Blondie

A swordswoman with black hair, wearing starter equipment, said as she observed the entire exchange. Beside her was an archer with scarlet red hair and emerald green eyes, quite the odd sight.

"The mage has a killer's crest above his head." The archer robotically said. Her gaze remained on Jin Xing as she spoke.

"Oh yeah?" The swordswoman said while looking at the archer with a slightly surprised expression on her face. She didn't expect someone to already have killed more than three people while still being a beginner in the game.

The archer only silently agreed by nodding her hand and watching.

"This blondie's dead then." The swordswoman coldly said before walking away, no longer interested in the exchange between Jin Xing and the blondie.

"Okay, since you're willingly giving up your life, I guess I should take advantage of such an opportunity right?" The blondie said as he gripped his daggers and suddenly vanished.

The players surrounding them suddenly backed up, afraid they'd be caught up in the crossfire. Unlike other MMORPGs or anything similar, dying in Prism Online had consequences. Once you die, you lose 30% of your gathered EXP.

For example, if you were level 5 and needed 5,000 EXP to level up and gathered around 4,000. If you were to die, then you'd 30% of that 4,000 and have to get it back by killing mobs.

Needless to say, it was one of the most troublesome mechanics in Prism Online that kept PKers at bay, while also secretly encouraging them to band together.

This caused other players to think differently about soloers in Prism Online. If you played solo in such a game, either you had no friends to form a party with, or you were more powerful than those within your level.

"Opportunity? You should've just kept walking and enjoying your little crowd of players." Jin Xing said as he dodged the blondie's sloppy attacks with ease.

Despite the blondie being an assassin and having high agility, dexterity, and senses, he was unable to get a hit in on Jin Xing which greatly frustrated him.

Jin Xing weaved through each attack with a smirk on his face and somehow gained distance from the blondie and tapper the ground with his cane.

Then he said, "I won't be too harsh on you since you're a newbie. If you can survive this, then I commend you. Fireball." The crowd was amused when they heard the spell that Jin Xing chanted.

You'll commend him for surviving a pesky fireball? Who do you think you are? Some bigshot?

They all treated Jin Xing as if he was foolish and didn't know the depth of the sea because of what he said despite watching him effortlessly dodge the blondie's attacks.

Suddenly, a fireball a little bigger than normal appeared above the cane and fired towards the blondie. Because of Jin Xing's previous words, the blondie was enraged and thought little of him.

Seeing Jin Xing's fireball spell hurling towards him, the blondie only stood proudly in front of the fireball, waiting for it to hit him. He was confident that it wouldn't deal much damage.

It probably wouldn't even burn through his equipment, much less harm his actual body. The blondie felt amused when he thought of this and watched fireball hit him.

Suddenly, his face contorted as his expression turned a dozen shades paler and he glared at the fire quickly spreading on his body.

It felt like someone had dumped a bucket of boiling water on his chest, along with a douse of never-dying fire. It spread along his chest at lightning speed, quickly burning away the wolf gear and burning his skin.

"AAAAH!" The blondie screamed as he began desperately trying to wipe the fire off of his body, but every time he cleared one spot, another area of his body would be set on fire.

Jin Xing only lightly smirked as he turned and walked away, not even waiting to see the result of the blondie after the fire died out. The blondie continued to scream in agony as the crowd watched him in horror.

All of the once mighty and intimidating wolf gear had been burnt to dark ashes and the blondie's body was completely on fire. Not long after, he turned into red sparkling bits of data, signifying that he died.

The crowd looked around, trying to find Jin Xing, but he had already made his way to the blacksmith shop. He didn't waste any time and accepted the quest after triggering the secret function.

'Hopefully he'll humble himself after respawning. The quickest way to death is through arrogance after all.' Jin Xing said while peacefully making his way through Paligma Village while looking at the quest information.

~Quest Accepted!~

[Quest Rank: Secret]

[Quest Info: Investigate the abandoned mines west of the Paligma Forest for any metals.]

[Quest Quota: 0/7 Copper Ore found. 0/2 Iron Ore found.]

[Quest Reward: 300 EXP, 75 Copper Coins.]

~Quest Time Limit: 28:40/30:00~

Jin Xing quickly approached the forest and went west of it, towards the abandoned mines. While going towards the abandoned mines, he recalled an interesting piece of information he read on the forums.

'After finding all of the necessary metals for the secret quest, if you find anymore, the blacksmith will forge a weapon for you with them.'

Jin Xing didn't pay this particular post any attention until he saw another post regarding that one. Apparently, the blacksmith would craft weapons for all classes, since the poster was an archer and the previous post was regarding warriors only.

The follow-up post got a ton of attention too, and in one of the comments, Jin Xing found something that brought him hope. Ihugkitties54 claimed that the blacksmith forged an orb for him despite him being a mage.

This little comment shocked a ton of people because orbs weren't obtainable in the starter shop and could only be acquired in higher-level towns, by crafting them yourself, or from mob drops.

Many mages tested this theory and found out that it was actually true. This made tons of mage classes happy and the blacksmith secret quest now became the next must-do quest after the village chief's.

'I wonder if I can find any ores besides copper and iron. Maybe the blacksmith would make me an orb from it.' Jin Xing thought to himself as he arrived at the abandoned mine.

It looked like any other mine, dug out from the side of a small mountain and looked like the entrance to a cave, but various lamps were hung up along with eroded pick axes and old carts.

Next to the entrance of the mine, a broken sign stood.

"Paligma Mine. Beware of..." Jin Xing read out. The rest of the words were gone along with a giant piece of the wooden sign.

Jin Xing was intrigued by this and immediately became cautious of the mine and focused. For now, he planned on only completing the secret quest, and then looking for more metals.

He didn't want to mess around and end up in a bad situation before he could at least complete the quest.

Jin Xing slowly entered the mine, he felt uncomfortable because of the suffocating darkness and tried thinking up a way to see.

He then had an idea and pictured a lightbulb in his mind while fueling his cane with mana. All of a sudden, a small orb of light, similar to the light that lightbulbs gave off had appeared above the cane.

Despite being around the size of a tennis ball, the ball of light illuminated 10 meters of Jin Xing's surroundings all around him. Now he could see any and everything within 10 meters of him.

Jin Xing smirked as a message appeared.

"I'll name this skill Light Orb." Jin Xing liked this name because of the light orbs appearance. It was exactly like a tennis ball, except for the fact that it gave off light and had a shiny surface.

Jin Xing then proceeded through the abandoned mine, whilst steadily supplying the light orb with mana. After a few minutes of roaming the mine, he decided to make 2 more light orbs and rotated all 3 of them around his body.

He looked like a mystical sage of light that could repel the darkness in any area with the touch of but his finger. If anyone saw him without any context, they'd assume he was super powerful as well.

Along the way, he found all 7 pieces of copper ore and proceeded to look for the 2 pieces of iron ore.

Jin Xing only roamed around the abandoned mine for an extra few minutes but quickly found the two pieces of iron. Now that he had met the requirements to complete the quest, he continued roaming the mine to find extra ores.

While roaming the mines, he could hear quiet rattling coming from down below the ground and a message appeared.

~New Quest Received!~

[Quest Rank: Rare]

[Quest Info: Escape the abandoned mine or fight against the Rock Centipedes.]

[Quest Quota: 0/5 Rock Centipedes eliminated.]

[Quest Reward: 350 EXP, 1 Silver Coin.]

~Quest Time Limit: 34:59/35:00~

"What the heck?"