Chapter 430 - Frantic Beginning
The inner region of White Fog Canyon was complex and densely covered by stone forests. After the meteorite shower, the fog inside the canyon had also grown thicker, lowering visibility to less than 30 yards. In addition, Elite and Special Elite monsters would show up every now and then. If players entered the canyon without sufficient strength, they would easily lose their lives.
However, danger and opportunity coexisted with each other, such as the precious Starfire Ore could be found within the white fog.
Shi Feng separated the team of 500 into multiple smaller teams, with each team consisting of two parties. That way, even if a team encountered a Special Elite, they could safely deal with it themselves. As the Assassins possessed high survivability, Shi Feng allowed them to take independent action. Meanwhile, Shi Feng himself ran around the map, quickly recording the red dots that appeared in his system map and sending the coordinates to the various teams, having those closest mine the ore there.
Within the inner region of White Fog Canyon, not all red dots represented the Starfire Ore. There were actually many different types of ore. Hence, if Shi Feng wanted to harvest a large amount of Starfire Ore, he needed a large amount of manpower.
“As expected of the undeveloped White Fog Canyon, there really are a lot of ore deposits.” Shi Feng looked at the many red dots on his system map, joy blossoming in his heart.
In the past, he had to spend over half an hour just to locate a single ore deposit. Even if he had discovered one, he would still have had to contest over it with other players. As for discovering a hidden ore deposit, one needed to be significantly lucky.
He would have been fortunate if he had located eight or nine Starfire Ore deposits in a day.
Now, he was able to locate over a hundred Starfire Ore deposits in just half an hour.
Players could excavate Starfire Ore from Starfire Ore deposits. As for how many pieces of ore one could acquire, it relied on the player’s own Luck and Mining level: one or two pieces if the number was low, and three or four pieces if it was high.
After several hours of hard work, Shi Feng’s team of 500 managed to secure over a thousand Starfire Ore deposits and had amassed over 3,000 pieces of Starfire Ore, which was equivalent to over 30 Gold.
To Shi Feng, however, the value of these 3,000-plus pieces of Starfire Ore far exceeded 30 Gold.
After using up the 12 Treasure Hunting Scrolls, the team’s speed at locating the Starfire Ore deposits gradually slowed. Even with 500 players continuously searching for the deposits, after an hour’s worth of effort, they had only managed to harvest around 200 pieces of Starfire Ore. However, Shi Feng was still satisfied.
The Philosopher’s Stone he possessed allowed him to refine the Starfire Ore into Starfire Essence, free of charge. At that time, with so many Starfire Essences, his certainty of producing the Level 20 Dragonscale Set Equipment would greatly increase.
Level 20 Fine-Gold Set Equipment was precisely what the current players of God’s Domain needed and lacked the most. Currently, the majority of the player population were around Level 20. If it were a Level 25 Set Equipment, very few people would be able to equip it. Hence, the demand for it would also be low.
If Shi Feng produced a Dragonscale Set Equipment, he could sell it for over 100 Gold right now at the very least.
People were only offering 80 Gold to purchase the complete Warfire Set because, currently, no one knew its true value. Moreover, even if someone managed to gather the full Warfire Set Equipment, it would initially start at Bronze rank. They would have to sacrifice a lot of their EXP in order to raise it up to Fine-Gold rank, hence why it was so cheap.
In the past, the price of the Warfire Set Equipment had once soared up to 500 Gold. Yet, even with such an astronomical price, supply failed to meet demand.
Time passed quickly. Unknowingly, the members of Zero Wing had mined ore deposits in White Fog Canyon for two whole days, obtaining an abundant cache of ores. They had practically dug up every deposit in White Fog Canyon at least once, and the amount of Starfire Ore they gathered had exceeded 15,000 pieces. In addition, they had also obtained over 7,000 pieces of various other kinds of ore.
During these two days, aside from mining ore deposits, everyone from Zero Wing had also killed plenty of Lord ranked monsters. As long as one of the search parties encountered a solitary Lord, they would immediately notify Shi Feng of it and then kill it together.
After two days, Zero Wing’s team had managed to kill 22 Lords. With Shi Feng’s Divine Providence, they managed to obtain a large number of Level 25 equipment. Among them, most were Secret-Silver and Fine-Gold Equipment. They had also obtained many Warfire set pieces. By now, they had enough to complete close to three sets. Unfortunately, none of the set pieces they obtained were meant for the wrists slot, which greatly depressed Shi Feng.
Shi Feng had placed all the weapons and equipment they were unable to use in the Guild’s Warehouse, instantly enriching its stores.
When the other members of Zero Wing saw the large stock of Level 25 equipment, they all grew excited. Enthusiasm filled every one of them as they actively completed Guild Quests and made contributions to the Guild.
Level 25 equipment was currently the pinnacle of equipment to God’s Domain players.
Even before everyone had reached Level 25, the Guild had already prepared a large number of high-end Level 25 equipment for themselves. This had extinguished the Guild members’ worries about obtaining Level 25 equipment. Now, the only thing they needed to do was frantically accumulate Guild Points. By the time they reached Level 25, they could simply exchange for the Level 25 equipment. This point alone made Zero Wing superior to every other Guild.
The appearance of Level 25 equipment in Zero Wing’s Warehouse had undoubtedly punched a big hole into Overwhelming Smile’s poaching plan. Now, those who originally planned to defect from Zero Wing started hesitating.
Although the benefits offered by Overwhelming Smile were very high, the equipment it possessed was unable to keep up with the times. Meanwhile, if their equipment fell behind, how would they hunt for even better equipment? How were they supposed to grind and level up quickly?
Once behind, always behind.
At this moment, many players who had previously defected from Zero Wing to Overwhelming Smile began regretting their decision.
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“Just how did Zero Wing manage to get so many Level 25 high-end equipment? I hear that a guy who was a lot weaker than me has already obtained a Level 25 Mysterious-Iron chest piece. As soon as he reaches Level 25, he can replace the Level 20 Mysterious-Iron chest piece he is wearing. If I had known something like this would happen earlier, I would never have left Zero Wing. I might already have enough points to exchange for a Level 25 Secret-Silver Equipment by now…”
“I couldn’t agree more! A guy I know who was previously about equal in strength with me is now very well off. When I chatted with him six hours ago, he told me that he had managed to accumulate enough points to exchange for a Level 25 Secret-Silver Equipment. He is only Level 22 right now. By the time he reaches Level 25, he might accumulate enough points to exchange for five or six pieces of Level 25 Secret-Silver Equipment.”
In White River City, many of Overwhelming Smile’s members started having heated discussions in the bars, sighing enviously.
“Why are all of you lauding the spirit of the enemy and belittling that of our own? The higher-ups of Overwhelming Smile have already sent people to investigate the source of Zero Wing’s equipment. Soon, with our Guild’s strength, we can definitely obtain a large number of Level 25 high-end equipment much more easily than Zero Wing.”
“Zero Wing can only remain arrogant for now because all of our Guild’s core members are focused on raiding the Great Lord inside the Ruined Shrine. After they finish with it, not to mention Level 25 Fine-Gold Equipment, we might even get Dark-Gold or Epic Equipment.”
Many Overwhelming Smile members had expressed their disdain regarding Zero Wing’s recent performances. They firmly believed that Overwhelming Smile was a lot stronger than Zero Wing.
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Meanwhile, inside White Fog Canyon…
During their two days of grinding and mining, everyone from Zero Wing had leveled up quickly, with many having already reached Level 25. Blackie had even broken through to Level 27, whereas Aqua Rose and the other core members had risen to Level 26. Violet Cloud had also reached Level 25, replacing her Level 20 equipment with Level 25 Secret-Silver and Fine-Gold Equipment.
Only Shi Feng remained at Level 24. He was still a short distance away from reaching Level 25.
However, this could not be helped. Shi Feng and Violet Cloud were both owners of hidden classes, so the EXP they required to level up was much higher than the others. Shi Feng required twice as much EXP as ordinary classes, whereas Violet Cloud required 1.6 times.
“Guild Leader, we discovered a Starfire Ore vein. However, we were suddenly ambushed by some Assassins from Overwhelming Smile. Although our party managed to get rid of the eight of them, two of our brothers were killed. Seeing that we are interested in the Starfire Ore, those bastards from Overwhelming Smile have sent three teams to guard the Starfire Ore vein. They are currently clearing out the surrounding monsters and are planning to mine the deposit,” Flying Shadow reported, wrathful flames burning in his eyes. If not for the bastards from Overwhelming Smile outnumbering them, he really wished he could go over and massacre them right this instant.