“This is already the cheapest.” William Carter shook his head. The reason the players nearby hadn’t bought anything yet was just because they were still hesitating; it didn’t mean they wouldn’t buy. If William Carter lowered the price of one piece of equipment, then he’d have to lower the prices of all the others as well. Since it was still early, he might as well keep his stall open until midnight. If no one bought anything by then, it wouldn’t be too late to lower the prices.

The elemental mage hesitated for a moment, gritted his teeth, made up his mind, and said, “I’ll buy it. Here are six silver coins.”

Sure enough, even though the price was a bit high, someone was still willing to accept it. William Carter felt a little relieved. After a while, more and more people passed by. Maybe they realized that the equipment sold elsewhere was more expensive than what William Carter was offering, so many people stopped at his stall. The equipment on the stall was sold one by one, and by midnight, all five pieces were gone. William Carter had earned thirty silver coins.

The harvest was pretty good, and it made William Carter realize something: since there was so much time at night, he should wait until evening to set up his stall and sell equipment. That way, he could make quite a bit of money and be much more financially comfortable.

William Carter packed up his stall and was about to leave.

“Hey, wait up, brother.”

A voice sounded behind William Carter. He turned around—it was the elemental mage from earlier.

“Is there something you need?” William Carter asked. The sky was dark, and the magical street lamps cast a dim yellow light, making it hard for William Carter to see the mage’s face clearly.

“I bought a piece of equipment from you just now. My name is Focus Fire.” The elemental mage introduced himself.

“I’m William Carter.” William Carter replied, feeling a bit puzzled as to why this player had hurriedly called out to him. Was he trying to return the item? No returns or exchanges after sale. Still, out of politeness, William Carter introduced himself.

“It’s like this—I want to find another player to team up and level with. I’m level four, a fire-elemental mage. I saw you selling so much equipment at your stall, so your level can’t be low either—at least level three, right?” Focus Fire said.

His guess was spot on. William Carter sized him up. This player named Focus Fire looked to be a young man of about twenty-six or twenty-seven, wearing the gray mage robe he’d just bought from William Carter. Now that they were closer, under the dim light, William Carter could make out his facial features—he was actually rather handsome. He held a nanmu staff, and his equipment was a bit better than William Carter’s, with a full set of white gear.

“I’m level three. As for teaming up…” William Carter hesitated. This player actually wanted to team up with him. A level four fire mage was quite high at this stage; the highest level in the entire Evil Alliance was only level six. But since the other was a fire mage, with high damage output, being one level higher than William Carter was normal.

“A rogue and a fire mage make a good combo. Want to grind monsters together tomorrow?” Focus Fire asked expectantly. He happened to need a melee class to tank at the front so he could unleash his maximum damage. Even though teaming up meant splitting experience, two people grinding monsters would definitely be faster than one, and leveling up would be much quicker. Focus Fire had searched the town for a long time but couldn’t find a suitable teammate—most people in town were only level two. That’s when he thought of William Carter.

William Carter was used to playing solo and didn’t really like teaming up to level. He could level up quickly enough on his own, and besides, he wanted to practice his skills more, especially Backstab and Eviscerate, which he still hadn’t mastered. So he shook his head and said, “I have things to do tomorrow. Maybe we can team up another time.”

William Carter was clearly making an excuse. Since William Carter didn’t want to team up, that was that. Focus Fire said a little disappointedly, “Alright, let’s get in touch another time.”

Focus Fire was just being polite. The two parted ways without adding each other as friends.

After selling all his equipment, William Carter logged out to have a meal, then entered the game again. With nothing much to do, William Carter wandered around the night market.

Chapter 12: Combo Skill – Backstab

“My boss just messaged me. He’s in the main city of Diya, in Nightfall City.”

“Did he give any instructions?”

“He said that level five monsters, Desert Sand Serpents, have a 0.01% chance to drop the recipe for Basic Instant Recovery Potion. He wants us to kill more Desert Sand Serpents. This recipe is very important for establishing a guild in the early stages, so we should try our best to get it.”

“0.01%? That’s way too low, and Desert Sand Serpents have a really slow respawn rate.”

“Yeah, but there’s nothing we can do. We’ll just have to try our luck and see if we can get it.”

William Carter glanced sideways at the two players chatting. One was an undead warrior, the other a dark warlock. Their conversation caught Henry Carter’s interest. The recipe for Basic Instant Recovery Potion? He needed that too. It looked like he’d have to farm more Desert Sand Serpents. Farming monsters two levels above him would be tough, but still doable. He’d head to the Desert Sand Serpent area tomorrow, William Carter thought.

As William Carter wandered the night market, he realized that if you paid close attention, you could often overhear some very useful information.