Future Path

Xiao Ling nodded and said, "I see." He kept that in his mind and learned a lesson. Each attribute of every item had its worth, and he should never sell the item before he figured out its market price. Otherwise, with his lack of knowledge of this game, he would be cheated without even realizing it.

Both Luan Ying and Yu Xue were good men, and they would not deceive him. Xiao Ling trusted them; in fact, if they could not be trusted, then no one else in the game could.

He did not expect that a leather armor dropped by a mere level-7 rogue was actually worth 180 gold coins. It was no less than a windfall for him.

"But, we don't have so many gold coins with us now," said Yu Xue in a rather embarrassed voice. "Why don't you tell us where you stay, and once we return to town, sell the items, and send the money to you, then you send us the leather armor?"

Xiao Ling waved and said, "There's no need for all that trouble. You can keep the leather armor. Just send me the gold coins whenever you have enough of them."

Yu Xue hesitated for a moment, but since Xiao Ling was so generous with him, he decided to accept it. After trading 80 gold coins with Xiao Ling, he said, "We will send you the rest of the money after we have sold the items we found."

"That sounds good to me," said Xiao Ling.

Luan Ying glanced around and saw that all the monsters in the surroundings were cleaned up. "What are you going to do next?" he could not help but ask.

"I have to go back to town and submit a mission, then I'll continue to grind." As Xiao Ling said as he tidied up his backpack. The trip had been rewarding; he had earned quite a lot of money, and he had also reached level 8. It was just that his backpack had emptied, and he decided to return to town and restock the supplies.

"Do you want to grind with us?" asked Yu Xue.

Xiao Ling gave that a thought. It was true that there was good teamwork between the two men and him, and he did not mind fighting Bosses with them for the sake of finding good items. However, if he were to grind for levels, teaming up with them would not be as convenient as working alone. Usually, it took a longer time to level up when in a team, and that would seriously affect his speed of levelling up.

Fei Yu, too, was staring at him with a look of anticipation in her eyes.

When Luan Ying saw Xiao Ling not answering, he laughed and said, "Well, you don't have to force yourself. If you have other things to do, you can go ahead with your plans. You can always call us in the future whenever you run into something that you cannot solve or some Bosses you cannot defeat. Likewise, when we find a Boss that we cannot defeat and call you to join our team, you better not reject us."

"No problem!" Xiao Ling agreed readily. His answer made Luan Ying and Yu Xue smile happily, but there was a flicker of disappointment in Fei Yu's eyes.

"Where do you stay?" asked Yu Xue.

"The inn in the little town of Vejin."

"Got it," Yu Xue nodded. "Let's go now."

"Goodbye!" said Xiao Ling with a smile. Then, he turned to Fei Yu, who was standing beside him in silence, and said, "Xiao Yu, I'm leaving. I'll see you again."

Fei Yu suddenly felt a little scared. She chewed her lip as she lowered her head and said sadly, "Goodbye, brother Xiao!"

With a faint smile, Xiao Ling activated the returning to town function. Twenty seconds later, he turned into a beam of white light and vanished.

"We should be leaving as well." Luan Ying and Yu Xue activated the returning to town function while Fei Yu stared blankly at the place where Xiao Ling had disappeared. It was a long time before she activated the returning to town function and disappeared from the area.

When Xiao Ling opened his eyes again, he was already inside the inn. From there, he went to the blacksmith and repaired his equipment. To his surprise, it took him 2 gold coins to repair the crappy Common equipment he had, which depressed him a little. As he had almost finished up all his consumable items, he bought some bread and water in the inn and put them in his backpack.

After that, he went to the old alchemy warlock and claimed his reward. When he added it with the income from killing monsters, he was happy to see that he now had over 500 gold coins.

The sky grew dark then and dusk was settling in the small town. Soon, Xiao Ling went back to the inn and rented himself a room.

The inn was a very shabby building, a wooden house with the ceiling on its first floor only two heads taller than Xiao Ling. After paying the innkeeper, he started for his room. The wooden stairs and floor creaked as he walked, and he thought that they were about to collapse.

He stepped into the shabby room and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He needed some quiet time to think and plan for his future.

The expertise rating of his skills was already at their maximum level, so it was time for him to find the warlock trainer and upgrade them. As for what he should do next, he had absolutely no idea. The Endace Continent was full of adventurous areas, but he did not know where he should venture next.

His first question was whether he should venture south or north. Since Brakada was at the southernmost tip of the continent, if he went south, he would enter the depths of Brakada, where he could find beautiful snowfields and glaciers, barren lands and swamps, as well as great mountains and deep valleys. Many legendary warlocks had gained great demon power after training there. However, the south was a very dangerous area, and as he was alone. He would have to face all kinds of dangers by himself.

If he went north, he would enter the war-torn battlefield. With Erathia as the center, the Angelic Alliance kingdoms such as the human kingdom of Erathia, the elf kingdom of Hamundale, the dwarf kingdom of Ofer, and the swamp kingdom of Bairds were resisting the invasion of the Evil Alliance kingdoms such as the hell kingdom of Krurod, the orc kingdom of Titalia, and the undead kingdom of Deya there. It was a region where battles took place every day. If he joined the battle, the benefits would definitely be significant, because he could get a lot of equipment from the players of the enemy faction, and at the same time a lot of Honor Points. And if he accumulated enough Honor Points, he could be awarded some noble title. But as the saying went, 'if you play with fire, you will eventually get burned'. While he planned to kill others, he must also be ready to be killed by others.

It was not that Xiao Ling feared PvP, but his current level was too low, and it would be very difficult for him to survive in a war-torn battlefield as of now. After much deliberation, he finally set his target to the south of Brakada.

The future was bright, but the path that led to it was winding and twisting. Since he had found Hilaire's Demon Ring, Xiao Ling felt he could already see the future.

He removed the ring from his finger and carefully studied it. It was reflecting a queer black light, with wisps of black flame burning quietly around it, which could be clearly seen even in the dark of the night. During the day, when it was not stimulated by anything, the ring would always return to its appearance of a simple and ancient iron ring. Only at night would it be set ablaze with wisps of black flame.

Anyhow, the black flames never hurt him. They twitched with a very strange rhythm, as if they were trying to tell him something that was long forgotten. Gradually, the demonic flame made his eyes lose focus, and before long, he fell asleep.

It was quiet throughout the night.