How should he get his hands on the equipment quickly?
[Heavy Bash] and [Snatch] would be one way, but when Mohai was on the way back, he tested them out multiple times on common monsters and found them useless. His initial guess was that this combo only worked on monsters with self-thinking abilities.
The same went for blackmailing. Other than him, the other monsters were not afraid of death. Even if they died, they would be respawned from the Reincarnation Pool after two to three days.
Thankfully, Mohai already had another idea brewing in his mind.
He whispered to the eight bandit goons, "There are still a lot of things to do tomorrow. Let's just get some rest first."
After they nodded at his command, they split up in pairs.
Fatigue was catching up with him after a whole day. Mohai decided to take a good rest before the players came to harass him.
Playing the game was rather exhausting. Players would feel tired after coming into the game and killing monsters for 12 to 13 consecutive hours. Even if they took breaks and split the time into multiple sessions, the longest a player could last was 16 hours.
The game system or the mainframe of the virtual community would evaluate a player's mental state, and when a player felt tired, the XP and drops from the monster would be lowered as a reminder for the players to go offline and rest.
If the players insisted on staying online, not only would the drop rates plummet, but the character's stats would be greatly lowered, and after reaching a certain point, the game would kick the player out, forcing him or her to rest.
Therefore, starting from midnight to 6.00 a.m. in the game was considered night time and the monsters would be buffed to a certain extent. The players would choose to go offline and rest at night.
Mohai might be a monster now, but his mental state remained human.
So much had happened in a day and even if his mental state was stronger than others, he was still tired.
He collapsed in the stone house and fell asleep.
…
[Activity log]
Reincarnation Pool upgraded to Level 2
Leveled up to Level 12
[Acquired skill]: [Encourage]
Your Notoriety in the Monolith Stronghold has increased by 1
When Mohai opened his eyes, the sky was already bright.
His body somehow felt different from yesterday, so out of curiosity, he opened his attribute window to check his activity log.
The upgrade of the Reincarnation Pool was complete and he reached Level 12 because of it. He also got a new skill and even got 1 point in [Notoriety].
"Not bad, not bad." Mohai was energized when he read through the activity log.
"HP 7,000, Physical Attack 100-120, Physical Defence 60, Magical Defence 20…"
After jumping by another two levels, all his stats received an obvious increase with his HP being the most obvious. He got an extra 2,000 HP overnight.
At the same time, an extra [Notoriety] column was added to this attribute window.
He was not a stranger to [Notoriety]. It was almost similar to the [Reputation] in the player area. However, as for its exact purpose, he had yet to find out what it was.
The Reincarnation Pool beside him had also calmed down. Mohai walked over to check it out and new information regarding the pool popped up in his mind.
'Number of recruitable subordinates have increased from 6 to 12. [Ruler] grants an extra 3, bringing the number to a total of 15. Daily recruitable subordinates have increased from 6 to 10. Recruited bandit goons' level and stats will be increased.
'New function added to the Reincarnation Pool. Equipment and items can be converted into raw materials. With the corresponding recipe, the pool can also convert raw materials to equipment and items. If the recipe isn't correct, there's a high chance of getting junk or contaminating the pool…
'Huh? It even provides an AOE [Halo] effect?'
Mohai quietly digested the information that appeared in his mind. He already knew most of them, so it did not take him a lot of time. What surprised him was that the Reincarnation Pool now provided an [Halo] effect.
There were quite a number of new functions from the Level 2 Reincarnation Pool, and with the corresponding materials, he could achieve a lot. Unfortunately, he was broke.
He grabbed more monster souls and iron ores from his bag and added them into the pool according to the ratio.
Soon, he recruited another seven bandit goons.
"Everyone of them is on Level 7 or Level 8. It seems like four pieces of iron ore are enough. Putting five pieces only increases the Attack by 2 points which is a bit wasteful."
Since the recruitment was experimental, Mohai went through all the stats of the seven new bandit goons and came up with a conclusion.
Level 8 bandit goons had decent Attack, Defence, and HP, especially with the [Slash] skill which could now inflict 50 True Damage points rather than 30. Therefore, they were useful in Mohai's opinion.
However, he realized all the newly recruited Level 8 bandit goons only had an enhanced [Slash]. When he leveled up to Level 8 yesterday, he got two skills at once, which were [Smarter Than Others] and [Fury], yet the bandit goons did not have any of those.
Mohai was curious about the Level 8 bandit goons' template and what their leveling requirements were. What would they become in the end?
However, it only sparked his curiosity for a moment. Aside from the fact that the bandit goons were not AI with self-thinking abilities, even if they were capable of self-thinking, it was impossible for them to betray him and kill him to usurp his position.
With Mohai's sharp perception, nothing these bandit goons did could escape his eyes.
He led the seven newly recruited bandit goons out of the stone house.
Outside the stone house, eight of the Level 5 bandit goons were patrolling the area. They did not respond even when Mohai came out.
Mohai then noticed seven new bronze treasure chests in front of the stone house.
The day before when Mohai headed to the Abandoned Mining Area and the lake for the Magical Spring Water, he saw the location of the treasure boxes, so he had marked down their coordinates. When he went to sleep last night, he had told eight of his men to collect all the treasure boxes back.
If he was lucky, he might be able to find bronze or even black iron equipment in these bronze treasure boxes.
The treasure boxes would be his ticket to wealth and fame!
However, when he walked to the treasure boxes and tried opening them, he realized that he could not open them at all.
Indeed, Mohai could not open a single treasure box!
According to the game settings, the bronze treasure boxes should not be locked and all players could open them. Only treasure boxes of Black Iron grade or above were locked and only a Thief with the [Lockpicking] skill could open them.
However, none of the bronze treasure boxes should be locked, yet Mohai could not open them!
One of them was just outside of the stone house. It should be his since it was literally within his hideout, yet he could not even open that one.
I can't even open my own treasure box? What kind of bullsh*t is this?
Back then when he had first entered the game, he would be excited over a single treasure box in the wild. Now, with seven treasure boxes stacked together, how grand would that be?
"Take them out and stack them together in an obvious spot. Be careful of the Adventurers," he ordered.
Mohai strongly believed that any player who laid their eyes on the stack of treasure boxes would risk their lives to get it even if they knew it was dangerous or a trap.
"No. 15, come in."
14 of the bandit goons carried the treasure boxes out. Mohai then called the idle No. 15 into the stone house.
He wanted to test the function and special effects of the Template Manager, especially the three main special effects, the [Eternal Will], and the [Genes of the Gods] and [Ruler]. He had to level all three of them up as soon as possible. As long as the three special effects remained at a low level, the access level of the Template Manager would remain limited.
Even though it would take him more time to collect all the templates, he already had a general idea and even a rough plan on how to collect the templates. However, he was clueless about these three special effects, so he had to figure out the leveling methods as soon as possible.
"Leader! Something has happened!"
To Mohai's surprise, the big trap of seven treasure boxes for the players did not proceed as planned.
Before the players even showed up at his door, there were a bunch of uninvited guests knocking loudly.
There were six bandit leaders and 36 bandit goons.
The scene was quite grand, to be honest. If any player had been within the area, he or she would have been frightened to death.
There was a group of Elite monsters that did not look friendly for crying out loud. Whoever was brave enough to step close would be bashed to death!
The moment Mohai came out, one of the bandit leaders shouted at his face, "No. 22, return the treasure box from Lady Isabelle to us! That's the bait we used to lure and kill the Adventurers!"
No. 22 was Mohai's name among the bandits. Mohai looked at the bandit leaders and saw numbers above their heads. The one who shouted was bandit leader No. 6.
"That's right. It's our treasure box. You can't take it for yourself," added bandit leader No. 9.
"Yeah, agreed!"
The other bandit leaders shouted in accordance, and with their signal, all 36 bandit goons stepped up, attempting to pressure Mohai.
However, all six bandit leaders and the 36 bandit goons somehow had a tinge of fear in their gazes as they faced Mohai and his own bandit goons behind him.
That tiny detail could never escape Mohai's sight.
It must be the effect of [Notoriety]. These bandit leaders must have already known that he owned a Level 2 Reincarnation Pool and was stronger than any of them. Even his men were stronger than theirs.
If not for [Notoriety], these bandit leaders would have struck down Mohai's men, who had stolen their treasure boxes.