Chapter 150: The Baby Betrays!

Damn it!
Lin Jia sprang up from the couch in a frenzy, hammering his keyboard, and suddenly turned around to glare furiously at Number Four. Startled, Number Four shrank far back in terror. With a ferocious and distorted expression, Lin Jia roared, "Damn you! What the hell did you hit me for?! There was a weapon on the ground!"
Number Four was dumbfounded by the roar. After a long moment, he weakly and aggrievedly said, "I didn't mean to! I just wanted to remind you there was a skill book on the ground!"
"A skill book is worth shit! I've never even seen that weapon before! Who knows, it might have been some hidden legendary equipment! Damn it, damn it, damn it! It dropped and I didn't even pick it up?!" Lin Jia let out a mournful howl.
Meimei quickly chimed in to comfort him, "Forget it, forget it! We can just go kill them again!"
Boss was practically itching to rip the mouse away and hang Number Four in the private room. The price of skill books right now was skyrocketing like the midday sun, becoming more and more outrageous. As players leveled up, the demand for skill books increased day by day. Yet the drop rate of skill books in Legend was even lower than that of equipment. High-level skill books, in particular, were extremely rare items that ordinary players simply never saw; many players didn't even know what their class's high-level skills were.
As for that Summon Shinsu book on the ground just now, it was the ultimate level 35 skill for the Taoist class. No one had ever heard of anyone dropping one or putting one up for sale. How could Boss not be furious? At a time when the vast majority of players were still lingering around level 20, a skill that required level 35 to learn was not something experienced players would let gather dust in their warehouses. Instead, they would immediately take it out, using sweet words to lure prospective buyers into acquiring and collecting it, trading it for a hefty sum of capital to fund their push toward even higher levels in the near future.
It seemed every high-level player was exceptionally confident that once they reached a higher level, they would inevitably drop high-level skill books and equipment themselves. They were even willing to trade away class skill books or gear they couldn't temporarily use in exchange for gold coins or top-tier equipment that could boost their current strength.
Depressing as it was, things had reached this point. Even coughing up blood wouldn't allow them to run back and pick it up now. How much undiscovered equipment was still hidden beneath that massive expanse of potions? The three brothers were filled with agonizing regret, while only Meimei remained clueless about the specific value of the equipment, looking around blankly at one another.
Lin Jia's guts were turning green with regret. Why on earth did his hands have to shake?! It was all Number Four's damn fault! If you want to remind someone, just remind them! Why the hell do you have to slap someone?! Lin Jia glared at Number Four even more furiously. Seeing Lin Jia's look, Number Four cowered and didn't dare make a peep. At this moment, Lin Jia finally understood the kind of rage Number Four had felt the day they first entered Legend, back when Number Four was slapped by him at the Longtai Internet Cafe and died.
"Come to think of it, what kind of weapon did you see? How come none of us saw it? Could it be the legendary Great Board Axe?" Boss asked while helping Meimei, who was still stuck in the southern part of the mine, fly out and run back to the city.
"No! It was a weird-looking sword! Right next to the wall in the corner of the Zombie Cave. I was just about to clear the potions out of my inventory to go pick it up when Number Four slapped me. That sword looked all twisted and curved, kind of feeling like the 'Fish-Intestinal Sword' in martial arts novels..." Lin Jia unhappily cleared his inventory in the safe zone, then parked his four level 7 minions in the safe zone, running over to the potion shop to sell the extra strong sun potions he had picked up, keeping only five as backups for his next outing. The mere thought of the sun potions blanketing the ground and the large piles of gold coins he hadn't had time to pick up made Lin Jia's heart feel like it was being pricked by needles. How much could those have been sold for?
Number Four felt like taking his mouse cord, wrapping it around his own neck, and choking himself to death. The Fish-Intestinal Sword? One of the four great divine weapons of antiquity, and since it was dropped by a boss, it certainly couldn't be some trash item.
"Come here! Let's split the loot!" After selling the potions in his inventory, Lin Jia called his friends over to divide the spoils. The Prayer Necklace with 0-4 Taoism and the Soul Robe with 0-3 Taoism were given to Boss. They had originally discussed giving them to Meimei, who was only level 14. The equipment in the Prayer series possessed incredibly overpowered stats, but strangely enough, it had a very unique characteristic: the equipment requirements were extremely low, requiring only level 15 to wear, making it the prime choice for Meimei, who was about to reach level 15. However, considering Meimei's low level and the fact that her operational skills could not yet compare to Lin Jia and the others, they feared she would die and cause the Prayer Necklace to vanish, so Boss took it for safekeeping.
If they guessed correctly, the reason the Prayer series possessed such overpowered stats and such low equipment requirements was precisely related to its characteristic of disappearing upon death. Otherwise, it would somewhat break the game balance. Imagine a novice in their teens wearing Prayer equipment with stats even higher than players in their twenties—would that leave any room for high-level players to survive?
Therefore, designing the trait of disappearing upon death forced players to weigh their own strength before wearing it. This item was terribly rare, and a low level meant a high mortality rate. If you wore it out and accidentally died, what a pity that would be. Perhaps this was one of the reasons the Prayer series became fragile collector's items tucked away in the warehouses of the vast majority of people?
That large bracelet with 0-2 Attack and 0-something Taoism definitely had to be worn, and the Yellow Crystal Necklace with 1-3 stats wearable at level 13 had to be worn too. There was also a Demon Necklace with 2-2 Attack and 0-2 Taoism that could serve as Meimei's replacement necklace after level 17. If Meimei went out to hack at monsters and level up alone, she could swap it on to boost her attack power without reducing too much Taoism.
Assassination Sword Technique and Half-Moon Slash were given to Number Four. As soon as Number Four took them, he quickly learned Assassination Sword Technique. He had reached level 26 long ago, but regrettably had never been willing to buy the book nor managed to drop these level 20+ skill books. Having long envied Little Shrimp casting blade lights while fighting monsters, Number Four couldn't wait to learn it right away to show off.
As for Lin Jia, he could only silently store his copy of Hell Lightning, a skill that required level 30 to learn, into the warehouse. Judging by his current leveling speed, wanting to learn this skill would probably be a matter for quite a long time in the future.
Making a trip to the Zombie Cave only yielded a skill book for himself, and no good equipment whatsoever, leaving Lin Jia feeling somewhat unbalanced. However, seeing his brothers beaming with joy gave Lin Jia a strong sense of accomplishment.
"Should we go again? Maybe that place has respawned?" Number Four asked excitedly, pumped up by his new skills.
"I want to go too! I want to go too!" Meimei shouted happily as well. The charm of Legend was gradually making Meimei genuinely fall in love with it.
"Wuwuwu, I still have to go down and guard the front desk~~" Boss said with a crying face, shouting out, "I'm going downstairs to log in on the host computer!" It seemed necessary to upgrade their three-computer private room to a four-person seating arrangement.
Before figuring out the entry rules for the Zombie Cave in a short time, making more trips to wander around the zombie dungeon was still quite necessary. If they could completely master the secrets of that hidden map, the treasures dropped by those tomb kings in the Zombie Cave would bring Lin Jia and his friends another massive fortune!
Moreover, if the respawn rate of the zombies in the Zombie Cave was fast enough, leveling up in that place was also a pretty good choice. Each zombie gave 800 experience points, and each time it seemed 30 zombies could be spawned, meaning Lin Jia and the others could gain 24,000 experience points per run—which was already quite substantial. If the three brothers teamed up, Lin Jia's speed at killing monsters would certainly increase. When the zombies weren't respawning, they could go beat up ordinary zombies. What a wonderful concept!
After an infinite amount of day-dreaming, the three Lin Jia brothers and Meimei quickly ran off to resupply. They intended to buy enough potions and other supplies to squat in the mine and refuse to come out until they uncovered the secret of the Zombie Cave!
Just as Lin Jia walked out of the jewelry shop after repairing his equipment, he heard Number Four exclaim beside him, "Holy crap! Second Brother, your tires have mutinied! Come quick!"
Startled, Lin Jia raced toward the safe zone. Lin Jia had deeply tasted the terrifying power of level 7 minions. He had planned to bring these four captured minions back into the mine to help him level up, and even if they didn't level up, they would serve as pretty good "bunkers" once they entered the Zombie Cave!
Before even reaching the safe zone, Lin Jia could already hear a chaotic chorus of screams echoing from within. Running over to take a look, he was shocked by the gruesome state of the safe zone. It was already past 5:00 AM; after getting tired of leveling up, quite a few players left their characters lingering in the safe zone. Lin Jia often saw many overnight players in the internet cafe who, getting tired, would just dump their characters in the safe zone and collapse over their computer desks to snore away, continuing to level whenever they woke up. Thus, the number of people in the safe zone every night was still quite massive.
Yet precisely because of this reason, the tragedy unfolding in the safe zone right now was becoming a bit too gruesome to watch!
Corpses littered the fields! Of the four level 7 Black Maggots, three had simultaneously turned traitor, leaving only one obediently squatting among the crowd. The three traitorous minions were bounding wildly through the crowd like madmen, launching frenzied attacks scattered in all directions among the players. Almost every few seconds, a player would die beneath their massacre, their blood-red names grimly signaling their wrath and danger!
Some novice players who might still have been controlling their characters scattered and fled like a kicked nest of hornets, while the crowded mass of players in the safe zone made their escape difficult. With the slightest hesitation, they would be nudged a couple of times by a level 7 Black Maggot rolling up beside them out of nowhere, let out a "Ah~~!" shriek, and contribute a piece of their equipment to the surrounding crowd of players!
Players who had initially fled in terror from the Black Maggots, upon seeing the equipment dropped all over the ground, couldn't help but greedily pounce back to grab it. Yet this behavior only added more tempting items to the ground, luring in even more greedy victims!