Volume 10 Bugs Chapter 70: Return, the sound of hooves in the woods
During the time when I was trying to understand the surface world and the source world, in order to ensure that I could concentrate and not be disturbed by the outside world, old Carlson used his unique ability to do a trick: he managed to put me in what the space-related people called "offline state", that is, during this period of time, my name was displayed in a gray state on the contact list of my friends. In their view, I had left this world and gone to another plane of the world. In this state, I could neither receive the messages they sent me nor take the initiative to contact them.
Although I didn't feel anything unusual, according to old Carlson, this was a magical effect that required a very deep understanding of the origin of this world and very careful operation to achieve. In addition, he must have a very thorough understanding of life, and then transcend it, and partially cut off my body and soul and the essence of the existence of this world. Before he told me, I didn't realize that when I was sitting in the small room at the top of the broken spire and struggling in pain, I was in an extremely mysterious state. According to him, at that time, I "could not be said to be a real living life, nor was I dead; I was neither alive in the world in a complete life form, nor did I completely free my soul from the shackles of the body; I existed in this world, but at the same time I had disappeared from this world, the gods could not interfere with my life, and the secular world could not perceive my existence" - during that time, I was almost in a "completely semi-free state".
The moment I stepped out of the fortress gate, this magical "offline status" was automatically lifted. This meant that my name was back on the communication list of those space-related friends, and at the same time, the communication column of my adventure notes was immediately filled with messages they had sent during this period:
"Jeff, I just got a bottle of 'Carrion Flower Juice'. I don't know what it's for, but maybe you need it. Message me online and I'll send it to you..." This was sent to me by Xiange Yayi. Ever since he knew that my alchemy could synthesize magic crystals with different materials, he would send me any strange things he found.
"Brother, do you have any 'Water Blue Stardust'? The fairy wants to embed the weapon and needs this magic crystal urgently." This was sent by Niu Baiwan. Only he would abbreviate the name of the elven druid fairy who came down to earth into just "Fairy" in a disgusting way.
"You idiot, why haven't you been online for so long? Hurry up and get online! Don't think you can delay paying the money you owe to the guild by hiding from me. You still owe the guild five golds, twelve silvers, sixty-eight bronzes, one piece of obsidian, eight pieces of frost stone, six parts of volatile lime, three roots of evening primrose, two tufts of chicken feathers, and nine parts of slug droppings..." Uh... I feel very stressed when I received the text message from our respected president, Lady Feiyin!
"You lazy bastard, you haven't shown up for such a long time, are you planning to quit? If you don't update, I'll drag you out and bounce your dick to death!" Hey, who is this guy named "Reader"?
"Reputable gold group, quality training, century-old store, your satisfaction is guaranteed. The lowest price in the whole server, payment first and then delivery, including dungeons and equipment. If you are interested, please contact QQ: XXXXXXX, NSM: XXXXXX, E-mail: XXXXXX" Can anyone tell me what he is talking about?
"Certificate application: 138144XXXX" Where did these weird guys get my contact information?
…
I was dizzy with all the messages on the nine pages. I was tired from deleting them one by one, not to mention replying to them one by one. What was even more frustrating was that my sudden "reappearance" after a long absence immediately aroused the social enthusiasm of many friends. Many people immediately sent me greetings from different corners of the world in different tones, different words and different ways. The saddest thing was that after I replied to these greetings one by one, they would reply to me enthusiastically one by one, so that for a long time, the number of messages in my address book kept increasing, so that every time I saw the notification of a new message, I was in great pain and grief - you know, sometimes your friends being too enthusiastic is actually an embarrassing torture.
After more than two hours of hard work, I finally deleted the overwhelming messages to the last page. Just when I was about to clear them all, suddenly, the latest message at the bottom of the address book caught my eye.
That was a new message just sent by the Orc Shadow Thief Yangtze River Delta, which read: "We are going to the Sionzeklar Mountains to capture mounts, hurry up!"
This highly constructive offer immediately appealed to me - of course, if you've just spent more than two hours deleting hundreds of messages, you'll find any offer from anyone to be very attractive.
Following the map markings, I arrived at the foot of the Wenzeklar Mountains at the fastest speed, and found my companions who had arrived before me at the Alliance Riding Training Ground. Along with Chang Sanjiao, there were the elf couple Xian Ge Ya Yi and Yan Zhen, the dwarf priest Chang Gong She Ri, and our president, Miss Fei Yin.
"Well, you, an unorganized and undisciplined fellow, still know how to show up!" As soon as she saw me, Guild Leader Feiyin started to complain angrily, "When we don't need you, you seem to be online 24 hours a day and can be seen at any time. When we need you, you disappear for more than half a month without even saying hello, causing us to not even be able to find a competent MT when we go to the dungeon. Do you know how many times we were wiped out in the last dungeon against the pirates of Hyder Port? Seven times, seven times we failed to make it! This loss must be charged on your head!"
Changgong Sheri's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he interrupted in a flattering manner, "Hey, President, since he is in charge, then I have no responsibility for this matter?"
Fei Yin immediately went berserk. She grabbed the dwarf priest by the neck, lifted him up, and slammed him against the wall again and again. "How dare you say that! If you hadn't volunteered to be the MT, would we have been wiped out so many times?"
"Have mercy, I have done my best to lure the monster away!" Changgong Sheri cried sadly.
"Yeah, you almost lured out all the monsters in the entire copy, but even a police dog standing guard at the door couldn't stop them!" Chang Sanjiao seemed to have suffered greatly from it.
"I have tried my best to hold them back, at least my spirit is commendable. Oh, please spare me, sir..." I just found out that the dwarf's tongue can be so long after being strangled by the neck.
"That's bullshit! You couldn't drag them out even if you tried your best. It's simply because your ability is limited!" Xian Ge Yayi also stood aside and added fuel to the fire.
Seeing that Changgong Sheri had been strangled to the point of being unable to breathe, Feiyin reluctantly threw him back to the ground. When our dwarf priest stood up again, I don't know if it was an illusion, but I always felt that he seemed to be a little taller than before - well, maybe it was just because his neck was longer...
…
After finally ending this exploitative and humiliating - er, I mean warm and friendly - reunion with the president, we found the riding trainer standing next to the stable and officially began our journey outside the door to capture the mount.
In fact, when an adventurer reaches level 50, he is eligible to receive riding training at the riding training ground at the foot of Mount Onzeklar. After completing the training, you can immediately spend 200 gold coins to buy an ordinary warhorse as your mount. Riding it will increase your ground movement speed by 60% - for those adventurers who need to travel long distances and spend a lot of time on the road, such a mount is undoubtedly a weapon for them to shorten their journey and save time.
However, in fact, not many people would choose this kind of ordinary mount. You know, in the Wenzeklar Mountains, there are a large number of wild animals that can be used as mounts. These mounts can not only increase your movement speed, but also have various mount skills. They are much better than ordinary mounts in every aspect. However, these wild animals with violent natures are often difficult to tame. Generally speaking, the higher your level, the greater the chance of taming. Moreover, each person can only have one mount. When you capture a new mount, you must abandon the original mount. In this case, most people will choose to capture a satisfactory mount by themselves when they are close to level 60, rather than spending a lot of money to buy an ordinary warhorse that will be discarded in a short time.
All this sounds simple, but in fact it is not easy. You know, only the taming reins with magical power sold in this riding training ground can successfully capture and tame wild mounts in the mountains, and each capture consumes a rein - regardless of whether you succeed or not. According to the amount of magic power contained, these reins are divided into three colors: cyan, yellow and red. Even the cheapest cyan reins are sold for ten gold coins, and the yellow reins are worth thirty gold coins. The red reins with the most magic power and the best taming effect are priced as high as fifty gold coins each - in the words of our cynical president: one or two silver coins can buy a large bundle of broken straw ropes, which are simply dyed and enchanted, and the cost price is not even one gold coin, but it can be bought for fifty gold coins. "Exorbitant profits" is not enough to describe this outrageous commercial exploitation. This is blatantly robbing money from the pockets of players!
Despite all her complaints, Feiyin still bought more than fifty red animal bridles in one go. We were all very curious about why this stingy woman would spend so much money so lavishly this time. As a result, she raised her eyebrows and gave us a mysterious lecture:
"You know nothing. This thing costs fifty gold each. How many people are willing to buy more than one at a time? Aren't they all just like you who buy three or five at a time and run to the mountain excitedly? But if you calculate it yourself, an ordinary mount costs two hundred gold. How can the cost of catching this kind of wild mount be lower than that of an ordinary mount? Even if it is calculated at three hundred gold per head, at least six reins are needed. So it is easy for us to guess that there must be a lot of idiots on the mountain who don't have enough reins. We all know that the deeper you go, the higher the level of the monsters, so the level of the mounts must be higher. The most important thing is that the deeper you go, the higher the level of the players, and the richer they are. Think about it yourself. This group of rich sheep went into the deep mountains and forests, and finally found a suitable mount, but they ran out of reins. Do you think they are willing to run fifteen minutes on the mountain road and come back to spend fifty gold to buy reins, or are they willing to spend seventy or eighty gold to buy reins nearby as an emergency?"
After listening to Feiyin's business experience, these money-hungry guys immediately came to the trainer with a smile on their faces, and each of them spent their last coin to buy a lot of animal bridles to stock up. As a warrior with lofty ambitions and a strong character, I have a natural moral aversion to this kind of speculative behavior of buying low and selling high. Naturally, I will not be as useless as these wretched guys - so I bought more than a hundred bridles in one go, drawing a clear line between themselves and their informal small-scale business, and striving to move towards the formal large-scale industrialized business path.
I am only level 54 now, and my companions are not much different from me. Under normal circumstances, according to our current level, we may only be able to catch a spotted moose or a wild woodland horse in the first valley at the entrance of the Sionzeklar Mountains as a mount, or at most a giant humpback wolf with a one-time attack skill "jump". But after collectively changing clothes, we are not interested in these ordinary mounts at all, because we are fully capable of exploring this mountain more deeply and going to those more untouched corners of the woods to find better mounts. It turns out that the collective action of six people cannot improve our efficiency in capturing mounts, because each of us wants a different mount, and the environment they live in is also very different - more importantly, President Feiyin found that our gathering together actually greatly reduced the sale of stolen goods - uh, I mean the distribution - channels for selling reins. So, we decided to disband on the spot and reunite after capturing a satisfactory mount - of course, selling all the stockpiled reins.
Feiyin explored alone towards the northwest. Xian Ge Yayi, the indecisive guy, naturally accompanied Yan Zhen all the way to the northeast. Chang Gong She Ri and Chang San Jiao went east and north respectively, leaving me alone to move towards the southwest, step by step towards the depths of the dense forest in front of me.
I have to say that the president's business strategy is extremely wise. I only walked forward for less than ten minutes and sold more than twenty red reins. Most of the people who come here are high-level players close to level 60. Most of these leveling maniacs are eager and not short of money. They are reluctant to let go of a satisfactory mount after finally finding one. Once they have used up all the reins they carry, they will inevitably worry about gains and losses. They want to run all the way back to buy a few more reins for emergency, but they are also afraid that they will never find this mount again once they leave. That feeling is like being in front of a beautiful woman but not being able to chat with her (Xiange Yayi language), being in front of delicious food but having indigestion due to overeating (Yangtze River Delta language), being poor and destitute and going out to the street the day before payday to find a supermarket with a big sale (Fei Yin language), squatting in the toilet and having a big bow after a big bow, and then realizing that you didn't bring toilet paper (Changgongshe Japanese language) is as tormenting and painful as dying. If you could sell him a bridle at this time, even if you offered a hundred gold coins for one bridle, someone would probably pay for it on impulse.
Of course, as a warrior with lofty moral integrity and a willingness to help others, I would never charge such an exorbitant price to make ill-gotten gains when others are in such a difficult situation - so I sold each one for only ninety-nine gold coins in good faith and without cheating anyone.
Although the business of reselling reins is good, it is a pity that I have never been able to find a mount that can move my heart - not because they are not fierce and strong enough. In fact, whether it is the broad-backed bear with the dual skills of "toughness" and "charge", or the sharp-toothed tiger that can "leap over", or the northwestern black panther that can "climb" and "sprint", they are all very good mounts - but for some reason, when I see these beasts, although I will praise them and admire them, and even feel a little envious and jealous when someone successfully captures one, but whenever I have the opportunity to capture them, I can never muster the desire to possess them.
Sometimes in life, we may not know clearly what we want, but we can clearly understand what we don’t want. Yes, those are good, but they don’t belong to me.
In this way, I wandered aimlessly in the dense forests, attracted by the roars of wild animals from time to time, or trying to make a deal, but then left again, looking for a beautiful beast that I had never seen before and didn't know what it looked like, but I vaguely believed in my heart that it would definitely appear. Just when I didn't know how long I would have to walk like this...
"Whew..." A high-pitched roar suddenly came from the front, followed by a crisp hoof sound, the hoof sound was as clear as a newly polished sword, hiding a kind of proud sharpness, as if ready to raise a ray of cold light in my ears at any time. Before this, I had never thought that the footsteps of an animal could be so majestic and elegant, making people involuntarily want to treat it as a highly intelligent life.
I slowed down my pace, gently pushed aside the branches in front of me, followed the terrifying sound of hooves, and walked deeper into the jungle...
