“Little Hao, you don’t look like it, but you’re really amazing!” Shi Hao grinned from ear to ear after they returned to the dormitory. It can’t be helped, who even let Feng Tianhao ‘conserved’ such a huge sum of money? It summed up to 700 hundred Yuan.
Truth to be told, Feng Tianhao still had enough funds to buy a silver helmet, provided that the second batch of helmets were released, even after spending that much.
Still, it wouldn’t make up for Feng Tianhao’s loss even if he bought the silver helmet. After all, the high-grade helmet had most of its advantages in the early stage of the game. After passing the early stage, other than serving as a good-looking but useless gear, this high-grade helmet has little to no use. Broadly speaking, the game was relatively fair. But for the sake of his brother, Feng Tianhao will proceed without hesitation.
“Alright, don’t laugh anymore. Come on, let’s clean these helmets, they’re too dirty. The car will get dirty if we don’t clean it, and my dad will scold me for it later when I return.” said Feng Tianhao.
After cleaning the helmets, Shi Hao and Feng Tianhao took a closer look at their appearance. One of them was obviously a standard bronze game helmet. But the other one has quite a strange appearance.
“What in the world might this helmet be?” Shi Hao checked everywhere, but can’t make out what it was. This helmet had such a bizarre color. Generally speaking, only five colors of helmets were available: bluish-green bronze, whitish silver, yellowish gold, orangish platinum, and transparent diamond. But this helmet before their eyes was certainly completely black. If it were not for the anti-counterfeit mark stuck on its top, Shi Hao would have downright thought that this helmet was a fake one.
“What should we do? How about I use this helmet first? I was poor and blank anyway, so I don’t mind it. If there is something wrong with this helmet, I’ll just think of it as me and Su Xiao’s fate. Contrariwise, your parents still have a lot of hope and expectation for you. If you can’t make a name for yourself in the game, it will have a huge impact on you.” Since it has come to this, Shi Hao couldn’t let Feng Tianhao take the risk or spend more money anymore. Within Shi Hao’s obstinate heart, having a glean hope of survival before his eyes was already more than enough.
After going through a dispute, Feng Tianhao finally agreed to Shi Hao’s decision.
Feng Tianhao knew very well that Shi Hao was a genuine person. He won’t concede and has a stubborn temper. If Shi Hao said that he didn’t want Feng Tianhao to spend more money, it won’t help the situation even if someone threatened Shi Hao by pointing a knife to his neck.
“By the way, we should discuss this properly. The game’s server will open in a few hours. Which continents should we choose as our birthplace and how should we allocate our profession?” Feng Tianhao switched the computer on and browsed over information on the website’s forum as he asked seriously.
«Kingdom» has a vast territory, much larger than the total area of the earth. Inside the game, the territory was roughly divided into three continents. Each of them was separated by a vast, limitless sea. Unless the game had developed into the later stage and had a large warship which could cross the ocean, the players separated on the three continents wouldn’t likely be able to associate with each other.
The three continents were Divine Flower Continent, Divine Beauty Continent and Divine Ohm Continent. Amongst them, Divine Flower Continent has the largest territory. Many of the historical NPCs with top talents were gathered there. It also has the most abundant resources all over. The second-largest territory was Divine Beauty Continent. It has the most plentiful cheat codes of special hidden skills. Divine Ohm Continent has the smallest territory, but it has some of the most refined siege weapons in it.
“I’ll choose Divine Flower Continent!” Shi Hao replied earnestly. “Most people will go there, so I’ll definitely have the best opportunities there.”
Shi Hao’s words had expressed Feng Tianhao’s inner thoughts. Both Feng Tianhao and Shi Hao were people who would dare to struggle hard.
“Which part of Divine Flower Continent do you want to go first?” Feng Tianhao took a good look at the information about Divine Flower Continent on «Kingdom»’s forum.
Divine Flower Continent was divided into five regions, each of which was separated by rivers. It was just that they’ll need an ordinary ship to travel between regions and they needed to spend money to travel between regions, but at least they didn’t need to wait until the later stage of the game.
The five regions were North Flower, South Flower, Central Flower, West Flower and East Flower. North Flower had many plains, the water supply and the natural resources were so-so. South Flower had plains and mountain land echoing with each other, coupled with an abundant water supply and unusual natural resources. Central Flower had a lot of plains, its water supply was abundant, the natural resources were adequate, plus transportation was the most convenient there. There were a lot of mountain lands in West Flower, where water supply was scarce and natural resources were unusual. Numerous rivers were flowing in East Flower, so it has a plentiful water supply and abundant natural resources.
“Then, I’ll choose West Flower!” Shi Hao had thought about it over and over, thus he said, “I’m using the elimination method. The natural resources are so-so in North Flower, it’s easy to attack but hard to defend, which would be detrimental towards developments. Central Flower is a strategic location, the competition would be too intense for us to intervene. East Flower is too close to the coast, which made it vulnerable to be invaded by pirates. A part of South Flower are plains, which is flat terrain and makes its defense weak. In comparison, the mountain land of West Flower could be easily guarded and hard to attack. Moreover, it has unusual natural resources. Even though it lacks water supply, the other aspects are much better than other places.”
What Shi Hao said was right. Feng Tianhao nodded repeatedly.
“Alright! The last question is what profession to choose. Do you want to decide now or just enter the game and improve yourself freely?” Feng Tianhao gave Shi Hao a meaningful glance, as if telling him he wanted to develop freely inside the game.
“OK, I’ll choose to improve freely. Life is bound to have surprises!” Shi Hao smiled.
In fact, Shi Hao had decided on a profession inside his heart. There wasn’t much for him to choose actually, because he wasn’t much competent in anything else besides being a fighter.
«Kingdom» has a lot of variance of profession preference. After entering the game and creating the character, the system will require the player to choose one of the five major professions. Apart from this, there weren’t any restrictions for the character’s professions. Specifically speaking, the skills and items in the game were not restricted by the profession. Any profession would be able to learn any kind of skills and wear any items. However, different skills might require different items to match their use. Furthermore, the basic abilities of different professions wouldn’t be the same. Hence, most people of the same profession will selectively learn the same skills and wear the same items.
The five major professions were fighter, knight, archer, strategist, and commander. After reading the forum, according to the setting of the basic abilities of the five professions, it could be concluded that: fighters have high defense and vitality, thus they were good at close combat. Knights have high attack, defense and agility, but they have lower vitality. They also excel in attacking. Archers have a wide range of attack, could deal high damage, and have certain close combat abilities, but they need to be guarded. Strategists have a wide range of attack, could deal high damage, and have more skill slots, but they have lower viability, so they have to be guarded at all cost. Commanders have high viability but extremely low attack. The amount of their skill slots was second only to strategists. They excel in casting a range of supporting skills, but need to rely on their teammates’ output.
Shi Hao’s goal was to successfully join a great force and become the core ‘backbone’ in it. Therefore, Shi Hao who doesn’t have any powerful team to rely on could only choose to be a fighter or a knight. These two professions have the best independence, since they didn’t need to rely on the guarding or output of their teammates. But everyone knew just from its name that being a knight certainly meant one had to be the typical example of ‘Mr. Perfect’. Shi Hao was handsome and tall, but he wasn’t wealthy. Preparing to be a knight would consume a lot of money for the items. This won’t be suitable for Shi Hao.
“Alright! It’s almost time. I’m entering the game first. My name would be ‘Blowing Wind Left A Scar’. Come find me, don’t forget to meet me in the Novice Village.” Feng Tianhao took the bronze helmet with him. The helmet was preinstalled with a mobile network. It looked really cool.
Shi Hao carefully examined the strange black helmet again before he entered the game.
“Hello! Welcome to «Kingdom». Would you like to hear a brief explanation of the game’s content?” A beautiful voice of a female suddenly sounded in Shi Hao’s ears as a cute girl appeared before his eyes. However, Shi Hao wasn’t under good circumstances. He was completely naked, his face looked like a basketball, and there was nothing around him. This place felt like a small prison.
“No need!” Shi Hao replied.
“Gotcha! Next, please set up your character’s name, height, skin color, face, voice, and other basic information.” The female game instructor continued to speak in a cute voice, “Once the character’s information is set, you won’t be able to change it anymore. Moreover, each person could only have a character. Please think about it carefully.”
Shi Hao didn’t think too long about it. He named his character ‘Shaking the Heaven’. His height and other information were set according to his own, but he modified his appearance and voice a lot so as not to let others recognize him in the game. If Wu Batian knew it was him, he might be showing his malice to Shi Hao.
“Okay. Lastly, please choose your birthplace and basic profession. Have a good time!” The female instructor slowly faded away. Without hesitation, Shi Hao immediately made his choice according to what he had planned, thus he turned into a fighter. In an instant, he arrived at the Novice Village in West Flower of Divine Flower Continent.
At this moment, Shi Hao anxiously clicked on his character’s panel.
[Name: Shake the Heaven (Fighter)] [Level: 1] [Attack: 3] [Defense: 5] [Agility: 3] [Vitality (HP): 5] [Energy (MP): 3] [Skill Slot 1: Empty] [Weapon: Empty] [Armor: Empty] [Accessories: Empty]Shi Hao carefully examined the surrounding scenery. It seemed that West Flower’s Novice Village looked quite similar from what was originally planned. Following that, Shi Hao looked into the distance and noticed that there were three huge signboards in the village. Namely, general store, blacksmith, and tailor store.
Obviously, these were the typical initial attributes of a fighter. Among these, energy was what one needed to cast general skills. It was also known as Mana Point. Shi Hao felt relieved. It looks like there wasn’t anything wrong with his strange helmet.
Shi Hao struggled through the crowd and finally came to the blacksmith. Shi Hao’s intention of coming here was essentially to get a weapon he could use. With the right weapon, he’d be able to move from Novice Village and improve himself even more.
“Boss, please let me have a look at your weapons, the ones for close combat.” said Shi Hao.
The best weapons for fighters were close-combat ones, which have been universally acknowledged in the forum. There wasn’t anything else to say, a fighter typically had to be an expert in fighting at close quarters.
“We’re sorry, you could clearly see the business here. Nothing is cheap, especially the close combat weapon you wanted. Everyone who comes here is mostly having the same demand as you.” The blacksmith’s owner replied cheerfully.
Even though the blacksmith’s owner was somewhat treacherous, all business people were profiteers. However, what he said was true, there wasn’t anything wrong with it. Most of the players were independent young individuals or small teams. Their profession preference would most likely be fighter or knight. Still, fighters would be the better choice, because a fighter’s item choice was more diverse. As long as it was a close combat weapon, fighters would adapt to it. Basically, knights could only choose to use long pole weapons and had to wear heavy armor.
“Boss, just tell me how much it is. How much do you want so that you’d sell the weapon to me?” Shi Hao didn’t want to waste time. The earlier he could upgrade himself equals him getting closer to his wish of being successful.
“1000 copper coins, fixed price!” The blacksmith’s owner knew that this group of new recruits only have that much money with them. They didn’t have more, and they’ll be sorry for themselves if they used it. This pattern was also pretty much the same in the other Novice Villages.
“S***, I know this is how things will turn out.” Shi Hao grumbled inside his heart as he clicked on his inventory.
The initial gift was a lowest level 1 inventory, which had ten storage boxes for items. Each storage box could hold 100 items at most.
Shi Hao took a glance at it and caught sight of 1000 copper coins listed as the amount of money he has. Hence, he decided to buy the weapon as the owner clicked on a transaction and a trading window popped up. However, Shi Hao didn’t carry out the transaction in the end. He suddenly closed the trading window and hurriedly rushed out to a remote corner.
“What the f***! I didn’t notice it at first. Fortunately, I see it now. There are actually three lottery tickets in my inventory, but the tickets are also black, how strange. Doesn’t matter, I’m a fool if I don’t use what I’ve been given.” Shi Hao clicked on the first lottery tickets with happiness written all over his face.
