"Let's head back to town to repair first and meet at the entrance of the Beast God Temple. I need to brew a poison."
Chu Fu opened the guild interface and looked up the guild quests.
The guild quest list allowed members to post requests for collecting wood, stone, basic materials, etc., in exchange for experience points and guild contributions.
There was also a lot of experience to be gained.
That meant players who hadn't joined a guild were naturally missing out on the experience from guild quests.
Chu Fu posted a temporary quest.
[System Notification: Members of the Thorn Guild, please note—administrator "Who Wants to Be a Plant Guy" has posted a temporary quest: collect materials—fire stone, scale powder, sunflower petals, and white quartz sand. Reward: a certain amount of experience points and copper coins.]
Fire stone could be gathered in the wild, scale powder was dropped by winged insect-type mobs, and both sunflowers and white quartz could be collected.
Among the players, there were hoarders who would gather anything valuable, even if they had no immediate use for it, and then sell it to the general store.
As soon as Chu Fu posted the quest, some players specifically went to work on it.
They could submit the materials directly through the guild panel, so all Chu Fu had to do was collect them from the warehouse.
With the materials in hand, Chu Fu headed to the alchemist’s lab and rented a private room for 20 minutes to start crafting.
[System Notification: Crafting successful. You obtained Flash Scale Powder x1.]
[System Notification: Crafting failed!]
[System Notification: Crafting successful!]
[System Notification: ...]
Soon enough, Chu Fu had crafted about a dozen batches.
She messaged Shen Chi and Xie Lin.
"You two haven't gone to run any dungeons, right? I’m going to coat your weapons with poison to make the boss fight easier."
Shen Chi and Xie Lin quickly came to the pharmacy.
"Just coat my mech’s cannon barrel with poison. The Sword Saint doesn’t need any."
Chu Fu tilted her head, looking puzzled.
Shen Chi chuckled lightly and said, "We learned level 10 skills. I have Mech Overload, which can boost damage by 200%. The Sword Saint unlocked a special move—Holy Light Slash!"
Chu Fu turned to Xie Lin in surprise.
A smile lingered at the corner of Xie Lin’s mouth. Though his eye patch covered his eyes, his expression was still full of cool confidence, carrying a hint of smugness.
"Holy Light Slash has a built-in flash effect. Not only that, but when the enemy's health drops to 20%, it can execute them. That means even a boss could be sliced down by 20% of its health in one blow—though there's only a 5% chance."
"Whoa! That's powerful!"
Shen Chi’s level 10 skill was similar to Chu Fu’s Poison Vein Awakening—both were level 10 burst abilities.
But Xie Lin’s Holy Light Slash felt more like an ultimate move.
This might be the difference between a hidden class and a special class.
"Let’s go ahead and coat the weapon anyway. You can still use it with other skills. Ultimates always have a cooldown!"
Shen Chi was only joking; he didn’t actually mean to stop Xie Lin from poisoning his weapon.
"Let’s farm more materials lately and upgrade your sword too. If the attack range were increased by two meters, you could practically function as a melee mage."
"Yeah, for sure. Plant Girl hasn’t upgraded her weapon yet either, has she? I’ll gather some materials later and upgrade it for you as well."
Consider it payment for the poison coating. Mentioning money might make things feel awkward between them.
"Then thanks a lot, Sword Saint bro!"
Chu Fu raised her hand, crossing her thumb and index finger into a heart shape.
With everything settled, Chu Fu led her new team into the dungeon to start clearing it.
Incidentally, she also probed into the talents of these two potential members.
Among them, Grandma Wu Yingchun's talent was: [Tai Chi Grandmaster (S)]: Automatically brings learned Tai Chi techniques into the game, with additional damage Amplification.
As for the Professional Martial Artist, it was also a hidden class.
Passive: [Martial Arts Foundation]: Body, Strength, and Agility +10%.
Level 1 Skill: [Meditation]: Stand and regulate breathing for 3 seconds, slowly restore health.
Level 5 Skill: [Combo]: Attacks flow continuously; the more hits landed, the stronger the damage. No more than 3 seconds between two hits.
This effectively meant that Grandma Wu had no active attack skills; she relied entirely on her own techniques or basic attacks.
But this made her even stronger.
Because Grandma Wu could use the Tai Chi Sword, and there were so many Tai Chi moves that it felt like every move could be turned into a skill.
With this kind of talent, there was a high probability she could become an advanced player or even a star player.
But Chu Fu had never heard of her before.
It was definitely all Wan Huanyu's fault.
Moreover, Grandma Wu was a busy old lady in real life, always participating in community activities and the Tai Chi group in the square.
She didn’t spend much time playing the game; otherwise, with this talent, she wouldn’t be only level 6—and that was her level after taking down a boss.
Little Junior Sister Wu from the Wu family was more diligent. Since she was a healer, she leveled up faster.
Next, Chu Fu took the two to grind through the Nightmare-level dungeon.
The Beast God Temple dungeon could be cleared in 47 minutes, but this time they were short two damage dealers.
However, the impact wasn’t big. In the end, one clear took an hour, and they quickly brought both of them to level 8.
Over the next few days,
Chu Fu spent 6 hours each day leading guild members to take down 3 bosses and the Nightmare dungeon, and used the remaining time to work on the 100,000-kill achievement.
The targets were: level 10 Striped Tigers, level 9 Ravens, level 8 Black Panthers, level 7 Giant Pythons, and level 6 Black Bears.
By then, most players had also reached level 6. When Chu Fu went back to the level 3 Wild Boar Ridge area, there were hardly any players around, perfectly avoiding the main crowd.
After that, she added level 4 Wolves and level 5 Mutant Bulls.
Including the Beehive Bees, that made a total of 11 achievements.
Of course, there were more monsters in the novice village, but the others didn’t form sizable groups or respawn instantly. Within the strict 10-day limit, she couldn’t complete achievements for them.
Especially since their novice village no longer had 10 days left.
Only 8 days remained.
Because once 1,000 players in a novice village reached level 10, the village defense battle would trigger early, starting at midnight.
Now, on the novice village leaderboard, only three people had not yet reached level 10.
Everyone was waiting for these three.
And those outside the leaderboard were still trying their best.
Just as Chu Fu was busy preparing with the Thorns Guild, a video exploded online.
A video posted by a Douyin influencer with millions of followers, filled with righteous indignation, sparked outrage among players of "Primordial Gate," and even drew serious attention from the officials.
"Hello everyone! I’m Lin Haowan, a game review streamer! When it comes to the hottest game right now, it has to be 'Primordial Gate,' the groundbreaking full-dive virtual reality MMORPG! It’s even taken the world by storm.
From 80-year-old grandmas to 13-year-old kids—boys and girls alike—everyone has jumped into the game, hailing 'Primordial Gate' as the second world."
It is also because of its unique partitioning and regional server settings that it has established a distinctive platform.
When the streamer entered the game, they spawned on server 0268888.
The players on this server are all from Linjiang City.
Shortly after entering the game, the streamer quickly discovered that a local company had already invested in a studio.
Rongxun Studio!
