First Day at the Village
(Author's Note: So I'm realizing now that for the quest the village chief gives out in the previous chapter, the players could just get a quest like "Help Mr. Bob clean up his house!" or something stupid like that so I changed the requirement to having to venture into the Dark Forest. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for all of the support!)
Currently, Guo Wen was strolling down one of the streets of the village. Although the village was quite poor, they still had things that she had read about in other novels on Earth. While walking, she saw an alchemist's shop selling pills, a forging shop where artifacts were sold, and she even saw a large courtyard where many other children were learning about cultivation. All of these areas had players trying to talk to the owner of the shop or the instructors of the children.
Instead of following the other players, Guo Wen decided to visit a restaurant -- there were a couple in the village -- to see if she could help there.
Picking a restaurant named "The Pepper Orchid," she opened the door and walked in.
Upon entering, one of the owners walked up to and greeted her, stating, "Good evening miss. Please take a seat anywhere available."
"Oh I'm sorry, I'm not looking for food, I was just looking to see if the restaurant needed any help" she replied.
"Oh you are? That's great then. I'm not a cultivator so I would not be able to collect the herbs we need from the Dark Forest. Could you help us and go collect some Spring Bud Plants from the outer edges of the Dark Forest? We are in desperate need of them right now and no one is willing to collect them right now."
Just then, she received a new notification on her status panel.
[New Quest Received!]
'Oh I actually got a quest here!' Guo Wen was pleasantly surprised because from her experience with other games, it was extremely hard to get quests especially when first beginning a game.
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[ --- Quest: Restaurant in Low Supply --- ]
Rank: D
Description: The Pepper Orchid, the best restaurant in the village, has recently been unable to properly serve their customers due to a lack of the Spring Bud Herb which they use in many of their dishes.
Objective: Collect 20 Spring Bud Herbs from the Dark Forest (0/20 complete).
Rewards: 50 bronze
[Accept? Yes/No]
---
Quickly marking yes, she then left the restaurant as the food there was too expensive for her right now. Guo Wen decided to complete the quest in the coming days, and spend some more time gathering information about the Dark Forest, and the herb she was supposed to collect, the Spring Bud Herb. With this in mind, Guo Wen headed towards the town library.
After walking for a while and asking some of the other villagers where the village's library was located, she finally arrived at the library, which was one of the bigger buildings in the village.
Along the way, one of the main things she had noticed was how life-like the villagers were. They smiled, pointed, and helped her out to find the town library whereas the NPC in most other games would act as if she was air. It was almost like they were actual people.
Arriving at the library, she walked inside and was greeted by an old man named Zhang Jian who was the manager of the library.
"Welcome to the South Dust Village Library! Here you can find information about the surrounding area, as well as some of the outside world experiences recorded by past village chiefs who have gone to travel the world. If you need help with anything please let me know."
After hearing these words from Zhang Jian, Guo Wen quickly walked towards the bookshelves. There, she picked up two books, "Repository of Low Level Herbs," "Repository of Demon Beasts," and "Dark Forest Outer Edges." Then, she walked over to a table set up in the library to read her books.
---
A couple of hours later.
Closing the three books, Guo Wen realized that venturing into the forest to gather herbs may be harder than she first thought. She learned that the Spring Bud Herb normally grew in groups of 5 on the outer area of the Dark Forest, and would often be guarded by a rank 1 demon beast which was equivalent to a low level Qi Condensation Realm cultivator. She was only at Qi Condensation stage 1, so it would be extremely difficult for her to defeat a level 1 demon beast.
Something else she learned was that rank 1 and rank 2 demon beasts often lived in the outer area of the dark forest, rank 3 and 4 demon bests lived in the inner area of the forest, and peak rank 4 demon beasts and the single rank 5 demon beast lived in the core of the Dark Forest. Therefore, when she was searching the forest for the Spring Bud Herb, there was a high chance that she would encounter a demon beast
Walking out of the library, she pondered how to resolve these problems. In the end, she decided to see how much cultivation she would gain from her cultivation tonight and then decide when she would enter the forest.
Returning to her residence, she saw her other three roommates as they also withdrew to their rooms to begin their first night of cultivation.