What was Lin Mo lacking the most right now? Equipment.
And he did not care about quality, only quantity.
With the SSS-tier talent Soul Fire, he only needed to incinerate low-level equipment to gain a large number of evolution points and evolve the gold-tier top equipment he wanted for himself.
Even if he only evolved the three pieces of newbie gear on his body to gold quality, Lin Mo was absolutely confident he could clear this hidden quest.
However, using that previous method of spending money to buy newbie gear from other players to incinerate was obviously no longer workable.
Because Lin Mo's bank card was already in crisis.
If nothing unexpected happened, he would not even be able to afford steamed buns for breakfast tomorrow.
"Holy crap!"
'If I'd known, I would have cashed in all those winning lottery tickets earlier. I shouldn't have wasted them.'
Lin Mo could not help feeling a bit regretful, only blaming himself for being blinded by the ten-billion-worth SSS-tier talent code at the time and not taking those small prizes seriously.
Fortunately, it was not a big problem.
Because Lin Mo had already thought of a way to solve the problem of having no money to buy equipment.
According to the memories from his previous life.
"Players above level 5 can go to the Card Master Karl in Yunbian Town and draw equipment by spending silver coins. That's the fastest way in the early stage to get a large amount of gear."
"But the cost of drawing cards seems pretty high. Even with the 1 gold coin from the system's achievement reward, I probably won't be able to draw that many pieces. I need to save up more gold first, then go draw."
Secondly, his level was not high enough yet.
So he could take the chance of earning gold to also raise his level to 5 and unlock the card drawing function at the same time.
So, Lin Mo went to the pharmacy in Yunbian Town.
As a reborn person, if he were to just go step by step by the book again, then wouldn't his reincarnation be wasted?
The pharmacy in Yunbian Town was exactly where a method was hidden that no one except Lin Mo knew about, a way to quickly earn a large amount of gold.
At this moment, there were quite a few players in the pharmacy buying potions.
Although the recharge function was closed in the early stage of Divine Oracle, whale players could still spend money to buy copper coins from other players.
Level 1 health potions, priced as high as 10 copper per bottle, were simply unaffordable for normal players. They were exactly the key for whale players to pull ahead of free players in the early game.
Lin Mo entered the pharmacy and did not buy potions. Instead, he went straight to the lady boss [Jasmine] to trigger a dialogue.
"Boss lady, you look like you're in a bad mood. Is the shop short on herbs?"
Jasmine, who had been propping her chin on one hand, drooping her head and frowning on the table, suddenly brightened up, "How did you know?"
Lin Mo just smiled without saying anything, "I'll help you gather herbs."
Jasmine was overjoyed, "That would really be wonderful."
"You're much more observant than they are. Little handsome guy, once you help big sis finish the quest, big sis will definitely reward you well, okay?", Jasmine, pretty-faced and curvy, stared at Lin Mo, her eyes full of flirtation.
As soon as Jasmine finished speaking, Lin Mo received a quest:
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[Gather Herbs] (Normal Quest)
— Difficulty Rating: 30
— Description: The herbs in the Yunbian Town pharmacy are running out. Please go to the Herb Valley map and kill Man-eating Flowers to collect herb cores.
— Quest Progress: 0/10
— Quest Rewards: EXP +200, Copper +12, Reputation +1, Jasmine's Favorability +1, Random Tier 1 Equipment +1 (guaranteed on first completion, chance halves with each subsequent completion)
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Lin Mo opened the map and searched for Herb Valley, finding that it was a level 5 high-level wild area.
"Orange-quality Newbie Pants can perfectly withstand the attacks of level 3 and 4 monsters, but against level 5 monsters, they might be a bit lacking."
So, Lin Mo spent 1 silver coin to buy a stack of 10 health potions.
[Level 1 Health Potion: Restores 50 HP on use, and then restores 5 HP every second for 10 seconds, cooldown 60 seconds.]
Same old thing, if you're willing to spend, there will be returns.
Besides, compared to the large amount of gold Lin Mo would be able to earn later by completing this quest through the pharmacy lady boss, that 1 silver coin was nothing at all.
Once he was ready, Lin Mo followed the map marker and headed to the level 5 Herb Valley.
An hour had already passed since Divine Oracle's servers opened.
According to Yunbian Town's level ranking, Lin Mo, at level 3 with 15%, was firmly in first place.
The second place, [Hero of Troubled Times], had just reached level 2 with 1%.
'Looks like this SSS-tier talent really is broken.'
Lin Mo could not help sighing.
Aside from that, most of the other players in Yunbian Town had just reached level 1.
So right now, the Herb Valley at level 5 was a place no one dared step into, completely empty inside.
Only all over the ground, huge purple man-eating flowers like the ones from Plants vs. Zombies, stood with bloody maws open, waiting for prey to come.
Eagerly, Lin Mo grabbed the World-Shatter · Flowing Light Sword and stepped into Herb Valley.
Because for him, to earn gold through the pharmacy lady boss, he did not just need to collect ten herb cores. But… one hundred.
As he moved close to one Man-eating Flower, he tossed a Detection at it.
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[Demonized Man-eating Flower] (Normal Monster)
— Level: 5
— Attack: 55
— Defense: 25
— HP: 244
— Description: One bite at a time, yum yum, crispy and crunchy!
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"These stats… are really insane."
Just as Lin Mo was marveling at how strong this level 5 monster was.
Splat!
The Man-eating Flower suddenly spat a mouthful of green old phlegm at him, hitting Lin Mo on the shoulder.
Sizzle!
Smoke rose.
As the spot on his shoulder that got hit quickly corroded, a blood-red damage number popped up above Lin Mo's head.
-11!
Sure enough, just one piece of orange armor was not enough to hold off the damage from a level 5 monster.
"Damn!"
"No honor at all!"
Having been sneak-attacked by the Man-eating Flower, Lin Mo grabbed his gold weapon and charged over in anger.
Slash!
Slash!
-103!
-155 (Crit / players' initial crit damage is 150%)!
With just two slashes, he directly killed the Man-eating Flower.
"This golden weapon's damage really is terrifying."
Even though it was still only a level 0 weapon.
[Ding～ You killed level 5 monster Demonized Man-eating Flower, EXP +40!]
Picking up the 2 copper coins and one blood-red [Herb Core] that dropped on the ground, Lin Mo could not help complaining, "A level 5 monster only drops 2 copper, so stingy. If I had to rely on money from monster drops to draw equipment, I'd be grinding until who knows what year."
Walking around the Man-eating Flower's corpse, Lin Mo went on to kill the next target.
The EXP from level 5 monsters was indeed high.
Each Man-eating Flower could give Lin Mo a full 4 percent EXP.
After killing more than twenty Man-eating Flowers in a row, a beam of golden light fell from above his head.
Lin Mo leveled up to 4 at a shocking speed.
He also gained 3 free stat points.
"When you change class at level 10, the system will give you one free stat reset. Before that, there's no need to overthink the stat allocation. Just add whatever you're lacking."
Right now, Lin Mo's damage was already enough, and he did not need to put more into Strength.
So this time, he put all the level-up points into [Endurance].
His Defense rose to 28.
From then on, each time a Man-eating Flower attacked, it could only do a tiny 7 points of damage to Lin Mo.
With roughly one hit taken per Man-eating Flower on average, he only needed one health potion for every 14–15 Man-eating Flowers he killed.
Ten health potions in his bag were more than enough.
Slash!
Slash!
Slash!
[Ding～ You killed level 5 monster Demonized Man-eating Flower, EXP +40!]
[Ding～ You killed level 5 monster Demonized Man-eating Flower, EXP +40!]
[Ding…]
———
Deep into the night, in the silent Herb Valley, only the sound of Lin Mo swinging his sword and the roars of the Man-eating Flowers intertwined with each other.
In less than an hour, he had finished killing one hundred Man-eating Flowers.
By this time, some players who had reached level 3 were starting to form parties and come to Herb Valley to grind Man-eating Flowers.
Looking at the hundred herb cores in his backpack, Lin Mo said with satisfaction, "Done, time to pack up and head home!"
Just as Lin Mo was about to turn around and leave Herb Valley.
"AHHH!"
Hearing the shrill scream, the moment Lin Mo turned around toward the sound, he saw, deep inside Herb Valley—
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Several beams of white light symbolizing player deaths shot into the sky.
"The boss spawned!"