Chapter 10: Official Website Forum

Although most of the equipment at the street stalls did not catch Ye Rong’s eye, there were two items that made him somewhat interested.

One was the Maitreya Belt, which was a nanmu wood belt as thick as two fingers, carved with an image of Maitreya Buddha. It had no other attributes, but it contained 10 storage slots, equivalent to half the size of a Universe Pouch.

The other item was the Five Feather Brocade Robe, which provided 50 defense and +80 True Qi.

However, both pieces of equipment were priced extremely high by the sellers—one cost eight taels of silver, and the other cost ten taels.

At his wealthiest, even after saving every single copper coin one by one, Ye Rong had never accumulated more than three taels of silver. Earlier, in order to venture into the Immortal’s Cave Abode, he had spent all his money on purchasing Blood Restoration Pills and Qi Recovery Powder, so now he was almost completely broke.

Furthermore, such low-level equipment from the very early stages of the game was priced far beyond its actual value, making it completely unnecessary to buy.

After wandering around for a couple of laps, Ye Rong logged off to rest. He was already at level seven and a half experience. If the reward from Langhuan Jade Cave had been experience points instead of a treasure, his level would very likely have already exceeded level ten.

Before logging off, Ye Rong checked the Level Ranking. The highest-level player was already at level thirteen, very close to the level fifteen requirement needed to join a Sect. At a time when most players were generally only around levels five or six, that level seemed astonishing.

“Darn it, how did that person level up so fast!” Ye Rong complained, but he didn’t dwell on it too much. After all, the game was still mostly made up of ordinary players; only a small minority would spend over ten hours a day playing nonstop without rest.

To make money in the game, he didn’t necessarily have to be ahead of everyone; he just needed to be a step faster than most players.

After logging out of the game, Ye Rong went to the game’s official website forum and started browsing through players’ new posts.

Today was the first day of Far Shore’s Open Beta Test. The number of forum posts reached an unprecedented peak, with new posts sinking to later pages in the blink of an eye, yet players’ enthusiasm for posting remained extremely high.

Ye Rong only selected the most popular threads, those with the most replies or pinned informative posts to read, in order to learn some useful content.

A large number of posts were players showing off pictures of the equipment they had acquired. Ye Rong skimmed through these quickly, only stopping to take a closer look when he saw particularly good Flying Swords or Magic Treasures.

“Wow, a Fifth-Rank Magical Treasure! What kind of insane luck does this guy have!” Ye Rong felt that his current mood could only be described as a mix of envy, jealousy, and resentment. In this pinned equipment showcase post, the Five Child Bone Bead was clearly a Fifth-Rank Magical Treasure, instantly overshadowing all the other equipment.

For a Fifth-Rank Magical Treasure to appear on the very first day of the game, this person’s luck couldn’t simply be described as good. Even if they were a Closed Beta player with more experience, achieving this wouldn’t be that easy.

Aside from that, there weren’t many Flying Swords or Magic Treasures that could shock Ye Rong. After all, he himself possessed a Third-Grade Immortal Weapon and a Second-Rank Magic Treasure, so there probably weren’t too many pieces of equipment on the forum that were better than his. Of course, it was also possible that many low-key players didn’t upload their equipment to the forum.

“Discussion on the Rewards from First Use of an Immortal Mansion Key.”

This post had already been highlighted and pinned. Ye Rong checked the number of replies; it had already exceeded five thousand.

White Lotus Water Village, a Yellow Rank D grade Immortal Manor of the same level as Langhuan Jade Cave. This post clearly described the entire process, key points to note, and the final rewards, along with many pictures.

Because of his experience at Langhuan Jade Cave, Ye Rong paid even more attention to Immortal Mansion Keys. He read every single word carefully, learning from others’ clearing methods to evaluate his own strategies and see if there were ways to improve.

White Lotus Water Village had three levels in total. The first level had eight White Lotus Puppets, the second level had sixteen White Lotus Dao Soldiers, and the final level had thirty-two White Lotus Terracotta Soldiers. The pictures provided in the post were all taken by the author before clearing monsters or after the battle when looting the battlefield; there was no full video of the clearing battle.

Clearly, the post author didn’t want to share all their experience outright, especially the monster-killing process that would expose their combat habits and techniques.

The difference between White Lotus Water Village and Langhuan Jade Cave was that all the stages involved fighting monsters beyond the current level limit, with no sections testing wit or intelligence. Precisely because of this, White Lotus Water Village demanded higher operational skill from players; anyone below top-tier player level would find it very difficult to pass.

At the very least, Ye Rong admitted to himself that facing such a large number of monsters, even if he had twice as many Blood Restoration Pills, he might not be able to get through smoothly.

“It seems these Closed Beta experts really are very strong. They are professional players, after all; this is their livelihood.”

Ye Rong had his own job before. Although he spent a lot of time in games, he only occasionally exchanged game currency for some real-world money, barely enough for pocket money. Compared to those professional players who were immersed in the game all day long, there was obviously a significant gap in gaming skills.

However, Ye Rong was still quite confident in one area: his Sword Flight operation. Back in Shushan Sword Heroes, his title “Yijian Kurong, Decides Life and Death” was quite famous. In terms of pure Flying Sword operation, few players in the entire game could surpass Ye Rong.

Far Shore had made massive changes in other aspects, but the Flying Sword operation system was still inherited from Shushan Sword Heroes. This was the reason Ye Rong was confident he could earn enough living expenses in Far Shore.

The final clearing reward for White Lotus Water Village was a full 28,000 Experience Points, but there were no other item rewards.

For Ye Rong to go from level seven to level eight, he only needed 6,000 Experience Points. 28,000 Experience Points would be enough for him to level up three times in a row.

It seemed the person currently ranked first on the Level Ranking must have completed a quest similar to White Lotus Water Village that offered extremely rich experience rewards, which allowed them to reach such a high level in a short time.

“Looks like I’m not the only one with good luck.”

Ye Rong scrolled his finger to the bottom of the screen, where text in bright, bold red letters read: ‘Warmly welcome all aspiring players to join Sword Pavilion. Our faction sincerely recruits heroes from all paths.’

The post author’s name was Lei Batian. It seemed his purpose in posting this was also to build reputation, warm up for recruiting members for the faction he would create in the future, and attract players to join.

In Far Shore, creating your own Faction was something that happened after level thirty, and it also required a Black Iron Order. At this stage, creating a Faction was simply impossible. The Sword Pavilion mentioned by Lei Batian was likely directly brought over from another game, not an officially System-recognized Faction.

In the follow-up replies, aside from many expressing amazement at the difficulty and experience rewards of White Lotus Water Village, there were also some players asking how to join Sword Pavilion, clearly showing curiosity about this Faction.

Ye Rong naturally had no interest in joining a Faction. All he thought about now was how to make money. Joining a Faction might offer some conveniences for leveling up for ordinary players, but he didn’t have that much time for group activities or Faction quests.

With his ability, he didn’t need to worry about leveling up at all.