[Fishing Rod (Blue)]

  Curse of Vanishing I

  Luck of the Sea I

  Mending

  “Is this for real?!” Looking at that item description, Yu Zhiye pinched himself. “Ow? Guess I’m not dreaming! It’s really there!”

  There was only a single line of change, but that single enchantment revamped everything!

  Mending – an enchantment that lets the player repair whatever item it exists on using XP gathered from all sources!

  Perhaps it didn’t mean much on certain items like axes, but on the fishing rod…

  Note that fishing costs 1 durability point, but the XP gained can be anywhere from 1 to 6. On average, that is 4 XP from every catch.

  And each XP point can mend 1 durability.

  That meant: on average, 4 durability will get mended for every fish caught! Which meant an always positive net gain!

  It goes without saying what the final result will be: a fishing rod that will always repair to full durability no matter how much fish it catches!

  How can Yu Zhiye not be excited! He now has his own Infinity Rod!

  “Well… only technically. It’s not indestructible. But it’s fine so long as I don’t go breaking it or using up all its durability on reeling in mobs and players.”

  Anyways, infinite durability is still good news. Of course, there’s always two sides to every coin.

  What’s the bad news? Well...

  From now on until the fishing rod reaches full durability, all XP will automatically go towards mending the rod.

  “This means my XP bar will be left out to dry for a while...”

  Yu Zhiye remembered when he last saw the bar, it reached Level 5, thanks to the 50ish XP earned from the grind today.

  But when Yu Zhiye looked at the rod’s durability bar that was nearing the yellow zone, he sighed.

  “By the looks of it, guess I’ll be stuck at level five for a while to come. Well, give and take.”

  Sacrifice leveling speed to preserve the only fishing rod he has. It was still a good trade-off no matter how he looks at it. At least, for now.

  But don’t forget the RPG-like status screen. If XP could be used for more than enchanting…

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Everybody understands that falling behind in levels in a multiplayer game will be a big setback.

  One step behind, many steps behind.

  “Hopefully the game model isn’t set up like in those virtual reality gaming novels. Otherwise, that’ll be a lot of achievements lost…”

  First to reach a certain level and promote to a new class, first to get sent out of tutorial village to a new city, etc.

  Just thinking about those tropes gave Yu Zhiye a headache.

  “Ugh. No need to think so much. Just go with the flow. With this pocket dimension cheat of mine, even if I fall behind, I’m still confident I can rise to prominence.”

  That’s just how OP this pocket dimension template is. There’s just too many roles it can play: from farmer to merchant to god.

  Those who understand, will understand.

  “Well, that’s for the future. Still long ways to go. Now, I’m just a survivor, one of many. Eh, everybody gotta start somewhere.”

  Yu Zhiye knew there was no point in thinking about it any further.

  After checking around once more and finding that nothing else had changed, he grabbed dinner and headed out.

  It didn’t take long before Yu Zhiye reunited with everybody out front.

  Here, most of the survivors were gathered by teams, save for the missing Anomaly A.

  Now, the one person that stood out the most was four-eyes who was going around passing out supplies.

  Guess he wasn’t all talk, after all.

  When Kwan Minhwoo saw Yu Zhiye, he shot him a polite smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He then whispered something to his sole lackey, who then trotted over.

  “Oi, you! Boss Kwan says he already passed your share to the other two in your team.”

  After rudely telling him the news, Lackey B trotted back to his boss like a loyal dog.

  Yu Zhiye didn’t find anything strange about his behavior and simply went over to sit with his party.

  Jack immediately greeted, “Bwahaha, Steve is finally here! What took you so long? Number two? The little missy almost couldn’t wait!”

  Yu Zhiye glanced at Miss Highschooler who already started om-nom-noming on an apple and stared back with big round eyes as if really wondering if he did number two.

  Yu Zhiye didn’t comment on that and merely shrugged. “Jack, you didn’t have to wait. If you’re hungry, just start without me.”

  “Yeah?” Jack chuckled and ripped open a bag of chips. “It’s fine. I’ve once went starving for days, so a few minutes more or less doesn’t matter.”

  Well, a man with a story. Too bad it’s not story time, but dinner time.

  Just when Yu Zhiye was about to ask about dinner, Jack pointed over to the four-eyes who just took a seat next to Miss Yoona and the rest in the leadership circle.

  “Steve, looks like he isn’t coming over. You aren’t going to go collect your share?”

  “Huh? My share?” Yu Zhiye looked at Jack with a perplexed face. “But that guy said he already passed my share to you two?”

  Both young and old stared back at him with equally-puzzled faces.

  “Ehh? But little Ling’er and uncle only got the same share as everybody else?”

  That innocent remark almost told Yu Zhiye everything he needed to know: there’s none of his share here!

  He exchanged a glance with the frowning Jack and both of them set their sights on the four-eyes.

  Sensing their gaze, Kwan Minhwoo looked over.

  As if oblivious to what they figured it out, a cheeky smile bloomed on the man’s face and he even toasted them with his beer.

  That taunt was at full-power and Jack was the first to curse.

  “Damn four-eyes! I knew he wasn’t a good thing when I first laid eyes on him! He even had the gall to tell us to not hang out with wrong sort! And now this? Just wait for me—!”

  Jack was about to get up and storm over, but Yu Zhiye quickly held him back. “Jack, calm down. There’s no need to lower yourself to their level or you’ll fall right into his scheme.”

  “Steve, but you…”

  “I know.” Yu Zhiye smiled back like he didn’t care. “It doesn’t matter. I have enough to eat anyways.”

  That’s what he said, but nobody won’t feel gloomy inside from getting schemed against like this.

  And this scheme was extremely sinister, too!