Entering The Wilderness
He didn't search for long this time, as after five minutes he found his next target. He was an axeman, with a big axe hung on his back. His appearance wasn't matching with the current players' gears, and so Bloom headed straight to him, and said:
"May I ask if you are looking for anything? Any help?"
The NPC looked at him for a moment in a loss, before he smiled warmly while saying:
"Sure, I have this master who wants to make a big celebration at his mansion. He asked me to buy a special firework from the festival, but I can't find anything yet, can you help me?"
Once he heard these words, a system notification rang in his ears, followed by the declaration of the quest.
"Helping Wandering NPC Doff Quest:
Grade: Welcoming festival quest.
Task: Find a good firework and bring it to NPC Doff.
Time limit: until you leave this festival.
Reward: According to the quality of the firework."
Bloom looked in surprise at this quest, as it didn't have a fixed reward. That meant if he could have a worthless reward or a very precious one. This quest seemed tricky, but from his past experience in games, he knew such quests often gave a very good reward, one that could change the future of any player.
"Sure, wait a minute here and I will come back," he replied with great enthusiasm. He then went into a branched street, and started looking for fireworks.
Finding such a thing here wasn't that hard, but his mind was busy thinking about something else. He now had ninety copper coins, and it seemed this quest could absorb them all.
He just gathered ten Hp potions, which could only carry him for a couple of levels. In return, the reward of this quest would be great, more than enough to carry him along the first ten levels, or even more.
"It's the damn game style of hard choices and their consequences," he shook his head while muttering to himself, "let's be realistic, I will spend fifty copper coins only and keep the rest for other quests," he decided, as he went to the nearest stall selling fireworks.
He didn't forget that finishing the quest in a rapid time had given him extra evaluation and more rewards.
"How much is this firework?" he asked the NPC standing in the stall.
"It cost thirty copper coins," the NPC said.
"And this one?" Bloom asked, pointing to another, bigger firework.
"It's forty five copper coins," the NPC replied.
"I want one with fifty copper coins, do you have any?" Bloom finally asked about the firework he needed.
"This one, it's called the dragon firework, and it's considered one of the good fireworks here," the NPC said, alerting Bloom to a point he totally forgot.
"Do you have any special firework?" he asked, as the quest was about getting a special firework. He knew if he got anything else, he would still be rewarded, but he wouldn't be qualified to win the big prizes.
"Yes, I have plenty of them. The cheapest starts from sixty copper coins," the NPC replied.
"Oh, I want one," Bloom said, as he received the long and thick firework, with the head of a dragon opening its mouth wide. He paid the NPC then went back to find Doff, who remained standing in his place.
"Here, this firework is for you. What do you think of it?" Bloom gave the firework to Doff, whose eyes shone once he saw it.
"Wow, that's really a nice one. I'm sure my master will be pleased by this, thanks a lot for your help, and thanks again for picking this good firework," Doff said in a sincere happy tone.
"System alert: Player has completed the "Helping Wandering NPC Doff Quest:
Grade: Welcoming festival quest.
Task: Find a good firework and bring it to NPC Doff.
Evaluation: Orange evaluation
Reward: Three skill points and one talent point."
"System alert: Player had opened the skill tree."
"System alert: Player had opened the talent tree."
Bloom sucked in a cold air once he heard the rewards he gained.
"It's a quest worthy of each copper I paid," he muttered in satisfaction, while opening his character profile again and confirming the presence of his rewards inside.
"It's a shame it's not a black evaluation, it seemed I needed to spend all my money to get it," he shook his head, not feeling as much regret.
The evaluation and grading system in this game depended on colors, as white is the lowest, black is the highest, and he once heard a rumor about a purple evaluation, but he didn't know if it was true or not.
He then tried to open the skill tree and the talent tree, but he got the same message from the game:
"System alert: player doesn't have access to the skill tree here."
"System alert: player doesn't have access to the talent tree here."
"Sigh, this game takes the security of this place so seriously," Bloom muttered in regret, as he wanted to rapidly allocate the acquired SP and TP points and open the corresponding skills and talents.
Bloom then went ahead looking for more NPCs, and he rapidly found three others, each one gave him ten potions as a reward, two gave Hp potions, and the last one gave him a Stm potions.
At the end of this quest hunt journey, his inventory had thirty Hp potion bottles, and ten Stm potion bottles.
If he had to choose between the two, then he would go for Stm potions, as one of the challenging things in this game was Stamina. After he finished, he checked the clock and found the time had come for him to move into the game.
Just as he went through the main street, he heard a system notification ranging in his ears:
"System alert: the doors of the game are now officially opened. Go and get your ticket to the game, and start venturing on your glorious journey."
The game was so generous to tell the players about its beginning. He moved towards the nearest stall that gave a free ticket away from here, a teleportation scroll to the place players would select to go.
"Good day sir, do you want to have your own ticket?" the NPC standing in front of the stall asked with a warm smile.
"Sure, I want a ticket to wilderness," Bloom replied at once.
"Here you go sir, I wish you the glory will be with your side," the NPC said, repeating the famous words of wishing good luck in the game, which would turn in the later years to be a slogan even in human life.
"Sigh, the care of the details here is really superb, even to the tiniest part like the good luck phrases," Bloom lamented the good work of this game developers, in contrast to what his previous game developers did.
Though he felt the great difference between the two, this wasn't enough to make him change his mind. He had already a plan in mind, to level up and grow stronger than anyone here, and go targeting the first mainline quest in the game, to mess up with it, and make it fail.
If the mainline quests failed, and the initial game plan deviated from the settled course, the developers would find themselves forced to interfere, unbalancing the great masterpiece they created.
Doing so would doom the game, like what the developers did to his previous one. He received the scroll from the NPC, and thanked him, before opening the scroll and looking at it.
It was written in a language he didn't know, but he didn't need to understand it. once he opened the scroll, a system notification appeared in front of him:
"Do you want to use the ticket and go to the wilderness?"
"Yes," he muttered.
The reply came at once, by the start of burning the scroll. Fireflies like sparks of light came forth when the scroll disintegrated, forming a light ball around him, taking him away.
He knew he couldn't move, as if he did the effect of the scroll will be negated. Any teleportation scrolls in the game would need from three seconds to five seconds time to be activated, and that limited a lot of its usage amidst any fight.
As the light around him faded, he found himself standing in front of a stretch of land, extending to the horizon without end. The time was daylight, with the sun in the middle of the sky. He knew he had already reached the wilderness, but before he could take a single step, a system notification appeared:
"System alert: player has reached the wilderness.
Main task: reach level ten so you can have your ticket to the nearest village."
"System alert: Player has gained one skill point( Sp) and one talent point( Tp). Player can now open the corresponding skill tree and talent tree and activate the skills and talents he wants."
'Finally," Bloom muttered to himself, as he hurriedly opened the two trees, ready to use the points he already had.