Volume 3 Chapter 11: Preparations

Qin Lun felt very pleased after finalizing this deal. He immediately went out and handed over the Hexagonal Prism Shield and Wind Spirit Crossbow to the Auction House’s consignment counter. The entire deal would only be fully successful after Feng Lin delivered the Shahbakh Ring and the scroll.

For ranged attacks, he now had the FN-500. For close combat, he could either use the FN-500’s rapier mode, or wield the Dagger of Sin. For protection, he had the Shahbakh Ring, a very satisfying balance of offense and defense.

Thinking it over, Qin Lun also started using Soul Power Crystals to restore the soul of the big black bear, BEN. However, restoring BEN probably wouldn’t be possible with just the 22 Soul Power Crystals in his Storage Space; he needed to buy more. He spent almost 1,500 Shattered Crystals in total.

In truth, due to his lack of adventuring experience, Qin Lun didn’t realize that the offense-defense balance he thought was well-matched actually had a fatal flaw. He wouldn’t truly discover this until his second trip into an Other World. But of course, that is something to mention later.

Qin Lun didn’t leave the Auction House immediately. After some consideration, he opened the Auction House’s item list again to look up things like recovery potions, Skill Scrolls, and items related to Summoners.

After looking for quite a while, Qin Lun found that Summoner-related items were incredibly expensive. Among magic-related equipment, almost anything connected to summoning cost about 50% more than equipment for other magic professions.

After checking some information, Qin Lun discovered that the Summoner combat profession was a very strange existence among all Apostle combat professions. A high-level Summoner could be the main attacker, a support class, or even the main tank (MT), almost a ‘versatile’ profession. An inexperienced Summoner, however, was terrible at everything and could only tag along uselessly.

The key difference between the two lay in the Summoner’s creatures. Summoner items were expensive, their Skill Scrolls precious, but the most valuable things were high-level summons.

For a Summoner to obtain a high-level summon was harder than getting a Legendary Equipment. Accumulating rewards from over ten Otherworld Missions might let you buy a piece of Legendary Equipment at the Auction House. But for a high-level Summoner to capture a high-level summon depended not on strength, but on sheer luck.

Proud creatures wouldn’t easily submit. Unless, like Little Lian, you hatched an egg yourself and raised it. Otherwise, even if you defeated one, turning it into a summon was extremely difficult.

Dogs understand human speech. But have you ever seen a wild tiger obey human words? Killing a tiger is easy; getting a wild tiger to lick your toes, is it?

Realizing this, Qin Lun gave up on the idea of strengthening his Mazer Summoning Art at this stage. He took some of his remaining Shattered Crystals and bought food and medicine for recovery.

So-called recovery foods were Law Body items that could restore Health Points and Mana Value. However, recovery foods couldn’t heal Law Body injuries; they could only accelerate the Law Body’s natural recovery speed. Their healing effect wasn’t as strong as recovery medicine, but they were much cheaper, produced by Apostles with auxiliary life skills.

Recovery medicines at the Auction House were very expensive, and Qin Lun already had two boxes of Moonlight Recovery Ointment and a bottle of World Tree Dew. Other medicines could be bought from the exchange list.

Given this, he spent a total of 3,000 Shattered Crystals on four pieces of Rye Bread and one jar of Royal Jelly. He then used 5,500 Shattered Crystals to buy a bottle of Low-Concentration Holy Water and a Healing Bandage from the exchange list, and spent 450 points of Exchange Voucher on a Self-Healing Crystal.

Because the Exchange Vouchers issued by Shattered Starry Sky were different from those given with title salaries – they couldn’t be saved or split – the leftover 50 points were now useless.

Rye Bread: Restores 30 Health Points and some Stamina within one hour. Purchase price: 500 Shattered Crystals.

Royal Jelly: Restores 50 Health Points, 30 Stamina Points, and some energy within half an hour. Purchase price: 1,000 Shattered Crystals.

After this huge shopping spree, Qin Lun’s possessions were completely transformed.

For equipment, he had:

Dagger of Sin (Life-Taking Relic)

FN-500 (Dark Gold Equipment)

Shahbakh Ring (Red Quality)

Three Vine Seeds (Blue Quality consumable)

Two Petrifying Magic Eyes (Purple Quality consumable)

For special items, he had:

Maiar Crystal Ball,

Exemption Token,

Intermediate Reflex Training Scroll,

Firearm Proficiency Scroll,

Basic Swordplay Scroll,

“Encyclopedia of Low Magic World Monsters”,

“Molde Research Specimen Atlas”.

For recovery items, he had:

One bottle of World Tree Dew (ten drops),

Two boxes of Moonlight Recovery Ointment,

One Self-Healing Crystal,

One Healing Bandage,

One bottle of Low-Concentration Holy Water,

Four pieces of Rye Bread,

One jar of Royal Jelly.

After this shopping binge, his remaining Apostle virtual currency was pitifully small: just 2,600 Shattered Crystals, 30 City Points, and 35 Apostle Contribution Points.

Almost everything on this list came from selling the rewards of his first Otherworld Mission, apart from the investments from Mafa and Beruses and the Dagger of Sin. This showed just how much Qin Lun had gained from the Orphan World.

In reality, among Qin Lun’s first Otherworld Mission rewards, the Exemption Token held the highest value, being a special reward for a Gold Evaluation. The Hexagonal Prism Shield was the biggest reward for the 0.2% World Exploration Degree. As for the 12,000 Shattered Crystals and 500 Exchange Voucher, the voucher was the valuable part; the 12,000 Shattered Crystals were purely pocket money from Shattered Starry Sky.

This also showed that the basic Guidance Mission wasn’t particularly lucrative. Other than an unhinged psychopath like Qin Lun, most Apostles needed to go through five or six Otherworld Missions to accumulate wealth like this.

The equipment and items he kept now were mostly suitable for his own use, with nothing left worth selling. The Maiar Crystal Ball among the special items contained Frank’s soul; he still needed to find a suitable body to resurrect this loyal servant.

The Exemption Token was a life-saving item; he would never part with it unless absolutely necessary. Qin Lun planned to use the Reflex Training Scroll himself, hoping to upgrade his Firearm Proficiency to Firearms Expertise. This would let him use the Snap Shot skill within the FN-500 – the plan he’d had before buying it.

Having roughly adjusted his equipment at the Auction House, Qin Lun didn’t linger. He left directly, unwilling to meet his trading partner while the difference in their strength was so significant.

After leaving the Auction House, Qin Lun didn’t head straight back to the villa. Instead, he hailed a carriage bound for the Training Ground in Devil’s Horn. The Apostle Training Ground was located in the southern part of Devil’s Horn, occupying nearly one-sixth of the entire city’s area, making it the largest site among all facilities.

The Apostle Training Ground wasn’t a single building but a whole interconnected complex. It had both indoor and outdoor facilities. Seeing the Training Ground for the first time, Qin Lun was stunned by the sight of all those sprawling buildings and facilities.

This Training Ground contained indoor boxing clubs, swordsmanship dojos, shooting ranges, archery ranges, endurance training bases, magic control training barriers, potion mixing research labs… it practically had everything. Qin Lun even spotted a huge battletech operating field right near the entrance!

After asking a service staff member, Qin Lun discovered that even the shooting range he wanted to rent came in several different types. For example: training fields for firearms, shooting ranges for bows and arrows, and underground shooting ranges for beam weapons.

Guided by a service staff member, Qin Lun checked out a few indoor shooting ranges. He found them all packed, surprising him. Only then did he understand why Devil’s Horn streets had been so empty when he went out in the morning.

It seemed all these Apostles were either at the Auction House or sharpening their skills at the Training Ground, working much harder than a lazybones like him who was used to sleeping in.

Actually, the situation in Devil’s Horn was roughly as Qin Lun observed, but the place gathering the most Apostles wasn’t the Training Ground; it was the Mercenary Guild for earning City Points.

The Mercenary Guild, Training Ground, Auction House, and personal villas were the four spots where most Apostles spent their time year-round. Apart from that, before or after each Otherworld Mission, they would also relax at Devil’s Horn’s entertainment spots.

Qin Lun thought for a moment, then booked a shooting lane and a swordsmanship training room. He booked both for a week, costing him a total of 15 City Points.

“Esteemed Apostle, would you also like to hire marksmanship sparring partners and swordsmanship trainers?” The Succubus handling his booking looked at him with glittering eyes.

“Approximately how many more points would hiring two coaches cost?” Qin Lun kept a smile on his face, but inwardly felt bitter. These City Points were going fast – half already gone! Hiring two coaches might make him too broke to afford even his villa.

“Hiring an Apostle coach will help you master these two combat skills much faster, though it’s quite expensive,” The Succubus beamed. “Two lessons per day from each coach for two weeks would cost 10 points. Hiring a coach from the managers’ races will only let you become familiar with these attack techniques; the mastery process will be much slower. But, it only costs half the price, 5 points!”

Those hiring Apostle coaches probably didn’t have proficiency scrolls and had to rely on training like this to speed things up. Those hiring native coaches likely already had proficiency scrolls, needing someone just to point out key points and help them gradually integrate the scrolls’ combat techniques into their Law Body.

Qin Lun sighed inwardly in relief. He had two Skill Scrolls and one Reflex Training Scroll. Hiring a native coach was sufficient, saving his pitiful five City Points.

Leaving the Training Ground, Qin Lun now had only 10 City Points and 2,600 Shattered Crystals left in his pockets. He was effectively on the verge of bankruptcy. The virtual money he had left would probably only cover his living expenses in Devil’s Horn. If his next Otherworld Mission yielded little, he’d have to crawl back to the Moonlight Forest.