Chapter 24

Chapter 24 – Eliminate and Verify
It could only be one of 2 possibilities to make the Slime King mutate – either the player uses an item on himself or on the Slime King.
Chen Mo was in favour of the first possibility.
In the two posts about the Mutated Slime King, the players did not mention any others around them so it was possible that other players further away used some item and orchestrated the Slime King’s mutation.
However, he could not dismiss the possibility that the two who posted the information could have deliberately concealed the trigger for the Slime King’s mutation.
No matter which, the item that triggered the mutation must have come from the beginner village or its surrounding area.
This item won’t be common, should be difficult to obtain and is usable by players. The item description should not be related to the Slime King since it’s a hidden attribute of the item.
There were not many items in the beginner village. With this conditions, he can eliminate several if not most from the list of possibilities right away.
There are 3 ways to get items in the beginner village – kill monsters, buy from shops and rewards from quests.
Chen Mo went round the shops in Ayr Town to look at items and eliminated them as possibilities immediately.
The items on sale in Ayr Town were pathetic. There were only beginner items gifted by the system, newbie HP and MP drugs and some random, jumbled mess of quest items like fishing poles, iron shovels, hoes and etc.
That leaves items dropped by monsters and quest rewards items.
Monsters drop many items so Chen Mo knew it would not be easy to whittle the list down in a hurry. Quest reward item information, on the other hand, can be easily gathered from the forums.
The game had been online for over a day so there were already many beginner village quests posted on forums with detailed information on quest flow and rewards.
After logging in, Chen Mo went through the posts one by one.
He himself had only done the first few. Other than that, the only later-stage quest he had done was the one that gave him the Lesser Poison Crossbow skill.
“It seems overall that the most likely items are ‘Braised Dolphin Fish’, ‘Expired Spirit’, ‘Corrosive Apple’, ‘Enticing **’ and ‘Abandoned Dogfood’.”
Chen Mo made his final 5 choices from the list of items that can be gained from quests.
For the Braised Dolphin Fish, a cook in Ayr Town will request players to get a Dolphin Fish. To get it, players needed to buy a fishing pole from the General Items shop and go to a river outside the village to fish for the Dolphin Fish.
The success rate of fishing was not very high so a lot of time was needed to finish this quest. After completing this quest, players can get 10 pieces of “Braised Dolphin Fish” from the cook.
After eating the Braised Dolphin Fish, players get all their attributes boosted for 10 minutes. However, the Dolphin Fish was poisonous so in those 10 minutes, the player will have -5HP per second.
It was not easy to complete this quest. You’d need at least half an hour to get the Dolphin Fish. Half an hour in exchange for a 10 point boost on all attributes for 10 minutes and poison effect was not worth it so players who knew about the reward were not interested in the quest. There was not a lot of Braised Dolphin Fish in the game and it had a poison effect; it seemed the most likely trigger for the Slime King’s Mutation.
Expired Spirit can be gotten from a drunk in Ayr Town after completing his request. It recovers a player’s MP by 300 instantly but for the next 10 minutes, the player will not be able to use MP recovery drugs.
The master of the orchards outside Ayr Town gave a quest where players weed the orchard. The Corrosive Apple was not the final reward but an item you have a chance of picking up while weeding. It cannot be found in other places. This Corrosive Apple recovers both HP and MP but decreases Strength and Intelligence by 10 points after consumption. Like the Braised Dolphin Fish, it was an item with negative effects.
The Corrosive Apple was uncommon and not all who go weeding can pick it up. The item, therefore, went on Chen Mo’s list.
Then there was ‘Enticing **’ and ‘Abandoned Dogfood’.
Enticing ** is actually a quest item. A resident in Ayr Town has a rat infestation in his basement. After the player accepts the quest, he will get Enticing ** and use it in the basement to kill the rats to complete the quest.
However, there was no location limit for Enticing **. Some player had tried to use it in another location and found that it could be used but was ineffective against other monsters.
Will it work on the Slime King? That player had not tried it. Chen Mo put it on his list.
Now, Abandoned Dogfood.
This item has strange origins.
A resident in Ayr Town wants to dig a well. The player, after accepting the quest, will have to buy an Iron Shovel from the General Item shop and, in the process of digging, have a small chance of obtaining Abandoned Dogfood.
Nobody knows what it’s good for yet.
However, when Chen Mo saw the Abandoned Dogfood, he knew it had something to do with luring the mayor’s hunting dog away from the door.
It was difficult to get it though. Chances were less than 1%.
Chen Mo took time again to look through the items the beginner village monsters dropped.
He’d thought it would be complicated but after a short search, Chen Mo had eliminated most of the options.
The reason was simple – items that can be used by players comprised mostly of drugs, followed by equipment and materials which players cannot use directly.
Of course, many monster materials can be exchanged through quests for useable items but these have already been eliminated by Chen Mo.
In other words, he could start on verifying his chosen items next.
However, these items were difficult to get hold of. If he were to do it alone, he’d not finish in a day and waste a lot of time.
Furthermore, after confirming the Slime King’s mutation, he had to buy a pair of good shoes that would increase his speed.
All these needed money. Chen Mo had reached Level 10 and saved 5 silver coins. It was impossible for him to buy all of the items.
After some thought, Chen Mo decided to make a quick buck by making a pay-to-view post!
“Become more powerful! – Free Skill System Revealed!”
In a few minutes, a pay-to-view post appeared on the forums.
The Free Skill System would not be secret anymore sooner or later. He was surely not the only one who knew of it now but the other players, for reasons of their own, had not revealed it either.
Chen Mo was actually not too willing to make this system public too soon because the Free Skill System was like a key. Once the players know about it, somebody was bound to realise that the holographic virtual network is much bigger and greater than he had thought.
But in order to amass funds, Chen Mo decided to make it public.
At least he’d have made some money if he does not complete this commission successfully.
After posting, Chen Mo went offline to get something to eat and drink after his long hours online.
When he’d had his fill, he logged in again to see what profits his post had brought him.
“What the…? Only over a thousand people paid to view?”
Chen Mo had been away for half an hour. He thought that he should get at least 20,000 paying people in this time but it had only garnered a pathetic 1000+ views.
Chen Mo quickly found the cause.
“The Richie Rich Club will tell you about the Free Skill System for FREE!”
A few minutes after he made the post, a guy called “Jiu Ge” made a post.
“Shit! Fuck you, Richie Rich Club!”
Chen Mo scanned through the contents of the post and burst out in curses.
The Richie Rich Club had made use of him!