MMORPG: Rebirth of the Legendary Guardian

Zhang Yang slept throughout the entire day and had only woken up after 7pm. After having his dinner, Zhang Yang turned on his computer and visited the official site to find out the aftermath of his feat. However, before he could even click on the forum link, he saw an update notice on the official site home page.

What was happening?

The update patch was only supposed to be implemented on 13th of August! There was still 5 months’ time!

Zhang Yang felt a sudden omen. He must have done something to this timeline. It was probably affected by yesterday’s feat when he solo killed a boss and obtained the Beyond Perfect score.

According to the summarized notice, the first patch update did not have much changes. It had several changes to the warrior, especially Guardian skill update.

”1. skill cool down has increased from 10 seconds to 15 seconds! Every successful instant would grant 30 Rage points instead of 10 Rage points!’

Zhang Yang rolled his eyes in frustration. Just like that, the officials had nerfed his OP skill to become a trash! What a shame! If only this patch would only be implemented 5 months later, Zhang Yang would still have been able to perform better feats. It was probably due to his superior performance that forced the officials’ hands to launch the patch.

The Rage generation was improved but even so, the number of instances for Zhang Yang, or anyone else for that matter, had been reduced! So, what if the system increased the Rage points by 20? It was still useless!

”2. cool down time increased from 1 second to 5 seconds!”

Again! Another major nerf!

Unlike Hunter or Thief, a Warrior’s Rage gauge would depend on attacking and receiving attack to refill. That was why in boss fights, whenever the boss struck the Warrior, the Rage will be filled up at a faster pace, allowing them to use to properly spend off the remaining Rage after using other skills.

”3. cool down reduced from 10 minutes to 7 minutes!”

Ah! Finally, a buff1! After maxing the skill level, the cool down should be reduced down to 2 minutes! This would help a tank’s survivability in battles! This buff was quite strong. Probably the system was trying to balance out the major nerf.

The other patch note was about combat behavior.

”1. Increased battle realism. A ”Knockback” effect is added. The knockback effect and distance would be determined by strength of each side of the battle.”

This would mean the stronger player would be able to knockback a weaker player by a certain distance. Before this, battles would look like two stick man fighting each other stationary.

”2. Anti-Disturbance Protection. Physical contact between players could only be established between friends. Players who are not added into the friend list would be alerted with a system notification. The player being touched without consent will be allowed to lodge a complaint to the system. Depending on the level of the offense, the offender would be locked in the main city’s jail. The duration would range from 10 minutes to 3 days depending on the offence. Any Thief under would be automatically revealed once they have made contact with another player.”

This update must be targeted to players like 44 Bandits. That sly bastard had dug his own grave. He had always been misusing to sexually harass other female players around.

”3. Dungeon refresh rate adjustment.

5-man dungeon Normal Mode: Unlimited entry.

5-man dungeon Hard Mode: Once a day.

10-man dungeon all difficulty mode: Once every 2 days.

20-man dungeon all difficulty mode: Once every 3 days.

50-man dungeon all difficulty mode: Once every 7 days.”

”4. Auction House service charge has been increased from 10% to 20%!”

Bullshit! What is this? Daylight robbery?! Before Zhang Yang could continue to rage on, he remembered about the lease he obtained and breathed a sigh of relief. Luckily, I would not have to face this kind of problematic situation!

”5. All high-level equipment would only display the equipment effect and sockets available after successful item identification.”

Sigh! Another way for the company to make money!

For example, the [Combined Elemental Shield], if Zhang Yang had not identified it, it would look like this.

[Combined Elemental Shield] (Gray-Silver, Shield)

Defense: +200

Vitality: +80

Level requirement: 20

You can hire an Identifier to have the equipment identified and the sentence ”Equip Effect: Increase skill by one level” would only appear and be applied. If you did not identify the equipment, you could still equip it. However, the special effect would not be in effect.

Black-Steel, Green-Copper tier equipment do not have special effect. Special effect would be available from Gray-Silver tier and onwards. Even if there were no special effects on the equipment, there were still the sockets there. The company could earn a massive fortune just when the number of player would increase to millions.

”6. Status effect skills would now have no effect on the boss. However, status effect skills could possibly interrupt the boss’ casting.”

Oh! Another buff! A boss could not be stunned by but now, the boss could be interrupted when using a skill.

”7. Damage reduction recalculation. All damage received would first be reduced by the Defense or Magic Resistance, and further reduced by skills or passive skills.”

Crap! A nerf! If a monster had 2,000 damage, a player had 400 Defense, with a 20% damage reduction skill... The previous calculation was (2,000 x 0.8) -400 = 1,200 damage received. After the patch, the calculation would be (2,000 - 400) x 0.8 = 1,280 damage received. The higher the Defense, the higher the effect.

”8. Inventory adjustment. To help save inventory space, every item group has been increased from 20 to 200 items count per stack. ”

”9. Players killed in PK would not drop levels, they would only have all their collected experience point cleared. Red Name penalty would not have their levels dropped whenever they are killed, instead, the drop rate of the equipped equipment is increased to 100%.”

If a Level 29 player with 34% experience points was killed, the player would still be Level 29 but the experience point would be 0%. No matter how many times the player was killed, they would still be at Level 29. However, the Red Name penalty has been lightened. What a pity. If only this new update was implemented in his previous life, the player Endless Starlight would have raged, quit the game and deleted his account.

”10. Removal of Deathmatch in battle arena.”

Without the thrill of dropping a level, Deathmatch would be meaningless.

”11. effect adjustment. The current effect was to force the monster to attack the caster for 2 seconds while copying the monster’s previous attacking target’s 99% aggro value. (If the aggro value was higher, the copy effect would not be implemented). Monsters that could not be affected by would remain un-provoked.

This was a huge buff for a party with 2 tanks, or more. This was especially useful for a boss attack.

With so many changes in a time, Zhang Yang had to spend some time to digest everything. After a while, he went to the forums and found a complete chaotic mess. Players were mainly focusing their complaints towards the increased service charge for the auction house. Everyone was insulting the company for being a gold-digger. Some players mentioned that without the players’ massive support to the game, the game would not have its current popularity. They even mentioned that the company had been ungrateful, that they were also being overly greedy to even chop off the players’ limbs for their own profits!

However, no matter much the players complained, the officials did not care. Zhang Yang understood it better. Sooner or later, the players’ rage would die down. Just like the situation in his previous life, players could complain all they want but no matter how much they hated the implementation, they could not leave ’God’s Miracle’ for other game after being immersed for so long!

What a greedy company!

Zhang Yang cursed as he put on the gaming helmet and logged into the game.

Just when he logged in, he was bombarded by his gang.

”Ayy! Noob tank! How long did you plan to sleep!?”

”Dumb Yu! Sleepy hog!”

”Little Yang, did you have a threesome last night? No wonder you had just logged in now! It must have been a tiresome night I reckon!”

”Zhan Yu! You’re awesome! You could even raid the entire Underground Tower alone!”

Zhang Yang laughed as he replied their private message one by one. No long after, he summoned his Skeleton War Horse and rode to the Property Manager NPC.

He took out the [Land Lease] and handed it over to the NPC.

”Hmm... This has been identified. It’s authentic!” said the NPC, Count Boggart as he flipped the lease back and forth.

”Right, the property would be yours for only 20,000 gold coins!”

”What? I would still need to pay?” Zhang Yang stared with his eyes wide open. Zhang Yang had not known about it since he had never owned a property before.

”Of course! Any transaction within the Empire has to be enumerated! What do you think this is? An under-table transaction with a private owner? Hehehe... that is an offense that could send you to jail. No, probably execution by beheading!” said Count Boggart while whickering his little mustache.

Oh well. It was just 20,000 gold coins. He could just earn that money back at any time he wanted to. However, he did wish that his money was for a hot spot instead of a rundown town!

Zhang Yang paid the sum, and the NPC snorted and stamped a seal on the [Land Lease].

’Ding! Congratulations! You have obtained: Property!”

Zhang Yang frantically took the paper and read it. The initial paper that had only two words [Land Lease] written on it now had a complete paragraph of words. The lowest part of the entire paper had the property’s location.

White Jade Castle!

Zhang Yang was extremely delighted to see those three words! As long as he was getting a land in a main city and not somewhere far in the outskirts.

Zhang Yang exited the Property Manager building and rode to the location of the lease.

Almost there!

Zang Yang rode for around 10 minutes and arrived at a 2 story elegant building that was as wide as 3 houses. Zhang Yang examined the paper and the house’s lot number and got happy again when it matched each other.

Ta Ta Ta. Not long after, a player, two players... more and more players walked passed by like a busy street. Zhang Yang turned around and saw that the building he was opposite to was the auction house!

JACKPOT!

Zhang Yang had always known that the first [Land Lease] was extremely valuable. But he had never known that the developers would be so kind enough to have his first property to be set directly opposite the popular auction house!

This was the best of the best of all locations ever!

Zhang Yang was so happy that he could just flip over. He got down from the mount and unsummoned it. He walked with heavy step into the very first building he now own.

’Ding! Player Zhan Yu had entered the property. Initializing Tutorial!’

’Ding! Player Zhan Yu, do you wish to set the building properties? You could have the building set to be: Shop, Repair Store, Hotel, Restaurant. Do you wish you set?’

”Yes!”

’Ding! Please determine the building properties!’

”Shop!”

’Ding! Please input your shop name!’

”...Little Merchandize Shop!”

’Ding! Little Merchandize Shop has been completed. Current level: 1. Sale item count: 1,000. Next level: Sale item count: 2,000. The first floor will be available. Upgrade cost: 100,000 gold coins!’

’Ding! You can now add items to the shop for sale. Please set the price for the item to be sold. The Shop inventory and the player personal storage can be identified.’

’Ding! Advise to have valuable items to be displayed on the Display Desk and the other items to be in the item menu!’

’Ding! Advise to hire a [Maid] to manage the shop! You can select the [Maid] from the Property Option, Shop Option window.’

’Ding! This concludes the tutorial. You can open the Property Option, Help, for further information! Good luck!’

In regards to setting up shop, Zhang Yang was bewildered. He tried and opened the Shop Menu window and selected to add items for sale. He then threw every Green-Copper equipment in his inventory into the menu.

The item price could be set to a fixed value like a shop in reality. He could also set the item to have a bidding value. He must have a fixed selling price but he could choose to not set the maximum price.

The ground floor was already designed to be just like a super market. There were aisle and racks around to have items placed on them. The items placed here could be viewed instantly so Zhang Yang had reserved them for rare and valuable items, while the rest of the items were set to be viewed in a menu like the auction house. You could key in words to search and locate the item.

A shop is like the combined version of a store and an auction house.

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1Buff - Here in this context, a buff is an action that depicted a skill being strengthen. This term is not to be confused with the buff in the game when a player would cast a skill to grant a beneficial effect.