Chapter 68: The One and a Quarter Acres of Private Land Were Confiscated

At the entrance to Sabac City, Lin Jia bought a pile of candles from a street vendor, feeling rather frustrated. The day-and-night cycle in “Legend” was simply excruciating—night seemed to fall every few moments, plunging the game screen into utter darkness. Without those little white sticks of candles, it was almost impossible to take a single step forward. What was worse, the inventory only had forty-six slots, and every item, regardless of size, took up a slot. Unlike the super healing potions, candles couldn’t be stacked, so buying a batch of candles would quickly fill up the pack, making it even harder for a fragile mage to pick up anything else.

Candles burned out quickly when equipped, lasting only about half an hour with a mere eight points of durability. Bringing too few was useless—you’d soon be groping about in the dark, unable to see monsters even if they were right under your nose. So the three brothers always had to reserve four or five slots just for candles.

Lin Jia was slightly better off—at least as a mage, if he really couldn’t see, he could toss out a fireball to light things up. The eldest could barely manage with his fire talismans, but the fourth brother, the warrior, had it worst of all. Once he ran out of light sources and didn’t have a dungeon teleport scroll, trying to escape the underground lairs was nearly impossible. In places like the Bichee Mines, it wasn’t uncommon to hear desperate cries echoing through the darkness: “Help! I can’t get out! Someone, please save me! I’ll reward you handsomely!”

As soon as the three of them stepped into the secret passage beneath Sabac City, something felt off. Without a word, they stared at the zombie corpses near the stairs, a bad feeling creeping over them.

No one ever came here but the three of them. How did these zombies die? Judging from the fact that the corpses hadn’t yet refreshed, it hadn’t been long. There was no way these were the zombies they’d killed before logging off that morning—the bodies wouldn’t have lasted this long.

Which meant there was only one answer: the hidden map the brothers considered their private property had been discovered by other players.

Exchanging glances, the three of them sprinted toward the Fragrant Stone Catacombs. They’d known this day would come, but having their exclusive hunting ground invaded so suddenly was still a blow. It wouldn’t be long before this treasure trove was picked clean by a horde of players.

They raced through the secret passage and into the first floor of the catacombs. From the square-shaped room came the constant shouts and hacking of warriors. Lin Jia hurried over and saw, in the corner, at least three level-20 warriors and two level-20 priests drawing a sea of zombies into the corner and hacking away. One of the priests seemed to have reached level 21; their collective invisibility spell was executed with astonishing skill. The three warriors and two skeletons formed a human wall, trapping themselves in the corner so that all five blades had only one or two zombies to deal with at a time. The priests hid behind, occasionally casting healing spells on their warrior comrades and pets, and slyly flinging soul fire talismans and poison spells at the zombies outside the wall. The poisoned horde flickered red and green, their defenses and health constantly dropping, so that by the time they finally squeezed up to the warriors and skeletons, they were already on their last legs, needing only a few finishing blows.

Since their group invisibility was only level 0, it lasted just a few dozen seconds. Once it wore off, they’d draw the distant zombies’ attention again, then the priest would recast the spell, causing the electric zombies in the horde to lose their target and stop attacking.

Lin Jia and his eldest brother were astonished—these players must be seasoned veterans, used to working together. Their seamless alternation between visibility and invisibility had zombies lining up to die, their efficiency even surpassing the three-brother team with Lin Jia, the overpowered little mage. But a team with such a luxurious setup must be burning through gold at an alarming rate!

Outside the human wall, the sea of corpses was a patchwork of red and green. Each poison spell consumed a packet of expensive powder, which couldn’t be bought from system shops but had to be crafted from materials looted from low-level monsters. For example, the “Man-Eating Flower” that spawned in the Bichee wilderness yielded “Man-Eating Flower Leaves” and “Man-Eating Flower Fruit.” Combine these with “Poison Spider Fangs,” “Maggot Eggs,” and “Scorpion Tails”—all gathered from creatures like poison spiders, cave maggots, and scorpions—and you could take them to the apothecary to concoct yellow or gray powder in small, medium, or large quantities.

The process was not only troublesome but also time-consuming, so most priests rarely used such skills—there simply wasn’t enough powder to spare. Some cash-strapped novices would grind low-level monsters to gather materials and sell the resulting poisons to higher-level players for gold to buy potions and level up. The complex crafting process made these rare powders extremely expensive!

A small packet, good for just fifty uses, could fetch ten or twenty thousand gold on the player market, while medium packets went for twenty, thirty, or even fifty thousand. Large packets were almost never sold: they required too many materials to be worthwhile, and their starting price of fifty to a hundred thousand gold kept buyers away.

By rough estimate, those two priests had used up at least four small packets of yellow and gray powder on that horde of zombies—at least thirty or forty thousand gold!

This wasn’t leveling up—this was burning money!

While Lin Jia and his brothers stared, stupefied, the opposing team noticed them standing in the distant darkness, clearly surprised to find anyone else in this hidden spot.

One of the priests, full of hostility, shouted, “How did you get in here? Get lost! We’ve claimed this place!” Lin Jia and his brothers were taken aback by the blatant rudeness, then immediately enraged. Was this guy out of his mind? They hadn’t even complained about someone else training monsters on “their” turf, yet these newcomers had the nerve to tell them to scram?

How ridiculous! They weren't even higher-level, their gear wasn’t better, and they were surrounded by monsters—yet they dared to run their mouths like this? It was like carrying a lantern into a latrine, looking for death!

The fourth brother, hot-tempered as ever, was even quicker to react than Lin Jia. He furiously typed a message and sent it: “You idiots! Looking to die? Just say the word!”

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[Trouble: I have to work this afternoon—updates will resume tonight! I might take tomorrow off, but if you vote enough, maybe I’ll pop a Viagra tonight and go for seven rounds tomorrow! Current votes: If I check tonight and there are over 10,000, I’ll go for seven updates tomorrow even if it kills me!]