Chapter 12: What Did I Do Wrong?

Sila appeared back on the bed inside the hotel room and felt a little hungry despite just having finished eating in real life.

He didn’t know how to cook, so he opened his bento which contained a strange dish that looked to be some kind of seafood. It looked like it was made of squid, but Sila wasn’t sure. He had brought it from the Mansion of the Seven Deadly Sins; there had been two of them inside the refrigerator. Back then, the man in the wuxia clothing had suggested Sila eat it, and since he found that it was very delicious, he took another one and placed it inside his item window because Sebastian said that he could take everything back with him.

In any case, Sila soon realized that there should be food inside the refrigerator in the hotel room too. And so, he put the bento away as he was the type of person who liked to save the most delicious food to eat last. He opened the hotel room’s refrigerator.

Inside the refrigerator, there were two sets of steak. He took one out and found that it was hot and gave off a savory aroma. At first, Sila was amazed at how the food which came out of a refrigerator could be hot. But then he realized that this was a matter of the game. He was just curious that since the food was already ready to be eaten just like this, then what was the point of having a kitchen in this room?

Sila ate it until he was satisfied. Then, he took a bath in the bathroom and donned his original Beginner’s Clothing. He noticed that they were old and slightly ragged, so he decided to go to the clothes shop first. But then again, he remembered that he was quite poor.

‘Oh! I remember. There is a bounty that I haven’t claimed yet.’

During the fight in the restaurant, the system sound had rung so often that Sila stopped listening to them. In any case, he vaguely recalled that some of the thieves had a bounty whereas some didn’t. Hopefully, the total amount should be able to cover the value of his future clothing.

Thus, he decided to change his first visit to the Bounty Hunter Association.

Sila went down and approached the employee at the reception to pay for the hotel bill. However, the staff said that Varee already paid for it. Sila was curious and asked about the fee.

“Small honeymoon suite, amounting 100,000 silver per night, sir.”

Sila was surprised that it was a honeymoon suite, and also surprised at the high price. Oh well, he couldn’t do anything about it so he headed towards the Bounty Hunter Association as he had planned.

***

The sign of the Bounty Hunter Association looked just like a pirate flag—it was a symbol of a skull of the monster with two swords crossed behind it. Sila went in and found that there were many people inside. Luckily, the number of staff was high as well. He didn’t have to wait long until a staff member greeted him.

“Welcome to the Bounty Hunter Association sir. Would you like to claim a reward or put a bounty on others?”

“Claim the reward,” answered Sila.

The staff nodded before gesturing to the office desk. “Please sit down first, sir.”

Sila sat down in a chair while the staff member was checking some data. Afterward, the window screen floated in front of Sila.

“You will obtain the reward of twenty-eight people’s bounty, totaling 550,000 silver, sir. Please check if the details are correct.”

The staff member pushed the screen towards Sila. The screen displayed a list of twenty-eight players, including the bounty of each.

Although the staff told him to check, Sila couldn’t remember who he had killed. So he pushed the screen back to the staff after looking at it for only a short while.

“Mister Sila has also become a Wanted Player too, you know?” said the staff when he got the screen back.

“Huh? Am I?”

‘Someone put a bounty on me?’

“Yeah, 200 gold from the Heavenly Dragon Guild and 100,000 silver from a group of players. This is effective from today onwards. When you’re online for a month and haven’t been killed, you will receive half of this money.”

“I see. Thank you for telling me,” Sila said goodbye to the staff member and left, heading to the clothing shop which was his main objective.

***

The clothing shop looked very normal. Many types of clothing and fabrics were displayed for customers to browse.

When Sila stated his request, the shop owner asked him what kind of clothing he was looking for.

Since Sila used Qi as his primary combat method, he told the shopkeeper that he was looking for clothing that wuxia commonly wore. Then, the shop owner brought him a brown wuxia’s clothing embroidered with gold thread. It was made of decent quality fabric.

After listening to the shop owner’s explanation about this clothing’s usefulness for a brief moment, Sila felt tired and didn’t want to waste any more time just to choose only one set of clothing, so he paid 100,000 silver coins without bargaining.

[© Wandering Wuxia’s Clothing]

[Increases both physical and magical defenses by 300 points.]

[Increases attack by 5%, increase qi point by 5%, increase qi circulation’s speed by 10%, and increase agility by 5%.]

[*Could clean itself but couldn’t self-repair.]

Sila then spent 200,000 silver to increase his system window by two Grades (upgrading F Grade to E Grade required 50,000 silver, while upgrading E Grade to D Grade required 150,000 silver) out of Lucy’s recommendation. She had told Sila that he should upgrade it quickly since the first two upgrades didn’t cost much and it would allow him to have 100 more spaces in his item window for each increment in Grade and also the ability to inspect a player who has a lower grade system window and also to access more in-depth information of skills and items.

Next, Sila went to buy miscellaneous things which were: Medium Health Potion 50 EAs, Large Health Potion 20 EAs, Medium Magic Potion 30 EAs, Liquid Bottle (2-liter capacity) 5 EAs, and Large Bento 5 EAs. All of them cost him 55,000 silver.

Before accidentally wasting more money than this, Sila quickly fled from many shop owners who had proved themselves to be great salespeople and went to the Quest Building as Lucy had suggested.

***

There were few people inside the Quest Building. Sila went in and found three doors which were each labeled as Qi, Psychic and Magic respectively.

After standing there confused for a while, a man came to him.

“Hello. May I help you?”

“Oh, hello. I’m a new player here,” Sila replied politely.

“New player?” The man looked at Sila with a strange feeling. That was because Sila was wearing one of the most expensive clothes in the city. “Umm... you should have some fundamental knowledge of qi, psychic, and magic from the Hall of Beginnings already, am I correct?”

“Yes, there are three types of energy in this game which are qi, psychic, and magic. Qi focuses on an inner force, psychic focuses on the balance of power, and magic borrows force from outside.”

Sila recited what Lucy had told him word by word. Well, he only knew this much. Lucy had suggested him to inquire more about energy types from the Quest Building directly, as the staff there was more specialized.

“Yes, when a player enters this place for the first time, they will have to select their main energy type. Players can choose only one type, and other unselected energy types will only act as supplements for the player.

“By the way, qi type energy focuses on drawing the power from within. The more a player practices, the higher the player’s basic stat and ability. The disadvantage of qi type is that there are fewer skills to learn compared to other types, resulting in less variety of player’s skill pool. Players will have to utilize their possessed skills to their fullest instead. Despite this type having a difficult start, if one can be proficient at it, one will be very strong.

“For psychic type, it focuses on the relationship between the player and an object or monster. The stronger the player’s mind, the deeper the relationship. Players who select this type will become better at using weapons and items than other types. This type has more skills than qi type. However, their disadvantages are the low basic stats and the need to rely on equipment or pet.

“Lastly, magic type is the most popular energy type right now. It’s easy to train; just using a magic scroll and you can learn a spell. As a bonus, magic points are clearly shown in the player’s system window from the start, unlike qi points and psychic points which will only be shown when the player’s system window is at least C Grade. The skills of magic-type players are of a high variety and there are so many skills that you couldn’t possibly count them. Also, a magic attack has its benefit, which is that it’s unavoidable except when the opponent uses a skill or item that allows them to be able to dodge. The disadvantages of this type are that there’s the casting time for spells and each spell has its own characteristic, making your opponent able to easily predict it.

“Well, judging from your clothes, you would select the qi type, right?”

Sila didn’t answer but he nodded instead. In his opinion, he wanted to depend on himself as much as possible, even if it was difficult to do so. For him, depending on pets or chanting spells were contrary to his style. Moreover, he already had trained his qi to a certain extent.

“Player Sila would like to select qi type as the main energy type. Please confirm this.”

“Confirm,” answered Sila.

The system sound alerted.

[You have selected qi type as your main energy type.]

“Now it’s finished. If you have anything to ask about the qi type, please inquire the NPC of each energy type behind the door,” the staff gestured Sila to walk toward the door with ‘Qi’ sign.

***

As soon as Sila walked through the door, he found himself in another dimension. There were bamboo forests on either side and in the middle; there was a pathway which led to a little bamboo hut. Around the hut, there was a small fence for feeding chickens in the yard. On the porch, there was an old man who had a long white beard and was dressed in cheap voile clothes sitting and weaving a basket out of bamboo.

When Sila arrived at the hut, the old man beckoned him to sit with him on the porch. Then, the old man continued weaving a basket, completely ignoring Sila.

Sila somehow began respecting the old man. The feeling the old man gave off was very similar to that off his currently missing real-life teacher, except for the fact that Mora wasn’t this old. Hence, Sila waited obediently until the old man finished weaving a basket, and started turning his head toward Sila.

“Greetings, erm... elder,” said Sila after considering what he should call this old man for a while.

“I’m Wu Ming (Anonymous),” said the old man with a strong voice. If judged by his voice alone, one would most likely misunderstand and say that the speaker must be quite young.

“Oh, I see, Elder Wu Ming, then.”

“Just call me Elder. I don’t really have a name.”

“Yes, Elder,” replied Sila.

“Then, what do you want from me, young lad?”

“I want to get a quest for qi-type players, sir.”

The old man frowned a bit, like he was thinking about something. Then, he quickly showed Sila a smile.

“Fufu. A quest for qi-type players, you said? Usually, you would get a scroll of Basic Qi, but you’ve possessed this skill already, haven’t you? Besides, you even have two of the four Qi of Little Divine Beings.”

Sila was a little surprised that the old man knew he had trained qi before. It must be one of the abilities of the NPC.

“Qi of Little Divine Beings?” Sila wondered at these words.

“They’re advanced qi series which consist of four types of qi. You now have Qi of Little Tiger and Qi of Little Fish. What you lack are Qi of Little Bird and Little Turtle.”

“Oh, so you meant those qi. I just know that there were four of them in the series. Could you please tell me what the difference is between having all of them and not, sir?”

“Well, based on the current you, you must lack the ability to attack multiple enemies and the ability to protect yourself against magic. If you possess all the Qi of Little Divine Beings, these weaknesses would be gone.”

Sila recalled a fight in a restaurant and agreed with the old man’s statement, “In that case, can I ask you to teach me those qi’s, sir?”

“Fufufu. No can do, young lad. These qi are high-tier skills so you will have to search for them by yourself. Well, right now, there is only one player named Lone Wolf who possesses all of the Qi of Little Divine Beings, so you can ask about the qi from him if you want. As for me, I can only teach you some basic skills.”

Sila recalled the person who had transmitted the qi to him. If Lone Wolf was the only player who possessed all of the different types of qi, then, the probability of the man in the wuxia clothing he had met in the Mansion of the Seven Deadly Sins being Lone Wolf, the Qi Emperor, was pretty high.

Sila was a bit depressed when he heard that the old man could only teach him basic skills, but he didn’t care that much. He thought he was luckier than other players already judging by the skills he currently had.

Then, another one of his weaknesses came to his mind.

“Do you have a skill which can allow me to attack an enemy in the distance, sir?”

“Well, I do. Let me see... yizhichan is a high-tier skill so I can’t teach it to you. But if it’s a hidden weapon skill or a single-handed mechanical bow skill, then it should be okay. Which one do you prefer?”

T/N: Yizhichan is an art of using inner force through fingers; usually was mentioned in traditional Chinese novel regarding martial art. This art is commonly used in order to damage qi’s channel, attack internal organs, or strike in mid-range.

“How are they different, sir?”

“For a mechanical bow, you just have to buy a good bow and high-grade arrows, dip them in poison for a while, and then you are good to go. It’s easy to control and you can clearly see the results. As for the hidden weapon, its advantage is that you can use anything as a hidden weapon; it can be a needle, a knife, or even a rock. However, you have to enhance the hidden weapon with your qi for the attack to be more effective. Even though it’s an F-grade skill, it’s hard to master, just like an S-grade skill. Not many people learn this skill because it’s hard to learn and it’s even harder to use in actual combats.”

Sila thought about it. Since he had decided to rely on himself rather than external powers, he thought that he should stick with this mindset until the very end.

“I will choose the hidden weapon, sir,” replied Sila without hesitation.

“Fufu. I can’t expect less from a young person like you. Well, just don’t regret your decision later.”

A system notification rang.

[You have learned an active skill: Hidden Weapon Firing – Level 1.]

[You have learned a passive skill: Hidden Weapon Mastery – Level 1.]

The old man smiled slyly before handing a small bamboo knife to Sila, saying, “Try using it.”

Sila took the bamboo knife. Then, he tried to show off his ability by concentrating Qi of Little Fish into his wrist that holding the knife before flicking it swiftly.

“Hidden Weapon Firing!”

At the end of his shout, a bamboo knife was being thrown out of Sila’s hand although it was not very fast. The knife pinned precisely at the middle of a bamboo tree.

Sila smiled at the success of his first attempt, while the old man was laughing his ass off.

Sila confused and didn’t understand why the old man was laughing. Okay, it might be slow, but it was his first attempt. So it should be acceptable, right?

“What did I do wrong just now, sir?” Sila tried to ask for his mistake.

The old man looked at Sila as if Sila was some alien and started his non-stop laughter again.

“You really have no clue, huh? Hahahaha!”

Sila was still bewildered. He recalled his action and had no idea what he had done wrong.

Well, it seemed that he had to wait for the elder to stop laughing and explain it to him...