Chapter 9 (Assassin Reborn)

[Translated by ChickenBakuba]

Chapter 9, The Happy Miner!

After arranging his items, Xu Xiang returned to the novice village. The store actually sold scrolls that allowed you to teleport back to one's serialised novice village or city, where one would respawn after dying. However, a return scroll required 10 silvers, something unaffordable for people early int he game. Even if it was affordable, nobody would bother purchasing it as the farming areas were close to the novice city. It was illogical to waste so much money on a few minutes of walking.

After returning to the village, Xu Xiang did not immediately leave for finding more equipment and skills, but instead went to the open plaza in the village.

"Offering a level 0 shortbow. 8-10 attack. Essential for levelling up and killing BOSSes. If you have money, come quickly to get it. Only available in this village!" Xu Xiang yelled in the plaza. He could not set up a vendor's store currently, so he could only shout to promote his products.

Someone offering equipment for sale? The surrounding players flocked towards him rapidly in swarms. Almost all the equipment so far were needed, and there were very little of it. Furthermore, the rate of monsters dropping equipment was not high. The vast majority of the playerbase did not even have a single equipment.

"50 coppers." A young boy, evidently an archer, offered.

"50 coppers." Xu Xiang repeated with slight incredulity before averting his gaze from the young boy. Did he not understand what a rare equipment was? Despite having the drop-rate increase from killing monsters higher level than him, Xu Xiang had only obtained 3 equipment after killing the goblin archer several hundred times.

"Those with below 1 silver can beat it." Xu Xiang added. A few casual players left.

"1.5 silvers. I want it." A middle-aged man with rugged looks stepped forward. Judging from the novice bow on his back, he was clearly an archer. Strange. A person with such a tough look should have chosen a warrior or knight as his profession. What a waste of talent.

"Deal." The familiar appearance of the man struck a chord in Xu Xiang's memory. He was the guild master of 'Era's summit', a wealthy person in real life. Unfortunately, to accomplish his goals, he resorted to unscrupulous means. However, he believed himself infallible, and stupidly got eliminated by Bai Xinming's Dream Soul guild, turning into the first subordinate guild in history. Now, he would not have any relation with Xu Xiang. Perhaps they could collaborate together in the future to take down Bai Xinming. However, that was merely collaboration, established in mutual interest or benefit of both parties.

After they finished the transaction, Xu Xiang left novice village without a word. Jianfeng Suozhi watched Xu Xiang's leaving figure thoughtfully. For a moment, it seemed like he wanted to say something, but stopped at the last moment.

Xu Xiang knew that Mr. Infallible wanted to recruit him. Sigh. Xu Xiang appreciated the gesture but he already had one guild in his heart forever — Alluring Snow.*

*Many thanks to Phantasma (Immortal Dreamer), a fellow translator who helped me create a name for the guild.

Xu Xiang arrived at the ore mine. The ore mine was also a monster area. However, one would only encounter monsters upon exploring deeper. The monsters were level 8 maggots, with nauseating, disgusting appearances that could force one's lunch out when seen. The monster that should have originally been censored resided in this dark ore mine. Fortunately, miners and girls would have no contact with that abhorrent creature, or many complaints would have been lodged.

Of course, while monsters did not appear on the surface of the ore mine, it also went the other way. The quality and level of the ores were proportional to the depth of the miner. Suffice to say, the lives of miners sucked. They needed a certain degree of strength, or else they would not be able to mine valuable ores because of the monsters. Spending money to hire people as bodyguards was also an option, but if you did not manage to obtain any valuable ores, you would have made a loss.

Xu Xiang had been a normal player in his past life. When he had no team and had free time on his hands, he would come to the mines to earn a little more cash from mining. If a miner attained the grandmaster level, the miner would actually have a high income. Guilds were more than willing to spend big wads of cash in return for valuable ores. However, Xu Xiang did not have any particular talent in mining in his previous life nor this one.

However, if it was just mining low-level ores to create low-level weapons, Xu Xiang’s experience in that field was plenty. Mining, forging, potion making and alchemy, all these crafts were based on your experience and skill. They were not simply mechanised.

Nobody had came to the mines to mine yet. The entire playerbase was still busy levelling. It would be around a week before the first person discovered this place and started mining. After all, low-levelled players needed to make ends meet. If the easy cash from mining did not exist, their progress in the game would be much more difficult.[footnote]I’m guessing that cash you receive from mobs are not enough to help you progress through the game.[/footnote]

Xu Xiang scanned his surroundings. If memory served him right, then he would be able to determine the places in the mine that had already been mined many times and the places that had been less mined by people. The quality and fineness of the rock could also be used to determine the value of the ore inside the rock. Although the mines were void of players, there were still NPCs mining.

Xu Xiang's eyes locked onto a fine rock and struck his hammer onto it. Black Iron Amethyst Gold ore!* Of course, this was impossible. A few ordinary lumps rocks crumbled down as they struck the floor. In the vast, cavernous confines of the mine, the sound created a series of echoes.

*Don't look at me idk what's going on either. 黑铁紫金矿

One hit, two hits, another hit, Xu Xiang began to diligently mine.

"Ah, I'm dead tired." Mining was indeed tiring work. However, nothing in life was easy. The easiest enchantment was the most expensive one, and even that wasn't so easy.

After 4 hours of mining, Xu Xiang had dug out 5 coppers and 2 iron ores. He had also managed to dig out one silver ore.

Copper ore

Quality: 65.73.55.58

Weight: 10

Iron ore

Quality: 63.67

Weight: 12

Silver ore:

Quality: 72

Weight: 15

What a profit. If these ores were sold to the blacksmith, he could receive around 2 silvers for them. However, these ores could also be forged into a convenient weapon for Xu Xiang.

Xu Xiang hefted his backpack filled with ores to the blacksmith store at the novice village. The blacksmith was a middle-aged man, though one could not tell his age so easily because of the scraggy beard which hid his entire face. Currently, the bearded man was diligently swinging his hammer as he worked away in the forge. The rhythmic of hammer and metal striking together was grating to the ears.

"Uncle, I need a weapon." Xu Xiang poured all ores in his backpack out. The ores stacked on the blacksmith's beloved desk.

"Warrior, what weapon do you require?" The blacksmith uncle was not in the slightest displeased. His eyes creased with wrinkles as he smiled at Xu Xiang nicely.[footnote]Originals put the blacksmith uncle looked at Xu Xiang like he was his gay sex partner, which isn't even funny at this point and did not make sense. Completely out of context, so I removed it.[/footnote]

"A dagger. Uncle, here's the down payment." Xu Xiang reluctantly parted with two silvers, his heart aching as he passed it to the blacksmith uncle. Initially, Xu Xiang had only planned to use 1 silver for crafting the weapon if he did not have a silver ore.
　　“匕首，大叔，喏，这是定金。”徐翔心痛地拿出2个银币给铁匠大叔，可惜不割肉不行，本来如果没有银矿徐翔只准备用1个银币的，不过看了看背包中还有的将近2银币，却觉得也不算多难过。
"Ok. Come back 2 hours later to collect it." The blacksmith received the money and waved Xu Xiang away.

And thus, Xu Xiang eagerly returned to the goblin archer farming area to vent his emotions on the poor mob. Depression, happiness, heartache, he threw it all onto the wicked personification of ugliness the game called a goblin. Xu Xiang tore through goblin archers' chrysanthemums* one after another. His farming speed had quickened by a lot, even if his experienced had lessened due to his levelling up. Within two hours, he managed to gain another 40,000 experience.

*Chrysanthemum is Chinese slang for anus. Basically the author meant that he was raping/thrashing the goblins.

"Current experience 45,612/50,000." <i>Dispute's</i> levelling system was indeed terrifying. Even if one was better than Xu Xiang, levelling up in a short time was nigh impossible. Another equipment had dropped.

Goblin archer's leather armour

Level requirement: 0

Type: Leather

Defence: 6

Can be enhanced by 1 level, +1% dodge-rate

Weight: 7

User's restriction: Thief, Archer. Not limited to races.

Finally, some proper clothes. After his novice garbs had dropped after his encounter with the blue-eyed wolf king, Xu Xiang had been going naked. The publicity was not good. His defence was now 21 from the 6 points increase. The attack and defence stat being almost the same was common in the early stages of the game. Once Xu Xiang reached level 10 and switched his professions, he would be able to learn dual wielding, equipments' actives and secondary weapons. When that happened, his firepower would greatly exceed his now.

Chapter 9, END

Yeah, I need a tlc. :/