Starting from Zero

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“You-you-you-you\'re not dead??”

I looked at the Ao Guang who is now floating in the sky. I\'m done. That suicide attack didn\'t finish him. Looks like I\'ll need to start over from the rookie village.

"Dead? You don\'t just kill a sacred dragon like that!"

I stood up. "I may die but I\'ll not surrender! Do it! Send me back to rookie as you willed!"

The dragon however, lowered down to me. "Fear not! You\'ve passed the mission."

"Huh? You\'re not joking right?"

"I don\'t joke! Your suicide explosion did cut my HP in half. You\'ve gone beyond your goal."

"So that\'s how it went. Thank you for your trial! So what\'s my reward?"

"Patience!" He tossed a pair of strange-looking metal wings at me. "That is the last part of the Dark Dragon Lord set, wing blades. Put it on and you will be able to fly. It acts as an effective shield too."

I checked.

[Wings of the Dark Dragon Lord], Wing Blades,

Durability 1200/1200,

Growth equipment,

*Defense 800,

*Block Rate 35%,

Special Skill [Fly],

Talent Skill [Absolute Barrier]: Enjoys absolute defense for 20 seconds (once per day).

Good stuff!

However...

"Hey big guy! The item is awesome but what should I do after I lost all these levels? The highest player out there is 399, the average level should be somewhere like 270 or so, how do I survive?"

"I said patience!" The dragon yelled. "That entire outfit you\'re wearing is your reward, you just received them beforehand, don\'t you forget that! Besides,"

He threw a black metal round-shaped object over.

"What\'s this metal ball?"

"Ball--THAT\'S MY DAUGHTER YOU LITTLE BRAT!" The dragon slapped at the ground in anger and shook me into the air. "You can give it back if you wish! I was never sure if I should present my precious daughter to you anyway."

"I\'m sorry!! I was blind, please forgive me, your highness!" The daughter of a deadly Boss is sure to be quite powerful too! "Forget my level! I can get it up in no time!"

"Now that\'s a good answer. So this is it. This old bone of mine needs to get back and report my mission."

The dragon turned to leave, but then came back. "I forgot to give you this as well."

A...marble ball?

I waited for the dragon to explain but he just disappeared before I realized it.

"Curse you old snake!!" I shouted at the sky.

Then a big pillar of lightning stroke where I\'m standing and blew me high up. It\'s a good thing that I got wings now or I\'d probably break another leg. (My character race already have pair of wings but those are decorations, they don\'t have any effect.)

System: "Player Ziri is attacked by thunder of divine punishment!"

...The old thing got pretty good ears.

That behind, I should hatch my new "egg" first. After some effort, the egg cracked open. A blackish snake crawled out of it. The hell? It\'s a trick??

Should have known. A golden dragon should produce a golden egg or something. Not a dark, shot-put ball! He must have given me a fake reward.

But upon closer examination I started to believe that "she" may be a real dragon. Cause I saw two small tips on her head. Maybe I should wait for her to grow up.

The sad part is I never found my Revenger, maybe it disappeared completely. Ouch.

It\'s late now so I teleported back to the Lost City and logged off. I got a whole Saturday tomorrow, no need to stay up late.

I enjoyed a night\'s rest, ate breakfast and went into game. My level is just too low. I should at least get to level 200 before I try to do anything else.

I went to Clark to repair my gear. Though obtaining a whole Artifact set isn\'t all about good news, as proved later.

"Man you\'re truly something." Clark stared at the pile of stuff I just unequipped, and mumbled.

I boasted: "I spent two full months to get these. Of course it\'s something!"

"That\'s not what I meant. You\'re something because you could break legendary equipment into such a condition?? Just watch, they look nothing like Artifacts now! I thought you were showered by a meteor rain or something!"

"I didn\'t want it to end like this either. But I got no choice! Do you know how crazy that old dragon was? Even when I\'m in these equip he still one-shot me!"

"Let\'s not talk about how you broke them. I got some problem if I\'m to repair these things."

"Problem?"

"These are what I\'ll need to repair this Artifact set:

Upper-grade Blessed Iron, 2.5 kilograms. 35 Crystal pieces per kilo. I got 3 kilos in stock so I can use those.

Blessing Silver, 531 grams, 100 Crystals per gram. You can buy it from those Death Mages in the Wizard\'s Tower. All about money so that\'s not a problem either.

Upper-grade Magic Crystal Powder, 300 grams. You can grind your Crystal pieces to get powder. But each piece can only produce 0.5 gram, not including any unintended loss for various reasons, like sneezing.

Dragon Crystal Thread, 182 centimeters, 5 Crystals per centi. My wife should have some.

And 3 Shinryuu teeth, you don\'t find them easily. What should we do?"

I summoned Loong\'er (name I just gave to my new dragon companion), and Lucky (with his current level he won\'t bust the house now). (*)

"Shinryuu teeth? Her teeth, or his teeth?"

"Shinryuu!!" Clark bowed before Loong\'er. "You have a Shinryuu descendent with you? But...she\'s too young. She hasn\'t grown any teeth yet!"

"That\'s easy. I\'ll just bring her to level up a bit."

"So that\'s our teeth. We also need two Bifang feathers. You got that?" (**)

I summoned Phiona. "Will phoenix feathers work?"

"A black phoenix? Brilliant! I meant to mention phoenix feather but they\'re too scarce to find. Now we have a real phoenix here so we don\'t have to worry! Next, 300 grams of Thousand Blood. What about it?"

"What is this Thousand Blood?"

"It\'s just common blood, but mixed up with the blood of a thousand different creatures. An Artifact needs life essence as well. And such blood is a good material to provide that. It gives your Artifact life."

"What kind of creatures should I go for?"

"There\'s no limit for that, as long as you get 1000 different ones."

"I\'ll see to it. Shouldn\'t be too hard!"

"The last one, your armor will need a Dragon Soul."

"Loong\'er\'s life? No! Forget the armor, I can give it up." Now that\'s something I\'d never agree.

Clark explained: "I said Dragon Soul, this dragon." He pointed at Lucky.

"Not a chance either! He\'s been fighting along me for months. I\'d rather go fight naked!"

Lucky whined something, probably thanking me. But he can\'t speak due to the level loss. I summoned Phantom to help translate.

"Master, Lucky said he can take us to the Dragon\'s Canyon. It\'s a graveyard for dragons so we should be able to find souls there."

"Really? That\'s my Lucky!"

"Alright then! That\'s all we need. I\'ll take care of the Blessed Iron, Silver, Crystal Powder and Thread. Let\'s work out the cost when we\'re finished. You will need to find those feather, teeth, blood and soul on your own."

"Got it!"

I departed, but ran back again.

"Um, can I borrow some ordinary equipment to use for the moment? I can\'t go outside like this."

"Go inside and pick for yourself. Just take anything ya can use."

So I went to the back and equipped myself with some ordinary gear. I let my companions fight most of time anyway, this won\'t be a problem.

Looks like my next mission will be hunting for materials. This is my plan: Follow Lucky to the Dragon\'s Canyon, while killing monsters for levels and blood along the way. When we get there Loong\'er should be big enough to grow teeth. Then ask Phiona for two feathers. Problem solved.

Before I can leave, Clark came to me. "I\'ll make this clear: I won\'t charge you the repair fee but I can\'t give you those mats for free, not to mention I have to buy some of them from the others. So I\'ll tell you the estimated money you need to pay, just to make sure."

"Of course brother!"

"I\'ve already done the accounting work. Aside from those rare mats we will need common materials. But these common ones are needed in great amounts so the price won\'t be cheap. About...You go prepare 150k Crystal pieces, that should be enough." (***)

Thud!

"Mate? What\'s wrong? Don\'t faint already!"

When I\'m well on my way I feel there\'s no tomorrow! 150 thousand Crystals! Where the hell do I get that kind of money? All my cash added up is 2364 Crystals. That\'s pretty rich for the moment but only a tip of an iceberg compared to what I need!

The real money and game currency trading system is now opened. However I promised my father not to throw any money into the game.

Money!

MONEY!!

How do I get the money!?

Sigh, let\'s take one step at a time. There will be a way. I\'ll just go collect the materials first.

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(*) When there\'s no way to avoid the eastern and western issue I\'ll just use "Shinryuu" instead. It means the long, snake-like creature, like the one you see in Dragon Ball series.

As for the new pet\'s name...Loong\'er will sound really strange. But I really don\'t know how to convert "小龙女" (A beautiful female transformed from a Shinryuu) into English style. Any suggestions?

(**)Bifang, another beautiful bird in Chinese mythology.

(***) 1 Crystal piece = 10 RMB. With today\'s exchange rate, that should be...around $218,000.