Chapter 190 : Chapter 190
Chapter : 190
[Family, who understands this? I met a profiteer in the game.]
0L: This profiteer is simply too much of a profiteer.
1L: This profiteer is simply too much of a profiteer.
2L: This profiteer is simply too much of a profiteer.
..
8L: Didn't understand. What kind of formation is this? Is the forum using secret codes now? Can anyone decode this?
9L: This profiteer (Haha, 8th floor is too honest, definitely not a player from our Rock Town.)
10L: Seeing this post, I feel relieved. It seems I'm not the only one whose purse was emptied. (Silence)
11L replying to 8L: They should be talking about that Traveling Merchant NPC in Rock Town. Didn't a player post about that Traveling Merchant's quest on the forum before? After completing the quest, players in that area can open the Traveling Merchant's item list. That quest was completed today, and everyone online went to join the fun.
12L: Family, who understands this? I saved up that little bit of gold in my backpack, and contributed it all to that profiteer. He even lent me money to buy his stuff QAQ. My brain short-circuited and I agreed. Now I'm carrying a debt of ten thousand gold coins in the game too. Boohoo.
13L: One look and I can tell you guys didn't download the anti-fraud app. (Shaking head)
14L: But those skills look really tempting! I learned two spells, and my efficiency in grinding monsters increased later. I sold an item I just got for quite a few gold coins. I feel I can save up enough gold to pay off the debt very soon.
15L: What skills? Isn't there only an item list? I saw the things in that item list were useless to me, so I ignored it. Does the item list also sell skills?
16L: Selling skills in the item list???
17L: Wait, what are you all talking about? What Traveling Merchant? Why don't we have one in Norman 02??
18 replying to 17L: This seems to be a special encounter NPC. He only spawns after certain conditions are met. To open the item list, you have to do a quest first. It seems he doesn't stay permanently either. That Traveling Merchant NPC said he would only stay in Rock Town for two days.
19L: Damn it, give me back my hard-earned gold coins, profiteer!!!
20 replying to 15L: It's another skill tab. You need to spend money and skill points to learn from the Traveling Merchant. But unlocking it seems to require affection points. Someone has already compiled the functions of items in the Traveling Merchant's item list and the conditions for the skill tab to appear. It's in this post -> [Click the link to enter: Summary of Rock Town Traveling Merchant NPC's Item List and Skill List]
21L: Damn it, why is it so hard to gain affection with this NPC? You need to spend ten thousand gold coins with him just to increase affection by one point?!
22L: By the way, can't you borrow money to buy from that NPC? Just borrow a bit more, buy everything in one go, and then refuse to acknowledge the debt later.
23L: 22nd floor, your thinking is beautiful, but after signing that contract, it can be forcibly deducted from your system purse. Four-fifths of the money you get from doing quests and killing monsters later will be directly deducted to pay off the debt.
24L: Four-fifths... who wouldn't call this a profiteer upon seeing it!
25L: Great, it's a profiteer! We are saved!
26L: He could have just robbed my gold coins directly, but he insisted on giving me an item. This Traveling Merchant is just too nice. (Teary eyes)
27L: It's cold, the Traveling Merchant reaches into your purse to warm his hands.JPG
28L: This profiteer is simply too much of a profiteer!
...
Yan Yunqing coughed twice, closing all these posts accusing him of being a profiteer, feeling a little guilty.
Actually, he didn't intend to be so excessive. After all, being a 'profiteer' was just an attribute he added to his disguised [Nolan] identity. However, after successfully completing the first transaction, Yan Yunqing discovered a tiny loophole in the system.
The proceeds from the things he sold would go to him, including those skills. When players spent gold coins and skill points to learn from him, those gold coins and skill points all belonged to him.
Those were skill points!
Every level up only gave five points. They only appeared as rewards for certain hidden quests or as probable drops in dungeons, showing how rare skill points were.
Previously, when he discovered he could issue quests rewarding skill points, he wanted to use his player alt to take the quests himself, but gave up because his two identities couldn't be controlled simultaneously.
Now discovering he could actually obtain skill points from players, how could he resist swindling players?
In the future, he could first issue a quest with skill point rewards. After players completed the quest and got the skill point rewards, he would then dangle his skill panel in front of the players, successfully obtaining the skill points handed over by the players.
This way, he got skill points, and players got skills and quest experience. The best of both worlds, how wonderful.
Not only that, he could also get a batch of useful player laborers, even scrape more gold coins from players, and incidentally clear out the junk items he got from blind boxes in his backpack.
A win-win, meaning Yan Yunqing wins twice. A triple win, meaning Yan Yunqing wins three times.
Great, it's a profiteer! We are saved.
The smile on Yan Yunqing's face could almost not be hidden.
It would be great if he could get some experience from players too. Unfortunately, items in the item list couldn't be bought directly with experience.
Yan Yunqing lacked experience but not gold coins. If it could be changed to experience, he wouldn't even need to do quests anymore. Harvesting a crop of leeks from players every day would be enough.
Painless leveling.
Thinking this way, Yan Yunqing glanced at his level, and with just this glance, he couldn't help being stunned.
Huh? When did he become level 75? Wasn't he level 74 before?
Yan Yunqing found it strange. He clearly remembered his level was just a little bit short of breaking through to level 75.
He had planned to find time to kill a monster to make up for the missing experience. How did he suddenly level up?
He clearly remembered he hadn't killed monsters or done quests recently. Where did this experience come from?
If anything, he just issued two quests to players and the players completed them...
...Hm?
No way?
Yan Yunqing hesitated. Could it be that when he issued quests to players, he would also gain experience upon completion?
This... surely this was his cheat, right?
Yan Yunqing, who once felt the existence of the system and the game was monitoring him to some extent, fell silent.
Weird.
Yan Yunqing rubbed his hair, deciding to put this matter aside for now. He continued browsing the forum, reading through all the recent posts complaining about the game, extracting a bit of information from the players' few words.
Indeed, official personnel had entered the game.
Yan Yunqing's expression was strange because he found posts suspected to be issued by official personnel to control public opinion among these threads.
The presence of those posts was actually not strong, and it was even hard to tell they were posts controlling public opinion.
However, Yan Yunqing had experience in this area. His parents were both police officers who died in the line of duty. It could be said Yan Yunqing grew up in the police station.
Plus, he was later adopted by his uncle, who was his parents' colleague and superior. He knew about those things in the police station.
Especially after fully entering the internet era, the police station also had a so-called internet police department.
Not only did they need to be responsible for cybersecurity, but sometimes they were also responsible for controlling some negative public opinion.
Yan Yunqing knew the ins and outs of the rhetoric used by officials for public opinion control. Although these posts were done more cleverly and were inconspicuous, Yan Yunqing observed these posts already having some guesses, so he naturally could see the significance of many posts.
Yan Yunqing smacked his lips twice and really tasted something from it.
For example—official personnel were guiding players to be wary of this world. They seemed to also believe this world was a real existing world.
This was interesting. Why would official personnel think so? Did they know something?
Yan Yunqing never looked down on anyone because of his specialness. Just like even though he held the title of Demon King, he very much wanted to know what the prophecy was, but he still didn't dare to be arrogant and go directly to Theodore relying on his Demon King identity.
He was even less likely to look down on official personnel, thinking they knew less than him just because they entered the game a year later than him.
Sometimes taking oneself too seriously leads to big losses.
Yan Yunqing lowered his eyes in thought for a long time, found a safe place, and switched to his player alt.
[Good Day] online.
Including the few days he was trapped in the dream, he hadn't logged into this player alt for about ten days. [Good Day]'s level was about to fall out of the top 100 on the leaderboard, though he was still in the top 50 on the wealth leaderboard.
It seemed players were really leveling up very hard.
Yan Yunqing glanced at the level leaderboard. Number one was level 21. This level was a breakaway first place; the second place on the level leaderboard was only level 19. They were already leading others by 2 levels.
Yan Yunqing leveled up [Good Day] to level 18, instantly jumping from 98th place to 7th place on the leaderboard, maintaining a position in the forefront but not particularly conspicuous.
Looking at the level 21 of the first place, Yan Yunqing inexplicably felt a bit of urgency. Although leveling up in the early stages of this game was indeed fast, and everyone would slow down in the later stages, Yan Yunqing still felt these players were too competitive.
He was only 54 levels higher than the players. He always felt he would be caught up by these grinding maniacs at any time.
Then his mysterious persona wouldn't be safe. If the level gap was too small, players' reconnaissance skills could probe out the real stuff.
He had to quickly widen the gap some more.
Yan Yunqing thought while adding the IDs Merlin gave him to special attention. This way, as long as he got close to them, the system panel would prompt him.
Everything ready, he asked 'Flame' for the location of one of the players with those IDs.
OK, ready to go scam.
***
Outskirts of Norman Forest.
A small team consisting of three swordsmen and two mages appeared here. In front of them was a low-level demonic beast, Yan Yunqing's old friend, the [Ghost-faced Earthworm].
One of the mages threw a Fireball Spell, smashing onto the Ghost-faced Earthworm's face—if it could be counted as a face.
After all, apart from its long strip-like body constantly dripping with mucus, only a mouthpiece full of tiny sharp teeth remained.
The fireball landed on that mouthpiece, and the Ghost-faced Earthworm let out a hoarse and unpleasant screech, causing the five people present to frown.
The mage who threw the Fireball Spell complained: "Where exactly does this guy make sound from? And why can an earthworm make sound anyway?"
"This is a magical world, and you're still hung up on why an earthworm can make sound?" Another swordsman agilely dodged the Ghost-faced Earthworm's attack and slashed his sword onto the Ghost-faced Earthworm's body, leaving a shallow white mark. He spat, "How exactly did this thing evolve? Can't even cut it open?"
The mage who was rebuked by the swordsman said faintly: "This is a magical world, and you're still hung up on how an earthworm evolved?"
Another person, also a swordsman but clearly the captain with the ID [Ying Yi], spoke calmly: "Focus. Kill this enem—this monster first, then chat."
The two who were bickering immediately stopped talking and concentrated on whittling down the Ghost-faced Earthworm's health bit by bit with their few attack skills.
Finally, after the last Fireball Spell landed, the Ghost-faced Earthworm crashed to the ground. Its massive body smashed onto the ground and turned into spots of light, disappearing.
Seeing this scene, the five people showed no surprise. They were a player squad from the first batch to enter the game.
Since they could step out of the novice village, they had united to fight demonic beasts. They were long accustomed to the unscientific way demonic beasts disappeared after death.
Captain [Ying Yi] looked at the items dropped by the Ghost-faced Earthworm, casually closed the window, and waved his hand for others to keep them. This kind of low-level monster wouldn't drop too many valuable items, but for them, even trash had to be kept for the people above to research.