NOVEL NEXT Chapter 13 - Mission Upgrade
Despite feeling unwell, Ruo Manni gritted her teeth and persevered. Fortunately, after she “threw” down the ninety-eighth grass monster and began to feel a throbbing pain in her head, her skill started to incur a five-second cooldown.
Although it was only five seconds, this allowed the pain in her head to lessen significantly, rather than continuously building up, which could have made it unbearable.
Even so, after she “threw” the last grass monster off the cliff, the pounding in her head left her dizzy. Her mana and health points were almost depleted, with just a pitiful twenty-some points remaining. She quickly sat down to rest and let her mana and health recover on their own.
In fact, there was another way to quickly restore mana and health: spending gold coins to buy recovery potions from the exchange shop. However, in War Realm, players didn’t receive any loot besides experience points when defeating monsters initially.
Players only receive various potions and treasures from defeating monsters in dungeons after reaching Level 11.
Ruo Manni noticed that the recovery potions in the War Realm exchange shop were even more expensive than those in reality, and purchases were restricted—each player could only buy one potion per day. This clearly indicated that the game did not support players relying on recovery potions to complete tasks; instead, it wanted players to hone their skills.
In War Realm, players could only recover mana and health points naturally or by using recovery potions. These points would not automatically restore to full when leveling up.
While browsing the exchange shop, Ruo Manni heard a “ding” sound. The system announced: “Congratulations, player Lin Kexin has reached Level 2, becoming the fifth on the Gus youth leaderboard. Rewards: 2 gold coins, and an additional 10 gold coins for being in the top ten of the hundred-member leaderboard, plus an upgrade package.”
This time, she received a total of twelve gold coins, which felt like a very generous reward, making Ruo Manni quite satisfied. Gold coins were much more tangible than anything else, as there were plenty of good items in the exchange shop that she could purchase with them.
Ruo Manni quickly browsed through the War Realm exchange shop, unable to hold back her drool. Some high-tech items available there could be purchased with gold coins and used in the game; after paying for shipping, the operators would send them to the players in reality.
However, when she checked, she saw that the War Realm operators were located on the Technology Star in the central star of the Gus Empire. Shipping to the Topaz Star would cost more than the price of the items themselves.
After resting for over ten minutes, Ruo Manni waited until her health points recovered to three digits and her mana points reached two digits before checking her upgraded status:
Player ID: Lin Kexin
Player Level: 2
Experience Bar: 1000/10000
Mana Points: 4200/5500
Health Points: 23000/31000
Learned Skill: Telekinesis
Skill Level: Level 2
Progress Proficiency: 300/1000
Casting Distance: 12 meters
Damage Value: Unable to assess
Ruo Manni noticed that all her original attribute points remained unchanged, with only her mana and health points increasing due to leveling up. She recalled that the novel had mentioned that an increase in mana and health points indicated a boost in a player’s combat capabilities.
Ruo Manni didn’t dwell on the reasons for her progress; she was just glad to have leveled up. Regardless, the strength of her telekinetic “hand” was several times stronger than when she first started the task. She was confident that if she attempted the Level 2 upgrade task again, she could complete it by consuming only half of her health and mana points.
To fully restore her health and mana, she would need to rest for at least another hour. However, Ruo Manni had already decided not to continue her upgrade tasks for the day, so she put recovery aside and eagerly opened her upgrade package.
The Level 2 upgrade package contained one additional item compared to the previous one: a pair of mech gloves, a basic-quality longsword, and a jade slip.
With a weapon now included, it meant she could learn weapon skills. Ruo Manni happily picked up the jade slip and read it; it contained a basic swordsmanship technique with eighteen moves designed to complement physical training.
Ruo Manni was thrilled. The original host had been a waste in martial potential, having only trained in a set of earth-level pure physical techniques. Now, her martial potential was at least C-grade, and what she needed most was a weapon skill to go along with her physical techniques. This set was at least of human-level quality, making it perfect timing.
Indeed, the War Realm promotional claims were genuine; it felt tailor-made for her.
After reading the jade slip, Ruo Manni noticed that this set of sword techniques now displayed an upgrade progress bar in her skills, showing a proficiency level of 0/10. Clearly, this swordsmanship was one of her main skills, requiring her to gradually fill up the proficiency.
Once Ruo Manni raised the proficiency of this sword technique, her martial artist level would also increase, meaning she wouldn’t just be a fragile telekinetic; she could face enemies without fear of being easily defeated.
Ruo Manni tapped the screen to check her next upgrade task:
Kill ten Level 2 Flame Beasts.
She also looked up information on the Flame Beasts in War Realm. The ferocity of carnivorous beasts was on a completely different level compared to herbivorous ones. A Level 1 ferocious Flame Beast had enough attack power to defeat a Level 2 mild Grass Beast.
Since her next upgrade task required her to kill Level 2 Flame Beasts, the difficulty had increased significantly. Her telekinetic “hand” wouldn’t be able to lift the larger Flame Beasts, and their habitat was in the forest, not by the cliff. Even if her telekinetic “hand” could barely grasp a Flame Beast, she wouldn’t be able to throw it off to kill it.
Therefore, for this next monster-killing upgrade task, Ruo Manni guessed she would need to learn how to use the longsword in conjunction with her telekinesis to complete the task.
Ruo Manni had half an hour to complete her Level 1 tasks, an hour and a half for Level 2 tasks, and three hours for Level 3 tasks, showing how the difficulty multiplied.
Right now, Ruo Manni had less than half of her online time remaining, and her mana and health had not yet recovered to half. With her health so low, she didn’t dare to practice her swordsmanship just yet.
Ruo Manni decided to rest for a while longer before starting to train with the sword. Feeling bored, she opened the War Realm information world to check for gossip.
She saw that the top player on the junior leaderboard was the male protagonist, Hua Deli, with the ID Hua Feitian. The second place was a player named Hai Lanxing, whom Ruo Manni didn’t recognize. In third place was herself, Lin Kexin, while the fourth place, Bubu Gu, was still a Level 1 player.
Ruo Manni thought hard and finally remembered that the female protagonist’s ID in the book was Xianxian Yufei. She had advanced to Level 2 about five hours after the game opened, ranking tenth on the leaderboard on the first day of War Realm.