A few hours later, Li Wei was once again on the road towards Algate City. Unbeknown to him, he spent several hours outside at the haunted farm and therefore barely had 3 hours of sleep. His fatigue level was not fully recovered but fortunately, traveling would not produce as much fatigue as hunting.
Since he took so long, the granny fell asleep before Li Wei's return. He had to sleep outside under the veranda. It was not the most comfortable, but he could sleep in the rocking chair of the old farmer.
He was woken up by the sun and after a quick breakfast, he departed for Algate city. The journey was long and boring, especially since he was back to the farming areas and all he could see now were fields and farms.
Due to his lack of storage space, Li Wei had to constantly carry the two bottles of the spoilt potions constantly. He did not want to throw them away since they might have some uses considering that they were grade 2 potions.
As for the skill manual, he already used it and learned the steps of the technique. The manuals, scrolls and recording crystals would vanish after their use. This way, players would not be able to directly share the techniques or else, only one player would need to purchase the item to pass it down to everyone.
Naturally, this was only the case because the items were copies derived from an original source. The original sources could not be used to transfer techniques or skills; they could only produce the transferable copies. The original sources were unique and would be treasured by the creators of the technique.
Although the training technique that Li Wei found only gave him Wisdom, he would not say no to some free additional stats. When he thought about the Fatigue Recovery Potions produced by the sect, he thought that the more techniques he had the better since he could just recover the 20% fatigue by drinking a potion.
Besides, Wisdom was mainly invested in by magic classes since it increased the magic damage dealt by spells, but Wisdom also increased the character's resistance to magic. Even though Li Wei did not encounter any monster that used spells, it was a good investment for the future.
He recalled the words of the Clairvoyant. “He might be an NPC that gives advices on the quests you have. He was very helpful this time and I might speak to him the next time I go through a quest. The only thing that bothers me is the price… He said to come back with something valuable.”
Time went by and Li Wei found himself some traveling companions. He came across a Merchant's Caravan going to Algate City. This caravan happened to be under the escort of two level 10 players. The two were very friendly and waved at Li Wei when they saw that he was a player.
The merchant was kind enough to allow Li Wei to travel with them. In reality, he was quite delighted to obtain a third escort for free. This made the long journey less boring.
...
The night cycle was about to begin when a caravan escorted by 3 adventurers stopped by the gate of Algate City. Li Wei was naturally one of those adventurers. He was surprised to see so many changes in the city.
"Why does it look like a battle has just taken place," said Li Wei to himself.
The walls of the city were clearly damaged; several marks of claws could be seen and part of the battlements on top of the walls was missing. Furthermore, the once majestic-looking gate seemed to have lost its luster. Traces of burns and claws could be seen and most of the inscribed runes were missing.
Another thing Li Wei noticed was the long queue to get into the city, it was extremely long compared to when he left the city. Since almost an entire week has passed since his departure. A lot of players reached level 10 and came to the city. While many decided to leave the city to go to smaller towns, many chose to stay. This resulted in a long waiting queue to enter the city, especially during the evening when everyone was coming back from their hunt.
Li Wei naturally queued up with the merchant. Since he was with the caravan, he went through another line and did not have to wait that long. The Caravan attracted the gazes of many impatient players but there was nothing they could do.
After passing through the gate, he bade farewell to his traveling companions. Li Wei went to the Warrior's association to exchange his harvest for some contribution points. He did not need gold right now and therefore, he decided to exchange part of the harvest at the Warrior's association and part of it at the sect.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Naturally, he would keep the Forgotten Crosier, the potions and the Grey Obsidian for himself. He understood these items were more precious than normal.
Aside from the Shining Alyssums, Li Wei did not really need anything and so, he decided to exchange the other resources he collected at Abe's Forest.
He quickly went to the stables and left the horse there. This time, he was greeted by a group of riders who just came back from an expedition. They quickly took the reins of Mirabel and guided it towards the stables. As for Li Wei, he simply left the stables for the War District.
Li Wei also took the opportunity to take out the horse's food from his inventory and free an item slot. His horse was fed twice by Andy at the Gassian Lake and so, he had two excess portions left. As a result, he could place one of the potions in his inventory. As for the other one, he could only hook it to his belt.
As Li Wei walked towards the Warrior Association, he already noticed that the city became livelier. He could see players everywhere and most of them were walking in the same direction as him. He entered the city from the North Gate and now needed to go towards the Western Part of the city. It was now looking more and more like a megacity like Beijing.
Before long, Li Wei reached the Warrior Association without any issues except for the queue at the reception. He quickly made his way to the trading area and talked to one of the receptionists there.
After learning the prices, he quickly took out the items. As he was taking out the wild herbs and salmons, he noticed that many nearby players were greedily looking at him. With the massive increase in players at Algate City, they naturally had to share the resources with more people and as a result, one player taking out such a large amount of items was rare. Even if a whole team was to give their harvest to one player to exchange, it would not amount to these many items.
While Li Wei was limited to 34 inventory spaces (10 initial, 12 due to level, 12 due to 2 storage bags), he had collected the maximum and had 50 units of almost all items. Even if he took out only half of everything he wanted to trade, it still resulted in a small stack on the counter. Even the receptionist was surprised and at the same time annoyed since he would have to count and record all these items. For his own convenience, Li Wei also chose to take out all 50 units of a common herb he found at Abe's Forest; this was to free a storage space for the grade 2 potion on his belt.
"One moment please, I will count everything," politely said the receptionist as he grabbed a notebook and started to count the herbs.
"No problem. Take your time."
Li Wei silently stood in front of the counter looking at the receptionist. He knew he would be here for a while. The receptionist did not have a system to instantly tell him how many units of each item were present and had to count by hand. And since it was a large transaction, he was even more cautious since he would have to pay if he made any mistakes.
"Hello brother! I see that the harvest is quite good!" said the player standing next to Li Wei who was also waiting for a receptionist to count his own harvest.
"It's not too bad. It's the loot of a whole week there. That's why there's so much," answered Li Wei.
"Ah ok, but it still impressive to have collected all these. I haven't seen these herbs in the dungeon, may I ask where you found them?" asked the player. He obviously relaxed when he heard that it was Li Wei's week harvest. And from that statement, he also concluded that Li Wei should have gone adventuring somewhere or else why would he keep all these items with the risk of dropping them upon dying?
"Sure, I just went to the North of the city. There's a forest after the fields," replied Li Wei. He did not mind sharing this information since he did not plan on going back to Abe's forest. For now, his plan was to test himself at the Colosseum and he could not reserve part of the wilderness for him.
"Excuse me sir, I've finished counting! All these items are worth 2369 Contribution Points! Please scan your Identity Crystal to confirm the transaction," declared the receptionist.
Everyone was shocked to hear such a huge amount of contribution points! This amount would take weeks to gather for normal players. But now, one player obtained that many contribution points in one go. It was important to note that contrary to the Fleeting Clouds Sect, contribution points at the Warrior Association could not be traded between players.
Li Wei ignored the shocked audience and simply swiped his card. He took a quick glance and nodded as he saw that he now had 2649 Contribution Points to his name. This amount meant that he had enough to purchase a skill.
He was rejoicing at the idea of obtaining a new skill when he suddenly heard a sarcastic voice behind him:
"Huh! Hypocrite! You are an indirect member of the Fleeting Clouds Sect. You are exchanging all your loot there! What is Avalanche doing? Did they not tell you to trade with the sect to help the sect grow?"
Upon hearing that voice, Li Wei quickly turned around to look at the speaker. It was someone he had never seen before, it was a young man. He was slightly taller than Li Wei and seemed to be a ranger. His IGN was Wang Lin.
"A member of the Wang Family? Like Wang Chong and Wang Hao?" thought Li Wei.
Li Wei looked at the speaker for a few seconds before disregarding him and turning towards the exit. He was already tired after the long journey and the lack of sleep of last night; he did not have the patience to argue with that guy. Besides, Li Wei did not feel bad since he still had about half of his items with him and planned to exchange them at the sect.
"How dare you ignore me! I am a Core member of the Fleeting Clouds Sect! You are just an outer member! Let me report this to your superiors!" shouted Wang Lin. He was obviously annoyed by Li Wei's behavior. He became jealous when he saw that Li Wei was receiving so many contribution points since he himself barely obtain 200 from today's harvest.
Being a Core member and having an important role in the Wang Family, Wang Lin did not need to pay to have access to his family's training techniques. Like many other core members, he was exchanging his loot at the associations to obtain new skills quickly.
However, when he saw a player obtain so many contribution points, especially since it was someone from his own sect, he naturally felt some resentments. According to him, outer members of the sect should exchange all their resources at the sect to help it grow; they should aim at obtaining the lower-tier training techniques that the sect was providing.
As for Li Wei, he did not look at Wang Lin again after disregarding him. There was simply no point in arguing with this type of person and he simply left, leaving the mad Wang Lin furiously stomping the floor at the reception. The nearby players all looked at him but did not say anything, they would not interfere in one of the three big guild's internal affairs.
“Dam***, how dare he…”
As he left the room, Li Wei heard Wang Lin loudly curse but he did not mind it. It was his right to exchange his loot wherever he wanted. His contract did not force him to exchange all his resources at the sect; it was up to him to do so. It was very tempting to exchange everything at the sect to obtain the techniques, but Li Wei did not want to bet everything there. He left an escape room for himself.
Having finished his errand there, Li Wei left the Warrior Association and moved towards the Trading District. His inn was in the northern part of the town where the Fleeting Clouds Sect's headquarters was also located but before going there, he decided to sell the rest of his items. For now, he wanted to visit the Trading District, more specifically the Players Market.