Sword Among Us

Stone King’s Heart!

It was a heart that was like a black crystal. It was one of the sturdiest items in the game, and it was said to be the source behind Stone King’s ability to move, as well as its life. It could be used to make the best puppets, and it was a very amazing item.

When Happy picked up the heart that was so unbelievably black that it was as dark as a black crystal, a faint smile appeared on his face. Then, he redirected his gaze on the other loot that had fallen to the ground.

At that moment, all the people who heard the commotion recognized the other drop on the ground, and they sucked in sharp breaths.

“A unakite!”

That was right, the dark blue crystal that was on the ground was so dazzling that it looked like a piece of an exploded start. It looked like a blossoming flower, and it was so beautiful and magnificent that everyone sighed.

It was a unakite, and its value had been jacked up to nearly three million.

“Damn, just these two things?”

When Thunderous Battle and Little North saw that only two stones had been dropped as their loot after they had fought for half an hour, they were speechless. “It’s a Moksha Realm boss, you know? And it only dropped a few items? We’ve been trolled.”

But Happy just smiled in satisfaction and said, “Ah, enough with you. Stone King is inferior to other Moksha Realm bosses. It can be found in the second level of crystal mines and metal mines. We could get rich in a day if it dropped good stuff.”

Thunderous Battle nodded. He seemed to have understood something. “Actually, it’s pretty good if each Stone King will drop a unakite. Within a day, we can get at least five of them, and that’d earn us at least ten million.”

Once he said those words, all the people became extremely excited. They were instantly eager for action.

“I don’t think so.”

Happy might not have entered the mines many times in his previous life, but he knew that most of the time, Stone Kings would not drop anything. They might just give a Stone with Water or Mineral Water Crystal.

However, Thunderous Battle and the others did not know that.

After all, it should be the first Stone King that died. None of them knew the details clearly, and they petitioned to head to the next mine in Shennongjia to kill more Stone Kings.

Happy did not reject it.

With the desire to make them give up on the idea, he led the group out of the crystal mine and headed to the next area.

The results were very terrible.

After fighting hard for nearly an hour, the second Stone King crumbled to the ground, but it did not even drop a single good item. Aside from a valueless low-grade crystal, it did not even drop the second Stone King’s Heart.

They had wasted eight berthierites.

The group was incredibly gloomy. They did not want to go to the next mine and just followed Thunderous Battle to train.

Happy returned to Baokang by himself. He then handed Stone King’s Heart over to be placed into the clan storage so Red Coral could pick it up and went to meet up with Absolute Nonsense and the others to bid farewell before he left Shennongjia.

*****

“Selling first-echelon grade two Osmanthus Tree Spears! 720 damage! Attack speed 15. It’s only one million and two hundred thousand taels of silver! Those who want it, hurry up and get it! First come first serve basis!”

“First-echelon axe! 800 damage! A true man’s weapon! Those who want it, shout!”

“First-echelon masterpiece, Blood Saber. The attack isn’t high, only at 600, but its speed and recovery are at 20. Its other attributes are pretty good as well. Those who can offer a price, send me a messenger pigeon with it. I won’t reply to those with a low offer.”

“First-echelon equipment, Black Wing Shirt. 600 defense. 20% dodge rate. 15 Body Movement… Those who can offer a good rate, come to the center of the market!”

“Selling items that are necessary for increasing echelons of your equipment and weapons! Metal ores, crystals, and Beauty Melting Liquid. Each is five thousand taels of silver.”

“Do you want first-echelon supreme-grade masterpieces? As long as you have enough silver, I will have the weapons you want!”

It was less than five days since the shock brought by the third-echelon Clear and Far, yet all sorts of shouts in the market selling weapons and armor with echelons had already become normal in the market. High-tier martial art manuals were no longer the sole favorite. They were replaced by weapons and armor with echelons.

Right then, no one showed any interest in weapons that had no echelons, and many players chose to save up their money to buy one or two masterpieces, then buy Beauty Melting Liquid and other materials from the market so they could refine the weapons through the system’s forgemasters.

If any high-grade masterpiece successfully gained an echelon, its attributes increased by 50%, and its value also increased by several fold!

Even though the 50% failure rate resulted in quite a number of masterpieces being destroyed, there were quite a number of lucky souls who managed to increase the echelons of their weapons and armor, and their wealth increased by leaps and bounds.

Normal masterpieces could usually be sold up to one million taels of silver!

And swords as well as sabers were even more expensive, since they were popular weapons. No one wanted to sell those weapons without someone offering them more than one million taels of silver as a risk fee. Grade two masterpieces with an echelon were sold for at least two million and four hundred thousand taels of silver.

Since the price of armor was slightly lower than that of weapons while the demand for it was just as great, more people chose to take the risk to increase the echelon of armor. Even though the profit was smaller, the risk was lower. The speed at which some lucky souls covered their expenditure was very fast, but those who were unlucky, did not manage that. Even though their losses were smaller, increasing the echelon of armor was still as exciting as not knowing whether they would end up in heaven or hell in the next second.

However, most players only dared to attempt reaching the first echelon, since the requirements for the ingredients were not that great.

If they tried to attempt reaching the second echelon, they would need more than just a few materials.

The materials needed to reach the second echelon were already at an exorbitant price of one million and five hundred thousand taels of silver, which was equivalent to the price of a decent masterpiece sword or saber. Normal players could simply not pay it, and they did not even have the thought of using hundreds of thousands of RMB to take a gamble. After all, a first-echelon weapon was already very expensive.

A success rate of 40% meant that the failure rate was very high.

Millions of materials and weapons being turned into dust at the same time was something people could not accept.

Of course, there were large organizations who were rich enough and willing to gamble on it.

However, the failure rate was much higher than their success rate.

After all, if anyone wanted to reach the second echelon, they needed a forgemaster who was experienced and had reached Skilled Level. If they just relied on the forgemasters the system provided in the game, they would have little to no chance of obtaining a second-echelon weapon.

Some sects failed multiple times and sacrificed resources worth tens of millions, which they had accumulated for a long time. They found themselves in deficit and were dragged down because of money.

Those who succeeded still had to build their successes on multiple failures, and one second-echelon supreme grade weapon was precious enough that they could not afford to take the risk to continue attempting to reach the third echelon.

There were very few second-echelon weapons that appeared in the market. Almost all of them were carried everywhere by those who had them, and their sects mobilize their forces to enter dangerous regions that they previously could not enter, such as territories where zombies roamed, the royal mausoleum, and Poison Snake Valley…

Among those places, needless to say the most popular place was still the royal mausoleum. The number of masterpieces that dropped in that place was the highest, and it was also the most dangerous region for a quest.

However, the situation right then was different compared to the previous time when players attempted to clear the royal mausoleum. Those who dared to clear the royal mausoleum were no longer large groups that numbered to two or three digits.

Aside from a few powerful players on the Dragon Rank or Phoenix Rank who were especially confident in their abilities and wanted to attempt clearing the place solo, most of them were elite squads that were formed of groups of three-to-five people. They were scattered around the entrance of the royal mausoleum and never bothered each other.

As time passed, more parties appeared at the entrance.

Everyone waited quietly for noon to arrive and for the moment the Living Door of the Eight Trigrams Bewitching Matrix leading into the royal mausoleum would open.