"As expected, this is indeed the fastest way to reach the destination!" Guhan, who had been thrown a few kilometers away, got up easily and patted the dust off his body.
Although an average person would definitely die if they fell from a height of more than ten meters, Gu Han didn't seem to be a big deal. Although there were many wounds on his body, they were healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
This was the reason why the initial dungeon had no difficulty at all. Every newbie who entered the dungeon had a 100 times increase in HP, a 1000 times increase in HP recovery rate, and when one's HP was left with 1 point, they would no longer receive any damage. Even if you wanted to die, you could not!
Looking at the three-storey building with the signboard of "Old Frank's Grocery", Guhan knew that he had arrived at his next destination.
[System Notification: Quest updated. Quest 1: Escape from the ruins – complete.]
[System Notification: Quest updated. Quest 2: Find Old Frank's Grocery, no time limit.
Note: After 12 hours, the system will automatically teleport the player to the grocery.]
[System Notification: Quest updated. Quest 2: Find Old Frank's Grocery – complete.]
[System Notification: Quest updated. Quest 3: Enter the grocery and find the Fleeting Youth Calendar.]
Less than a minute had passed since Guhan entered the dungeon. Guhan had already completed two quests and entered the third quest.
In the initial dungeon strategy post with the highest number of clicks on the official forums, the time needed to climb out of the ruins was limited to around 20 minutes, and to find Old Frank's grocery store from the ruins would require around 10 minutes. Therefore, most of the players who strictly followed the strategy post would need more than 30 minutes to complete the first and second mission. No one could have imagined that there would be a day when there would be someone who would have less than a minute to complete the task that they would need 30 minutes to complete even if they gave it their all.
Since it was the guide post with the highest number of clicks, it was clear that this guide had been widely accepted and optimized to the best of the best.
The fact that the first and second quests required at least 30 minutes to complete had become the golden rule in the hearts of countless players. They could never have imagined that someone could actually shorten this step to within a minute. If this fact were to be made public, Sword Maiden Online's forums would instantly explode.
So the question was, how did Guhan find this shortcut?
Truth be told, it took Guhan two and a half years to find this shortcut.
One day, Guhan, who was searching through millions of beginner dungeon guide posts, suddenly found a post from seventy years ago.
The original poster wrote in a complaining tone, saying that he had rushed into the dungeon excitedly, and casually picked up a handful of coins. Then, he carelessly threw the coins away, and was caught by Yuan Kou from the ruins, and thrown more than 10 kilometers away. It took him a full 3 hours to find Old Frank's grocery store, and in the end, he only received a C grade evaluation.
At the end of the post, he also reminded others that if they found something like a coin, they must not throw it out. It could kill them.
The number of views of this post was not high. From the time it was first posted to the time Guhan saw the post, it had been more than 70 years. The total number of views was less than 1,000, and there were only about 30 replies. Most of the people who followed the post were laughing at the original poster's bad luck, and were here to watch a joke.
When Guhan saw this post for the first time, he was like most of the people who followed the post, feeling that there was no value in it. However, unlike most of the people who followed the post, Guhan firmly remembered the content of the post, and remembered the lesson of not throwing coins away.
Two years passed, and Guhan, who had roughly formulated a strategy, realized that the strategy he designed could not be shortened to within an hour. If he could not complete the dungeon within an hour, it would be impossible to get an SSS grade evaluation. If he could not get an SSS grade evaluation, Guhan's ambition as a swordsman would be reduced to a puff of smoke.
At that time, Gu Han was almost in a state of madness. He revised and reviewed his strategy day and night. He studied it hundreds of times from beginning to end. He found that the ones that wasted the most time and had the highest optimization potential were Mission 1 and Mission 2. These two Missions took up half of the planning time in half an hour, which was unacceptable.
Thus, Guhan began to desperately study ways to optimize the first and second missions. Suddenly, one day, Guhan recalled a post he had read before.
Guhan realized that although the owner of the post spent three hours to complete the first and second missions, these three hours were actually the time to complete the second mission. In this case, the actual time spent on the first mission was only a mere twenty seconds!!!
One had to know that the fastest time taken to complete the first mission previously took a full twenty minutes!!!!
This discovery made Guhan ecstatic. He studied this post over and over again as if he had found a treasure, looking for other posts with similar situations. After a few months of sorting, Guhan was surprised to find that there were other players who had thrown other things out, such as mice, badges, gravel, coke bottles, plastic blocks, but they were not discovered and pulled out by Yuan Kou. Only this player, who threw a handful of coins, was discovered by Yuan Kou.
Could it be that only by throwing a coin out would Yuan Kou discover it?
In order to verify his theory, Guhan posted on the internet and found a player who was about to turn eighteen and was activating the game for the first time. He made a deal with him, agreeing to let him throw a handful of coins out as well. He wanted to see if Yuan Kou would discover and throw it out, and where it would land!!
A few days later, the player sent news. He was indeed discovered and thrown out by Yuan Kou, just like the original poster. However, he seemed to be more unlucky, as he was thrown further away. It took him a full five hours to find the location of Old Frank's grocery store.
This meant that Yuan Kou's throwing distance and landing point were not fixed!!
Or perhaps, there was a pattern to the landing point!!!
Guhan was keenly aware of this point. He felt that this was the key to completing the mission. If there was a pattern to Yuan Kou throwing people out, then he, Guhan, would be able to use Yuan Kou's hand to reach wherever he wanted.
Thus, in order to verify his conjecture, Guhan invested all his savings and hired a large number of newbies to enter the instance dungeon.
From the timing of the coin toss, the number of coins tossed, the strength of the coin toss, etc., he conducted various experiments in an attempt to find the pattern of Yuan Kou throwing people out.
However, after investing a large amount of money, Guhan sadly discovered that there was no pattern to Yuan Kou throwing people out. The same number of coins tossed at the same time, with the same amount of strength, some people were thrown tens of kilometers away, while others were thrown a few kilometers away.
After a few months, not only did Guhan not get what he wanted, he also became a joke in the forum. Many people hired by Guhan posted on the forum, writing about their experiences of being hired by Guhan, earning Guhan the nickname of "Coin Idiot".
The large amount of hiring money quickly depleted Guhan's savings. Guhan had no choice but to stop this experiment of spending money. However, he did not give up. He believed that in the 200 years of accumulated posts, he would definitely be able to find what he wanted.
Finally, hard work paid off. On a day two and a half years later, Guhan suddenly found a post with less than 20 hits. This post described something like this.
The original poster of the post was born with a bad sense of direction. After coming out from the ruins, he was unable to find the location of Old Frank's grocery store. He wandered around like a headless fly for almost 11 hours. When he reached the power plant, he gave up and decided to close his eyes to rest, preparing to wait for the system to automatically teleport him after 12 hours.
Suddenly, he was grabbed by something and thrown out. When he landed, he opened his eyes and saw that he was at Old Frank's grocery store.
There were many things written at the end of the post, but Guhan could no longer read it. His attention was completely attracted by the story in front.
The original poster was also pulled up by Yuan Kou and thrown out. Although he wasn't pulled out from the ruins, he was thrown at the entrance of Old Frank's grocery store.
Thinking about it, could this Yuan Kou who threw players like grenades be the same Yuan Kou?
If it was the same Yuan Kou, why was the second player thrown by Yuan Kou to the entrance of the grocery store?
Did this player do something special??
Guhan hurriedly looked at the post a few more times and realized that the most unique thing about this player was that he dragged it out for more than 10 hours … This was meaningless. It would be too late if he dragged it out for more than 10 hours.
The second thing was that it was very far from Old Frank's grocery store. It was near the power plant … but that was meaningless. Gu Han could walk to Old Frank's grocery store five times before reaching the power plant.
The last thing was that the player was sleeping with his eyes closed!
With a hopeless situation, Guhan decided to find another player to give it a try. However, this time, he did not spend money to find someone. Instead, he found his best friend online friend, a person who was about to turn 18 and was activating the game for the first time.
After learning about Gu Han's thoughts, the best friend first mocked and scolded Gu Han. Then, he said that he would reluctantly help Gu Han this time. He closed his eyes and threw a handful of coins to prove how stupid Gu Han was. Then, he entered the game.
Two hours later, a shocking piece of news came out from the forums: Someone had broken the initial instance dungeon's rating record. The original S class rating record was raised to SS class. At the same time, the original record time of 2 hours, 27 minutes and 51 seconds to 1 hour, 50 minutes and 38 seconds was raised to 1 hour, 50 minutes and 38 seconds!