In the afternoon, I had been lying on the table until it was nearly time to go home when Summer adamantly pulled me to the plaza to walk around. According to Summer, walking around at the plaza was refres.h.i.+ng.
Bing Cha was drinking tea, Silent Rain was surfing the web, and Zi Yue was reading magazines. None of them wanted to go out into the sun.
As such, it was only me who was accompanying Summer. What was strange was that Summer’s skin was incredibly white, and did not look at all like she spent much time in the sun.
After walking past a few stalls, one of the middle-aged women at a stall jokingly said to us, “Ooh! Miss Summer’s got a new boyfriend? Do you want to buy a video recorder; you can record while you ‘play’!”
Summer embarra.s.sedly pulled my arm, “No way, I definitely wouldn’t record such ** things!” [TLN: that’s what it says in the raws]
A few middle-aged women all began to laugh, making her even more embarra.s.sed.
After an entire day, I didn’t see Ling Xue even once. After going home from work, I found that I actually felt a bit disappointed. Forget it, Ling Yue said that Ling Xue was still levelling up; how would she have time to come.
I politely declined Summer’s invitation to help me level up. I felt that if I trained with her, it would be me helping her level up instead. At this stage of the game, little Summoners didn’t have any powerful or useful summons at all.
From what Bing Cha had said, at least for now, we would all be playing in our own homes. However, after not too long, the company would buy a house for employee players to have a nice environment to play in. All of us from the Snow Moon office would be living together, which would help us to bond as a team.
As such, I was very much looking forward to the future of the Snow Moon office.
But for now, I would go home and train by myself.
I appeared at the boundary of the forest. Inside my inventory, I still had quite a few red potions and blue potions left. However, having reached LV18, these Blue Eyed Lizards were no longer as appealing to me. Thus, I decided to go and find a new place to train. Plus, there were now many teams here killing Blue Eyed Lizards. Seeing that I was by myself, they all looked at me strangely- perhaps they thought that it was weird that I had been able to survive by myself.
Looking at the Level Rankings, I had dropped from number 83 in China to 547. It seemed that a lot of people had given up on rest, and decided to level for the entire day!
The number 1 player, the female Magician Qing Feng Lan Yue was not online, but was already LV23.
Right now, I was LV18. Getting to LV23 wouldn’t be too hard. After all, with the best weapon in Spirit of Grief, killing monsters and gaining EXP became incredibly easy.
And so, I immediately began to head west. On the map, towards the west there was a city called Twilight City, which was a level 2 city. Of course, one could only upgrade their cla.s.s at Twilight City, and the Adventurer’s Inn there could provide many services for players.
Right now, only 7 people were above LV20. Those people were probably all within that level 2 city!
Thinking to there, I left the Shallow Swamp, and after walking for about 10 minutes, I arrived at a dark and windy place. The map revealed its name: Savage Wolf Ridge!
So this was the Savage Wolf Ridge of the legends?
Half a month ago, it had been advertised that within Spirit of Grief, the Savage Wolf Ridge was like heaven for low level players- one could obtain many rewards there!
As the wind blew, the howls of Savage Wolves also entered my ears.
Far away, a black shadow was pacing around underneath a tree. It was evidently a gigantic wolf, with a pair of red eyes that caused one to shudder. Saliva leaked out of its mouth, and sharp sword-like bones stuck out of its back.
[Ravenous Sword Wolf] (Enhanced Monster)
Level: ???
Attack Power: ???
Defence: ???
HP: ???
……
The numerous question marks told me that my level was much too low to see the Ravenous Sword Wolf’s stats!
Without any hesitation, I shot out an Ice Arrow. As it was. .h.i.t, a layer of frost appeared on the Sword Wolf’s body. This attack caused 300 damage, but it was evident that its HP was much greater than that of the Blue Eyed Lizards’. The 300 damage only took off about 10% of its HP bar.
I immediately changed to an Armour Piercing Arrow. As the Armour Piercing Arrow shot into its head, its HP was reduced by another 500. Evidently, its Defence was not very high, and the Armour Piercing Arrow did not have much of an effect.
“1105！”
As such, I switched to my other active skill, Fire Arrow!
Consuming 5MP, a tongue of flame burst forth on the head of the arrow, and as it shot out, it became a streak of fire which landed on the Sword Wolf’s head.
“1105!”
It was a four digit damage figure!
I was greatly surprised, and saw that the flames seemed to have lit the Sword Wolf’s fur on fire. No wonder that one arrow had done so much damage- it seemed that the Sword Wolf was weak towards fire!
I was very pleased- luckily I had learned all of the skills from the Archer Instructor. Otherwise, it would take over two minutes to kill the Sword Wolf. However, with this Fire Arrow, I would be able to kill it easily.
While I was celebrating, the Sword Wolf had already come close, and it slashed at me. I felt a ma.s.sive clawing pain at my chest, and saw that I had lost 248 HP!
My expression sunk, and I hurriedly swallowed a red potion. The Sword Wolf once again charged at me, and mercilessly bit down on my leg, causing 240 damage!
In just a few seconds, my HP had nearly been completely depleted!
I desperately retreated a few steps and shot an Ice Arrow, slowing the Sword Wolf down, and ran as fast as I could. When I reached the range limit, I turned around, and shot a Fire Arrow.
“2240!”
A fatal blow!
With the Fire Arrow being elementally effective against the Sword Wolf, and also being a critical hit, the Sword Wolf was instantly killed!
The Sword Wolf’s large body fell to the ground as it gave a pitiful cry. A few things clattered to the ground- it was many silver coins!
Who knew what level this Sword Wolf was- it had nearly killed me twice within a few seconds. Luckily I had the Golden King Bow, as well as the critical at the last moment, which finished it off.
I walked over, and found that the Sword Wolf had dropped Red Flame Hand Guards, as well as ten or so silver coins. I picked all of them up and looked at the Hand Guard’s stats—
[Red Flame Hand Guards] (Bronze level equipment—Leather Armour)
Defence: 36
Agility: +5
Required level: 25
(Unappraised)
……
I was incredibly shocked- this Red Flame Hand Guards was a LV25 piece of equipment. Applying normal logic, the equipment that normal monsters dropped was usually lower level than them. Didn’t that mean the Sword Wolf that I had just killed was far above LV25?
Having killed a monster that was nearly 10 levels above me, my EXP bar noticeably grew!
I placed the Red Flame Hand Guards into my inventory, then consumed another potion. After a while, my HP returned to max HP. I now knew that I needed to carefully sequence my skills- first using an Ice Arrow, then a Fire Arrow. This way, I could probably kill them before they even reached me, and would not take much time!
I tried out this tactic on another Sword Wolf, and found that it was indeed quite effective. I had only expended tens of MP, but had easily killed a Sword Wolf, and again received ten or so silver coins!
As I joyfully collected my silver coins, I looked up, and saw that in the distance, there was a small tent with smoke rising above it.
There was a quest!
I quickly ran over, and saw two hunter NPCs around a stove.
I began to talk to them, and one of the hunters told me, “There is no peace in the Savage Wolf Ridge. Those wicked Sword Wolves often go to villages to attack villagers. Half a month ago, three brilliant hunters came to Savage Wolf Ridge, but we have not heard from them for a long time. Rumour says that a ferocious King Sword Wolf has appeared. Young man, do you have the courage to fight the King Sword Wolf?”
“Ding~!”
System Announcement: Would you like to accept the quest?
Quests were something that you could not have too many of. On the forum, many players were lamenting that there simply were not enough quests to go around. Seeing this quest, I was overjoyed and immediately accepted it.
“Ding~!”
System Announcement: You have accepted the quest [King Sword Wolf]! (Difficulty: 387)
Quest Details: Enter into the Savage Wolf Ridge, and collect 100 Wolf Fur by killing the Sword Wolves there. Then, enter the depths of the Savage Wolf Ridge and kill the King Sword Wolf, and give its head to the hunter Vigo!
Looking at the quest details, I was completely dumbfounded. The difficulty was a terrifying 387!
It was rumoured that the numerical difficulty of a quest represented the chance that it would be failed by the player in their current condition: a difficulty of 10 meant that the player, at his or her current level, would have a 10% chance of failing the quest. A difficulty of 100 meant that the player, at his or her current level, would have a 100% chance of failing the quest. Of course, this was just an explanation provided by players, but it was a known fact that the higher the numerical difficulty, the more difficult the quest would be to complete!
This quest I had undoubtedly told me that it was practically impossible for me to kill the King Sword Wolf.
However, looking at the Golden King Bow in my hand, I knew that it was the biggest variable!
After thinking about it, I could not help but be incredibly thrilled and elated. After the Golden Slime King, I finally had another chance to fight another boss!