Update Time: 2014-02-17

After the major earthquake in the capital, many officials fell from power, and many so-called 'princelings' simply vanished without a trace. Almost no one involved in the Young Miss's incident had a good outcome! For a time, officials with dirty hands were all on edge, while the incorruptible leaders remained steady, watching the show. As long as things didn't get too out of hand, they wouldn't intervene, because the fewer corrupt elements in the country, the better! But who would have thought such a large-scale operation was simply because someone saw a girl who couldn't afford to dress up? Hmm! In a sense, Lilith truly was a femme fatale!

Of course, none of this currently concerned Lin Zheng. He didn't want to get involved in any controversies. Right now, his daily life of killing monsters, farming gold, and earning a little money was so fulfilling! Why bother with those backstabbing, dirty schemes?

When he returned home, he found that Yang Qi was already back. After a quick trip to the bathroom, he slipped into his gaming pod and entered the game.

In Tianshuang City's square, Lin Zheng, who had been idly hawking his wares with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them, automatically canceling the Hosting. He checked the items on his stall. Oh, everything had sold out! Happily, he checked the amount of gold in his bag. Excellent! Another 356 gold coins had come in! Ah—the feeling of earning money with his own hands was just awesome! He packed up his stall, and Lin Zheng immediately listed the earned gold coins on the platform for sale. It seemed someone was currently hoarding a large amount of gold, as they were bought again shortly after being listed, bringing in almost another 30,000 RMB. In a great mood, Lin Zheng whistled as he went to the warehouse, deposited the Flying Swallow, and took out another Sword Blade Bow, 'shattered moon'. After equipping shattered moon, Lin Zheng's attributes changed dramatically again!

Yi Ping, the Swordfighter

Level 35

Strength: 148

Intelligence: 11

Stamina: 107

Agility: 16

Spirit: 11

Physical Attack: 1278-1894

Magic Attack: 602-780

Physical Defense: 308

Magic Defense: 211

HP: 6575

MP: 1650

...

His attack had increased quite a bit, but his defense was truly ridiculous! There was nothing he could do; his attack was boosted by his gold-tier weapon and dark gold ring, while his armor was still a set of low-tier bronze gear. The defense it originally provided was already very limited, and then it was further reduced by 150 points from the weapon and ring, leaving only a pitiful 308 points! Thankfully, his HP was much higher, so he could take a beating! At level 35, he was already among the top ranks, only one level behind Yang Qi. The current Tianshuang City Heavenly Ranking was:

Changsun Youxi, Level 37, Mage

Hong Chen Yan Yu, Level 36, Greatsword Knight

Yi Ping, the Swordfighter, Level 35, Swordfighter

Chong Chong, Level 34, Swordsman

Lilith, Level 34, Priest

Xiao Meng Guardian, Level 33, Swordsman

Radiant Godslayer, Level 33, Guard

Hui Huang Fa Shen, Level 33, Mage

Brilliant Heavy Cavalry, Level 32, Greatsword Knight

Moonlit Shallow Cool, Level 32, Rogue

...

After checking the Heavenly Ranking, Lin Zheng couldn't help but sigh with emotion. As expected, there were many leveling fanatics. One must know that their group of five had only leveled up so quickly because they accepted an A-grade medium leveling quest. Look at Chong Chong, truly formidable, actually managing to keep her level at 34. Could it be that she also accepted some experience-rich quest? And those three with the Brilliant Godslayer prefix, they were clearly from the same family. Rushing so hard, they were probably planning to make a big splash in Tianshuang City! In that case, they would be future competitors for guild establishment! "Enemies!" Lin Zheng immediately labeled them. Just then, "Beep beep!" A communication request came in. Lin Zheng answered and heard:

"Shengun brother, what are you doing? Come level us up!" Xiao Meng shouted.

"You guys go find Bawang and the others first. I want to go learn some life skills!" Lin Zheng vividly remembered being ripped off when buying medicine before, so he decisively decided to rely on himself!

"Learn life skills? Great! Great! Then we won't need to buy medicine anymore, we'll just ask you for it!" This girl was determined to exploit Lin Zheng's future labor! Hearing this, Lin Zheng couldn't help but feel a little depressed. Yang Qi had told him that life skill materials were hard to come by and production was definitely limited. He wondered how much he'd have left after being exploited. Forget it, he'd go learn first.

In phantom spirit ii, there was no limit to the number of life skills a player could learn; they could learn whatever they wanted. However, mastering every skill was incredibly difficult! So, most players who learned life skills would choose two: one for material gathering and production, and one for crafting.

Lin Zheng naturally wanted to learn potion crafting, but there were two types within this category: alchemy and cooking. Potions were instant, fast-acting, but restored less HP. Cooking, on the other hand, restored HP slowly but had a much larger total recovery! Considering that he would mostly be grinding monsters for leveling, Lin Zheng ultimately decided to learn cooking. The production skill was gathering, which allowed him to collect life materials from wild crops or specific monsters.

After learning the skill from the NPC, Lin Zheng curiously opened the crafting interface and took a look. Level 1 cooking could make two things: the bread he had eaten, and yogurt. Making bread required wheat. Wheat would occasionally spawn in some wild areas, but the yield was consistently low. Plus, many people learned gathering, so there was more demand than supply, making it difficult to gather large amounts of wheat. Making yogurt, on the other hand, required milk, which had a chance to be collected after killing bovine monsters. However, this was also currently difficult to obtain because there was only one type of low-level bovine monster in Tianshuang City, the wild ox around level 18. With so many people killing them every day, and not every ox being a female, where would all that milk come from?

Lin Zheng had also researched the raw material situation before learning the skill. Gathering wheat? Competing with so many people, it clearly had no future! But milk was much better! The low milk yield was mainly due to too few cows! However, Lin Zheng's current ability allowed him to kill higher-level cows! So, Lin Zheng opened the forum and searched for posts about cows. Suddenly, a large number of posts appeared. Lin Zheng looked and cursed! Many of them were irrelevant posts, only having 'Cow!' in their prefix. After further filtering, Lin Zheng finally found relevant posts!

The post introduced that beyond Qingfeng Forest lay a Blazing Fire Prairie, where there was a type of Three-Eyed Ox that could also yield milk. However, the Three-Eyed Ox was too high-level, estimated to be around level 42, making it very difficult to kill and unsuitable for current-stage life players to gather milk! Lin Zheng's eyes lit up when he saw this. A level 42 monster was beyond the capabilities of most current players, but he was not among them! With his current attack, he could easily kill them! This was it; not only could he gather milk, but he could also level up along the way!

Having decided on the location, Lin Zheng unhesitatingly dashed towards his destination. After more than ten minutes, Lin Zheng crossed Qingfeng Forest and arrived at his destination—Blazing Fire Prairie. The Blazing Fire Prairie lived up to its name; at a glance, it looked like a burning land. On closer inspection, the flames were fiery red vegetation that, when swayed by the wind, truly resembled dancing flames, looking quite spectacular!

Among these flame-like plants, sturdy oxen roamed or chewed food. They were Lin Zheng's targets for this trip: the Three-Eyed Oxen.

Three-Eyed Ox: Level 41, Physical Attack 589-821, Physical Defense 550, Magic Defense 440, HP 5400, a mutated ox with the Savage Ox bloodline, has a certain chance to use a weakened version of Death Gaze, directly reducing the target's HP by 50%.

Upon seeing the Three-Eyed Ox's stats, Lin Zheng was instantly stunned! This guy was indeed an ox! A big ox! Too ox-some!!! High attack, high defense, high HP! Such a "three-high patient" even had "Redeye," and if infected, it would instantly cut his HP in half! This was going to be the death of him!

"After a level 30 leveling map, they made a level 40+ perverted map, who are they trying to trick, you bastards!" Thankfully, his attack was high and his HP was quite thick, otherwise, ordinary people would really have no way against these oxen. He picked up shattered moon, and also took out his dagger. He drew his bow and shot! "Bang—" A hit! A -2910 damage number floated above a Three-Eyed Ox's head. Powerful! Too powerful! Lin Zheng secretly gloated as he drew his bow again. Another arrow shot out, and the half-health Three-Eyed Ox let out a "Moo—" and crashed to the ground! Lin Zheng proudly walked towards the Three-Eyed Ox's corpse and used his gathering skill on it. "Ding—Gathering successful, obtained 3 portions of milk! Can gather twice more! Ding—Gathering successful, obtained 3 portions of milk! Ding—Gathering failed, can gather 0 more times."

The first ox yielded 6 portions of milk, a good start! Lin Zheng happily stood up and continued to shoot Three-Eyed Oxen! Lin Zheng's maximum attack was very high, plus the dagger's attack, level 2 String Blade, and level 2 Arrow Mastery, his attack was boosted to an incredibly fierce level. Basically, no ox could withstand more than two arrows! After shooting Three-Eyed Oxen for an entire afternoon like this, even though the milk gathering rate wasn't high, Lin Zheng still gathered over 1200 portions of milk. If this harvest were announced, the players farming wild oxen would probably be green with envy! And if they knew Lin Zheng's gathering skill had already risen to level 3, they'd probably die of jealousy!

The reason Lin Zheng's gathering skill leveled up so quickly was all thanks to his dagger! The "Self-Taught" attribute was not just for show. Initially, gathering one portion of milk granted +1 proficiency, but with the dagger, it was different! Gathering one portion granted +11! Level 2 gathering required 3000 proficiency, which meant gathering about 300 portions of milk. Rising to level 3 required 10000 proficiency, so 900 portions were almost enough! Very satisfied, Lin Zheng finally stopped shooting Three-Eyed Oxen and began making yogurt. Making yogurt in the game was simple: open the cooking interface, put in the ingredients, and click craft. Fresh portions of yogurt would automatically appear in his bag!

Yogurt came in stacks of 100. Looking at the more than 12 stacks of yogurt in his bag, Lin Zheng felt a strong sense of accomplishment! Estimating based on yesterday's purchase price, this batch of yogurt could sell for 240 gold coins! And at 80 RMB per gold coin, Lin Zheng actually earned about 19,000 RMB just from making yogurt this afternoon! Lin Zheng himself was startled by this calculation! This money was too easy to earn, right?! However, upon closer thought, he felt relieved. First, earning so much was entirely due to the sheer quantity, and this quantity was directly related to his strength! He had the strength to come and gather milk when other players couldn't even kill Three-Eyed Oxen, monopolizing the entire leveling map, which allowed him to gather a large amount of milk. It was like one person earning money that should have been distributed among many people, so it would be strange if he didn't earn this much! Indeed, in games, high-level players just have more advantages! After a moment of reflection, Lin Zheng prepared to call it a day. It was time to gather level three materials. Currently, no one had raised their life skills to level 3 yet. If he made level three cooked items, they would definitely be popular! But just as Lin Zheng was about to leave, a hunter holding a bow and arrow caught his attention!