Chapter 18: Hemlock Longbow
“Everyone come up. Besides a cave, there’s nothing else up here.” FrozenBlood voice arrived from above. Everyone started climbing up and arrived at the cave.
“Let’s go in and take a look.” ThornyRose reached out her hand to feel the temperature of the cave and took the lead to enter. Everyone followed after her, one after the other. The floor was rugged and uneven, the passage was narrow, and the torchlight didn’t reach very far. Everyone advanced cautiously. Along the way they faced waves of bats. They eventually left the passage and entered an area with flat floors and spent some time reorganizing. Ye Cang took out his new Red Slime and Bat Stew. It lost the buff to Dexterity but instead improved night vision, tempting everyone. However, the taste was even worse than stewing wolves.
Although it was disgusting, ThornyRose was still a bit envious. It was a very useful skill, and greatly reduced the amount of time needed to level. Healing items were extremely expensive. One small red potion sold for 15 silver each at the NPC and it healed very little. As for blue potions, no one has seen them yet. Waiting for mana to recover really was a pain in the ass. That’s why ThornyRose made GreenDew control her mana. She wouldn’t use more than one spell on a normal monster, so that when an elite monster appeared, they would have enough to deal it with it.
What everyone didn’t know was that, as a half-elf, Ye Cang could see a lot further in the dark than the others, but not as far as a full elf. Light faintly flickered in his silver eyes. He pointed at the rocks to the right and said: “There’s a cave on that side.”
Everyone looked over and could only see pitch-black, moreover it was in the middle of nowhere. ThornyRose looked at Ye Cang’s eyes that shined like a nocturnal animal’s. “You’re not human?”
Ye Cang shrugged and said: “Mm, I can’t say I’m not. I’m a Half-Elf.”
Zhang ZhengXiong finally realised. No wonder he always notice things before them.
FrozenBlood already thought it was a bit weird. Every time a bat came, it was always him who warned everyone. She herself had an improved sense of smell, but not augmented vision.
ThornyRose looked at the three of them: Hidden Class, Hidden Race, Professions, What else? She didn’t want to ask. “Since you have night vision, then let’s have you be responsible for scouting. Go take a look ahead.”
Ye Cang nodded. He brought everyone to a steep slope, jumped up and started climbing. Everyone followed closely behind him. When they climbed into the cave, the inside was just a small hollow with two treasure chests. He said with excitement: “There’s two treasure chests!”
Treasure chests!? Everyone quickly climbed in.
ThornyRose wanted to say that each group would get one, but Ye Cang had already opened one. He saw that inside was completely empty and asked: “Why is there nothing at all?” He took the chest and turned it upside down, then in anger he smashed it onto the ground with a “Bang~”
“…” ThornyRose was speechless. A treasure chest was unexpectedly empty, then the other one must definitely have something. She was sure that no other player had been here before.
Ye Cang turned and looked towards the other chest. He slowly reached over with his evil hands. “Let me see this one…”
Zhang ZhengXiong performed a flying tackle, knocking him down. “Lele, hurry and open it!!”
The three girl’s were stunned. What were they doing? Going so far just for a chest.
“Believe me! This one’s empty, so if I open the other one, I’ll definitely get something good! No, this chest was probably empty from the beginning! It’s a fake! Release me! Let me open it!” Ye Cang wiggled and reached out trying to touch the chest.
Lin Le opened the treasure chest. “Brother Lil’White! Brother Lil’Xiong! There’s a bow and a helmet.”
“Something for me!?” Ye Cang excitedly grabbed the bow from Lin Le. It was a very textured wooden longbow that was 120cm long.
Hemlock Longbow (Excellent)
Category: Longbow
Requirements: 11 Strength or 13 Dexterity
Damage: 5 - 9
+1 Strength
+1 Dexterity
+10m Range
“Bro! Every time you open a chest or loot a boss, nothing ever comes out. Now you’ve wasted a chest.” Zhang ZhengXiong grumbled.
“F**k off! The chest was definitely already empty! It was definitely so. I never got to show off the power of these hands, otherwise we’d definitely get a divine tool.” Ye Cang raised his right hand and earnestly said, absolutely sure of it.
Zhang ZhengXiong sighed without replying.
ThornyRose and the girls were confused. FrozenBlood touched her brows. Weren’t they being too superstitious? Lucky or unlucky might affect it a bit, but in the end, it was just randomly calculated, how much could luck affect it? At best it was him looting things of low quality that rarely had drops. She’s never heard of a chest having something then being empty when someone opened it. However, Lin Le was indeed very lucky. Fine quality equipment were already as rare as phoenixes and unicorns, not to mention Excellent ones.
Ye Cang took the bow and equipped it. “I’m taking this bow, any objections?”
For the longbow, ThornyRose and the girl’s had no objections. Although the stats were good, only he could use it well since it was one of the weapons the jack-of-all-trades knight could use. She asked: “Let’s see the helmet.”
Lin Le nodded and took leather hat with a few metal rivets.
Iron Riveted Leather Hat (Fine)
Category: Light Helmet
Requirements: 15 Constitution, 10 Strength
+2 Defence
+1 Constitution
Since his group had already gotten something, he handed the hat over to ThornyRose.
“Was his bad luck as extraordinary as he said?” GreenDew looked at the open chest doubtfully.
“Try this and we’ll know.” FrozenBlood took out a pouch. “This is a money bag rewarded from a quest. It can have from 1 silver to 1 gold (100 silver) total. Let’s see your luck.”
ThornyRose raised an eyebrow. Currently, in game currency was in high demand. The three of them together didn’t even have 1 gold. Even on the black-market, supply doesn’t meet the demand. Although this coin pouch was not worth much, it could at least give them a couple tens of silver. If they were lucky, they could even get seventy or eighty. This made her worry.
“Cough~ Cough~ Hand it over!” Ye Cang smiled calmly. He took the coin pouch, slowly opened it and froze.
Ye Cang threw the bag away, trying very hard to stay calm. “Ok, the bag was fake. Go find the bastard that gave it to you and refund it…”
“Remember to give a bad rating.” Lin Le thought it was really fake and reminded FrozenBlood.
“…” ThornyRose and the girls were speechless. They turned and looked at the empty bag and let out a sigh. Didn’t it say the least you could get was 1 silver? It turns out there was actually a guy who couldn’t even find 1 silver. They looked at the empty chest and felt like their hearts would stop.
ThornyRose became gloomy. A good harvest was spoiled by this poor knight. A perfectly good chest was ruined. She felt her heart hurt a bit. “That poor… Cough~ Cough~ PaleSnow. If there’s a chest or a boss or anything, please stand far away.”
“Sister Rose, it’s no use. The moment my bro sees a boss’s corpse or a closed chest, he becomes like a hungry ghost.” Zhang ZhengXiong said with a sigh. The three women thought back to the previous scene and realized, no wonder he had to stall him so desperately.
“Madam. What happened earlier, in short, it was unexpected. It could happen to anyone. You have to believe in my…” Ye Cang again, slowly raised his right hand and smiled.
“I’m not Madam!” ThornyRose shouted as soon as she heard Madam. She looked at Ye Cang’s extended right hand, and thought back to what happened at the monstrous bird. She gnashed her teeth and really wanted to chop it off.