72 Loopholes

"A Moon Stone? Why do you need that? Only blacksmiths or enchanters use that thing?" asked Moody Writer. He suspiciously looked at Li Wei. That guy was collecting a lot of materials, but he did not look like someone who was trying to level up his profession. In the end, there were many elements of the game he was not aware of, he might have stumbled onto something special.

Moody Writer was someone who valued information. Hee knew that it was one of the most important things in life. As long as one had the appropriate information, they could take the best course of action.

"It is for the same thing as the Beast Cores! I don't have any crafting professions right now, but I need that Moon Stone!" said Li Wei

"mmm, as I said, alchemists do not use that item. It will be hard for me to obtain it, but I can ask a blacksmith friend! He owes me a favor, I will ask him when I meet him."

"Thank you! What do you want in exchange?" asked Li Wei.

"Just tell me what you plan to do with these materials. I am very curious, it looks like you are planning something big!" said Moody Writer.

Hearing that, Li Wei froze for a moment. The ring of chaos was his biggest secret; so far, no one knew about it except for some NPCs. He hesitated for a moment before answering: "I am just preparing for the Time Attacks. These materials will help me craft an equipment. With it, I might have a chance at the records."

"The Time Attacks? Why are you interested in those?" asked Moody Writer. He could see that Li Wei was not saying everything.

"You don't know? There are rewards associated with the Time Attacks' records. They will be distributed in 2 weeks, so we need to set the record before that," answered Li Wei. He quickly followed up by explaining whatever he learned from Bright Sun earlier. He explained in detail the rewards and how they were awarded.

"So this is why all these guilds have been so friendly and asked me to refine Explosive Potions. Hmmp, I guess I can slightly increase the prices!" said Moody Writer with a pensive expression. Although he felt that Li Wei did not say everything, the information about the Time Attacks was already valuable.

"Yes, although I am not part of the special teams, I am also trying to find a way to get the records. If I can't get it while I am at level 15, then I'll just give up," said Li Wei.

"Mmm, I have seen the records, they were all achieved by a single person! It looks like there really is a lot of loopholes..." said Moody Writer.

Li Wei nodded, "I also thought that, but I could not find any loopholes when I attempted the Time Attacks. Do you have any ideas?"

"Haha, trying to get some answers from me? I don't plan to walk that path, so I don't know much about Time Attacks but if you want a piece of advice, when it comes to looking for loopholes, read between the lines!" answered Moody Writer.

Li Wei was puzzled at the answer, "What do you mean?"

The alchemist revealed an enigmatic smile, "I will give you this information for free! This game is full of loopholes, in fact, if you want to grow quickly, it is impossible to do so without using them! Even I used quite a few. Let me give you an example. I don't know about the quests of the Warrior Association since I am a priest but at the Priest Association, there are a lot of quests about collecting herbs."

"Many players would simply accept them and go to look for them! But the smart players would not simply do that, they would instead ask the receptionist about the origin of the quest! Very often, these herbs would be used to cure some diseases! While in many cases, the herbs are necessary, in others, all they actually need is a priest to cast a [Cure]! This is especially the case for uneducated people."

"That saves a lot of trouble and you even get the full rewards of the quest just for casting a [Cure]. Naturally, these became less common now that people discovered this trick! But that's just an example. The way you interpret the information you are given is key! So don't limit yourself to just what you are told to!" said Moody Writer.

He did not mind revealing this information to Li Wei. He himself abused that trick before starting to focus on alchemy. Quite a few priests were already aware of this; after one person discovers something, it would be quite hard to keep it a secret.

"Wow, I never thought about it this way!" said Li Wei with an enlightened expression!

"These are just things you will learn naturally. You are still young but after you leave for some time in society, you naturally learn a few tricks! As for the Time Attacks, I cannot help you since I did not attempt them myself but try to look at the maps from a different perspective or even think about all the information you have!"

"mmm think about everything differently?" said Li Wei to himself.

Seeing him in deep thoughts, Moody Writer continued, "Let me give you another example! From what you just said, about the way the rewards work for the Time Attacks, if I am not wrong, there should be a big loophole in there that can allow a player to obtain several rewards!"

Surprised, Li Wei said: "That's impossible, the rewards are not cumulative, even if you hold the world record, you won't obtain the reward for being first in your server or city!"

"Precisely! This is where the loophole is. You can't get these rewards, but what if you obtained the reward for the first, second and third place of the world record? If you think carefully about the information given, it does not violate it! As for how to do that? All the team needs to do is to switch one player and they would immediately count as another team and would all be eligible for the rewards again!"

"What? Would that not be even worse than obtaining the rewards for the other categories?"

"Yes, but the game rewards you for finding these kinds of loopholes. Besides, it's not as if it is easy to get these low time records!" answered Moody Writer.

After a brief moment, Li Wei could not help but look at the alchemist with a weird expression: "Were you a con artist or something in real life?"

Amused by Li Wei's question, Moody Writer answered, "Haha, don't say something like that, I lived my life honestly. I was a simple botanist! But when you come from a poor family, you are forced to grow up and develop this type of mentality! You learn all the little tricks in life, although they are not always useful, we never know."

"mmm, thank you for the information. In that case, you can take some gold from the % profit you will deliver at the bank later!" said Li Wei.

Moody Writer nodded. Alchemy was a bottomless pit, one needed to constantly exercise and attempt more difficult recipes and naturally, these had a low probability of success. If he could get some more gold, there was no reason to say no and even if Li Wei did not state a precise amount, Moody Writer was a tactful individual.

"Just buy your potions here in the future! I need to focus on Explosive potions for now but later, I'll resume making health and mana potions too!"

"Sure!"

...

In the end, Li Wei had a fruitful discussion with the alchemist. He learned a lot about the system of the game; maybe it was time to look more into the quest side of the game instead of just going to the dungeon to level up.

Despite thinking about that, Li Wei nevertheless went to the dungeon for the rest of the day. He was very close to leveling up and so, he went there just to fill his exp bar.

When the sun was setting on the horizon, Li Wei was calmly making his way back to the Starry Skies Inn. He had just leveled up and was now level 15! That meant that he has reached a new milestone improving all his stats by one. Additionally, he also took a step forward on the city's ranking, placing him among the top 800.

After a long day of hunting, it was time for a good meal and shower. It was one of the few peaceful activities of the day that could completely relax Li Wei. Unfortunately, he did not have much gold now and could not afford to eat at the Prosperity Hall.

And so, he ate the free meal at the inn. It was not bad but when compared to the food of the Prosperity Hall, it was naturally of lower quality.

As he was in the middle of enjoying his meal, Li Wei suddenly heard a jingle. When he looked at his messages, he could not help but frown. The message came from Li Yuxin.

"Since you are now level 15! You can't run away! Let's arrange a duel quickly!"

"Sigh"

Li Wei let out a sigh as he continued to eat his bowl of rice. That girl really did not let go that easily. He did not know if it was a coincidence or if she stalked him, but it was strange since he leveled up less than 2 hours ago.

Fortunately, the chat system in the game did not have such things as "Seen" which would alert Li Yuxin that he had already read the message and so, he pretended to not have received anything and went to his room.

He quietly lied on the bed thinking about the Time Attacks. It was not too late but his fatigue level was quite high already. It was not at the point of reaching 99% but it was better to be safe. After all, he could not quickly recover his fatigue without eating at the Prosperity Hall.

Li Wei silently recalled today's event and carefully observed the Time Attacks. After a few minutes, he decided to focus more on Alyssa's Lair. It was the one he got to observe more. Although he went more often to the Graveyard of Longsoul, he did not pay too much attention at first since he did not know about the rewards and as for today's entries, even if he observed carefully, the graveyard was filled with a dense mist, hiding many features.

However, despite turning the problem countless time in his head, he still did not find anything he could possibly exploit. The smoke bombs were something Li Wei did not think about, but these would not change much except for gathering all the spiders in one place. But then, this would take time since the smoke needed to travel through the cavern.

"mmm, it looks like these Time Attacks depend heavily on items," said Li Wei to himself as he started to browse his inventory.

Still, there was nothing he could find that would make a huge difference. As a result, he turned to look at the chest in his room. It was the storage chest where players could keep their belongings. It was extremely useful since players had limited storage capacity; they could simply use the chest to keep items that did not require urgent uses.

In his chest, Li Wei found many items; the Shining Alyssums, the vials of goblin blood and many more. The most noticeable one was the [Forgotten Crosier].

His eyes skimmed through the items when they finally stopped on a small dusty box. Li Wei immediately recognized it, it was the box given by the gnome he saved with the Lake Fairy.

He carefully grabbed the box and opened it, revealing a reddish item which had a similar look to modern grenades.

"What a pity, the spider webs are resistant to magic or else, I could have burned everything with that," said Li Wei.

At that moment, the information window of the Pyro Bomb opened. It was a normal reaction since Li Wei had been staring at it for a long time:

[Pyro Bomb(Grade 2)]

Explodes and sets an area on fire. Targets hit by the explosion will suffer from serious burns. Damage: 10/seconds.

Once the target has been set on fire, the fire cannot be extinguished by normal means.

Note: This item is the product of gnomish engineering also known as the Hell Fire Bomb.

Since the last time Li Wei had seen the information screen, more information was available. It seemed that after leveling up, he gained access to a better description. It was such a powerful weapon. "If only the spider webs were not resistant to magic..."

"mmm magic?"

At that moment, he was recalling the gnome's words but at the same time, he heard a jingle.

It was another message! And it again came from Li Yuxin: "Hey! Don't pretend you did not read my message! Hurry up! Set a day and a time!"

...

Li Yuxin was lying on her bed; a few droplets of water were dripping from her long hair. She just came out of her bath and was quite annoyed at the fact that her message was not answered.

She was about to send another one when to her surprise, that guy actually answered her. It was just that the answer had nothing to do with dueling.