I Became the Blacksmith NPC

"That was just the first time I saw money coming back to me..." Wang Di's voice trailed off, then he suddenly perked up again: "Don't you want to know the details?"

Honestly, not really — but Wang Di was footing the bill for tonight's barbecue, so Liu Kongkong played along and nodded. "Go on then, spill it!"

The plan was actually quite simple. Wang Di had met a big shot in Hunt Heaven — someone free-spending who had formed his own team in the Starter Village. When Xiaoyu found out, she wanted to get in with this big shot, but she lacked the skills to impress him and he wouldn't give her the time of day.

"I don't know where she heard it, but apparently our guild leader has one particular hobby — he loves going after whatever someone else already has. So she said she hoped I'd help her put on a little act: she wanted to approach our guild leader as my girlfriend."

Liu Kongkong, a half-eaten flatbread clamped between his teeth, stared blankly at Wang Di's smug expression.

"So I had a flash of inspiration! I told her I could help her out, put in a good word for her in front of the guild leader — but I'd need a finder's fee..."

"So that two hundred yuan... that's where it came from?" Liu Kongkong didn't even want to hear the rest. He was already feeling a twinge of guilt about this meal; the flatbread in his mouth had taken on a distinctly bitter taste.

"Exactly! And that's just the first installment. Just you wait — once I've squeezed out every last yuan, I'll reveal my true identity and make her cry her eyes out! Am I terrible or what? Heh heh, tricking someone like this..." Wang Di scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

"So... you never actually put in a good word for her with your guild leader?"

"Oh, I mentioned her — I just didn't say anything nice!"

For some reason, Liu Kongkong suddenly felt a headache coming on. He wanted to say something but held back. The money wasn't the point; at least the kid was happy — just look at that grin, back molars and all.

"So how did you get to know your guild leader in the first place?" Liu Kongkong had no desire to continue the previous topic — if they kept going, he was afraid he'd end up donating money to get Wang Di's head examined.

"Didn't I tell you before that I was planning to work as a fighter-for-hire in Hunt Heaven? Back then, [Don't Say Love] — that's our guild leader — had just gotten into a beef with someone. So I took the job and camped their leader ten times in a single day! Walked away with 2,000 yuan~ After that, the guild leader thought I was pretty capable and invited me to join his team."

"That's actually not bad."

"That's not even the end of it. Later, the other side's leader had it out for me and put a bounty on my head. So I got together with some guild brothers, found a few guys who don't show their faces often, split it fifty-fifty, let them kill me a few times, and walked away with another 2,000 yuan!"

You've got this much cunning — so why do you turn into a complete idiot around Xiaoyu? Liu Kongkong stared at the self-satisfied Wang Di, utterly baffled. But the next second, another theory flashed through his mind: the two of them playing a couple, then Wang Di introducing her to the guild leader. If things actually worked out between them, he'd have a grateful Xiaoyu on one side and a happy guild leader on the other. You sneaky little schemer — you're angling for a promotion, aren't you!

Forget it. People's hearts are too complicated. Liu Kongkong didn't want to think about it any further.

"Anyway, there are seriously a lot of whales in this game. I'm telling you, get into the game as soon as you can — this kind of work has a shelf life, and making money while you can is what matters." When the two of them chatted and Wang Di learned Liu Kongkong still hadn't started playing Hunt Heaven, he was anxious on his behalf. "Something huge happened today too. There's an item in Hunt Heaven called the Guild Establishment Permit — you need it to found a guild. None of the guilds that have already left the Starter Village have gotten their hands on one; they don't even know where to find it! But today someone on the forums said the 30-player dungeon in Starter Village No. 0113 drops it. Goodness, you'll never guess what the buyers outside are offering for it!"

Liu Kongkong, who had been hunched over his food, suddenly froze. The Guild Establishment Permit — other Starter Villages don't have it?!

"How... how much?"

"Six million yuan!" Wang Di clicked his tongue in amazement. "And that was the price when I left the house today — apparently it's still going up! Though I hear the dungeon is pretty brutal; nobody's cleared it yet. If outsiders could get in, Starter Village No. 0113 would probably be packed to bursting!"

Liu Kongkong didn't know how many Starter Villages Hunt Heaven had, but based on the rules, once a player left their Starter Village and wanted to return, they could only go back to their original one. That meant players who started in No. 0113 could only return to Starter Village No. 0113. If the village was at capacity, they'd have to queue to get back in.

"Everyone outside is calling Starter Village No. 0113 the Golden Server now. Think about it — six million yuan. Even split thirty ways, that's still a serious chunk of change. I wish I'd been born in Starter Village No. 0113." Wang Di sighed with regret.

Liu Kongkong was in no mood to listen to Wang Di's laments. The game's first guild hadn't appeared yet, and given Hunt Heaven's popularity and player count, six million yuan wasn't even that steep a price. For him, it was good news: with six million on the line, the dungeon was probably already swarming with players by now, and the next time he logged in, his points would likely see another explosive surge.

Besides — was that money really so easy to get?

At least from Night's Gentle Chill's perspective, it was anything but.

His subordinates had already told him about the situation on the forums. When he first heard the news, Night's Gentle Chill felt a surge of elation — he'd assumed that by staying in the Starter Village so long he'd fallen far behind, but it turned out he actually held every advantage! At the very least, he wouldn't have to spend a fortune commissioning someone else to go after the Guild Establishment Permit.

But at the same time, he was anxious. Now that the news was out, players in the Starter Village who'd had no interest in the dungeon were forming parties and rushing in. With more people flooding in, who knew if some hidden prodigy might blaze through and clear it first — not only stealing the first guild founding from him, but the first-clear record too!

Still, our progress right now shouldn't be slow!

After upgrading Sunny Sky's weapon, they had successfully wiped out the swarm of Blood-Light Moths, and Ye Weinuan had gotten lucky — she'd already assembled a full set of Level 18 equipment. But the dungeon wasn't over. The third boss, the Toxic Crawler, had been holding them up for two or three hours now...

The first time they laid eyes on the boss, Night's Gentle Chill and his group were actually a little pleased.

This thing looks easy!

The Toxic Crawler moved slowly and had moderate attack power. Its first skill was venom spray — back in the day that might have been tricky to dodge, but after the Blood-Light Moth boot camp, this kind of attack was no challenge at all.

Its second skill was Toxic Parasite, triggered when its HP dropped to 60%: it consumed the surrounding smaller crawlers to parasitize a random player. The parasitized player would lose control of their body for five minutes, and the other players had to reduce the parasitized player's HP to 20% within the time limit — otherwise the parasitized player would drop dead.

This was also easy to deal with: just clear the smaller crawlers around the Toxic Crawler before engaging. And the Toxic Crawler in front of them didn't even have any smaller crawlers nearby to begin with.

But that was only what they thought...

The first round went smoothly — they whittled the Toxic Crawler's HP down to 60% without a hitch. Then the next instant, the boss suddenly fired a spray straight up into the air! When Night's Gentle Chill saw more than a dozen streams of green venom arc through the air and disappear into the windows of distant rooms, he knew something was about to go very wrong.

Sure enough, the next second, a torrent of crawlers burst out from six different rooms, and half of the thirty players were instantly hit!

"So that's why the third stage had those six corridors sealed off — they were hiding things in there, afraid we'd go clear those six rooms in advance!" Heart and Soul stared in horror as Big Bear came charging at him with sword raised, shouting apologies as he ran. The scene was as surreal as it gets.

Night's Gentle Chill said nothing — he just ran for his life. Because the one chasing him was none other than Sunny Sky, the player he'd spent over nine hundred thousand yuan on.

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