Even though Li Huailin had already slapped Bard till even his mother couldn"t recognise him, Li Huailin still didn"t get much from him. Looking at his EXP which was -500/500, Li Huailin felt a lot of pressure. Li Huailin could say for sure that the amount of EXP he had was the lowest among the tens of millions of players in China. The bottom of the bottom. If someone could have a lower EXP than him, he didn"t know what to say.
"I need to level up already, or I really won"t be able to leave this Beginner Village forever!"
Making up his mind, Li Huailin headed towards the south of the Beginner Village. Luckily, the mine wasn"t that hard to find. Just after leaving the village, Li Huailin saw a few players holding pickaxes and after following them for a while, found the mind. The time taken to walk here from the village was around five minutes.
Upon entering the mine, a frenzied scene unfolded in front of Li Huailin. Players lined up along the walls near the mine entrance, and they were so densely packed to the point you could barely see the walls. The players were all doing the same action: strike the pickaxe against the wall. The strident clanking and clinking made people irritated upon hearing it.
Li Huailin contemplated for a while and didn"t immediately go into the depths of the mine. Instead, he took up the family heirloom Bard had given him, the pickaxe, and mined at a place where there were (surprisingly) no people.
"Clank!" Li Huailin knocked the wall with the pickaxe, but the wall didn"t show any reaction, and Li Huailin didn"t get any ores.
"Now that I think about it, I should have expected that getting ores wouldn"t be this easy. If not, when one strike gives you one ore, everybody"s bag would have been filled in seconds already.
Thus, Li Huailin continued striking the wall and finally, there was a reaction after around thirty strikes.
[System Notice]: 1 iron ore obtained.
Li Huailin checked his bag and found a Grade 4 iron ore. The estimated price was around 5 coppers. After that, he looked at his character page.
Secondary profession:
Mining Disciple (EXP: -2/1000): Able to mine in a mine. Small chance of mining a rare ore.
"Haha…" Looking at his secondary profession which had negative EXP too, Li Huailin could only give a dry laugh. "Luckily, I was already mentally prepared for this outcome. As expected, secondary profession is not cut out for me…"
Without lamenting on this matter anymore, Li Huailin immediately raised up the pickaxe in his hands and shouted, "Everybody, look! The village blacksmith"s family heirloom pickaxe! Uncommon grade and able to raise mining speed by 20%, this is literally a weapon of ma.s.s orestruction! Now going for only 10 silver coins, and there is only one of it. First come first serve. If you don"t buy it, you will lose out!"
"Holy s.h.i.t! A pickaxe that raises mining speed by 20%! What a G.o.dly pickaxe!" The surrounding miners were all players who mined for a few hours at one go. This repet.i.tive and tedious job was already pushing them to the brink of breaking down. Now that someone was selling such a G.o.dlike pickaxe, all the players immediately rushed over to Li Huailin.
"Come, this only costs 10 silver coins! The first one to initiate a trade with me gets it!" Li Huailin continued his sale pitch.
Just after finishing his words, a whole bunch of trading offer was sent to Qin Fang. Li Huailin didn"t expect that these miners were all so rich. 10 silver coins were not much, but it was quite a lot in the Beginner Village. Looking at his log, he found out that the first to send a trade request was a player named Wolfgang - MinerNo20
"Part of the Wolfgang guild?" Li Huailin sent a private message to MinerNo20.
"You"re right, friend. I"m part of Wolfgang"s logistic department." Seeing that Li Huailin had sent him a private message, MinerNo20 was quite excited. He was only a miner in the logistics department of a large guild. If he could get an uncommon pickaxe, won"t he have a chance to get promoted?
"Do you have 10 silver coins on you?" Li Huailin asked.
"Yes, yes!" MinerNo20 immediately replied.
"Okay, let"s trade then!" Li Huailin put up the pickaxe, and after MinerNo20 checked the stats and confirmed the pickaxe increased mining speed by 20%, he happily put up 10 silver coins too.
"Okay, the pickaxe has been sold already! Those who didn"t get it will have to wait for next time!" After the trade was successful, Li Huailin informed the other players who were still waiting a trade.
"Huh? Already sold? Didn"t I send a trade request already? Why didn"t you accept?!" A player at the side shouted.
"You sent it a little bit too late. I already said, first come first serve. I already sold it to the first player." Li Huailin explained.
"Which guy got the pickaxe? I"m willing to buy it for 15 silver!" Another player immediately shouted.
After the first offer came, everybody saw MinerNo20 who was standing in front of Li Huailin. He was holding a pickaxe emitting a green glow and looking at the players around him restlessly.
"It"s him!" The crowd immediately gave up Li Huailin and surrounded MinerNo20.
"Quickly sell the pickaxe to me!" A player whose sanity was chipped away by mining shouted almost hysterically.
"I didn"t say I will sell…!" MinerNo20 gulped when he looked at the players getting closer to him.
Ignoring what was happening to MinerNo20, Li Huailin took this opportunity when everyone"s attention was shifted to leave. Now that his pickaxe was sold, it was time to start with the n.o.ble job of leveling up (suiciding).
After walking a little bit deeper into the mine, the surroundings instantly changed. At the entrance, the mine was a big room enough to house many players. Once you leave it, it really became tunnels and was only around 4-5 metres wide. Furthermore, there were over ten of these tunnels, and Li Huailin didn"t know where any of these lead to.
The visibility in the tunnel was very poor with only a few oil lamps "lighting up" this place. Originally, one had to bring candles or equipment with luminance to these dark places. Or else, one was very susceptible to ambushes by monsters. However, Li Huailin was here to suicide anyway, so he didn"t care whether he got ambushed or not.
Li Huailin walked into a tunnel he randomly chose and met a monster not long after.
[Cave Bats]: HP 300, Physical Attack 45, Physical Defence 30.
"Great!" Li Huailin didn"t waste anytime and immediately ran towards it.
-35
Cave bats were Level 6 monsters, five levels higher than Li Huailin. Not only that, Li Huailin was wearing the newbie set with only 2 points of physical defence. Thus, he immediately lost 35 hp with one attack.
"Strong, as expected, it is a strong mob!" Li Huailin was extraordinarily excited. The player words were indeed true. Cave mobs were indeed niubi!
-37, -40
Before he could celebrate and praise the mobs, the cave bats slapped Li Huailin two more times, killing Li Huailin.
After his vision grayed, Li Huailin walked out of the resp.a.w.n point immediately after.
"This is what I wanted!" The exhilarated Li Huailin sped towards the mine again.
At the mine entrance, the players who were on the verge of rioting for the pickaxe has already left. In whose hand the pickaxe ended up in didn"t matter to Li Huailin though. He just wanted to level up!
Choosing a tunnel with no people again, Li Huailin rushed in and appeared in the village two minutes later.
"En, the running time is around five minutes, and it takes two minutes for the monsters to kill me." Li Huailin calculated the time. "I need to die 18 more times to get to Level 2, which is around 126 minutes. So, two hours…"
It couldn"t be helped that he had negative EXP now, so leveling up was slower. After getting to Level 2, he could level up after dying ten times. Like this, only seventy minutes was needed for one level. Getting to Level 10 thus required 126+70*9=756 minutes. 12 hours. Compared to players who needed at least three days to get to Level 10, this was really fast, comparable to sitting on a rocket.
"This is called leveling!" Li Huailin said jovially.
Saquacon (Translator)
Saquacon (PR)