19: Chapter 19 Material Collection

Early the next morning, Chen Ergou logged in.

He opened the system panel and found that the myriad worlds stall system had popped up a new notification—

[System Notification: After the Stall System upgraded to Lv.2, some items require collecting materials for quality upgrades. Currently upgradeable items: regret potion (Advanced), substitute scarecrow (Enhanced Version).]

[Materials required for upgrade: Moonlight Grass × 10, shadow essence × 5, iron ore × 20.]

Chen Ergou frowned: "Still need to collect materials? Why does everything in this game require materials?"

He opened the map and searched for the source of these materials—

Moonlight Grass: Moonlight Forest west of Novice Village, respawns at night.

shadow essence: Dropped by elite monsters in the Shadow Nest.

Iron ore: Mine cave north of Novice Village.

"I have shadow essence on hand," Chen Ergou rummaged through his backpack, "I got a shadow core when fighting the Shadow King yesterday, it should be able to replace shadow essence."

But he had to get the Moonlight Grass and iron ore himself.

Chen Ergou sighed, left the inn, and headed straight to the Novice Village square.

Today he had to set up his stall to make money first, then find time to collect materials.

As soon as he set up his stall, he noticed the square was much livelier than usual.

Ever since the server-wide announcement yesterday, the name "Ergous Stall" had become somewhat famous in Novice Village. Many players ran over specifically to watch the excitement, wanting to see what this street vendor who "cleared the Shadow Nest with Xiguang" actually looked like.

"That's him, that's him!" a player pointed at Chen Ergou and shouted, "That's the Ergous Stall!"

"It's really just a street stall?" another player leaned over, "I thought it would be something impressive."

"Don't look down on him, he cleared the Shadow Nest with Xiguang!"

"That's probably because Xiguang carried him, right? What skills does he have himself?"

Chen Ergou listened to the surrounding discussions, not angry but smiling instead.

Fame is traffic, and traffic is money.

He cleared his throat and shouted at the top of his lungs—

"Don't miss out if you're passing by! Ergous Stall has new products today! elastic shoes, wear them and you can jump ten meters high! clairaudience potion, drink it and you can hear whispers within two hundred meters! Also, the classic regret potion, substitute scarecrow, and shrinking cookie—everything here is good stuff!"

This shout immediately attracted many players to gather around.

"elastic shoes? Can you really jump ten meters high?" A warrior-looking player squeezed to the front.

"Of course!" Chen Ergou patted his chest and said, "Jump height increased tenfold, lasts for five minutes! Only 30 gold coins!"

The warrior hesitated for a moment: "What's the side effect?"

Chen Ergou kept a straight face: "The landing point will be slightly off."

"Slightly off? By how much?"

"Just... a little bit."

The warrior thought about it, took out 30 gold coins, and bought it.

He couldn't wait to put on the elastic shoes and jumped toward the center of the square—

"Whoosh—"

He flew directly into mid-air, at least thirty meters high.

"Holy crap!!!" The warrior flailed his arms and legs in the air, "This is too high!"

Then—

He started to descend.

But the landing point wasn't where he jumped from, but shifted about fifty meters to the east.

"Ahhhhh—"

The warrior screamed all the way as he flew out of the Novice Village square, over the city wall, over the moat, and finally—

"Bang!"

He fell into a cave outside the city wall.

It was quiet for three seconds.

Then, the warrior's frantic shouting came from the cave—

"Holy crap! How did I get here?! Where is this?!"

Chen Ergou opened the map and took a look; the location of that cave was—

Gloomy Mine · 3rd Floor BOSS Room.

System Notification:

[Player "Iron-Blood War Soul" accidentally entered the Gloomy Mine 3rd Floor BOSS Room!]

[BOSS: Mine Centipede King, Level 25 Elite!]

Immediately after, a message popped up on the world channel—

[World] [Iron-Blood War Soul]: Help ahhhhh! I accidentally jumped into the BOSS room! Is there anyone here to save me!

[World] [Passerby C]: ??? How did you get in?

[World] [Iron-Blood War Soul]: I bought elastic shoes to try them out, but I jumped off-course! I jumped straight into the BOSS's face!

[World] [Gossip Little Prince]: Hahahaha! I'm dying of laughter!

[World] [Iron-Head Qiang]: Good guy! These elastic shoes are too fierce! Jumping from Novice Village directly to the 3rd floor of the mine?

[World] [Berserk Under Heaven]: Who sold this thing?

[World] [Iron-Blood War Soul]: Ergous Stall! That street vendor! He said "the landing point will be slightly off"!

[World] [Passerby D]: Slightly off by a hundred meters, right?

Chen Ergou looked at the messages on the world channel and touched his nose awkwardly.

"Uh... it does seem to be a tiny bit off."

But this message actually made the elastic shoes even more popular.

In less than ten minutes, seven or eight players ran over to buy elastic shoes, all wanting to try what it felt like to "jump from Novice Village to the dungeon."

Chen Ergou collected money while urging: "Everyone, please be safe when using the elastic shoes. This stall is not responsible for any consequences caused by landing point deviations."

"You should have said that earlier!"

"I'm saying it now, aren't I?"

After selling for the whole morning, more than twenty pairs of elastic shoes were sold, and over a dozen bottles of regret potion were sold as well. Added with other miscellaneous items, the morning's turnover exceeded 800 gold coins.

Chen Ergou counted the gold coins, grinning from ear to ear.

"Got rich, got rich."

In the afternoon, Iron-Head Qiang came again.

This time he didn't come alone; four or five big men were following behind him, looking like his game buddies.

"Brother Ergou!" Iron-Head Qiang shouted from afar, "Give me five bottles of regret potion! And three substitute scarecrows!"

Chen Ergou smiled and greeted him: "Brother Qiang, brought friends?"

Iron-Head Qiang patted the shoulder of a mage next to him: "This is my brother, mage class, called 'A Staff Conquers the World'. The one next to him is 'Just Slap Face', warrior class. And 'Healer Don't Run' and 'Output Depends on Face'."

Chen Ergou looked at this string of IDs, his mouth twitching.

What kind of names are these?

"Alright, alright, stop talking nonsense," Iron-Head Qiang urged, "Hurry up and get me the goods, our guild is going to grind dungeons this afternoon."

Chen Ergou efficiently prepared the items for them, Iron-Head Qiang paid the money, and left in a hurry with his brothers.

After sending off Iron-Head Qiang and his group, Chen Ergou finally had time to collect materials.

He first went to the mine in the north and spent two hours digging twenty pieces of iron ore. There weren't many monsters in the mine; although his level 8 stats were still newbie-level, they were at least much better than level 1, and he could barely handle the few mine bats he encountered.

Then he went to the Moonlight Forest in the west.

Moonlight Grass only respawns at night, so he had to wait until dark.

Taking advantage of the waiting time, he sat by the edge of the forest, opened the system panel, and studied the specific effects of the item upgrades.

[regret potion (Advanced): Time rewind increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds, side effect duration reduced from 2 minutes to 1 minute.]

[substitute scarecrow (Enhanced Version): Aggro duration increased from 30 seconds to 60 seconds, scarecrow AI behavior is more intelligent.]

"Not bad, not bad," Chen Ergou nodded, "After upgrading, the practicality of these items will be even stronger."

The sky gradually darkened, and Moonlight Grass began to respawn.

Chen Ergou circled the forest, collected fifteen stalks of Moonlight Grass, five more than needed.

"Enough!"

He excitedly opened the system panel and clicked "Upgrade Item"—

[System Notification: Sufficient materials! regret potion has been upgraded to Advanced! substitute scarecrow has been upgraded to Enhanced Version!]

[New item unlocked: truth cookie (Upgraded Version) — The target must answer one question truthfully, the answer is no longer broadcasted by the system, but changed to be visible only to the questioner. Price: 50 gold coins/piece.]

Chen Ergou stretched satisfactorily.

Just then, a red light flashed across the sky.

Immediately after, a huge system announcement popped up, red text covering the entire screen—

[System Announcement: Warning! Novice Village is about to face its first BOSS Siege event!]

[Three days later, the Demonized Wolf King will lead an army of wolves to attack Novice Village!]

[Attention to all players in Novice Village: If Novice Village is destroyed, all players bound to Novice Village will lose 50% of their gold coins!]

[Please all players prepare, unite as one, and defend Novice Village!]

Chen Ergou looked at this announcement, his pupils shrinking violently.

BOSS Siege?

He quickly opened the world channel, and sure enough, it had already exploded—

[World] [Berserk Under Heaven]: Holy crap! BOSS Siege?! This game has this kind of gameplay?

[World] [Little Sweetie]: Three days?! Only three days of preparation time?

[World] [Iron-Head Qiang]: Lose 50% of gold coins? Then my grinding these past few days was for nothing?

[World] [Passerby A]: Can Novice Village hold up? What level is the Demonized Wolf King?

[World] [Veteran Player]: Demonized Wolf King, Level 30 World BOSS, with hundreds of Demonized Wolf under its command. The highest level players in Novice Village are only just over Level 20, they can't hold it.

[World] [Passerby B]: Then what to do? Run?

[World] [Veteran Player]: Running is useless, as long as your respawn point is in Novice Village, you will be affected.

Chen Ergou stared at the announcement on the screen, his brain running at high speed.

BOSS Siege... hundreds of Demonized Wolf... Level 30 World BOSS...

This wasn't a joke.

But he suddenly thought of something, and the corners of his mouth slowly curled up.

He opened his backpack and glanced at the items inside—

regret potion, substitute scarecrow, shrinking cookie, rebound wristguard, elastic shoes, clairaudience potion, truth cookie...

These things, in the Siege Battle, every single one could play a huge role.

Chen Ergou took a deep breath, a glimmer of light flashing in his eyes.

"Three days... enough."

He closed the announcement and turned to run towards Novice Village.

He had a lot of things to do.