Split up

"Good morning, Prince, Princess. Did you sleep well last night?" Emma yawned as she greeted them outside the door early in the morning.

"Good morning, everyone!" David glanced at the door where Leah and Clara were already washed and ready.

"Starting today, we'll have to rely on ourselves!" Leah clenched her small fists, her aquamarine eyes full of hope and excitement.

"I've already studied some upgrade strategies for Initiation and made some plans," Clara said seriously, having clearly done her homework.

The inn also served breakfast, which was quite famous throughout the base.

At this time, the dining room was noisy, with servers bustling about among the guests. It was lively.

The five of them finally found a spot by the window after having a hard time getting a table. Emma plopped down in the seat closest to the window with a "swish".

"Ow, why is this chair so hard?" she complained with a frown.

After a while, a server came over with menus.

They eagerly flipped through the menus. Having come from the village, they had never seen such a lavish breakfast!

"Please wait a moment!" The server politely took everyone's order and then left to prepare the food.

"As Agnes said, upgrading Initiation is mainly divided into two stages: 'Intake' and 'Digestion'," Clara said as she picked up the book purchased last night and flipped through it while waiting for the food.

"We need to first intake spirit-infused substances, then digest them, in order to accumulate spirit energy in our bodies until the quantitative change triggers a qualitative change, providing an opportunity to break through," she continued.

The others more or less knew this theory and nodded in agreement.

"Thanks to the goddess' blessing, we've already accumulated the maximum amount of spirit energy. In other words, from now on, we just need to focus on digesting so we can continue upgrading until LV5," Leah chimed in, nodding.

David and Wendy's situation was similar, although due to the uniqueness of their physiques, the spirit energy they had accumulated was only enough to upgrade themselves to LV3.

"We can start by taking some simple, beginner-level quests to gain adventuring experience, get familiar with the forest environment, and aid our digestion. Plus, we can earn a little money along the way," Emma added slyly with a suggestion.

The five quickly reached a consensus. After breakfast, they headed together to District D of the Adventure Base.

This was the beginner area and one of the most crowded zones. In front of each job board, adventurers crowded around.

The quests on the boards were classified into three difficulty levels: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced.

Even the highest difficulty Advanced quests only involved D-rank magic beasts. The Beginner quests didn't even involve magic beasts - they just existed in environments where D-rank beasts might be present, making the risk extremely low.

Of course, the rewards for Beginner quests were also very small, just pocket change.

"Collect three fresh kitsune furs, reward 150 silver."

"Gather 40 glow mushrooms, reward 80 silver."

"Collect dragonspine tree resin, reward 220 silver."

...

New quests were constantly being added and updated by the staff.

Anyone could freely take on quests here, but most had time limits, especially lower-level ones, which were often capped at 12 hours for completion.

For each quest accepted, 5% of the reward had to be deposited as collateral. This deposit would only be refunded upon successful completion of the quest. If the quest failed, the deposit would be confiscated.

"Let's go, we can't complete too many quests or we'll lose money!" Emma reminded everyone to keep an eye on the time limits.

Since it was their first try, each person only took on one or two simple quests before heading down the road into the forest on foot.

There were many people along the way. Some carried large baskets, clearly focused on gathering-type quests. Most had various weapons, prioritizing hunting quests.

"Ladies, are you new?" A short fat man walked over with a smile at this time, taking the initiative to greet them.

"Yeah, what about it?" Emma responded rudely. She was always wary of strangers who approached them.

"Hehe, I'm Rupert, also a newbie. Just wanted to come over and meet you!" The fat man explained awkwardly with an embarrassed laugh.

"Nice to meet you Rupert, I'm Leah. Are you going into the forest to do quests too?" Leah was happy to make new friends and greeted him warmly.

"Yeah, I take a lot of simple gathering quests every day. I can earn some pocket money easily without fighting," Rupert said slyly, showing off the stuffed envelopes of quests in his outer robe pocket.

"Wow, that's impressive. How did you take on so many quests? You must've had to pay a lot of deposits upfront, right?" Leah said in surprise.

"Hehe, that's my little secret. Let me tell you girls - I've mastered the tricks to completing quests quickly," Rupert lowered his voice mysteriously.

"What tricks?" Leah's curiosity was piqued.

"I have an exclusive map that marks the locations to find various D-rank quest items in the Lost Forest. That's how I can quickly pinpoint targets and complete more quests," Rupert took out a worn, yellowed map and showed it to them mysteriously.

Emma's eyes immediately fell on the map, trying to glance at its authenticity, but Rupert folded it up quickly after just letting her see a rough look at some of the marked material locations.

"Tsk, geezer, aren't you being a little petty? You should share something this useful with everyone," Emma said disdainfully.

"Sharing is fine, but it'll cost you. I worked hard over many days to make this map!" Rupert said warily.

"Alright, how much do you want for it?" Emma rolled her eyes and directly asked his price.

"Meeting you all must be fate. I'm very willing to help out newbies, so how about 198 silver?" Rupert said, acting like he was giving them a huge discount.

"What! 198 silver? Just for this crappy map?" Emma exclaimed loudly in surprise.

"Shh, quiet down, don't let others hear," Rupert quickly stopped Emma. "Fine, you name a price," he conceded reluctantly.

"Hmm...what do you guys think?" After thinking for a moment, Emma decided to let the group decide.

"I don't care, buy it if you want. We still have plenty of silver right now," David said nonchalantly with his hands in his pockets.

"I think we could buy one copy to try. It's expensive but it might improve efficiency. Most importantly, the five of us can share it," Clara analyzed rationally.

"Alright then..."

Emma nodded and turned to Rupert to make an offer. "Your price really is too high. How about cutting it in half? I'll take a loss and offer 100 silver, what do you think?"

She remembered Auntie's advice from the village to start by offering about 50% off when feeling a price was unfair, then haggle slowly. That way she wouldn't get ripped off.

"Deal!" But to her surprise, Rupert readily agreed.

"..." Emma was speechless. This was nothing like the scenario Auntie described. The other party was supposed to discuss and negotiate further with me!

Seeing how swiftly he agreed, I must have lowballed way too much! Emma scolded herself mentally.

"Good luck!" After the deal, Rupert left happily with a stack of silver, satisfied.

Although a bit annoyed, Emma still felt a trace of relief looking at the detailed material distribution markings on the map.

"There it is. According to the map, kitsune often appear in this area. We can hunt and skin them for furs," she said.

"The glow mushrooms are right here..."

After checking the map, they had all locked onto general locations for their quest materials, clarifying their previously vague targets and decreasing the quest difficulty.

But just then, they heard scoffing from another group not far away. "Hehe, those idiots got scammed but are still so smug!"

As Initiation cultivators, David's group had far superior hearing compared to ordinary people. They immediately looked towards the source of the sound.

But the other group seemed to also realize they had spoken too loudly. Noticing their gaze, they quickly avoided eye contact and picked up their pace to leave.

"Tsk, those morons might be stupid, but they really are cultivators alright..." the group grumbled softly as they left.

David and the others glanced at each other helplessly, deciding not to get tangled up with them. They could only hope the map's authenticity was enough to let them complete their quests smoothly.

"According to the map, I need to head about 6 km northeast alone from here," Emma said after walking for a bit.

"Alright, we'll have to split up later," David nodded.

Their original plan was to team up, but looking at how their gathering points were distributed, sticking together would make it impossible to finish in a day. They could only split up to gather based on their individual quest targets.

This area was still safe. At worst they might encounter a D-rank magic beast, but they could still flee.

"Be careful on your own, Emma!" Leah cautioned solemnly.

"Ok, where should we meet up after?" Emma asked.

"Let's gather back at the D District Adventure Base. We all have to turn in our quests there," David suggested.

After saying goodbye to Emma, the rest of the group soon split off in their own directions as well.

"My goal is to take down a spectral lynx!" David checked his quest while confirming the map's marked location.

The spectral lynx was a variant of the regular lynx. While not quite at D-rank magic beast level, it was at the apex of wild beasts, just one step away from becoming a magic beast.

"According to the map, the target is near a cave up ahead." David cautiously approached.

The forest was tranquil and peaceful in the afternoon, with only the sounds of insects and a light breeze.

David judged it would be safest to observe from up in a tree. He slowly drew his longsword, looking for a suitable large tree to conceal himself.

As an Initiation cultivator, his vision had already been enhanced.

When he focused intently, everything became extremely clear - the sunlight, leaves, bird nests...all were in sharp focus before his eyes.

"Hmm?"

Just then, David keenly sensed something amiss...

"Wait, there's someone else here!"

David quickly glanced over the trees until his gaze sharpened onto a particularly large one.

In the layers of foliage, a faint silhouette could be seen.

"Someone's already here first?" David frowned slightly.

Clearly this spot was no longer suitable for him to lurk any longer.

Left with no choice, he could only continue walking forward a distance, at least a hundred meters away to avoid the other person's hunting territory.

However, he had barely gone far when he noticed the footprints on the ground were clearly abnormal.

"This is already 15 km deep into the forest, yet there are still so many messy footprints...it should be well beyond human territory by now," David muttered with knitted brows. He carefully stepped along the edges of the prints while heightening all his senses to detect anything amiss.

Every footprint on the ground signified people who had come through here.

The prints varied in age, meaning this place saw frequent human traffic, definitely not by chance.

Among the trees and bushes, David sensed human presence.

"At least four!" Within a small 100 meter radius, he had already noticed four hidden people.

Their auras were clearly very weak. They were probably newbies like David, failing even at basic concealment since he easily found them.

"Hmm? There's a kid too?" Just then, a young man appeared, looking surprised to see David.

"What's up?" David asked, puzzled.

"Oh, just thinking those people are shameless to deceive even a child," the man shook his head helplessly.

David's expression turned awkward as he guessed what was going on.

This deep 15 km into the forest, there shouldn't be so many people gathered normally.

Yet somehow, by pure coincidence, so many were here right now. They must have all been led by that damned map!

So this was the spectral lynx spawning site marked on it!

"You bought that map too?" David asked resignedly.

"Yeah, seems like most people have a copy of it," the man also said helplessly.

The map might not be wrong about the location, but the mistake was how widely it had been circulated.

Now the number of hunters far exceeded the prey. Catching a spectral lynx was clearly impossible.

"That jerk! Made me come all this way for nothing!" David couldn't help but sigh, silently continuing on.

"Where are you going? Why not head back with me?" The man asked puzzledly seeing David walk further in.

"Trying my luck. Usually, the closer you get to the core areas, the higher the chance of running into spectral lynx," David said indifferently. He had ample time anyway.

"You're not wrong, but isn't it dangerous to go alone? And you're so young?" the man asked in surprise. "You look less than 10 years old. It's my first time seeing someone so small already out working to support a family."

"It's too perilous ahead, you shouldn't go!" he advised.

"Don't worry, I can handle myself," David said dismissively as he walked on, not taking the man's words to heart.

"Alright, how about we form a team? I'll feel better keeping an eye on you since you're so young. I'm Lewis by the way." The man smiled and made the suggestion.

"Do as you wish," David neither agreed nor refused.

Seeing this, Lewis silently followed along as David continued forward.