237: Chapter 237 Harvest, Offline

The deep blue quality 'green wood staff' Xiao Niao held was something Hu Gualing had personally looted from the Millennium Tree Demon. He had naturally seen its full attributes: it increased Spirit and boosted healing effects upon being equipped. It was a perfect match for Xiao Niao, who had learned the 'Recovery Spell.' Because of this, the staff had undoubtedly been assigned to Xiao Niao.

But the equipment description for this staff didn't say anything about being able to conjure magic orbs after equipping it, did it?

Hu Gualing stared at Xiao Niao, a look of existential doubt written all over his face.

Since this was a Wuxia-style game, the sudden appearance of a teammate who could conjure magic orbs made it difficult for him to process for a moment. Furthermore, he had witnessed the damage of these magic orbs with his own eyes; whether hitting an ordinary Wild Pig or an Irritable Red Wild Boar, they could deal up to 20 points of damage. This was higher than his own damage and only slightly lower than Tang Yao's. However, one had to realize that Xiao Niao's magic orbs were ranged attacks, providing sufficient safety. He could stand at a distance, fixed in position without moving, and output damage continuously—he could be seen as a stable, ranged turret! The superiority of this was immediately apparent.

It seemed that no matter which game it was, mages were always incredibly powerful existences.

Thinking this, the skeptical look Hu Gualing gave Xiao Niao became complexly laced with a hint of jealousy.

Xiao Niao felt a bit embarrassed being stared at so directly by Hu Gualing's complicated gaze. "It's nothing much. It's likely an attack method inherent to staff-type weapons. It actually just looks impressive; in reality, it takes five seconds of channeling to conjure one magic orb. Calculating it that way, the damage per second isn't actually that high," Xiao Niao explained with a modest, bashful tone.

The 'DPS' he referred to was the damage caused per second.

If calculated based on a magic orb that reaches maximum power after 5 seconds of guidance, dealing 20 points of damage in 5 seconds means an average damage of 4 points per second.

Calculated this way, the output efficiency of the green magic orbs Xiao Niao conjured could not be considered outstanding. Although it could deal 20 points of magic damage at once, one orb required 5 seconds of guidance time. Dealing damage once every 5 seconds meant the damage frequency was indeed too low; no matter how high the single-hit damage was, the average output was pulled down.

In contrast, although the damage Hu Gualing dealt each time wasn't particularly high, he had no problem landing a right-hook-left-hook combo within a single second. If he had the conditions to focus purely on output, the damage he could deal in the same amount of time would be much higher than Xiao Niao's slow conjuring of magic orbs. It was just that as the team's primary tank, he often had to spend most of his energy dealing with monster attacks, leaving him no chance to focus on output.

However, after hearing Xiao Niao's explanation and performing a careful mental calculation, Hu Gualing found that it was indeed as Xiao Niao said. This magic orb only looked flashy, but its actual output efficiency wasn't overly startling; its main strength was its steady, long-term output frequency. Thinking this, when Hu Gualing looked at the green wood staff in Xiao Niao's hand, which flowed with a shimmering green light, he no longer thought it was exceptionally flashy—just averagely flashy.

"Alright, but you should still put that staff away. Isn't it a hassle to carry in your hand?" Hu Gualing realized the damage from Xiao Niao's magic orbs wasn't particularly outrageous, so he finally felt a bit better. However, he still couldn't quite stand the sight of the green wood staff in Xiao Niao's hand. After all, even if the damage wasn't as high as he initially thought, the thing was undeniably cool! Playing with magic in a Wuxia game—how stylish was that! It made even a melee class like him a bit envious.

Xiao Niao hadn't put the staff away after the battle ended but had held it while walking out of the corridor. It was hard to say there wasn't a bit of a desire to show off in his heart. But being called out by Hu Gualing, he felt too embarrassed to keep it up. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," he nodded and stored the staff into his backpack.

Next, the three of them began to loot the wild boar corpses scattered across the ground.

Looking at the wild boar corpses lying in disarray and the white light orbs on top of them, Hu Gualing, Tang Yao, and Xiao Niao felt quite invigorated. There were a good six or seven light orbs before them, and each represented a piece of loot. Before this, it wasn't easy for the three of them to kill even a single monster. For instance, back when they finally spotted an Ostrich from afar, they were so excited they spent half the day tracking its footprints, only to lose it near these foothills... they had no idea where that Ostrich was hiding now...

In any case, finding a single monster in the wild was already quite difficult, let alone the fact that loot wasn't guaranteed even after a kill. The sight of six or seven light orbs appearing at once undoubtedly brought small looks of pleasant surprise to the faces of Hu Gualing, Tang Yao, and Xiao Niao as they happily began gathering the loot.

[wild boar skin (Common Quality): This is a pig hide stripped from the back of a wild boar. The hide has a protective layer of mud from the boar's years of soaking in mud pits while alive. it has a certain defensive and cold-resistant capability. It can be used as a material for crafting certain equipment, or as a food ingredient or medicinal ingredient. Additionally, as a trophy witnessing the kill of a wild boar, someone might be willing to collect it.]

[Wild Boar Tusk (Common Quality): This is a tusk from a wild boar. Its sharpness can be seen from its appearance. It might be used as a material for forging equipment. Additionally, as a trophy witnessing the kill of a wild boar, someone might be willing to collect it.]

[Red Wild Boar Leg (Excellent Quality): This is a fresh hind leg from a Red-haired Wild Boar. The meat is firm and delicious. It can be used for cooking or curing and is a rare food ingredient.]

After gathering, the three harvested a total of two common quality wild boar skins and four common quality Wild Boar Tusks. One of the hides was even stripped from the Irritable Red Wild Boar. Unfortunately, even the hide gathered from an elite wild boar was only of common quality; it seemed the defensive capabilities of the Irritable Red Wild Boar were indeed lackluster. To their disappointment, after gathering from so many light orbs, not a single piece of equipment dropped. "The equipment drop rate in the wild is way too low. It seems if we want equipment drops, we can only go to Dungeons," Hu Gualing grumbled as he packed the Materials. Xiao Niao and Tang Yao both nodded in deep agreement.

However, the hind leg cut from the Irritable Red Wild Boar's corpse gave them a small surprise. Although it was a material like the hides and tusks and provided no boost to combat capability, it was at least of green Excellent quality and was likely worth some money.

"Even if we can't use these Materials ourselves, we can sell them for quite a few copper coins," Xiao Niao analyzed optimistically. He then reminded them: "By the way, since we can now gather Materials to sell for copper coins ourselves, we should try not to exchange fantasy points for silver in the Game Store anymore. I suspect the value of fantasy points will exceed silver in the future."

Xiao Niao's latter words were naturally directed at Tang Yao; he and Hu Gualing weren't so extravagant as to exchange fantasy points for silver.

As for his reasoning that fantasy points would eventually exceed the value of silver and copper—the common currencies of the game world—it was simple: he discovered that fantasy points could be converted into silver, but silver could not be converted back into fantasy points. From this point alone, the value of fantasy points surpassed silver. Furthermore, the fact that Hu Gualing and Tang Yao's deaths and Resurrections in the Dungeon required two fantasy points each had sparked Xiao Niao's thinking. 'Resurrecting in a Dungeon near the Novice Village map costs one more point than resurrecting outside. It's possible that in higher-level maps or higher-difficulty Dungeons, the points required for Resurrection will continue to increase.' Based on this, it was foreseeable that in the future of the game, the demand for fantasy points would only grow. Currently, the only known way to obtain fantasy points was through the free claim based on online time. In contrast, game currency could be earned from NPCs in the game. Thus, it was easy to judge which was more precious.

"Okay, I understand," Tang Yao replied.

Having packed the loot, the three headed toward the mud pit in the distance. This was originally the place where the Irritable Red Wild Boar bathed while alive, but now it was unclaimed territory. However, the three didn't come here to seize the mud pit; they just detoured to find the arrow Xiao Niao had fired. Although Xiao Niao might not need bows and arrows anymore now that he had the green wood staff, it was still an Excellent quality arrow, and Xiao Niao felt there was no harm in recovering it since it was on the way.

Picking up the Steel Arrow from the mud pit without incident, Hu Gualing, Tang Yao, and Xiao Niao's excursion outside the village finally came to a relatively perfect conclusion—of course, if they could have found that Ostrich that had led them on a chase for half the day, it would have been completely perfect. Unfortunately, that fellow's escape skills were truly formidable; after fleeing to the vicinity of these foothills, no trace of it could be found.

The three had no choice but to start their return journey.

On the way there, they had been cautious, constantly scanning the surroundings for hidden dangers. Now, with their strength improved and Hu Gualing's ability to recognize the path, they walked with great confidence. Even when encountering lone Wild Dogs or jackals, they handled them with ease. They returned to Xiao Huang Village in nearly half the time it took them to get there.

Entering the village, Hu Gualing, Tang Yao, and Xiao Niao finally breathed a complete sigh of relief and relaxed.

Although the return journey was relatively easy, the group of wild boars waiting outside the corridor entrance when they first emerged had taken some effort to deal with. If Tang Yao had been returning to the village alone, her Sharp-toothed Piglet wouldn't have resurrected yet, and facing five wild boars by herself would have almost certainly resulted in a death.

Hu Gualing and Xiao Niao glanced at each other and shared a knowing smile, glad they had brought Tang Yao back to the village safely.

However, they didn't have time to process the Materials harvested from this adventure. Both had felt their game time was up while on the way back. For some reason, they weren't uncontrollably forced offline as soon as the time was up like in previous sessions, but there was a persistent feeling urging them to log off.

Now that they were back in the village, they had already exceeded their intended log-off time by quite a bit. The feeling of being urged to log off grew stronger. Hu Gualing and Xiao Niao didn't have time for anything else; after bidding Tang Yao farewell, they both transformed into fading white light, logging out of the game and returning to reality.

Watching Hu Gualing and Xiao Niao go offline and vanish from this world, Tang Yao couldn't help but feel a sense of loss.

'I wonder when... I'll be able to log off like them...'

With these thoughts, Tang Yao walked back into the courtyard alone.

Because this day had been truly exhausting—not just physically, but mentally as well—Tang Yao wasn't in the mood to fix the unfinished pond. Instead, she lay directly on the wooden bed in the bedroom, intending to close her eyes and rest for a while.

But perhaps because she was truly too tired, as soon as Tang Yao closed her eyes, she felt her eyelids getting heavier and heavier. Her consciousness gradually blurred, and before she knew it, she had truly fallen asleep.

...

In the mysterious 'cave'—the place Hu Gualing, Tang Yao, and Xiao Niao considered a Dungeon—above the earthen wall with the two strange, meaningless characters, a black dot slowly grew larger. It descended from the darkness at a steady speed. When it landed firmly on the ground, its form became clear: it was a large, bald avian creature. Who else could it be but the [Timid Ostrich] that Hu Gualing, Tang Yao, and Xiao Niao had been searching for all day?

The reason this Timid Ostrich could descend steadily from the pitch-black height—which looked extremely high—without even flapping its wings was, of course, because a thread of Chen Mo's consciousness was still controlling the Timid Ostrich's body.

In fact, when Hu Gualing, Tang Yao, and the others were preparing to leave, Chen Mo had immediately manipulated the Ostrich to fly into the sky so they wouldn't discover his—or rather, the Ostrich's—existence. He only came down after they had been gone for a while.

Controlling the Ostrich, Chen Mo moved its two drumstick-like bird legs toward the center of the hall.

The strangely shaped, dark black stone in the center of the hall had caught Chen Mo's attention early on. Now, as he manipulated the Ostrich's body to approach it, even while still a distance away and without physical contact, he felt a chilly aura emanating from the dark black stone.

"Could it be that those Soul points were actually absorbed by this stone?"