Chapter 108: Equipment Equals Capital

Legend of the Mage

Although purchasing from the mage player required a significant amount of gold, it saved time and allowed newcomers to gain a massive power advantage early on. Consequently, many new players were willing to buy their equipment from him. What the newcomers found most thoughtful was that this mage player didn't just sell gear; he also bought it. While the prices were a bit low, they were still acceptable, and players could even trade in gear they no longer needed for items they required.

For example, a newcomer might buy a set of gear at level 11. Once they reached level 13, they could trade in that level 11 set plus some gold for a level 13 set. They could even trade in gear they found during their leveling journey that wasn't for their specific class. This not only helped players save their gold for potions but also allowed them to quickly offload excess gear in exchange for gold to fund their leveling.

Naturally, the buy-back price was never the same as the selling price. After deducting depreciation, he would buy items back at a rate slightly higher than the shops. The same applied when trading gear for gold or other items; most of the time, it required several pieces of gear plus at least 80% of the gold value to get what they wanted. While newcomers cursed the mage player as a "new-age capitalist," they had no choice but to remain his customers. After all, who would want to sacrifice precious leveling time just to stand in a safe zone shouting to sell items of little value?

Newcomers with veteran friends were relatively luckier. Their friends would usually sponsor them with a decent amount of capital to buy gear, allowing them to purchase expensive but high-stat equipment to arm themselves. Items like Small Bracelets or Iron Bracelets with +0-1 bonuses to Attack, Taoism, or Magic were excellent gear that could be used up to level 20 or beyond. It is worth noting that even the class-specific sets at level 20, such as the Ebony Bracelet or Taoist Bracelet, only offered a +1 attribute bonus for their respective classes, whereas the humble Small or Iron Bracelets at least provided bonuses to Accuracy and Magic Resistance.

If one were willing to spend, even more outrageous "god-tier" items could be found—such as a Small Bracelet with +0-2 Magic or Taoism, or a Large Bracelet with +0-2 Attack. Equipping these would certainly make a newcomer the center of attention, though the risk of being hunted down by jealous players or losing their gear in a death drop was something they had to consider. These kinds of "broken" items were something even high-level players above level 20 might not dare to wear. For a newcomer, wearing such items while leveling was essentially asking for trouble.

Although Gu Feng Yizhen had already helped Lin Jia and his group sell off warehouses full of low-level, non-shop gear and some mediocre items with minor stat bonuses, Lin Jia and his friends were still struggling with the remaining high-tier equipment in their storage. After several days of effort, the common gear had sold out, and the minor "god-tier" items with +1 or +2 stats were easy to move. However, the high-level gear (level 20+) and the truly "broken" items were difficult to sell, and they were taking up valuable space in the warehouse.

Although the system had adjusted gold drop rates after the server migration, making players gradually wealthier, there were very few players who could actually afford high-end equipment that cost tens of thousands of gold pieces per piece. Lin Jia and his group didn't have the time to stand in the safe zone acting as temporary NPCs to sell items. The remaining high-end gear was too expensive for most to buy, yet selling it cheap felt like a waste, which was a constant headache for them.

At present, "name-brand" god-tier items like an Ebony Bracelet with +0-2 Magic were still quite rare. What was popular were low-level items with +1 stat bonuses. In an era where a Small Bracelet with +0-1 Magic could fetch over 50,000 to 100,000 gold, most players could only sigh at the sight of high-level class-specific god-tier gear. It might seem like Lin Jia and his friends were decked out in god-tier gear and had warehouses full of treasures, but that was only because they were among the veteran players who had built up their capital early on, combined with their own good luck.

Whether or not one could get ahead in an online game depended to a large extent on the player's own luck, though a keen sense for the game's development and trends was also vital. There were others who, like Lin Jia, realized they could make money by paying attention to system announcements regarding server migrations, but hardly anyone else had the luck to accumulate tens of millions of gold in capital to leverage early on.

A new game often presents many opportunities; whether or not one can discover them is a matter of personal "luck" and insight. Otherwise, why would no one else have noticed that one could buy Iron Bracelets with +2 Accuracy and +0-2 Magic from the system shops? It was Lin Jia who discovered it. Everything has a cause and an effect; if Lin Jia hadn't possessed a substantial amount of gold to squander, he wouldn't have been curious enough to buy an exorbitantly priced low-level shop item just to see what it was. Why would an ordinary Iron Bracelet worth a few hundred gold be selling for over 2,000? If not for the migration, and Lin Jia's idea to wholesale low-level non-shop gear to sell on new servers, they never would have made so much money.

Thus, it could be said that the capital Lin Jia and his friends had achieved in the game was half due to their incredible luck and half due to their diligence, patience, and hard work.

The game had been open for just over ten days. Aside from the veteran players who had rushed to level 22–25 early on, the leveling speed for everyone else was slowing down. The influx of a massive number of new players made leveling increasingly difficult and slow; there were monsters everywhere, but even more people. Even in the highly dangerous Centipede Cave, groups of young mages still using "Small Fireball" were rushing in to risk their lives.

Like Lin Jia and his friends, although they had pushed hard to reach level 24 before the migration, a week after the migration concluded, their experience bars still hadn't reached level 25. While spending time training their skills was one reason, the main factor was simply that there were no monsters left to kill.

Furthermore, Lin Jia and his friends could see that the "Legend" servers had been quite unstable lately, frequently hitting player caps or undergoing section migrations. Despite opening 20 servers in just a few days, the Guangmang server was still packed to the brim. Fortunately, the officials had closed registrations for the original three servers—Leiting, Guangmang, and Lieyan—and were aggressively migrating players to other servers to alleviate the congestion; otherwise, it would have been unplayable.

Under these circumstances, leveling was a laborious and frustrating task. The lag made every step a struggle. It was better to wait until this period of instability passed before pushing to level up. What they needed to do now was sell off the high-quality gear they had accumulated.

After all, gear equals capital, and capital equals gold!