Update Time: 2014-02-18
Honey is not something that can be collected from monsters; it must be collected directly from a beehive. As soon as one approaches a beehive, many bees will fly out to attack. The bees in Poison Bee Forest are as big as pigeons; getting stung isn't just a bump, it can make a hole! Being swarmed by a large number of bees at this stage would result in instant death for anyone! That's why honey is an 8-level material, because it was originally designed for high-level players! Even if one could ignore the collection level to gather honey at this stage, the difficulty would be extremely high, otherwise it wouldn't be a C-rank medium difficulty quest!
Lin Zheng was shooting and killing Green Poison Bees, the lowest-level type of poison bee, around level 35. Although each one was an instant kill, these large, venomous bees were not safe at all! In most cases, Green Poison Bees roamed in groups. Shooting one arrow would immediately trigger a chain of aggro, attracting a large swarm of Green Poison Bees to attack. If one was surrounded, without a Priest to heal, it would almost certainly be a wipe! However, Lin Zheng had high attack power; if he was surrounded, one Stomp could clear the encirclement, instantly killing all the poison bees!
After searching for a few minutes, Lin Zheng finally found the first beehive, hanging on a tall tree, as big as a small house. He should have been happy, but looking at the continuous swarm of Green Poison Bees around the beehive gave Lin Zheng an immense headache! There was no way he could collect honey while enduring the bees' attacks like high-level players later on; he could only eliminate the guarding bees before going up to collect!
He drew his bow, aimed at a Green Poison Bee, and shot his dagger. While instantly killing that Green Poison Bee, a large swarm of Green Poison Bees was also drawn over! Lin Zheng felt his scalp tingle, but he still had to grit his teeth and continue shooting. When the swarm surrounded him, he used one Stomp to eliminate the Green Poison Bees surrounding him, feeling incredibly fortunate in his heart! It was a good thing that the Stomp skill's effect could reach targets not far off the ground, otherwise he really wouldn't have been able to complete this quest!
After pulling monsters about ten times like this, the Green Poison Bees guarding the beehive were finally cleared out. Taking advantage of the fact that new Green Poison Bees hadn't respawned yet, Lin Zheng quickly rushed towards the beehive, seizing the time to collect honey. One beehive could be collected 20 times, averaging about 4 portions of honey per collection. After one trip, Lin Zheng's inventory had over 80 portions of honey. Two more beehives would be enough to complete the quest. Completing the quest within two hours was absolutely no problem, and he would still have plenty of time to practice his collection proficiency.
It was already the fifth beehive. After collecting, Lin Zheng checked the quest time; there were still ten minutes left. To be safe, it was better to hurry and turn in the quest! He used a Return City Scroll to return to Tianshuang City, then Lin Zheng rushed non-stop towards the City Lord's Mansion. The City Lord's Mansion in Tianshuang City was very grand, like a princely mansion from the Ming and Qing dynasties. Two sword-wielding guards stood at the main entrance, their level 100 displayed there, making countless players who wanted to explore inside directly take a detour and walk away!
“Stop!” As Lin Zheng approached the City Lord’s Mansion gate, a guard shouted at him, “Clang—”, his sword already drawn! But before Lin Zheng could explain his purpose, Wang Hu ran out from inside and shouted, “Wait! Wait! This big brother is here to deliver honey to us!!”
“Oh? So that’s it! Then please come in!” With that, the guard sheathed his sword and returned to his previous wooden-figure-like stance. It seemed he was just a low-intelligence type! Lin Zheng didn't pay much attention to the two guards, but instead walked happily towards Wang Hu. Of course, he wasn't happy to see Wang Hu; they weren't close! But Wang Hu had a reward! That was something to be very happy about!
“Big brother, have you collected enough honey?” Wang Hu asked Lin Zheng with an expectant look. Lin Zheng smiled slightly and directly submitted the quest. Upon receiving the honey, Wang Hu immediately exclaimed excitedly, “Thank you so much! This is a small token of my appreciation; please accept it!”
“Quest ‘Night Banquet Two’ completed, gained 25 gold coins, 300,000 experience, obtained silver-tier equipment ‘Night Raid Greaves’!” After the prompt sounded, Lin Zheng waited again, and sure enough, the prompt sounded again, “Successfully completed quest ‘Night Banquet Two,’ triggered quest ‘Night Banquet Three,’ quest difficulty C-rank upper, do you accept!?”
As soon as Lin Zheng accepted the quest, Wang Hu immediately changed his happy expression, becoming somewhat nervous as he said, “Big brother, there’s a very important matter that needs your help right now! We just received news that the princess’s whereabouts have been leaked. A Ghost King has dispatched many subordinates, attempting to capture the princess to make her his ghost queen. We have already sent troops to eliminate the Ghost King and his subordinates, but due to insufficient forces, there is an enemy stronghold that we cannot attend to. We hope you can go to this stronghold and eliminate all enemies there! If you complete the quest, the City Lord will give you a very generous reward!”
Damn it! Taking women as wives is the worst! Lin Zheng immediately patted his chest, “No problem! Leave this to me!”
“Quest accepted. Within 120 minutes, proceed to the ranch in Tianshuang City’s western suburbs and eliminate the Ghost King’s subordinates who have occupied the ranch. Failure to completely eliminate the Ghost King’s subordinates within 120 minutes will result in quest failure, with a penalty of -2 levels!”
A failure penalty of 2 levels, that’s really heavy, but it doesn’t matter. As long as the quest is completed, the penalty can be ignored! To be safe, Lin Zheng decided to find some help! He opened his friends list and, good heavens, only Yang Qi was left. Everyone else had probably logged off for dinner.
“Liu Mang!” Lin Zheng called out.
“What do you want? I’m doing a quest!” Yang Qi replied.
“You’re doing a quest too!” Lin Zheng was a bit surprised!
“Yeah, hehe! It’s a B-rank lower solo quest, so the reward should be pretty good!” Yang Qi said smugly, “Hmm—from your tone, it sounds like you’re also doing a quest? And you want my help?”
“Yeah! It’s C-rank upper, with a time limit. Two hours, and if I fail, I lose two levels! To be safe, I was planning to ask for your help, but since you’re also busy with a quest, then forget it!”
“A two-level penalty!? Holy crap!” Yang Qi was startled. This penalty was no joke; at the start of the server, how important were two levels!
“Add me to the party, I’ll come over and help you now. My quest doesn’t have a time limit, so let’s get your quest done first!”
“Alright, I’ll head to the city gate first, and we’ll meet there!”
“Okay!” Yang Qi readily agreed, then hung up. By the time Lin Zheng rushed from the City Lord’s Mansion to the city gate, Yang Qi was already waiting there, probably also a lavish user of Return City Scrolls!
“Where does the quest take us?” Yang Qi asked as soon as they met.
“We need to go to the ranch in the western suburbs!” Lin Zheng looked at the map, “It’s not very far, about ten minutes away!”
“Mhm! Let’s hurry and get the quest done so we can relax!” Suddenly, Yang Qi’s eyes lit up, “Huh? You changed weapons?”
“shattered moon, didn’t I tell you I got a super awesome weapon in Newbie Village?!”
“Holy crap! Who knew the super awesome weapon you were talking about would be a level 30 golden-tier item?!”
“…”
After several minutes of long-distance rushing, Lin Zheng and Yang Qi finally arrived at the ranch indicated by the quest. Upon seeing the ranch’s scenery, Yang Qi couldn’t help but exclaim, “Holy cow, is this Resident Evil or something?!” The entire farm was desolate, the land was grayish-brown, and zombie-like ranch animals roamed everywhere, a scene of utter lifelessness!
“The quest says it’s a ranch occupied by the Ghost King’s subordinates. Damn it! What kind of ghost is this, so hardcore?!”
“What does your quest say? What do you need to do?” Yang Qi asked.
“Kill all of the Ghost King’s subordinates!” Lin Zheng replied, “I guess we’ll have to kill every single monster in the entire ranch!”
“Damn it, this quest’s workload is huge!” Yang Qi’s eyes widened. This ranch wasn’t small! There were tons of sheep and cows, and now they had all turned into zombie monsters! Yang Qi rubbed her forehead, frustrated, “With so many monsters, if we had a Mage, it would be so much easier. Why isn’t Youxi here at this exact moment?!”
“Alright, instead of being frustrated, we should hurry up and kill! Damn it! No time for dinner!” Lin Zheng was also a bit frustrated; the number of monsters here far exceeded his imagination. If he hadn’t called Yang Qi, he wouldn’t have been able to finish it alone in two hours! Hmm, online games emphasize player interaction, so perhaps this was also a test of Lin Zheng’s interpersonal skills! No more thinking, time to kill monsters!
The most common monsters in the ranch were zombie sheep. These docile herbivores had become truly ferocious after turning into zombies. Around level 40, they had high attack, high HP, and high agility. Fortunately, their defense was relatively low, otherwise Yang Qi, who was tanking at the front, would have been swearing non-stop! Although both of them had large-area group attack skills, their cooldowns were too long, making the killing process feel somewhat inefficient and taking too much time! The two of them spent over half an hour just to kill all the zombie sheep. However, after finishing those, there was still a large number of zombie cows waiting to be killed, making Lin Zheng and Yang Qi stare wide-eyed, wishing they could just cast a full-screen instant kill skill to wipe them all out at once!
“Damn it! I’m putting in so much effort for your cursed quest, I don’t care anymore! Once the quest is done, you have to share the rewards with me!” Yang Qi said, utterly frustrated, as she chopped down the last zombie cow. It had been an hour already, and they had finally cleared out the most numerous monsters in the ranch. After an hour of non-stop killing, both of them felt a bit mentally fatigued!
“Check your quest, is it complete yet!?”
“Not yet!” Lin Zheng said, looking at his quest log, “By the way, all the monsters we’ve been killing so far have been infected animals. We haven’t even seen the mastermind yet!”
“Bang—” Just as Lin Zheng finished speaking, a wall of the nearby warehouse was torn open, and a large wave of monsters surged out, roaring as they charged towards Lin Zheng and Yang Qi!