without any achievements.

That was one of the rare places which had sightings of Sub-Legendary equipment’s broken fragments before most players reached Level 20. Though unsure of whether that piece of news was accurate, Lin Jie would rather believe it to be true. He consumed a bottle of low-level Invisible potion, and his figure gradually turned clear within three seconds.

“Who’s there?” A shrill voice rang out. A beam of Holy Light which had no hostile intentions was shone upon his face, and with a brief flash, his concealed figure was discovered.

Kind Yatasha: Level 15 Priest, Health points 450.

Yatasha looked at most 13 years old. There was a pair of clear blue eyes fringed upon her doll-like face, and her shiny blond hair fell down to her waist level. She wore a Beginner’s Robe and held a delicate Staff in her hands.

An image appeared in Lin Jie’s mind eye, and a saintly light shone upon the ground as she waved her staff ever so lightly. Thousands of dead soldiers were revived, their eyes brimming with tears of happiness. A figure stood at the tip of the Atlas Peak, her white hair flowing in the wind. That was the Light Priest Hero, Yatasha!

The small fellow in front of his eyes would turn out to be the Light Priest Hero a few years into the future.

In The New Age, as the game developed further, the NPCs would also grow accordingly and follow their designated life paths. The life path of that little girl would be to turn out as the Light Priest Hero in the future.

Lin Jie opened his arms to show his alias. “Little girl, I am not a bad person.”

Yatasha commented vigilantly, “I sense terrible violence from you.”

Lin Jie had killed players and NPCs before. This was unforgivable in the eyes of Yatasha.

Lin Jie was thinking of ways to make the atmosphere less hostile when a believer donning a long black hooded robe walked out from the monastery. He opened his arms and made a gesture to embrace Yatasha.

“Beware!” Lin Jie let out a terrible roar. The Outraged Roar stunned the believer, while he activated Hunter’s Forward Charge to bring the believer under control swiftly. Lin Jie sliced the Broken Blade around the believer’s neck, making a perfect circle, and its blade aura ripped through the believer’s neck. The believer on the outskirts of the church was only of Level 5 and had 250 health points, and thus was easily killed.

“You, darn it, you ought to die!” The little girl was angered. She pointed her staff at Lin Jie and conjured up the Chains of Light around his hands, locking them together tightly. The Chains of Light was a skill which could be learned by priests who reached Level 30. It was a directive type of skill which could lock the movements of one’s target.

“They are all kind people, how can you kill innocent people!”

Lin Jie glared at her. “If it weren’t for me, you would have been bitten to death by that fellow.”

“Liar!” The little girl was angered.

Lin Jie struggled to get free of the chains. The specialty of the Chains of Light lies in the fact that it will do one more damage if they struggle continuously. Many people were trapped until their deaths. However, this little girl was obviously a typical angelic-type of person. When she saw Lin Jie was hurt by her chains, she immediately dismissed the skill and even helped him to regain his health points.

Lin Jie walked swiftly to the lifeless corpse which was not yet refreshed by the system and had not disappeared. He tore its hood away, revealing a rotten face hidden beneath.

The little girl gaped and covered her mouth. “This…”

“As a warrior, I had serious doubts in your beliefs,” commented Lin Jie sternly.

“It is your rule to purify the souls of the living, but it is a warrior’s principle to let the dead rest in peace!”

The little girl lowered her head, and said in a heavy tone, “Do save those who are still alive.”

“I will,” promised Lin Jie.

——’You accepted a request from the Kind Yatasha. You will proceed to the Dark Monastery to save the 10 surviving believers.’

——’You received a Light Talisman.’

Lin Jie took a brief look at the Light Talisman’s attributes and stuffed it secretly into his bag.

Light Talisman: It is a unique mission tool. It can revive a dead target and return him to 30% of his health points, or restore an injured party to his full health. (Note: if used on oneself, the effect will be reduced by 70%.)

The most important part lied in the last comment!

Reduction in effect? It didn’t matter! What was most important was that it was an item that could allow him to revive himself on the spot!

“If you save the villagers, I will promise you a favor that is within my capabilities,” Yatasha implored, her delicate little face solemn.

“I will.” Lin Jie nodded his head heavily before he turned and entered the monastery.

The little girl ran a few steps away, stopped and turned back again. In her eyes, the doors of the monastery seemed like the bloody mouths of the Undead, which swallowed Lin Jie up in a gulp!

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