Chapter 5

In the port city of Paronst, the blacksmith's shop, four years and seven months after the New Eden army eliminated the last organized kingdom forces in this city, the entire city was reduced to ruins... Now, the blacksmith's shop in Paronst can be considered quiet, except for the noise of the dwarf apprentices hammering away, which, though loud, gave Maso a rare sense of security.

Without the continuous warfare that followed four years later, without the constant killing and fighting, the silence delighted the kitten.

Maso bought a simple light crossbow from the old dwarf blacksmith, along with a bag of bolts that came with it, which just drained the only silver coin in his pocket.

Maso's next destination after leaving the shop was not the Adventurers' Guild, although there were countless quests to take on there. However, Maso knew a better shortcut for him—the abandoned old lighthouse in the port area.

But before heading to the abandoned lighthouse in the port, Maso first went outside the city.

Maso needed a piece of beeswax. Beeswax could be bought, but Maso had no copper coins in his pocket, so only the beehives outside the city could provide the beeswax—beehives in the game were not as small as those in reality. A beehive on the ground was over two people tall, built by the most common large bees on the eastern continent, each as big as an adult's fist.

They were called bees, but they were no different from killer bees, which was bad news—however, the good news was that because of their size, a beehive usually contained no more than five hundred bees, and most of them had already left the hive to gather nectar. Therefore, Maso cast a first-level spell—Animal Ignore.

Maso could now cast zero-level and first-level divine spells—yes, shamans cast druid-like divine spells, and this spell made individual patrolling bees unable to see him. Although the kitten thought these large bees couldn't be considered animals, since the system recognized them as such, Maso couldn't make himself unhappy.

Each player level allowed this divine spell to make one animal target ignore the caster. Bees would only counterattack when the player approached the hive or attacked them, so Maso safely crawled to the bottom of the beehive—gently peeling back the outer shell, he pulled out a large piece of beeswax and, as a bonus, over a dozen exposed bee larvae—these were good things, selling them to the alchemist could earn a few silver coins.

With these gains, Maso naturally fled far away, as the large bees would soon discover his 'good deed,' and it would be too late to leave by then.

Back in Paronst, Maso, while browsing the in-game forum, sold the remaining sixteen bee larvae and half a block of beeswax to an NPC alchemist. His not-so-bad charisma and tireless eloquence earned him 39 silver coins. Maso set aside 15 silver coins and used them to buy an alcohol lamp from the alchemist.

Leaving the alchemy shop, Maso found a carving master in the market, spending 10 silver coins to learn the life skill of carving. He then used half of the remaining four silver coins to buy a piece of hard wood, a carving knife, and a long rope from the carving master.

Crossing the busy harbor dock, Maso entered the shadow of the alley leading to the lighthouse. Putting away his light warhammer, Maso began to climb up the protrusions on the lighthouse wall. Shamans did not suffer from climbing penalties while wearing leather robes, and the light load made Maso feel no burden. Soon, he reached the middle of the lighthouse—just as he remembered, there was a 'blank area' here—no protrusions for Maso to climb.

The nearest climbing point—a wooden rafter—was right above Maso. After taking a deep breath, Maso pushed off with his legs and leaped, using his hands and tail to hang onto the wooden rafter.

Maso took a breath and began to climb towards the top of the small pavilion where the lighthouse lamp was placed. As he leaped onto the top, a notification appeared in the kitten's system bar—Climber, a common achievement that, when equipped, effectively reduced the rate of stamina loss during climbing.

Of course, Maso already knew this. He first looked east—the eastern part of the city was the almost endless Storm Sea. From May to September each year was the storm season of the Storm Sea, during which typhoons generated in the sea would visit the eastern continent, causing one storm after another.

After looking at the sea, Maso turned to the north—the giant tree in the central area of Paronst was a World Tree. This World Tree was brought from Moggus by the ancient World Tree 'Auro' during the Planar War era to better support the front lines. It was accompanied by earth elementals and rooted in Paronst. Maso had seen the Rep video from that time. To protect this World Tree, the living faction and the evil faction engaged in continuous bloody battles on the Weeping Plains to the south of the city. Even during the fifth opening, remnants of the dead and fragments of their belongings were still occasionally found on the Weeping Plains.

Turning around, the southern plains came into Maso's view—the entire territory of the Ashby Kingdom could not contain the Weeping Plains, which extended north to the central part of the Canary Kingdom. During the Age of Light, the Weeping Plains were called the Dreaming Plains because dreaming flowers could be found everywhere. However, after the invasion of the evil undead army from the Necropolis Plane, countless innocents fell on the plains, and the Weeping Plains replaced the original name.

In the year ST1220, the evil invasion began. For the next 180 years, the living were compressed into a smaller living space. It was a sad era, a painful time, until the year ST1400 when players came to this world and joined the living faction. It took them 14 game years, with the sacrifice of millions of characters and countless epic battles, to achieve victory in the Planar War.

That was a legendary era.

Maso sighed as he jumped onto the platform. After resting for a moment, he took out a piece of bread from his bag, crumbled it, and scattered the crumbs on the ground. Then, the kitten walked to one side and hid in the straw pile used to light the lighthouse, waiting for his prey to arrive.

Soon, a group of pigeons landed and began to fight over the bread crumbs. They didn't know that a hunter had already nocked an arrow on the crossbow, waiting for his prey to arrive.

Maso carefully observed the group of pigeons, some of which were leaving and others joining. His target was the pigeon of the local Thieves' Guild—high-ranking nobles, the Arcane Brotherhood, the royal family, and other high-level entities in the game world used specially trained high-quality pigeons that would never eat such 'junk' food as bread crumbs. Therefore, Maso was not worried about accidentally harming such pigeons.

The Thieves' Guild was just a small organization at the start of the game, and they had no means to train high-quality pigeons at the time.

What Maso needed to do was to rob and kill, which players on the forum would call 'wallet snatching' three years later.

The 'wallet snatching' method was discovered by players five years after the game started. At that time, a player guild, envious of the NPC armed caravans, successfully robbed a batch of goods after meticulous planning, obtaining a large amount of cash and equipment.

At first, there were no victims reporting the crime, and the players on the forum were curious. Later, someone discovered that the Thieves' Guild had posted a bounty on the Dark Guild, and the players realized that the guild had actually robbed the Thieves' Guild's goods.

Due to the almost irreconcilable hostility between the Thieves' Guild and the city management and nobility, player guilds and large organizations began to purposefully investigate the Thieves' Guild. Soon, the second and third robberies occurred, and because of the large amount of goods, the players on the forum called it 'wallet snatching.'

However, by then, the Thieves' Guild had become a massive organization, and the 'wallet' had evolved from a gold chest to an armed convoy with a large amount of high-end equipment and weapons. The Thieves' Guild would not sit idly by, and after some players betrayed them, the Thieves' Guild and player guilds began a long-term war.

In direct combat, the Thieves' Guild could not gain the upper hand, but when it came to covert sabotage and assassination, the player guilds were at a disadvantage—after all, players were outsiders in the game world, while NPC natives were more willing to trust each other. It was then that players realized the importance of NPC and city/nation reputation, favor, and legendary value.

Now, only Maso knew about the existence of the 'wallet,' and the Thieves' Guild was still a small organization, especially in Paronst, with only four or five low-level NPC thieves, who still needed financial support from the Ashby Thieves' Guild headquarters. Therefore, Maso only needed to intercept how the 'wallet' full of gold coins arrived in Paronst, and he had enough methods to rob it.

Intercepting pigeons and checking messages was the best reconnaissance method.

Soon, a gray-feathered pigeon entered Maso's line of sight. Noticing the wax-sealed message tube on the pigeon's leg, Maso stood up. The pigeon, sensing something wrong, scattered and fled. Maso pulled the trigger, and the bolt from the crossbow immediately pierced the right wing of the gray pigeon and then nailed into the head of another pigeon.

Dropping the crossbow, Maso grabbed his prey. Seeing the wax seal with the Thieves' Guild mark, Maso grinned. He took a high-resolution 3D screenshot of the wax seal, then broke it and took out the message.

"Midnight, pick up the goods at the sixth dock in the port area." Raising an eyebrow, Maso tied the gray pigeon with a rope, then took out the hard wood and carving knife—since he knew the information, the next step was to forge it.

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