Starting from Zero

Book 2, Chapter 12

Across the Death Barrier

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From now on I'll use "[ ]" to highlight skills/spells etc.

Buuuut you don't have to remember all of them. The author tends to create one-use names pretty often.

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The forest is dark, I mean real dark. I can't even see my own feet. We can only rely on Lucky's [Illuminate] spell to find our way.

"Hey Phantom? You said the forest surrounds the whole Lost City no?"

"That's right!"

"But I didn't go through such a forest on my way in!"

"Did you go pass any forest at all?"

"I did."

"Then that's the one. The Death Forest isn't entirely dark, several routes are relatively bright. The other ones like this one is dark though and there are full of monsters! But there is a monster here which is a perfect grinding target."

"Where is it? And what is it?"

"Just ahead, we're about to reach them. They are Death Skeletons, level 90, they appear in groups! Their Attack and Defense are just so-so, easy target!"

"Then what are we waiting for?!" I rushed at the direction while using [Blink] to help me go faster. Now Phantom's Blink can go a little more than 2 meters each time, it's quicker too, the cooldown is now 20 seconds. A pretty good way to travel faster!

As expected, we saw a horde of Death Skeletons piled together, wandering aimlessly. I said "piled" because the number is really big!

"Lucky! Use something with wide effect area!"

I used [Hellfire]. This spell burns a huge area and at the same time it lasts long. The problem is the damage is too poor. Luckily, the skeletons are obviously weak to magic and they move really slow. Lucky's [Thunderfire Hell] on the other hand, is just OP. The skeletons went down like a wheat field getting run over by a farm tractor.

As Phantom said, the place is really nice to level up. Level 90 skeletons don't yield much experience, but with our massive slaughtering the actual reward is quite decent.

We maimed our way through the skeletons like going through a snow pile. Their number is beyond countless, no, they literally filled up every tiny space of the forest. We at least got 100k kills along the way we just cleared out. We got out the forest after dusk. The stars are already out, but it still feel a lot brighter than in the forest. Looked at the levels, me and Lucky are at 90 now, Phantom just reached 89, and will probably catch up with us during the next grinding. I think I may have surpassed those guys on the ranking after all the crazy ordeals, so I opened the list to check.

Bingo. The Ranking Board now looks like this:

Rank Name Race Gender Level Class Pet

1 Big Blade More Killz Half Orc Male 87 Warrior Level 80 Wild Horse Leader

2 Red Moon Divine Demon Female 87 Dark Wizard Level 85 Night Spirit Lord

3 Merciless Autumn Wind Angel Male 86 Warrior None

4 Sky Fire Human Male 85 Spellsword None

5 No Dating Gnome Male 84 Rogue+Black Mage None

6 T-Rex Half Orc Male 82 Warrior None

7 Descended God Angel Male 79 Warrior None

8 Sunshine Half Elf Male 79 Archer None

9 Tender Heart Half Elf Female 78 Archer None

10 I Luv Money Demon Female 76 Priestess None

No obvious change, but man I'm really the number one now. Oh right, Wayne is still waiting for me to help him! It's already 8:20 pm now! Quickly, I logged off.

"You finally came out! I thought you ditched me!" Wayne is sitting at the table, eating dinner.

"Sorry about that! Yeah I truly forgot the time. But I remembered now! Next time you can just press the Call button."

(Call button is located on the forehead of the helmet, it sends the in-game player a notice, like a door bell, telling them that someone is asking them to come out. If you press and hold it for 5 seconds the game will shut off by force.)

"Well I didn't want to disrupt you of anything."

"You reached 20 yet?"

"I did! I'm 21 now. But I don't have the money to register my classes! Can I borrow some? Shoot. According to the rules by Zhong Hua company, exchanging game currency using real money is not allowed in the first six months (but you can do the opposite), otherwise I'd already get myself several thousands of Crystals coins! (*) Now I'm too broke to buy a red potion! Oh right, boss," Wayne looked at me with stars in his eyes, "Did you get me anything?"

"Aha!" I chuckled, "Boy ur just lucky, I found a little nice staff for you. Attack 2-7, Magic Attack + 10%, all spell levels +1. How about it?"

"Hahaha! Boss I love you! Your light points us to our bright future! So...bright..." Wayne lost himself in happiness.

"That's not all. I got a robe, 3 Dex 1 Luck, and a Rattan Mail, 13 Defense. Now, isn't your boss nice to you?"

"Nice! You're so nice!" Wayne's jaw is breaking apart, he's smile is too big!

"But seriously. Where are you now? When rookies leave the village they spawn randomly. How do I give you stuff if I can't find you?"

"...You have a point! Boss, eat your meal and get into the game, let's try to find each other using /Tell channel!" (**)

"Alright!" I wolfed down my food and started the game with Wayne.

I toggled Chat and send a /Tell to Wayne, a portrait immediately showed up. I saw Wayne's image floating in the air.

"Boss! I'm sending you the cords of Flowing Cloud City. Where are you now?"

I sent my own coordinate over and said: "For crying out loud! That's too far!"

"No worries! Boss, find the nearest city and use the teleport station. You can use it once you reach level 90 and pay some money!"

"Ok. You just grind some more near the city, I'm on my way! I'll send you a /Tell when I arrive!"

I cut the chat and called Lucky and Phantom. "Phantom, How to get to the nearest city?"

"This way!" I let Phantom take control and my body started running to the city. I bumped into some buffaloes on the way, but these things now can't do anything to me. I just ignored them and sprinted to a city in a straight line.

The city is called "Destiny City", bigger than Cold Jadeite but obviously smaller than Lost City. Once I entered the city I began to look for the teleport station. But there are not a single soul besides NPCs. The NPCs will not care about anything other than their own quests so I can't even ask for directions!

I wandered for half an hour before I finally found that god-forsaken station. The responsible NPC told me each teleport costs 2 Crystals, fixed price, regardless of where you want to go. I paid the fee (my heart hurts!) and heard a system notice: "Congratulations. Player Ziri is the first player to use teleportation in the game. Receiving an Artifact: Ring of Teleportation! Now where would you like to go?"

There's a reward for this?? And, Ring of Teleportation? Lucky!

I realized I still need to tell the system my destination. "Flowing Cloud City!"

I appeared in the city after a white flash. That was fast! While walking out of the station, I checked the ring I just got. It looks ordinary, with a black gem embedded on it. When I look closer I can see a nebula slowing spinning inside. The ring is already identified, that saves some effort. I checked the attributes:

Can teleport to any teleport stations in any cities & towns (No limit).

Can teleport to specified coordinates (Limited three times per day).

"Awesome! It's my lucky day! Now I can save my traffic expense when going between cities, and I don't need to buy portal scrolls anymore!"

I nearly forgot about Wayne from the sudden bliss. I quickly sent him a /Tell. "Wayne I'm here. Meet me at the teleport station!"

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(*) Yes the game has a built-in RMT system which is used to convert game currency and real money (and probably sell items for real money in later stages). Now don't be surprised, this is a common practice in China.

(**) /Tell, /Whisper, /Private... However you call it. I may confuse it in the future.