MMO: Pierce Heaven Til' It Breaks
chapter-112

Chapter 112: Ardahan the Hunter

Chen Yang had returned.

After spending three whole days and all 80 Universal Keys, he finally returned, triumphant.

Treasure chests found in the wild could contain good or bad items. If you were ridiculously lucky, you might be able to strike it rich with just one chest. If you were unlucky, you could be opening them for a whole year without getting anything worthwhile.

Chen Yang’s luck was decent. He had gotten everything from normal white equipment to gold-colored equipment, all sorts of Skill Tomes, drawing formulae, miscellaneous items, and everything in between. They came in all shapes and sizes, with an alarming variety.

Li Yi only wanted the potion formulae and the Archer Skill Tomes. Everything else, without exception, went to Chen Yang.

All Li Yi took were the STR Potion Formula, the INT Potion Formula, the Secondary Invisibility Potion Formula, and a Skill Tome that could teach Level 40 Archers the Penetrating Arrow skill.

Chen Yang was grinning from ear to ear. Although these past three days had been slightly hard on him, the reward was worth the effort. The stuff that he had obtained could be sold for at least 300,000 Gold Coins.

“I’ll give you another 100 keys in a few days. You just gotta take a ship to the Western Continent and loot around a little. That should about do it.”

“Leave it to me, I’ll go looting as many times as you want!”

When a world treasure chest was opened for the first time, there was a high chance that it would produce something good. Although the treasure chests would continue to respawn after that, the chances of them producing the good stuff would decrease. That was the conclusion Li Yi came to after eight years of looting treasure chests.

“Auction this for 500,000, and keep it there if no one bids for it. I don’t really care about the rest, sell them as you like.”

Li Yi took a black pearl out of Chen Yang’s hoard of spoils and handed it to Chen Yang.

Chen Yang took the black pearl and examined it from every angle, but he could not for the life of him find anything special about it. It had no attributes, only its name, Black Pearl.

“This is a piece of extremely rare sub-equipment that has no level requirements. Its attributes can only be seen after it’s been appraised.”

Chen Yang’s eyes lit up. “Can I use it?”

“All of these Pearls increase INT, so of course you can use it.”

“Then let’s keep it for now. If we sell it and it turns out to be a divine weapon after appraisal, what a waste that’d be.”

“Divine my *ss. The best you can get from a world treasure chest is a Level 80 item, and if I recall correctly, this thing’s just Level 40. ‘Sides, I looted treasure chests for eight… I mean, I looted more than eighty treasure chests, and I still haven’t even heard of a treasure chest producing a divine weapon.”

“Then I guess let’s exchange it for cash for now.”

Chen Yang did not harp on it anymore. Carrying the spoils of his search, he bulldozed toward the Auction House excitedly.

Chen Yang was overjoyed, but so was Li Yi.

STR and INT Potion Formulae were not very rare. In fact, they could be bought with a few thousand Gold Coins. The Secondary Invisibility Potion Formulae, however, was unbelievably rare. Not only was its drop rate mind-numbingly low, but there was also only one way to obtain it, and that was by looting treasure chests.

Li Yi had looted those chests for eight years, so he knew better than anyone just how low that thing’s drop rate was. He would have to loot chests for half a year before he could get one, and that was under the condition that he was not especially unlucky.

One Gunman did things very efficiently, and Li Yi was extremely satisfied with him.

There wasn’t an abundance of materials required to create an Intermediate-level Fury Potion at the Auction House, and the stock that was available was being sold at exorbitant prices. However, One Gunman somehow managed to get his hands on some bargain stock, easing Li Yi’s concerns over materials and allowing him to focus fully on increasing his mastery.

With his Backpack full of materials, Li Yi returned to the back of the mountain near the Novice Village and released his Mutated Small Wild Boar. He refined potions to increase his mastery while simultaneously farming Wild Boars for EXP.

It was relatively difficult for Intermediate-level Apothecarists to grind their mastery. With every 1-point increase in their mastery, they paid with 1% of their EXP. Of course, since Apothecary was not going to kill anyone, their character would not drop any levels. At the same time, that so-called 1% was not limited to a single number. If the player had a lot of EXP, they would deduct more; if the player had less EXP, they would deduct less. The minimum they would deduct was 1 EXP. It could not get any lower than that.

Li Yi was farming Wild Boars now, and the system restricted him to an increase of 1 EXP each time. That just happened to fulfill the requirements, so he allowed the Mutated Small Wild Boar to continue killing monsters ahead while he stayed at the back, grinding his mastery.

He had sufficient materials and his mastery was increasing at lightning speed as well. Within two days, his mastery had successfully reached 6,500/10,000.

Now he could learn the formulae for the STR and INT Potions.

Since the Fury Potion was a thing, these low-attribute potions that only increased STR and INT by 20 points each naturally fell by the wayside. In short, these two potions were only helpful in grinding skills. Other than that, they were almost completely impractical.

However, the materials required to refine these two trash potions were quite common and cheap, so Li Yi only had to spend 2,000 Gold Coins to fill up his Backpack with them.

“Looking for Dragonheart Grass and Phoenix Tail, willing to pay 2 Gold Coins a pop, no upper limit…” Li Yi gave One Gunman a new purchasing quest.

“Just leave it to me.”

Dragonheart Grass and Phoenix Tail were the materials required to refine the Invisibility Potion. There was no harm in having some back-up, so he wanted to start preparing now. That way, by the time he could refine the Invisibility Potion, he would not need to worry.

The period where they could grind mastery points by refining STR and INT Potions was the easiest for Apothecarists. The materials did not cost much but the mastery points poured in endlessly. They would earn anywhere between 1 to 5 points each time at random, and these truly accumulated those points like there was no tomorrow.

Within just one day, Li Yi’s Apothecary Mastery had risen to 8,520/10,000.

He could learn the Secondary Invisibility Potion Formula now!

Of course, since the Secondary Invisibility Potion Formula was too expensive, it was clearly not suitable for grinding levels. At this stage, however, there were six or seven more types of potions that he could refine now. For example, the Advanced-level Underwater Breathing Potion was the most practical and cost-efficient choice at this stage.

The bulk purchasing of the Fire Crystal Rocks was still going on in full swing. Not only did Li Yi convince Confused Fox from the God Creator Guild to buy them, but he also dragged the chief commander from the Dream Guild, Shangguan Bailu into it, getting her to buy Crystal Rocks worth a whopping 3,000,000 Gold Coins.

Of course, Shangguan Bailu did not buy the Crystal Rocks just because Li Yi talked her into it. She had made it very clear that this was her way of repaying him for that favor. She had never once forgotten about the incident where they defeated the Barren Lord.

“This money’s from our Guild Master because I sure don’t have that much. When are you free? Our Guild Master wants to have a private talk with you.”

“I’m pretty busy these days, I’ll tell you some other time when I’m free.”

Li Yi rejected her.

He understood Flower Underpants’ character very well. That was a true man, and loyal to boot. Once you joined his Guild, he would treat you like a brother. Even if you only joined because you were being chased down by others, he would still protect you.

With a personality like that, he would never find himself lacking friends. However, such a personality also made it extremely easy for him to suffer losses. When Li Yi joined his guild in the past life, for example, he suffered devastating losses.

Shangguan Bailu mentioned that Flower Underpants wanted to meet him a few times, but Li Yi rejected her each time.

Although an entire lifetime had passed, he still felt a sense of awkwardness.

The ten-day Red Name duration was over now, but Li Yi still patiently grinded his mastery to 10,000 points and successfully became an Intermediate-level Apothecarist, obtaining a Professional Skill called Life Blood. [Effect: Recover 800HP within 5 seconds. Cooldown time: 5 minutes. When the skill is in cooldown, the effects of all potions consumed will be increased by 10%.]

He had used up 100,000 Gold Coins, and the STR and INT Potions could not be sold at all, so he tossed them as soon as he made them. Thankfully, the Intermediate-level Fury Potions were selling like hotcakes, so he earned another 50,000 Gold Coins in return.

News of the large guilds attempting the Death of a King Dungeon was getting around, The God Creator and Star Fire Guild getting the furthest, having already reached the third stage. At this rate, it would be merely a matter of days before the Death of a King Dungeon was completely conquered.

The Little Drunk Cat Guild had always been preparing for it, and they were extremely familiar with the first four Kings by now. However, they had yet to challenge Vladimir because their Guild Master Li Yi had not given the word, so Pretty Good Mood did not dare to make the call.

Li Yi hit the road again, riding solo. He went straight through the Curse Land and continued going for two days and two nights before he finally reached his destination: Grizzly Hills.

The terrain of Grizzly Hills was more or less the same as that of Blade Peak. If Li Yi did not have the Ice Toad King’s Mount, there was no way he could have come here.

Grizzly Hills was a Level 40 map, but be it in the past life or this one, there was not a single player to be seen around here. The shape of the land was too complicated; there was a grassland ahead, but a few steps later it dived into a deep chasm. One misstep, and surely, you would die, but the worst part was that even when you corpse-ran all the way back here, you would realize that you had resurrected at the bottom of the chasm, and there was no way to climb out of it no matter how hard you tried…

For those who grinded here, they would die by falling more often that they died at the hands of monsters. It was one of King of Pantheon’s most disgusting maps.

Grizzly Hills covered a lot of land, but only one type of animal ever spawned here, and that was bears.

White Bears, Black Bears, Brown Bears, Moon Bears, Armored War Bears, Violent Earth Bears… The list went on, and it had a bit of everything.

Relying on his memories from the past life, Li Yi found the special NPC who lived in the forests of Grizzly Hills—Ardahan the Hunter.

“Haha, g’day, buddy. I’m Ardahan the Hunter, nice to meet you.” The middle-aged man, Ardahan, greeted Li Yi enthusiastically, inviting him into the house as a guest.

After exchanging some polite niceties, Li Yi went straight to the point.

“I heard someone say that they’d seen a Violent Earth Bear with golden fur in this forest. Mr. Ardahan, is that rumor true?”

Ardahan said in surprise, “Buddy, do you intend to capture the Violent Bear King?”

Li Yi nodded.

“Buddy, I’m an Archer too, and I want a powerful pet just like you. But guess what? I’ve searched Grizzly Hills for a whole 15 years, and I never once laid eyes on that fella. Sigh…” Ardahan was slightly depressed.

“Legend has it that not only does the Violent Bear King have the strongest DEF, but it’s ATK is also extremely high as well. Taming the Violent Bear King is the dream of every Archer, haha, but it’s also no more than a dream. We can’t even be sure if it exists or not.”

Ardahan drank a few gulps of wine and then patted Li Yi’s shoulder, laughing openly. “Buddy, if you ever find that Violent Bear King, you absolutely must bring it here and show it to me, hahahaha…”

“Ding!”

[Accept Ardahan’s Lifelong Dream?]

Li Yi nodded, accepting it.

[Quest Title: Ardahan’s Lifelong Dream. Quest Completion Objective: Bring a Violent Bear King and show it to Ardahan. Quest Completion Reward: ???]

“Hahahaha, buddy, I really admire you.” Ardahan stood up and took a rust-spotted old longsword out from his house, handing it to Li Yi.

Ardahan said cheerily, “I’ll give you my ancestral sword.”

Li Yi accepted it, and the System Notification rang out: [You have obtained Ardahan’s Ancestral Sword.]

[Ardahan’s Ancestral Sword]

[Equipment Level: Level 40 (White-colored Equipment)]

[ATK 0–5]

[SPD 5.5]

[Note: Perhaps due to the fact that it had not been drawn for a long time, the blade and the sheath seemed to have fused together…]

…

He had finally obtained the most frustrating divine weapon. Whether or not he could kill the Violent Bear King all depended on this sword…

“Thanks!”

Li Yi accepted the Ancestral Sword and bid Ardahan farewell.

“Go, buddy, take Ardahan’s blessings and search for the Violent Bear King!”

Li Yi got onto the Ice Toad King and headed into the depths of the forest…