Chapter 27: Demon Bone City

At the entrance of the mine, sounds of mining and chatting could be heard. Jiang Ming took out the torch and walked into the mine. He was planning to walk directly into the depths of the mine, but upon hearing the conversations of several mining players, he was stunned for a while and stopped in his tracks.

"I really wonder who the player named 'Misty River' is. He made the first global announcement in the game. Do you know that Situ Shenzhe spent a lot of money to investigate Misty River's identity in the public chat channel?"

"Why bother investigating Misty River? It was just an announcement. As the leader of the top guild Divine Altar, is he so petty about this?"

"You are wrong. Situ Shenzhe is not trying to cause him trouble, but to win him over. Not only the people of the Divine Altar Guild, but also several other forces are searching for Misty River. It seems that this upgrade-maniac has become the most sought-after character."

　　...

"Divine Altar? Humph!"

Jiang Ming heard the word 'Divine Altar' and snorted, murderous intent flashing in his eyes.

Walking in the deep and quiet mine, Jiang Ming kept thinking about the words of the previous two stimulator players. "Since he wants to win me over, then I might as well beat him at his own game!"

Jiang Ming thought of something as the corners of his lips curled up into a smile, and he began to scheme against Situ Shenzhe in his mind.

The deeper he went into the mine, the fewer mining stimulator players there were, and in the end, there were basically none at all. After all, there was a high probability of thieves and burglars appearing in the depths of the mine. If players were not careful, an entire bag of ore tiresomely dug up would be stolen. Thus, most stimulator players would choose to mine at places with low probability of thieves and burglars.

Therefore, no one else had found the stone room. But when Jiang Ming came to the location of the stone room, his expression drastically changed. "Sh*t, the cavity has become smaller after the system update. I wonder if the room was reset; if so, that would be wonderful."

Chikage was still sleeping and hadn't entered the game yet, so he had no choice but to pick up the hoe and start digging by himself.

"Clang Clang~"

Bursts of knocking sounds by the hoe echoed throughout the stone room.

Ding~ System notification: Congratulations on obtaining a piece of silver ore.

"Haha, I didn't expect that just by digging holes, I could already dig out a piece of high-grade ore. What luck!" Looking at a fist-sized silver ore that dropped onto the ground, he said excitedly and continued to knock on the mine wall around the small cavity.

While Jiang Ming was digging holes earnestly, he didn't notice that in a pitch-black corner behind him, a pair of sharp eyes was staring straight at his back.

 "Huh?"

As Jiang Ming was digging, a peculiar feeling suddenly arose in his heart. He had been feeling that there was a pair of eyes staring at him behind his back. His brows frowned slightly, raising the torch, he turned and looked behind him.

Just as he turned around, an ugly face almost pressed against his own. Though he had good psychological quality, he was still taken aback. Chills ran down his spine and he almost dropped the torch that he held in his hand.

"Ga Ga~"

The ugly face let out a sinister laugh and its pair of dry arms brushed against Jiang Ming's body. Then, it turned around and quickly fled.

Ding~ System notification: The silver ore was stolen by a 'Mine Thief'.

"F*ck, stealing mines from me?!"

A piece of silver ore was worth 1 gold coin. Being robbed as soon as he got it made him feel a little unhappy. He took out the Reaper's Scythe and slashed toward the thief.

He must have Lady Luck in his favour today as this blow produced a lethal effect, killing the thief within seconds.

"Ding Ding Ding Ding~"

After the mine thief was killed, its body exploded, generating a pile of ore. Not only did he get back the previously stolen silver ore, but there were also two rare black iron ores, which made Jiang Ming's eyes brighten. 'All these are money!'

Stepping forward, he waved his hand and collected all the ore in front of him.

Obtaining so many ores after killing the mine thief, Jiang Ming was in a good mood, and it made him work even harder in digging the hole. It didn't take long for him to dig out a cavity long enough to even accommodate him.

Passing through the cavity on the wall, he appeared in the stone chamber.

Not everything in the stone room had been reset, though the skeleton was no longer there, the tattered Reaper suit was still lying beside the altar. Seeing this, he felt a little disappointed but also delighted. What was disappointing was that if everything in the stone room had been reset, then he would be able to once again deconstruct the bones of the Reaper and the Demon King, gaining more materials. But what was delighting was that the tattered Reaper suit was still there.

Stepping forward slowly, he came to the tattered Reaper suit and used the deconstruction technique on it.

His stamina was full and he had met the requirement of using the deconstruction technique. After he used the deconstruction technique, the Reaper suit placed next to him was immediately wrapped in a ray of light, and then began to deconstruct.

Ding~ System notification: The deconstruction was successful. Congratulations on obtaining '1 piece of Ten Thousand Years Cold Underworld Stone', '1 roll of Demon Gold Silk', '1 piece of Underworld Tiger Skin', '1 ball of Death Qi' and '1 piece of Talisman'.

After successful deconstruction, Jiang Ming quickly opened his inventory and looked at the items he obtained. After checking the attributes of these five items, he found that these five items were all materials used to craft Reaper's customised equipment, and their levels were not low.

At present, no one could use these five crafting materials at all, but taking into account that he had a divine furnace that possessed divine fusion technique. As long as his stamina was full, he definitely could deconstruct the five materials to generate a new Reaper equipment.

But the fusion technique was still a bit risky. If his luck was bad, all the materials in the furnace would be wasted.

After deconstructing the tattered Reaper suit, only the altar and the teleportation array on the altar were left in the entire stone room. Originally, he intended to also deconstruct the teleportation array. But when the system prompted that the teleportation array could not be deconstructed, he gave up and directly left the stone room with the help of 'Return to City' ability.

　　...

Demon Bone City was one of the eighteen main cities of the demon faction.

"Whoosh~"

Demon Bone City's teleportation array suddenly flashed with a burst of black light, and then, a man dressed in a black shirt and with a firm expression on his face walked out slowly.

At this moment, players were generally at level 7 or 8, and none of them had reached level 9. There was only one person who could appear in the main city: Misty River!

That's right, the person walking out of the teleportation array was the only player who had reached level 10 – Jiang Ming.

Walking out of the teleportation array, he looked at a huge monster carved from bones and some skeleton-constructed buildings in the center of Demon Bone City as he walked alone on the spacious street. Cold wind blew by and goosebumps rose all over Jiang Ming. He couldn't help but shiver.

"Sh*t, this is just a game, does it have to be so real?" In a vacant city full of bones, although Jiang Ming had admired the game's realism a lot before, at this moment, he could not help but resent it.

It was totally understandable why he felt this way. Walking in a lifeless city alone, with everything made of bones, it would be weird if a person did not break down after being in such an environment for prolonged periods... 

If it were not for the Customised Reaper's Mission, he would not have come to this city alone.

The first two quests of the Customised Reaper's Mission had been completed and only the last quest was remaining. However, the location of the last quest was in the Death Forest of Xuanwu City in the sacred faction.

He could not enter the cities of the sacred faction. Once he entered, he would be beheaded by the level 100 guards. In desperation, he had to look at the map and check for other cities closer to Xuanwu City on the map. After searching for a long time, he found that there was only Demon Bone City that was relatively close to Xuanwu City, all other cities were very far away.

While other players had not yet entered the main city, he wanted to first go and complete the Customised Reaper's Mission, other things were not in much of a hurry.

"It's definitely dangerous to go to Xuanwu City alone and it's also a waste of time. It seems that I'll need the help of the Demon Wolf King."

Muttering under his breath, he began to communicate with the Demon Wolf King through the contract.