The Strongest Wizard

Making New Friends And Adding Members Into The Future Workshop

26th December 1018 / 2018 1000hrs

I readied my pickaxe just as the Blazing Three Armed Monkey had begun its climb. As long as I remained 2 o'clock away from it, I should be safe. That's what I thought for the moment.

The trouble is that I would need 10 swings of my pickaxe to complete blasting a single outcropping rock. And then I have to change my strategy on mining these parts since I would be moving along the perimeter and not as how I had done at The Wintry Hills.

One mistake I make would send me back to a random respawn area, and this is the s**t if it happens to me. As much as possible, I would prefer to avoid such occurrences, and once I am done with this, I would surely return and send the Blazing Three Armed Monkey back into its mother's womb. Hahaha...!

Yeah...That's what you had been waiting for, am I right?

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Each swing of my pickaxe struck the outcropping rock, and for each successful harvest, I gained 2 masonries and 1 fire crystal. After I had blasted 4 of the outcropping rocks, I managed to gain another piece of topaz and another white zirconia.

As mentioned earlier, these pieces were tradeable and would not be of any value for gear enhancements at all. This would be one way to earn credits, even though it may seem to be laborious. The important ones are the fire crystals and the masonries that would be gained to earn reputation points by donating it to a guild.

Hahaha...!!! What a headstart I had. I am sure going to beat the rest in the later stages since I would use a different route to gain my experience points in my Combat / Weapon Skills instead.

I was like playing cat and mouse with the Blazing Three Armed Monkey and before long, it was already time for me to head back to the real world. Once I had done the formalities of repeating what I had done in the morning, I would then logoff after submitting the crystals for Archmage Maelstorm. I would then have completed the sub-quest, and then I would then be able to look for new members.

I had some names in mind that had been with me since the early days of the MMORPG - The Lord Of The Red Dragon and I am not sure they were online now or had registered later in the game. Nevertheless, I am sure there would be no harm trying to locate them, in case I search for them.

It had been more than 6 hours since I logged on and it would be great if I break for dinner or something back in the real world. At least I would be able to avoid Nanay from berating me too much.

Before I started to mine earlier, I located a spot for me to set up the portal, and the other teleportation key was locked into the City of Votrieburg.

I had made several trips back to the City to dump all the non-tradeable items at the storage warehouse and only left the fire crystals and the semi-precious gemstones with me.

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"Good morrow, kind merchant. I am here to trade these topaz and white zirconia pieces." I approached the same merchant that I had dealt with in the morning before, and we opened up our trade comms.

After a short while, I had exchanged all the semi-precious stones and had made quite a considerable amount of credits. With this amount of credits on hand, I do not have to grind for any monsters.

Even though grinding of monsters does have its perks, but the time would come right after I had gotten the student privilege of the Archmage Tower of the City of Votrieburg.

Once I had gotten that privilege, I guess you all would know what I would do, right? Hahaha...!

With the virtual credits in my in-game account, I was simply jiggling with coins as I walked towards the Magistrate's Office to hand over the 1000 pieces of the fire crystals. The remaining of the crystals were kept inside the storage warehouse in case of rainy days. I also took the opportunity to rent another 5 storage warehouses and was given one free for the whole year.

I had a total of 12 storage warehouses at the moment, and I could be considered as one of the gamers that would have gotten a Top Ten Leaderboard in H O A R D I N G...!!! Hahaha..!!! Anything worth was taken by me and stored inside the storage warehouse. It will be disposed of for credits later on in the game. I was waiting for the opportunity for the 4 exclusive gemstones to appear before I could do the next followup actions.

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"Excuse me, adventurer, do you have a minute?"

I spun around when I heard someone hailing me as an adventurer. Either it was a gamer or perhaps a wandering NPC that would be giving out hidden quests to unsuspecting gamers, like me. When I had faced the person that called me, I discovered that the person was in fact, an adventurer like me as well.

"Hello, what can I do for you?" I asked since I had already done most of the things that need to be accomplished.

"Hmm, do you have some credits to spare since I have some fishes that food that I would like to trade. I knew that the credits offered by the NPC merchants were like 4 credits per piece; I was hoping to get 5 credit instead."

She is a Lifestyle gamer - intent to make the most to be the backend support for the gamers. It seems that she would be concentrating on fishing since it was considered as a lucrative and the easiest way to earn credits.

Not only that, we would be able to save on health potions since the food we consume, which had a cooldown time, also known as CD of 6 seconds per consumption. It was unlike the health potions that had a minimum of 15 seconds CD per consumption. It would also be crucial if our party members were engaged in PVE or Player Versus Environment battles.

I looked at the person and saw her ID that was hovering above her head that states as 'Tinkerbell'. I knew of that name before, and she had become one of the greatest Lifestyle gamers as she owns several restaurants around the continent. This was achievable once a gamer had attained several peerage titles.

I thought for a while before I concluded that I should not miss the chance of recruiting her since she was already committed to being a chef in the long run.

"Hello there, Tinkerbell. I am Za. Nice to meet you. The answer to your earlier question is 'Y E S', I do have some credits with me if you do need my help."

"Nice to meet you, Za. This MMORPG world is immense. Even though I may be new here, I have played MMORPG - Utopia. But the world there is ruthless, and I kept getting time and time again at the exact respawn area until I got to Level 10 once again. I have lost nearly everything and decided to get my hands in this MMORPG - The Lord Of The Red Dragon instead."

"That's great of you knowing that you had decided to change your game. So, you are a Lifestyle gamer, I suppose?"

I knew a little bit on MMORPG - Utopia, and I knew that the gamers there were mostly pay2win gamers. They were ruthless and always on battle mode and not in peace mode and would attack anyone above Level 10 for themselves to level up.

"Yes...Yes...Lifestyle player is much more relaxed and not hurried. I could fish for several hours and then buy some assists to get more slots in grilling the food I caught, and I could sell them away for credits.

I am supposed to be in Ascon, but I followed my boyfriend, who was initially here. We got split up since I went to look for a fishing hole while he looked for some monsters to grind. His ID is 'Snowball', by the way."

"Snowball, is it? Yeah, I met him earlier about 6 hours back. I am sure you knew how to use your communicator to contact your friends, am I right?"

"Yes, that's right. We are both from the district, and I decided to be a Lifestyle gamer because I am just using the VR Gaming headset. So. back to the food, I am selling grilled prawns at 5 credits each and each prawn could heal +30 health. Would you like to buy some?"

I nodded my head and asked for 50 of the grilled prawns, which delighted her to no end. I opened up the trade communications, and I traded 250 credits for 50 of those grilled prawns.

"Let us add together as friends. We might bump with one another very soon and who knows, I might employ you to be one of my Lifestyle gamer who would be in charge of culinary."

"In this way, you can earn more credits and level up as much as possible as you grilled all the fishes that you had caught and then sell them to our members. What do you think?"

"It is a splendid idea, Za. Let's do it. Thank you for the trade. I wish you good luck and hope we bump into each other soon."