Since it was now the winter holiday, Ye Ci and Bai Mo no longer had an excuse to stay in their apartment. They had no choice but to return to Ye Nantian’s place. Earlier that month, Ye Ci had sent 500,000 real world cash to her parents through the conversion system. Although that amount was still a far cry from being able to afford a larger house, it was more than enough to make life better for her parents.
There was a spare room in the house, so Ye Ci got to sleep in her old room while Bai Mo stayed in the guest room. The two logged into the game after dinner.
The guild members greatly welcomed Ye Ci in the guild channel. They’d been busy; Other than training themselves in the dungeons, the guild members had also sparred in the arena against each other. Even the Life Players took part in it.
Ye Ci went to the guild encampment just in time to see a sparring match. Pea Cake waved something in his hand around, fighting against a Ranger in the arena. Judging from the situation, Pea Cake was not losing, but the Ranger didn’t have the upper hand either.
Ye Ci was very interested in what Pea Cake was holding. She could not see clearly what it was, as he was swinging it around at high speed. After a short moment, the Ranger gave up. “Pea Cake, you’re too shameless! You told us to not use skills and fight you with our bare hands, but you’re flailing your own weapon around.”
Pea Cake chuckled, “I’m just experimenting for the greater good of the guild.” He then spotted Ye Ci, who was standing not far away, and smiled, “Guild leader, do you want to come and try your hand? If you win, I’ll give my new invention to you.”
Ye Ci laughed and entered the arena, being cheered on by the rest of the guild members, “No weapons allowed?”
“Yep.”
“No abilities either?”
“Yeah. You can only use your flesh and bones.” Pea Cake let out a smile so shameless that one would feel the urge to beat the living shit out of him.
Ye Ci nodded, “No problem.”
“Ready?” Ideal Height 1.7m stood on a tall table, holding a little flag, “Begin.”
Gaining experience from his previous battles, Pea Cake began flailing the weapon in his hand around right after Ideal Height 1.7m gave the signal to start the battle. Ye Ci was fast, and she was able to dodge that thing by slightly shifting herself. She noticed a claw attached to the tip of the weapon, but was still unable to discern the exact shape of the weapon.
Ye Ci dodged several more of Pea Cake’s attacks, not showing any intention that she would attack. Pea Cake chuckled, “Guild leader, it seems that you’re right. A Huntress’ effective combat range was beyond 8 yards. See? You can’t do anything against me without your weapon.”
Ye Ci was ridiculed by his words, and decided to teach him some humility, “Pea Cake, haven’t you heard, an arrogant army is bound to lose.”
“Yes.” Pea Cake nodded. But before he could continue, Ye Ci whistled, and a jet black panther appeared out of nowhere. It roared and pounced on Pea Cake.
Pea Cake was merely bragging to his own people. If he ran into a PvP situation, he would immediately become panicked. He let out a cry and ran right after seeing a panther pouncing on him. But he could not leave the arena before the battle had ended and as a result, Ol’ Three pinned him onto the ground and tore into him savagely.
“I give up, I give up.” After such an intimate interaction with Ol’ Three, Pea Cake surrendered. Ye Ci did not make things difficult for him, and commanded Ol’ Three to stop.
“You cheated!” Pea Cake struggled to get up from the ground, drawing laughter from the other guild members. He straightened up his clothes and climbed out of the arena with a saddened expression, “We agreed that you’d only fight me bare handed, with flesh and bones. You’re bullying a Life Player.”
“Ol’ Three is made up of flesh.” Ye Ci narrowed her eyes.
Pea Cake who was already standing below the arena still had lingering fears as he stared at Ol’ Three that was stretching beside Ye Ci. He was someone who had basically never tried leveling up before, and had never come into contact with such creatures. Fate was a highly realistic virtual reality game. At that moment, Pea Cake thought that he would be eaten alive by Ol’ Three.
“There you go.” Pea Cake threw the object in his hands towards Ye Ci, not daring to get close to her, “I just made it.”
Ye Ci caught the object thrown at her by Pea Cake. It was a three-headed cat claw, a very useful tool when it came to climbing walls. But considering the fact that Pea Cake was still a low level Engineer, the durability of that item was something that must be considered.
Pea Cake knew about it as well. He told Ye Ci, “I got the blueprints for this thing when the guild cleared the Frosty Wasteland the last time, and I learned it back then. But I’m still a Novice Engineer, and the stuff that I create is a little bit inferior in quality. I wouldn’t dare to give it to anybody else, what if it snapped when they’re climbing a cliff or something? So I decided to let you try it out, guild leader.” He said it as if he was sure that Ye Ci would never die.
Ye Ci cast a glance at the other guild members gathered at the side of the arena, who were all looking at her with faces of approval, appearing to be agreeing to Pea Cake’s words. Ye Ci was puzzled, “Say, do you guys think that I won’t die even if I fall?”
She suddenly felt like an idiot, and thought that she shouldn’t have asked such a stupid question. The guild members nodded their heads and it puzzled Ye Ci even further.
After a brief moment of relaxing, the guild members returned to their tasks. Ye Ci began doing her daily quests in Red Lake City. When she was about to complete her quest, Ye Ci was surprised. An NPC that was rarely seen, the mayor, was standing beside the administration official.
He twisted his obese body, wiping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, and once he saw Ye Ci, he “rolled” his ball-shaped body towards her. “Hey, hey! Gongzi You is back! Long time no see! I’ve been missing you.”
Glancing at the mayor’s pea-sized eyes and sly smile, Ye Ci nodded indifferently, “What is it?” She did not even wait for a response, and immediately went and completed her quest. The mayor followed closely behind her, and Ye Ci, who was annoyed, asked, “What do you want? If it’s nothing, I still have other matters to attend to.”
“Yes, yes, yes.” The mayor wiped away more sweat from his forehead. “The city lord wishes to see you.”
The Lord of Red Lake City, Lord Sha’gar was an even more mysterious character than Lord Van der Loof. In her last life, Ye Ci had only seen portraits of him in Red Lake City’s city hall. She had never seen the NPC in person. It was said that he had been living in the gigantic castle in Red Lake City, preferring not to meet anyone. There were also some who claimed that the city lord was actually dead, which was the reason why nobody had seen him before. If there was a ranking for Fate’s top 10 mysterious NPCs, Sha’gar would easily be one of them.
This was exactly the reason why Ye Ci was momentarily stunned when the mayor of Red Lake City told her that Sha’gar wanted to meet her. She then followed him to the gigantic castle in the eastern part of Red Lake City.
There were a lot of NPC servants in the castle. After silently observing the levels of the servants, Ye Ci noted that they were all lvl 100 elites. The soldiers in the castle had even higher levels; They were all lvl 120 Elite Soldiers.
Ye Ci met Sha’gar in the large library within the castle. The man who was the city lord was not as tough as Van der Loof, and was rather scrawny in comparison. He was sitting in front of a table, reading a book. He raised his head and looked at Ye Ci after the mayor announced her presence. He let out a warm smile, “So you’re Gongzi You.”
“Greetings milord, it’s an honor.” Said Ye Ci respectfully. After all, he was her superior.
“I received a letter from Van der Loof. He highly praised you and expressed his endless gratitude towards you. This made me happy. Van der Loof is a very close friend of mine. I’m glad that when he was threatened by one of Naga’s minions, a citizen of Red Lake City was able to help him out.” With that Sha’gar stood up and nodded at Ye Ci, “In honor of your great deed, I’ve decided to reward you.”
Although it had been a month since the event in Oasis City and the reward came a little late, Ye Ci was still happy. After all, what’s free is free.
Sha’gar was very generous. He gave Ye Ci a prestige points pack. When Ye Ci opened the pack, her prestige in Red Lake City became ‘Respected.’ Although it was not as high as the ‘Intimate’ prestige with Oasis City, Ye Ci was very happy with the reward.
After giving Ye Ci her deserved reward, Sha’gar dismissed Ye Ci and the mayor led her away from the castle. Once she was back in the city hall, Ye Ci immediately made a request to the mayor to buy land in the city.
In Fate, when a player became a citizen of a city and had a prestige of Respected or higher in the city, the player could buy land in the city. Because of such a high requirement, not a single player in the 4 continents had bought any land yet.
“Which plot of land do you wish to purchase?” Although Ye Ci disliked the mayor of Red Lake City for being despicable, he was able to do his job efficiently. Ye Ci could only comfort herself. ‘Nobody is perfect.’
Ye Ci stared at the map of Red Lake City in front of the mayor. She then shifted her gaze to the western district. The western district was populated only be a few commoners as well as some common NPCs. Other than the soldiers patrolling the streets, almost no one would venture to the western district.
“I strongly advise against choosing the western district. There’s nothing good over there. Look, it would be wise of you to choose from the eastern district. The city hall is here, and most of the shops are here as well. You will not regret it.”
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