Chapter 18 - Opening the Shop
Chapter 18: Opening the Shop
Zhang Zhiyin absorbed the crystal nucleus of the goat boss and the effect was remarkable. His ice elemental ability was raised to Level 2 and nearly to Level 3; he just needed a little more before he could break through into the third level. He breathed out a sigh and assumed that he would be able to exit the Valley of the Extinct Dragon by the time his ice ability reached Level 5.
The sun was shining outside and the sky was bright. But Zhang Zhiyin belonged to the ice elemental. The more it rained and snowed, the better it was for him. Sunshine would only weaken his ability.
He looked at the weather and decided to take a day off and stay in the cave to refine medicine.
<Tomorrow>’s medical system was extremely innovative, but it was also the very opposite of one’s expectation. In the game, item dealers could only buy “penicillin” and “adhesive bandage” which were common medicines. They could only treat trauma and heal up a small amount of HP, and the effect was also very slow, so it was not reliable to use them when going out for grinding. Some players had complained, and this was the official reply they had gotten, “Dear, this is why the casualty rate in the apocalypse will be so high. Be a little more realistic, will you?”
But if all the players were pitted like this, then the game would not be able to go on.
Therefore, first of all, in the item store, players would be able to purchase quick and effective blood tonic drugs with yuan. The item store uniformly classified them as “panacea”. Secondly, players could also learn ‘pharmaceutical skills’. Pharmaceutical skills were also divided into two kinds, one was “scientific pharmacy” which could be acquired in the game, but the players who studied scientific pharmacy could only produce ordinary chicken rib drugs such as bandages in the early stage, and only when the pharmaceutical level was higher in the later stage could they develop or produce top-grade drugs by themselves or through prescriptions. The other was “Xuanmen Pharmacy”, all medicines produced by this method would be a “panacea”. Although the initial effect was not as good as that bought directly from the item stores, it was still much better than making an adhesive bandage.
When Dajia was still in University, he was studying medicine refining. He was so angry at this setting in that he finally ran away and did not play it anymore. He felt that the setting of <Tomorrow> was an insult to science and a serious violation of the scientific outlook on development. However, later on, he found out that the first tag given to when the game was released was actually “fantasy”.
Zhang Zhiyin bought the “Pharmaceutical Complete Comprehensive of Drug Collection” from the store, which would give the players an understanding of “Xuanmen Pharmacy”. He was not very interested in this in the past. He had only casually refined some of the lowest HP potions for the novices and his refining skills had actually been upgraded to Level 2.
He took out the materials he accumulated these days from his space and placed them in different categories. He went through the <Comprehension Guide> to find out what medicine he could refine now, and realized that a lot of his materials could not be used to refine drugs, such as the skin of the salamanders. But in fact, the skin of the salamander was the best material to make fire armor. This was because salamanders only existed in the Valley of the Extinct Dragon, and the location was often reserved by those with a dominant position in the game, so the price of salamander skin was very high.
Zhang Zhiyin just wanted to throw these things into the trading house directly at the price of its value. But, suddenly, he thought of a better idea.
Why not open a shop directly at the trading house?
In the trading house, you could rent a shop at a rate of 50 yuan per month, and it included 50 item space boxes. If you want to expand your scale, you would need to increase the rent payment. Afterward, the mall would not charge any procedure fees to the players, but it would only charge 1% commission after every successful transaction. This was a desirable choice for players who needed to sell their items frequently.
Zhang Zhiyin immediately went to work and painfully paid the rent of 50 yuan. He set up a small shop and named it Zhang Zhiyin and put all the unused materials, together with those unused low-grade medicines and threw them all it. Although those medicines would not be purchased by anyone, the empty fifty boxes would just be empty, so it’s better to save his space by putting those unused things inside.
Afterward, he continued to turn over the recipes. The medicines that he could refine at his current level were basically useless to him and refining them was just going to take up his space. But soon, Zhang Zhiyin found a useful formula. There was only one sentence in the article introduction: help the healthy growth of pets in their infancy.
Zhang Zhiyin remembered his kitten’s fierce ice ball that day and felt his heart itch. Unfortunately, after that, Yin Xiaoxiang would only spit out ice shards, and it could no longer make such a powerful move.
A strange glint emerged in his eyes and he looked sideways at Yin Xiaoxiang, “Would you give it a try?”
Yin Xiaoxiang took a step backward following its instincts: “Au…wo?”
————————
Meanwhile, in base Y.
Meng Kali floated aimlessly in wonder: “…”
He wanted to see the lovely kitten from that day, but the doctor only allowed the kitten to stay at the base for one day before asking Lei Dun to send the cat back…
His grievances were so strong that Lei Dun, who was walking toward him, received them through his psychic ability.
Lei Dun patted him on the shoulder that was on the same height after he floated up. “You should be able to see the cat when the doctor wants to see his lover again.”
Meng Kali: “…” I hate it. Why doesn’t the doctor just fetch his lover directly here?
The next second, they both found that their surroundings were laid with a seal; sound, breath, and even psychic ability could no longer be conveyed outside.
They could only give each other a helpless look — it seemed that the doctor was angry.
It was really annoying to have an omniscient boss.
——————
Zhang Zhiyin suddenly realized a real problem. In the game, it took no more than five minutes to run from one end of the map to the other, but this was obviously not the case in the game’s real world.
The Valley of the Extinct Dragon was set to stretch 500 kilometers from east to west. If one did not stop every day, it would take ten days and a half to travel from one end to the other. And between the distance, there was a distribution of monster species within a wide range. The eastern side where Zhang Zhiyin was at had a relatively lower monster level. In the game, the level was around Level 30. Going towards the westward hinterland, the monster level was higher, reaching up to Level 80, which was the highest level players could currently achieve in the game. Deep in the west, there were countless instance dungeons of Level 90 that players were looking forward to but it had not been opened up yet.
The last time he came back to reality, he consulted the game map of and found that the west of the Valley of the Extinct Dragon was connected to the Level 60-100 “Death Valley”, which was densely packed with high-level zombies. This was difficult for players to survive with their current level. The map to the West had not yet been opened, but it was rumored that Dr. Y’s secret base laid at the west of Death Valley.
To the east of the Valley of the Extinct Dragon was a Level 20 strange area called “Isolated Fishing Village”. The people in the fishing village had all turned into zombies. Though the level was not high, as its name showed, the fishing village was really isolated from the world. In this world where there was no teleportation array, there’s no benefit in going there anyway.
Zhang Zhiyin looked at the breach to the north of the Valley, which was connected to the normal wilderness. He should be able to find the base for human settlement.
If so, he would have to abandon the safe zone and move a little bit north toward the breach from now on.
Zhang Zhiyin rubbed Yin Xiaoxiang’s head: “Xiaoxiang, will you be afraid?”
The kitten was not fully awake from its sleep, and it “Ao” lowly without even opening its eyes.
Zhang Zhiyin laughed and began to congratulate himself on receiving the kitten. Humans were a social animal by nature. A man would suffer if he was alone for a long time.
As a result, Zhang Zhiyin, with his silly kitten, embarked on the days of leveling, collecting herbs and refining medicine, and also conveniently making the sale of his materials.
Ten days later, when he was woken up by the alarm again, he went on with his real life and work. Currently, he was at Level 3 for his ice ability and Level 2 for his precision ability.
When the ability had reached its third level, it would allow the player to awaken a big move. This time, Zhang Zhiyin had good luck, he awakened the “freeze-break” which was classified as a “king’s skill”, it was the skill the kitten had used on the goat boss that day. However, he was still at a relatively low level and could only freeze and dissolve a small part of his opponent’s body.
What made him more excited was that he had finally seen his money coming back for the first time after playing for more than a year.
He had sold more than 80 things and almost all his materials had been sold empty. Well, at least the rental fee had been earned back.
Then he found a piece of new news in the forum.
<Tomorrow>’s instance dungeon was divided into three levels: ordinary, elite, and epic. Recently, a new medium-sized instance dungeon of an elite level was said to be released. It would not only release miniature suits of different powers, but also a series of popular items such as fashion, affection gaining items and special pet fragments. As a result, once launched, the instance dungeon would be brushed regularly by many teams every day.
The second boss in the instance dungeon was a fire element, but his fire ability was laced with poison, which could cause a series of negative injuries, such as dizziness, sluggishness, continuous blood loss, and so on. However, it was later discovered that a secondary pill called “Bai Huo Pill” which had not been noticed before could remove fire poison, and the Bai Huo Pill became popular instantly. However, its raw material was the nails of the snow leopard cat in Valley of the Extinct Dragon, which had been monopolized for a long time. As a result, its supply was insufficient and the price was too high. Common players’ complaints about map monopolizing broke out again in the forum. There was a war full of abuse.
In this age, information seemed to represent business opportunities.
As soon as Zhang Zhiyin came home to the game that night, he rushed to Dr. Y and hugged him excitedly. He used three kisses in a row to calm his excitement and bought him two boxes of chocolates.
He looked at the item store, cracked a laugh as he typed, “When my store earns a thousand dollars, I’ll buy you a crystal ring. “
In the gift column of the item mall, the crystal rings were rotating and shining.
This was designed for the male and female players who held virtual weddings in the game, but in the game, even if they were “married”, there were not many people who would actually buy the rings.
Zhang Zhiyin thought he was really going crazy.
He could no longer quit.
As long as he saw his face, he would laugh from his heart. When he had good news to share with him, he would give him everything he had without reservation.
Even though he knew that the person in front of him was just a virtual 3D image and a mass of data, he still could not help thinking of him as a true lover, bit by bit.
But Yin Nian, do you know about this?
Zhang Zhiyin watched the computer shut down in front of him, plunging into a black screen. He closed his eyes slowly, a smile overflowing with gentleness and sorrow formed on his mouth.
He was afraid to see the real version of Dr. Y in the real world of <Tomorrow>.
He was afraid the Yin Nian he would see was not the Yin Nian that belonged to him.
Footnotes:
Xuanmen: is translated as Taoism. Hahahhahha
Bai Huo: to relieve inflammation or internal heat