Chapter 19: The Camp of Stars

"That's not necessarily true. Didn't you hear? Yesterday, someone found two Night Lotuses on the east side of the camp. Who knows what kind of dumb luck they had, but they actually managed to brew a bottle of Life Enhancement Potion and sold it for 200 gold!"

Everyone gasped in astonishment. At the current official exchange rate, 200 gold was roughly equivalent to five thousand yuan.

Spurred on by this news, everyone redoubled their efforts: just as the game's official website claimed, opportunities were everywhere in the game—it was simply a matter of whether you had the ability to seize them.

At that moment, a sharp scream suddenly rang out from the other side of the forest, startlingly clear in the otherwise quiet surroundings.

Everyone turned their heads in unison toward the direction of the sound, unease written across their faces. That was the core area of the Starfall Camp, teeming with high-level bandits and wild beasts.

"Someone went into the bandit camp?" Xiao Rui exclaimed in surprise.

"What?"

A bearded middle-aged man stood up from the underbrush, cocked his head to listen for a moment, and then said, "It should be fine. No one would be foolish enough to mess with the center of the camp right now. There's a boss there, after all."

"Let's hope so. Last time, some herbalist accidentally lured out Gibbs, and every player around the camp was trampled. It was a massacre..." someone nearby added.

At the mention of "Gibbs," everyone's expressions changed, and a look of dread and lingering fear swept across their faces.

The middle-aged man tried to sound relaxed. "It's fine. I doubt anyone’s stupid enough to provoke the boss. We just need to stay alert."

Everyone nodded, and after waiting a moment without further incident, they returned to gathering herbs among the trees.

At the entrance to Starfall Camp.

Lu Kuan pulled a feathered arrow from a corpse, wiped the blood off on his trouser leg, and looked around. The trees within the camp grew sparse, sunlight filtering through the canopy to illuminate the druidic structures below, their moss and leaf mold barely concealing the ancient buildings.

These buildings varied in size, the grandest towering over twenty meters high. To call them wooden huts would be an understatement; they were more like great halls. But the once-sacred druid camp had long since been taken over by bandits, and vicious, armed thugs were everywhere.

The monsters in Starfall Camp were high-level, so there was little risk of kill-stealing for now—a piece of good news for Lu Kuan.

With that in mind, he glanced down at his quest log.

"Quest: Dark Pulsation (B)

Divining demons is dangerous work, but that’s not the point. The important thing is that we still need a crucial material: Primal Jade.

Unfortunately, this stuff is monopolized by those stingy quartermasters at the City Lord’s Hall. Only adventurers with sufficient reputation can buy it. I don’t need to spell out what you have to do next, do I?

Bring me Primal Jade, and I’ll tell you where the demon is."

The reputation mentioned in the quest referred to that of Molten Fortress. Starfall Camp was the prime spot to grind reputation, but only after triggering this part of the quest would killing bandits here yield reputation rewards. Like the Centipede Elixir, it couldn’t be prepared in advance.

The reputation levels for each faction, ranked from lowest to highest, were: Hostile, Hated, Neutral, Friendly, Intimate, Revered, Illustrious, and Legendary. To purchase Primal Jade, the minimum reputation required was Friendly.

"Players start with Neutral reputation at Molten Fortress. I should be able to reach Friendly before nightfall—otherwise, I’ll be forced to risk killing monsters at night..." Lu Kuan muttered to himself. Then, gripping the fletching between his index and middle fingers, he drew his bow and aimed at a patrolling bandit in the distance.

"Your Bone-breaking Arrow hit the target, -17!"

"...Concussive Shot hit the target, immobilization remaining: 1s."

"Normal attack missed."

"Normal attack hit the target, -46! (Vital, Critical)"

"You killed a camp bandit. Gained 14 EXP. Gained 5 Molten Fortress reputation."

Arrows flashed in the air—a burst of damage, a moment's control, another burst of damage—all unleashed in three short seconds. The bandit, steel blade in hand, didn’t even have time to react before collapsing helplessly to the ground, never making a sound.

Lu Kuan smiled in satisfaction. In some ways, Rangers were much like the Assassin, the advanced class of Rogues: both strove to seize the initiative in battle and maintain that edge until the fight was won.

The only thing that bothered him was the 15% accuracy penalty for ranged weapons, something that could only be offset by equipment and skills—no matter how true his aim, that was the rule.

Lu Kuan surveyed the terrain again and chose a direction where the bandits were fewer, then crept forward stealthily.

When a person focuses on a task, time flies. An hour later, the eastern side of the camp was littered with bandit corpses.

As Lu Kuan habitually reached for his quiver, he found it empty.

"Hm? Out of arrows again..."

He was a bit resigned. Low-level quivers could hold at most fifty arrows, and if they were the special, extra-long, heavy arrows, even fewer.

As he rummaged in his pack for spare arrows, Lu Kuan tried to recall which quests in Molten Fortress rewarded quivers: quivers were classified as relic equipment, rarer even than jewelry—hard to come by. If worst came to worst, he’d have to commission a leatherworker to craft one...

While deep in thought, he vaguely heard a faint rustling behind him, as if someone were sneaking up. At the same time, two words flashed silently in yellow at the lower right of his field of vision.

Listen.

It was a system prompt—his Listen skill was activating.

Every muscle in Lu Kuan’s body tensed. Instinctively, he dove forward—and almost simultaneously, a sharp pain stabbed into the back of his neck!

"System prompt: '**Expert' has attacked you."

"The enemy's Garrote failed to fully connect. You take 32 damage (Vital Attack)!"

"You dodged the enemy's Backstab!"

A string of system messages flashed by. Lu Kuan didn’t bother to read them. He rolled twice in a flash, darting five or six meters forward before turning back, his heart still pounding.

A rogue crouched where Lu Kuan had just been, twin daggers gleaming in his hands, frozen mid-Backstab, an utterly dumbfounded look on his face.

Lu Kuan recognized him at once: it was the human rogue from the Glory Guild, the one who’d tried to ambush him at the Cliff of Valor but ended up getting shot off the cliff instead.

"Damn!"

For a split second, **Expert was truly stunned. He’d played the game for so long, and this was the first time someone had dodged his sneak attack.

That kid’s luck was outrageous...

Lu Kuan, meanwhile, was shaken. Who would have thought that after a lifetime as the hunter, he’d nearly be pecked by the goose? In Echoes of the Gods, taking a vital hit could stun you, and the odds multiplied if you were caught completely off-guard.