The King's Avatar

“It’s 2 o’clock. I’ll be going off too then?” Su Mucheng said.

“How are you leveling your account?” Ye Xiu asked her. Su Mucheng shouldn’t have the time to level her low-leveled account. But right now, her Cleansing Mist was very close to Lord Grim’s level, not a step slower.

“You don’t need to worry about that!” Su Mucheng hummed a tune and then logged out.

“Dungeon again?” Tang Rou asked. Now that they were Level 30, running Frost Forest was no longer a viable option, but Boneyard could still give some experience. Apart from this, they could enter a new dungeon, the Level 30-33 dungeon Line Canyon.

This dungeon was still a five-member dungeon and could only be run three times every day, the same as Desolate Land. Yesterday, after leveling to 30, Ye Xiu and the others had already began running it. The unfamiliarity of the dungeon for the first three runs naturally made Tang Rou feel challenged by it, so she was now quite interested in going to Line Canyon.

“No rush. We’re going shopping.” Ye Xiu said.

“Shopping?” Tang Rou stared blankly.

“We’re Level 30 now. You two should start paying attention to your equipment now.” Ye Xiu said, “For equipment, higher-leveled doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s better. True experts have to know how to choose equipment that fit their play style. Movement speed, attack speed, these types of speed-related stats, higher doesn’t necessarily mean better either. When the speed is too high, it’s pretty common for players to go out of control and expose an opening. Experts don’t chase after equipment with the highest stats. They chase after equipment that suits them the best. Why are self-made equipment so strong? It’s not just because their stats are higher than an Orange equipment by a level. More importantly, it’s because they’re custom-made specially to suit the player’s style. Take my Thousand Chance Umbrella as an example. If you don’t have enough experience in the game, it wouldn’t be possible to fully utilize this weapon’s might.”

“For weapons, normal players usually choose the weapon with the highest attack. But for experts, attack isn’t the only thing to be considered because it doesn’t how they use the weapon. What truly affects their weapon choice is the weapon’s attack speed, length, weight, etc. These sort of properties are all necessary to consider in real battle. Let’s say I give you a Lance with an attack twice as high as your current one, but with a length that’s a third of yours. If you used the one I give you, do you think your strength will increase or decrease?” Ye Xiu explained and then suddenly quizzed Tang Rou.

Tang Rou heard the question and was stumped. Whether she’d be stronger or weaker, she had no way of judging that. But she at least understood what Ye Xiu was trying to get at.

“The greater the expert, the higher the expert’s awareness towards how different weapons feel. Because I’m not you, as a bystander, I can only give you some suggestions, but what exactly you choose depends on you. This means that you’re going to have to try out lots of different weapons. What you’re looking for is the most suitable equipment. Either that or you’re going to need to adjust your playing style to the equipment you choose. In the end, it all depends on you to decide.”

They walked while they talked, until the three characters finally arrived at Congee City.

Congee City was much larger than Bulls Town. This was one of the major cities in Glory. It was also the first major city that players would come across and a gathering place for low to mid level players.

From Level 30 onwards, players paid closer attention to equipment and so the Exchange Market would become much more popular. Lots of messages for buying and selling would begin to appear on the world channel too. Once a player entered Congee City, the player would see players buying and selling items everywhere around them.

However, the prices for many of the items were extremely high. The new servers had lots of new players. But even though new players didn’t understand, they weren’t stupid. There were very few fools who sold items as if they were trash. Most players who didn’t know of an item’s price would look around first. They would go to the market and ask around. Tang Rou and Steamed Bun Invasion were both left speechless after looking at the marked prices.

Along their journey to Level 30, they hadn’t gotten any super-lucky gains. Besides the rewards from quests, their only source of income was from monster drops. However, these were all just chump change. The money they had accumulated up until now didn’t exceed 10 Gold coins. Buying potions and so on usually used Silver coins as the unit of measure. In the beginner village, the lowest leveled health and mana potions were 1 Silver coin a bottle. 1 Gold coin was equal to 100 Silver coins. 10 Gold coins were enough to buy a lot of these potions. However, these were all the lowest-leveled potions. For Level 30 players, it wasn’t worth buying them.

For Tang Rou and Steamed Bun Invasion to have been able to accumulate that much money was already considered quite good. Their skill levels were high, so they were able to dodge most attacks in real battle. If not, then if they were normal new players, they would have used up all of their money from quests and drops on potions. If they didn’t do any reselling for profit trading, then they wouldn’t be able to afford anything. 10 Gold coins was already considered quite rich among these normal players.

Ye Xiu looked through several booths. He discovered that even though the market had already taken form, Level 30 and up items were still rare. The reason was because Level 30 players were currently a very small part of the player population. The majority of players were still trying to reach Level 30. At this moment, there were quite a lot of booths, but most of them were players under Level 30 setting up booths after seeing others do it. As a result, the majority of equipment sold weren’t Level 30. Besides a few unique equipment, the rest weren’t anything remarkable.

Tang Rou and Steamed Bun Invasion at least knew to look for equipment based on their levels. They ignored everything under Level 30 and only looked at equipment Level 30 and above.

“So expensive!!” Seeing the prices on the equipment, the two expressed their regrets.

A normal Level 30 Blue piece of equipment cost 10 gold coins, their entire fortune. Class-set equipment were even more expensive. They varied from 20 Gold coins to 40 Gold coins for one. Why was there a difference? This was because even though Glory’s 24 classes were balanced well, there were still classes more popular than others. For example, Blade Masters and Sharpshooters were the two most popular classes in Glory. It was the same in the new server. With a greater demand, the equipment for those classes were naturally a bit more expensive.

Armor was like this. Weapons were even more so. A Level 30 Blue weapon cost between 30 gold coins to 50 gold coins. The variance was also because of the difference in classes. As for Purple weapons, normal ones cost 100 gold coins. For ones with more outstanding stats, those could cost nearly 200 gold coins.

These prices were a bit more fair. After all, the vast majority of players that had hit Level 30 were veterans from the big guilds. Under the standards they set, those crazier players that had hit Level 30 too set their prices in the same way. There weren’t too many with ridiculous prices.

“If I wanted to buy a weapon, how long would I need to save up money?” Tang Rou said.

“It looks like it’d be better to just save up points in the Arena!” Steamed Bun Invasion was still using that Level 25 Purple Claw he got from the Arena.

“Ha ha, as long as the equipment isn’t binded, then you can always resell your equipment later!” Ye Xiu said.

In Glory, equipment from the normal servers could be binded. After being binded, the equipment wouldn’t drop if you died. But it also meant that it couldn’t be traded. Once the equipment was bound, it wasn’t possible to unbind it, which was why at this stage of the game, practically no one bound their equipment. Everyone wanted to sell their equipment later after it grew outdated. But because of this reason, the price for low-leveled equipment would eventually take a dive as the equipment grew outdated. For example, in the oldest first server, the equipment that Tang Rou and Steamed Bun Invasion were gasping at were ten times cheaper. Moreover, most players didn’t want to waste their time peddling them and directly sold them in the NPC stores.

“Then what do we need to buy?” Tang Rou asked.

“Weapons.” Ye Xiu said. After witnessing Maple Tree’s performance three times, Ye Xiu didn’t want to put his entire trust onto whether that guy would improve. In the end, he decided that they should upgrade their equipment and be more ready.

“Where are we going to get that money?” Tang Rou said. She had seen a Purple Lance being sold for 120 gold coins. Blue Lances were a lot cheaper; they were all under 40 gold coins. But a Level 30 Blue weapon was about the same as her Level 25 Purple weapon, so there was no point in buying one. If she were going to switch weapons, she’d had to buy a Purple Lance.

“Money isn’t a problem. Just look for a weapon that you like! If you think the one you’re using right now is good, then you should choose the Level 30 Scarlet Moon Lance. It’s the around the same length and weight as your current one.” Ye Xiu said.

“Oh? Them I’m going to go look around. I’ll pay you back later.” Tang Rou said.

“Buy me a cigarette pack and that’ll be enough.” Ye Xiu said.

“I’m waiting for my pay to come…..” Tang Rou said gloomily. She currently had no money. She had lost it all to Ye Xiu.

“Steamed Bun! Look for a weapon you like, it’ll be my gift!” Ye Xiu said to Steamed Bun Invasion.

“Ha ha, I get one too!!” Steamed Bun Invasion cheered.

“Of course.”

“Then I’m going to go look.” Steamed Bun Invasion wasn’t as polite. He had gaming experience. Even though it wasn’t in Glory, he could still infer one thing from three in many places. In his eyes, Ye Xiu and him were at a completely different level. Ye Xiu was an expert. A god. Experts gifting new players equipment was a very common occurrence, so there was no need to be polite.

Steamed Bun Invasion returned after a short while and said he found a weapon that he liked. Ye Xiu followed him to go look and immediately regretted what he had said: “Steamed Bun, you really aren’t polite at all!”

“Ha ha!” Steamed Bun Invasion laughed. He had found an Orange weapon. Ye Xiu had looked around all day and this was the first Orange equipment he had seen. How did Steamed Bun Invasion smell that out? In just a minute after he heard that he’d be gifted an equipment, he fished this out.

Level 30 Orange weapon Vampiric Claw, 800 gold coins. How could the price of Orange weapons be similar to Blue or Purple weapons?

“Can I?” Steamed Bun Invasion asked.

“Of course not! I only have 15 gold coins on me. I have to go sell things to buy you guys weapons. 800 gold coins. Do you want me to sell myself!!” Ye Xiu said. The only reason he had 5 more gold coins than Steamed Bun Invasion and Tang Rou was all because he had consumed even fewer potions and food than them.

“Really? Then I’ll go look around again.” Steamed Bun Invasion ran off.

“Orange weapons are no good!!” Ye Xiu stressed.

“Got it!” Steamed Bun Invasion’s voice came from far away.

Ye Xiu shook his head and then immediately let Lord Grim head to one corner of the market. He had noticed a booth with a sign: Buying Uncommon Materials.

“How are you buying Strong Spider Silk?” Lord Grim walked forward and then asked.

The other side turned his character to look at him. After a short moment of silence, he said: “Lord Grim….. Didn’t you earn these Strong Spider Silk from us? And now you want to sell it back to us?”