Chapter 5

The number of zombies outside had dwindled to less than a hundred, scattered about among the debris and garbage, wandering aimlessly.

The vast square now exuded an inexplicable sense of desolation.

Luo Jie did not walk through the spacious main entrance but instead, using the map as a guide, came to the side of the Good Luck City complex. With the help of the Black Phantom, who possessed superhuman height and strength, he was thrown onto a viewing platform on the second floor.

This was the optimal route summarized by explorers from his previous life, allowing him to bypass the dense crowd of zombies on the first-floor commercial street, thus saving a significant amount of time.

Of course, such a leapfrog advance must be based on a thorough understanding of the environment and the enemies; otherwise, it could easily lead to a situation where one cannot extricate themselves from danger.

The viewing platform was the outdoor section of a café, covering an area of about 80 to 90 square meters, skillfully divided into several areas by green vegetation.

A few zombies stood motionless under the sun umbrellas, but upon sensing the presence of a living being, they began to move, their shuffling steps producing uneven thuds on the wooden floor of the platform.

Clang!

A fat male zombie knocked over a small round table and, like an old friend long unseen, spread his arms wide toward Luo Jie. His chinless face revealed only a bloody tongue hanging down, and it was hard to imagine how he could bite anyone with such a visage.

"Get lost—!"

Luo Jie grabbed a folding chair, exerted force from his waist, and swung it with both arms, striking the zombie's left shoulder. The fat zombie stumbled and fell, tripping over the table corner and landing face-first on the ground.

Roar!

The fat zombie struggled to get up, but Luo Jie stepped on his back, turned the chair, and forcefully drove the legs of the chair into the back of the fat zombie's head.

Two more zombies lunged at him. Luo Jie, unable to pull out the chair, pushed over a nearby square table to block one of them, then grabbed a sun umbrella with the café's logo and used the umbrella to push the other off the edge of the platform.

Taking advantage of the other zombies being stuck behind the green plant partitions, Luo Jie quickly rushed to the door, pulled it open, and darted inside the café.

The situation inside the café was no better than outside. A dozen or so zombies were squatting amidst the mess, gnawing on the remains of several unrecognizable corpses.

A zombie dressed as a waiter, driven mad by the scent of blood and flesh, kept banging against the bar, unable to find a way out.

Seeing this, Luo Jie wasted no time, leaped over the bar by stepping on a high stool, and picked up a coffee pot from the counter. He smashed the waiter zombie's head open with a few consecutive strikes.

The other zombies, attracted by the loud noise of the broken coffee pot, abandoned the corpses on the ground and shuffled over, but were blocked outside by the chest-high marble bar.

At this moment, Luo Jie finally had a moment to catch his breath.

He suddenly realized he might have been a bit overconfident.

His original plan was to head directly to the security room on the second floor, replenish his weapons there, and activate the first hidden mission. However, the resilience of these zombies exceeded his expectations, and the makeshift "Jackie Chan-style weapons" were clearly insufficient to carve a bloody path through the horde.

Should he return to the first-floor commercial street?

Luo Jie subconsciously shook his head, immediately ruling out this option.

Based on the time estimate, the man in the sunglasses had a high chance of already being at the commercial street. If he turned back now, he would almost certainly run into the man in the sunglasses.

At that point, even if the man in the sunglasses was foolish, he would realize that Luo Jie was the one who sold him the map.

So, where was the nearest place with weapons?

Luo Jie subconsciously turned his gaze to the left, and through the transparent glass window on the café's corridor side, the five traditional Chinese characters "Zhao's Antiques" stood out among the rows of English letters.

He remembered that the explorers' guide mentioned that the best cold weapons in Good Luck City were mostly from this "Zhao's Antiques."

However, entering it was not easy.

The structure of this antique shop was similar to an ancient Chinese pawnshop, with iron bars on all four sides and only a thick security door connecting it to the outside world.

Besides a key, only C4 could open this door—something that Good Luck City did not have.

Therefore, to get the key, he needed to find the antique shop owner.

And to find the antique shop owner, he needed to check the surveillance footage in the security room.

Thus, for the current Luo Jie, this became a vicious cycle.

Wait...

Luo Jie suddenly realized he had fallen into a cognitive blind spot—just because he couldn't enter didn't mean other things couldn't.

The Black Phantom.

The remaining 50 seconds of its existence might not be enough to kill many zombies, but it was more than enough to throw a few weapons through the gaps in the iron bars.

The IBM particles, like smoke, drifted down the corridor, and the mummy-like, emaciated black figure gradually appeared inside the antique shop's iron bars.

Once it regained its mobility, Luo Jie immediately directed the Black Phantom to the row of medieval-style weapon racks on the wall.

Clang! Clatter!

During the leap, the antique rack the Black Phantom stepped on lost its balance and toppled over, causing a large number of antiques to fall to the ground.

"Huh?"

Luo Jie inadvertently noticed that behind the overturned rack was a hidden compartment, containing a somewhat old, long wooden box.

With less than 30 seconds left of the Black Phantom's existence, Luo Jie didn't have time to think and instinctively pried out the long wooden box, along with a few weapons he had taken from the wall, and pushed them through the gaps in the iron bars.

A moment later, Luo Jie retrieved the weapons and the wooden box from the corridor and laid them out on the ground in front of him.

There were three weapons.

【Knight's Hard Hammer】

Type: One-handed war hammer.

Quality: F (Blue)

Level: LV1

Power: 40

Skill 1: Bash (Passive) — When attacking the head, power +20%, with a chance to cause dizziness.

Description: What technique does a stick need? Just hit the head!

Certification Cost: 1000 points.

【Ranger's Hand-and-a-Half Sword】

Type: Longsword.

Quality: F (Blue)

Level: LV1

Power: 40

Skill 1: Hand Switch (Passive) — Can switch between one-handed and two-handed grip at any time. In two-handed mode, attack speed +20%, power +50%.

Description: A longsword that combines practicality and aesthetics, the favorite of medieval rangers.

Certification Cost: 1500 points.

【Executioner's Ghost Head Great Saber】

Type: Two-handed heavy saber.

Quality: F (Purple)

Level: LV1

Power: 100

Skill 1: Decapitation (Passive) — When attacking the neck, power +100%.

Skill 2: Malevolent (Passive) — Can damage ethereal targets.

Description: An ancient Chinese executioner's great saber, the blade stained a light red by the blood of executed prisoners. The guard is carved with beautiful ghost heads and runes, seemingly hiding some mysterious Eastern power.

Certification Cost: 5000 points.

After reviewing the attributes of these three weapons, Luo Jie couldn't help but draw a sharp breath.

Generally, each level of equipment can be further divided into five qualities.

From highest to lowest, they are distinguished by the colors "Gold, Purple, Blue, Green, White."

White is the so-called "whiteboard" equipment, with extremely low attributes and no additional skills. Almost no one uses it except for new players who are short on funds.

Green equipment can be seen as an enhanced version of white equipment, with no additional skills but a relatively large production volume, making it the mainstream equipment for players and the most common item on the market.

Starting from blue, equipment comes with skills, with a significant increase in power but a sharp decrease in production rate. Even before Luo Jie's rebirth, blue equipment had not been widely available.

If blue equipment is considered rare, then purple equipment is truly rare.

According to the statistics published by the Explorer's Guild, on average, no more than three pieces of purple equipment are generated per opening of the illusionary realm, and most have extremely strict acquisition conditions and high certification costs.

Combined with the malicious competition among players and various objective and uncontrollable factors, the production rate of purple equipment has continued to decline, to the point where it once reached a level where not even one piece could be brought out in five openings of the illusionary realm.

As for the legendary gold equipment, which players jokingly call "luck equipment," it is generally only produced as a reward for randomly appearing hidden missions.

And the most frustrating thing is that these random missions have a one-time attribute; once triggered in a certain illusionary realm, they will not appear again, regardless of whether the mission is completed or not.

Therefore, even though the Explorer's Guild continuously collects and publishes detailed strategies for these random missions, no one has actually brought out a piece of gold equipment using these strategies, and most players only treat them as gossip.

Previously, Luo Jie only remembered that the guide mentioned the reward for the hidden mission to save the antique shop owner was very generous, but he didn't expect it to be this generous.

Two blue weapons and one purple weapon—this was almost a third of the high-quality equipment that a Level 1 illusionary realm could produce.

Unfortunately, finding them did not mean obtaining them. If he couldn't pay the certification points, the best equipment would only be for show.

Luo Jie currently had only 2400 points, enough to certify one blue weapon.

But he didn't want to give up any of them, especially the rare purple weapon, the 【Executioner's Ghost Head Great Saber】, which left him in a dilemma.

He suddenly recalled a line he had seen online: "What is so-called choice anxiety? It's just being poor."

How true and painful...

"Whatever, let's see what's in this box first..."

Luo Jie could only temporarily distract himself with this.

However, he was also very curious about what was inside the long wooden box, as common sense dictates that only extremely valuable items would be hidden so discreetly.

Lifting the lid, two black and red katana, gleaming with a cold light, lay quietly on a golden velvet cloth.

Even without being wielded, one could still feel the sharp and intense aura of the blades.

【Engraved Blade: Fugu Toxin】

Type: Katana

Quality: E (Gold)

Level: LV1

Power: 250

Skill 1: Seven Body Cuts (Passive) — When attacking a living target, power +100%.

Skill 2: Wind Blade (Passive) — Attack speed +50%, attack range +15%, can damage ethereal targets.

Skill 3: Sword Master's Heart (Passive) — Significantly increases resistance to mental magic, immune to fear.

Description: The katana of the sword master Bushin, said to be sealed with a fragment of the wind god's soul.

Certification Cost: 100,000 points.

【Engraved Blade: Ume Ori Toxin】

Type: Katana

Quality: E (Gold)

Level: LV1

Power: 250

Skill 1: Seven Body Cuts (Passive) — When attacking a living target, power +100%.

Skill 2: Bloodthirsty Blade (Passive) — 5% of damage to living targets is converted to self-healing, and for 60 seconds, weapon base power and critical hit rate increase by 2% and 1% respectively, up to a maximum of 5 stacks. Can damage ethereal targets.

Skill 3: Curse Shadow (Passive) — When wielding the blade, a ghostly shadow appears behind the user, performing a mental attribute check on all non-friendly units within 10 meters. If the check fails, the target enters a fear state, with all attributes reduced by 10%, and skill costs doubled.

Description: The katana of the serial killer Gashin, the accumulated curse on the blade has begun to materialize, but it seems to be missing some catalyst to become a legendary cursed blade.

Certification Cost: 100,000 points.