Chapter 3: The Deadly Strike of a Single Stick!

"Thirty thousand?!" The moment Lonely as a Song heard that number, a wave of respect welled up inside him. Those wild rabbits might sound harmless enough, but each one stood over half a person's height. The fact that this NPC had taken on thirty thousand of them solo and walked away alive spoke volumes about his strength.

"Alright then, Master Da Meng, I'll head out now?" Three thousand experience points was genuinely a lot for a newcomer — after all, he only needed four hundred points per level right now. Plus, with the ten weapons he'd bought from Liu Kongkong in hand, grinding mobs would be a whole lot easier. Still, he couldn't quite bring himself to just leave like that. He'd spent nearly three hundred yuan — was this one quest really all he got for that?

"Go on, be quick about it and come back soon. I'll have more work for you after." Liu Kongkong could read the kid's thoughts plain as day. At worst, he'd just hand him another quest when he returned — he still had over ninety thousand experience points in reserve, more than enough to keep this guy busy.

That's exactly what I was waiting to hear. Lonely as a Song's face broke into a wide grin. In his mind, he could already hear the system notification chiming, announcing to every player in Starter Village No. 0113 just how awesome he, Lonely as a Song, truly was!

Meanwhile, Liu Kongkong had already deftly listed his copper coins on the auction house.

Three hundred and thirty yuan in earnings, and it hadn't even been that long? This game was going to be a gold mine! Still, Liu Kongkong understood one thing clearly: selling weapons in the Starter Village was only profitable in the early days. Once the first wave of players leveled up and moved on, those few copper coins would be worthless. "Since I'm a blacksmith, shouldn't I be able to craft some gear myself?" he mused, glancing around the shop at everything available to him.

He casually picked up a thin wooden stick and gave it a tap with his iron hammer.

Clang! Forging successful!

The sudden notification startled Liu Kongkong! He looked down and found that the thin wooden stick in his hand now had a stats panel!

That's all it takes? Liu Kongkong picked up the stick and took a look.

[Unnamed] — Attack: 1 | Attack Speed: 1 | Durability: 100 (Stats adjustable within five minutes)

No name? Liu Kongkong blinked. And what did "stats adjustable" even mean?

He reached out and slid his finger across the panel — and watched as the durability began to drop while the attack power slowly climbed?!

Holy shit? You can do that?! Liu Kongkong stared in disbelief, then immediately dragged the durability all the way down to the minimum, typed in a name, and the stick's stats panel transformed in an instant!

[Deadly Strike of a Single Stick] — Attack: 10 | Attack Speed: 1 | Durability: 1 (All classes usable)

Not only that — the very moment he named the weapon, Liu Kongkong was stunned to see his previously motionless experience bar finally tick upward!

Crafting weapons and gear actually gives experience?

Outstanding! As long as it gives experience, everything's fine! And the forging system had given him quite the pleasant surprise. The stick's durability was rock-bottom, but its attack power had completely blown past any ordinary weapon. And this was just a stick — if a regular player carried a hundred of these on them, wouldn't their leveling speed go through the roof?!

"How much should I sell these for?" Liu Kongkong stared at his shop. Price them too high and nobody in the Starter Village could afford them; price them too low and he'd be the one feeling sore about it. Besides, if he sold too many and every player was walking around with a fistful of them, the Starter Village would be cleared out in no time. On a bigger scale, if the officials noticed that Starter Village No. 0113 was leveling up at an abnormally fast rate, wouldn't that blow his cover?

"One silver coin each, then." Liu Kongkong filled in the price, then turned around and rapidly churned out another batch, swiftly stocking them in the shop. Whenever a player came by to pick up a quest in the meantime, Liu Kongkong sent them off to gather wood for him.

One hundred yuan a stick — he was going to be rich! Liu Kongkong eyed the forty [Deadly Strike of a Single Stick] weapons laid out before him, his experience bar having jumped up a solid chunk. Now the only thing left to worry about was how to actually sell the things!

Just as he was about to start calling out to customers, he noticed that Ye Weiliang — the one who'd bought a wooden sword earlier — had come back.

"Boss, give me another wooden sw— wait, what is this?" Ye Weiliang had returned intending to buy another wooden sword. There weren't many decent weapons in the Starter Village to begin with, and the wooden swords from the blacksmith were already considered top-tier leveling tools. But the moment he spotted the [Deadly Strike of a Single Stick] on display, he froze.

"Attack 10, Attack Speed 1, Durability 1? This thing is a damn disposable weapon!" Ye Weiliang considered himself a veteran of plenty of games. Something like this might pass muster at a general goods vendor, but a blacksmith shop selling wooden weapons was already pushing it — and now you're peddling this kind of bizarre thing too?!

"Don't touch it if you're not buying." Liu Kongkong shot Ye Weiliang an irritated look. You think you can afford something worth one silver coin? And with a durability of just 1 — if you break it by touching it, who's going to pay me back?!

Ye Weiliang paused. This blacksmith was actually kind of interesting. Could there be a hidden quest here? Money wasn't an issue for him — he was a Second-generation wealthy kid, and this time he'd brought four friends along to form a party, planning to make a real name for themselves in Hunt Heaven.

"It's just one silver coin. I'll take it." Ye Weiliang generously converted five thousand yuan into in-game currency. "However many you've got, I'll take them all."

A big spender! Liu Kongkong blinked, but kept his expression indifferent. "Forty in total. That'll be forty silver."

"Fine." Ye Weiliang paid without hesitation and scooped up the entire lot. On his way out, he even asked, "When's the next restock?"

Next restock? Liu Kongkong hadn't actually thought about that. Big spenders in Hunt Heaven weren't surprising, but running into one this early was something he hadn't anticipated. "These take a lot of work to make. At least until tomorrow."

"Got it." Ye Weiliang nodded. These sticks were genuinely broken in the Starter Village — if they were available in unlimited supply, this game might as well become pay-to-win. "Oh, and give me five more basic weapons — two longswords, one…"

After wrapping up the big sale, Liu Kongkong casually listed his copper coins on the auction house in separate anonymous batches, keeping four silver coins for himself. Even so, it drew quite a bit of attention.

"Who is that? How did they already get ten silver coins? I've been going nonstop and only have seventy copper!"

"Someone else just listed seven silver coins. How are these people farming so much currency?"

"Big shots, please share your guide — let's all get rich together!"

"Big bro, big sis, can you teach little me? It's my first time playing a game, and I want to be as amazing as you~ Add me! (づ￣3￣)づ"

"Probably some whale who bought a ton of in-game currency and is now dumping it to recoup losses…"

But almost immediately, someone else listed two gold and twenty silver — and the seller hadn't even gone anonymous.

"Money Tree Studio?" Liu Kongkong, still happily counting his earnings, blinked at the name. He'd heard of this gold-farming studio — they were fairly well-known in the industry. It wasn't surprising they'd show up in Hunt Heaven. What was surprising was that ordinary players could accumulate that much in-game currency so quickly — they clearly had real muscle behind them.

What Liu Kongkong didn't know, however, was that the rate at which regular players earned in-game currency was far slower than he could have imagined…

"Boss, that was a brilliant move for advertising." Li Fugui looked at Wang Dagou with admiration. "We basically built ourselves a reputation without spending a single cent!"

Wang Dagou chuckled. With hundreds of people in the studio, they genuinely couldn't farm that much in-game currency — so he'd bought some up and released it all at once. Even taking a small loss didn't matter. As long as the name Money Tree Studio became known to everyone, there'd be no shortage of people coming to work with them in the future.

* * *

On the other side.

"Weiliang, why did you buy so many little wooden sticks?" Ye Weinuan watched as Ye Weiliang kept pulling [Deadly Strike of a Single Stick] weapons out of his bag and handing them to the rest of the party. "There are only five of us — we don't need that many weapons."

"Just wait and see. We were so close to killing the Stone Wolf King earlier — we just didn't have enough damage output. With these, the first kill on the Stone Wolf King is as good as ours!" Ye Weiliang casually handed Ye Weinuan a few. She took one and looked it over, then her eyes went wide.

"This game has items like this?"

"They're weapons…"

"What kind of weapon has a durability of just 1?!"