Divine Hunter - Chapter 24
Chapter 24: Elimination and Locking Down
Translator: Exodus Tales
Editor: Exodus Tales
Translated by XephiZ
Edited by SnowPeaches
The Players had used a certain item on themselves or the Slime Kings that triggered the mutation. These were the only possibilities.
Chen Mo was leaning more toward the former between the two possibilities.
Both sightings of the Mutated Slime King did not mention the existence of other Players. Therefore, a Player might have used a certain item a distance away that triggered the mutation of the Slime King.
However, Chen Mo did not exclude the possibility that the two Players that spotted the Mutated Slime King had purposely left out the important clue about the conditions that triggered the mutation.
Either way, Chen Mo was confident that the item that triggered the mutation of the Slime King must be available from the Rookies Village or the nearby areas.
The item was most likely uncommon, and there should be a certain difficulty to acquire it. If Players could use the item as they wished, it meant the item must be unrelated to the Slime King. The item must have some hidden attributes that could trigger a Slime King’s mutation.
There were not many items that were available in the Rookies Village. He might not know what the exact item was yet, but he could easily eliminate most of the items that did not fit the criteria based on the information he had gathered.
There were only three kinds of items in the Rookies Village; items that were dropped by monsters, items that were sold at the shops, and items that were given to the Players as quest rewards.
Chen Mo went around Aiur Town and immediately eliminated the possibility that the item was available from the shops.
The items being sold at the shops in Aiur Town was pitifully limited. There were mostly rookie weapons, rookie HP and MP potions, and random quest items like fishing rods, shovels, hoes, and other stuff that were necessary to complete certain quests.
The only possibilities left were drops from monsters and quest rewards.
There were a lot of items that the monsters in the Rookies Village would drop. It would take Chen Mo some time to figure them all out. As for the quest rewards, Chen Mo could easily find the information about ninety percent of them on the forum.
The game was out for more than a day. There were already different guides and walkthroughs on the forum about the quests in the Rookies Village which listed the procedures and the rewards in detail.
Chen Mo visited the forum and read the information about every quest.
He had only done some low-level quests at the Rookies Village, and the quest that rewarded him the skill book of “Minor Poison Bolt”.
“From the looks of it, the items with the highest possibility are ‘Simmer-fried Pufferfish’, ‘Expired Strong Wine’, ‘Rotten Apple’, ‘Alluring Poison’, ‘Discarded Dog Food’.”
Chen Mo finally set his eyes on five items that were only obtainable through quests.
Simmer-fried Pufferfish was from a famous chef in Aiur Town. The chef was asking Players to get him a pufferfish. To obtain a pufferfish, Players would have to buy a fishing rod from the vendor and fish at a river outside the town to get a pufferfish.
The chance of fishing a pufferfish was quite low, thus it would take some time to complete the quest. After handing in the pufferfish, the chef would reward the Player with ten pieces of “Simmer-fried Pufferfish”.
The Simmer-fried Pufferfish would grant a Player extra attributes for 10 minutes, but since the pufferfish was poisonous, the Player would lose 5 HP every second for the duration.
It was quite tricky to complete the quest. It would take a Player at least half an hour to obtain a pufferfish. Spending half an hour to obtain 10 Simmer-fried Pufferfish that was equivalent to 100 minutes of +10 to all attributes and -5 HP every second was not really worth it. As a result, the Players immediately lost interest in the quest after finding out what its reward was. It also meant not many Players would have the Simmer-fried Pufferfish. Since the item was poisonous, there was a chance that it would cause a Slime King to mutate.
The Expired Strong Wine was a quest reward from a drunkard in Aiur Town. The Expired Strong Wine would instantly recover a Player’s MP by 300, but the Player could not use MP recovery potions for ten minutes after consuming it.
The Rotten Apple was obtainable when Players were cleaning the weeds in a fruit farm outside Aiur Town as requested by its owner. The Rotten Apple was not the reward for completing the quest. When the Players were cleaning the weeds, they had a chance to obtain a special item—Rotten Apple. It was the only place where Players could get Rotten Apples. The item could recover both the HP and MP of a Player. However, the Player’s Strength and Intelligence would decrease by 10 after eating a Rotten Apple. It would give the Player that consumed it a debuff just like the Simmer-fried Pufferfish.
The Rotten Apples would only appear by chance. Not every Player that did the quest of cleaning the weeds in the fruit farm would have them, thus why it had earned a spot in Chen Mo’s list.
The remaining items were the ‘Alluring Poison’ and the ‘Discarded Dog Food’.
The ‘Alluring Poison’ was actually a quest item. Many mice had appeared in the basement of a residence in Aiur Town. When a Player accepted the quest, they would be given the ‘Alluring Poison’. They only needed to use the item in the basement and kill the mice to complete the quest.
However, Players could use the quest item ‘Alluring Poison’ anywhere. Some Players had successfully used it at different places, but it did not have any effects on the monsters other than the mice in the basement.
But would it work against the Slime King? The Player never tried it, thus Chen Mo could not afford to miss it either.
And there was the Discarded Dog Food.
Its source was very strange.
A resident of Aiur Town tried to dig a well. When Players accepted the quest, they were asked to buy a shovel from the vendor. The Players had a certain chance to obtain the Discarded Dog Food when digging the well.
No one knew what the item was for.
However, when Chen Mo saw the Discarded Dog Food, he knew the item was most likely useful for luring the hunting dog that was guarding the mayor’s home away.
It was extremely difficult to obtain the dog food. Apparently, the chance of obtaining it was less than a hundredth.
Chen Mo spent some time to do some research on the items that the monsters in the Rookies Village could drop.
He initially thought it was going to be very complicated, but after some investigation, he had eliminated most of the items that the monsters could drop.
The reason was very simple; most of the usable items that Players could obtain from killing monsters were potions. The rest were equipment and materials that were not consumables.
That being said, it was possible to exchange some of the materials for usable items through certain quests, but Chen Mo had already eliminated these items too.
In other words, all he needed to do was to test the items that had the highest possibility of triggering a Slime King’s mutation.
However, these items were not easy to obtain. If he was to collect them by himself, it might take longer than half a day just to collect them all. It would be a waste of his time.
Furthermore, he still had to look for a pair of high-quality boots that could further increase his movement speed after learning the conditions of triggering the Slime King’s mutation.
He needed money to acquire everything, but Chen Mo had only saved up five silver upon reaching Level 10. It was impossible to buy everything he needed.
After some consideration, Chen Mo decided to put up a pay-to-view post to earn some quick money!
“A way to make you stronger—revealing the secret of the Free Skill Casting system!”
A pay-to-view post showed up on the forum a few minutes later.
The Free Skill Casting system was not going to stay a secret for a long time. Chen Mo believed he was not the only Player that knew about it, but the other Players did not disclose it for whatever reasons.
Chen Mo was actually not willing to disclose the information of the Free Skill Casting system so early. The Free Skill Casting system was like a key. When Players knew about it, they would surely be inspired by it. They would also realize the full-dive virtual reality network was a lot more powerful than they had imagined.
However, Chen Mo decided to disclose the information to secure his capital.
At least he still managed to make a profit even if he failed his mission.
After Chen Mo had done submitting the post, he felt a little hungry after being online for so long. He decided to go offline and get some food.
Chen Mo returned to the forum after he had done eating. He was eager to see how much profit his post had made.
“What’s going on? Why does it only have slightly over ten thousand views?”
Chen Mo was away for almost half an hour. He expected his post to have at least a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand views in half an hour. To his surprise, only a little over ten thousand had paid to view his post.
Chen Mo soon found the reason behind it.
“Nouveau Riches Club will disclose the secret of the Free Skill Casting system to you for free!”
A few minutes after he put up the post, a guy called Brother Nine had put up the post.
“F**k! That son of a b**ch Nouveau Riches Club!” Chen Mo cursed after he took a quick glimpse at the post.
The Nouveau Riches Club had seriously screwed him up!
