Fatal Shot

“Mister Kudo, please sit!”

Feng Luo walked into the house after taking off his shoes and changing into a pair of clogs and sat on the ground seiza-style. The lady in a snow-white sakura kimono said in a gentle, delicate voice. “Mister Kudo, please wait a moment. This kettle of gyokuro will be done in a short while!”

She sat seiza-style quietly beside the tea set, slowly and orderly boiling the tea. Her smooth, light movements had a sense of rhythmic beauty.

Feng Luo had to admit that even though this was in a virtual game, the rustic fragrance of this house and even the screens of antique paintings on the surrounding walls produced a considerable aura. He temporarily forgot about the mission, settled down, and quietly enjoyed the tea-boiling scene.

“Mister Kudo, please taste it. Please forgive any inadequacy!”

Five minutes later, a half-transparent porcelain tea bowl designed with blue flowers was placed in front of Feng Luo. On the surface of the tea, still whirling in light green, floated a layer of white tea foam releasing a light, calming fragrance.

“Good tea!”

Feng Luo held up the tea bowl and sipped from it. Even though he did not know much about the Tea Ceremony or whatever it was, good and bad tastes were nonetheless self-evident. What surprised him more was that after taking the sip, a message sounded from the system.

“You have drunk Rare-grade tea ‘Quality Gyokuro.’ Finishing a bowl, you have obtained: Full Attribute +5, Water Energy Resistance +20 percent. Effective Duration: one hour. As the tea has been prepared by a Tea Ceremony Master, additional 50 percent effective duration!”

“Tea Ceremony Master!”

Holding the tea bowl in his hand, Feng Luo paused in his actions.

Under the use of special formulae and rare materials, some food-related Life Professions could produce food that could temporarily or even permanently increase attributes. This type of Rare-grade “gyokuro” tea could be created by Expert-grades. However, it was indeed shocking to him that this beautiful NPC lady was actually of a Master-grade Life Profession and could even raise the enhancement effectiveness by 50 percent.

Yet another Master had appeared. Were Masters so easily produced nowadays?

Feng Luo thought about it. Within this period of time, he had indeed met many Masters: Lin, Old John, this Haruko, Master Rogue… These high-grade Life Profession NPCs seemed to be growing in number now. Could it be that this was a signal? Because technically, Experts correspond to Rare grades. And Masters technically were superior to Rare grades.

Up until now, no players were known to have broken through to the Master grade. Even though there had been much discussion on the forum, no one had ever provided a truly effective method of breakthrough. But, from this tea bowl, at least, it could be seen that a Master-grade Tea Master had directly raised the growth enhancement of the effective duration by half! This was obviously much stronger than Experts.

Apparently, the jump from Expert-grade to Master-grade Life Profession had a definite qualitative growth!

“I wonder how big a gap it is between the Expert grade and Master grade of the Gun Mechanic. And Old John—where on earth has he gone?”

Feng Luo was slightly distracted. But he knew that in this place, it was no time to be distracted, so he immediately regained focus.

“I am most happy that Mister Kudo could be here. Today, I will finally not have waited for nothing again. This kettle of quality gyokuro might not have been suited to Mister’s taste, but please accept it as Haruko’s act of goodwill!”

The beautiful NPC lady with waterfall-like long hair, and clothed in a snow-white sakura kimono, finally entered the main topic.

“No, no. This tea from Miss Haruko is really the best I’ve ever tasted.” As Feng Luo replied with his thanks, his heart was replaying the first half of what the NPC lady had said.

Will finally not have waited for nothing again…

This obviously meant that there had not been any player who was able to decode the hidden message within the words before today. That was why she had waited for such a long time.

This also revealed that there had not been many people who had come in the recent few days—more so, that there had not been a single investigator player who had come in the entire day before.

This was not initially strange. He knew that it was really hard to decode the hidden message in the words. Technically, he presumed that only two or three people in 100 would be able to discover it. However, this was in the case of solo-questing, under the circumstances whereby everyone had not engaged in information exchange. Since the Hounds had gathered hundreds of players, the rate of discovering the message of this hidden mission was technically a very high probability.

How strange. With that being said, why haven’t a huge number of the Hounds’ people come? Could it be that no one among them has discovered the hidden mission, or that they’ve discovered it but for some reason chosen not to do it? Could it be possible that there’s something special in this hidden mission?

Feng Luo quickly scanned through a few possibilities but still had some uncertainty. But this uncertainty perhaps could be answered by this NPC lady right in front of him.

“Mister Kudo has limited time participating in this investigation mission, I’ll go straight into the topic, then,” Haruko said, smiling.

After that, a wooden plank on the floor beside her flipped downward, and an open silver-colored Agent Passcode Chest gradually ascended. In the Agent Chest were 10 syringes filled with gray substances arranged neatly. They looked like some sort of potion. However, Feng Luo knew that these were not injections, as it was not the first time he had seen these things. These were something every player needed before they transferred and controlled their pets: biochips!

Biochips were in liquid state before they were injected, and after being injected into the human body, a section would form the chip core while the other section would split to all parts of the body like a sort of consciousness, relying on depletion of the organism’s energy to function, regulate, and strengthen itself.

The pet biochips used by animals and the chips used by humans had some slight differences in terms of the syringe structure. Those in the passcode chest were all human-use chips!

“These biochips? Could these be…?”

Feng Luo had a guess in his heart. His eyes stared straight at Haruko.

“These are 10 mission biochips!”

Indeed, the words of the smiling Haruko confirmed Feng Luo’s guess. “Other than the Sniper Profession, the biochips of all the three main basic profession branches, in addition to the two professions of Mechanist and Doctor, can be found in these 10.”

“Impossible…”

Hearing that, Feng Luo actually nearly confirmed his guess.

A second profession!

Could it be that this is the true “hidden” element of the Agent Hidden Profession? Allowing players to possess a second basic profession!

Feng Luo couldn’t control his excitement.

“Mister Kudo must have already guessed something,” Haruko said. “Right. Injecting this type of Profession Biochip researched in collaboration with the three agent departments would formulate a new chip core in the body. For you adventurers, it would mean possessing a second basic profession!”

Haruko sat with a few strands of hair blown on her face and continued to smile as if guessing Feng Luo’s thoughts.

*A traditional Japanese formal way of sitting on the ground, whereby one first kneels, then folds the legs under the thighs, and rests the buttocks on the heels.

“Cherry blossom” in Japanese.

Traditional Japanese female attire.

A type of shaded green tea from Japan.

Also known as the Way of Tea, a Japanese cultural activity involving a ceremonial preparation of matcha (powdered green tea).