Starting from Zero

Book 2, Chapter 15

Looted Artifacts

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"Freeze!"

Wayne jumped out, and I followed.

"Hold-up! Guys on the left women on the right the rest in the middle crouch on the ground hands behind your head!!"

I tumbled on my feet hearing Wayne's ridiculous words. Obviously those escorts didn't understand any of the deal because they just stared at us with blank faces. Crap. I have to do this myself.

"Attention now! This is robbery! Now you all leave the place as fast as you can! We only want the money, not your lives!"

It seems they understood me better. But their reaction is...a bit off, according to what we expected from the old man's words. The leading warrior in golden armor drew his sword, lowered his helmet mask and charged at us, with all of his followers running behind.

Wayne is stuttering now: "Bo-Boss! What should we do?"

"We hit the road!" I quickly grasped Wayne and turned tail, while spamming some [Identify] towards the pursuers.

The leader is Escort Captain, level 300 boss, adept at close combat and have high Attack & Defense, can use group healing skills. On his side are Escort Members and Wizard Guards. The members are level 200 humanoid monsters, low Defense, but can use union attack skills. The wizards are level 250, good at all kinds of basic spells, especially lightning.

Damn it that old f**ker set us up!

I heard a scream beside me. A lightning hit Wayne and killed him instant. With Wayne gone, I can run more freely. But the situation is still not good. There must be something wrong with these guards! I've run so far but they're still after me! Seriously, if we got more people we can just lure these idiots everywhere and take the goods.

I ran for a while and realized something's not right. The group is no where to be found, only the leader is still chasing me now. Probably because their Speed is different so the rest can't keep up?

However that's not my concern now. The leader is alone! Hehehee...

I called Lucky & Phantom, merged with Phantom and jumped onto Lucky's back. I ordered Lucky to control his speed and keep a certain distance with the target. I started to try out various spells. First, I threw a [Blast Fireball]. Boom! The leader is charred black. Oh, not bad!

I tried [Light Bullet] next. A tiny ball immediately hit the leader. Bam! Another explosion. His golden armor lost some pieces and is now ragged!

We just kept the hit-n-run going. I nearly tried every spell I can use, in the meantime I even set some Quick Command for several useful ones.

When I'm just enjoying it, Wayne sent me a chat.

"What's the matter?"

"Where are you boss?"

"Where?" I looked, trees everywhere, not a single waypoint in my view. "Well I don't know! I only know they chased me really far!"

"Impressive! You survived? What are those guys doing now?"

"Their leader is still hot on my ass, I'm riding Lucky and harming him! I think it won't be long before I kill him. I don't know about those minions though! What about you?"

"At the old man's place. He says he doesn't know about the leader today, they must have been switched duty for some reason. He apologized and revived me for free, and agreed to just give us those hidden classes. So...still worth it!"

"Not! I'm still running like a loser here, I can't just let it pass! Since you're revived help me with something!"

"What is it?"

"Run to that entrance now. If what I think is right, all of the escorts should be out chasing me now, the shipment must be unguarded. You go there, line them up and pull them back to the city."

"You sure about that? Alright. I'm on it. Be careful!"

"Ok!" I cut the chat and returned my focus to dealing with that leader. I chose the best single-target spell I have and spammed it on him. With Phantom my MP recovers fast, don't have to worry about MP issue.

After a while I figured he's almost done for, so I jumped down from Lucky and engaged him in melee combat. Lucky stayed in the air using lightnings to paralyze the leader while Phantom used mind control to restrict his movement. Now most of his attacks would sway off their marks and hit the air. I just kept using my most powerful skills.

After cutting him several times he managed to hit me once, bringing down more than half of my HP & MP bar. I jumped away in scare and quickly swallowed a pill. Oh shit, he is still a level 300 boss and I'm only level 100, of course this would happen. I would have been dead if not for my Ring of Stars which can convert some damage into my MP. Anyone else fighting against something 200 levels above them would probably get squished like a bug.

As I'm thinking nonsense he charged and made another slash. I closed my eyes, waiting for game over. That pill I ate hasn't brought my HP to half yet. This one is gonna finish me off for sure!

Then I heard a shrilling dragon scream. Lucky lost balance and crashed on the ground, with about 1/3 HP gone. I, on the other hand, is now at 1 HP. But I was the one who got hit... ?

Right, the Collar of Protection! The collar must have transferred the damage to Lucky, which was...lucky. Because Lucky got tank-level HP too. If it was Phantom who took that damage we're probably done for.

I didn't dare to stand idle anymore, and performed a quick triple-slash at the leader. Lucky seems pissed off by that damage, he rushed over and gave him a powerful tail swipe too. The poor leader died soon under our attacks, dropping lot of stuff on the ground. I checked over, most are potions, plus 23 Crystals. (which is a lot of money!)

After we killed the leader, me and Phantom are at 102 but Lucky stopped at 101. I guess the exp I got when I was riding on his back didn't count as his.

When I finished sweeping the ground the other pursuers arrived. They are only level 200 but the number is too big, we certainly can't use the paralyze & mind control to deal with them again. So we wisely chose to flee. I jumped onto Lucky's back and started going for a branch. After we shook them off I returned towards the valley entrance.

When I arrived Wayne had already attached all the carts together. But those escorts took most horses away in order to chase us, now we don't have enough horses to pull them.

"Boss! You're back! That was amazing! But we got too many stuff here we can't take all of them!"

"Let's do this then: Open all the crates, find and take the valuable items but leave everything else!"

"That's such a waste but...I guess no other choice." Wayne started pushing all the crates down, various items scattered on the floor.

We picked. The first is money. Money will take space when stored in containers but they don't use up your slots or weight limit when carried in inventory. So we cleaned them up. When we're finished I took nearly 3 million Crystals, same for Wayne. Seriously, money really comes faster if you just go robbing people. We would make quite a fortune if we keep hijacking NPCs like this. But obviously this quest is unique, so that's a no-go.

Next is equipment. I looked for a while but found nothing worth noticing. Until I saw a strange-looking crossbow.

The body is longer than ordinary crossbows, overall it looks like an eagle, its two wings being the two bow arms.

I checked its attributes. The "Revenger", a sniping crossbow.

The next line made me jump. It's an Artifact!

Attack 650-800,

Attack Speed 1 per 4 seconds (increases with player's level),

Durability ∞,

Damage +100%, ignore Defense,

Accuracy +300%,

Curse (players who got killed with this weapon will lose two levels instead of one),

Target will bleed, losing 20 HP per second for 1000 seconds,

Reduces target's Speed by 20%, lasts 100 seconds,

75% chance of causing double damage,

Reduces target's Luck by 3 until target logs off,

Carries two [Soul Chaser] bolts, which will recover by 1 every 3600 seconds.

[Soul Chaser]: Attack 200-200,

Explode on impact, damage radius is (player level / 10) meters, explosion attack is 150 and will ignore Defense while stunning targets for 5 seconds.

Requirement: Base Strength 11, Current Dexterity 2000+.

OP! I mean real OP! But the Dexterity limit is a bit high. 2000 divided by my Base Dexterity, 13, which means I need to reach level 154 to use it. And that's me. I don't think many other player will have more than 9 Base Dex, it will take them forever!

"Boss! I found nice stuff!" Wayne carried a mage robe to me with excitement and won't stop displaying it in front of my face. "Look! A high class mage robe! Guess, what rank is it?"

"Don't tell me it's Artifact?" I guessed without believing myself.

But Wayne shouted: "You got it! It IS Artifact!! This thing can convert 75% of the damage to your MP, plus 10% damage reflection! From now on I can exchange blows face-to-face with a freaking warrior! I got 1k+ MP, no one can insta kill me this time! Ahh hahaha!!"

Wayne is laughing like a pervert. He must be dreaming about how he can close-combat with a warrior. Then he saw the crossbow in my hand. "Oh? What is this, boss?"

I passed him the crossbow.

"My f**cking goodness! Damn it this thing's numbers broke common sense! Now this is the perfect weapon to murder, slaughter, or stab someone in the ass! If I had known about such thing I would choose to be an Assassin!"

"Why is that?"

"You don't know? Assassins have a +5% buff to their Attack when using crossbows and daggers!"

"Why don't you just choose Archer then?"

"But Archer's bonus is Accuracy! Shoot. Why can't I find such nice weapon?!"

"Duh. This thing shoots like a machinegun. One is enough to break the game!"

"Figured." Wanye passed the crossbow back to me. "Hey boss, apart from these two the rest are all garbage."

"Don't worry about them then! If they're garbage we can just prepare to move now. The main group will be back here any minute." I grasped Wayne and activated my Ring of Teleportation. The ring is so convenient, we returned to the city in a flash. I was worrying about whether this thing can only teleport myself or not.

"Let's go blackmail that old timer!"

We came to the Wizard's Guild but soon realized something's gone wrong. The old man came to us, he still look like before but...somewhat different.

"You two follow me!"

He led us towards a secret room. Then he closed the door, and looked at us with a serious expression. Now I know why I felt something different. This old man no longer wears that filthy grin, he looks...solemn.

"So you must have noticed I'm different."

"Yeah. What happened?"

"Truth is, I'm not the oracle wizard you met before."

"Huh?!" We both yelled.

"What you met was the system NPC 'oracle wizard'. But I am, the manager of Zhong Hua Company technical issue department. You already know that all NPCs are controlled by AIs. But have you noticed that some NPCs are either dumb or slow while the others are cunning as old foxes?"

"Right! That leader I fought this morning was a total idiot! But this old wizard was way smarter then he looked!"

"These all have a reason. Our corporation is testing a new AI system. The old system is stable but, every NPC is like, brain dead, dull, without any characteristics. The new AI system will give NPCs real intelligence, emotion, and different personal temperament, like this wizard who appears to be a money lover. But there was a bug with this wizard, that's why he exposed much confidential information to you. Good thing that it was you who acquired the info. I heard that you are the young master of Zhong Hua Company right? I thought you were a lady though!"

"Eh? Oh! But--but--"

"Well the bug wasn't your fault so you can keep the reward. But we will need to recover the money you got, you can keep the equipment, and we will convert your main classes into those hidden ones. How about it? This is already special treatment! If it's anyone else we would just reverse all the data!"

"Ok! We still got something great anyway. By the way, I met a bunch of NPCs in Lost City who just lent money to me. Were those bugs too?"

"No, those were normal. They lent you money because of your high Charisma. I'll tell you this: the Lost City is one of our AI experiment sites, all NPCs there have their own mind and behavior, like humans. Ok then back to business, which classes would you like to be?"

"Spectral Mage!" Wayne jumped first.

"Here. This is your quest scroll. Start the quest after you reached the requirement, finish the quest to change your class."

"But I have two main classes." I'm worrying about that he might only give me one.

"I know. Pick as you like."

"Then I'll take the Demonized Fighter, and Soul Manipulator."

"Here. Your scrolls." The manager continued: "I'll take my leave here. From now on the old wizard at the gate will take over the reviving duty, and players will begin to choose Resurrection Wizard as a side class too so you don't have to always look for an NPC. But remember: You lose one level when dead, NPC revival has a 10% chance of causing another level loss. Players have even higher fail rate due to their level, but once they learn [Advanced Resurrection], they will have a chance to return 50% lost exp to you. Which means you will only lose half a level if killed."

"Oof, that sounds dangerous! Thank god I didn't hit that 10% mark." Wayne thought about his two deaths within the past hours, and shivered.

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