Novel Bin Chapter 82 - Recruiting Talent
“Then it’s fine, I can’t afford it.” Pretty Good Mood sighed.
Li Yi paused momentarily before saying, “If you really want this, I do have a plan.”
“Of course I want it, what’s the plan?”
“Join my guild, and sell your body to repay the debt.”
“Err... Sell my body?”
“In other words, come work for my guild. Go to dungeons, participate in some guild activities, etc. Once you earned enough Guild Points, then your debt will be cleared.”
After Li Yi’s explanation, Pretty Good Mood finally understood.
“Really?”
“Do I need to lie to you?”
Pretty Good Mood started to feel excited. “Alright, where are you? I’ll join immediately!”
“No problem!” Li Yi was secretly giggling with glee as he sent Pretty Good Mood a guild invite.
System Notification: [Pretty Good Mood agreed to join Little Drunk Cats Guild.]
‘Done! It’s settled!’
In his past life, when other guilds wanted to invite this great commander, without a minimum of twenty thousand Gold Coins it was impossible for them to get him on board. Now, Li Yi did not even have to use a single cent in this endeavor, he managed to recruit him at the measly cost of one Contract of Fire.
Li Yi passed the Contract of Fire to Pretty Good Mood and advised him, “There’s a volcano nearby Inferno Mountain with the approximate coordinates of 112342, 118773. Every 12 hours there would be a respawn of a Blackfire Elemental. That thing has a decent ATK, so you should definitely consider taking it as your pet.”
“Thank you...”
Pretty Good Mood received the Contract of Fire whilst his body was still trembling with joy. He followed Li Yi’s instructions and picked up the Guild Return City Stone, heading towards Shattered Frost City to report to Chen Yang.
Whenever you join a guild, you would automatically receive a Guild Return City Stone with a cooldown of 3 hours. No matter where a guild member may be, as long as they used the Guild Return City Stone, they would immediately return to the guild home station. (Little Drunk Cats Guild’s home station was set by Li Yi to be Shattered Frost City.)
Before anyone becomes a celebrity, there was a time where everyone was just an average player.
Li Yi was extremely relieved.
After patrolling a few rounds in the Silver Moon Celestial Capital and accepting a few missions, he successfully raised his Reputation Value to achieve Recognition in the Silver Moon Celestial Capital.
The rewards from the first boss kill would have increased the Reputation Value in each major city for every playable race. So, Li Yi’s Reputation Value at the Silver Moon Celestial Capital had already long passed the threshold for Recognition. However, if he did not complete a couple of quests to increase the friendship with the NPCs, the NPCs would have a cold attitude towards him.
After that, Li Yi rushed over to the White Elf Priest and accepted the quest [Find the missing Elf Princess].
“I have heard of your amazing feats since a long time ago. Three years ago, the beautiful and kind Princess Sif was abducted by the evil Black Dragon. She’s been missing ever since. If you can find and rescue Princess Sif, the Elf race shall forever be in your debt.”
[Quest Prerequisites: Attain at least 5 Pantheon Hall of Fame Events, achieve Recognition.]
[Quest Requirement: Find the Elf Princess Sif and bring her back to the Elves’ Celestial Capital to meet the Elf Queen.]
[Upon completing the quest, the player shall be rewarded with 200000 EXP points, +3000 Reputation Value with the Elf race.]
[Quest Description: Go investigate the Black Dragon Cave, you might find clues about the missing Elf Princess.]
‘I successfully accepted it, it’s settled.’
Rescuing the Elf Princess Sif was a series of quests. Though the final reward of a gold-colored accessory had a decent attribute, it was nothing compared to the rewards of the special quest given by Princess Sif.
In his past life, he witnessed a lot of players who did not know about it immediately bought over Sif in joy as soon as they found her at the Slave Market. Then, they immediately brought her over to the Elves’ Celestial Capital. This rewarded them with EXP points and Reputation Value, but they would not get the gold-colored accessory. What’s worse, they could no longer hire the Elf Princess, in other words, they would never have the chance to accept the princess’ special quest.
Li Yi ran out into the wilderness of the Silver Moon Celestial Capital and started grinding the Level 15 little monster Elemental Elf.
The Mysterious Egg needed to absorb monster essence to be able to hatch. Last time after defeating the Earth Attribute Barren Lord, the Hatching progress reached 79%. The elemental creatures nearby Shattered Frost City could never give you monster essence, so since he came all the way to Silver Moon City, he might as well use this opportunity to get the egg’s Hatching Progress to full.
“Hmph! Hmph!”
Now that the Mutated Small Wild Boar reached Level 26, it had become ferocious. A Level 15 Elemental Elf could not even scratch its defenses. On the other hand, with just one tackle, it could instantly one-shot an Elemental Elf. Li Yi did not even have to move a finger. He just stood idly as colorful essence Light Balls continually flew towards his Backpack, instantly being absorbed by the Mysterious Egg.
The Hatching progress slowly increased to 80%... 81%... 82%...
At this rate, the egg will probably hatch within the next 4 hours.
No one knew what pet would hatch out of a Mysterious Egg, there was no pattern that could be observed. If you had good luck, it was not impossible to hatch a God-tier pet; whereas if you had bad luck, you might only get some useless trash pets like frogs and squirrels.
‘Will I get a God pet? A dragon? Phoenix? Kirin?’
Looking at the Hatching Progress slowly rise, Li Yi’s mind drifted off in his imagination.
For someone with a class revolving around pets, who would not want a God pet?
Within Pantheon, there were only two classes that allowed you to get permanent pets, the archer and the summoner. If you get a legendary pet, you could easily increase your combat power by multiples.
Li Yi could remember a certain Pet Archer in his past life. Going into battle with only his Divine Bird Phoenix, simply using the finisher Blazing Fields could easily wipe out more than 100 opposing players. He could also remember a certain Contract Summoner who spent a total of four years to finally get a successful contract with the Level 80 boss Dragon of Windstorms. Whenever she participated in City Invasion Battles, all she had to do was place the Dragon of Windstorms at the city gates and no one would dare to charge the gate.
Of course, it was extremely rare to have these one-man-army situations appearing in the game. Within the 8 years since King of Pantheon came out, out of more than hundreds of millions of players, there is merely a handful of them...
“Bro, aren’t you way out of line here? Look at you with all your equipment over Level 20, why are you still here grinding in a Level 15 monster zone stealing kills? Can you even get any EXP from this anymore?”
Just as the Mysterious Egg’s Hatching progress reached 95%, a round-faced White Elf youth clad in Cotton Clothes walked up to Li Yi.
“Stealing kills?” Li Yi was stunned.
The White Elf youth replied angrily, “Yeah, that pig that you’re using, it kills off everything so quickly that I don’t even have a chance to grind any levels.”
“What level are you?”
“Level 12.”
“Then why not go to the Frost Dungeon? It’s so slow to grind levels here.”
The White Elf youth sighed. “I picked the wrong class so no one wants to party with me. I want to reset my skill points but don’t have the funds. If I were to start a new character from scratch that would just take too much time.”
Li Yi looked over at the youth, then said, “A class that no one wants that wears cotton clothes... Are you a Curse Priest?”
“Looks like you know your stuff...” The White Elf helplessly shook his head.
The priest class had three paths, the Light Priest, Darkness Priest, and Curse Priest.
A Light Priest specializes in healing, it was one of the most profitable classes in King of Pantheon. A Darkness Priest specializes in Evil and Black Magic, their ATK was comparable to that of a wizard class. However, a Cursed Priest had an unusual path, they could not heal and did not have M-ATK. They relied on various types of shrewd curse spells to attack their enemies.
Weakening Curse, Ring of Fear, Blood Stasis, all of these skills would have their unique uses. In the late game, almost every party attempting large-sized Instance Dungeons would need a couple of Cursed Priests.
In other words, even though this class was unpopular, it was an indispensable part of any party headed to a large-size dungeon. There should not be too many Cursed Priests at the party, but there definitely cannot be too few.
“Right now all I can do is Blood Stasis, so defeating a monster will take around 2 or 3 minutes. All I can do is to slowly grind myself. If I start a party, no one would want me.”
Blood Stasis will attach a Leech Seed on the target’s body, continuously reducing their health. The effect time and damage was proportionate to the INT. If their INT was higher, the damage would also be higher.
“I’m just here grinding these monsters for a quest, I’m almost done. If you don’t mind getting less EXP, we can party for a while.”
Li Yi sent a party invite to this White Elf youth.
“I don’t mind, I don’t mind.” The White Elf youth almost instantly accepted the invite.
“How nice, having a per class must be nice.”
In a two-man party, the EXP that the White Elf youth got was surely lower, but with the Mutated Small Wild Boar and Li Yi’s attacks, it was several times faster than him grinding solo.
“Bro, you’re not a bad guy, let’s add each other as friends.” The White Elf youth sent Li Yi a friend request.
‘One Big Bun, where have I heard that name before...”
Looking at the White Elf youth, Li Yi suddenly remembered something.
The Curse Priest One Big Bun, the God of Decomposition!
This was another famous player from his past life.
However, the reason he was famous was completely unrelated to his main class. The reason he was famous was for his lifestyle class, Decomposition Master.
Decomposition Master, just as the name implies, can gain materials from decomposing equipment.
Decomposition Master was a lifestyle class that was crucial in the late game because the materials that you get from decomposing equipment had a wide range of uses. It was used in building, sewing, refining, smithing, and other functions of the lifestyle classes.
The way to level up to Decomposition Master was simple. You can start from decomposing trash Level 1 white-colored equipment. Every time you succeed, your mastery would increase by one point, but if you fail, your mastery would not increase. No matter if you fail or succeed, the equipment will always disappear after you decompose it.
If you thought the Apothecarist was an extremely resource-consuming class, the Decomposition Master would be the worst class.
This White Elf Youth One Big Bun standing right in front of him was one most infamous characters within the world of Decomposition.
In order to increase his mastery, he would decompose everything on sight. The most infamous incident revolving him was when joined an internal auction party 1 to fight the Level 80 Ice Dragon Instance Dungeon. Spending nearly half a month to finally succeed in completing Hard Mode.
The party leader’s luck when it came to looting was amazing. When he looted the Ice Dragon’s corpse, he got a purple-colored Frost Wizard Staff. At the time, a wizard bid for it with 100000 Gold Coins, but he outbid him with a bid of his own at 120000 Gold Coins. When he got the staff, he immediately decomposed it, enraging the wizard with the 100000 bid so much he nearly burst an artery.
After decomposing numerous purple-colored equipment, his infamy rose to five stars. In the “100 Pantheon players I hate the most” poll, this young man was voted to the top for, second only to the Big Cheater Li Yi.
Li Yi asked, “Do you have a guild?”
“Who’d want me?” One Big Bun scratched his head, seemingly helpless.
“Then join our guild. Although we don’t have any benefits as of yet, it still shouldn’t be a problem when it comes to forming parties for dungeons.”
“Really?” One Big Bun’s long sharp ears suddenly perked up.
Li Yi said no more, immediately sending him a guild invite.
System Notification [One Big Bun has joined Little Drunk Cats Guild.]
‘I got another one.’
Although this player was famous for being infamous, he still would need a lot of decomposition materials for his on apothecary. If he got him into the guild, next time he would not have to worry anymore about decomposition materials.
One Big Bun was completely ecstatic. “I’m truly grateful for you. Who would’ve thought, someone with a useless class like me would be able to join a guild.”
“There are no useless classes in King of Pantheon, only useless players. Slowly play on, once you get the hang of playing as a Curse Priest, you wouldn’t even want to change classes even if given the opportunity.”
“Let’s hope so, hehe!”
As the two were speaking, the Mysterious Egg in his backpack suddenly let out a ray of golden light.
The egg has hatched!
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Chapter 83: The Good and Bad
One Big Bun jumped up as he was shocked. “What happened?”
Li Yi did not respond as he stared at the monkey avatar hopelessly in his backpack.
He did not manage to obtain a legendary pet nor a useless yet aesthetical pet. What he obtained was the most annoying and neutral pet, the Explosive Ape.
The Explosive Ape was a super rare monster and would not respawn in any map under any normal circumstances. The chances of it appearing were extremely slim even one were to use the Mysterious Egg.
The Explosive Ape could be used once the player reached Level 20. It was a physical attack based pet and it had Violent Strike and Berserk Charge as its skills.
While a typical Charge would provide very little damage, the Berserk Charge would stun their opponents while injuring the target at the same time.
The Violent Strike was quite overpowered as well as it had a 90% rate of stunning the target for 5 seconds.
The true power of the Berserk Charge and Violent Strike could be brought forward when one brought along the Explosive Ape into PK as these two skills could annihilate opponents when combined.
Unfortunately, even the owner of the Explosive Ape was unable to command it around. The Ape’s personality was so extreme that it would make everyone speechless.
Each pet had its own personality. For example, Mutated Small Wild Boar had a docile personality and would follow every command given by the owner. However, the Explosive Ape was wild and hard to tame and would usually do the opposite of what was commanded. It was impossible to order it to do anything and would fight in its own style when summoned. What made it worse was that it would usually attack anyone, regardless if one was a friend or foe...
Could this kind of pet, where one had to be wary of it backstabbing him when summoned be relied on?
The Explosive Ape was truly a complete balance between good and bad and the combination of the most overpowered and useless pet!
“What’s wrong? Hey...” One Big Bun waved his hands about in front of Li Yi’s eyes.
“Ah. It’s nothing.” Li Yi came back to his senses.
His dream of obtaining a legendary pet had fallen apart and it looked like he had to gather more Mysterious Eggs and open them at the same time in order to obtain one.
Then, cheerful music sounded beside Li Yi’s ears.
Ding!
[Congratulations, your pet Old Pig had obtained the skill Solid Ice during battle.]
‘Eh?’
A blue glow radiated around the Mutated Small Wild Boar and revolved around its head for a few times before gradually disappearing.
The Small Wild Boar had leveled up and obtained a new skill!
Only a rare pet was able to obtain a skill and the chances of the pet obtaining one was one in a hundred million...
The Mutated Small Wild Boar had done the impossible.
Li Yi was at a loss whether to cry or to laugh when he saw the Solid Ice’s skill description.
[Solid Ice: Turn one’s body into ice and ridicule all enemies within 30 yards. All damage taken is negated for 12 seconds and all dispel skills are ineffective against it. The caster’s life will perish when the skill has ended.]
It was an ultimate suicidal skill.
Sweat started dripping down on Li Yi’s head as he stared at the Mutated Small Wild Boar’s awkward looking head.
The Mutated Small Wild Boar had died at least a hundred times under his care. However, the intimacy was quickly recovered whenever he was fed with some food. He had never disobeyed his order during combat as well. Li Yi had already thought of replacing it with a new pet but he had obtained a new skill at this moment...
Although it would surely die from using the ultimate suicidal skill, this skill was incredibly useful. One could say that the Mutated Small Wild Boar would never be replaced with this skill.
“I’ve completed my quest. You should stop grinding here and report to Tall and Mighty at Shattered Frost City so that he can slot you into an Instance Dungeon party.”
“Sure thing.”
Li Yi and One Big Bun then used the Guild Return City Scroll together.
The recruitment to the Little Drunk Cat Guild went on and the role of the recruiter was held by Fire Ice. Chen Yang was in charge of managing the party for Instance Dungeon to increase every member’s battle strength. Li Yi, on the other hand, had nothing much to do other than expanding the guild’s inventory.
...
Chen Yang was as cool as a cucumber as he faced against Ordas’ AoE Attack Flurry of Dancing Snow in the Heroic-Level Instance Dungeon Frost Labyrinth. He did not even lift a finger as he stared carelessly at the Fire Spirit Pet hitting Ordas down to the ground in the middle of the air with its Fire Fist...
Ordas was killed by the Fire Spirit Pet even before he was able to finish using its Flurry of Dancing Snow...
This was all possible due to the drastic difference in his equipment level. The Frost Labyrinth was a walk in the park for Chen Yang at this stage.
“You’re too cool brother Mighty...” One of the Orc chicks in the guild placed both hands over her mouth to show her admiration toward Chen Yang.
“I’m floored, brother Mighty.” Another Dwarf Warrior rushed towards Chen Yang and gave him a big thumbs up.
“Brother Mighty, lead us and let’s fight for a few more rounds.”
“Words are really starting to fill up the entire sky. This is really nothing...” Chen Yang could not stop thinking and he started to wobble...
Chen Yang’s current responsibility was to bring the weaker members into the Instance Dungeon and improve their teamwork.
After Chen Yang had calmed down, he quickly shook his head. “That’s enough for today and you’re free to form your own party. I need to lead the new guild members that had just entered.”
Chen Yang left the Instance Dungeon and found out that the new guild members were already waiting for him for a long time at the Instance Dungeon entrance.
“Follow me into the Instance Dungeon, Pretty Good Mood, One Big Bun, Situya, Once In A Lifetime.”
Chen Yang rushed towards the four new members in a cool manner as he waved his hand before entering the Instance Dungeon.
...
“Your guild has yet to meet the requirement to level up and is unable to request for a Guild Garrison. The prerequisite to requesting a Guild Garrison is as of below. 3000 points of Guild Popularity, 3000 points of Guild Reputation, 10,000 Gold Coins for the guild’s basic operation and 10,000 Gold Coins to level up the guild...”
The guild manager kept babbling about to the point where Li Yi started to feel bored from it.
He did not manage a guild before in his past life so he did not know there were so many requirements in leveling up a guild. The Little Drunk Cat had enough Gold Coins and Reputation at the moment but they were lacking Popularity.
They would earn 1 point of Popularity if one member was online for more than 5 hours per day. It was non-accumulative and would be counted once every 24 hours.
The Little Drunk Cat Guild had less than 50 guild members at the moment and their Popularity did not even reach 500 points.
A Level 0 guild would not be able to have a Guild Garrison and such a guild was just merely a title and a guild inventory. When a Level 0 guild had leveled up to Level 1, the Guild Master or Vice Guild Master could go to the guild manager in the city and spend 10,000 Gold Coins to purchase a property to build a garrison.
All guild members would be blessed with benefits once a guild leveled up. It was necessary for a guild to level up if it were to develop in the long term.
When a guild reached Level 1, all of the guild members could obtain a 2-hour buff which gave 1.5 times more experience while grinding from the garrison.
This was the most practical advantage at the early phase of the guild. Li Yi wanted to level up the guild to Level 1 so that every member would be able to enjoy this buff as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, he was unable to request for a garrison due to the lack of Popularity.
It seemed like he had to recruit more members.
Li Yi had decided the course and started to recruit more people.
“The Little Drunk Cat Guild is currently recruiting members and there are no benefits at the moment...”
Li Yi gave a shout out three times in his friend channels and received a few requests in joining his guild after some time.
[Zimu Wutong has requested to join the guild.]
[Qingshui Wutong has requested to join the guild.]
[Moonlight Ocean has requested to join the guild.]
[Qing Pingle has requested to join the guild.]
[Orchid Elf has requested to join the guild.]
[One Gunman has requested to join the guild.]
...
Li Yi accepted all of the requests and then announced in the guild channel. “All guild members are allowed to recruit more members and would receive 5 Gold Coins for each successful recruitment. Furthermore, all guild members who are online for more than 5 hours per day are eligible to obtain 5 Gold Coins as well.”
A person’s strength had its limits. Although Li Yi was also a player, his influence was nothing more than a party leader in an Instance Dungeon. Many people did not see any good in him when it came to managing a guild.
Wealth, material, human resources, and leadership was necessary. He was fortunate that the game was still in its early phase as he was recruiting members into a Level 0 guild. A lot of players would simply join a guild as they did not know the benefits that a guild could bring. Once they understood the benefits a high-level guild could bring, this phenomenon would simply disappear.
The news of getting money by recruiting for the guild and staying online for more than 5 hours spread like wildfire and the Little Drunk Cat headcount had soared to 263 in a day. It was literally a snowball effect where the snowball became larger and larger and the numbers finally converged on the third day where there were about 700 members.
Li Yi had segregated all the players that had entered because of the money into his honor party. Chen Yang and Fire Ice’s responsibility remained the same and was not involved in this at all.
Little Drunk Cat Guild’s big movement had shocked many guilds. However, none of them cared as it was no secret that Popularity was required in order to level up a guild. Many small to middle sized guilds had done it as well while they tried to level up their guild.
“What’s there to worry about? What else can they achieve other than leveling up the guild if they recruit in this manner? The quality of their members is nowhere near the Dark Empire. Let him be.” The Star Fire Guild Master said.
Naturally, there were other guilds such as the Dream Guild and God Creator Guild that did not see eye to eye with Star Fire’s perspective.
Shangguan Bailu had invited Li Yi more than once but Li Yi was firm in remaining in the Little Drunk Cat Guild and ignored her no matter what she said.
The God Creator Guild had long given up and Confused Fox had gone to Shattered Frost City to make a guild alliance with Li Yi when he had found out that Li Yi had joined the Level 0 Little Drunk Cat Guild.
The Dream Guild and the God Creator Guild was a Level 2 and Level 3 guild respectively. They promised that they would not restrain Li Yi in any way when they invited him. This meant that as long as he joined the guild, he would immediately become the Vice Guild Leader!
“This person is either extremely greedy or have no desire at all...” This was a comment directed at Li Yi from Confused Fox.
After a few days of repetition, the guild’s Popularity had soared to 3000+.
Li Yi had increased the guild level to 1 and announced the cancellation of the Gold Coins reward.
The number of guild members rapidly decreased and the headcount went down to 400 plus within a short span of one hour.
Although many of them had left the guild, the majority of them stayed as well.
These people’s class were mostly secluded and some of them did not have a guild to begin with. They were in a similar situation as One Big Bun and Pretty Good Mood where no one wanted them to be a part of their parties and could not find a party to go into an Instance Dungeon. To them, it was cherry on top to enjoy the benefit of the additional EXP buff by being in a Level 1 guild. In addition to the seductive equipment that was stored in the guild’s inventory, they should be thanking Li Yi for not kicking them out of the guild.
Ultimately, the number of guild members stabilized at about 300 members.
As Li Yi was trying to settle the guild’s building in every way he could, Chen Yang sent him a private recorded message.
“Brother Yi, Who’s this Pretty Good Mood that you want me to bring along? This guy is beyond dumb. He would keep running around freely and lure the monsters behind my back. He died seven times in a Normal-Level Frost Labyrinth. I, Chen Yang, have seen my fair share of stupid players but I haven’t seen one this idiotic!”
Li Yi was stunned.