Chapter 45 - Cheap Shot (1/2)
As they left, he also had a few other quests at the apothecary and the blacksmith. He quickly reached the apothecary and exchanged the stacks of blue and red weeds he collected for experience and money.
”+25 experience points, +10 coppers”
”+25 experience points, +10 coppers”
”+25 experience points, +10 coppers”
Then he went to the blacksmith Kade to exchange the iron ore he collected. The process was the same providing him decent amount of experience and money, except that the blacksmith would offer another quest after he exchanged 5 stacks of iron ore.
”+25 experience points, +10 coppers”
”+25 experience points, +10 coppers”
”+25 experience points, +10 coppers”
”+25 experience points, +10 coppers”
”+25 experience points, +10 coppers”
After the fifth exchange a yellow dot appear over the blacksmith Kade. He examined the last stack of ores and groaned in displeasure.
”Ah! the whole lot of you adventurers are good for nothing. The blackrock hills are a rich source of ores and all I receive from you are a bunch of crappy iron ores. By the time I refine these I get a barely usable chunk of refined iron to make weapons and armor. Why don't you learn from those goblins?! They manage to get hold of decent refined iron ore. I don't need any more of these lower quality iron ore from you. Get something better or get lost.”
[Kade's demand] (Difficulty: Moderate; Repeatable)
Quest Description: Gather refined iron ores from the blackrock hills.
Refined Iron Ores collected: 0
Collecting enough of these ores allow a person to get into apprenticeship of the blacksmith Kade and other rewards that would help speed up the blacksmithing profession.
There was a player called Mr. Miner who was into mining from the start of the game. He was the person who joined the game after about 5 years of its launch. He was the one who first found out this specific peculiarity among the trade profession NPCs of the beginner village.
He was a player who enjoyed mining and continuously used to mine for fun. He provided the ores he collected to the blacksmith as the blacksmith was giving more coins than the small guild he joined. He was taken in by the village blacksmith as an apprentice and slowly became one of the more popular trade profession players due to the rewards he obtained. This slowly led the player base to think about the completing the various seemingly unrewarding trade profession quests. Though these allowed them to level up their skills faster, they still couldn't compete with the skill and proficiency of the players who had been in the game for years and didn't have much impact in the major power structure of the game player base.
Balthazar being a vice-guild leader of a first-rate guild had to constantly be informed of the various opportunities in the game and that is the reason he memorized all the tricks, but not even he knew the details of a lot of quests.
Now that he has finished the quests, he went back to the pub and started on the guide to the corrupted forest. He made separate ones for normal, elite and hell mode dungeons. ”I hope that they would be satisfied with this level of detail,” thought Balthazar. He intentionally left out a few details about few treasure chests they could find in the elite and hell tier dungeons. He made another guide with all the details he knew and mailed them to Rudra.
After that he went on ahead to buy bread, water and potions for the quests they have. As he was getting supplies. he got a call from Rudra a few minutes after he sent the mail thanking him. Though Rudra couldn't yet establish a guild, he already started contacting his old acquaintance with the idea of establishing a group presence in vita-nova. This guide would be of great help to him in gathering players towards him.
The guide sent to blue dart was also accepted by him and he got an amount of 100000 credits in his bank account. Now, the only thing that was left in the village was to hand-in Hart's quest before he meets up with his team at the temple.
He made his way to Hart's shop. By now, Hart had become one of the few shops which are crowded by the players. Hart bought a lot of resources from the players and gave decent amount of coins for various drops from the monsters.
Shadow directly went to Hart and provided him the wolf teeth that he had procured.
Quest Completed: [Procure wolf teeth for Hart] (Difficulty: Novice)
Progress: Wolf teeth obtained 30/30;
”+50 experience points.”
”Thank you for these teeth. I will make good use of them,” said Hart taking the teeth. ”If it is not trouble to you could you also acquire a couple of black rock crystals. I will make it worth your effort.
New Quest: [Procure Blackrock Crystals] (Difficulty: Moderate)
Progress: Blackrock Crystals obtained 2/2.
Quest Updated: [Procure Blackrock Crystals] (Difficulty: Moderate)
Progress: Blackrock Crystals obtained 2/2. Return to Hart.
Shadow felt he was quite lucky. He didn't know whether it was the rabbit's foot in his possession or some other form of luck. But it is surprising that Hart would ask for something that he already had.
He quickly pulled out the blackrock crystals, he had found on looting the Blackrock wolves from his inventory and handed them to Hart.
”Ah! With these I can successfully complete the necklace for that Waramar Jundal. He had been pestering me for quite some time. I thank you for your timely help adventurer. Please take this as a token of my gratitude,” said Hart handing him a skill book.
It was an assassin skill book, cheap shot. It was a very old skill existing in a lot of V.R games, probably even existed when people used to play games on a static screen before V.R. console games started.
The cheap shot was a skill that allowed a person to stun his opponent for a fixed duration of time in all normal V.R. games. During this time one can continuously beat the opponent without worry about him getting out of stun. It was the same for vita-nova presently. But soon after the first upgrade that happens a couple of months later, the stun time will begin to vary and is calculated based on the strength of the attacker and endurance of the attacked.