Chapter 129: Torches Across the Screen

Lin Jia had once seen a player selling the Mage’s "Fire Wall" skill book at the player market for nearly two million gold coins. However, the "Explosive Flame" skill book, which can be learned at just level 22, was being offered at an unimaginably high price—far more expensive than the skill books for Taoists and Warriors! Moreover, there was no supply to meet the demand; nobody was selling it at all.

Lin Jia didn't understand why a level 22 skill book was more expensive than a level 24 one. After asking around, he learned that for some unknown reason, the drop rate for skill books had become extremely low. While "Fire Wall" was expensive, at least it could be found on the market. "Explosive Flame," however, had become one of the rarest skill books in the game. As a result, 90% of Mages above level 22 lacked this essential area-of-effect spell, which was intended to be their primary tool until level 35. With its rapid casting, wide coverage, and decent damage, "Explosive Flame" had become a point of frustration for every Mage player.

Lin Jia felt incredibly lucky that he had managed to find both "Explosive Flame" and "Fire Wall" skill books early on. Otherwise, he might have been like those other Mages, still stuck in the Stone Tomb at level 24, using only "Fire Wall" to burn through endless swarms of bats.

Deciding to stop playing the role of a guide for newcomers, Lin Jia and his brothers stealthily filled their inventories with potions, planning to head to the Woma Temple to level up.

The first and second floors of Woma didn't have many monsters to fight, but the third floor was an ocean of them. Since no one was leveling there, it was a holy land for grinding, albeit a dangerous one. The group was ambitious, hoping to see if they could manage to level up in the Woma Temple's Boss Hall, as they could barely survive on the third floor by using the "human wall" tactic.

When they ran to Biche City to buy potions, they suddenly spotted Little Shrimp standing by the shop entrance, recruiting members. Lin Jia greeted him, mentioning they were planning to go level up and wouldn't be participating in the guild activities today. Little Shrimp chuckled, "7878! You guys have been working hard these past few days! I’m just standing here recruiting; our guild is getting bigger by the day!"

After chatting for a bit, Lin Jia and his group bought their supplies and were about to leave when they noticed that the light radius around Little Shrimp was much larger than theirs. Curious, Lin Jia asked, "Shrimp! Why is your candle so bright? It illuminates twice as much area as ours!"

"Dizzy! What candle?" Little Shrimp asked, confused. "I'm using a torch! Don't you guys know torches are for sale?"

"A torch?" Lin Jia checked the equipment slot where his candle was placed. It really was an item that looked like a matchstick but was labeled as a "Torch." Lin Jia asked, "Where did you buy this? I only ever see candles at the general store! Most players just use candles!"

Little Shrimp walked over to trade with Lin Jia, giving him six torches, and laughed, "These are only sold at the general store in the city of Sabac. They last much longer than candles and have a larger illumination radius! But they are much more expensive; regular players without money wouldn't be willing to buy them. No wonder you haven't seen them!"

"Man!" Lin Jia exclaimed in surprise. "When did Sabac start selling these? We didn't see them when we were leveling in the Fragrant Stone Tomb!"

"Maybe it's a new item from the latest version update? I'm not sure, I just stumbled upon it while wandering through Sabac the other day!"

Lin Jia equipped the torch, and the radius of light around him doubled. It was much brighter than a candle, making leveling more convenient, and he wouldn't have to worry about missing items on the ground due to poor visibility.

After saying goodbye to Little Shrimp, the three brothers began the long trek to Woma 3. That place was great for leveling, but buying potions was a hassle; without someone to help carry extra supplies, a Mage would have to return to the city after only a few minutes of grinding.

Looking at the bright circle of light on the ground, Lin Jia felt like he had seen the word "torch" somewhere before. After thinking for a long time, he remembered a post titled "The Magic of Torches—Let There Be Eternal Light" that he had seen on a pro player's forum while looking for quest guides a few days ago. At the time, he had only checked to see if the pro's guides were updated and hadn't paid much attention to it.

A thought struck Lin Jia, and he quickly told his brothers, "Wait! Keep an eye on my character; I need to tab out for a second!" He switched out of the game, opened the pro forum, and searched for a long time before finding the article at the bottom of a thread. He opened it and was ecstatic!

The post explained a small trick discovered by a programmer: by opening the game's client folder and navigating to the 'data' directory, one could find six files named 'ligoa' through 'ligol'. By moving the 'ligod' and 'ligoe' files into a separate folder and renaming 'ligol' to 'ligod', one could double the illumination radius in the game! However, it required the player to be equipped with a torch.

Since a torch's illumination already covered half of the screen, and only the outer edges remained dark, this method essentially turned the game into a world of eternal daylight.

Lin Jia quickly exited the game, navigated to the game's client folder, and after some searching, found the six files. Following the instructions, he moved the two files to a new folder and renamed 'ligol' to 'ligod'. After refreshing the folder, he restarted the game. Upon logging in, he shouted, "Wow! It actually works! It's so bright! It's just like daytime!"

"No kidding! It's daytime in the game anyway!" the eldest brother retorted. Lin Jia said excitedly, "Let's hurry to Woma!"

Once they reached the Woma Temple, the eldest and the fourth brother removed their torches. When they looked at Lin Jia's screen, the eldest shouted, "Holy crap! It really is full-screen brightness! How did you do that? Brother, hurry up and help me do it too!"

Lin Jia ran over to the eldest's computer, shooed him away, and applied the same modification. As for the fourth, a gaming expert, he understood the process as soon as Lin Jia explained it and handled his own.

"Wow! Why didn't we find this sooner? The darkness was such a pain! This makes things so much easier!" the eldest laughed. Indeed, the brothers had gained a huge advantage. Not only was it convenient, but they could also spot enemies outside of others' visual range to launch surprise attacks. They could also see monsters at the edge of the screen before stumbling into them, significantly increasing their safety.

With their full-screen torches, the brothers felt this method was incredibly practical, and their confidence in tackling Woma 3 grew. They rushed toward the entrance, using the same old "human chain" tactic they had used in the Fragrant Stone Tomb. The fourth, the tank with high HP, went down first to absorb the initial wave of attacks. Lin Jia, the Mage, followed, stacking on top of the fourth. Finally, the eldest came down last and immediately cast "Group Invisibility" to hide them all.

They had changed the order of the stack because they had realized through trial and error that the first person down would take damage from monsters, and the last person would occasionally get hit too. Standing in the middle was the safest.

They had the eldest stand on the outside to tank because it was difficult to target and heal while stacked. By tanking himself, the eldest could hold down the heal button to spam-heal himself, while the fourth could just chug HP potions to survive.

Once stacked, Lin Jia began frantically throwing "Fire Walls" onto the ground. As the monsters in the T-shaped room shrieked and writhed in the flames, Lin Jia suddenly noticed his HP dropping rapidly!

Even after chugging several HP potions, he couldn't keep up. Terrified, he yelled, "What the hell!" before retreating back to the second floor.

The eldest asked in surprise, "What's wrong?"

"I don't know! My health is plummeting! I can't keep it up!" Lin Jia said, bewildered.

"No way," the fourth added, "I haven't lost any health at all! How are you losing health while standing in the middle? No monsters are even hitting you!"

Lin Jia had no choice but to re-enter Woma 3. After tossing a few Fire Walls, he started losing health again. This time, he clearly saw the culprit: those Dark Warriors jumping around like grasshoppers!

Dark Warriors were ranged attackers. Once Lin Jia attacked them, they immediately fired poison darts at him. It was no wonder he was losing so much health with five or six of them shooting at him! The three brothers were stunned—how were they supposed to burn the monsters now?

The last time they had come down with the main guild force to fight the boss, it was because there were many of them, and there were plenty of Taoists to heal Lin Jia. Furthermore, when the Taoists lured the monsters, they mostly pulled fast-moving ones like Woma Warriors and Flame Womas, while the slow-moving Dark Warriors were rarely lured over. Plus, there were four other Mages helping Lin Jia pick off the small fry, allowing them to persist until the end.

Now that no one was helping clear the Dark Warriors, Lin Jia had to endure the attacks himself.

With no other choice, Lin Jia had to use Lightning to pick off the Dark Warriors one by one before laying down Fire Walls to roast the rest, which significantly slowed down their clearing speed.

After clearing the monsters in the small T-shaped space, the eldest stepped out of the stack to lure more monsters. But as soon as the eldest moved, the group ran into trouble!