Noble Emblem

Chapter 12

Liang Li Dong brings the young boy and young girl to where the golden light points to, a flat gra.s.sland. Logically speaking, this beam of golden light that descends from the sky should be very obvious but Kyle and Behring’s expressions do not show any abnormality. This shows that they cannot even see this unusual sight. But come to think of it, he feels this is very normal. While in the game, the effects from the special skills of players cannot be seen or felt by NPCs. For example, the feat ‘Humanoid Knowledge’. When detecting humanoid, it will not produce any hostility or inappropriate mind power fluctuation. Even the most powerful among humanoid NPCs, mixed blood between fire dragon and human, Margaret cannot resist the detection of this feat.

Young boy and young girl are puzzled as to why Liang Li Dong suddenly brought them here. Kyle even asks: “Lord Priest, aren’t we catching rabbits? Why are we here? This place does not seem to have any game.”

Liang Li Dong deliberates a while and smiles: “G.o.ddess Waukeen suddenly gives me instructions just now. She wants to give me some money to better accomplish my mission of spreading truth since I’m penniless right now after all.”

Hearing that, Kyle and Behring both have surprised expressions on their faces with ‘Are you kidding me’ mixed in it. In this world, most people believe in G.o.d but to normal people, especially kids from rural village like this, miracle is something very far off.

Now, a ‘quack’ suddenly says, he received G.o.ddess’ instruction…… At any time, being able to communicate with G.o.ds or receive words from G.o.ds can be seen as miracle. In the perception of the 2 kids, when G.o.d bestows miracle, there should be holy phenomenon in the heavens and earth…… But everything seems normal in the surroundings now, it is no wonder they suspect Liang Li Dong to be teasing them.

“It should be here.” Liang Li Dong steps on the ground under the golden light guiding and feels that the soil under the gra.s.sland is a bit soft. He brings out a stone pick from his dimensional backpack and digs on the ground.

This stone pick is the finger of G.o.ddess Waukeen’s statue. After killing the rabbit, Liang Li Dong put it into the dimensional backpack. In the game, every player owns a dimensional backpack. Its capacity increases slowly with their increase of level. The capacity is 8m3 when the character is created.

Seeing that Liang Li Dong suddenly have a stone pick in his hand, although young boy and young girl are surprised, they are much calmer now knowing that it is also a special ability of spellcasters. Kyle scratches his head and says: “Digging for real…… Then Lord Priest, let me help too.”

“No need to!” Liang Li Dong stabs the stone pick into the gra.s.sland hardly forcefully once again. This time he feels himself stabbing into a hard object and he then lifts the turf and digs out an old brown pottery pot.

Behring is shocked: “There is really something here”

Liang Li Dong breaks the pot using the stone pick with expectations and shining silver coins flows out with 2 gold coins mixed in it. Now, both Kyle and Behring are staring in shock.  The girl is dazzled by the amount of money and cannot even speak anymore while Kyle cannot help but says: “There’s really money here and so much money it is enough to buy a huge house.”

After slightly counting, this windfall totals to 2 gold and 43 silver. To common villagers, this is a huge sum of money but to Liang Li Dong who used to command a territory with a population of 40 thousands, this windfall is mere paltry. But in the early stages of the game, for any Cla.s.s, 2 gold and 43 silver is a large sum. Liang Li Dong remembered  only until he reached level 7 and after selling many equipments, he barely managed to save up 1 gold coin. It is obvious how difficult it is to earn money in the game.

No wonder players refer to ‘Lucky Wealth’ as a G.o.dly skill in the forum. In the early stage, many things will be easier to accomplish with money.

Looking at the 2 kids’ surprised expressions, Liang Li Dong smiles. He counts 10 silver coins and stuffs it into Kyle’s hand and then puts another 10 silver coins into Behring’s hands. The 2 kids blanks out for a bit before hastily trying to return the money and Kyle says at the same time: “Lord Priest, this money is yours, I can’t accept it.”

Behring continuously nods too, 10 silver coins is such a large sum of money to them she dares not accept it.

Liang Li Dong smiles and says: “G.o.ddess Waukeen has said before, for windfall, everyone involved should have a share. Although this is reward from the G.o.ddess, to me, this is indeed a windfall. While you two have seen me dig out the money, therefore I have to share some with you two. If you two don’t accept it, it will cause me to go against G.o.ddess’ teachings and turn me into less devout, understand?”

Since it has come to this, Kyle and Behring have no choice but to accept these money.

Liang Li Dong turns his wrist and keeps his coins into the dimensional backpack. He then observes the two young boy and girl. Kyle calmly puts the silver coins into his pocket while Behring’s face turns slightly red and stares at the 10 silver coins in her hands. She appears excited and cannot move her eyes away from the silver coins.

Coming from different environment and difference in horizons results in huge difference in mentality. This is the reason why commoners in has difficulty in rising up. n.o.bles’ descendants have first cla.s.s education, possess broader horizons and contacts. They naturally can easily continue to be successful while commoners’ descendants have to toll for their daily meals and after barely managing to fill their stomachs, they have to consider their next meal. Under these conditions, how can they receive education and broaden their horizons.

A NPC feudal lord in once said: The child of a shepherd will still shepherd. n.o.bles’ descendants will forever be n.o.bles. Although these words are a joke to players, after all players believe more in ‘Power and n.o.bility are not inborn’ but players with not even 50 thousand in numbers cannot change the systems of the country in , after all there is too many NPCs with a whopping amount of more than 5 billions.

Once a group of aspired players band together to form an organization with the slogan of ‘Revolution’ attempted to change the systems in the game world to create a relatively more warm and democratic world. This slogan attracted many NPC commoners to join but not long after they stirred up a hornets’ nest. The 4 great primal G.o.ds together with the other lower-cla.s.s G.o.ds pa.s.sed down an oracle to form a religious coalition. This gathered around 2 millions people made up of purely believers and Cla.s.s-ers, they included beast-men and elves too. They put down their racial hatred and chased down and killed all members of the organization with craze and anger. Not more than 3 months later, the organization was destroyed.

Players of the organization were killed back to level 0. This is not the thing that made them depressed, levels can be trained back, players have all the time in the world. The thing that most stricken them is…… NPCs of the organization all died. Even relatives of the NPCs are implicated with no one surviving.

Calculations showed that a whole 40 thousands and more NPC commoners died in the hands of the religious coalition. This is what most stricken the players. Many players of the organization left the game with tears and never came back again. Only small portion of the players change their names, deleted their accounts and restarted and never mentioned revolution again.

Liang Li Dong joined the organization back then but because he was delayed by some matters. When he managed to break away from his miscellaneous stuff, he heard the news of the organization being destroyed. He is clear that if 50 thousand players were united and opposed the religious coalition together, they will definitely win again the coalition. It is a pity that all players are independent and have their own mindsets. Many people just liked the system in the game and within the coalition to exterminate the organization, many players can be seen.

Thinking back that he did not did his part made him have a sense of regret. This slight guilt made him cannot help but touch Behring’s head and said towards the surprised young girl: "All right, stop looking, I guarantee, if you believe in G.o.ddess Waukeen, you will get more money than these in the future. "

“Really?” Behring raises her head and asks with expectation.

“Of course, so hurry up and keep these money. We still need to catch rabbits.”

“Oh, okay.” Behring happily keeps the silver coins and lightly pats the pocket with coins with a look of satisfaction. With these money, at least for 5 months, her family should have enough to eat.

The three climbs up the hill and enters the forest. Shortly, they see a few grey forest rabbits. Kyle points to these lively little things and says: “These rabbits are very alert and smart. The best hunters in our village may not be able to hunt a rabbit in 2 or 3 days. Laying traps will only work for the first few times and they will know how to avoid traps after that. We are always laying traps differently each time but as time pa.s.ses, they are beginning to spot traps. During my grandfather’s generation, we rarely hunt these rabbits anymore.”

“They can spot traps but not necessarily withstand magic.”

Liang Li Dong snaps his finger and Cloud Dragon bloodline magic ‘Driving Fog’ is activated. With him as the center, a radius of 100m is quickly covered in a layer of thick fog. Kyle and Behring are nervous at first because the thick fog took away their vision and they cannot even see their own fingers with everything being white in front of them. However, they quickly relax as their vision starts to clear up and they can feel their bodies being much lighter.

Kyle slightly opens his mouth. In his view, he can see many red dots everywhere and these red dots are annotated with tiny Holevin words like ‘Scorpion’, ‘Frog’, ‘Rabbit’ etc. His eyes turn enthusiastic very quickly: “So this is magic? It is really magical.”

Contrary to Kyle’s excitement, Behring is illiterate so she cannot understand the red dot she is seeing and what the words on it mean…… She is scared of this situation initially but upon seeing Kyle’s happy expression, she instead calms down and turns somewhat silent. Her young sensitive heart understands that if she continues like this, she will become further and further away from Kyle and will not be able to reach him in the end.

“Go catch 2 rabbits and come back” Liang Li Dong says to Kyle.

Young boy nods and charges forward with excitement. He sees a red dot showing an indicator ‘Rabbit’ and he discovers that he is running faster than before and with less effort. With no few steps, he reaches a bush and a rabbit springs out of the bush at this time. However, this rabbit is a bit slow and with a grab, he catches the rabbit by the ears into his hands.

This is too easy, the rabbit is running so slow, is this also the effect of magic? Kyle returns to Liang Li Dong’s side and asks: “Lord Beta, what is this magic, can I learn it?”

“This is ‘Driving Fog’, G.o.ddess Waukeen’s Blessing Magic, ordinary people cannot learn it, unless approved by the G.o.ddess.” Normal people cannot learn bloodline magic.

As Liang Li Dong is saying, he is feeling the rabbit’s tummy…… Not pregnant, can slaughter. Liang Li Dong retract the skill ‘Driving Fog’. Although the consumption of this skill is not big, if permanently activated, it will put a burden on him. Furthermore, Divine n.o.ble cla.s.sifies as ‘Warlock’, there is no way to regain mind power through meditation, it can only recover naturally. Therefore he is used to reduce unnecessary spirit wastage.

After catching the wild rabbit, the trio gather some wild vegetables on the hill…… Actually, Liang Li Dong is the only one gathering, the 2 kids do not know this thing is edible. Behring is hugging a bunch of green plants and asks: “Lord Priest, this thing can be cooked? I have taken a bite before and it was really bitter.”

“Yes, wait a while and I will let you have a taste of my skills.”

The trio return to the village. Behring jogs back home to pa.s.s the 10 silver coins to her shocked father and runs back to Village Head’s house to help knead dough. Liang Li Dong boils some water and then flushes some well water to cool down. He then soaks the gathered vegetables in warm water. This helps to remove the bitter taste in the wild vegetables. Afterwards, he kills the rabbit, bloodletting, skin and opens the chest to remove the intestines very proficiently.

This rabbit is quite stout. Liang Li Dong removes the rabbit head, sprinkles some salt in the rabbit’s stomach and then chops the wild vegetables into pieces and stuffs it into the rabbit’s stomach. Lastly, he puts the rabbit into the pot to stew slowly with small fire. When the sun sets, the rabbit is finally stewed and Behring is done with the noodle soup at the same time.

Opening the pot lid, the meat aroma drifts out. The Village Head is still fine but Kyle and Behring both stares intently at the pot with saliva flowing.

As a Chinese, cooking is originally a talent hidden in his blood and coupled with Craft Cooking, the taste value of this dish is quite high. In Liang Li Dong’s vision, this system notification appears:

Stewed Rabbit with Black Nightshade

Category: Cooking

Taste Value: 8

In the game, the highest taste value is 10. With the lack of ingredients, this dish having a taste value of 8 is already not bad. This is due to the +3 to taste value of ‘Craft Cooking’. Liang Li Dong suddenly feels that ‘Glutton n.o.ble’ is not that useless of a skill.

The old Village Head looks at Liang Li Dong with a weird expression. This Lord Beta looks like a n.o.ble but his cooking skill is unexpectedly good. This is a skill only servants will learn. Is it suitable for a n.o.ble to learn it so well?

No matter what, the four have a great time at dinner. Kyle touches his bulging stomach and says with exclamation: “So a real n.o.ble eats this kind of food every day, so fortunate, no wonder everyone wants to be a n.o.ble.”

Liang Li Dong smiles silently.

However, old Village Head understands that ordinary n.o.ble also cannot have food as delicious as this. It is not because they cannot afford it but cannot find chefs with this level of skill. He is not clear about other places but in Winter Wind City, the favorite food of n.o.bles are ‘Mashed Potatoes with Sturgeon’ and ‘Looking Up At The Starry Sky’.

Old Village Head has eaten both dishes before and is worse than s.h.i.t when compared to this rabbit meat dish!