Chapter 90: Thoughts on Improving Strength

As a habitual show-off, Sun Fei truly enjoyed the admiration from a curvy and beautiful woman like Charsi. So when he saw the female blacksmith Charsi’s stunned expression, he felt that his earlier extravagant spending had gained the reward he most desired.

So he openly showed his excitement.

“Hehe, haha, yes, just for practice. Don’t feel any pressure. Even if it all gets wasted, it’s fine. Because I can still gather plenty of these gems. Haha, you just need to go all out and quickly master the power of the Magic Hammer, improve your forging skills… hehe, I’m still waiting for the great blacksmith Charsi to create more powerful Magical Equipment for me.”

“This… alright, Lord Sun Fei, I… don’t know what to say… thank you so much… from now on… when repairing or making equipment for you, Charsi definitely won’t charge you a single Gold Coin.” The busty beauty blacksmith Charsi was completely moved by Sun Fei’s generosity and selflessness at this moment. She thanked him somewhat incoherently: “Respected lord, you can freely choose any piece of equipment or weapon I have here.”

Sun Fei was overjoyed.

To be honest, after being able to enter the second major map of Diablo [Lut Gholein], the equipment here from Charsi was already a bit outdated for Sun Fei. The reason he was so polite to Charsi was that he actually truly cared about Charsi herself—or more precisely, Charsi’s identity as a blacksmith.

Everything he had done before was to win the friendship of the busty beauty blacksmith Charsi. A blacksmith capable of crafting Magical Equipment was a significant asset, whether in the World of Diablo or in Shampoo City on the Azeroth Continent. Although Charsi was currently just an ordinary blacksmith, she possessed a mysterious hammer and had extremely high natural talent. Her future development was limitless. Furthermore, with Sun Fei’s support, it wasn’t impossible for her to achieve professional advancement in the future, rising from an ordinary blacksmith to a ‘Forgemaster’. This would play a crucial role in Sun Fei’s future plans.

This was an early investment for the future.

The so-called elemental gems were incredibly precious treasures in the World of Diablo, legendary jewels. But on the Azeroth Continent, they were generally not rare. Otherwise, two Church staff members with only Three-Star Strength, Mazzola and Luciano, wouldn’t have gotten such a large box of them.

As the two were chatting and laughing, the Mercenary Beauty Ileena had already packed her belongings and was waving from a distance. Sun Fei was short on time. He bid farewell to the busty beauty blacksmith Charsi, turned, and left.

But when he reached Ileena, he got a big shock.

He saw that the beautiful female Mercenary, besides preparing her armor and weapons, was actually carrying many other items in large and small bundles. There was a small black pot for cooking, clever steel supports, some firewood, various vegetables and dried meat, several large pieces of thick oilcloth for setting up tents, and tent supports, etc. For the sake of convenience, Ileena had simply driven one of the white cows with yellow patterns from the [Rogue Encampment] used for milk production, pulling a medium-sized wooden cart.

Over a dozen young and pretty female Rogues gathered around the cart, standing teary-eyed beside Ileena, reluctantly saying goodbye to their sister Ileena.

“Uh… what are you all doing?” Sun Fei instantly had dark lines on his forehead.

“These are all needed for the journey to [Lut Gholein]…” A petite, cute, flaxen-haired little Rogue looked at Sun Fei as if he were an idiot and said matter-of-factly: “Along the way, you have to pass countless mountains and desolate areas, plus the vast Death Desert. It’s full of dangers. The journey is over two thousand miles. You’ll probably be traveling for two or three months. Supplies absolutely cannot be taken lightly.”

“That’s right, Lord Sun Fei, you must take good care of Sister Ileena…” The other Loris also expressed their concern: “Of course, my lord, you must be careful too. I heard Diablo blocked the mountain roads. The journey is full of dangers, teeming with countless demons and monsters!”

Sun Fei: “…”

He didn’t have time for lengthy explanations either. He reached out, grabbed Ileena’s slender hand, and ignoring her blushing exclamation and the applause and teasing from the other young female Rogues around, jogged all the way to the boatman Warriv. He selected [Travel East] from the [Dialogue] options. A flash of light later, the two of them and the blue-clothed Warriv vanished into thin air from everyone’s sight.

The other female Rogues were stunned.

“So after killing Andariel, Warriv, the most useless guy in the camp, actually gained such an ability… It’s amazing. I wonder if we can also go to [Lut Gholein] through him?”

…

[Lut Gholein].

Ileena looked around this city, which existed in the legends of the Rogue Continent, with great curiosity.

However, she felt a little disappointed. This ‘Desert Pearl’ wasn’t as bustling and prosperous as the Bards described. Instead, it was filled with a desolate atmosphere. The wind whipped up yellow sand. The grand streets couldn’t hide the disorder. There were very few pedestrians in the city. The few passersby she occasionally saw had dull, lifeless expressions. It even seemed inferior to the [Rogue Encampment].

But Sun Fei had limited time in the Diablo World. He didn’t let Ileena fully appreciate the charm of the ‘Desert Pearl’. He directly took her out of the city into the wilderness. They trekked northward through the [Stony Field], finally found the [Halls of the Dead] located within the [Dry Hills], and then habitually began the endless slaughter.

This mission was to find the [Horadric Cube] in the underground maze of the [Halls of the Dead].

This cubic stone box with incredible combining effects was essential for completing other subsequent tasks. Besides that, for Sun Fei, the stone box had other, more important uses. For example, synthesizing high-level Magic Stones for the Azeroth Continent, or synthesizing some other important equipment and supplies.

Countless monsters roamed everywhere in the underground maze of the [Halls of the Dead].

The monsters here, both in lethality and defense, were far superior to those on the Rogue Continent. Moreover, most were new faces. There were wretched-looking skeletal [Resurrected Undead], thick-skinned [Rotting Corpses] that burst into poisonous mist upon death, and [Hollow Ones] that looked very similar to the God of Death mummies from ancient Egyptian myths in his previous life, possessing the ability to resurrect skeletons…

Boundless slaughter unfolded.

Time passed swiftly amidst the endless ear-piercing wails, splattering blood, flying bone fragments, and constantly bursting potions and equipment.

By the time Sun Fei’s four-hour time limit was almost up, the two finally fought their way to the third level of the underground maze. They were only a few rooms away from the major boss [The Mad Witch] who guarded the [Horadric Cube].

Sun Fei calculated the time and estimated that he wouldn’t have enough time to kill the boss before being forced to leave the Diablo World. So he simply let it go for the moment, used a Portal to return directly to [Lut Gholein], then found the blue-clothed Warriv, selected [Travel West], and instantly teleported back to the [Rogue Encampment].

He gave some of the equipment obtained from this session of slaughter to Ileena for her to handle. Sun Fei found a quiet place, exchanged some potions from the mysterious cold voice, and just as the time ended, he directly opened a Portal and left the Diablo World.

…

Shampoo City, King’s Hall.

Sun Fei sat high on the throne, reflecting on his leveling strategy.

In the past four hours, the Barbarian Character had slowly reached level 21. Sun Fei added one skill point to the [Double Swing] skill, and his strength improved again.

However, during this process, Sun Fei had begun to realize that after reaching level 20, the amount of experience required for the character to level up increased more and more, so leveling became progressively slower. Before, four hours were enough to gain two or three levels, but now four hours weren’t even enough for one level. Even though he had entered a higher-level map, the leveling speed was inevitably decreasing. This meant that the improvement of Sun Fei’s strength in the real world would also unavoidably become slower and slower.

“Maybe I should change my approach, slow down the leveling of the Barbarian Character, and speed up the leveling of the other six professions…” A thought suddenly occurred to Sun Fei.

After all, in the World of Diablo, each profession had its own characteristics, with many unique skills, each with its own pros and cons. If he could complete the [Rogue Encampment] map with the Paladin, Sorceress, Druid, Necromancer, Amazon, and Assassin characters, gathering the skills of all seven professions into one, complementing each other, his strength should be stronger than focusing solely on the Barbarian. This could be seen from the fact that on the Diablo battle net in his previous life, killing bosses required teamwork from many players to succeed. And there was a clear example in the previous battle at Shampoo City—Sun Fei’s reliance on the combination and switching of Sorceress and Barbarian skills to instantly kill the Three-Star Swordsman Lund was a good illustration.

Moreover, Sun Fei speculated that if he truly completed the [Rogue Encampment] map with all seven profession characters, he might even receive a huge reward from the mysterious cold voice, which was even more something to look forward to.

Of course, besides that, Sun Fei thought of other methods.

For the characters in the Diablo World, their own strength didn’t just depend on their level; the quality of their equipment was also crucial. A set of powerful equipment could radically change a character’s strength. And in this current ‘single-player game’, wanting to get good equipment, besides normal monster farming, buying powerful equipment from NPC merchants using Gold Coins was also a major shortcut.

But, the problem arose: where could he get a large amount of Gold Coins?

Finally, Sun Fei fixed his gaze on the [Horadric Cube] and Magic Stones. Next, Sun Fei needed to first understand some things before he could determine if his idea was feasible. If it really was as he thought, then Sun Fei could possess endless Gold Coins.