plumnovel Chapter 74 : Staff of Frostfire
Chapter 74 : Staff of Frostfire
Staff of FrostfireWhen Gu Yanxi said this, Cecilia's chopsticks clattered into her bowl with a "clang," her aquamarine eyes opening wide in surprise. She was completely stunned.
They had only not seen each other for a few days, and now the landlord had been taken away by the police?
What's more, Gu Yanxi wore an expression like she "expected this all along."
There seemed to be something odd about this family.
"What exactly happened? If it's something serious, I'll go with you to the police station."
If the landlord was taken away, Cecilia's first thought was that something major had happened. After all, unless something truly severe occurred, the police generally only gave verbal warnings and wouldn't just arrest someone.
"It's not very serious. My mom has done things like this before—not just once. The past couple of days she probably ran off with her close girlfriends to play mahjong out of town again."
Gu Yanxi stood up from the dining table, her tone heavy with exhaustion, and added, "You stay home and behave. I'll handle this embarrassing matter myself."
Hearing Gu Yanxi say this, Cecilia finally let out a breath of relief.
She had thought Yao Qian really got involved in illegal gambling, but it turned out it was only a bunch of people playing mahjong together. That was not a big deal; at most, they'd just get fined and given a warning before being released.
With Gu Yanxi's family background, they wouldn't have any trouble paying a small fine.
Even in the worst case, if they really couldn't pay, Cecilia's bank card still held close to twenty million in cash—more than enough no matter how you looked at it.
A few minutes later, Gu Yanxi had changed her clothes and put on her shoes at the door. Reminding Cecilia to stay home and be good, she then set off to pick up Yao Qian.
As for Cecilia, she finished her lunch at a leisurely pace before cleaning up the tableware.
Only after she'd finished tidying did Cecilia suddenly realize: Gu Yanxi hadn't told her where she was picking up Yao Qian. If it was the local police station in Xijiang, that would be fine. But if it was somewhere more remote, in another province or city, wouldn't Gu Yanxi be gone all day?
Thinking of this, Cecilia quickly picked up her phone and sent a WeChat message to Gu Yanxi, asking where she was headed and roughly when she would return.
Two minutes later, Gu Yanxi replied—the place was in Xijiang, but in the northern part of the city. Round trip, it would take at least two or three hours.
Setting down her phone, Cecilia leaned back on the sofa in the living room, her eyes half-closed. She massaged her forehead, thinking about what she should do next.
First and foremost, her most important goal was still leveling up.
Only by continuously leveling up could she learn more skills, unlock higher-level equipment, and improve her combat strength to face the challenges that would inevitably arise.
However, unlike other online games, legend of Kaloran had very few quests and no main storyline. It was a completely open world, with total freedom.
For players to reliably gain experience, the mainstream (and only) method was to hunt a variety of monsters, thwart the schemes of the four archangels, and defend the cities of the human Empire from outside invaders.
Yet, as the level increased, so did the experience required to level up. Now that she had just reached level 17, Cecilia could already feel the slow pace and grind of leveling.
Without a new world-class boss appearing, her level-up speed wasn't really much faster than other players.
There were only a few world-class bosses in the national server, and they didn't respawn after being killed—each one was unique; kill one, and that's one less. Relying on just the national server's world-class bosses was clearly not enough to maintain her leveling speed.
On top of that, unlocking the Darkwing Demon Bat's [Riding] skill required two prerequisites. For Cecilia, going to the Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese servers to compete for other countries' world-class bosses seemed inevitable.
Moreover, there was another critical point: her secondary class—Forging.
Long ago, Cecilia had realized that as player level rose, the probability of monsters dropping finished equipment got smaller. Many powerful pieces of equipment—like the [Rose Maid] set she now wore—had to be forged manually with a blueprint.
Even though Cecilia was only level 17 right now, considering the time required to gather materials, she needed to start preparing for the equipment she'd need at level 20.
Thus, she absolutely could not fall behind in her Smithing level.
With this in mind, Cecilia made her decision. Taking advantage of the time while Gu Yanxi was away, she would log into the game and try to craft the epic weapon blueprint the Little Persimmon Puppy had given her earlier.
[Staff of Frostfire], a purple epic Mage weapon, would be considered a treasure in the current equipment market—truly one in a million.
Even just the blueprint alone could probably fetch a sky-high price of one or two million gold coins.
Nothing could be done about it—the player base of Legend of Kaloran was just too big, and quality equipment was too scarce. The competition was fierce, making every piece of gear extremely valuable.
Plus, many players who could afford to play this game were not short on money, which led to wildly inflated equipment prices: it was common for items to sell for unthinkable sums.
After putting on her helmet and logging into the game from Gu Yanxi's bedroom, the first thing Cecilia did was open her private messages and send a message to the Little Persimmon Puppy.
[Cecilia: Give me a set of materials for that purple staff.]
[Little Persimmon Puppy: ???]
[Little Persimmon Puppy: How did you know I have the materials?]
Cecilia didn't answer Little Persimmon Puppy's question—she just sent her an address, then closed the chat interface and headed to the same inn as last time.
Although the materials for forging the [Staff of Frostfire] weren't easy to find, they certainly weren't as rare as those for the [Rose Maid] set. With some effort, time, and gold coins, they could basically all be collected.
Little Persimmon Puppy could get her hands on the weapon blueprint, so Cecilia didn't believe she couldn't get the materials too.
Along the way, regardless of gender, many players couldn't help but sneak glances at her—some curious, some admiring. After all, Cecilia's looks really were outstanding, and she was a renowned figure in the game. Although she never deliberately dressed up or consciously acted like a beautiful girl, she was always cold-faced, with a demeanor that kept people at arm's length.
Upon arriving at the inn and renting a room, about twenty minutes later, little Persimmon Puppy also arrived.
"How did you know I happened to have a set of materials?"
As soon as she entered, little Persimmon Puppy questioned Cecilia.
"I'd actually be surprised if you said you didn't have them."
Rolling her eyes softly, Cecilia extended her small hand impatiently and said, "Did you bring the materials? Hurry up and give them to me."
Little Persimmon Puppy flopped straight onto the edge of the bed, pouting with displeasure. "You already got the blueprint, and now you want the materials from me too? What merchant does business at a loss like this?"
"After I craft the staff, I'll let you auction it at the auction house. As usual, we'll split the proceeds thirty-seventy; you get thirty, I get seventy."
Cecilia snorted softly, her tone calm.
At these words, little Persimmon Puppy's eyes instantly lit up.
"Deal!"
......
Cecilia's proposal was definitely in Little Persimmon Puppy's interests.
No, to be accurate, it was supremely attractive to her.
After all, the auction she was about to hold would be the first in Legend of Kaloran since the server's launch—it needed to be grand to leave a deep impression on all participating players.
The finale items for this auction were to be the two D-rank world boss pet eggs, as well as the epic assassin set Cecilia had given her.
However, besides those headliners, there needed to be some slightly lesser auction lots as foils to set off the main attractions' value.
Little Persimmon Puppy already had such an item—the purple assassin dagger Cecilia had given her, which came from the Korean assassin not long before. Now, with the addition of an epic weapon to the auction, she was naturally delighted.
After acquiring all the materials to forge the [Staff of Frostfire], Cecilia wasted no time. She switched to the [Weapon Master] title and headed straight to the nearest smithy.
Paying the rental fee at the front desk, Cecilia entered the forge room, took out all the required materials, and pulled the blueprint from her pack, pondering how best to craft the weapon.
Although she had experience forging purple-grade equipment and still maintained a 100% success rate till now, that didn't guarantee there wouldn't be failures this time.
Forging any purple epic-grade equipment could be considered a massive undertaking, and this time there was only one set of materials. A single mistake could waste materials worth tens of thousands in cash.
In a sense, forging in Legend of Kaloran could easily burn more money than real-world alchemy.
"Holy Shadow Water... all set. Thunder Wood... check. Frost Iron... good to go..."
As Cecilia went over each material required and mentally reviewed the entire forging process several times, she finally set the blueprint aside and began the first step of crafting the equipment.
......
Once wholly absorbed, time flew by in a flash.
In the cramped smithy, fires flashed, and small explosions periodically sounded. The silver-haired, twin-tailed girl in her maid outfit worked with intense concentration, whispering to herself nonstop.
Ten minutes...
Twenty minutes...
An hour...
As time ticked by, the embryonic form of a staff slowly took shape on the forge room's worktable.
Finally, after an hour and a half, a burst of brilliant purple light erupted inside the forge.
At the same time, system Miss's voice rang out in Cecilia's mind.
[System notification: Congratulations on successfully forging the [Staff of Frostfire]! Vampire Artisan's Glamorous Forging proficiency +897!]