secret dice.

Chapter 783, the Beginner's Guide, is a must-read!

Finding herbs this time was much more difficult than finding spiders before. These dozen or so medicinal herbs had different appearances, habits, and distributions. Luo Jun searched the forest day and night, and finally found them all on the morning of the third day.

"This should be fine now, right?" Luo Jun handed the medicinal herbs to the village chief, removing the exclamation mark from his head.

"Thank you for the herbs, the scholar is saved now." The village chief smiled and put away the herbs. "But a new problem has arisen. Yesterday, one of our hunters went into the mountains and discovered a spirit-disrupting tree... This is a plant cultivated by a mad magician many years ago. The fluctuations it emits can interfere with the flow of magic, causing teleportation arrays to malfunction. We originally thought this plant had been eradicated, but we didn't expect it to still exist in the jungle. If we leave it unattended, the magic array won't be able to function properly!"

"Again?" Luo Jun felt like he was going crazy. "Cut down trees, huh? Tell me, how many do you want to cut down this time?"

“We don’t know the exact number, but these trees can only survive in places with copper mines. You can go there and look for them,” the village chief suggested. “We don’t need to cut them all down. As long as the interference is reduced to a certain level, the magic array will be fine.”

"Copper mines?" Luo Jun asked, "How would I know where there are copper mines?"

“You can ask the village blacksmith,” the village chief said, pointing to the smoking house at the east end of the village. “He knows the distribution of mineral resources like the back of his hand.”

"A blacksmith?" Luo Jun thought to himself that as long as there was a guide, he would be fine. He turned around and walked towards the blacksmith's shop. After taking two steps, he turned back: "Now that we've finished cutting down the trees, we're sure we can activate the magic array, right? If you have any other requests, could you please tell me them all at once?"

Upon hearing his question, the village chief shrugged: "That's how it is for now. I can't predict what will happen in the future..."

"I knew it!" Luo Jun sighed through gritted teeth and headed to the blacksmith's place.

"You want to know the distribution of copper mines in the forest?" The tall blacksmith's head gleamed with a question mark. He put down his hammer, wiped his sweat, and said, "I know the location of all the mineral deposits in the great jungle like the back of my hand, but I'm not in the mood to draw you a map right now because my daughter has been kidnapped by goblins..."

As he spoke, the blacksmith clutched his head and cried twice.

"You're not in the mood to draw distribution maps, but you're in the mood to forge iron here?" Luo Jun's forehead veins throbbed.

“I’m a rough man, I don’t know anything but blacksmithing, this is the only way I can comfort myself.” The blacksmith sighed, “If you can help me find my daughter, I will draw a map for you showing you the locations of all the mineral deposits in the forest.”

"How long has your daughter been kidnapped by goblins?" Luo Jun asked.

"It's been more than a month."

"Then I advise you to let it go. I bet your daughter is showing by now..." Luo Jun sighed.

"Waaah, even if it's just a corpse, I want to bring her back and bury her in the village cemetery..." The blacksmith cried even louder.

Luo Jun frowned and tried to activate his Soul-Stealing Technique, but it had no effect on the blacksmith, as if the other party was not human, but a programmed machine...

It seemed there was no way to take shortcuts, so he had no choice but to accept the mission. He found out the location of the goblin's lair and discovered it was on the edge of the jungle, only two or three kilometers away from the village. At that distance, there were basically no dangerous monsters. He figured that organizing a few strong villagers would be enough to rescue the person.

To avoid the hassle of going back and forth, he took a walk around the village before leaving and looked for other NPCs with question marks above their heads.

The village pharmacist lost his backpack while collecting herbs in the mountains and hopes Luo Jun can help him find it.

The hunter's son fell in love with the tailor's daughter, but lacked the courage to confess his feelings. He asked the tailor to help him deliver a love letter.

……

Looking at these tasks, Luo Jun seemed to be deep in thought, when suddenly something occurred to him.

He first helped the hunter's son deliver love letters, and it turned out that the girl also had feelings for him. They were kindred spirits and finally confessed their feelings.

Luo Jun didn't care about their relationship development; he just wanted to hurry back to collect his reward.

"Oh, thank you so much! I knew she cared about me too!" The hunter's son was so happy he almost jumped for joy. "My family doesn't have anything valuable to thank you for, but I spend a lot of time in the jungle, and I know exactly where the monsters are. If you want to go into the jungle and want to know where a certain monster is, I can mark it for you!"

Luo Jun swallowed hard: "I want to know the location of the Crystal Spider..."

“No problem!” The hunter’s son took the map and quickly pointed to more than a dozen places: “These are all crystal spider nests near the village. I don’t dare to go too far, but I’ve heard that there are also some in valleys and caves. However, those places are usually inhabited by other powerful monsters, so I advise you not to take the risk.”

Holding the map, Luo Jun discovered that the furthest lair was less than three kilometers from the village...

Is that so?

Luo Jun recalled that when he was searching for spiders, he always ventured deep into the jungle, searching valleys, and even venturing into caves at the foot of mountains, where there were many powerful, high-level monsters... Although he easily dealt with them, ordinary cultivators would have a much harder time tackling them...

It seems the correct order is to listen to the village chief and complete the tasks assigned by the other villagers first. For example, the hunter will point him to the location of the crystal spider, the apothecary can probably tell him the distribution of various herbs, and the blacksmith will tell him the location of the copper mine...

In this way, the tasks are interconnected, making the process very smooth.

He was so focused on getting the game done quickly that he ignored all the side quests, which actually wasted more time!
Luo Jun slapped his thigh and immediately plunged into the forest, heading straight for the goblin's lair.

These little monsters weren't very strong, and Luo Jun noticed that they weren't ordinary creatures either; they all had health and mana bars, just like him. Every time he punched one, no matter where it hit, it would deduct from its health bar. Even if he hit its arm, it wouldn't cause permanent damage, but would directly kill the monster by draining its health. It was truly a game setting that relied entirely on numerical values…

After clearing out the goblins and rescuing the girl, thankfully, she seemed only frightened and hadn't suffered any inhumane torture... It was as if these goblins had been holding her captive for over a month, feeding and caring for her, just waiting for her to be rescued. Meanwhile, the apothecary's lost backpack was nearby, so Luo Jun went to find it, killed a large python, and brought the backpack back as well.

Luo Jun first went to find the blacksmith, handed in the task, and when he saw his daughter, the old blacksmith was working hard at forging iron with a chuckle just a second ago, but the next second he dropped his hammer, picked up his daughter and burst into tears. The abrupt change and the poor acting left Luo Jun in awe.

To thank Luo Jun, the blacksmith marked the location of the copper mine near the village. Luo Jun then took the map and went to find the apothecary.

The pharmacist is indeed a prerequisite for the healing scholar. This time, Luo Jun didn't even need to make an extra trip. His backpack was full of herbs he had collected before, and everything Luo Jun needed was there. He gave them to him as soon as he asked.

I really took a lot of detours before...

There was no use in lamenting now. Luo Jun left the village, followed the blacksmith's blueprints to the copper mine, and began cutting down the spirit-disturbing trees according to the tree guide given to him by the village chief.

Just as the village chief said, it wasn't necessary to cut them all down; just a certain number would be enough to reduce interference with the magic circle. Fortunately, there was a quest guide, and once Luo Jun had cut down the required number, a notification sound came that the quest was complete.

Back in the village, the village chief was overjoyed and grateful for his contributions to the village. Just then, the scholar recovered and the magic array was activated to send him away.

When he arrived at the magic circle, the villagers came to see him off. The childhood sweetheart who had greeted Luo Jun first handed him a cloak, saying, "This is a cloak I made. I know my skills are terrible, but I learned diligently from the tailor. It contains my heartfelt wishes. Don't forget me when you get out!"

Luo Jun took the cloak and saw that it was called the Cloak Full of Heartfelt Wishes. It was a high-quality green cloak that provided one point of armor and five points of cold resistance. It also had a special effect called "Innocent Heartfelt Wishes," which would grant the wearer a blessing from someone who cared about them and increase their loot by 1%.

It's better than nothing for beginners, I suppose.

"This is the best sword in the village!" The village chief also came over, and the blacksmith uncle next to him took out a sword with an ancient design, whose scabbard and hilt were obviously worn and faded. "This was left behind by a warrior who passed through the village a long time ago. Although many years have passed, we have taken great care of it. Don't be fooled by its age; its sharpness is as good as ever!"

Here it comes, the Village Sword!
Luo Jun took the sword and drew it; it indeed gleamed with a cold light.

This is a blue-quality rare weapon with 30 points of cutting damage and 35 points of piercing damage. It also has two special effects: one is that it can automatically regenerate durability, and the other is that it has a 10% chance to critically hit and deal 1.5 times the damage.

Common, excellent, rare, corresponding to white, green, blue... It seems that the equipment classification in this world is similar to that of Noble Phantasms. The only difference is that Luo Jun's tattered clothes are of gray, low-quality, which is not found in Noble Phantasms.

But how high exactly is this 30+ point of cutting and piercing damage?
Out of curiosity, Luo Jun picked up the sword, summoned the armory, and checked his status. To his surprise, he found that the attack power column had changed.

The original three question marks have been replaced with 150 points of cutting damage and 175 points of piercing damage.

What's happening here?
Luo Jun curiously checked the details and found that the damage calculation was a value obtained by multiplying the strength modifier by the corresponding weapon skill and then by the weapon's own damage.

His current strength modifier is ten points, which is the maximum. His weapon's corresponding skill, swordsmanship, is currently at level zero with a coefficient of 0.5. Therefore, the final damage will be five times the weapon's base damage.

Is this how it is calculated?
This seems quite reasonable. The greater the strength, the stronger the attack power. However, if the technique is lacking, it's difficult to unleash the weapon's full potential. But even someone who doesn't know swordsmanship shouldn't be unable to deal damage with a sword, so the coefficient for level zero is 0.5, meaning a novice's damage is halved.

However, Luo Jun was curious about the fact that this strength modification value was a bit ridiculous. He didn't know how high the strength could reach the maximum of ten points, but obviously, with his saintly body and a thousand points of strength attribute, his physical strength, if not unprecedented, could at least crush most martial arts practitioners who used Qi to ascend to immortality. Is this kind of strength really ten points?
However, when I opened the Battle Body attribute interface, my attack power still showed as unarmed, and there were still three question marks.

It seems that the values ​​in the attribute interface do not take into account equipment bonuses.

So it seems that this is the rule of the game world: the more you rely on things in this world to act, the more you are restricted by the rules of the world. Conversely, fighting without weapons and purely with your bare hands allows you to better unleash your true power.

Having gained a better understanding of the world's rules, Luo Jun donned the cloak given to him by his childhood sweetheart, fastened the Village Sword to his waist, bid farewell to everyone, and stepped onto the teleportation array.

As the scholar cast the spell, a beam of light appeared, and the scenery around Luo Jun began to blur, slowly transforming from a tranquil mountain village into an endless sea...

Luo Jun looked down and found himself standing on the edge of a cliff. Looking back, he saw a towering lighthouse behind him.

The lighthouse stands on a high point on the coast. Luo Jun looks into the distance and can see a bustling port not far away. Sailboats are moored along the shore, workers are loading and unloading goods, merchants are counting the goods, and vendors are pushing carts to sell snacks and drinks to the off-duty workers. From afar, it is a lively and busy scene.

Looking towards the land, one can see rows of exquisite buildings, including towering towers, magnificent churches, and even the fountain in the city's central square, where crystal-clear water, under the influence of magic, continuously gushes and bursts in the air, exuding a magnificent and fantastical charm.

"Is this the Harbor Port that the village chief mentioned?" Luo Jun took to the air and flew towards the center of the city, but just after passing the height of the lighthouse, he caught a glimpse of red, followed by a huge fireball shooting straight at him from the tower in the center of the city!

"This is..." Luo Jun dodged the fireball, which flew all the way to the depths of the sea. Before long, plate-armored knights riding on eagle-headed, lion-bodied monsters took to the air.

"This is... a Griffin Knight?" Luo Jun blinked, and then the knight captain came up to him: "Where did you come from, you Planeswalker? Flying is prohibited in the airspace of Harbor Harbor!"

"They seem to be the city's law enforcement team," Luo Jun said with a smile. "I'm from..."

At this point, he suddenly realized that he didn't know the name of the starting village...

But the knight captain noticed the still-functioning teleportation array beside the lighthouse: "You came from that abandoned teleportation array?"

"Ah, right!" Luo Jun nodded in response. Since they knew about the teleportation array, they should also know where Luo Jun came from.

“Another one from the Lost Lands!” the captain said. “It seems you don’t have an identity from the Oran Empire. Come with me to the town center to register!”

(End of this chapter)