Standard

After finishing the simple lunch, Liang Li Dong asks Kyle if he can bring him around the villager and the teenager definitely agrees, he cannot help but wants more time to communicate with Liang Li Dong.

As a teenager with dreams, Kyle knows that there is too little for him to obtain information. Although he gets to visit the city with his grandfather regularly and occasionally gets to meet 1 or 2 ‘big-shots’ in the city, other people at most chat a bit with his grandfather and a kid like him will not even enter big-shots’ vision, let alone have a conversation. Kyle is very clear of his significance, he is better than kids of the same age in the village in terms of combat or academic but he is also clear that his standards is nothing compared to heirs of n.o.bles in the city.

For example the lord of the city’s daughter, although not very pretty, temper is bad too and is not good at socializing, if he was to go up against her, 10 of him will not even be a match for her. Even more sadly, the difference in status meant that he does not even have the right to challenge her. He is only the descendant of a declined village n.o.ble. The other party is a Mage, even without her n.o.ble status, she can still look down upon him.

The saddest thing in the world is not being without dreams but having dreams yet cannot find the way forward. Those without dreams are actually fortunate. They go with the flow and live every day steadily. Those with dreams yet cannot fulfill them has to endure the gap between reality and dreams and live unhappily.

Kyle always hope to be a mercenary and travel around, punishing evil and spread kindness. Even if he cannot be a legendary person like his ancestor, he also wants to live out his life and carve a future for himself but he only has dreams yet do not know how to realize them. No one has told him what is the first step to do and no one told him what kind of knowledge he needs to learn to be a good mercenary.

Now, there is a real spellcaster at his house as guest and is willing to communicate with him and did not treat him as a child but as someone equal. How can Kyle not grab hold of this chance. Although this Lord Priest seems to not agree on him becoming a mercenary, he still said some things and Kyle at least knows now that to become a Mage requires a lot of money, at least his family cannot afford the money for him to learn magic and swordsmanship when trained to the limits is not any weaker and can slay dragons.

In the past, no one will tell him these things. Kyle is very curious and desperately wants to know any little information about the world of mercenaries.

Kyle brings Liang Li Dong out, under the tree not far from the courtyard, the two of them see a crowd of villagers gathering and whispering. When the villagers see them walking out, the scene becomes quiet and sights of curiousness and probing are set on Liang Li Dong. Now the news of a big-shot in the village has spread across the village. In front is all people, there is around 100 over people, all the people in the village is probably present.

“Scatter now.” As the grandson of the Village Head, the Village Head-to-be, Kyle’s words have some weight: “This Lord Priest here is a real spellcaster, your behaviors are very rude. If it angers the Lord, it doesn’t matter if you get into trouble but it is not good if others get dragged in too.”

Although Kyle made Liang Li Dong seems ‘unsentimental’, the effects of these words are quite good, the villagers quickly scatter. Kyle heaves a sigh of relief. At this moment, a young girl runs out of the crowd, it is Behring. She asks the two of them: “Lord Beta, and Brother Kyle, where are you two going? Can you bring me along?”

Kyle turns his sight to Liang Li Dong, asking for his opinion.

Liang Li Dong only wants to take a look at the surroundings and not do anything bad so it does not matter whether another young girl tags along. Having gotten permission from Liang Li Dong, Behring follows behind them happily and under the gaze of the villagers, the three of them went out the of the village’s west entrance.

Kyle points to the half meter wide mud road underneath their feet, then points toward the west and says: “This road leads to the nearest village to us, Seri Village. It will take around 3 hours on foot. Their population is not much different from our village. Every start of spring, they will go to the nearest Winter Wind City and will need to pa.s.s by our village. We will then gather and head to the city together because the more people coming from the same place, the lower the headcount tax is.”

“This is the small forest at the north of the village. There is a patch of gra.s.sland inside. I normally practice my swordsmanship here. Further north is the mountains and the ferocious beasts inside so I have never been up there.”

“The river south of the village is where we normally get our water and do our washing. The fisherman of our village, Amro, depends on this river for his living. He is the only fisherman of our village but he doesn’t fish in the autumn. According to his words, the fishes at that time is mostly small fishes if fishing is done then there will be no fishes left for the next year.”

“The road at the east of the village leads to the nearest city, Winter Wind City. The furthest place I ever been is Winter Wind City.” Kyle looks into the distance with a look of yearning on his face: “I wonder what the world is like beyond Winter Wind City. I heard Winter Wind City is not that big but in my eyes, Winter Wind City is already a city big beyond my imagination, what is a city that is bigger than it is like!”

Behring says snappily at the side: “Brother Kyle at least went to Winter Wind City before, I haven’t been there before.”

Kyle gives an apologetic laugh.

Liang Li Dong stares at the clouds over the eastern horizon. If he remembers it correctly, Winter Wind City is one of the large border cities of Holevin. In the fifth year of the game, it was destroyed in the hands of players. The cause of it was because players found a large goldmine in a mountain near Winter Wind City. The 2 largest forces among players then, Jia Lan Temple Guild and Silver Wings Guild started a 4-days guild war around Winter Wind City over the rights of this goldmine.

When both sides mobilize over ten thousands of guild members, a total of more than 20 thousands Cla.s.s-er fight each other near Winter Wind City. Although the players avoid fighting in the city during the first 2 days of the guild war, when both sides started to have casualties, many players lost large amount of character EXP due to death and anger started to build up. At the end, the war escalated and no one cared about the lives of NPCs. Mage used large-scale magic without misgivings. Many used the buildings in the city for terrain attacks[1] and the whole city was turned down into ruins within only 2 days.

Although many NPCs escaped from the city, after a calculation by a kind soul after the event, more than 30% of NPCs died in the hands of players. Afterwards, the king of Holevin was furious and sent out large armies to attack the guild halls of Jia Lan Temple and Silver Wings. There was bounty publicly placed for the main force of the 2 guilds, bounty were continuously placed even after they died and revived. In the end, members of both guilds died on an average of 35 times and levels dropped by an average of 4. The 2 strongest guilds instantly turned into lowest-tier guilds.

Now that Winter Wind City is still present meant that the guild war at Winter Wind City then did not happened which means this world totally does not have any involvement of players? Liang Li Dong thought up to here and gains new doubts. Since this is not the game world and there is no players involved, what is him?

Kyle sees Liang Li Dong dazing from the side and asks: “Lord Beta, have you thought of something?”

Liang Li Dong shakes his head and asks: “Is there anywhere special near the village?”

Kyle thinks for a while and shakes his head.

But Behring tucks at his shirt and says: “Brother Kyle, did you forget? We still have a secret base. It is kind of peculiar.”

“Ah, yes, I almost forgot about it.” Kyle suddenly claps: “I haven’t been there for a few years.”

And then, Kyle leads the way in front. The so-called secret base is actually a small cave. The entrance is blocked by many ivies. If there is no knowledge of the cave beforehand, it is impossible to know there is a cave. The entrance is a bit dark. Liang Li Dong snaps his finger and a small ball of light flies into the air and barely illuminates the cave. The cave is not deep, around 20 meters and around 3 meters wide. There is some little toys like wooden swords and wooden spears, a poorly made table and 5 similarly poorly made chair.

The two looks at the small ball of light with awe. Upon seeing that, Liang Li Dong explains: “This is only a basic application of mind power, gathering light elements together to generate the effect of illumination. This is not counted as magic as there is no power in it and the effects are not obvious. Its upgrade version, Illumination spell is counted as level 0 magic and requires spell slot to equip. This little thing however do not require spell slot, anyone who knows magic normally can use this kind of little trick.”

“Just like how Lord Beta was able to pick up a cup from a distance with a wave of hand before having lunch?” Kyle asks with envy.

Liang Li Dong nods: “Yes, that is a little technique to gather mind power into a bundle to pick up small items. The effects are also not significance. People with the same magic power like me cannot pick up items more than 2 kg. Its upgrade version is Mage’s Hand. If the magic power is sufficient, it is able to lift up items that is 7 or 8 tons. Be it battle or daily lives, it is a very useful magic.”

Kyle and Behring look at the young man who is not much older than them with admiration.

Liang Li Dong asks: “You two just said this cave has some strange places, what is it?”

“Here!” Behring leads the way into the end of the cave and uses her hand to tear away the moss on the wall.

Underneath the moss is a big stone tablet with many engravings on it. Liang Li Dong makes a “yi” sound[2] and then helps to tear all the moss away. All of the stone tablet is exposed. On the green mystic stone is 5 diagrams. Each diagram has very messy engravings with lines of engraving criss-crossing  to form weird circular diagrams.

“These diagrams when looked at for too long will cause dizziness.” Behring explains.

Kyle nods: “Once, I don’t believe anything will happen and kept staring even if I’m dizzy and I fainted in the end.”

In ordinary people’s eyes, these diagrams have incoherent lines but in Liang Li Dong’s eyes, these lines follow some kind of pattern: “It is normal for you all to be dizzy because your levels are too low and have never learned magic model structure a.n.a.lysis before. Kyle, you should never do that kind of foolish things again. If you forcefully stare at these things for too long, fainting is only a small matter, you may even turn into a r.e.t.a.r.d.”

“Why?” Kyle had a big shock.

Liang Li Dong’s facial expression is very odd: “These are magic modeling structural diagram and is a type I have never seen before.”

T/L note 1: Probably meant like collapsing buildings to kill players underneath.

T/L note 2: Shows that he is surprised.