Chapter 1423: Instance Clearance Invitation
The Gentleman Player was the type with rich practical combat experience. His item configuration ratio was quite good. Items like the musical staff were suited to his traits, but they weren't his only combat items. The ratio of melee to long-range attack weapons was roughly one to one. As for defensive items, such as precautionary tools and those defending against weapon attacks, their quantity was more than three times that of attack items. Defensive items were typically used to establish barriers or to increase the distance between himself and his enemies through other means, which could also defend against traits to a certain extent. Probably because his body had only undergone secondary evolution, the items he used to defend against trait attacks accounted for half of his defensive items, among which there were even three A-grade items.
Items specifically designed to defend against traits... He must have suffered a great loss in terms of traits before.
Xu Huo hadn't encountered any particularly powerful traits so far. Of course, this might also be because the players he had faced were not of a high level. The Gentleman Player was one example, but even his trait attacks weren't impossible to defend against, especially at close range. Naturally, the main reason was that his trait's lethality wasn't strong enough to immediately threaten a player's life.
Traits could only serve as support, and their improvement relied on luck during instance clearance to upgrade. Whether a primary trait could continue to upgrade and what effects extended traits would have were completely unpredictable. Since luck outweighed effort, most players naturally preferred controllable items and instruments. This was also the players' way of survival.
This included Xu Huo. He rarely used his traits in battle, relying more on items and instruments.
But "rarely" didn't mean "never." Perhaps he should consider how to defend against traits in actual combat, since it wasn't always possible to create distance the moment an enemy appeared.
Thinking of this, Xu Huo suddenly recalled what Bai Kou had once said about temporal items and temporal sub-class stones attracting each other.
This claim had no definitive conclusion. He had later looked up relevant information and found that some scholars believed temporal items and raw materials shared commonalities, hence the mutual attraction. Other scholars argued that such attraction was absolutely impossible, since regardless of whether it was a temporal item or some raw material used to craft one, their volume was extremely small. They couldn't span great distances or even spaces. This attraction had no scientific basis to support it; it was more like a mystical theory.
Now, he could somewhat sense this mystique. The Gentleman Player's evolution was very strong, and it could even be used as an independent combat weapon. Yet he had prepared many items to interfere with traits. Could this be interpreted as meaning that because his trait evolution was stronger, he had encountered many players with strong trait evolution, hence his concerns in this area?
However, the Gentleman Player was a B-grade player. It was normal for him to encounter more and stronger players, and the frequency of encountering players with strong traits would correspondingly increase. That wasn't strange.
Regardless of the reason, the Gentleman Player's appearance served as a reminder. Perhaps some traits couldn't be defended against by creating distance or adding spatial barriers.
"Ding dong!" Li Kun sent another message. This time, he explicitly said he wanted to introduce a friend to Xu Huo, and they planned to go to a newly generated instance.
Xu Huo had already refused once before, but his gaze paused briefly on the words "newly generated instance" before he agreed to the meeting.
The dining place was set on Two-Fifths Avenue. He tidied up the items in his room and left the hotel.
The auto-flying car navigated to the restaurant Li Kun had mentioned. Unexpectedly, the man was waiting for him at the entrance. Seeing him get out of the car, Li Kun warmly greeted him, "Finally got you to come!"
"I could have gone up by myself," Xu Huo said with a smile.
"That's different. You're my important partner." Li Kun laughed heartily and led him to a room on the eighth floor. Inside the room, only a man around thirty years old was waiting. As Xu Huo entered, the man proactively came over to greet him and said politely, "I don't know your taste, so I just ordered a few dishes casually. See if anything suits you, and we can add more later."
When someone is overly courteous, they have a request. The two of them were being far too polite.
The three sat down. They weren't in a hurry to discuss business. Li Kun first urged Xu Huo to eat and then mentioned that he should have arranged proper accommodation for him last night instead of going off to enjoy himself, since Xu Huo was unfamiliar with the place.
Players traveled through various unfamiliar environments; there was naturally no need for someone to take care of them. Li Kun had clearly thought the same way yesterday.
Xu Huo acted as if nothing had happened. It wasn't until the meal was nearly over that Li Kun asked if he planned to stay in Platinum Eye to do instances.
As a relatively mature wormhole point and district, Platinum Eye certainly had no shortage of instance guides. However, many instances had been thoroughly cleared. They could be completed, but the benefits were clearly meager. Players who valued practicality didn't want to join in that commotion. Instead, newly appeared instances were more profitable.
"I plan to follow some guides and do two instances to level up," Xu Huo said. "What, do you have a good recommendation?"
Li Kun exchanged a glance with his friend Duan Cheng. The former said, "Brother Xu's strength has long surpassed the average C-grade player. It wouldn't be hard for you to level up early. But compared to clearing instances, the rewards from new instances are greater. Especially newly released ones—their clearance rewards are relatively generous."
This didn't sway Xu Huo. "Clearance rewards depend on the rating. If the rating isn't high, no matter how generous the new instance's rewards are, they won't fall into the player's hands. Moreover, the risk is higher in completely unfamiliar instances."
The mortality rate among new players was so high not just because they were weak; information was crucial.
"Instances, well, it's all about whether the rewards and risks are proportional," Li Kun said, patting Duan Cheng on the shoulder. "My friend here has a reliable source. He knows for sure that there's an unclaimed item in that newly generated instance. Isn't that reward worth the risk?"
Xu Huo paused slightly. Some instances would spawn items when they first formed. Like ownerless instances, these items were also unclaimed—whoever found them got them. "Three Seconds of Life" was something he had unexpectedly obtained from an instance. Decibel Town might not have been a brand-new instance, but it proved that items could indeed be born in instances, with no level restrictions. The earlier a player entered an instance, the more likely they were to obtain them.
This was like a treasure chest by the roadside—a free pickup that could potentially yield a high-grade weapon.
"Since the news has already leaked, there should be quite a few players heading to this instance by now," he said. "Can we still buy tickets?"
"That's why we plan to enter the instance as soon as possible, to seize the timing," Duan Cheng admitted. "Although it's a C-grade instance, it's not impossible to find a B-grade player to cooperate with. But if we find a B-grade player, we'd lose our advantage, and we might not succeed in bringing the item out."
"Li Kun said Brother Xu is a man of his word and even saved his life once. That's why we wanted to cooperate with you—split the gains three ways this time."