[Veil of Chaos]

The next day after sobering up, Li Wei noticed a message in his inbox. As he opened it, a faint smile appeared on his face. It looked like the ring of chaos will be upgraded very soon. The message was from Moody Writer.

The latter has just obtained the Moon Stone. His efficiency even frightened Li Wei. Just three days went by since he asked for the Moon Stone but, that guy already got his hands on it. Considering the rarity of this item, it was definitely unusual. Building a network really had some benefits.

Li Wei could not simply go to look for the Moon Stone at 7 in the morning. He first went to the Warrior Association to look for a quest. It had been a while since he wanted to take some quests, especially after what Moody Writer told him.

It was still very early, but many players could already be seen at the association. Many were browsing through the quests available. While all the quests were posted on the general board at the reception, players could also use their interface to look for quests.

Li Wei spent some time looking at what was available. He did not have any specific requirement, but he did not want to stay away from Algate City for too long and so, he looked for missions that would take in average one week. He also prioritized escorts to other towns since there was a high chance a family of the Fleeting Clouds Sect would have settled there.

He would then be able to take advantage of that and take a quest at the guild at the same time. Li Wei saw a large variety of quests even when he filtered his search to escort missions. Some were just merchants going to towns for business, others were relatively important individuals traveling and needing protection.

A map of the county was available for Li Wei to examine when making his choice. With it, he found that Algate City was located to the south-east of the Capital of the Dominion Empire. Further East, there would be the orc territory; at the edge of the Algate County were the Great Plains of Maldor, the home of the orcs and giants.

Li Wei was very interested in looking at the other races; it was after all one of the selling points of the game. However, he knew this would not be available before the first expansion.

After a few minutes, Li Wei finally settled onto an interesting quest. The quest consisted of escorting a caravan of herb merchants traveling east to Verdan Town. The latter was not very far and would require about 5 days of travel on a horse. It was at a reasonable distance and Verdan Town looked like a decent town where a family of the Fleeting Clouds Sect might have settled.

There could be up to nine other players accompanying him; for now, 6 of the available seats were taken. If the quest was successful, Li Wei would obtain 15000 exp and 1500 Contribution Points. It was not a bad reward; it was quite low but that was without considering what they would obtain by hunting and killing monsters along the way.

The caravan consisted of 5 vehicles, 10 players would not necessarily be enough and so, 5 NPC adventurers were also coming along. Meals and horses were provided by the merchants, but he will naturally have to pay for his return expenses. The departure time was at 12:00 today.

In Li Wei's opinion, it was an attractive quest. He immediately accepted it and was told to meet near the east gate of the city at 11:45. He obtained a small badge to present to the merchants in order to prove his identity.

"Thank you!" said Li Wei at the receptionist that just processed his request. He quickly left and went to the Alchemist Association that was not very far. It was already 9:13 which could be considered a reasonable time to look for someone. There were so many quests and it was normal for it to take that long. After all, Li Wei was not just picking a random quest with good rewards, looking at the destination and duration was also important.

...

At the Alchemist Association, Li Wei did not get to meet Moody Writer. The latter was busy with something important and therefore only left a package at the reception for Li Wei to collect. It naturally contained Li Wei's long desired Moon Stone.

He did not mind just taking the item. In fact, Li Wei was rather relieved since he was quite busy this morning; he still needed to go to the Fleeting Clouds Sect's headquarters and look for some quests they might have. This way, he would make the most out of his small adventure.

He simply took the package and placed it in his inventory. Moon Stones were rare and there was no need to advertise it to the public.

With the Moon Stone in his inventory, Li Wei quickly went to look for his second quest.

The Fleeting Clouds Sect used the same system as the other associations. This was to avoid creating confusion with different procedures, but it was not very useful; many players complained that they often mixed the two together and that a new system was needed. Many guilds were already working on finding better system, but it was not easy to come up with a new efficient system.

The quests of the guild were naturally different from those of the associations. Players like Li Wei could also create quests and post them. Many players needing help in some quests or specific items were doing so. The different families would also post special quests and these were what Li Wei was looking for.

Since the Fleeting Clouds Sect was expanding outside Algate City, they naturally needed items, materials, and equipment. These were naturally available at the other towns but they were more scarce and expensive. It was also more beneficial to the guild to use the equipment they craft themselves or the materials they collect.

When Li Wei looked at the interface, he quickly found what he was looking for. Effectively, a quest was available, and it consisted of delivering ores to Verdan Town. The quest was posted a few days ago by the Yu family. It was an ongoing quest. They had so many ores to carry that one player alone would not be enough. Several players could take the quest and even retake it later.

The reward varied according to the amount of ores he would carry but before that, he needed to sign a contract. It was a safety measure in case the players were planning on stealing the ores!

The players could not use the ores for their own purposes and needed to deliver it to the Yu family. However, there was a flaw; the player could simply ask others to kill him and as such, he would drop some ores. They were not very expensive as a unit, but if the player was carrying a lot, he would naturally drop a considerable amount.

And so, the second part of the contract stated that in case of loss of the ores, the player would have to pay for each missing ore at the market price.

Aside from that, the player would obtain 10 contribution points per ore. Considering Li Wei's inventory, he could earn a maximum of 15000 contribution points in one go. But that was naturally impossible; he could not simply fill his inventory with ores, he needed other essential items too.

And so, Li Wei decided to only fill 10 inventory spaces which could each contain 50 units of the item. He quickly signed the contract and with that done, Li Wei quickly went back to his room; he could no longer wait to upgrade his ring!

But before he left, Li Wei had to inform the Fleeting Clouds Sect that he would not be able to participate in the next two weeks' event. He simply needed to fill in a form at the reception stating that he was simply taking on the Yu Family's quest.

He did not really need to explain his absences but doing so would flag him as an unmotivated member of the guild. It was like work; one could take days off, but it was better to state a reason when asking the boss.

As for why he took two weeks off, it was just a precaution since he did not know how long he would stay at Verdan Town.

...

As soon as he arrived in his room, Li Wei took out the package from his inventory. The ordinary looking box was quickly opened and revealed the precious item inside. The Moon Stone looked ordinary; it was a greyish perfect sphere, looking more like a pearl than a moon. The only thing strange about the Moon Stone was that it was releasing a faint cold aura. Li Wei's hands immediately felt a chill when they grabbed the stone. Strangely, it was neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

Without hesitation, the storage chest of the room was emptied and the necessary items to the upgrade of the ring of chaos were all gathered.

"Now how do I upgrade the ring?" asked Li Wei. The last time, he only needed to take out the items and they immediately started fusing together. But now, even with a bunch of items there, nothing was happening.

He looked at the details of the quest but there were no instructions.

5 minutes later, there was still no reaction.

"Mmm do I need to take out the Goblin Blood out of the vials? Maybe if I mix all of them together?"

Li Wei quickly grabbed a large bowl and filled it with Goblin Blood. The thick red liquid quickly filled the bowl and Li Wei tossed the remaining items inside. The Beast Cores were floating at the surface of this red mixture while the Moon Stone already disappeared inside.

With that done, the last item was quickly added: the ring of chaos. Li Wei removed the black ring and tossed it in the bowl.

A few minutes went by but to Li Wei's disappointment, nothing happened. "Sigh... I need to look for how to upgrade it now?"

With a quick look at his interface, Li Wei found that it was already 10:30. He still had an hour before the meeting at the east gate. There was probably enough time to quickly go to the blacksmith shop and ask for the way to upgrade the ring!

Li Wei was about to leave when suddenly, a lonely bubble momentarily appeared at the surface of the red mixture before exploding.

"Huh?"

This did not go unnoticed by Li Wei. The latter quickly stopped moving and focused his attention back on the mixture. A few seconds later, another bubble appeared and quickly exploded.

He did not know what was happening but that was definitely good news. A reaction was happening! But the question was how long that would take, he could not miss the departure time of his quest.

Quickly, the reaction seemed to become livelier; more and more bubbles appeared in the bowl. It was clear that the level of the liquid was slowly decreasing.

"Blubb blub"

Time went by, but Li Wei quickly lost interest. He lay on his bed to check the forums; many new posts were recently made complaining about attacks. Apparently, some NPC organization were starting to act and killed many players here and there. It was starting to become alarming especially since many that were attacked did not go to hunt too far from towns or cities. Despite the numerous reports and complaints, the guards did nothing to help the players. In the end, the players could only rely on themselves and many resorted to joining guilds or partying when going to hunt.

Li Wei quietly read the different posts to look for interesting news. It was a common thing he did especially when he was bored.

30 minutes after the start of the reaction, Li Wei stood up to look at the now empty bowl. He let out a smile before grabbing the black ring left at the bottom of the bowl. The black ring now looked more attractive than before; it was as if some polish was applied on it. Apart from that, there did not seem to be much change. As Li Wei stared at the ring, the information window eventually popped up:

[Ring of Chaos](Grade 2)(Upgradable)

Vitality +2

Intelligence +2

Skill: [Chaos Sphere], [Veil of Chaos]

Effect 1: Experience gained +4%

Effect 2: Soul Bound-Cannot be dropped/exchanged/sold/unequipped

[An exclusive gift given to those bestowed with a name by Gaia]

[Veil of Chaos]

Covers the user with chaos energy and allows the user to cover his identity to some extent.

Passive Effect: Can fake user's level by making it appear larger or smaller by 2

As Li Wei looked at the new skill, he became disappointed. What was the use of faking his level? As far as he was aware, this skill was completely useless to him, but a skill was still a skill and it did not seem to cost any mana to use.

He quickly chose to increase his level by 2 and as he looked at his interface, his level immediately changed to 17.

"I don't see any use now but maybe in the future..."

The [Veil of Chaos] was not very attractive to Li Wei but the rest of the changes were not bad especially the fact that [Chaos Sphere] leveled up to a level 1 skill. It now dealt 50 damage instead of 25!

That was a huge increase in power! Especially since a mage's skill at this level dealt an average of 40 damage. The actual [Chaos Sphere] could be considered as a top-tier skill for the actual state of the game.

It was also the first level 1 spell Li Wei obtained! Despite using all his other skills repetitively, none of them leveled up and there was no information about how to level skills either. He was starting to think that it was a myth until he finally got to see a level 1 skill.

"It's a pity the stats did not increase much, but the skill is still useful... The only problem now is that I need to find out how to upgrade it again... It's a never-ending cycle... Is it even worth it to upgrade it?"