Eastern forest(1)

The next morning, Li Wei woke up at 7:00. It was not too painful since he was an early riser and went on morning jogs regularly. He woke up and went downstairs for his breakfast. His fatigue went down to 1%. The rest would be cleared out after eating his breakfast.

The game was designed so that people sleeping at least 6 hours and eating 3 meals per day could clear out their fatigue level every day. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle was compulsory if one wanted to succeed in the game.

The innkeeper was already up, sweeping the floor. When she saw Li Wei, she immediately greeted him and served him a breakfast set for 20 coppers. It consisted of bread and goat cheese with some coffee. He also ordered a take-out lunch as he would not be returning to the town before the evening.

After eating Li Wei did not waste any more time and left the town. He wanted to take the opportunity to explore the forest and collect wild mushrooms while most players were still sleeping or just waking up.

The forest wasn't far from the town. It only took 5 minutes before Li Wei reached the edge of the forest. At the very entrance, Li Wei found some red mushrooms hidden in the shades the trees. He was the first to come here and could enjoy the benefits. He quickly collected them and entered the forest.

'If it continues like that, I will get rich really quickly!'

According to the guide, this forest did not contain dangerous monsters, only a few wild animals, there were more commonly level 1 rabbits, level 2 foxes, and level 3 monkeys. However, since they were animals, once a player entered their range, they would attempt to escape.

As soon as he entered the forest, Li Wei started to focus. He was not just looking for the wild mushrooms but also for any sign of animals. And sure enough, not even 10 minutes later, he heard some movements coming from a bush to his left.

Li Wei quickly grabbed his dagger. Out of the bush came two brown rabbits, above their heads, was: "Rabbit level 1"

At that moment, the rabbits stopped playing with each other and looked at Li Wei. Fear appeared in their eyes as they immediately ran back into the bush. Li Wei would obviously not let this opportunity go. He quickly chased after them.

The rabbits were not stupid and after a few seconds they separated and ran in two opposite directions. Li Wei had no choice but to chase after the closest one. They ran through the forest for a few minutes. Fortunately, the path they took was similar to the obstacle track in the training room. Li Wei kept running, avoiding low branches and going around bushes.

But the distance between him and the rabbit wasn't shrinking and eventually. Li Wei noticed something ahead. There was a small burrow at the bottom of a large tree, in front of the hole was another brown rabbit.

As the two approached, the second rabbit squeaked and quickly jumped into the hole. There was still a 6 meters difference between Li Wei and the rabbit, he knew he would not be able to catch it.

As a desperate attempt, Li Wei took the dagger, stopped running and aimed. He had seen people throw knives before, more specifically in magician's shows. He did not know if this was the correct technique, but he might as well try as he had nothing to lose.

'Come on!'

The dagger left Li Wei's hand and flew straight between the running rabbit and the burrow. He aimed at a point 10 meters away. Seeing that the trajectory would coincide with that of the rabbit, Li Wei could not help but get excited. However, the rabbit abruptly changed direction, it made a quick jump to the right, avoiding the dagger and went straight into the burrow.

"F***! Stupid rabbit!"

Even though it was his first attempt to catch a rabbit, Li Wei still felt the bitter taste of his failure. It looked that it was not so easy to catch the wild animals. He walked forward and took back his dagger. He approached the burrow and inspected it.

He thought of ways to force the rabbits out but making a fire would take a lot of time and he would rather collect more resources from the forest. After a short examination, Li Wei decided to give up on the rabbits.

He dejectedly resumed his exploration of the forest, collecting mushrooms whenever he found some. There were other resources he could collect such as wild herbs and medicinal plants, but he ignored them due to the lack of inventory space.

Right now, Li Wei could only store 10 different types of item, with 50 units per item as maximum. He already had 6 slots occupied with his potions, lunch and the 24 mushrooms he collected. Players would obtain an additional storage slot every time they leveled up. Additionally, they could upgrade their storage with some equipment but that required some investments. Li Wei would rather save the space in case he was able to successfully catch some preys or for the mushrooms as they provided a better revenue.

After a few minutes, Li Wei started seeing a few individual players, all looking at the roots of the trees hoping to find mushrooms. In the distance, even more groups of players were making their way towards the forest.

Seeing that, Li Wei decided to go deeper into the forest, the competition for the mushrooms would only get fiercer here. Even if the respawn rate was rather fast, he did not know how many players were coming here.

'Too many people will dilute the loot… I should look for a more secluded area.'

A few hours later, he sat down under the shade of a tree and took out his lunch. It was already 12:25. Li Wei's harvest was quite good, he collected a total of 90 mushrooms. The mushrooms were of different colors but they were all labeled "Wild Mushroom".

During his morning hunt, Li Wei also encountered several rabbits, but they were always able to escape his grasp. However, Li Wei got each time closer and closer to catching the rabbit. He was starting to get used to their quick movements and running through the forest became easier.

Foxes also often crossed his path and most of them ran away. But one of them fought back. He bit Li Wei on his legs and right arm before being stabbed with the dagger. After being injured, it quickly ran away. Fortunately, the bites were shallow and did not cause bleeding, Li Wei lost 17 HP from this exchange but that was a good performance for a first fight.

After hours of running around the forest, Li Wei felt tired and decided to take a lunch break. He was leaning against a tree, eating the sandwich he bought. He recalled his experience of the day, imagining what he could have done better. After a while, a thought flashed through his mind.

He quickly finished his sandwich except for a piece of ham and looked for some leaves and placed the ham with 5 mushrooms on them at the root of the tree. After that, Li Wei climbed the tree with the help of the dagger and sat on one of the branches.

He sat down and patiently waited. Li Wei chose the branch just above the trap and moved some branches to better camouflage him. Li Wei did not know what rabbits ate so he added some mushrooms to the bait just in case. Time flew by, but Li Wei patiently waited. Eventually, as nothing was happening, he opened his menu and checked the forum.

But 5 minutes later, a small shadow appeared in a nearby bush. It observed the surroundings and after confirming that nothing was wrong, it approached steps by steps not letting its guard down. It was a level 2 fox.

Upon seeing the fox, Li Wei became excited but held his breath, afraid that the fox would detect him. The fox was very cautious, constantly smelling his surroundings and looking around it. Eventually, the fox reached the piece of ham and smelled it.

'Come on... Eat it...' said Li Wei to himself.

Feeling nothing wrong with it, the fox grabbed the ham and at that very moment, Li Wei jumped down from the branch.

The fox instantly sensed something and looked up, but it was too late. A dagger dived right between his eyes. He violently shook his head trying to free himself but a second later, a heavy body crashed onto its back and crushed it on the ground. Li Wei ignored the pain and pull back the dagger to quickly stab the fox again and this time it hit the fox's right eye.

The fox made a final struggle but under Li Wei's body, it failed to escape. With a last pitiful whine, its HP bar dropped to zero. The fox actually had 30 HP, the first dagger strike dealt 12 damage, it was a high value due to the momentum provided by the fall and Li Wei also hit a weak point of the fox. When Li Wei fell on the fox, both received 10 damage and the final stab dealt 9 damage which ended the life of the fox. All these details appeared in the event log of Li Wei.

[System prompt: You have slain a fox, you have gained 51 exp]

"Yes! Finally!"

Li Wei let out a shout of joy; he was very satisfied with this 1st kill. He drank a health potion to fill his HP back up; by doing so, the pain instantly disappeared. He then got up and looked at the corpse. Despite the high level of realism, no blood came out of the injuries. The game developers did not want to put such sensitive scene in the game. Blood only came out of injuries in small amount when the "Bleed" effect was applied.

Li Wei then pressed his hand on the corpse and the latter vanished, in his inventory, two items were added: [Fox Fur x1] and [Fox meat x1].

After that, he just resumed his exploration of the forest. The afternoon mainly consisted of collecting mushrooms and running after rabbits and foxes. In the end, he was able to collect a total of 145 mushrooms, the rate at which the mushrooms are gathered decreased as more and more players entered the deep forest.

After a lot of attempts, Li Wei was finally able to kill 2 rabbits. When the rabbits ran, he was able to predict to a certain extent their movements and threw his dagger at the perfect spot. Although the dagger did not directly kill the rabbit, once the rabbits were injured, Li Wei could quickly catch them and kill them. He obtained 25 exp for each one.

From the rabbits, Li Wei obtained 2 items: [Rabbit Fur] and [Rabbit meat].

However, he only had 10 item slots in his inventory; 4 were used for his consumables, 3 for the mushrooms and 2 for the fox's drop. He could only store the rabbit meat and had to carry the rabbit fur on his shoulder as he was free to carry whatever he wanted. The inventory acted as a separate space.

When carrying the furs, Li Wei's hunting efficiency drastically decreased so he eventually decided to head back. The interface was showing 15:23 so he would still have time to sell the drops and mushrooms when he gets back.

Li Wei also checked his fatigue level, after a whole day of hunting, he now had 45% fatigue accumulated.

On his way back, he met several other players; many were busy collecting resources. Most of the players moved in parties of 2 or 3. That made it easier to hunt but the exp obtained would be divided as per contribution.

The fur Li Wei was carrying attracted the gaze of many, looks full of envy gathered on him but Li Wei just ignored them and increased his pace. Some tried to ask him how he hunted rabbits alone, but Li Wei did not say anything.

Back to the town, Li Wei directly went to Solas Department store and submitted all his mushrooms.

[System prompt: You have completed the quest "Collect Wild Mushrooms" x14.5]

[Reward: 1450 exp and 7 silver and 25 copper]

[System prompt: Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 3, you have obtained 2 free stat points]

Li Wei was very satisfied upon hearing the last prompt, gaining 2 levels in one day was very good but he kept it for later, he would have ample time to look at his character and allocate stat points tonight.

He also sold the meats he obtained for a total of 5 silver, 3 silver for the fox meat and 1 silver per rabbit meat.

As for the furs, Li Wei went to a nearby tailor shop to sell them. According to the forum, selling related items to the shop would get you a slightly better price. It was better to sell ores to blacksmiths, furs to tailors, herbs to alchemists, ...

He obtained another 5 silvers from the furs and while he was at the tailor shop he purchased a storage bag and placed it on his belt like a purse. It was the most basic one and only gave 2 additional item slots, but it cost 1 gold. Li Wei tried to obtain a discount, but the lady in charge firmly rejected him. Li Wei could only bite the dust and pay.

After all the transactions, Li Wei now had 26 silver and 35 copper. When looking at the inventory, he felt the sour taste in his mouth. Money was after all always the main issue. It was easy to obtain enough for daily necessities but if one wanted to get equipment, he would have to slowly accumulate his wealth.

This was so to add some realism but also to balance the different classes. If in the early stages where no skills were available to players yet, players could purchase whole sets of equipment, then mages and priest would be completely left in the dust and they would be of no use as they deal negligible amount of physical damage. Developers expected players to readily start purchasing equipment as from level 5. Players were not required to hunt early; many quests such as the gathering of resources were available to grind some exp and money. Many quests in the fields or the town were also available, Li Wei chose to hunt only because it was the fastest way to make money and become stronger.

Li Wei yawned... It was time to go back to the inn to get some well-deserved rest.