Chapter 13 – Frostfang

“Hahahaha, a silver item!” Fatty hugged the leather armor and laughed. Although he was unable to equip it just yet, he finally gotten hold of a true silver item.

After laughing enough, he wiped away the saliva from his mouth. Then, he looked towards one of the other items lying on the ground. It was a dagger that was emitting a greenish light.

Fatty used Appraisal.

Appraisal failed?

Let’s try again.

It failed once more.

Fatty refused to give up. He immediately picked up the dagger, and spammed Appraisal on it.

Ding. After a while, he finally succeeded, while also increasing the mastery level of his Appraisal by 1.

Frostfang

Silver

Dagger

Level Requirement: 10

Attack: 15 – 20

STR: +5

DEX: +3

Active Skill: Poison Fang – Poison the enemy, dealing 0.1% of the target’s maximum HP per second for 100 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.

“Bwahahahaha…” Fatty was momentarily shocked by the equipment’s rank, then couldn’t help but laugh loudly once again. I finally got a silver weapon as well!

Then, when he looked at the dagger once again, and read the active skill, he was completely dumbfounded.

His body began to tremble in excitement. T-This is seriously a must-have item! From now on, whenever I need to kill a boss, all I need to do is poison it. Everything else is just a matter of time. I suppose from now on the title of “Boss Slayer” is going to ring true.

Kill the boss, get the drops, pick up the girls, slaughter my foes… Bwahahahaha.

Fatty wiped away the saliva from the corner of his mouth again, then finally woke up from his delusions. He kissed the dagger in his hands, then carefully stored it away, then picked up a green skill book on the ground.

He slapped down on the book, causing a ray of green light to shine out. When the light faded, he looked towards his skill bar, and saw a new skill.

Coil: Unleash a silver python to bind the enemy in place for 10 seconds, dealing 30 damage per second. Cooldown: 300 seconds.

Although the bleed effect was very miniscule, the binding effect was superb.

Fatty looked around the ground a bit more, but there was nothing else.

So stingy. Fatty was not too happy with what the Silver Python King dropped. It actually didn’t carry more items with it!

He used Harvest on the corpse, gaining a snake skin, a snake gallbladder, as well as two snake fangs, which was the three typical snake drops.

Since the snake corpse was rather terrifying for others, and it would only disappear in half an hour, Fatty decided to rest there for a bit. He roasted a rabbit leg to recover his stamina, then continued on with his money-making plan.

During the night, Blackthorn Woods was completely silent. The only monsters within were either Level 9 Pythons or Level 11 Black Wolves. The pythons had a poison attack, while the black wolves were too high-leveled for the current player base, so Fatty was the only one farming within the woods. He killed monsters and continued to harvest the herbs at the same time. After all, having things just in case was no harm, anything might come in use one day.

Although Blackthorn Woods was pitch dark, making it the perfect environment for pythons to launch sneak attacks, since Fatty did train when he was younger, all the pythons did was cause him to scramble a little and use up a bit of his red pots. He was never sent back to the respawn point.

…

“Ahh, that felt great!”

The sun rises, yet I’m still undefeated. What to do when you want to kill a boss? Come and grab Money Grubber!

Fatty chuckled to himself as the sun rose in the east. He had farmed during the entire night, killing more than a hundred wolves, gaining plenty of wolf skin and meat. He also managed to harvest one thousand five hundred white cogon roots, which was way more than enough to turn in the mission.

What’s more, the night of farming also allowed Fatty to reach 80% of the way to Level 10. Despite that, he still couldn’t help but curse the game for the difficulty of leveling up.

Fatty let out a long sigh of relief. Players had already begun to start appearing around Blackthorn Woods. After all, killing monsters above one’s level was the best thing to do. So, Fatty cleaned up a bit and walked out of the forest. He had gained tremendous amounts of things during the night of farming, and his name was also no longer red.

He wandered over to where the farmer stood, who was waiting for him impatiently.

“Oh my dear hero. I thank you on behalf of the entire village. Thank you for your contributions towards the village. If you didn’t chase away those damn greedy hares, our fields would definitely have suffered immeasurable amounts of damage. If you didn’t hunt the wolves for their meat, then the villagers might not even make it through this winter. Hero, allow me to thank you once again,” the farmer held Fatty’s hand tightly with a look of admiration on his face.

However, Fatty merely looked at the farmer coldly, and indicated with the Dark Star Dagger in his right hand.

“Oh, allow me to give you our sincerest thanks on behalf of the entire villager for your contributions. At the same time, please allow me to reward you greatly,” when the farmer finally noticed the dagger in Fatty’s hand, he quickly straightened his posture and said seriously.

Ding.

System Notification: Congratulations. You have completed the mission “Preparing Food Reserves. +10000 EXP, +100 Reputation. In order to reward you for your contributions towards the village, farmer Cary is willing to teach you the traditional culinary methods passed down his family. Would you like to learn it?

Cooking? Of course. Fatty quickly accepted.

Ding.

System Notification: Congratulations. You have learnt Cooking. Current Mastery Level: Novice 0/100.

Cooking was a useful skill. Originally, Fatty was able to roast the chicken leg, a culinary material, so that it could reduce Hunger and increase Stamina. However, if he was to roast the entire chicken, then it could only satisfy his desire to eat, but had no other effects. On the other hand, if he was to use Cooking, then not only would the chicken be edible, it would other be able to reduce Hunger and increase Stamina.

Technically speaking, Cooking was only one of the skills of a chef, so it didn’t count as a secondary profession. Otherwise, Fatty, who already chose blacksmith as his secondary profession would be unable to learn Cooking.

When the Fatty saw the farmer put on a serious look once more, he immediately understood that there was nothing else to be gained. Thus, he could only turn back to the village bitterly and walk to the smithy.

“Ahh, my cute little rogue, what did you come here for again?” The moment Fatty entered the doors, the blacksmith walked over, and stared intently at Fatty. From the looks of it, he still remembers Fatty stealing the dagger from him.

“Here you go, ten iron ores. It’s time for you to teach my blacksmithing,” Fatty said bluntly, and handed over ten pieces of iron ores he got from the rabbit hole.

“Not bad, not bad. These are all ores of excellent quality. It seems like you have good potential to become a blacksmith,” the blacksmith received the ten ores and nodded in satisfaction. He waved his hand, and caused a ray of white light to land on Fatty.

Ding.

System Notification: Congratulations. You have completed the mission “Beginner’s Test”. +100 EXP, +10 Reputation.

Ding.

System Notification: Congratulations. You have learnt Crafting. Current Mastery Level: Novice 0/100.

Fatty didn’t manage to get anything else under the blacksmith’s careful surveillance, so he could only bid the blacksmith farewell before going to the alchemy shop.

“Shopkeeper, you’ve got a guest!” Fatty shouted as he entered.

The shopkeeper, who was lying leisurely on the chair, nearly fell down. “W-W-Why is it you again? What did you come here for?”

The shopkeeper was still frightened of Fatty.

“I came to turn in the mission,” Fatty revealed a seemingly innocent smile.

The shopkeeper clearly trembled, then nearly tripped over.

“Okay, take out the mission items. 20, no, 200 white cogon roots,” the shopkeeper nearly exposed his misdoings. If this fatty knows that I changed the mission ad hoc, then he’ll probably strangle me.

“Here,” Fatty took out 200 white cogon roots and handed them to the shopkeeper.

Ding.

System Notification: Congratulations. You have completed the mission “Harvest”. +100 EXP, +10 Reputation.

“F*ck.” Fatty was outraged when he received the system notification. Leveling up from 9 to 10 required more than fifty thousand experience. Fatty’s fight through the night had gotten him eighty percent of the way there. After turning in “Preparing Food Reserves” got him to 99% of the way, and he was just a tad bit away from levelling up. Yet, even after turning in “Harvest”, he was still a hundred and something experience away from leveling up.

“One sec,” Fatty said to the shopkeeper.

Then, before the shopkeeper realized what was going on, Fatty sprinted out to the entrance of the village, and immediately begun to beat up every single hen he saw. Each hen only gave him 1 EXP, so he had to kill over a hundred in order to level up.

Fatty’s attacks were able to kill the hens in one hit, then everywhere he passed by was a mess. All the other players killing hens in front of the village entrance saw a shadow flash pass time with a gust of wind. Before they could even react, they saw the once cocky hens dead on the ground.

“Damn, who’s that? He’s so amazing!”

“The heck? Is he insane? His attack is so high, so why is he here instead of killing monsters in the fields!?”

“F*ck, is this what it means to be insane?”

All of a sudden, a heated discussion arose between the players.

Fatty didn’t care about what others thought, and merely unleashed his wrath. Within several minutes, he finally finished his goal, then a ray of golden light shone onto him with a ring, while warming him up.

Ding.

System Notification: Congratulations. You have reached Level 10. As the first player to reach level 10, you have received 100 gold coins, and +500 Reputation.

Wow, so generous. I killed monsters long and hard for two days, and completed so many missions, yet, I didn’t even reach 500 Reputation. Now, they gave me 500 Reputation just by leveling up to Level 10, and even gave me 100 gold coins as well. They’re so generous!

Ding.

Announcement: A player has reached Level 10 on this server. Teleportation circles are now accessible. All players of at least Level 10 can use teleportation circles to teleport to a main city.

All of the farming players stopped.

“Wow, someone already reached level 10. Who’s this amazing?”

“This is unbelievable, it’s so hard to level up, yet someone managed to reach level 10 already. He’s my idol!”

“Idol your ass. There’s definitely a team helping him. We need to hurry up as well, so that we don’t get left too far behind.”

All of a sudden, the news of someone reaching level 10 became more than a shocking news. It became an inspiration. Many people charged towards monsters bravely as if just killing the next monster would bring them to level 10. Of course, what came along was that there were a lot more respawns at the respawn point.

Fatty didn’t expect him reaching level 10 would have such a huge influence. However, even if he knew, he wouldn’t care. After all, Fatty has always believed that one should care less about things that brought him no benefit.

“Shopkeeper, gimme a few red pots,” since he was going to go to a main city, Fatty naturally understood that he should stock up on pots at a place where there was a discount.

“You got to level 10?” Yet, what was strange was that the shopkeeper did not immediately go and get the pots. Instead, he asked Fatty a question first.

“Yeah, I’m level 10. What about it?” Fatty was confused. Could there be some promotion for reaching level 10? Could it be… a 50 percent discount?

Fatty immediately got interested.

“I got a mission here. It’s very dangerous. Do you want to accept it or not?” I guess I didn’t scare this old guy when he gave me the mission last time. He’s actually offering another mission.

“Very dangerous?” That was the first thing Fatty noticed.

“Yes, VERY dangerous,” the shopkeeper nodded, then waited for Fatty to consider with surprising patience.

“What’s in it for me?” That was thing Fatty cared most about.

The shopkeeper smiled.

“I’ll teach you alchemy if you complete this mission.”

“I thought each player can only have one secondary profession?” Fatty asked in confusion.

“That’s the rules, but there are exceptions to everything,” the shopkeeper said.

“Then give me the profession first. Then, I’ll go and complete the mission,” Fatty immediately begun to bargain.

“No,” the shopkeeper shook his head. “I have no way to give you the secondary profession if you don’t complete the mission. I can only do it after you complete the mission.”

“Ugh, damn it,” Fatty cursed. “Tell me what the mission is.”

“Don’t think that I’m just the shopkeeper of a small potions store. Actually, my real identity is a Alchemist Grandmaster,” the shopkeeper said proudly.

“That’s in the past, isn’t it?” Fatty said mercilessly.

“Yes,” the shopkeeper immediately slouched, and said quietly. “I got kicked out of the Central Imperial Capital, and got my title of an alchemist grandmaster was stripped from me ever since I accidentally lost the Poison Immunity Orb. So, I can only open an alchemy shop here to struggle on.”

“Then your mission has to do with that Poison Immunity Orb?” Fatty immediately understood what the shopkeeper was talking about.

“That’s right. As long as you help me find the Poison Immunity Orb, I can get my title of an alchemist grandmaster back. When that happens, getting you another secondary profession is just a simple matter,” the shopkeeper smiled.

“Alright, deal. Now, tell me where the Poison Immunity Orb is. I’ll get it back for you right now,” Fatty patted his chest.