Retrograde Gaming

Chapter 7: This Is What Leveling Up Is

Translator: Henyee Translations

Editor: Henyee Translations

Although Li Huailin wildly slapped Bard the blacksmith, he didn’t really obtain any tangible benefits. As he looked at his experience bar that had already turned to -500/500, he honestly felt that he was under a lot of pressure. He figured that he was probably the one with the least amount of experience amongst the several hundred million players in the entire Chinese region—the lowest amongst the lowest.

‘I have to level up soon, or else I’ll never leave the newbie village in this lifetime.’ Li Huailin thought

After finally making up his mind, he headed towards the south of the newbie village. Fortunately, the mining cave’s location wasn’t that hard to find, just as he left the newbie village, he found some new players carrying picks. After he followed these players for a while, he finally found the mining cave. With a quick rough estimate, he figured that the journey from the newbie village to the mining cave was about five minutes.

Once he entered the mining cave, a scene buzzing with activity caught his eyes. On the side of the entrance of the mining cave was a densely packed row of players. All of these players were following a single systematic movement, they were striking at the wall with their picks. The tinkling sounds made him somewhat jittery.

After Li Huailin gave it some thought, he didn’t immediately run into the depths of the mining cave to find high-level monsters. Instead, he picked up the ancestral mining pick that Bard the blacksmith gave him, he then found a wall where no one was working on.

‘Bang!’ Li Huailin’s pick struck the wall. However, the wall didn’t react at all, he didn’t receive any ores either.

‘It’s reasonable to assume that ores aren’t that easily obtained, otherwise, the number of ores circulating around would be through the roof if one strike meant one piece.’ Li Huailin continued to mine as he thought about this.

‘Kuang! Kuang! Kuang!’ After nearly thirty strikes, he finally had a reaction.

System Notice: You received a piece of iron ore.

When Li Huailin checked his inventory, he found an extra piece of four-quality iron ore. It’s estimated sale price was 5 copper coins. After doing so, he then immediately checked his character attributes.

Support Class:

Miner Apprentice (Experience -2/1000): After using the mining skill in the mine cave, there’s an extremely small chance to dig out rare iron ore.

“Hehe…” Seeing his Support Class experience turn negative, Li Huailin could only laugh helplessly, “Fortunately, I was already prepared for this, a Support Class isn’t something I can play as expected.”

Without any further words, Li Huailin immediately raised the mining pick in his hand, he shouted at the group of players who were mining at the side, “Everyone! Come take a look, this is the village blacksmith’s ancestral mining pick, a Bronze-grade equipment. It can speed up mining by 20%! It’s an absolutely lethal weapon in this world, I’m only selling it for 10 Silver Coins, There’s only one in stock, first come first serve! You won’t lose out with 10 Silver Coins, you won’t be duped over for 10 Silver Coins….”

“Oh sh*t! A pick that speeds up mining by 20%? What a f*cking divine tool!” These surrounding players had all been mining for several hours, the repetitive task made them break down a little. Now that they heard someone was hawking a divine tool that could speed up mining, they all had coveting eyes, each and every one of them looked towards Li Huailin.

“Come, I’m only selling it for 10 Silver Coins! The first person to trade with me can take it away,” Li Huailin continued to shout.

Just as he finished saying this, a heap of trade requests was quickly sent his way, Li Huailin didn’t expect this gang of mining players to actually have a decent amount of money. Although 10 Silver Coins weren’t much, this amount would still be considered quite a bit during the newbie village stage. Li Huailin looked at his trade request records and discovered that the name of the first person to send a request was Wolf Clan-Miner Twenty.

“Someone from the Wolf Clan Union?” Li Huailin quickly sent a private message to Miner Twenty.

“Yeah friend, I’m from the logistics department in the Wolf Clan Union.” After seeing Li Huailin send a private message to him, Miner Twenty was a little excited. Upon being reminded that he was only a mining employee in the logistics department of a large union, if he were to obtain a Bronze-grade mining pick right now, he might have the chance to be promoted!

“Do you have 10 Silver Coins on you?” Li Huailin asked.

“I do, I do.” Miner Twenty immediately responded.

“Alright, let’s trade.” Li Huailin put up the pick for trading. On the other side, Miner Twenty checked the equipment attributes, it was as Li Huailin said! This equipment increased mining speed by 20%, and so, he thereupon happily put up 10 Silver Coins for trading.

“Alright, the mining pick’s been sold, those who didn’t get to buy it will have to wait for next time.” After the trade was completed, Li Huailin shouted this towards the heap of miners who were still hoping to get the mining pick.

“What? It’s already been traded? Didn’t I send in my trade request? Why didn’t you accept it!?” A player on the side shouted.

“You sent it a little late, I said first come first serve, I already traded it to the first person who sent in the request,” Li Huailin explained.

“Which guy bought the pick? I’m willing to spend 15 Silver Coins to buy it!” Another player immediately shouted.

Just as he finished shouting this, everyone discovered a player in the area who was checking out a green glowing mining pick, this player was Miner Twenty.

“That’s him!” The group of people immediately abandoned Li Huailin and circled around Miner Twenty.

“Hurry up and sell the pick to me!” A player shouted a little neurotically.

“I didn’t say I was selling it.” Miner Twenty looked at the surrounding players who had circled around him, he couldn’t help but swallow…

No matter what would happen to Miner Twenty, it had nothing to do with him, after seeing that the surrounding people changed their target, Li Huailin figured that it was time for him to leave. Now that the pick had been sold, he was really going to start on his great leveling scheme.

After walking a little further into the mining cave, the scenery inside immediately changed. The mining cave’s entrance at the start was a massive lobby, hence, many people could mine there. Whereas, after walking a little further in, it suddenly turned into a true mining road. Moreover, there were over a dozen roads here, every mining road was around four to five meters wide—he had no idea as to where these roads would lead to.

The lighting inside these mining roads were extremely awful as there were only a few oil lamps used as illumination. Players were supposed to bring candles or equipment with illumination stats before coming to dark places like these, or else they would be easily ambushed by monsters. However, since Li Huailin came here purely to die, he didn’t really care whether he was ambushed or not.

After randomly choosing a path, Li Huailin walked right inside. After trekking for a short while, he finally encountered a monster.

Cave Bat: Health Points 300, Physical Attack 45, Physical Defense 30.

“Great!” Li Huailin quickly rushed over without any further words.

-35

The Cave Bat was a level six monster, it was 5 levels higher than Li Huailin. Not to mention, Li Huailin was still wearing newbie equipment, he only had two points of Defense. This was why his health bar instantly went down by 35 points.

“Impressive! It’s an impressive monster as expected!” Li Huailin was extremely excited now. It was as that player said, the monsters inside the mining cave were really impressive!

-37, -40

Before he could exclaim anything, the Cave Bat attacked twice more. Li Huailin’s head immediately went crooked—he finally died.

The screen immediately turned grey, and in the next second, Li Huailin appeared at the respawn point of the newbie village.

“This is exactly the effect I wanted!” While excited, Li Huailin immediately ran back to the mining cave.

After Li Huailin ran to the lobby of the mining cave, the group of people who were originally here trying to buy the mining pick had dispersed. As for who ended up with the mining pick in the end? He didn’t really care about it, his only thoughts were about leveling up right now.

Li Huailin quickly chose another mining road that didn’t have many people, he charged in blindly once again. And in less than two minutes, he died once more and respawned in the newbie village.

“Yes! The time spent running there is roughly five minutes, and finding a monster to kill me takes roughly two minutes…” Li Huailin quickly calculated the time it took/ “I need to die 18 more times to level up to level two, this means it’s roughly 126 minutes… around 2 hours.”

After all, because he had negative experience right now, it would take a while before he reached level two. After he would finally reach level two, it would only take a mere 10 deaths to level up once. In that way, it would take him roughly 70 minutes to level up once. In order to reach level 10, a total of 126 + 70 x 9 = 756 minutes was required, this was roughly 12.5 hours. This was really way faster compared to other players! The fastest of them would take at least three days before they could reach level 10 and leave the village.

“This is what leveling up is!” Li Huailin said giddily.