Chapter 38

What is the most painful thing in the world? It's watching powerful and exquisite equipment in front of you that you can't equip... Fang Yi carefully examined the black leather armor in front of him, feeling a mix of pain and joy.

The moment the Snake Lizard's Toe was identified, it appeared on the equipment ranking list, pushing the long-standing "River Spirit's Heart of Joy" (a rare 13-level cloth glove) from the top spot. Although the top three were all purple equipment, the level advantage and powerful skills made the Snake Lizard's Toe live up to Fang Yi's expectations, successfully topping the list.

Naturally, Fang Yi, who had been closely watching the rankings, was overjoyed. The Snake Lizard's Toe, though unremarkable in appearance, had extremely powerful attributes. After using the Snake Lizard's Toe, his instant strength could reach 16 points. Without even mentioning the increased damage or the 3-point reduction in all damage, the 16 points of strength alone were enough to significantly change his tactics. Fang Yi was eager to see what it would be like for a thief, who was usually weak and powerless in front of enemies, to suddenly go head-to-head and push back the opposing warrior.

Fang Yi picked up the only cloak he could equip, securely fastening the leather cord to the ring on his chest, and stretched the light gray cloak on his back. The thick material gave him a sense of security.

Based on past experience, cloaks generally had defensive or supportive attributes, but the flawed experimental product of Saron unusually increased attack attributes. The +1 damage was already a decent boost for players at his current level, and the key skill, Magic Thirst, was truly rare.

The Bloodflow had a very ordinary appearance, with a three-finger-wide blade, nearly two feet long, and a completely unremarkable hilt. However, the particularly pale blade easily evoked thoughts of bones, and the four exaggerated, elongated blood grooves on both sides of the blade were especially eye-catching. The crystalline blood-like magical patterns that occasionally appeared in the blood grooves reminded Fang Yi that this was a formidable weapon. Fang Yi initially estimated that with the Bloodflow, the damage from a single sneak attack could at least double.

If he could equip both the Night's Gift and the Bloodflow, he could venture into various adventure sanctuaries at his level—of course, he should level up first. Fang Yi put the Bloodflow back in his bag, thinking to himself.

In fact, Fang Yi felt a bit regretful. Adventure maps like this, which are rare and hard to come by, often drop powerful items. For example, the brooch he obtained during the beta test that gave players dark vision, or some higher-level magic scrolls and oddities. These items can sometimes have miraculous effects during outdoor adventures, especially when players are adventuring alone. But where could there be such perfect things? Fang Yi thought to himself with a self-deprecating smile.

At this moment, in a common leveling spot outside Tashir, the defeated group of people, including Qiu Daoyu and You Shangwangxia, whom Fang Yi had met before, stood together, looking dejected. The bald monk standing in front of them seemed to have a higher status, almost fully equipped, and was the president of the Heaven's Domination guild, Qi Tanshanhe, who had rushed over from Ximen.

"Don't dwell on this matter," Qi Tanshanhe said coldly, clearly in a bad mood. "The task of the Heart of Holy Light has been confirmed as a failure. The key item on our side was taken by that Fang Yi, and the task has been terminated. Next, you will focus on the Greenwind Canyon task."

"Remember, the most important task for us is to establish a guild base. As long as we have a foothold here, a small hidden task is nothing."

The group nodded in agreement, but only they knew whether they were truly convinced.

Players can choose the locations for learning skills and accepting profession tasks, with official organizations like the Thief Academy and Mage Tower provided by the system. However, these are only available in cities of a certain size. To save trouble, Fang Yi had directly accepted his profession task from the Astorian Thief Guild in Farview Town.

Now that he was in Tashir, there was no need for that. In a great mood, Fang Yi first strolled to the bank, storing the Snake Lizard's Toe and the Bloodflow, and then went to the Thief Academy to learn the level 10 skills. However, he discovered a harsh reality—his bag was out of money.

After spending a lot on potions and miscellaneous expenses, his wallet was already empty. He only had the 3 gold coins and a few copper coins that Qiu Daoyu had dropped, which was just enough to learn one skill. After some consideration, Fang Yi decided to learn "Dual Wield Proficiency."

Dual Wield Proficiency (Level 1): When you wield two light or one-handed weapons, the damage penalty for the off-hand weapon is reduced to -30%. Each subsequent level increases the damage by 3%. Cost: 3 gold and 5 silver.

Money is a necessity, and Fang Yi glanced at his friend list. The two beauties were still offline, so he could only go do some quests.

Fang Yi went to Tashir's alchemy shop to turn in two quests about trolls, and used his last savings to buy three small health potions. He then went to the Lathander Temple to accept the battlefield bandage quest.

These two quests are almost mandatory for combat players: the use of bandages is self-explanatory, with a short cooldown and significant health recovery, and the required cloth is very common, making it a cost-effective item. However, the process of obtaining this skill is extremely arduous.

First, you need to go to the Lathander Temple to start the first step of the quest—opening the reputation with the Dawnbringer Temple (which is different from choosing the faith of the Dawnbringer). At this point, you will receive several simple tasks to help you raise your reputation with the Dawnbringer Temple from neutral to friendly. Depending on the city and region, players will receive different "recognition tasks," which, upon completion, will grant them a large amount of experience and reputation, as well as the bandage skill.

Since Fang Yi had always been in the neutral faction, he wasn't sure about the details of the bandage quests for players in other factions, but he assumed they were similar.

The backpack expansion quest was relatively straightforward: defeat a certain monster, obtain its death certificate, and report to the quartermaster. However, what frustrated players was that the designated monsters were almost impossible for a level 10 player to kill, and they couldn't form a party. In reality, during the beta test, most players could only complete this quest after reaching level 20 or even 25, shedding tears of joy as they finally obtained the additional 15 backpack slots.

So, could he not do the backpack quest in a hurry? It's just 15 additional slots. Fang Yi knew the answer: it wasn't that he couldn't, but it would be very inconvenient. In "Miracle," the variety of items is vast, and the 45 slots provided by the system are far from enough for the rich and colorful adventure life. Otherwise, Fang Yi wouldn't have come here to do this expansion quest even after obtaining a dimensional bag.