Chapter 4

[Master Assassin Valaeze: Impression ▲]

Lightly glancing at the window notice in front of him, Jhin didn't show much reaction since he expected this to happen after making the purchase.

After all, who would believe he could afford such skills when the servers just opened a few hours ago?

His purchase would pique one's curiosity even if it was the aloof Master Assassin Valaeze.

And, although Jhin acted indifferent to the game notice, he was actually looking forward to forming a relationship with Valaeze.

Of course, this was not because of her entrancing beauty nor her powerful skills. But instead, because Valaeze is actually a Celestial Goddess!

Not all the NPCs in the game are deities but majority of the unique NPCs are in fact, Gods and Goddesses.

As for their purpose in acting as NPCs, it was to observe and interact with potential avatars who they will choose to join their religion after the players were transported into the world of Argentia.

Only then will the players realize the importance of relationships with NPCs especially for those who had negative or bad impression for them. They will surely come to regret their decisions gravely.

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Exiting the rogue establishment with a slight smile on his face, he thought that the skills he bought were truly worth their price

He didn't need a long time to choose between the skills since he already knew which skills he wanted.

However, even after knowing the said skills and their effects, he could not help but feel giddy at the fact that he had these skills even when he was only level 1!

In the game there are three type of skills which are Active, Passive, and Ultimate.

Active skills are the most used among all types. Most can be activated with no conditions, unlike passive skills. These skills usually cost Mana or Stamina to use and will go under cooldown after activation.

Passive skills serve a utility purpose, and are activated under certain conditions. Some simply add to stats like HP and damage dealt, while others activate using a specific action(s) in a sequence or under certain conditions.

Ultimate skills have a major effect either on the caster or on the enemy/ies. They have a long cooldown compared to normal active skills.

Jhin bought three skills from Master Assassin Valaeze.

[Oblivion Smite (Ultimate Skill)

Level: 1 (SP: 0/25)

➥Instantly kills the target who has 5% or less HP. However, the user must mark the target at their full HP. Can be used on mobs, mini-bosses, bosses, and players.

Mana cost: 1500 MP

Cooldown: 24 Hours ]

[Shinpo (Active Skill)

Level: 1 (SP: 0/10)

➥Instantly travel between 0-10 meters in any direction.

Mana cost: 50 MP

Cooldown: 2 Minutes ]

[Decaying Effect (Passive Skill)

Level: 1 (SP: 0/20)

➥5% chance to induce "Decaying" status towards the target in all forms of attack.

Mana cost: None

Cooldown: 1 Minute ]

Jhin trembled as he almost failed to prevent himself from laughing out loud.

Just based on the description of those skills, one would know how overpowered they are!

You would think that Oblivion Smite is the most powerful skill among the skills that Jhin bought but you would be wrong.

In fact, the most overpowered skill he had was actually the Decaying effect!

This is because that throughout the entire game, there were no buffs, skills, or equipment to counter the decaying effect.

And this broken skill only cost Jhin 2 golds! While the other two skills cost him one gold each.

Of course, the other skills that Valaeze offered were of the same caliber as the skills that Jhin bought. Unfortunately however, he did not have enough money to buy them. In addition to that, his skill slots were limited, only allowing a maximum of 5 skills at the base of the game.

And in order to unlock more skill slots, as one would have guessed, would cost money once again. That is why it was very important to learn skills that would match to your playstyle along with their practicality in the stage of the game.

As such, those three skills matched Jhin's criteria.

Of course, Jhin wasn't the only one who knew about the skills that Valaeze offered since there were previous players who inquired from Valaeze posted the description of the skills in the player forums.

Needless to say that the player base was extremely surprised to see the skills that Valaeze offered, but at the same time, they found out that she wasn't the only unique Master NPC who offers to sell her skills.

However, the other unique Master NPCs' skills were not as powerful and broken as the skills that Valaeze offered.

This was the reason why Master Valaeze immediately became famous within a few hours at the opening of the servers.

The details of her skills were always ranked within the top 5 searches in the game forums and player wikipedia.

Her skills were even dubbed as the, "OP-OP Skills" which stood for overpowered and overpriced skills.

What the player base didn't know was that in the near future when a scarce number of wealthy players were able to buy her skills, they will come to understand that the name they gave Master Valaeze's skills was spot on.

For now however, they can only salivate while reading the details of the skills since none of them, even the wealthiest players in the world were able to afford it.

This was because there were no direct transactions of real life money into gold inside the game.

The game was not "Pay to win" since the currency inside the game needed to be either earned or grinded.

The best that rich players could do is to hire other players and have them grind for money.

But even then, this would take them a very long time since in the initial stages of the game, a few irons would only be the rewards or drops from monsters.

Remember, a thousand iron is one copper, a thousand copper is one silver and a thousand silver is one gold.

So a rich player would need at least a million of players, all with one copper just so they can convert it all to one gold coin.

And naturally, some of rich players and the guild masters were currently using this method.

However, even this process takes a long time and they have to worry about contesting other players and guilds which were monopolizing the mobs in the outskirts of the village.

It was also for this reason that other rich players were paying normal players to keep attempting the dungeon runs in order to learn of a doable clearing method.

Unfortunately however, the players did not know was that the skill Valaeze offered was only limited for seven days inside the game. After that, she would either disappear or change the skills that she offered.

Of course, those rare skills could appear again in the future but it will only be by chance.

Jhin was incredibly satisfied with his purchase and did not regret buying them nor did he feel bad about losing precious gold coins. After all, he could simply earn them all back.

Hmph, compared to Valaeze's skills? The latter was far more precious since they were limited edition skills.

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Before Jhin proceeded towards his next goal, he decided to check his character window first.

[ Name: Hoarder Level: 1 (EXP: 0%)

Title: Adventurer's Will

Class: Rogue

HP: 380/380

MP: 370

Status: Healthy

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Strength: 32>38

Agility: 31>37

Intelligence: 31>37

Vitality: 32>38

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Available Attribute Points: 0

Available Skill Points: 7

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Active Skill(s):

-Oblivion Smite: Available

-Shinpo: Available

Passive Skill(s):

-Decay: Available ]

The reason that Jhin's attribute points had an additional points is because of his title's effect which granted him +20% Additional effect to all his base stats.

'...Cheat.'

There was really no other way to describe his current stats.

Jhin took a deep breath to calm his trembling emotions.

His current stats was already on par with a level 10 player.

And if that isn't considered a cheat, then what else can you call it?

One must know that attribute points can only be gained through achievements or level up rewards.

And since the game has just started, a few achievements has only been found out and shared in the game's forum.

Meanwhile, leveling up is a hard and exhausting process since mobs outside the dungeon barely gave experience points.

Even if players constantly grinded the mobs outside the [Beginner Village] for three days straight, they would only reach one and a half level. This isn't taking into account the other players and guilds who are hoarding all the mob spots.

Which is why many players are still attempting to clear the first dungeon, [Goblin's Nest].

This is because the dungeon would reward abundant experience points, silvers, and equipment.

That was why when Jhin arrived at the center of the village, he found hundreds of players crowding in front of the warping gate for the first dungeon.

Most of them were wearing the basic sack of clothes as equipment. Jhin recognized from a glance that they were pathfinding players who were paid to search for a way to clear the dungeon.

All of them were busy discussing their own battle plans and clearing strategies whereas others were looking for party members who will join them in their attempt.

Due to the sheer size of the players waiting in front of the portal, players who aren't used to crowds could get dizzy.

Jhin glanced at the warping gate for the last time before walking towards his next objective.

As much as Jhin wanted to start doing dungeon runs, there were still plenty achievements he had yet to receive from other npcs in the Beginner Village. These achievements would help him greatly in his start so naturally, he would get them first.

Additionally, although achievements were available to every player, there are some special achievements where only the first few players would be able to get.

These kinds of achievements gave a great amount of attribute points which was exactly what Jhin was aiming for.

This was the reason why Jhin spent the next few hours running around the village, getting all the special achievements as well as the achievements that could be received from completing side quests.

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While Jhin was busy, the Ascended Order player base was getting noisy after seeing someone posting a video in the forum which contained a player actually buying skills from the famous npc, Valaeze.

It was as if a storm was brewing in the forums, thousands of players reacted vigorously while sharing this post to others.

[OP: Wandering Tree

Title: Someone bought skills from Valaeze-sama!

Guys! You would not believe this! But someone actually managed to buy skills from Valaeze-sama!

If you don't believe me, here's the proof! <<<Video Link>>>

Unfortunately, the player privacy protection blurred out his face and username.

However! This just proves that someone actually managed to get one gold within 9 hours upon the game launch!

Does anyone have any idea who this player is?!]

Views: 172.8k Likes: 6.4k Dislikes: 37

[Comments:

Unable to show comments due to too many users commenting at the moment.]

This piece of news took the entire player base by surprise, including the prominent and wealthy players.

Everyone wondered how a player could earn that much money in the Beginner Village or if he stumbled upon a secret location.

Needless to say, everyone was eager to identify who that person was.

The post continued to get views and just thirty minutes after the post, it already had over 900 Million views!

Many players in the comments were demanding the OP to post more information or ask Valaeze for information about the mysterious rich player.

The original poster, Wandering Tree, was sweating bullets from his forehead as he did not expect his post to garner this much attention.

After seeing his notifications going crazy, he stopped whatever he was doing and immediately went to the rogue establishment to talk to Valaeze.

When he got there, he already found a sea of people gathered in front of Valaeze.

Player Wandering Tree already had his recorder turned on but all he could do was stand by the entrance. There were simply too many players inside.

Just as he was wondering how he could squeeze in and ask Valaeze for an interview, Something happened that made him stand aghast.

Just as his camera zoomed in on Valaeze's face, it captured her making a displeased expression.

After that, the room became quiet. The loud and noisy crowd of players suddenly became silent.

But this wasn't because they saw Valaeze's expression no- this was because...

Pop! Pop! Pop!

One after another, the heads of the players suddenly began to pop. For those who failed to turn off blood and gory details, they would see that a sea of blood fall to the floor, with brain matters exploding across the toom.

Player Wandering Tree's eyes widened in shock as his body trembled in fear.

Valaeze, who only raised her hand once, withdrew her hand behind her cloak before looking towards Wandering Tree.

Player Wandering Tree almost stumbled backwards as he directly met Valaeze's gaze. However, perhaps prompted by his survival instincts, he immediately stood up and ran away.

Seeing the terrified player running away, the other master NPCs sighed while glancing at Valaeze.

Valaeze remained indifferent to their gazes as she simply resumed standing in her stationary position.

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[OP: Wandering Tree

Title: New Post! DO NOT! Piss off Valaeze-sama!

I just got the greatest scare of my life. I'm telling you guys now, do not- and I mean it! DO NOT piss off Valaeze-sama nor any other master NPCs in general!

Otherwise, this could happen to you!

<<<Video Link>>>

Also, stop messaging me about the mysterious rich player already. Like I told you, I don't know! If you want to know so much about him then ask Valaeze-sama yourself. ]

His next post got a million views within a few minutes and the comments grew to a thousand already.

The post received a fair amount of likes but the dislikes were more than the likes. This was because many players were calling him a coward for not being brave enough to ask Valaeze.

Still though, most of the comment contained the disbelief and baffled reaction of the players as they did not expect to get killed by an NPC.

The thought of an NPC harming them never entered their mind in the first place.

But now seeing a proof of the NPC's irritation and how he or she can move, players changed their attitudes towards NPCs.

"Wandering Tree huh..."

Jhin had a blank gaze as he muttered the name of a player who would become a famous informant and Ascended Order influencer in the future.

Jhin was currently chasing a cat while running across the roofs of the village. Capturing this runaway domestic cat was the last side quest that Jhin needed to complete in order to finally get the achievement he needed.

At the same time, this achievement was also the last one that hp could get from this map.

While he was doing this, he was viewing the forums of the game where he saw the mess he made after his purchase was captured in a video.

Looking at Wander Tree's new post, Jhin shook his head slightly at all the hate and negative remarks the OP was receiving in the comments before turning his gaze in front of him.

"Heup!"

Reaching the end of a roof's ledge, Jhin leaped and his sight narrowed towards the yellow furry cat with unique black patterns on its paws, making it look like it was wearing boots.

"Come here, Boots!"

"Meow!"

The cat cried after it was captured inside Jhin's arms while they were in mid air.

Then, After making sure that the cat was firmly secured in his arms, Jhin shifted his body and made a vertical flip before safely landing on the ground with his two feet.

Nearby NPCs clapped and praised when they saw Jhin's perfect landing meanwhile, passing players looked at him in amazement.

Jhin only nodded at the NPCs before running towards the opposite side of the village where the NPC who gave the quest as well as the owner of the cat, was staying.

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A few minutes later, Jhin stopped in front of a little girl with blonde hair which were tied in pigtails.

She wore a simple villager dress with white blouse and long red skirt that was worn above her belly and reached just below her knees.

The skirt had a white cloth above it, making it seem that she was wearing an apron and lastly, she was wearing a small white cloth on top of her head that wad used to keep her hair neat and tidy.

"Hello Lily." Jhin greeted before kneeling down in front of her.

Lily, the small NPC girl, looked at him and smiled. "Hi mister!"

Jhin presented the cat on his chest and instantly, Lily's eyes brightened as her mouth trembled in excitement.

"Mister! Is that Boots?!"

Seeing the lively and excited reaction of the little girl, Jhin observed her face for a moment and responded with a slight smile.

"Yeah, this is Boots."

He gave the cat named Boots to her and the little girl jumped happily with the cat in her arms.

[Little girl Lily: Gratitude ▲]

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you sooo much Mister!"

She spun around and beamed a wide smile at Jhin. "You have no idea how much Lily was worried since Boots was missing for too long!

Lily really thought that Boots was gone so... thank you, mister! Thank you for bringing him back to Lily!"

Jhin chuckled quietly and replied, "No problem. Try not to lose him next time."

Ding! Ding!

[You have completed the side quest: "A troubling cat"

Reward(s): None ]

Ding! Ding!

[You have completed the achievement: "A helpful fellow"

Condition: Complete the rewardless quests of the NPCs in Beginner Village.

+3 Strength

+4 Vitality ]

The reason that this achievement took quite some time to be discovered was because from the beginning of the game, not many players completed the side quests.

Majority of them gave up and abandoned the side quests inside [Beginner Village] after learning that most of them didn't have any rewards.

Seeing that his goal was complete, Jhin got up to his legs and turned around to leave.

However, before he could take another step, he felt a small hand grabbing at the hem of his clothes.

"Hm?"

He turned his head and saw that Lily was grabbing unto him while Boots was tightly captured in her other arm.

Not thinking much of it, Jhin asked, "What's wrong?"

Lily's cheeks ballooned, making her look adorable as she pouted. "Mister was already about to leave but Lily hasn't given Mister his reward yet!"

"Oh, there's no need." Jhin didn't want to take any reward since his objective has been achieved.

However... his interest was piqued since he had never heard of Lily rewarding anyone before.

Lily shook her head and stubbornly pulled on Jhin's clothes. "Mister must take this!"

Seeing that she didn't seem to let go any time soon, Jhin shrugged to himself and kneeled down to Lily's height again.

"Alright, I'll accept it."

Lily let go of his clothes and nodded, satisfied. "Good!"

She then dug from her pocket and took out an item.

It was a thin leather necklace with a unique sapphire crystal tied in the middle.

"Here you go, Mister! Take care of it!" She smiled as she offered the necklace towards Jhin.

Jhin subconsciously received it while his eyes remained dazed on the item.

"This necklace is..."