However, there are no beginner villages around ordinary cities; if one wants to return to the beginner village, they must first travel to one of the five major cities and then take a carriage to the entrance of the beginner village map.
More than two hours later, Xiao Hua stepped into the map of the beginner village once again. The Baihu City beginner village had a different name but the internal maps, monsters, and NPCs were identical. Although it had been less than a month since he left the beginner village, returning to this place where he had spent nearly a year felt very familiar to him!
As he walked towards the entrance of the beginner village, he soon saw the two silver-armored guards holding long swords standing at the gate. Xiao Hua quickly used Stealth and continued moving. The Baihu City beginner village was not like Beginner Village 2012; it was bustling with people. If so many people saw the guard knights saluting him, it would certainly cause trouble.
But in front of the guard knights, even Master-level Stealth was useless! As Xiao Hua approached the entrance of the beginner village, the two guard knights saluted him just as before, saying, "Welcome back, Hero WhoDoesntStealWives!"
The surrounding new players were startled, but they were all new players with similar equipment levels, each wearing a puzzled expression, looking at each other, wondering why the guard knights suddenly acted this way.
"Madame Olsang, here is the rare hide you need. Please help me repair this leather armor," Xiao Hua said as he entered the armor shop and handed over the Hydra hide and Slime King leather armor to Olsang.
"Oh, this hide is really good. I think I can definitely repair this leather armor perfectly! It will take about an hour. Come back after an hour," Olsang said with a smile, stroking the Slime King leather armor after praising the Hydra hide.
An hour, it’s not bad that he didn’t have to come back the next day. Xiao Hua felt relieved and went outside the beginner village to practice his skills for an hour before returning.
"The repair is complete. I hope you won't be disappointed!" Olsang handed over a piece of leather armor. However, the color of the armor had turned fiery red, quite eye-catching.
System Prompt: You have obtained the "Adventurer's Armor"!
Adventurer's Armor (Dark Gold): A leather armor crafted by the master tailor Olsang for a young adventurer when she was young. After being repaired, the leather armor gained stronger protective capabilities under her now even more skilled craftsmanship!
Attributes: Physical Defense +120, Magic Defense +70, Level 35 required to equip.
Vitality +30
Strength +30
Agility +20
Effect: Moderately reduces negative states such as poisoning, slowing, weakening, stunning, and paralysis.
Additional Skill: Advanced Anti-Magic Shell: Immune to any normal magic for 30 seconds and reflects 20% magic damage back to the caster. Cooldown time is 1 hour.
"Hahaha!" Xiao Hua couldn't help laughing out loud when he saw the attributes of the Adventurer's Armor. These stats were truly amazing! And only requiring level 35 to equip, he might not want to change it even when reaching level 50!
Xiao Hua excitedly ran back to Snowdrift City and bought a regular blue leather armor to wear temporarily. He became even more focused on leveling up. With a purple weapon at level 27, a purple necklace at level 28, dark gold clothes at level 35, and a dark gold weapon at level 40, Xiao Hua's mind was now completely occupied with leveling up!
These days, except for eating, Xiao Hua even skipped his morning runs, becoming a typical young man obsessed with online games. Under Xiao Hua's crazy monster-killing spree, he finally reached level 27 at noon on the thirtieth. He switched to the purple weapon, Scorching Thorn, and then learned a new skill at level 27, Shadow Strike!
Shadow Strike (Beginner Level): After successfully poisoning the weapon, it can be thrown to attack targets within two meters, causing 100 initial poison damage and leaving the target in a state where they lose 10 HP per second for 5 seconds and their movement speed is reduced by 20% for 3 seconds. Poison damage does not stack with other poison damages. This skill requires "poison" to work properly; otherwise, the poison effect is halved. Skill cooldown is 9 seconds.
Shadow Strike could be considered the most practical skill for thieves. When trained to advanced levels, both the initial and continuous poison damage are significantly increased. With a short cooldown and being a short-range skill, it is the top choice for both PvP and monster-killing! However, Xiao Hua remembered that during the beta test, it wasn't necessary to use poison; the system apparently made some minor adjustments.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
For the left-hand weapon, Xiao Hua hadn't equipped it before because the attack power was too low, making it practically unusable. Now, he could finally equip dual weapons, with the main attacking weapon Scorching Thorn in the right hand and the Fang Dagger for Shadow Strike in the left hand. After switching to Scorching Thorn, his physical attack power increased by nearly 150, reaching a maximum of 290, finally no longer being a pitiful figure who couldn't kill monsters.
Xiao Hua tried out his new gear on some ordinary level 25 White Apes in the snowy forest. A single ordinary attack could deal over 150 HP damage. If it was a critical hit, it could directly deal over 700 HP damage. The burning effect of Scorching Thorn was also surprisingly good, often dealing 50 points of burning damage. Combined with poisoning, Shadow Strike, infinite stacking poison, and critical strike poison, Xiao Hua found his output was much higher than he had expected! Once, he dealt over 2000 HP damage with a single dagger strike: a purple critical hit number (-750) followed by a green critical strike poison damage (-188), a fiery red burning damage (-1050), a -20 poisoning damage, and a -40 infinite stacking poison damage, resulting in a White Ape with 2000 HP left being killed instantly!
Looking at the dagger strike that dealt over 2000 HP damage, Xiao Hua himself couldn't believe it. Although it was mostly due to the rare critical hit plus the thousandth chance burning damage that resulted in this number, he still managed to achieve it through an ordinary attack without using any skills. Even he couldn't help feeling that he seemed somewhat powerful. If every attack could achieve this damage, he would be close to invincibility.
But this was only a fantasy for Xiao Hua. Although he attacked countless times afterward, it was rare to see another high-damage critical hit plus burning damage.
Happily, he killed a large group of White Apes with his dagger. Suddenly, an Elite White Ape spawned in a blank snowy field, which made Xiao Hua feel delighted. After reaching level 27, he had planned to change places to level up after the next day, never expecting to encounter the big guy that bullied him before!
"Bah!" Xiao Hua sneered and charged forward with Scorching Thorn.
The Elite White Ape had nearly 200 defense, and Xiao Hua's dagger strike could only deal less than 100 HP damage. But as long as he could break through its defense, everything else was manageable. With various poison damages and frequent critical hits dealing hundreds of damage, the 30,000 HP was nothing significant, and the Elite White Ape was chopped into eight pieces in less than three minutes.
"You damn thing! I'll show you who's boss!" Xiao Hua stomped on the corpse of the Elite White Ape a few times and then cleaned up the battlefield, finding that the Elite White Ape had dropped only three pieces of green equipment.
After venting his anger, Xiao Hua was in a great mood. He continued bullying the White Apes for a while before calming down and resuming his leveling with magic bombs.
After the excitement, Xiao Hua looked at the items in his backpack and discovered a significant problem. While his output had undoubtedly increased significantly under various poison damage skills, the consumption of poison in his backpack was also astonishing! Poisoning 10/100, Infinite Stacking Poison 1/100, Shadow Strike 10/100, Critical Strike Poison 10/100. One pack of poison would be nearly half depleted after one round of skills! Money aside, these skills were absolutely unaffordable for those without money! What troubled Xiao Hua even more was the lack of backpack space. Apart from various essential items, his backpack could barely hold fifty packs of poison, which was far from sufficient. It seemed he needed to level up quickly, complete the backpack expansion quest, and gain more backpack space.
Time flew by until noon on the 31st. Xiao Hua stopped leveling and returned to Snowdrift City. Later, Piaoling and Zhou Xiaorou also came back, waiting to see what major updates and activities the system would bring that night.
Piaoling and Zhou Xiaorou were both above level 25. Xiao Hua planned that after tomorrow, the three of them would officially enter the experience dungeon together. If Old Fei had received the experience dungeon map, they could level up every four days!
Speak of the devil, just as Xiao Hua was thinking about it, Old Fei sent him a message: "Brother WhoDoesntSteal, I've received some of the experience dungeon maps you wanted. Are you free to trade now?"
"Of course! How many do you have, and how much do they cost?" Xiao Hua asked joyfully upon seeing the message.
"11 maps, due to the impact of the upcoming system update, the price is a bit higher, 100,000 per map."
"Mm, no problem, I'll be there soon. Wait a few minutes."
A few minutes later, at the Pot of Gold Auction House.
"Boss Fei, do you have any insider information about tonight's update and event?" Xiao Hua casually asked after completing the transaction with Old Fei. Since Old Fei had extensive connections, he might know something in advance. Getting some insider information and preparing accordingly might bring considerable benefits!
"No." Old Fei shook his head. "I asked around, but no one knew. It's said that this update was pre-determined in the game's development process, and only a few core personnel know the details."
Well, the official secrecy measures were indeed effective. But Xiao Hua wasn't too concerned; eventually, everything would be clear by tonight.
Time passed slowly. More and more players gathered in Snowdrift City. Usually empty, the city now swarmed with countless people. By eight o'clock in the evening, almost every inch of land in the city was filled with players, and many players who rushed back from leveling outside the city were blocked outside, unable to enter!