Chapter 44 - Predestined Archery (Part I)
Chapter 44: Predestined Archery (Part I)
Translator: Larbre Studio Editor: Larbre Studio
The third day after the Naraka Realm was opened, Lu Wu finally managed to accumulate 200,000 soul coins and commence his long-awaited plan to construct the Spirit Summoning Palace.
After approximately thirty minutes, a towering pagoda appeared near the Mansion of the Dead.
At the same time, the players in the game received their first surprise after the completion of the latest system update.
[Server Announcement: The latest system update will introduce a new hidden character class, the Sun Chasing Archer, along with its Inheritance Trial. The hidden character class is limited to ten players only. For more details, please ask the Character Class Instructor.]
The inheritance of the Sun Chasing Archer was the first gift from Lu Wu to the players.
The valiant spirit Zhuri, known as the ultimate sun chaser, used to be the number-one archer under the King of Beiqi’s reign. His ability was almost comparable to the Ghost King. His archery skills were unmatched throughout the land of Beiqi, making him one of the King of Beiqi’s most valued henchmen.
However, he was sacrificed by the patriarch of the Cursed Clan during the skirmish to annihilate them in order to activate the Prajñā Scarification.
Zhuri’s death broke the King of Beiqi’s heart. Deeply saddened by his loss, the King of Beiqi knew that there was nothing he could do. However, the King of Beiqi managed to retrieve Zhuri’s soul and keep it in the Spirit Summoning Palace, installing him as one of the valiant spirits to be worshiped by the later generations.
The Sun Chasing Archer was the first hidden character class created by Bei Li after the recent restoration of the Spirit Summoning Palace.
As the game was true to life where archery skills were difficult to master by any ordinary people, Lu Wu had only made available ten limited spots for the players. In the meantime, he introduced a pilot challenge for the players to inherit the hidden character class.
The prerequisites to join the pilot challenge were fairly simple. First, all the players who registered for the challenge would be teleported to the shooting range in the Artifact Channel that was built by Bei Li.
Then, players had to undergo three tests. They were required to shoot fixed targets at the 50 and 100 meter range, and then a moving target at a 150 meter range.
Every player was given five chances. The top ten players with the highest marks would be rewarded with the inheritance of the hidden character class, the Sun Chasing Archer.
The pioneering project had excited many players. However, it was apparent that the trial was extremely difficult. An arrow would always travel in a parabolic path. Any ordinary person who had not gone through a proper training could hardly hit an immobile target, not to mention the moving target at the 150 meter range, where the difficulty would be at its highest level.
Despite the hard challenge, the enthusiasm of the players to achieve the hidden character class was not hindered. Other than the players who were not interested in archery, most of the players had registered for the Inheritance Trial.
The registration ended on the next day and the number of applicants peaked at 250,000 players.
The trial that had been keeping all the players on pins and needles finally began. All the registered players were teleported to the shooting range in the Artifact Channel.
To prevent players from affecting one another, they were separated in different spaces. From the shooting range, a scoreboard could be seen in the distance which conveniently allowed the players to check their scores and rankings.
The first test was conducted at the 50 meter range. There were five rings marked on each target. The players would get 10 points by hitting the bullseye. Whereas for the other outer red circles, there was a decrease of one point in accordance to the order of the rings from the center. The players would secure just 5 points by hitting the target but not the ring. Of course, they would earn no points at all if they missed the target completely.
The minimum requirement to pass the first stage was to earn 10 points.
When the test officially began, an iron bow appeared in every player’s hand. Meanwhile, they were also given five arrows, respectively.
Although the first test was only conducted at a distance of 50 meters, it was already challenging for the players who had no experience with archery before. After finishing their five attempts, out of the 250,000 players, there were less than 40,000 who advanced to the second stage.
Lu Wu, who had been spectating, simply felt helpless. Obviously, the archer character class, was too difficult to achieve. It was something that not everyone could do.
Before long, the second test started. All the players who succeeded in advancing the first test fixed their gaze upon the scoreboard.
First place: Li Lin (50 marks)
Second place: Su Mu (50 marks)
Third place: Ye Chen (50 marks)
Fourth place: Mo Lingtian (50 marks)
Actually, all the current top ten players managed to reach a 100% target hit rate.
For most of the players, these people must be experts who had been practicing shooting in real life. Otherwise, it was impossible for them to have such high accuracy and hit rate.
However, Ye Chen disagreed.
Seeing the target being rearranged to 100 meters, he was gaping in disbelief.
He did not expect to achieve much from this archery inheritance and simply participated for the fun of it. He certainly did not foresee that his amateur shooting could still land his arrows on the center of the target.
Ye Chen’s face was flushed red when he saw that he was ranked third place on the scoreboard.
When the second test began, new arrows were distributed. Ye Chen once again took out an arrow from the quiver and put it against the bowstring.
“Whoosh!”
With a soft whistle, his arrow pierced through the wind.
“Ding!” The scoreboard in the distance lit up: 10 points
Ye Chen was completely stunned this time. Understanding that he had never been taught archery skills, nor had he ever touched a bow, he was flabbergasted by his luck.
Perhaps, I was born a talented archer?
Therefore, he took out an arrow once again and placed it to the bow. He made a nonchalant effort to aim at the target before he released the bow.
“10 points!”
“10 points!”
“10 points!”
“10 points!”
After the fourth arrow was shot out, Ye Chen was full of admiration toward himself and his skills. Claiming to be a prodigy now, Ye Chen thought that archery was way too easy for him.
Entering the third round, there were only less than 3,500 players left. Ye Chen’s ranking still remained at third place, causing him to feel increasingly elated.
When the third test started, the target, unlike before, was no longer fixed. On top of that, the distance of the range had been increased to 150 meters. The difficulty was greatly increased as every player was given only thirty seconds to shoot.
Looking at the target which was moving back and forth in an arrhythmic manner at 150 meters away from him, Ye Chen was slowly losing his confidence.
He took out an arrow and placed it on the bowstring. After he roughly predicted the movement of the target, he released his arrow.
“Thud!”
“Ding! 10 points!”
His bowstring was still vibrating when the scoreboard announced his score from afar.
“Haha, I’m a real genius!” Ye Chen was ecstatic when he managed to score ten points once again.
The next four shots happened just as what Ye Chen predicted. Every shot hit the bullseye. When the final result was announced, Ye Chen was extremely proud of himself.
[Server Announcement: The ranking for the Inheritance Trial is as follows. The top ten players will begin the inheritance for class advancement.]
First place: Ye Chen (150 marks)
Second place: Mo Lingtian (149 marks)
Third place: Li Lin (143 marks)
Fourth place: Su Mu (141 marks)
Even though I wanted to keep a low-profile, this must be my actual ability! Seeing that he was in the first place, Ye Chen could not help but laugh out loud.
Immediately after the ranking from the Inheritance Trial was revealed, Lu Wu looked at Bei Li and said, “Let’s start the inheritance!”
Bei Li nodded and transferred her consciousness into the artifact. Ten sets of the inheritance of the Sun Chasing Archer were copied and transferred to the ten players’ templates. Besides that, Bei Li spent 2,000 soul coins for each player to help them to build a new body template so that they would be able to adapt to the inheritance.
At the same moment when the inheritance began, Lu Wu also satisfied the curiosity of the inquisitive players by allowing ten live streams of the shooting range, each focused on one of the ten winners who inherited the hidden class.
Notifications appeared in Ye Chen’s and the others’ mind after the inheritance began.
“Congratulations! You’ve successfully advanced your character class to become the Sun Chasing Archer. More details and information of the character class can be found in the Attributes Menu. Meanwhile, the shooting range will continue to stay open for the next thirty minutes. Hurry up and practice your new skills at the shooting range!”