Retrograde Gaming

Chapter 27: You’ve Been Put Through Some Trouble

Translator: Henyee Translations

Editor: Henyee Translations

Li Huailin really didn’t know that the women were talking about him behind his back, and that they were already prepared to dispatch a powerful member to drag him into the guild. Ever since he discovered that health potions could be drunk as poison for him, Li Huailin’s mind mused on this.

Relying on his movement speed bonus, Li Huailin could easily take two strides as three, he ran back to the City of Divine Protection in no time. His target was naturally the alchemy store in the main city. Although he had never been there before, it was still quite easy to find.

The main city’s alchemy store was situated in the southern part of the city’s business district, it was a three-story western style building. The first floor was where the potions were sold, however, only a few varieties of potions were offered and they were quite expensive. The second floor was where Alchemy was taught—one could learn and level up their Alchemy skills here—while the third floor had alchemy labs that could be rented. Players only needed to pay a certain fee to use a room on the third floor. Because these rooms were similar to dungeons, everyone was separated inside, they were filled with all sorts of alchemical apparatuses in order to make it convenient for players to learn Alchemy.

The potion merchant on the first floor was a male NPC in his fifties, he wore a medium-grade alchemist uniform—his appearance seemed rather amiable—however, the players who regularly bought things here all knew that this guy was an unscrupulous merchant.

Li Huailin jogged all the way to the entrance of the alchemy store, and before he even went in, two players suddenly stopped Li Huailin in his tracks.

“This player here, do you want to buy…” Just when a player in a newbie’s three-piece set wanted to speak, Li Huailin interrupted him immediately.

“I don’t have time, let’s talk later!” Li Huailin had no spare time to bother with these people, he hurriedly went to find an NPC to buy potions from.

“Hm? You… you seem like… Kickass Brother?” This player suddenly recalled Li Huailin’s appearance, he couldn’t help but shout out in surprise.

“What? Kickass Brother?” The other players who were minding their own business heard this shout and immediately shifted their attention towards him. Many people have already seen the pinned threads on the forums, they soon recognized Li Huailin.

“It really is Kickass Brother!” a player shouted excitedly.

“Kickass Brother, why do you have time to come here!?”

“Oh sh*t! I understand now, the owner of the potion shop is going to suffer!” a player suddenly yelled in realization.

“Yes! That’s definitely it! As expected, Kickass Brother also thinks that the owner of the potion store is such a fraud!”

“Yes, yes, the potion shop’s owner is absolutely a profiteer, a single bottle of the 30 minute Small Strength Potion sells for 5 Silver Coins, this is completely bullying us solo players who can’t farm money easily,” a player said in indignation.

“Kickass Brother, beat that profiteer to death! We support you!” a bunch of players shouted one after another.

“Yes, don’t worry, don’t worry.” Li Huailin waved his hand downwards in a gesture to calm them down. “Please make way first.”

The players immediately parted to allow Li Huailin to pass through, and at the same time, they immediately started the recording function in the game, preparing to film the evident face slapping.

Once Li Huailin entered the store, he saw the NPC owner. This merchant was quite different from the impressive and lofty Warrior instructors, after seeing Li Huailin, he didn’t call him a rookie, brat, or things of that sort. Instead, he said with a professional smile, “What sort of goods does this player need? This shop’s potions are the best in quality! We are fair in our prices, and we treat the young and old all the same.”

With the echoing sound of a ‘pa!’, without any further words, Li Huailin slapped the owner on the face.

System Notice: Since you attacked the main city’s Alchemy Store Owner, Modirc, Modric’s favorability towards you has increased by 20. Current Favorability, Friendly. Since you attacked an Alchemist Guild’s member, the Alchemist Guild’s favorability towards you has increased by 3. Current favorability, friendly.

“Who are you scaring with that f*king fake smile? Smile better for me!” Li Huailin said with a domineering expression.

On the other side, as expected, Modric changed into a more amiable smile. “This customer, what do you need?”

“Oh sh*t! Kickass Brother does things with a bang as expected! He immediately gave a show of strength and slapped the potion owner silly!” the onlooking players exclaimed in surprise.

Lii Huailin then opened the potion shop’s item menu. After a brief look, Li Huailin immediately frowned.

The potion shop’s items were quite numerous, however, all of them were things that weren’t of much use to him. For example, regarding the Status Potions on the first few pages.

Small Strength Potion: Increases 10 points of Strength, continues for 30 minutes. Selling price, 5 Silver Coins.

Small Agility Potion: Increases 10 points of Agility, continues for 30 minutes. Selling price, 5 Silver Coins.

…

Things similar to this in nature were absolutely useless to Li Huailin, he would only lose attributes upon drinking them—most importantly, the deduction was too little—if there was any potion that could lower Constitution by 100 points and continued for a day, Li Huailin would immediately fish out money to buy it.

With the latter pages being a bunch of alchemy ingredients, Li Huailin didn’t even bother to look at them anymore because he couldn’t learn a supporting class anyway.

After this were the potions that Li Huailin wanted, he discovered a total of two types of potions.

Small Healing Potion: Regenerates 20 Health Points every second, continues for 5 seconds. Selling price, 3 Silver Coins.

Medium Healing Potion: Regenerates 35 Health Points every second, continues for 6 seconds. Selling price, 10 Silver Coins.

“Sh*t! Why is this thing so expensive!?” Li Huailin was also startled, he didn’t expect a health potion to actually be this expensive. He really didn’t understand the prices of these things, he only knew that the average player only had 20 to 30 Silver Coins as their total assets in the current stage of the game, they would be broke if they bought two to three bottles of potions that were priced like these. How could they even play properly? How did normal players even level up?

The potions in ‘Heart of Glory’ were certainly awfully expensive. Unlike online games where players were heavily reliant on madly drinking potions, the potions in ‘Heart of Glory’ had great restrictions to them. Normally, people were only willing to drink potions during a dungeon raid—no one would chug down potions when they were only leveling up normally. This was why even though priests were extremely slow at fighting monsters, many people still fought to party up with them.

However, Li Huailin really didn’t know about this. When he saw the prices of the potions, he was immediately enraged as he fiercely slapped the table. “The players f*cking called it! you’re a m**herf**king profiteer! The most fraudulent kind at that!”

After Modric heard Li Huailin’s words, his expression changed drastically. “How could you humiliate me like this? The prices of these potions are all decided by the Alchemist Guild, it’s the same everywhere.”

System Notice: Since you insulted the main city’s Alchemy Store Owner, Modric, Modric’s favorability towards you has increased by 5. Current Favorability: Friendly.

“F*ck! You still dare to argue with me? Don’t blame me for not saving your face!” Li Huailin rolled up the sleeve on his right hand as he lifted Modric by the collar with his left.

‘Pa!’ Once Li Huailin raised his hand, he immediately threw a slap, his entire hand drew a full circle. This instantly knocked one of Modric’s teeth flying alongside a critical hit of 86 points.

System Notice: Since you attacked the main city’s Alchemy Store Owner, Modric, Modric’s favorability towards you has increased by 15. Current Favorability, Worship. Since you attacked an Alchemist Guild’s member, the Alchemist Guild’s favorability towards you has increased by 5. Current Favorability, Friendly.

“Hero, don’t hit me,” Modric said this with blood in his mouth, “In the future, if you make a purchase at our alchemy store, there will be a 10% discount without exceptions.”

“What the f*ck? The price can actually be lowered!?” The players behind him couldn’t help but say this.

“A f*cking 10% discount? Do you take me for a beggar!?” Li Huailin quickly calculated that it was still 9 Silver Coins if it was a 10% discount—there wasn’t much of a difference—he immediately flung another slap with the back of his hand.

This time, Li Huailin simply didn’t stop, going left and right—’Pa! Pa! Pa!’—Modric, who wasn’t high-leveled to begin with, was beaten till his face swelled to twice its original size. Quite a few of his teeth fell out during this ordeal, his entire mouth was covered in blood. This was an extremely terrifying look. Modric was already beaten to having a Worship status by Li Huailin, even the Alchemist Guild’s reputation slowly rose to 20. However, after 20 points, it no longer rose. It probably wouldn’t rise above the 20 point cap even if he killed this guy.

“How much does it cost? Think hard before you speak,” Li Huailin lifted up Modric aggressively as he aggressively said this.

“Hero, please spare my life…” Modric said while spitting out blood, “Although you have gifted me with a new lease of life, the most authority that the Alchemist Guild has granted me is only a 20% discount, I really can’t make it any cheaper.”

“What? A 20% discount? Do you take me for a beggar!?” The veins on Li Huailin’s head popped out, he pulled Modric close and slapped him violently again, all the while saying, “I spent so much effort to reward you with slaps, and you have the nerve to give me a 20% discount? Are my slaps that cheap? Don’t you know that people line up to get slapped by me? The line can already circle the Earth two and a half times! I’m actively rewarding you now, and yet you still want to take my money—do you want me to grant you a slap with my **ck!?”

“Hero, I can really only give a 20% discount.” Modric hacked out blood as he said this, his face was already beyond recognition.

“Kickass Brother, cool down, cool down, if you keep hitting him like this he’s going to die.” The players on the side originally expressed their resentment towards the Alchemy Store Owner’s profiteering behavior, but the scene at hand was really so tragic that they couldn’t help and sympathize with Modric.

“Cool down? No way! I’m going to slap him to death today!” Li Huailin said with fiery emotion.

“Kickass Brother, this guy can only give a 20% discount even after being beaten so terribly, it’s really possible that the system only set the max at 20% discount, or else, this guy would’ve definitely compromised with you,” the players on the side kindly reminded him.

“Yes, I see, you’ve got a point,” Li Huailin said after thinking about it, “However, a health potion still costs 8 Silvers Coins after a 20% f**king discount, how can I buy it?”

“Kickass Brother, you want to buy health potions?” The players who were watching at the side were suddenly delighted. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“What?” Li Huailin was confused for a moment. “Do you have some?”

“Damn, the Alchemy Store Owner really got slapped for nothing,” The players said sympathetically, “Kickass Brother, the members of our guild are on the third floor training Alchemy, we’re selling their products down here to regain the costs. You wanted a Medium Health Potion, right? We’re selling them for one per four Silver Coins, this is the market price right now, it’s definitely not expensive—you can even go ask around, this is the current price.”

“What the hell? Why didn’t you say so earlier?” Li Huailin was also a little dumbfounded.

“Actually, the two of us stopped you at the entrance to ask if you were buying potions… this is since we’re responsible for handling the alchemical products in our guild. These products are 4 Silver Coins for a bottle at the auction hall, however, there’s a service charge. In order to save money, our guild had us sell them here, 4 Silver Coins is really the lowest price we can go for—the composite materials are around this price after all,” the two players said this as they walked over, they were the ones who stopped and recognized Li Huailin at the entrance.

“…” Li Huailin turned around and patted Modric, the latter was still spitting out blood. “Sorry, I went overboard today, you’ve gone through some trouble…”