Chapter 15 - 15 13 The Secrets of Chopping Wood Extra for the Chivalrous Lazy Sheep the Silver Alliance Hierarch

15: Chapter 13: The Secrets of Chopping Wood (Extra for the Chivalrous Lazy Sheep, the Silver Alliance Hierarch) 15: Chapter 13: The Secrets of Chopping Wood (Extra for the Chivalrous Lazy Sheep, the Silver Alliance Hierarch) Beep—Beep—Beep! Listening to the dial tone on the other end of the phone, Xiao Jie let out a cold, not unexpected sneer. So you’ve cracked already, Liu Qiang, always the same old you. He knew Liu Qiang all too well; pretensions and feigned stupidity were useless with someone like him. Liu Qiang had his cunning ways, and now that Han Luo was dead, a vendetta was set between them. No matter how much Xiao Jie pretended nothing was wrong or acted indifferent to the hatred, Liu Qiang would never truly believe it. Speaking softly to ask for peace was even worse. A person without limits like Liu Qiang would never drop his vengeance because of Xiao Jie’s appeals for peace. Instead, it would only invite more brazen actions due to Xiao Jie’s perceived weakness. Only by displaying a strong front could he possibly make the opponent uncertain of his actual position, thereby causing hesitation and deterring rash actions. Of course, Xiao Jie wasn’t completely sure of this tactic; Liu Qiang had vanished for so long, who knew how powerful he had become. If he had grown powerful enough to disregard physical laws and legal realities, launching a Spell that could annihilate him from afar, then nothing Xiao Jie did would matter. Although he had spoken arrogantly just now, he wasn’t as composed as he appeared. Liu Qiang had been playing Old Soil for so long; he must have grown very strong, and knowing where Xiao Jie lived, if he decided to strike, escaping would be impossible. Though he could choose to move houses, in this information age, with enough money, people, and technology, finding someone was exceedingly easy. Moving would not make him safer; instead, it might expose his vulnerabilities more. Such behavior would be the height of folly when dealing with wolves and hyenas. So instead of hiding, he confidently mocked the opponent, making it difficult for them to gauge his true strength. He calculated that Liu Qiang wouldn’t dare to make a move. Although cunning, the man valued personal gain too much to engage in a losing proposition. Harming others for self-benefit was one thing, but a lose-lose situation was absolutely unacceptable. Therefore, that man would rather use two precious activation codes as a trap than face him directly. However, precautions were still necessary, just in case his taunts had driven Liu Qiang irrational enough to attack him directly. Then he would need to implement the second phase of his plan. Xiao Jie sat in front of his computer, exported the recording, and began editing it quickly. Gaining power in the game took too long, and revenge could wait indefinitely. If Liu Qiang truly attacked him, even if he were to die, he wouldn’t let his opponent get away easily. If he could employ the power of the Black Windbreaker to deal with him sooner, that would be even more perfect. Soon, the recording was finished. Xiao Jie immediately called the number left by the Black Windbreaker. “Hello?” “What’s the matter, Mr. Xiao?” “Liu Qiang just called me, he threatened me, said he would kill me as easily as killing an ant. Aren’t you going to do anything about this?” Xiao Jie said, sending the edited recording right away. “Um, Mr. Xiao, your editing skills could use some improvement.” “…Okay, I did edit it a bit, but if he hadn’t said those things, I wouldn’t have been able to edit them in. So, he still wants to kill me.” “Sorry, this evidence might not really be convincing, and these days recordings are no longer recognized as valid evidence. But don’t worry, we have no mercy for any criminal daring to defy the Player Management Act. If Liu Qiang really attacks, he will not escape.” “What if he hires someone to kill? This guy is definitely rich, right?” “If he hires someone, we can extract him through interrogation. Rest assured, when it comes to upholding the law, we allow no one to gamble on their chances, especially in managing game players. There is no room for negotiation.” Xiao Jie thought to himself, would he not be dead by then? Although he must face life and death indifferently when it comes to revenge, it would be better not to die. “Can’t you guys assign a few people to protect me?” “Haha, Mr. Xiao, stop joking. How could that happen? After all, there’s too much conflict between players, and our manpower is limited; we can’t protect everyone. It’s not like we can look after anyone who gets into trouble. We are a law enforcement agency, not a security company. We can only ensure no criminal escapes.” Xiao Jie wasn’t surprised by this response; being just an ordinary person, what right did he have to demand protection? The assurance that they wouldn’t let any criminal go was enough. After hanging up, Xiao Jie sighed. Now, he could only hope for national power to intervene. Although he felt that Liu Qiang probably wouldn’t dare to directly attack him, and if he did, he would likely be doomed too. But trusting his fate to others really irked Xiao Jie. He was too weak, always needing others to protect him. If he were powerful enough, none of this would be necessary. Dare to provoke me and I’ll kill your whole family; those words about seeking power he had said to Liu Qiang weren’t entirely a performance but had come from his heart as well. There was a moment when Xiao Jie almost couldn’t resist the urge to withdraw all his money to buy gold, then just like that morning’s I Want to Be Immortal, set up some Equipment and go outside the village to grind and level up. But he restrained himself, picked up his bowl with an expressionless face, and started eating. With each bite, his face showed his helplessness; what a waste of a bowl of noodles, all clumped together. After struggling to finish his lunch, Xiao Jie returned to his computer. He opened the Endless Sea of Consciousness forum post on how to chop wood, and it was already filled with numerous responses. [Who still chops wood to make fire these days?] [Probably a blogger who’s into wilderness survival.] [Is there any trick to chopping wood? Just chop away.] “Use an axe, what on earth is a Firewood Axe?” “I chopped wood when I was young, and when chopping wood, you should chop along the grain. The branches at the nodes have a texture, and following the texture makes it much easier to chop down. Never chop vertically against the trunk; that makes it easy to chip the blade.” “First, don’t chop at knots or other hard spots, and second, the blade angle must be correct. When chopping at an angle, there needs to be a certain angle between the blade’s direction and your viewing direction. Since the blade is conical, chopping will affect it with a tangential torque, so you need to reserve an angle in advance to realign it.” Xiao Jie’s eyes lit up, so that’s how it was. Indeed, there are experts in everything, even in something as simple as chopping wood. But when it comes down to it, it’s quite simple: avoid the solid parts, hit the hollows, and master the angle and force. In other games, such precise operations might be hard to achieve, but in Old Soil, because the graphics were sufficiently realistic and the details of the branches were fully rendered, one could control the angle and force of the attack using the mouse. Of course, it required high skill, but that was not a problem for him. He searched the internet for some pictures of branches, compared them for a while, and quickly grasped the concept of chopping along the grain. Re-entering the game, Xiao Jie went to the back mountain and found a dead tree for a closer inspection. Sure enough, there were many forks around the trunk of the tree, each with a diagonal cut. Xiao Jie raised the Firewood Axe, aimed at a diagonal cut, thought for a moment, then slightly tilted it to leave some angle for the torque and fiercely chopped down. There was a crack. System prompt: dry firewood +1. Another chop down. System prompt: dry firewood +1. Haha, so easy! However, joy turned to sorrow when the mouse slightly shook and he ended up chopping onto the trunk—crack! Chopping failure! Luckily, it was just a failure, and it did not decrease the durability. Xiao Jie steadied his mind, found the right angle, and chopped down once more. This time, there were no mistakes. Crack—crack—crack—crack! Xiao Jie chopped one dry firewood per chop, and in a matter of moments, he had turned a whole dead tree into a bare trunk. Xiao Jie immediately switched to a different tree, and in less than five minutes, he had gathered a bundle of firewood, effectively doubling his efficiency. The more he chopped, the happier Xiao Jie felt; this was definitely going to be lucrative. Crack! When another tree’s branches had been completely chopped off, System prompt: Your Chopping Skill has upgraded to Master Level. “Chopping Wood (Master) Passive effect: When chopping wood, energy consumption is reduced by 20%, and the critical hit rate is increased by 20%. Skill description: Through continuous repetition of chopping wood, you’ve successfully mastered some techniques and methods, thus advancing this seemingly ordinary skill to a Master level. Now you can chop wood faster and better.” Critical hits in chopping wood? What’s that effect? The answer appeared soon, after five or six chops. Crack! A single chop actually chopped down two branches together. Big success in chopping wood—dry firewood +2. Well… it added a bit of a sense of achievement to the otherwise monotonous job of chopping wood. With the increasing number of critical hits, Xiao Jie actually started to feel excited; it was a simple wood chopping game, but it also gave him a rare sense of achievement. It was definitely more interesting than those boring online games currently on the market. He spent the whole afternoon chopping wood and indeed, once he found the right method, his gains greatly increased, not only was energy consumed more slowly, but the durability of the Firewood Axe hardly decreased at all. By three o’clock in the afternoon, his bag was fully packed with dry firewood. This time he exchanged them for 200 Wen at Wang Daniu’s place. After buying four steamed buns to fully satiate his hunger, Xiao Jie continued chopping wood. When he had upgraded his Chopping Skill from Master Level to Expert, a system prompt sounded, making him overjoyed. “System prompt: Through continuous uninterrupted wood chopping, you have gradually mastered the use of knife weapons, from the Chopping Wood skill you have comprehended the associated skill ‘Knife Weapon Mastery (entry-level)’.”