Chapter 131: The Beautiful Overload Ring

“Boss?”

Lin Jia froze and turned toward the Boss’s screen. The instant he saw what was happening, he swore violently. “Damn it! Are you trying to get us killed? Why did you lure it over here? We can’t possibly kill it!”

The Boss hammered furiously at the keyboard, the mouse clicking like a burst of firecrackers. “When I ran over there, the players who were fighting the Boss had also learned our trick and were forming a human wall to trap it. One of their mages was using Lightning, but then the Boss went berserk again and wiped them all out. I figured it must be nearly dead, so I wanted to lure it over here and finish it!”

Nearly dead? Then it was worth taking a chance.

Lin Jia said no more. “Invisibility!”

He raised his Crescent Blade and began attacking. Standing amid the mob, the Boss cast Mass Invisibility on Lin Jia and the others, then began hurling Poison at the Woma Leader.

A Taoist’s Poison and a mage’s Lightning both generated enormous amounts of monster aggro. Since the Boss and Lin Jia were positioned diagonally from each other, whenever the Woma Leader ran toward Lin Jia’s group, the Boss would frantically cast Poison and lure it back. But whenever the Boss drew near her, she simply recast Invisibility on herself and stood motionless. Lin Jia would then unleash Lightning from a distance, drawing the monster back toward him.

Thus, the Woma Leader ran back and forth through the mob, squeezing between the monsters at either end. Yet neither side could land a hit. Driven utterly mad with frustration, the Boss let out a furious roar, vomited blood, and collapsed.

Loot burst outward and scattered across the ground like a shower of flowers. The warrior standing in front of Lin Jia could no longer resist the temptation. He suddenly broke through the human wall and charged straight for the equipment.

The moment he abandoned his position, the Woma monsters rushed toward Lin Jia and Fourth Brother, who had just lost their Invisibility. With one man missing, the human wall could no longer withstand the monsters’ assault.

Lin Jia cursed. “Damn it!”

Before they could be completely surrounded, he and Fourth Brother hurried out from behind the wall, leaving two skeletons standing there stupidly, and charged toward the loot dropped by the Woma Leader.

The moment the warrior began moving, the surrounding Woma monsters were drawn toward him. He had not taken even ten steps before a swarm of them closed in and sealed off his path. He struggled desperately to break through left and right, but how could a warrior barely past level twenty calmly escape from a huge horde of Woma monsters?

The monsters bit him from every direction, forcing him to stagger backward while he screamed in agony. His miserable plight was so vivid that Lin Jia could almost hear the player frantically hammering the keyboard and gulping down healing potions.

At that moment, the Taoist who had gone with the Boss to lure away the monsters finally escaped their entanglement alive. When he reached the area and saw the warrior in mortal danger, he immediately cast Invisibility on himself and began healing him frantically.

Perhaps the Taoist had not yet learned Mass Invisibility—or perhaps he could not afford the skill book. He merely kept healing the warrior instead of casting Mass Invisibility to help him evade the monsters. The greedy warrior could only blame his bad luck.

Lin Jia and Fourth Brother wound their way beneath the mob surrounding the warrior and reached the mountain of loot. They had no time even to see what lay on the ground. All they knew was that the mouse was clicking furiously beneath their feet, picking up everything within reach.

Dark green item notifications rolled continuously across the upper-left corner of the screen. Gold coins, Greater Magic Potions, Greater Healing Potions, Sun Water, and other items flashed over one another.

Now and then they picked up a piece of equipment, but there was no time to inspect it. Lin Jia could only open his inventory in a panic and gulp down the potions filling its slots, making room to pick up more items. They had collected less than half when the Woma monsters respawning nearby were drawn toward the three brothers.

The mob trampled back and forth across the pile of loot, putting the three brothers in constant danger and making it nearly impossible to pick anything up. Lin Jia gritted his teeth, turned, and ran toward the outer edge.

“Come pick everything up! I’ll draw the monsters away!”

What was the fastest way for a mage to lure monsters?

Firewall and Explosion Flame!

Lin Jia reached an open area and first hurled several blasts of Explosion Flame at the Boss and Fourth Brother. Then he set the ground beneath the loot ablaze with Firewall.

The Woma monsters attacked by Lin Jia were drawn toward him at the perimeter, clearing the area where the items had fallen. Taking advantage of the opening, the Boss and Fourth Brother frantically gathered the loot.

While using Explosion Flame, Lin Jia was also being savagely attacked by the monsters around him. Fortunately, they had picked up plenty of Sun Water and other instant-recovery potions. Relying on his absurdly fast reflexes and frantic potion use, Lin Jia managed to endure the assault.

After finally forcing his way out of the mob, Lin Jia continued casting Firewall beneath and around his feet. He glanced at the warrior, who was still somehow alive in the middle of the monsters, and thought spitefully, You wanted to steal the loot? Fine. I’ll send you a few more monsters. Let’s see you survive being surrounded!

But before Lin Jia could reach him, the warrior let out a scream and collapsed. Having lost their target, the monsters turned toward Lin Jia, who had practically delivered himself to them.

He was trapped between enemies in front and behind, with nowhere to run.

It all sounded complicated, but in reality, no more than a dozen seconds had passed. Realizing that he could no longer move and would certainly die if he waited any longer, Lin Jia quickly pressed F8, intending to escape with Teleportation.

But the moment he pressed it, a ring of crimson light appeared around him. Only then did Lin Jia remember that he had changed F8 from Teleportation to Ring of Repulsion, to prevent himself from accidentally teleporting away during combat.

“Damn you!”

Lin Jia frantically double-clicked several HP Potions and Sun Waters. Then he pressed F11, opened the skill window, assigned Teleportation to F8, and hit the key without even looking. At the same time, he slammed the six shortcut keys on his keyboard. At that point, any potion was worth drinking first and thinking about later.

When Lin Jia saw that he had only about one-tenth of his health remaining—

Lin Jia successfully cast Teleportation, and his heart finally relaxed. But before he could fully exhale, his mage, “Mad Lingjia,” let out a long “Aaaah!” and fell from the sky to his death!

Lin Jia’s mouth opened wide enough to swallow an entire egg. He stared in disbelief.

“Damn it! Another corpse from a failed teleport? Wait—why did I say ‘another’?”

After cursing his bad luck several times, Lin Jia memorized the coordinates and surroundings of the place where he had “fallen to his death.” It was near the Advanced Warriors’ Home beside Bich City. With so many players coming and going, he would be heartbroken if someone picked up his belongings.

Lin Jia immediately logged off and revived. Without even having time to restore his still-depleted health, he dashed out through the southern gate of Bich Imperial City.

Fortunately, they were now using full-screen torches. Otherwise, finding the terrain in complete darkness would have been extremely difficult. The Advanced Warriors’ Home was not far from Bich Imperial City, and Lin Jia reached it quickly.

Luckily, the coordinates were far from the Newbie Village, not along the main route to Bich Imperial City, and there were no dense monster spawn points to attract beginners looking for a place to level up. The potions and equipment scattered across the ground were still there.

As soon as Lin Jia arrived, he ignored the potions and other items. Instead, he snatched up a crooked object lying on the ground.

This was a priceless treasure! Building a guild depended on one.

Without realizing when it had happened, Lin Jia had picked up the Woma Horn dropped by the Woma Leader and put it into his inventory.

Given the current market and the demand for horns among the major guilds, this one could fetch an astronomical price!

It was an essential item for the second guild in Radiance!

Only after recovering the item did Lin Jia have time to inspect his equipment. Seeing that he had not lost anything, he finally relaxed and asked the others, “How are things with you?”

The Boss chuckled. “We’re back in the safe zone! Where did you go?”

“I died. I teleported into the sky and became a corpse. I just went to retrieve my things!”

“You didn’t lose anything, did you?” the Boss asked with concern.

Lin Jia shook his head. “No. Did you pick up anything good?”

“Heh heh. Come back and see for yourself!”

The Boss was grinning so broadly that she could barely close her mouth.

Lin Jia hurried back to the safe zone. The Taoist who had helped them earlier, “Honor Among Thieves,” was there as well. The Boss traded all the loot over to Lin Jia for inspection.

A Ghost Necklace. Attack 0–5.

A Three-Eyed Divine Bracelet. Taoism 0–2.

One level-twenty-six Taoist skill book, Soul Revelation.

One level-twenty-six mage skill book, Lightning Beam.

The Boss burst into triumphant laughter.

“I finally got a skill book I can use myself! Oh, right—Second Brother, Lightning Beam is your skill, isn’t it? Here, take it!”

Lin Jia laughed happily. “It’s a shame we didn’t get your level-twenty-five skill book, Holy Armor. Then you could help us fight monsters and protect us too. What a pity! By the way, Fourth Brother, didn’t you pick up any equipment?”

“I don’t think so. I haven’t checked yet. I don’t remember seeing anything when I was picking things up just now…” Fourth Brother suddenly made a strange sound. “Huh? What kind of ring is this?”

He stared at the item in confusion.

“I’ve never seen one before. It’s beautiful!”

“What? Let me see!”

Lin Jia quickly leaned over. A gorgeous hollow ring, apparently made of gold and set with a turquoise stone, lay inside Fourth Brother’s inventory. Its striking appearance immediately seized the attention of all three brothers.

Lin Jia grabbed the mouse from Fourth Brother and moved the cursor over it.

The name was Overload Ring.

Strangely, it had no attributes.

Could it be another useless collector’s item? Lin Jia wondered why the game contained so many beautiful yet impractical objects. Were they designed purely for decoration?

The Boss sighed in admiration. “It’s gorgeous! My Three-Eyed Divine Bracelet is beautiful too, but its attributes aren’t much to look at. They’re not even as good as the attributes on my own top-grade bracelet. Why are the prettiest pieces of equipment always so useless? Forget it. I don’t care. Give me this ring!”

The Boss snatched the Overload Ring from Fourth Brother—truly snatched it, seizing the mouse and forcibly initiating the trade.

She put on the beautiful Overload Ring and admired herself for a while. Then she traded Lin Jia’s Lightning Beam and Fourth Brother’s Ghost Necklace over to them.

“This Honor Among Thieves seems like a decent person,” Lin Jia suggested. “Why don’t we give him the Three-Eyed Divine Bracelet? He helped us, after all. Being too stingy wouldn’t look good.”

The Boss was somewhat reluctant to part with the beautiful bracelet, but its attributes truly were poor. They were not even as good as those of an ordinary top-grade item.

After gritting her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut, the Boss reluctantly traded the beautiful bracelet over.

Honor Among Thieves had never expected to receive such a fine piece of equipment. He was so delighted that he thanked them repeatedly. He had assumed the three brothers would give him, at most, a share of the gold coins. He never imagined he would receive such an incredible item!

Its appearance alone was enough to show how valuable it was.