Zhan Long

Chapter 15 – The Incredible Price for the Silver Feathered Bird

For a long time, I had thoughts of killing myself. A level 1 monster was very rare, or rather a player that had an illustration for a type of monster and found a level 1 monster of that type was very rare. Unfortunately, I only had the [Vampire Bat Illustration] and had yet to find the silver bird illustration… what could I do? AH!

Standing under the tree, I hesitated for a long time and finally, with much regret, I left.

No, no, no, I did not give up. Far from it, I decided that even if I had to wait till the seas were dry and rocks crumbled, I was going to subdue it. Until I got the [Silver Feathered Bird Illustration], I would hunt and hunt and hunt..

…..

I randomly walked around in the rainforest collecting Silver Leaf Herbs and killing Silver Feathered Birds. Some would find this boring, to simply walk while doing repetitive tasks but I viewed it as an opportunity to sharpen my skills. This was nothing compared to the time when I waited for 36 hours in deserts, waiting for that rumored cross-border drug deal. During that time, I lied in wait without moving nor eating. Even when ghost crabs crawled over my arms, I did not dare to move. Compared to that, the difference between the two was like heaven and earth.

After 5 hours of slaughtering, it was 8pm. Only god knew how many Silver Feathered Birds I had killed. Either way, through this, I was able to raise my level to 15. In addition, during my hunt, 5 White Tiered items dropped and combining all the Copper Coins that dropped, my purse became 7 silver coins heavier. Unfortunately, my Bramble Thorn Sword only had 10% of it’s durability left. Looked like I would have to go back to Ba Huang before continuing to hunt.

Jie Jie.

Another Silver Feathered Bird rocketed towards me, hastening its death. The Silver Feathered Bird’s angry chirp still lingered in the air when my Bramble thorn sword slashed it twice, killing it instantly. The moment it died, my heart skipped a beat. It dropped 2 items, the first was a green cloak and the other was… an illustration card. After 5 hours of hard work, did I finally find what I needed?

Bending down, I picked up the illustration card. It was a [Silver Bird Illustration]! Without thinking twice, I used it, and it changed into a ray of light that fell into illustrations handbook which became a page longer.

[Silver feathered bird] Attack: ★★★☆

Defense: ★★

Health: ★★☆

Agility: ★★★★

Magic: ★☆

Skill: [Feather Strike]

……

The Silver Feathered Bird’s attributes of 3,5 stars in attack and 4 stars in agility should be enough to meet the prerequisites of an attack pet. For now, it should be a top tier attack pet. The only weakness it had would be its low defense and magic ability, but that shouldn’t matter too much since the main use of pets right now was to help its owner raise his level, not to decide the outcome of a battle.

Moreover, when I picked up the green cloak, a grin spread across my face. Good stuff!

[Silver Feathered Cloak](Black Iron Tier)

Type: Cloak

Defense: 30

Strength: +4

Level requirement: 15

…………….

Cloaks were not specific to any class, like chain-mail, leather armor or cloth armor. This meant that their defensive abilities are generally weaker than the other defense oriented equipment. But for me, who only had 29 defense points, the cloak added an extra 30 points in defense which would double my defense. It definitely was worth my trouble of killing Silver Feathered Birds for 5 hours!

With the green cloak, the looks of a newbie finally disappeared. More importantly, my attributes also rose a huge deal –

[Xiao Yao Zi Zai](Trainee Healer)

Level: 15

Attack: 101-112

Defense: 59

Health: 240

Mana: 210

Charm: 0

59 points of defense, that definitely made me a beginner tank(person who can take lots of damage)! My heart was filled with joy. Raising my Bramble Thorn Sword, I rushed to the location where I first found the level 1 Silver Feathered Bird. I hoped to god that the bird hadn’t been killed or sealed. That bird was as good as mine and anyone who dared to touch it would feel my wrath.

After returning to the tree where I found the level 1 bird, I took a look around, and sure enough the same level 1 Silver Feathered Bird was still lingering around. Great!

Excitedly, from my inventory, I pulled out the 2 Monster Seals,worth an impressive amount of 1 Silver Coin each. Even when I locked the Monster Seal onto the Silver Feathered Bird, the bird kept happily chirping. The Monster Seal, meanwhile, reflected the success rate of sealing the Silver Feathered Bird – It was 27.4%.

The hell! Even though it’s only a low grade Monster Seal, the success rate shouldn’t be that low, right? I was only carrying 2 Monster Seals. Time to ask for lady luck’s blessings again!

Shuaaa.

I suddenly cast the sealing card, which immediately caused 6 bolts of light to descend, trapping the Silver Feathered Bird between them. After doing so, the bolts of light started to flicker, changing from bright to dark and back to bright. After several seconds, the lights shattered, signalling the failure of the seal.

“Fuck!”

Anger swelled up within me, that was an entire Silver Coin wasted! Likewise, the bird was enraged by my attempt to seal it and did a rotating dive at me. Paa! The blow landed and in front of my chest, a small 14 showed up, meaning that I took 14 damage. Incredible, for a level 1 [Feathered Strike] to deal that much damage, the potential damage at higher levels couldn’t be overlooked.

Steadying myself, I pulled out the second and final Monster Seal.

Shuaaa!

The card flew through the air and hit the bird. The bolts of light that descended, once again started to trap the Silver Feathered Bird. Even though the huge suction coming from the Monster Seal pulled the bird down, the bird didn’t give up and struggled to break free. Quite a few times, when I thought that the bird had finally been sealed, it rose up again, desperately struggling against the bolts of light. At the last moment, when the effects of the Monster Seal started to die off, I prayed for the bird to give up struggling: Birdie please stop struggling, I promise I’ll feed you the best millets that came from Shu Bei Zun An!

Finally, it seemed as if my prayers had been answered and a ray of light, brighter than the others, surged forward and pulled the Silver Feathered Bird into the card. In an instant, the Silver Feathered Bird had disappeared, and my pet slots, which were empty before, now had a silver bird inside of it.

“Ding!”

System Notification: Congratulations, you have successfully sealed “Silver Feathered Bird”, Because you are the third player to have successfully sealed a pet, you will receive an additional reward of 2000 experience points and 1 point of charm!

…..

Shuaa!

A familiar golden ray of light appeared above me, I had reached level 16! Shockingly, sealing pets gave experience! In addition, I was also rewarded with one point of charm. Even though I didn’t know what it did, it definitely was going to be useful…

I opened the pet slots and found out the Silver Feathered Bird’s stats. Mm, it seemed like it was very powerful –

[Silver feathered bird] Level: 1

Attack: ★★★ ☆

Defense: ★★

Health points: ★★ ☆

Agility: ★★★★

Magic: ★☆

Skills: [Feather Strike] Excellency Rating: 47%

……

Looking at my pets stats, I understood that all Silver Feathered Birds had the same star stats and the only thing that distinguished between a good Silver Feathered Bird and a bad one was probably the Excellence level of the bird. For example, my Silver Feathered Bird had a 47% Excellence which represented its superiority within the Silver Feathered Birds. But what exactly did the 47% Excellence mean?

In complete silence, I opened up the forums to gather intel about this new pet stat, Excellence.

Finally, after a long time i found the appropriate intel.

[Excellency Rating]: Generally speaking, the difference between two pets stems from the pet’s Excellency percentage. A pet’s attributes could be calculated through having its foundation attributes * (1 + Excellency Rating). This meant that Excellency determined a pet’s potential.

……

Oh, so in my case, with a superiority of 47%, my Silver Feathered Bird would have 47%(1 + 47%) higher stats than a regular Silver Feathered Bird. But it also raised a larger issue because a pet with an Excellence percentage of 100% would have twice the stats compared to a pet with an Excellence percentage of 0%! Motherf*cker, pets that had low Excellence percentages were as good as useless.

I looked at my Silver Feathered Bird’s stats again. Because of its Excellency percentage, this Silver Feathered Bird could only be counted as a middle tiered pet. My fervent joy at sealing this Silver Feathered Bird disappeared with the less than optimal stats of the bird. Whatever, my Bramble Thorn Sword didn’t have much durability left so I should go back to Ba Huang to repair it. At the same time, my inventory was almost full because of the sheer amount of Silver Leaf Herbs that I managed to collect. As for this Silver Feathered Bird, I didn’t plan to raise its level. It wasn’t because of its low stats but rather because I needed to sell it to raise money to buy the Alchemy Furnaces for the Silver Leaf Pills!

……

A recall scroll cost an enormous amount of 1 gold. I might not be able to afford it, but I could run back to Ba Huang.

After dashing all the way back to Ba Huang City, I repaired my equipment and then went to the northern square. The northern square was extremely busy, the yells of players trying to advertise their items was deafening.

“Selling a level 9 White Tiered mail armor! It gives 40 points in Defense! It’s a must for knights, swordsmen or monks! At a humble price of 1 silver, do not miss this opportunity!”

“Selling Grass Fruit! Price is 4 Copper Coins per Grass Fruit! It’s a lot cheaper than buying Grass Fruits from NPC stores! Young heroes, you should buy one for your girlfriend healers and even if you don’t have a girlfriend this will help you get one!”

Selling a level 5 Black Iron Tiered dagger! It’s attack is 12-15 and adds a point in Agility! Assassins come and see! Selling it for cheap, please tell me how much you think this worth, but if you don’t have 20 Silver Coins, don’t waste my time!”

……

I looked in my inventory, it seemed like I had nothing that would sell well. Instead, I bought 50 Alchemy Furnaces and refined 50 [Silver Leaf Pill]s. After refining the pills, I placed the 50 level 2 pills in front of me, setting the price at 40 Copper Coins each which was cheaper than the prices of NPC stores. I had set up a mini-stall!

Shortly afterwards, I summoned my sealed Silver Feathered Bird. Showing off the stats of the Silver Feathered Bird, I shouted loudly : “Freshly sealed pet, a Silver Feathered Bird that focuses on attack and agility. It has the skill [Feather Attack]. It definitely is one the best attackers right now! Come now and bid your prices!”

My yell evidently had a huge effect. Right after I finished, my stall was surrounded by people who were bidding eye-opening prices –

A level 11 warrior with White-Tiered equipment: “Brother, how about 80 Copper Coins?”

Another level 15 girl healer showed off her quite gruesome body before saying: “Handsome, I want it! How about 40 Silver Coins? Why don’t you sell it to me? Wait, do you have a girlfriend, if you don’t, you could give it to me as a gift, right?”

The bystanders all started laughing when the healer shamelessly said that. I awkwardly stood there, thinking, even if someone gave me a Silver Feathered Bird with 100% Excellence, I still wouldn’t ever be even close to you.

The offers kept coming in but no one offered more than 1 Gold Coin, maybe it was because a majority of the money that everyone owned went to buying potions. Or maybe it was because monsters only gave a couple of Copper Coins on death, thus making the idea of having 10000 Copper Coins unrealistic. But despite all that, I knew that the bird was worth at least 5 Gold Coins, any less than that would be selling it short.

……

After waiting about 20 minutes, finally, a young gunner came out of the crowd. His arm was covered in a black light, yup, he had a Black Iron tier leather wrist protector. In addition, he was level 18 and his ID was “Piggy”. This was a real buyer!

After seeing my Silver Feathered Bird, Piggy’s eyes showed a deep desire but he quickly hid his desire and displayed a bored expression. He wanted to haggle the price down!

I smiled at him: “Hello there, are you interested in buying this?”

“This Silver Feathered Bird, what’s your bottom line? Don’t try to inflate the price!”

My tongue darted over my lips before I replied: “A lot of people want this, you and I both know this. The lowest I’ll go is 5 Gold Coins, any lower and I won’t be selling it. At this time, when no one has a pet, having a pet will allow the owner to raise his level a lot quicker. You should know this, and therefore, this pet is definitely worth every Copper Coin.”

Piggy nodded: “Yup, I understand. Can you wait a moment? My boss is coming here right now.”

……

Soon, the crowd was split by a level 18 swordsman. With his sword, he immediately came to my stall, laughing: “There really are pets in Ba Huang City? Ha ha, I love my luck, this pet is as good as mine!”

I said: “5 Gold Coins please.”

“5 Gold Coins? That’s ridiculous!” the swordsman said shockingly. Suddenly as if he remembered something, he said: “Fuck, it’s you!”

…..

I looked up, at his player ID and also received a shock. In front of me was Tyrant of Western Chu, my good old “friend”…

Shuaaa.

I cleared the stall and smiled at Tyrant: “I’m not selling it anymore!”

“Hey, wait…” Piggy hurriedly stopped me, saying: “Brother, don’t let a little grudge prevent you from doing business. You see, my boss here really, really wants this pet. Before, you said you wanted 5 Gold Coins, alright it’s a deal, 5 Gold Coins for the pet!”

I winced and leaned against the rough City Wall. With my arms folded across my chest, I smiled and said: “If I’m selling to Tyrant of Western Chu, then I want 20 Gold Coins and not a Copper Coin less. Still want to buy it?”