NOVEL NEXT Chapter 24: Chapter 24: Special Skill Book
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The people of Qionghua Club felt helpless, but there wasn’t much they could say.
Li Yao had just handed out several valuable items without hesitation, showing no signs of reluctance.
Considering that he was the team leader and the distribution was in his hands, he could’ve kept everything for himself without any repercussions. But he didn’t, and so when an even more valuable item came up, they didn’t feel right to argue over it.
Of course, even if they wanted to argue, it wouldn’t do any good. The power to allocate was in his hands. They didn’t want to upset him and run the risk of him keeping everything else for himself, which would be an even greater loss.
Poisonous Snake Trap (Structure) Skill Book.
Li Yao’s eyes lit upon this skill and he snatched it up.
Skills in “The Ancient God World” come in many varieties, split into two branches.
Take the Poisonous Snake Trap for instance, it comes as a common skill book and a structure-annotated skill book.
The effects of a regular skill are specific. A normal Poisonous Snake Trap can produce several small poisonous snakes that inflict a certain amount of toxin damage.
At higher levels, players can gain inscriptions that alter the effects of the trap, such as a special inscription that causes the venomous snakes not to inflict damage, but to stun or slow instead.
For example, Li Yao’s regular Arcane Shot skill, depending on the inscription engraved later, can deal fire, frost, shadow damage and more. The variations are quite significant.
The skill variations after each profession divides are different. Even among Beastmaster Hunters, the variations are endless depending on the different inscriptions. This mechanism has received praise from countless players as it allows them to create their own unique professions and characters.
The structure skill is an extension of this mechanism.
Still using the Poisonous Snake Trap as an example, the structure-annotated skill book teaches the player to create a portable trap method, sealing real organisms in the trap, similar to a Shaman’s totem, and releasing a projection. The interesting part is its unpredictability. There are many poisonous species in the game, often players trap different creatures resulting in different effects.
This can turn the Poisonous Snake Trap into a Poisonous Frog Trap, Poisonous Insect Trap, etc. However, the effect of such traps is gauged according to the attributes of the creatures sealed in them, so players need to recreate it with higher-level creatures after some time to keep up with the competition.
“This skill book is for the Hunter class, so I’ll take it without reservation.” Li Yao learned it without any hesitation.
Hunter skills aren’t usually in high demand because there aren’t many Hunter players, and they aren’t highly regarded. Naturally, no one had any objections.
However, they would never realize that this particular skill book seemed just as valuable, if not more so, to Li Yao as the Teeth of the Poison God.
This is because the book has a hidden feature. If a hunter who has learned the structure skill also learns engineering, they can make a pattern for a Mechanical Snake. The engineered snake can be sealed in the trap and will have engineering attributes, which is quite a boon for Li Yao.
After all, structure skill books are boss drops and although they can be world drops, the drop rate is just one in ten million. Relying on this would be rather naive.
The remaining items were mission-related and a couple of plate armor green equips. Li Yao didn’t want these and handed them over to Shanahuang and Blue Dream.
“It’s getting dark. That’s it for today. See you all later,” Li Yao said, leaving the team.
“Hopefully, we’ll have the opportunity to team up again in the future, Master,” Blue Dream said with a smile.
“I’m sure we will,” Li Yao replied, using his Hearthstone to teleport.
As they watched Li Yao vanish, Xiaodi said: “I didn’t know your brother was friends with the legendary Starfire. Your brother must be pretty amazing, too, right?”
Li Jia puffed up her chest in pride and replied: “Of course, my brother is the best. He’s even a game commentator! He’s bound to be famous in the future.” “I’m looking forward to the opportunity to meet him someday,” Xiaodi enthusiastically replied, secretly thinking to herself: “This way I can legit team up with Master Starfire. I wish we could keep killing bosses. It’s efficient and safe.
Li Jia, unaware of Xiaodi’s ulterior motives, replied cheerfully: “Sure, my brother is kinda handsome, too. Oh, my brother just sent me a message. He’s giving me three green equips and a magic wand. We should head back as well.”
“Let’s go, seems like your brother is not as simple as you made him out to be. With green weapons, you’re going to be stronger than me again.” Xiaodi seemed even more excited than she was about the green equipment.
“Let me know the next time you’re playing with your brother. I would love to meet him,” Shanahuang said.
“Sure, Ice Sister, I will definitely let you know,” Li Jia replied.
Little did Li Jia know, they were not interested in getting closer to her brother, they were trying to get closer to Starfire.
What they didn’t realize was that Starfire and Li Jia’s brother, Prairie Fire, were actually the same player.
Li Yao used his Hearthstone to return to his Beginner’s Village mirror image, and then mailed the green equips to his sister.
Daimeng Daimeng sent a message complaining about Li Yao killing bosses without inviting her and threatened to end their friendship amidst her complaints. Li Yao just laughed it off.
Haikuo Tiankong also sent a message asking about his relationship with Qionghua Club and about future collaborations. Li Yao brushed off the questions.
Then came greetings from the ever-changing witch, who wanted to see what loot the boss dropped. Li Yao didn’t mind sharing the details and even sent over a screenshot of his equipment gain.
While Li Yao was busy, he didn’t realize that the exposure of the boss-loot had caused so many people to turn green with envy.
The last time Li Yao killed a boss solo, it was just a beast, dropping only materials, nothing else that could be turned into decent equipment, so there wasn’t much to show off.
This time, he managed to get a purple equip, sending countless people into a frenzy.
Xiayao was already influential. With her posts revealing the new equipment and the harvesting knife, her guides were pushed straight to the top.
The comment section was flooded with countless replies. Everyone drooled over the properties of the purple equip in the screenshot.
Not only regular players were envious, but also major guilds, clubs, and even top-end players were going crazy over these top-tier equipment, sparking the enthusiasm of millions of people.
The Qionghua Club thought it was Li Yao himself who had leaked the information, and under the interrogation of various friendly clubs, the method of killing the boss was also exposed.
The entire game turned into a hot mess due to Li Yao. Countless people were
shouting about killing the boss and finding the boss.
The respawn locations for the Troll Priests in each Beginner’s Village mirror world were crowded with a huge number of players. But they were in for a disappointment. As soon as this kind of boss was killed, bosses in all mirrored maps would vanish.
In his past life, numerous teams would swarm the boss spawns in the Beginner’s Village mirrors, ultimately, whoever killed it faster would get the loot.
Later on, as the number of mirrored maps decreased, huge wars broke out among the major guilds in order to secure a spot.
Despite a majority of them knowing that they wouldn’t be able to defeat the boss, no matter how heavy the losses were, everyone in the major guilds were racking their brains to figure out a strategy to defeat the boss. The attraction of purple-grade equipment was irresistible.
Not until the night fell did the players quiet down. The guide groups started to work overtime, and everyone else began attacking instances. Compared to the elusive wild bosses, the instance challenge medals seemed more solid.
Li Yao, not using his Prairie Fire account, switched back to Starfire and casually entered a channel. There, he announced, “Gold Sign, one leader, three followers, just follow commands, and get gold medals for sure. 5000 credit points each, no haggling or inquiry, bosses only. There are fifteen slots available today.”
Li Yao’s words were quickly brushed off, but moments later, the area chat suddenly exploded.
“Damn, am I seeing things? The Starfire God is carrying a team. There must be a mistake.” “Is it really the Starfire God? Oh my God!”
“Praise the God.”
“That’s too unfair! 5000 per slot, why don’t you just rob people? As a God, you should serve the players for free, right?”
“If you’re that kind-hearted, why not donate all your belongings to charity?” responded the head of the Bright Moon Studio, Bright Moon Night.
“Exactly. What kind of nutjob is this?”
“Some people, jeez. Ignoring the fact that a gold medal itself is worth several times of 5000, isn’t the opportunity to learn from the Starfire God and watch him earn medals at this price like a giveaway?
“Yeah, compared to the gold medal, learning Starfire’s techniques is a lot more worthwhile.”
Then, Li Yao felt his private chat explode.
Without paying attention to the names, Li Yao immediately replied to the first fifteen players who messaged him. Of course, Li Yao didn’t know that the majority of these players were top-tier players from various guilds and studios. The gold medal was secondary. Their real purpose was to glean some knowledge.
Regardless, even if Li Yao knew, he wouldn’t have cared. He started efficiently organizing his team and leading them into the instance.
Every ten minutes, the leaderboard on the massive airship would change, shuffling positions.
After clearing it five times, the team leaderboard was uniformly golden.
All team leaders were Starfire, and the team members were thrilled to be known with him. They could steal techniques, get gold medals, and, most importantly, get on the leaderboard. Regardless of how they got up there, being able to show their face among millions of players was a rare opportunity.
Afterward, Li Yao’s private chat exploded again. Famous professional players and guilds within the country wanted to reserve slots in the future instances. Some offered higher prices, tried to court him, or just outright insulted him out of spite.
Compared to this, the other administrative regions were much quieter.
Originally, many guilds were able to show off a bit when Li Yao got first place.
Now, the entire leaderboard was going to be dominated by the Chinese players.
All the major guilds were equally unsettled. They wanted to find Li Yao to carry them but didn’t have the opportunity as they couldn’t enter the Chinese sub-channels.
In just one day, thanks to Li Yao, the excitement of millions of players exploded three times. He became the focus of countless discussions. Regardless of whether they liked it or not, and whether other regional players were disgusted or envious, they all remembered one person, Starfire.
After achieving such feats as killing a boss solo, obtaining platinum medals, getting the first kills in humanoid boss challenges as a team leader, and making acquiring gold medals that even top professional players couldn’t get as easy as drinking water, Starfire was known to the world overnight.
Li Yao did not indulge in this glory. Instead, he switched back to Prairie Fire and made another round of purchases in the market, then continuously crafted Exploding Sheeps, preparing for tomorrow when he would claim the mine….