Retrograde Gaming

Chapter 55: The Acquisition of Level 15 Skills

Li Huailin had no idea where Isaac came from. But in order to make sure that he didn’t miss anything, Li Huailin spent some more time walking around the area, however, he didn’t gain anything else. In fact, he couldn’t even find the exit!

Ordinary players could always use the divine sword and kill themselves if they couldn’t find the exit, this option didn’t work for Li Huailin. Fortunately, he still had more than a hundred bottles of health potions with him.

Li Huailin reminded himself that the first thing he should do when he went back to the main city was to buy some Scrolls of Town Portal, just in case he might get trapped in a strange place again. After consuming 20 bottles of health potions, his over 4,000 health points finally reached the bottom.

When he stepped out of the respawn point, Li Huailin found that the air was rather refreshing. The Lava Crack was definitely not a pleasant place to stay in, Li Huailin couldn’t help and hurriedly gasp for some fresh air as soon as he came back.

After checking his bag, Li Huailin was glad to find that he didn’t lose anything. He got quite lucky this time.

Without any hesitation, he ran to a store and immediately bought some Scrolls of Town Portal in case he might forget.

The grocery store was quite easy to find. The owner of the grocery store was a woman in her forties named Jennie. Li Huailin took a quick glance at the items sold in the store and found that nothing was special. He also bought some torches at the price of 50 Copper Coins each. He wouldn’t feel sorry if he lost them when he died anyways. The Scroll of Town Portal was worth 4 Silver Coins each. Even though it wasn’t cheap, it was still quite acceptable.

The option to beat up the owner and get a discounted price was something that Li Huailin considered. However, since the owner was a woman, Li Huailin couldn’t allow himself to do so. In addition, he believed that the discount wouldn’t really make a huge difference as the items sold weren’t very expensive. He bought 5 Scrolls of Town Portal in total just in case he would lose too many scrolls when he died.

Li Huailin recalled another thing when he stepped out of the grocery store. It was time for him to learn new skills now. In this game, players could learn new skills every time when their levels reached in the multiples of 5. Li Huailin had already reached level 16 for a while, but he never went to learn new skills. He was too busy lately.

Since he had time to spare, then Li Huailin thought, ‘Why not now?’. With this in mind, Li Huailin quickly ran to another location. The first place he visited was the Warrior’s guildhall, a place in which Li Huailin was very familiar with.

As soon as Li Huailin entered the hall, he saw his old acquaintance, Ernst, the Warrior instructor, the man was once beaten up by him for a few minutes in the recent past. Ernst stood in the middle while surrounded by many junior and senior players. The entire place was fully packed and the queue had already extended all the way to the stairs.

Li Huailin didn’t find it surprising. He was 3-4 days faster than most players when he stepped out of the newbie village. But now, it was the peak time when a lot of players were coming out of the newbie village. Also, increasingly more people had started to play the game, Heart of Glory.

It was true that Heart of Glory was doing quite well right now. Some big guilds had even started moving into this game from other popular ones. The top ten guilds nationwide had all made their announcements regarding this. Even though Li Huailin had also played many other games before, he definitely had to say that the immersion brought to him in Heart of Glory was unparalleled.

Li Huailin believed that the Night Flyer’s guild was going to be even busier very soon. He really should hurry up and sell them this quest today.

For now, Li Huailin wanted to learn some new skills first.

“Kickass Brother?”

Although Li Huailin looked totally different because he was wearing a full set of chain armor, a player nearby still recognized him. It seemed that he was really famous now.

“Kickass Brother? Where is he?” Another player hurriedly asked.

“You’re right! It’s him in the pinned forum thread!”

“Kickass Brother!” The Warrior guildhall was suddenly filled with greetings.

“Umm… Good evening, everyone.” Li Huailin casually waved his hand.

“Kickass Brother, are you here to beat up the Warrior instructor again?” One of the players joked.

“Kickass Brother, I heard you were caught harassing women.”

“Kickass Brother, I heard that you were interested in your neighbor’s little pig. That’s quite something!”

“Sh*t!” Li Huailin was immediately outraged by these words. “Which son of bitch is seeking death?”

The scene quickly quieted down. Because there were too many people here, Li Huailin didn’t know who said what. Everyone simply continued staring at Li Huailin.

“Make some space for me, I need to learn some skills.” Li Huailin said in a confident voice.

The rest of the players immediately moved out of the way. While scratching his head, Li Huailin was a bit surprised as he didn’t expect that the players would actually listen to him.

He walked straight towards Ernst.

“My honorable Warrior, it’s you!” Ernst said in a sincere tone to Li Huailin, “You look even stronger now. Are you here for new skills?”

“Yes, we talked about it last time. They’re free, right?” Li Huailin was very straightforward.

“Don’t worry, Warrior. It’s all free for you,” Ernst nodded.

“Okay, let me see what we have here.”

Li Huailin opened up the skill box and took a look. Only two skills were available: one for combat and one for defense.

Heroic Strike Level 1 (0/500): Increases the next attack by 10 points and generates a great amount of aggro. Instant cast, Consumes 12 Mana Points. 12 seconds cooldown. Learning Cost: 0 Gold Coins.

Taunt (No Level): Forces monsters to attack you. Lasts for 2 seconds. Instant cast, consumes 0 Mana Points. 6 seconds cooldown. Learning Cost: 0 Gold Coins.

Both of these skills would force enemies to attack the player. This arrangement was quite reasonable since a Warrior player would probably start challenging dungeons as soon as he or she reached Level 15. A Warrior definitely needed these skills in order to correctly play a role in a party. Even though Li Huailin also had another skill book in his bank, he still had to wait until he reached Level 20.

After leaving the crowded Warrior guildhall, Li Huailin decided to find the NPC first before talking to Night Flyer. Martin told Li Huailin that his elder brother could be found in the craftsmen district.

Meanwhile, Li Huailin started calling Red Moon to make plans for selling the pile of equipment.