As Xu Feng continued to head toward the forest, he would constantly hear people shouting and running around.
Most of them were talks about the potions in the Auction Market, and some were talks about borrowing money.
"Hey, lend me 40 copper coins. I'll pay you back double later on."
"Buying silver coins with real-world currency. Send me a private message if you are interested."
"Our guild is purchasing coins in large batches as well!"
Hearing these shouts, Xu Feng felt heartache. Had he waited for a little longer, then with the sudden rise of demand for coins, he could have sold for more real-world currency.
'Alas, what a blunder. Luckily I only sold 50 silver coins and still have more in stock.' Xu Feng attempted to ease his heart pain. It was just a shame that the further he walked, the more he heard about the players willing to overpay for the in-game currency.
Luckily, he was experienced and managed to calm his emotions in time. Otherwise, he would have spat out a mouthful of blood from the losses.
'Calm down. One can never be too perfect. We're humans after all.' He thought to himself, choosing to turn deaf for the moment. So long as he could not hear them, there would not be any more heartache.
Time slowly passed by, and Xu Feng received a notification by the time he stepped foot outside Riverwood Town.
System: You have entered the neutral area!
Neutral area— just as the name suggested, he would no longer be protected by the NPC guards from Riverwood Town.
This meant that there would be monsters attacking him, and possibly other players as well. After all, players killing other players in the neutral area won't be detained by NPC guards.
Although they won't be detained and captured by the NPC guards, players who killed others will still gain something called a bounty tag.
Bounty tags are essentially a label for player killers, otherwise known as PKers, and when those with bounty tags are killed, their death punishment is more severe.
'Will I meet with a bounty tag player now?' Xu Feng wondered silently, treading through the forest. To be fair, he wasn't afraid of being hunted despite being quite low-level.
Looking at his status screen, he could only smile bitterly because the harsh debuff was still active, meaning he couldn't even actively attempt to hunt for monsters.
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Player Name: Lin Feng
Class: Cleric
Level: 2
Experience Points: 840/10000
Attributes: Strength 9, Agility 9, Endurance 11, Intelligence 15, Vitality 12
Free Attribute Points: 5
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"Sigh, the game experience points demanded are just outrageous." He scratched his head while allocating his free attribute points to Intelligence and Agility.
With 3 going to Agility and the remaining 2 going to Intelligence.
He didn't pay much attention to Strength, Endurance, and Vitality yet, as Intelligence and Agility attributes were more important to him.
Strength increased a player's physical attack power, while Endurance boosted maximum HP and Stamina. Vitality helped in the recovery of HP and MP, which he considered somewhat less useful for his Cleric class.
Thus, Xu Feng regarded these three attributes as relatively inconsequential compared to Intelligence, which increased magical attack power and maximum MP, and Agility, which enhanced Attack Speed and Movement Speed.
Having finished allocating the attributes, Xu Feng proceeded forward to the destination that Gentle Wind informed him about.
Sometime later, Xu Feng arrived at the destination and saw multiple people gathering around.
Right as he stepped near the vicinity of their gathering, a person came forward, scrutinizing him.
He was a tall man with no shield or lance equipped, but upon closer inspection, Xu Feng noticed his belt had guns hidden.
'The specialist Gunner class huh.' He deduced silently, merely standing still and staring back at the man.
"This is a restricted area currently. Please leave now." The man announced, clearly not expecting Xu Feng to be the person they were waiting for. He was also cautious of him due to Xu Feng wearing a mask and concealing his appearance.
Additionally, just like how Xu Feng had deduced him to be a Gunner, the same goes for him as well, having deduced Xu Feng was a Cleric.
"Your guild leader is Gentle Wind, correct?" Xu Feng responded calmly.
"If so, then I'm sure she is the one I'm looking for. Or do you want to continue to stop me and hinder her plans?" He added, provoking the latter on purpose.
He wanted to test whether or not this Gunner was an impulsive person or not.
If this Gunner was impulsive, then Xu Feng might request Gentle Wind to have him leave the team. To have an impulsive person alongside to do the Scorched Caverns was essentially asking to have the chance of success lower.
Meanwhile, the Gunner was clearly displeased by the attitude and tone of Xu Feng, but he managed to compose himself.
Instead of losing his anger, he nodded his head and asked for the code.
The code that was made between him and Gentle Wind earlier to determine the subordinate he sent was verified and not an imposter.
Since he was clearly the real deal, Xu Feng had no problem with saying the code.
"Alright, our guild leader is waiting for you for a while." The Gunner said flatly, turned around, and proceeded to walk without caring if he was following or not.
'Hmm, he can still keep his cool.' Xu Feng thought to himself, following him at a fixed distance.
Maybe it was because of the people he interacted with in the past, but Xu Feng was greatly astounded by the logical people he was interacting with now.
Back then, those people always held a mighty and overbearing attitude, believing themselves to be the king. They were prone to irritation and outbursts at the slightest mishaps.
Little did Xu Feng know that the reason why he didn't receive such treatment was due to his standings having changed dramatically. Back then, he was only doing the bidding for others, but now, it was him in control.
Gentle Wind wished to cooperate with him, and he came under the guise of the "subordinate" of the mysterious player. Thus, the Gunner needed to pay attention to his behavior and attitude, lest he might accidentally anger the subordinate and displease Gentle Wind.