MMORPG: Birth of the World's Luckiest Player-Chapter 132: The Damaged Three-Star Sacred Lotus

Three-Star Sacred Lotus (Saint-tier Herb): Harvested using a clumsy, Intermediate-level Herb Gathering skill. Due to insufficient precision and technique, the lotus has suffered damage. If consumed in its current condition, there is a 50% chance the user will experience a Mana Backlash, resulting in a complete Level Reset. Even if consumed successfully, the user must reach Level 80 before the lotus’s effects can be fully absorbed.

To unlock its power ahead of time, the lotus must be repaired by a Grandmaster Alchemist using sap extracted from the stem of a Starlight Frost-Bloom. This process will cleanse impurities and restore the herb to peak condition. There is no alternative method.

Marcus stared at the system screen, his jaw slack. A scream of pure frustration clawed at his throat. He felt the insane urge to either burst into tears or hurl his headset through the wall.

"What the hell is a Starlight Frost-Bloom?" he muttered, his voice hoarse with disbelief.

Just hearing the name made his stomach sink. There was no chance it was something you could casually buy from a roadside herbalist or farm in a beginner zone. He had a literal god-tier treasure sitting in his inventory, something players would kill for, and he had somehow managed to break it. The ultimate power-up was right there, dangling in front of him, except now it was also a ticking bomb that could erase his entire character. The absurdity of it made his head throb.

What Marcus did not realize was that, by all reasonable standards, he should have been celebrating instead of panicking.

A player with only Intermediate Herb Gathering attempting to harvest a Saint-tier herb typically had less than an eight percent chance of success. The odds of extracting a perfect, undamaged specimen were even worse, dipping below three percent. The fact that Marcus had managed to harvest the lotus at all, damaged or not, bordered on the miraculous.

With a long, defeated sigh, he placed the lotus into his inventory, afraid to look at it for too long. As he did, he noticed the faint blue glow on the surface of the lake beginning to dim. The remaining parts of the lotus, the leaves and stems still rooted in the water, were slowly dissolving, breaking apart like ice melting under the sun.

He froze.

’Wait. It’s a Saint-tier plant,’ he thought, his gamer instincts flaring to life. ’Even if I got the main body, the rest of it has to be valuable.’

He had never encountered anything remotely like this before. Without hesitation, he activated his newly upgraded Advanced Herb Gathering skill and started harvesting the dissolving remains as fast as his fingers would allow.

"Ding! Congratulations! You have harvested a Three-Star Sacred Lotus Leaf. Your proficiency has increased."

"Ding! Congratulations! You have harvested a Three-Star Sacred Lotus Flower. Your proficiency has increased."

Marcus worked like a man possessed, clicking and harvesting with frantic focus. By the time the last traces of blue light vanished from the lake, his inventory had noticeably grown heavier. He had managed to collect six leaves, four roots, four stems, three flowers, and three seeds before everything disappeared completely.

He had no idea what most of them were used for, but he didn’t need a guide to understand their value. A quick glance at his skill panel made his eyes widen. Harvesting those so-called leftovers had boosted his Advanced Herb Gathering experience by nearly fifty percent in one go. Whatever these materials were, they were anything but scraps.

With the lotus situation handled as well as it was going to be, Marcus took a slow lap around Star Lake, scanning the area carefully. The place felt like a paradise carved straight out of myth, saturated with natural energy so dense it made his skin tingle. He had hoped there might be more high-grade herbs nearby, or maybe a vein of rare minerals hidden beneath the soil.

An hour later, reality set in.

Aside from a specialty herb called Star-Grass, a high-level ingredient used in advanced potion crafting, the lake was completely barren. There were no other notable resources to be found. It became painfully clear that the Three-Star Sacred Lotus had been a greedy tenant, absorbing nearly every trace of mana the lake had accumulated over the past three thousand years.

He briefly considered staying to grind some experience, but one quick use of Insight killed that idea immediately. Every monster in the area outleveled him by more than ten levels, their stats hidden behind a solid wall of question marks.

The only reason he knew that much was because, during a previous encounter, he had managed to glimpse the stats of a Level 45 Zephyr Steed. That one success suggested his Insight skill had a slim chance of punching above its weight. He had spent hundreds of attempts since then spamming the skill on stronger monsters, hoping to level it up through sheer persistence, but not once had it triggered again. The proc rate was simply too low to make it a practical training method.

"Forget it," Marcus sighed, shaking his head. "I’ve got the mount. Time to get back to the grind. That Level 30 Dragon’s Crest Quest isn’t going to finish itself."

Almost as if the game had been waiting for him to say it, notifications exploded across his screen.

"Ding! Congratulations, Stonehaven! Your Super Divine Mount, the Nightmare Dragon Steed, has leveled up. It is now Level 10. Health +200, Mana +200, Attack +100, Defense +100."

"Ding! Your Nightmare Dragon Steed has reached Level 10. Dual-riding is now enabled."

Marcus had found a hunting ground where Level 30 monsters spawned in clusters and proceeded to slaughter them efficiently. While his own experience bar crawled forward at a frustratingly slow pace, the Nightmare Dragon Steed’s experience skyrocketed. It reached Level 10 in record time, unlocking the long-awaited dual-riding feature.

"Perfect," Marcus said, grinning.

He could finally ride together with Lily.

The only problem was that Lily, along with his sister Amber, were leveling at an almost comical pace. He knew they were busy with classes at Crestwood University, but somehow they had managed to spend an absurd amount of time lingering in the Newbie Village. It was impressive in its own way.

’What could possibly be so interesting about that place that they won’t come to Dragon’s Peak Citadel to find me?’ Marcus wondered, a wicked grin forming. ’I’m definitely filing a formal protest with Lily tonight.’

Ring... Ring...

He was just about to jump back into combat. His experience bar was sitting at eighty percent of Level 29, painfully close to breaking through the Level 30 cap. Then his phone rang.

He glanced at the caller ID.

Anya.

The grin on his face softened into a genuine smile as he accepted the call.

"Marcus? Do you have some time?" Anya’s voice came through the speaker, carrying a faint hint of boredom and unmistakable poutiness. "I want to go out. I haven’t really seen anything since I got back to campus. Can you come with me?"

"Yeah, sure," Marcus replied without hesitation.

Anya appeared on the screen, her lips curved downward in an exaggerated, aggrieved expression that made his chest tighten. She looked like she was personally holding him responsible for her lack of adventure.

He glanced out the window. The sun was bright, a gentle breeze stirred the trees, and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. Looking back at Anya’s soft, beautiful face, he felt that familiar lightheadedness creep in. A shopping trip (because it would be shopping) with a girl like her? The game could wait.

But with Anya, there was always a catch.

"Is Chloe there?" Marcus asked cautiously, lowering his voice as his eyes flicked to the background of her video feed. "Is she coming too?"

He couldn’t deny it. Chloe’s athletic build and striking presence were impossible to ignore. Unfortunately, her attitude toward him was... hostile, to put it mildly. He’d gotten used to avoiding direct eye contact. Why she seemed to hold such a grudge against him was one of life’s enduring mysteries. He was, by all accounts, a pretty okay guy.

It was a messed-up mix. He dreaded her being there, and part of him, a part he refused to examine, low-key hoped she would be.

"Oh?" Anya said, tilting her head with a teasing smile. "So if Chloe’s there, you won’t come?"

She looked pleased. It was nice to know Marcus finally had someone he was genuinely afraid of. At long last, Chloe was doing her job and getting a bit of payback for her.

’That absolute jerk,’ Anya thought fondly. He was always the one leaving her heart bruised, always making her feel like she was the one running after him. She’d sworn off him a thousand times; this colossal idiot, this infuriating guy, this charming menace. But she never could. Walking away felt physically impossible.

She couldn’t.

She buried the ache deep. What was the alternative? Just the thought of him sent a stupid thrill through her. Seeing his face made her stupidly happy. Hearing his voice was enough to dissolve every old grievance, turning past bitterness into something complex and weirdly sweet, like some acquired taste.

Now that there was finally someone who could make Marcus sweat, she absolutely had to make sure Chloe gave him hell. Probably. Maybe. Then again... could she actually stand to see that?

She’d come back to Crestwood University for ’him’. After graduation, she’d hoped distance would act like a reset button. Instead, a year apart had just distilled everything into a single, desperate need to be near him again. She’d come back, fully aware of the potential for more heartache.

"Of course I’m coming," Marcus said quickly, sensing danger and trying to recover. "It’s better if Chloe’s there."

He figured it was best to say something positive before the outing turned into a warzone.

"Better with Chloe?" Anya repeated, raising an eyebrow. "So it’s not good if it’s just me?"

"...."

Anya fixed him with those big, wounded eyes, like he’d just kicked a puppy right in front of her. Marcus felt the familiar wave of exasperation. It was a conversational minefield where every step was wrong.

"Where are we meeting?" he asked, changing the subject as smoothly as he could. "I’ll be there in a few."

God knows he’d imagined a day with Anya more times than he’d admit. And in those daydreams, it was always, perfectly, just the two of them. That would be the ideal.