Chapter 66 - 66 63 The Economic Theory of Leveling

66: Chapter 63 The Economic Theory of Leveling 66: Chapter 63 The Economic Theory of Leveling Xiao Jie watched his character sheathe his sword after cleanly dispatching the enemy and couldn’t help but let out a long sigh of relief from behind the screen. His form was finally returning, and, with the increase in his character’s attributes and the completeness of his skills, the handling of his character finally started to resemble that of those action games he had played before. At last, he could start taking advantage of his operational skills. The entire battle, except for the start where he failed to execute Blade Reflection and was hit by a sword, didn’t cost him a drop of blood. “Awesome, Feng! Your moves are so smooth!” I Want To Be Immortal exclaimed dizzily while watching, loudly praising him. “Heh, not bad, right? You’re up next.” “No problem!” I Want To Be Immortal said, eager to give it a try. Xiao Jie picked up the copper coins dropped by the mountain bandits, and the two continued up the slope. They hadn’t gone far before they encountered another mountain bandit. Xiao Jie paused, but I Want To Be Immortal stepped forward. Starting with bow and arrow to pull the aggro, he watched the mountain bandit charge at him with great ferocity, and I Want To Be Immortal immediately executed a leaping chop. That leap was somewhat embarrassing—because of the high load, he only jumped a little over a meter, and the motion of chopping down with the Giant Axe was also somewhat clumsy. The mountain bandit abruptly stopped, and I Want To Be Immortal’s axe chop hit nothing but air; the moment he landed, the bandit swung his sword. But I Want To Be Immortal didn’t dodge or evade—instead, he took the bandit’s attack head-on and released a combat skill. Splitting—Stone— Halfway through Charging, the bandit’s large sword struck I Want To Be Immortal. Rip! Amidst the sound of metal friction, a red number -11 popped up above I Want To Be Immortal’s head. His iron armor was really tough; the sword strike he took was completely negligible. And I Want To Be Immortal’s Combat Skill was finally unleashed. Chop! With a squelch, the axe solidly hit the mountain bandit. -59! The damage was indeed surprising; 20 points of Strength combined with the Combat Skill’s power almost wiped out a third of the bandit’s Blood Volume in one go. The mountain bandit screamed, but didn’t back down and continued with two consecutive chops. -10! -11! I Want To Be Immortal followed the same strategy, bearing the attacks and striking again with his heavy axe. Splitting—Stone—Slash! Squelch! -62! The mountain bandit’s Blood Volume was cut in half, and he was struck by a stun. I Want To Be Immortal followed up with a Charging Heavy Strike on the kneeling bandit! Knocking him flat to the ground. He moved in to deliver the finishing blow! With an axe chop to the bandit lying on the ground, he completed the execution. Xiao Jie watched and couldn’t help exclaiming, “Damn, I Want To Be Immortal’s fighting style may not be as pleasing to the eye as mine, but it sure has a satisfying sense of brutality.” It could be said that it lacked any finesse, focusing squarely on trading health; relying on the temporary toughness granted by Splitting Stone Slash that prevented the Combat Skill from being easily interrupted, and the damage mitigation from the iron armor, he made the fight incredibly simple and crude. It has to be said, there are advantages to being reckless. His tactic of monster-hunting was definitely efficient, utterly unreasonable. Even when facing shield-bearing mountain bandits, he wasn’t concerned—his Giant Axe came with a shield-breaking effect. The only problem with this style was that it was a bit too draining on blood bottles; on average, he had to drink one after killing a monster. A bottle of golden sore medicine (small) cost 50 wen, and a mountain bandit dropped around 25 wen on average, meaning he was at a deficit of 25 wen for each kill. Of course, bandits might drop items, but players’ equipment also needs repair. Although the iron armor was very durable, repair costs were probably not cheap, so he was likely still running at a loss overall. Considering everything, he expected he could probably reduce the deficit to about 20 wen per kill. Twenty wen—that’s 200 yuan. Kill a hundred monsters, and 20,000 yuan would be gone… Xiao Jie quickly calculated the costs in his mind. “How’s that for efficiency, Feng? Not bad, huh?” I Want to Be Immortal said excitedly, downing a bottle of Little Red. “The efficiency is pretty high, but it seems like it’s costing a lot of money.” “No big deal, I can afford the cost of the medicines,” I Want to Be Immortal said, unconcerned. He had brought a backpack full of golden sore medicine on this trip. “As long as you can handle it it’s fine, but don’t worry, let’s each fight a few on our own to practice, and once we’re warmed up we can join forces.” So the two resumed their battle. They were leveling, as well as practicing combat skills. The mountain bandits were quite suitable for practice, possessing a certain strength, but not being too strong. I Want to Be Immortal’s fighting style was as simple and brutal as ever, taking the mountain bandits’ attacks head-on and mindlessly unleashing combat skills, then following up with charging attacks and execution after achieving hard control. In contrast, Xiao Jie’s way of fighting was much more elegant, taking advantage of high Agility and the speed bonus from light load to continuously dodge enemy attacks with Hawk Roll and Rolling, then looking for opportunities to deal damage. When fully focused, he could even manage to kill the enemy without losing a drop of blood. Of course, this method was quite draining on the Spirit, requiring occasional breaks. Occasionally, Xiao Jie would also try Blade Reflection, but unfortunately, this move was difficult to execute, and out of five or six attempts, he only succeeded twice. That success rate was not really high; it was okay to get hit a couple of times by little monsters when showing off, but if it happened against a boss monster due to a mistake, it could be fatal. It seemed that practicing Blade Reflection still had a long way to go. When both of them felt they had practiced enough, Xiao Jie began to have I Want to Be Immortal join in the fight. The two of them, along with two dogs, made short work of single mountain bandits, pummeling them as if it were a game. Coming across two bandits at once, they each took one and, with the help of the hunting dogs, could also deal with them easily. In just one morning, the two of them had cleared out nearly half of the mountain ridge’s bandits. However, as they gradually neared the mountain bandit camp the density of monsters increased, and Xiao Jie had to halt their advance. At this moment, Xiao Jie’s Experience Points had already risen to 53%. At this rate, another level up was possible by nightfall. Yet Xiao Jie felt that the amount of Experience Points needed for leveling was getting higher and higher; despite the fact that today’s monster-slaying efficiency had improved considerably and the mountain bandits provided more Experience Points than straw men, it was still slower than yesterday. According to Wang Kai, at Level 30 one was considered an advanced player, and those over Level 40 were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns, ranking among the top players. Ordinary players were generally over ten levels or over Level 20; evidently, the Experience Points required in the later stages must be outrageously high. Chopping down bandits was clearly much harder on weapons than chopping straw men – it looked like I’d need to carry several extra weapons in the future. “We can’t go forward, there are too many monsters spawning ahead, and if we draw too many, it’ll be dangerous.” “Feng, it should be fine, I feel like the two of us can handle three without any problems.” “No, we can’t take the risk.” Even though they could probably defeat three mountain bandits, even just a 10% chance of making a mistake was unnecessary. Besides, after cutting down so many bandits, their weapons’ Durability was running low. Their blood bottles were almost depleted as well. It was time to head back and regroup. The two began their return journey, only to be surprised by the sudden respawn of the previously cleared mountain bandits just as they were about to descend the mountain. And this time, two appeared at once. “One each, finish them off quickly – we should not stay here too long!” Xiao Jie said and quickly engaged one of the mountain bandits. He knew very well that the respawn time for the mountain bandits was probably around 3 hours; if they stayed any longer, the bandits they had cleared out would likely all respawn. Getting surrounded would spell trouble. It was now time to rush down the mountain to regroup, and they could come back in the afternoon for another round. They quickly ended the battle, but unexpectedly, one of the bandits dropped a knife. Huh, finally some loot. They had only dropped garbage like clothes and trousers all morning, but now, at last, a weapon had dropped.