[Begin!]

As soon as the countdown ended, Li Wei rushed towards the mage. From his previous experience of gaming, mages were weak in close combat. His best option was to close the gap quickly.

The mage remained expressionless. He did not even try to retreat. The mage only held his staff in front of him, ready to attack.

"Cleave"

Li Wei jumped and used his ability, aiming at the head of the mage. But the latter quickly used his own skill:

"Mana Shield"

[Mana Shield (level 0)]

Creates a spherical shield around the user for 5 seconds, can absorb 30 damage

Mana cost: 15

Cooldown time: 30 seconds

Li Wei's sword hit the shield but could not proceed further. A "-26" appeared in blue indicating that all the damage had been absorbed.

The old man smiled faintly. He raised his staff and aimed at Li Wei

[Mana Bolt]

[Mana Bolt (level 0)]

Condenses mana into a projectile and shoots it at a target, deals 12 Magic damage

Mana cost: 12

Cooldown time: 6 seconds

A White light appeared at the end of the staff and shot towards Li Wei. Being still in the air with one hand holding his sword, Li Wei could do nothing to stop him. The mana bolt struck his chest and forced him to take a few steps back.

"-19"

A relative high damage was dealt to Li Wei. This was because his equipment provided only armor which reduces physical damage but he did not have any magic resist and could only rely on his HP to survive.

After that, the old man retreated quickly. He needed to wait for his cooldowns and was vulnerable in the meantime but Li Wei did not allow him to do so.

He dashed towards the mage slashing his sword at him. The mage parried the sword with his staff but still took damage and a few seconds later, [Mana Bolt].

Being so close, Li Wei was not able to dodge the attack. Mana bolt was an almost instant cast spell that barely had a casting time. Even though Li Wei was able to see the staff shine for a fraction of a second before firing the bolt, his body was not able to react in time.

The fight continued, the mage kept retreating after using his spells, slowly depleting Li Wei's HP bar. Eventually, Li Wei took out his needles and threw it at the mage.

"Mana Shield"

"Strengthen"

The shield absorbed all the damage of the needles but meanwhile, Li Wei used his skill and dashed towards the mage.

With Mana shield already used, the mage would have no chance to protect himself. However, thing did not go as Li Wei planned. As Li Wei lifted his sword to strike the mage, the latter raised his own hand. On his ring finger, a white ring suddenly turned crimson red.

Immediately after, a fireball shot out of the ring, hitting Li Wei on the chest. This was followed by another Mana Bolt, emptying Li Wei's HP bar.

The ring was actually a special equipment that could store one skill, and the skill the mage had stored was Fireball. Li Wei was caught off guard. He thought the mage would only have 2 skills and that was the case, he just did not know that it was possible to store a skill in an equipment.

A bright light covered Li Wei's body, keeping his HP at 1.

[You have been defeated. Restoring to original condition]

...

And that concluded Li Wei's climb of the tower. Even though he felt dejected for losing in such a way, he also got to learn a lot about fighting and the other classes.

Besides that, Li Wei collected enough exp from his run and reached level 6. The free stat point was directly added to Strength.

Li Wei stood up and left the arena. He appeared back in the hall where he entered the tower of heroes. Many players saw him appear, he just ignored them and went straight to the exit.

At that moment, someone shouted, "Look, the leaderboard is being refreshed"

On the 5th position, "Seven" appeared and replaced the previous name "Wild cat". As to why Li Wei was ranked 3rd among those that defeated the 6th floor, that was due to the amount of damage dealt to the opponent. He was barely able to reduce the mage’s HP.

"Was it that guy that just left?"

"Maybe we should try to recruit him... Remember his name"

...

After the dungeon run, it was already 3:21. Li Wei went to wander around the town. He was thinking about his fights; he was calmly analyzing his mistakes to find things to improve on.

Then, Li Wei thought about the ring of that mage, 'It will be useful to get one like that, it can be a trump card... I also need to think of something for the shield and the needles...'

....

The next morning, Li Wei left the inn and went to the west, where the mines were located. It was time to collect some ores and complete his two pending quests. His Fatigue level was back to 0 after a good night of rest. Despite thinking during the rest of the evening, Li Wei could not come up with anything for the problem of his needles. It was either abandoning the shield or the needles, but both were useful.

As for the ring, Li Wei went to a magic shop only to find that the cheapest ring that could store skills cost 10 gold. He was once again lacking money, having only about 6 gold.

Li Wei walked to the mines, appearing very careless but in reality, he was constantly looking around him. He needed to bait the Red Bandits and alert the militia with a communication crystal and the best way to do it was to look defenseless.

However, Li Wei reached the mines without encountering any attacks. There were already some people there, mostly NPCs. The mines actually contained monsters ranging from level 5 to 8. There was also another mine that was sealed because it contained corrupted beasts above level 8.

NPCs were silently collecting ores near the entrance of the mine. Even though they were protected by some guards, they stayed in the relatively safe area of the outer mine. But for the middle-grade iron ores, Li Wei had to proceed deeper into the mines. There were several tunnels players could choose to explore and Li Wei randomly chose one. There were torches placed on the walls of the tunnels, but Li Wei also received some from the miners as the cave was not fully explored and there were some places without light.

He quickly encountered his first monster, it was a level 6 Mine Rat. Li Wei quickly rushed towards it and cut it with his sword. The Mine Rat was actually rather large, about the size of a suitcase. The rat was much weaker than the opponents in the Tower of Heroes, even though it tried to bite Li Wei, the latter now had some combat experience and easily dodged it before finishing it off with a [Cleave].

Li Wei proceeded deeper and deeper into the mines, he stopped only to kill the Mine Rats he encountered and to collect the ores he found. After one hour, he had already collected quite a decent amount of low-grade iron ores in addition to Mine Rat teeth and Mine Rat Tails.

Eventually, Li Wei found an ore that was brighter than the others. He excited took out the pickaxe and started to strike the ore. "Tink! Tink!"

[System prompt: You have obtained a middle-grade iron ore]

“Middle-grade? Finally found one!”

Li Wei was very happy. He was at the right place and could easily collect the ores. After a few hours in the depth of the cave, he decided to go out of the mines to eat his lunch. He already collected 12 middle-grade iron ores and could relax a bit.

He went out and sat with the other miners to eat. When they heard that Li Wei had obtained Middle-grade ores, they tried to buy them from him but he refused. For them, going deep into the mines was very dangerous and they were not willing to hire strong guards to protect them from the dangers lurking into the mines due to the high price.

This was why middle-grade iron ores were rather rare at Little Root Town, but that would soon change when the players would start to explore the mine.

After talking for a bit with the miners, Li Wei went back into the tunnel but not without receiving a quest from the miner leader:

[System prompt: You have received the quest "Rat Extermination"]

[Information]

Slay as many rats as possible to make the mines safer

Rewards: 50 exp per rat

Li Wei went back to the spot he found the middle-grade ores and as he expected, they had already respawned. Li Wei happily collected all of them. While exploring the cave, Li Wei met many mine rats. As he went deeper into the cave, the rats were actually getting larger and larger. He was now encountering level 7 Mine Rats. But their fate did not change, they all perished under Li Wei's sword and needles. In such a closed environment, it was difficult to dodge throwing weapons.

After a few hours, Li Wei had to light up the torch to continue exploring. It was quite annoying for Li Wei as he could no longer use his left arm for fighting.

...

Eventually, he arrived in a large underground chamber. Suddenly sounds of movements and squeaks reached Li Wei’s ears. He rapidly raised the torch to see further but only saw fleeing shadows.

Suddenly, "Shhhrrkkk", a loud cry was heard and a giant rat of the size of a human appeared in front of Li Wei. It looked at Li Wei with fury in its eyes, above its head was:"Mine Rat Queen, level 9" and that was not all. In the shadows, Li Wei could see countless eyes watching him. When he saw the reflection of the torch in their eyes, he could not help but gulp down.

-"Crap... Me and my sh*tty luck."

Li Wei did not hesitate. He knew his limits. Fighting rats was easy but against so many, it would not be long before he perished. He directly threw the torch towards the rats and turned around to rush toward the exit.

"Shrrrkk"

Under the command of their queen, several rats jumped and chased after Li Wei. In this environment, the rats were faster than Li Wei, and the latter was forced to use his sword to hack at the rats that were biting his legs.

The stream of rats seemed endless. Li Wei was starting to feel despair, 'Will this be my first death,' thought Li Wei. He could not accept it. Dying here was would be such a terrible loss. He would lose all the equipment he had obtained from the militia.

Out of desperation, Li Wei thought of something:

"Strengthen"

Li Wei activated Strengthen and pushed on his legs with much force. Even though it was not like the [Rush] of the rogue, he was still able to increase his speed. He had a small head start and took the opportunity to hastily drink a Health Potion.

After more than twenty minutes of mad running, the rats finally gave up the chase. Li Wei only had 39HP left but succeeded in reaching the outer part of the mine.

A few minutes later, a very desolate looking Li Wei appeared near the entrance of the mine. However, at that moment, Li Wei suddenly felt a sense of danger. He quickly took a step back and jumped on the side and sure enough, an arrow flew just where he was standing moments ago. From the entrance of the mine, five individuals appeared, all wearing red clothes and taking out their weapons.

'Of course, of all the times that could happen... it had to be now' exclaimed Li Wei in his heart. His luck was just getting worst and worst. The middle-grade iron ores were just a giant bait!

A thin man, who appeared to be the leader, took a step forward

"So you are the one who killed our comrades, you have some skills to be able to dodge Mason's arrow but you chose to offend the wrong person."

The man grinned a took out his staff, aiming at Li Wei. "Any last words?"

Li Wei frowned and looked at the Red Bandits, 4 of them were level 7 with one ranger and 3 rogues while the thin man was actually a level 9 mage. While listening to the Red Bandit, Li Wei discretely moved his left hand towards his bag and took the communication crystal from his inventory. The crystal automatically activated.

[System prompt: Quest "Bait the Red Bandits" updated. New success condition: Survive for 15 minutes until the arrival of the militia]

'Damn... why couldn't they be stationed nearer'

Having activated the crystal, Li Wei had no other choice. He relaxed himself a bit and smiled. "Since you want to kill me, then come and catch me". Saying that, he immediately took out 4 needles and threw them towards the Red Bandits. Not caring whether he hit his targets or not, he immediately turned around and ran back into the depths of the mine.

[Mana Shield], [Mana Bolt], the mage immediately activated his skills but Li Wei was quick enough to reach a turn in the tunnel.

"F***, chase after him!"