Reign of the Hunters
chapter-2

Thinking of her past, Ye Ci’s blood froze.

She gripped the hem of her skirt tightly and loosened her grip. When Ye Ci finally raised her head again, the agony and guilt in her eyes were replaced by her will to be tough and unyielding.

She gazed at Ye Nantian and Zuo Xiaolan, the parents that could give their all for her. A surge of emotion she had never felt before churned within her heart.

They had once lost everything trying to protect their selfish and foolish daughter. This would be a guilt that Ye Ci could never forget.

She had made too many mistakes in her past life. In this life, she was going to do it right.

Dad, mom, this time, it’s my turn to protect you!

“I want to be a professional gamer.”

Ye Ci voiced out her thoughts word by word.

“A professional gamer?” Ye Nantian and Zuo Xiaolan said in unison, staring at Ye Ci in awe. This was unexpected.

There were many reasons Ye Ci could have had for wanting a gaming cabin. It may have been a bet, or it could be that she simply wanted to show off. It could even be the spur of a moment, but it was inconceivable for her to want it as a career.

She was not a responsible person.

Despite her parents’ shocked expressions, Ye Ci smiled. She understood what provoked such reactions from her parents, and she came to realise that she was indeed rather…miserable.

She affirmed her decision: “Yes, I want to be a professional gamer.” After a short paused, she smiled again. “Dad, mom, you have taken care of me for so many years. I’ve grown up now. It’s my turn to take care of you.”

Being a professional gamer, Ye Ci had given serious thought to it.

She knew her own capabilities. Studying was never her forte, and even if she made it through the four years of studying in a university, she would still merely lead a muddled life.

However, her current situation was different. She had knowledge of what was going to happen in the next 10 years.

Fate was operated by several nations around the globe. It had been said that even the testing stage of the game took 10 years to complete, and different aspects of the game were quite developed. It managed to dominate the market prior to its release, and its glory lasted for more than a decade.

Fate’s achievements brought life to the gaming industry, as well as several other smaller industries. It managed to attract people of different ages and occupations.

Fate was viewed as merely a form of entertainment for the young 10 years ago, but within that period of 10 years, it became a irremovable part of human life.

Ye Ci grew from a newbie to the No.1 Sorceress within that 10 years of Fate’s golden era, and she knew almost everything about the game, including its patches, and even… BUGs.

But in an age and time when Fate was not operational yet, what could Ye Ci do?

It was, no doubt, her destiny to once again enter the embrace of Fate.

But she would do better this time. She would not depend on anyone to achieve success. Her existence itself was like a miracle!

While Mr. and Mrs. Ye were still puzzled by their daughter’s 180 degree change in attitude, Ye Ci was already preparing to restart her journey in Fate.

Fate’s open beta test was scheduled to be on August 30th, 2050, at 14:00 hours.

When the gaming cabin was finally delivered to Ye Ci, it was already the six in the evening on the 28th of August. She bought some nutrient fluid to be used in the gaming cabin with the pocket money she had earned, and after a long talk with her parents, she decided to move into a place of her own. She intended to rent a room not far from campus.

Ye Nantian and Zuo Xiaolan finally agreed with their daughter after discussing it for an entire night.

She found a room on the 29th of August and cleaned it.

Everything was in place by 8:30 at night and the family had a wonderful dinner.

The couple could only sigh with emotion as Ye Ci sent her parents home.

On the 30th of August, Ye Ci woke up at 10:30 in the morning and cleaned everything. After having lunch, she connected the nutrient fluid to the gaming cabin and did a final check on the machine.

By 13:28, Ye Ci had already laid down in the gaming cabin. She let out a long breath before slowly closing the lid.

Fate, here I come.

Here I come, once again, to my fate!

The company that was in charge of Fate was the Glory Corporation, which was formed by members from different countries. The server, with a capacity of 5 billion users, was placed in Country Z. It was the largest gaming server in the world.

Ye Ci remembered that Glory opened their server at 13:30 hours.

But it was limited to only ten thousand players. The others would have to log into the game at 14:00 hours.

Back then, the advantage given by that half an hour gave birth to a lot of Godlike characters.

Back then, Ye Ci was pissed at Glory for using such measures. This time around, the only thing she felt was endless gratitude.

She successfully connected at 13:29:57.

And so, Ye Ci logged into the game.

In her last life, she chose to be a Human Sorceress.

This time, she would become an Elven Huntress.

Ye Ci had deep knowledge when it came to Fate. Despite having never tried her hands before as an Elven Hunter, she knew that such a combination of race and class will be insanely strong in the later stages of the game.

A more important factor was that clearing certain missions as an Elf could potentially unlock hidden races such as the Sky Elves or the Sea Elves. The former could fly while the latter had the ability to dive underwater.

Such racial traits could be considered icing on the cake for a late-game huntress.

Having already made up her mind, she skipped almost all the other options and even randomized her Character ID. The only options that she had paid attention to was picking Elf as her race and Huntress as her class.

The entire character creation did not last more than 30 seconds. Only when she was spawned in a newbie village did she call out the menu and look at her Character Stats.

ID: Gongzi You

Race: Elf

HP: 100

MP: 20

Endurace: 10

Stamina: 2

Strength:5

Intelligence: 2

Agility: 6+2 (Racial Attribute)

Speed: 2

Balance: 2+1 (Racial Attribute)

Perception: 1+1 (Racial Attribute)

Trait: Stealth (Racial Attribute), Concealment (Class Attribute), Sly, Diplomacy, Leap, Roll, Haggle

As the attributes were already fixed, Ye Ci was only interested her character’s traits. These specialties would decide the development of a character in the future.

Character traits were something that had never appeared in Fate’s closed beta. It was a unique attribute released during the open beta.

Stealth and Concealment were attributes assigned to Elves and Hunters. Ye Ci specifically went for Diplomacy and Haggle that were unique to the Human race.

As a high tier Human sorceress, Ye Ci knew these 2 Human traits well.

Diplomacy gave a starting 50 Prestige Points with every major city.

50 Prestige Points were nothing in the later stage of the game, but they played a crucial role during the early stages. They decided the number and quality of the quests received by each player.

Although Diplomacy was a trait that everyone was familiar with during the later stages of the game, the only one that had thoroughly understood it earlier was Ye Ci.

As the saying goes, details decided outcome.

The rebirthed Ye Ci would never let anything beneficial to slip pass her.

Haggle was an attribute that must be learned by every class. Money was something very important in Fate. Without an attribute like Haggle, one would definitely be scammed by the NPC’s.

The money in Fate could be exchanged with real world cash. Nobody would want to see their hard-earned cash being scammed away by NPC’s, especially during the first 3 months of Fate when the game coins and real world cash exchange had yet to be released. Only few players possessed more than 10 gold coins. As such, this attribute was one of the most law-defying attribute.

When Ye Ci’s sights landed on her character ID, she was slightly disappointed.

Gongzi You…

It was a nice name, but to have such a masculine name paired up with a female character… Ye Ci decided to forget about it. It wasn’t a matter she would want to fuss about anyways.

Ye Ci surveyed the newbie village after closing the interface; it was like a ghost town. With only ten thousand players online and distributed across tens of thousands of newbie village, it was normal for her to be alone.

She turned around and walked up to the chief of the Elven village. Elf was a race that she had never played as, but was quite familiar with.

In the 10 years of her last life, her footsteps covered every inch of ground. She had completed every single quest, learning everything there was to learn.

She wouldn’t be boasting if she had claimed that she could identify her location just by a whiff of the air. She knew what kinds of quests were available, which NPC’s were the ones offering them, and what rewards she would get by completing them. She even knew… What sort of BUGs existed.

The village chief handed Ye Ci her first mission after a brief conversation: Kill all the rabbits around the village. Ye Ci walked away without hesitation.

A unique rewarding system existed within Fate. The first person in the entire world that completed a certain quest, killed a certain BOSS, or cleared a certain dungeon would receive a specific set of rewards.

Despite being the easiest mission in every newbie village, killing rabbits was also the starting quest of the entire Fate. To be the first among almost a billion players to complete the quest was a near-impossible feat.

Ye Ci could still remember a popular thread in the forum several years after the Fate server had begun its operation. The owner of the thread was anonymous, but he clearly described the reward of being the first one to complete the rabbit killing quest.

The activation of a side quest.

Of the countless players of Fate, he was the only one that activated the side quest. He did not go into the details of the reward given by the quest, but he was expressing his regret of a wasted chance to become Godlike by not choosing the right character and class.

Ye Ci glanced at the on-screen timer.

13:30:51……