After waking up, Liu Xuan went to check the quest panel. More than a thousand quests had already been completed, so things seemed to be progressing pretty quickly.
With one quest disappearing for every one completed, everyone was scrambling to do them. It looked like all ten thousand quests should be finished within two or three days, unlocking the next campaign.
While the others were still busy with the quests, Liu Xuan planned to go farm some attributes.
Before that, though, he needed to deal with the few pieces of Strange Salamander hide that had dropped.
The moment Liu Xuan took out the Strange Salamander Leather at the leatherworker’s shop, the leatherworker’s eyes lit up.
He ran his hands over it again and again, looking as if he had just laid eyes on a beautiful woman.
Liu Xuan’s mouth twitched. “Boss, can you make something out of it or not?”
Only then did the leatherworker reluctantly set it down. “Sorry. This material is simply too precious. With my skill, I have at most a fifty percent chance of successfully turning it into equipment. Unless you can find one of the advanced leatherworkers from the old major cities. They’d have a hundred percent chance.”
“An advanced leatherworker?” Liu Xuan raised an eyebrow. Could this be a hidden quest?
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” The leatherworker shook his head. “After the area across the river fell, no one even knows whether he’s still alive.”
“Then why bring him up?”
Liu Xuan had no intention of gambling on a fifty percent chance. After the battle at the outpost ended, it had not prompted him to become a dungeon the way the Lumberyard and Quarry had. That suggested the Strange Salamander was a one-time encounter. Once it was killed, it would be gone for good.
The Strange Salamander Leather probably had no other source, either.
What a waste it would be if the equipment failed.
“Wait. If you’re not confident about making equipment, couldn’t this be made into a backpack instead?”
“I can make a backpack, but are you sure you want to use such precious material for that? Backpacks can be made from all kinds of leather. You can always use other hides to make a larger bag later. But if you find an advanced leatherworker, this Strange Salamander hide can be made into equipment of Epic quality.”
Epic quality?
That was indeed impressive. The best equipment Liu Xuan had obtained so far was only Fine quality.
“What about a backpack? How many slots would it have?”
“Four hides can be made into four twenty-slot backpacks.”
Tsk. That wasn’t bad either.
Liu Xuan was still using his five-slot Snakehide Bag.
After thinking it over, however, he decided to keep the hides for now and see whether he could find an advanced leatherworker later.
He could make do with a smaller backpack in the meantime. He could always mail the finished one to Zhang Meng first.
Zhang Meng: ???
As for whether that advanced leatherworker was dead or alive, Liu Xuan was certain he was still alive.
The leatherworker in this beginner village was clearly limited in skill. Once players reached higher levels and obtained hides from higher-level monsters, he probably wouldn’t be able to process them anymore.
So there had to be an advanced leatherworker later on.
After all, the mechanics of this battlefield were such that monsters had an extremely low equipment drop rate. Most equipment had to be crafted from materials.
How could the game work if the leatherworker was gone?
After finishing up, Liu Xuan began wondering where he should go to level up and farm attributes.
Because of the experience bonus and the quests, the warriors in Battlefield 2468 were already fairly high-level. During the time Liu Xuan had been asleep, most of them had reached around Level 6.
As a result, everything from the Woodland Rats to the Shadow Wolves was being hunted by players. If Liu Xuan went there, he would have to compete for monsters.
As for the Giant Venomous Insects and the monsters beyond them, they were too scattered, making them inefficient to farm.
Just as Liu Xuan was hesitating, he suddenly saw people discussing dungeons in the chat channel.
“Damn, this is my first time running a dungeon. The Lumberyard is way too hard! How did the big shot solo it back then?”
“Fun fact: we’re playing a simplified version.”
“To the guy above: you don’t have to kill every monster in there, and aggro isn’t linked between them. Someone’s already worked out the optimal strategy. Clear the several groups of monsters around the piles of lumber in the eastern part of the Lumberyard, then have a nimble ranged player pull the boss over.
“That way, you can use line-of-sight tricks to neutralize his ridiculously powerful charge. He’ll crash into a wall and stun himself for three seconds, making him much easier to deal with.”
“We’re doing the same thing. We’re repeatedly farming the dungeon now. The boss has a chance to drop the two weapons he uses, and it always drops one Thick Porcupine Hide. They’re all Fine quality. Save up for a while, and you’ll have enough for a piece of Fine equipment.”
As Liu Xuan read the messages, an idea came to him.
The announcement had said that after the Lumberyard became a five-player dungeon, its difficulty would be reduced. He had assumed that some of the weaker monsters had been removed.
After all, how could five people fight two or three hundred monsters?
But now it seemed that the number of monsters might not have been reduced at all. Their aggro had simply been separated, making it much less likely for someone to accidentally pull the entire dungeon.
That certainly made it easier for a five-player party to clear.
And it also made it convenient for him to farm experience and attributes.
Liu Xuan rubbed his chin. He was currently Level 9 with 3,546 out of 5,000 experience, and he could still benefit from the experience bonus for a while longer.
He immediately set off for the Lumberyard. Unfortunately, the road was packed with people leveling up.
They were all incredibly polite, too. Even though they didn’t know Liu Xuan, they saw him traveling alone and kept asking whether he wanted to join their party.
It was slowing him down too much. With no other choice, Liu Xuan left the road leading to the Lumberyard and plunged into the forest, hoping to take a roundabout route.
Only then did he gradually stop running into people.
After traveling for about twenty minutes, Liu Xuan suddenly heard the crisp sound of running water.
Following the sound, he discovered a small stream hidden in the forest. There were plenty of animal tracks in the muddy ground beside it—monkeys, wolves, and others.
Among them, Liu Xuan also found a trail of human footprints.
At first, he wondered whether someone had simply wandered over while hunting monsters.
But the footprints extended from the stream directly into the woods, and there were no tracks anywhere else. It was obvious that whoever had made them had come here to drink.
Only an NPC would do something like that!
Remembering that he had encountered Bell in the forest before, Liu Xuan wondered whether these tracks might belong to him. He began following them.
After leaving the stream, the footprints became increasingly faint. Fortunately, he could still spot signs that branches and shrubs had been trampled, so he managed not to lose the trail.
About ten minutes later, Liu Xuan finally found his target: a tree hollow blocked by wooden planks. There were plenty of signs nearby that someone had been living there.
Liu Xuan stepped forward and knocked on the planks.
Knock, knock, knock.
No one answered, so he knocked again.
“Who is it?!”
After a few seconds, a wary male voice came from inside.
“I’m a warrior from the village. Who’s in there?”
“A warrior?” The voice suddenly became excited. “A warrior from the village?!”
There was a flurry of stones and wooden planks being moved. Then the planks blocking the entrance were pushed aside, and a disheveled man carrying a bow and arrows crawled out.
He glanced at Liu Xuan and hurried forward excitedly. “You really came from the village?”
A pungent odor hit Liu Xuan in the face, and he quickly took two steps back. “Of course. There aren’t any other inhabited places nearby.”
“Right, right. In that case, does that mean the village is safe now?”
“That’s right.”
The man visibly relaxed upon hearing that. Liu Xuan seized the opportunity to use [Eye of Insight] to examine his information.
[Hunter Bryce]
Level: 5
Attack: 40
Health: 400
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
