Chapter 134: Pay to Win
By noon, the final earnings totaled 120 Vecktas. Among them, Zhou Ning had spent 5 Vecktas himself to buy 25 card packs—only to get utterly terrible draws, once again confirming his cursed luck as a "non-chosen one."
"Go again. How else are you going to win without drawing more cards? I'll give you a lucky blessing," came Molly's cool voice in his mind. She clearly hadn't been corrupted by the world of gacha mobile games before. This card-collecting game was like a whole new world for her. When she saw the chubby Fred pull a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, she immediately wanted one too, showing none of the restraint one might expect from a granny-wife character.
This dumb little sister clearly didn't realize that being bad at the game was the root of her problems. With her level of skill, it didn't matter what deck she used—she'd lose anyway. Zhou Ning didn't bother pointing it out, and just went ahead and bought another 100 card packs to open later.
After saying a quick word to John, Zhou Ning left the room and headed next door to the alchemy shop. XB and Jinse were already hard at work. For players, working at an NPC shop was a pretty normal thing—probably due to game design. On Darkland Street, players could pick up countless daily tasks at the various storefronts, usually requiring 2–4 hours of work, and rewarding about 500–1000 experience points.
Zhou Ning had arranged XB's daily work to yield about 4000 experience in just two hours, while Jinse would work for three hours and get 6000 experience. He planned to increase it gradually. The rest of their time could be used freely. For early-stage players, this setup was already a rare opportunity.
So far, out of everyone he had encountered, only XB, Jinse, and the player Qingbai Wild Sake seemed worth nurturing. Zhou Ning planned to take his time with it.
After assigning daily quests to XB and Jinse, Zhou Ning put on his hat, got into a carriage, and headed straight for the Sunwatcher base located at the West Lin General Store. He was planning to report what he saw at the countryside manor and also redeem another batch of firearms.
For some reason, the anonymous letter he had sent earlier had received no response, so Zhou Ning decided to deliver the information in person.
While in the carriage, Zhou Ning absentmindedly tore open card packs as he browsed the forums out of boredom.
Suddenly, a post caught his eye. The title read: "Is the Wandering Gunslinger class too overpowered?"
He clicked on it and saw a video clip—it was XB fighting monsters in the wilderness at night, likely a recording from the previous evening. He moved smoothly and elegantly, dodging and firing constantly, eventually killing the monster even while on low HP. With the flourish of gun skills, it looked like something out of a Western film.
The video then cut to a clip from another streamer, who had also successfully changed classes—but to Warrior. Facing a similar wolf, he had to go in for melee combat and nearly got torn apart within seconds. He chugged health potions just to stay alive but still had to flee in the end.
Next was a PvP clip between a Warrior and a Wandering Gunslinger. At this stage, anyone who had successfully changed classes had to be either a closed beta player or a top-tier gamer. Yet the fight was completely one-sided. The Gunslinger, who likely learned from Zhou Ning's first-episode techniques, maintained a consistent distance from the Warrior. At these low levels, the Warrior had no charge, no leap, no intercept—he was basically a walking target, getting kited to death.
The contrast was brutal, and the replies under the post were pouring in—hundreds of comments in no time.
"Looks like XB was right. Nobody wants to play Warrior anymore!"
"No choice. I'm in Rivendell, can't switch to Gunslinger."
"I just became a Mage. Feels okay so far, just not as cool as a Gunslinger. Took me like 20 fireballs to kill one monster and 10 mana potions to survive—almost puked from chugging."
"Damn it, I'm from the Northern Lands. Only options are Shaman or Warrior! Can I delete my character and start over?!"
"I tried. You can't. There's a three-day cooldown to delete a character. FML. Curse every official in the Byron Republic—none of them have any balls."
"Was that the castrated thread poster himself just now?"
"...Get out of here!"
Zhou Ning couldn't help but chuckle at the ridiculous comments, but he also felt a surge of pleasant surprise. He wanted to give the thread's OP a big thumbs-up.
The poster's ID was "Gundam"—someone completely unfamiliar to Zhou Ning. But this stranger had unintentionally helped him out. Before Warriors gained movement skills, they were easy to kite—especially by Gunslingers who didn't need to channel their skills.
This was a case of one class hitting its power spike while the other was still in its weak phase—but the players didn't know that. Once this post got around, even more players would likely flock to the Gunslinger class.
Wanting to capitalize on the hype, Zhou Ning planned to redeem more guns from the Sunwatchers.
Not long after, the carriage arrived at the West Lin General Store. Zhou Ning got off and walked to the entrance—this was the base of the Sunwatchers' Third Squad.
He rang the bell and waited about half a minute before a chubby young man opened the door.
The man had gray hair and distinctive green eyes—a typical Byron local—and wore a rather wary expression.
Zhou Ning had never seen him before. Maybe he was a new recruit. Sherlock had mentioned the Third Squad was hiring. Zhou Ning smiled and said, "Good afternoon. Is Sherlock in?"
"He's not here at the moment." The young man hesitated, eyeing Zhou Ning, then blurted out, "Are you Wayne Sturwell?"
"Yes, I'm Wayne Sturwell," Zhou Ning replied with a slight smile.
The chubby man immediately stepped aside and said, "Captain told us to treat you well if you ever came by. Would you like me to call him over?"
"Thanks, that would be great. I've got something important to tell him," Zhou Ning said, taking off his hat as he stepped inside. Sitting in the foyer was someone he had seen a few times before—Polly—holding a few playing cards.
Clearly, the two had been playing Weather Cards before Zhou Ning arrived. Looking at them—one tall and skinny, one short and round—Zhou Ning couldn't help but think they looked like the number 10.
"What were you guys playing for?" he asked casually, taking the chubby man's seat and glancing at the cards.
"Small blind is 5 Roshens, big blind is 1 Veckta," Polly said, glancing up. "Interested in a round?"
"Sure," Zhou Ning said with a smile.
A few minutes later, the door creaked open and Sherlock came rushing in, covered in dust. What greeted him was Polly's dazed expression—and a thick stack of paper bills in front of Zhou Ning, easily over a hundred Vecktas.
"...What happened here?" Sherlock asked in confusion.
"Nothing much, just a few rounds of cards," Zhou Ning said, casually pushing the bills back toward Polly as he looked up. "I came to tell you something about the giants. I've found their trail."
"What?" Sherlock exclaimed, immediately pulling Zhou Ning into the next room. "What did you find?"
Zhou Ning blinked. So they really hadn't seen the anonymous letter? Was the bureaucracy really that bad?
Fortunately, he had already prepared what to say. With a calm smile, he began:
"That night, I snuck into Harrison Rivers' manor on the eastern outskirts. In the backyard, I saw the figure of a giant. I saw it with my own eyes—he was lying in the lake there. Oh, and I also saw a middle-aged man with Ruins features. Harrison Rivers called him 'Mr. Bislok.'"
"Bislok…" Sherlock muttered the name under his breath, lost in thought.
A moment later, he suddenly looked up. "Your intel is very helpful. I'll take a team to infiltrate the manor and confirm it myself."
A notification popped up on Zhou Ning's interface:
[Sunwatchers' Favorability with You +1200!]
[Sunwatchers: Friendly (1400/1500)]
The quest progress for [The Giants' Trail (II)] also quietly ticked up to 16%. Zhou Ning knew this meant the Sunwatchers were about to take action against Harrison Rivers.
"You didn't come all this way just to tell me that, did you? What else do you need? Spit it out," Sherlock said bluntly.
Zhou Ning didn't stand on ceremony and said directly, "I want to redeem another batch of firearms. Around 2,000 to 3,000—old ones are fine."
"Sure, just talk to Polly about it. I'll tell him to assist you," Sherlock said with a wave of his hand.
[You redeemed a batch of old firearms from the Sunwatchers. Favorability -500. Current status: Friendly.]
Zhou Ning nodded. After watching Sherlock say a quick word to Polly and leave in a hurry, he turned back to Polly and smiled, "Wanna keep playing?"
"No way, no way," Polly said with a complicated expression. After Zhou Ning left earlier, he had peeked at the cards Zhou Ning folded—and found it was a straight flush of Light Rain, Moderate Rain, Heavy Rain, Thunderstorm, and Downpour.
Thanks to that little episode, Polly was especially helpful in picking out a batch of guns, even dividing them into about 100 boxes for easy transport.
After receiving the firearms, Zhou Ning went straight to an open lot in the dock area. The hype from that forum post had worked wonders. Players near Darkland who were still hesitating to switch to the Gunslinger class were now pouring in. There were at least a thousand players on-site—half again as many as the day before.
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