Chapter 45 - Cheap Shot

As they left, he also had a few other quests at the apothecary and the blacksmith. He quickly reached the apothecary and exchanged the stacks of blue and red weeds he collected for experience and money.

"+25 experience points, +10 coppers"

"+25 experience points, +10 coppers"

"+25 experience points, +10 coppers"

Then he went to the blacksmith Kade to exchange the iron ore he collected. The process was the same providing him decent amount of experience and money, except that the blacksmith would offer another quest after he exchanged 5 stacks of iron ore.

"+25 experience points, +10 coppers"

"+25 experience points, +10 coppers"

"+25 experience points, +10 coppers"

"+25 experience points, +10 coppers"

"+25 experience points, +10 coppers"

After the fifth exchange a yellow dot appear over the blacksmith Kade. He examined the last stack of ores and groaned in displeasure.

"Ah! the whole lot of you adventurers are good for nothing. The blackrock hills are a rich source of ores and all I receive from you are a bunch of crappy iron ores. By the time I refine these I get a barely usable chunk of refined iron to make weapons and armor. Why don't you learn from those goblins?! They manage to get hold of decent refined iron ore. I don't need any more of these lower quality iron ore from you. Get something better or get lost."

[Kade's demand] (Difficulty: Moderate; Repeatable)

Quest Description: Gather refined iron ores from the blackrock hills.

Refined Iron Ores collected: 0

Collecting enough of these ores allow a person to get into apprenticeship of the blacksmith Kade and other rewards that would help speed up the blacksmithing profession.

There was a player called Mr. Miner who was into mining from the start of the game. He was the person who joined the game after about 5 years of its launch. He was the one who first found out this specific peculiarity among the trade profession NPCs of the beginner village.

He was a player who enjoyed mining and continuously used to mine for fun. He provided the ores he collected to the blacksmith as the blacksmith was giving more coins than the small guild he joined. He was taken in by the village blacksmith as an apprentice and slowly became one of the more popular trade profession players due to the rewards he obtained. This slowly led the player base to think about the completing the various seemingly unrewarding trade profession quests. Though these allowed them to level up their skills faster, they still couldn't compete with the skill and proficiency of the players who had been in the game for years and didn't have much impact in the major power structure of the game player base.

Balthazar being a vice-guild leader of a first-rate guild had to constantly be informed of the various opportunities in the game and that is the reason he memorized all the tricks, but not even he knew the details of a lot of quests.

Now that he has finished the quests, he went back to the pub and started on the guide to the corrupted forest. He made separate ones for normal, elite and hell mode dungeons. "I hope that they would be satisfied with this level of detail," thought Balthazar. He intentionally left out a few details about few treasure chests they could find in the elite and hell tier dungeons. He made another guide with all the details he knew and mailed them to Rudra.

After that he went on ahead to buy bread, water and potions for the quests they have. As he was getting supplies. he got a call from Rudra a few minutes after he sent the mail thanking him. Though Rudra couldn't yet establish a guild, he already started contacting his old acquaintance with the idea of establishing a group presence in vita-nova. This guide would be of great help to him in gathering players towards him.

The guide sent to blue dart was also accepted by him and he got an amount of 100000 credits in his bank account. Now, the only thing that was left in the village was to hand-in Hart's quest before he meets up with his team at the temple.

He made his way to Hart's shop. By now, Hart had become one of the few shops which are crowded by the players. Hart bought a lot of resources from the players and gave decent amount of coins for various drops from the monsters.

Shadow directly went to Hart and provided him the wolf teeth that he had procured.

Quest Completed: [Procure wolf teeth for Hart] (Difficulty: Novice)

Progress: Wolf teeth obtained 30/30;

"+50 experience points."

"Thank you for these teeth. I will make good use of them," said Hart taking the teeth. "If it is not trouble to you could you also acquire a couple of black rock crystals. I will make it worth your effort.

New Quest: [Procure Blackrock Crystals] (Difficulty: Moderate)

Progress: Blackrock Crystals obtained 2/2.

Quest Updated: [Procure Blackrock Crystals] (Difficulty: Moderate)

Progress: Blackrock Crystals obtained 2/2. Return to Hart.

Shadow felt he was quite lucky. He didn't know whether it was the rabbit's foot in his possession or some other form of luck. But it is surprising that Hart would ask for something that he already had.

He quickly pulled out the blackrock crystals, he had found on looting the Blackrock wolves from his inventory and handed them to Hart.

"Ah! With these I can successfully complete the necklace for that Waramar Jundal. He had been pestering me for quite some time. I thank you for your timely help adventurer. Please take this as a token of my gratitude," said Hart handing him a skill book.

It was an assassin skill book, cheap shot. It was a very old skill existing in a lot of V.R games, probably even existed when people used to play games on a static screen before V.R. console games started.

The cheap shot was a skill that allowed a person to stun his opponent for a fixed duration of time in all normal V.R. games. During this time one can continuously beat the opponent without worry about him getting out of stun. It was the same for vita-nova presently. But soon after the first upgrade that happens a couple of months later, the stun time will begin to vary and is calculated based on the strength of the attacker and endurance of the attacked.

Still, it was a very useful skill that an assassin would be using quite frequently in a game. It is the skill that allowed a player having assassin occupation actually behave like an assassin and take down his opponent's health to zero in a round of attacks.

He immediately learnt the skill and checked it in his skills list.

Cheap Shot: Needs to be executed when in stealth. Deals a strong hit at a vital point shocking the victim into a stunned state for 4 seconds. It also provided two combo points. The victim wouldn't come out of stun while being attacked. Skill Level 1. Proficiency: 0/500

He has learned one of the very important skills for an assassin that would usually be provided to the players by the Assassin Instructor at level 5. Learning it before the rest would definitely provide a minor advantage to him over the others.

He went to the temple to meet the rest of the team. By the time, he reached the temple the remaining four of his team were already waiting for him.

"Come on, I know the way to the goblins at the blackrock hills. Let us discuss the distribution on the way," said Balthazar leading them back to the bridge across the river by the blackrock hills. On the way, they met a few members of the Sirius Imperials, but no conflict ensued.

It looked like Blue Dart intended to strictly enforce his side of the deal. They still cleared and cordoned off the area, but they didn't tell anything to Shadow or his team. Even Shadow was surprised that Blue Dart was being this thorough about it.

He half expected the guild members to feign ignorance and warn him too. But little did he know that not only Blue Dart but even the guild leader Blood Wolf was wary about him. He didn't know that some of the upper brass have already been observing him closely.

Along they way the went into a few more level 2 wolves, but those didn't provide much experience to the team as the were already at level 3. Else, they would have continued to farm at the corrupted forest.

Finally, it was Tang that opened up and asked Shadow about how they should handle the distribution of loot in the game. She and Quiet Fire proposed that the girls would each have 10% while Shadow could keep the remaining.

With Shadow's skills, they could easily earn a lot and didn't want to displease him. So, they went ahead to propose something that would benefit him more. They also suggested that it is best if they work to create a guild so that they would need to worry about the stronger powers in the game bullying them.

It was a clever and well thought proposal but Shadow already owned a workshop and he found no point in having another guild. Moreover, he couldn't be in the game for a large amount of time due to his work in the real-world. So, he decided to explain everything.

"It is a decent proposal but please allow me to refuse," said Shadow. "I started a new workshop with some of my college friends recently. I will be a member of the guild we create. Though mostly as a honorary elder as I have a job which I can't leave."

This brought down the spirits of the four girls. They had hoped that with Shadow Tyrant's skills and training, they could easily gain fame and fortune in the game.

"But we can join with them in the guild. They are also good at V.R. games," he continued. "As for the distribution of loot, I will take 40% and the remaining can be shared among you four for now. It is still the early stages of the game. We can have a proper discussion when we actually establish a guild or an adventurer group. Rare materials and weapons we will use if any one of us have a use for it and Roll in case of conflicts."

He also asked for their account numbers and sent 19500 credits to each of their accounts. "I have sent your share of the transaction with Sirius Imperials. Check your accounts," said Shadow. Though he can't spend a large amount of time in the game as he did on his previous life, he needed a team and it is best to earn their confidence and loyalty to him as early as possible.

Though loyalty can't be earned through money, a display of his care and prompt distribution of loot is necessary. "We could also use more members. If any of you have friends or acquaintances who you think are a good fit, we can tryout a quest or two before we have them in our group," he added.

After crossing the bridge instead of taking the direction that lead him to Elias and the worgens, he took the opposite path. As they went forward they couldn't find the even a single wolf on any other monster on their way. It was like the wolves avoided this part of the hills. Luckily there were a decent amount iron ore veins on the way which they ended up mining.

"Are you sure you are going the right way? I haven't been able to see a single monster on the way here," asked Tang.

"That is why I am sure that this is the way to the goblins," said Shadow as they continued forward on their path. They finally saw a goblin. It was about 3 feet tall holding a pickaxe and wearing clothes made of what looked like wolf fur. It seemed to be mining an iron ore vein.

[Lesser Goblin](Common Monster)

Level 3

HP: 200

"Come on, lets finish him," said Quiet Fire. It had been more than 20 minutes since they found any monsters. She was itching for a fight.

"Hold on. Goblins are humanoid. I want to pickpocket them. It yields more number of resources this way as I get something for every goblin instead of a few for every 4 or 5 monsters," said Shadow. Goblins were a neutral race that specialized in engineering. All neutral races tend to have good items with them. They need to be very good at their specialties. For goblins it is engineering.

Usually monsters can be looted after death but these are usually not that valuable with the exception of special elites and boss. But pickpocket allows the players to access loot which wouldn't be available after death. This was a feature that was always present in most of the mmorpg games like vita-nova.

The main reason for loss of items after death was suggested to be battle damage to the items. The monsters and NPC could also use items to attack or defend causing battle damage to items in their possession.

Initially this part of vita-nova was similar to other MMORPGs. But, later they improved the part. Players had to make sure that they didn't attack parts of monsters like claws and fangs if they wanted to gather those parts from the monsters.

Shadow immediately went into stealth and went behind the goblin. Having been an assassin character for 5 years in his previous life, he easily used the pickpocket ability on it. When executing pickpocket, the player needs to actually put his hand into the bag or pocket of the monster/NPC and can pull out an item or two without shaking the bag much.

If the player lacks proper finesse or accidentally shakes the bag, the monster would realize even if he is in stealth and attack blindly and the pickpocket attempt would also fail. Hence, it is best to fell around the bag slightly and pull out whatever one could touch if one wants the pickpocket attempt to be successful. Once the attempt fails the monster/NPC would be on guard against pickpockets and the player wouldn't be able to attempt it again.

"Successfully executed pickpocket. Looted 1 Refined Iron Ore. Raised Proficiency 2/500"

After pickpocket, the monsters of same level usually wouldn't be able to detect the thief due to him being in stealth. With the enhanced Stealth from the mask of shadows even higher leveled monsters wouldn't be able to detect him.

He quickly attempted it a few more times, till the goblin realized that it is being looted. He immediately started swinging her pickaxe blindly. Now, that he had been noticed by the goblin, Shadow immediately used his new skill, cheap shot and within the duration of the stun managed to kill. With a high attack power of 50, it was an easy feat for him to kill a monster of HP 200 in four seconds.

"+5 experience points"

The goblin gave a total of 25 experience points. In vita-nova, teams could have equal distribution of experience points or the usual one followed in other games, about 40% to the last hit and the remaining is distributed among all the alive members of the team based on damage contribution. Shadow selected the former as he wanted to develop the team at a similar high pace as him and cheap shot definitely would allow him to kill even elite monsters quickly.

"Two Refined Iron ore, a screw and a drill bit. Not bad for one goblin," said Shadow as he pocketed the loot. They got a few coppers from the body of the goblin.

"Not a bad haul for a single monster," said Quiet Fire looking at the items, Shadow showed her. "We will stick with the idea of you looting the goblins before attacking from now on."