Eastern forest(2)

The next morning, Li Wei was sitting in the dining hall of "The Sleeping Bear", quietly taking his breakfast. He was thinking about the decision he made yesterday.

Name: Seven

Race: Human

Level: 3 (102/1500)

Class: None

Title: None

HP: 60/60

MP: 50/50

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 9

Vitality: 6

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 6

Stat Points available: 0

Skills: None

Fatigue: 2%

After reviewing yesterday's fight, Li Wei determined that it was best to spend the stat points into dexterity. Right now, he needed more speed to catch the wild animals and be able to hit them. It did not matter how much strength he had if he was not able to land a hit, his strength was completely useless.

Li Wei planned to walk the path of a Warrior and warriors also needed a degree of agility. Making this choice wasn't a big loss. And so, Li Wei's dexterity jumped from 7 to 9.

He ordered another sandwich and asked the innkeeper for some additional meat and vegetables. The innkeeper was puzzled and asked why and when Li Wei explained how he would use them as bait, she readily agreed to give him some, at the condition that he sold the meat he obtained to her.

[System prompt: You have triggered a quest "Collect meat"]

Collect as much meat from rabbits and foxes as possible and bring them back to the innkeeper

Reward: 3 silvers and 50 exp per fox meat/ 1 silver and 25 exp per rabbit meat

"The price is the same as that of the department store but there will be some additional exp if I take the quest." Li Wei gladly accepted the quest.

Knowing the importance of inventory, Li Wei left the mana potion in his room since he had no skills yet. Even if he now had 14 item slots after levelling up, he would never have enough space.

Li Wei left the inn and went straight to the eastern forest. Today, he planned to further explore the forest. He did not meet any monkeys yesterday and was now level 3. He was confident in himself; after just one day, he had adapted to the hunting conditions of the game.

Even though Li Wei came early, this time, a couple of players could be seen leaving the town. It seemed that many realized that resources were limited and that it was first come first served.

"The Competition is going to be fierce today," said Li Wei to himself. He went straight into the forest, ignoring everything near the edge. He went rather deep inside so that other players would not take advantage of his traps. He set up the bait like last time, but this time chose a shorter tree to take less damage for falling.

He placed the carrots given by the innkeeper and climbed the tree. After a few minutes, 2 rabbits approached the carrots... and so the hunt began.

…

For the thirteenth time, Li Wei pulled out his dagger and stabbed it back into the body of a rabbit. He spent 3 hours hunting rabbits and he had quite a good harvest. He noticed that it was better to change location after killing a rabbit as he did not want to wasted time waiting for the respawn time.

Li Wei first jumped on the rabbits to killed them, but later he only threw his dagger from his hiding place. It was more efficient that way as he did not lose any health. His throwing accuracy also got better and better.

Eventually, Li Wei tried to chase after a rabbit and despite the difficulties, he was able to catch the rabbit and stab it. The increase in dexterity was of great help to Li Wei. It was all thanks to the increase in movement speed that he was able to run after the small wild animals.

After having confirmed that he could easily kill rabbits, Li Wei changed the bait to the meat for the foxes. However, foxes were faster than Li Wei and some of them managed to escape. In the end, he only caught 5 foxes.

It was then time for lunch, and so, Li Wei looked for a good spot to rest and eat. During his pause, he was able to see some players moving within the forest. Just like him, the players became braver and ventured deeper into the forest today.

"If I want to maintain the level of harvest, I will need to move quicker or further away from the village…"

After eating, Li Wei continued to explore. He eventually saw a river, there was a lot of fishes inside, but he did not know how to catch them. Fortunately, the river was also the drinking spot of the animals and Li Wei caught a few more rabbits here.

A few minutes later, he caught sight of a brown silhouette drinking from the stream. It was a level 3 monkey. The latter quickly saw him approach but did not react. But when Li Wei drew his dagger, it felt unease and danger, and immediately ran away.

The monkey wasn't as fast as the rabbit, since it was two-legged and only occasionally used its hand. However, when Li Wei was closing the gap, it immediately started shouting. Quickly, rustling of leaves could be heard and monkeys appeared from the trees.

Monkeys lived in groups and helped each other. As soon as they saw Li Wei, they immediately threw all sort of objects at him; rocks, fruits, branches... Li Wei first tried to dodge them but there were so many that he ended up getting hit several times and had no choice but to back off.

Each hit cost him 1-3 HP which was negligible, but he still ended up losing 14 HP.

Having used all his baits, Li Wei walked along the river. There were a lot of herbs and mushrooms that could be collected, and they immediately ended in Li Wei's inventory. He also killed some more rabbits that came to drink at the river.

Time passed and when the interface showed 15:00. He decided to attempt to kill a monkey again. While walking, he saw many monkeys, but he decided against attacking them in case they shouted for help again.

Li Wei quickly found a monkey drinking alone by the river. This time, Li Wei did not care about anything. Instead of quietly approaching the target like the first time, he immediately rushed towards the monkey, not caring about the noises.

The monkey shouted in alarm and ran away but Li Wei quickly reached the monkey and stabbed it. It turned around and punched Li Wei, but the latter ignored the pain and punched him back with his free hand and stabbed with the dagger in the other.

Quickly, rustling of leaves once again rang in Li Wei's ears and monkeys appeared between branches but the poor monkey was already dead. Not losing time, Li Wei pressed the corpse and thought "Collect". He then quickly ran away towards the town. One second later, rocks and fruits showered the spot he was standing on.

The monkeys chased their friend's murderer for a few minutes but gave up seeing that the human was much faster than them.

On the way back, Li Wei was overjoyed by his success, he checked his inventory and found two new entries: [Monkey fur x1] and [Monkey bones x2]; the bones were apparently used by alchemists.

"It was definitely worth the risk! Soon, I won't even have to run away."

Li Wei went back to the town and emptied his inventory. He also took the opportunity to fill up his reserve of health potions. Today he gained 67 silvers and 40 coppers giving him a total of 93 silvers and 75 coppers.

After selling the meat to the innkeeper, Li Wei also got enough exp to level up. He was now level 4 and directly allocated his stat point to dexterity following his original plan.

Since it wasn't too late, Li Wei decided to visit Carlos; he wanted to buy another dagger. His hunting technique was good but once he threw the dagger, he would need to kill the target with bare hands which could become an issue.

-"Oh, it's you... did you collect the ores?" Carlos directly greeted him with an expressionless face.

-"Not yet, I have just reached level 4, I am here to buy a new dagger, the same one as the previous one please."

-"Why do you need two daggers? Are you planning to walk the path of a rogue?"

-"No, when hunting, I found it very convenient to use the dagger as a throwing weapon, but I would then need to finish off the prey with my hands."

-"Ohhh! I see."

Carlos smiled and added, "In that case don't buy the dagger, come back tomorrow morning, I will forge something for you."

-"Huh? What are you going to make?"

-"Don't ask just come tomorrow morning before going into the forest but you will have to pay, it's 1 gold"

"Huh. Money grubber," muttered Li Wei.

-"What? What did you say?"

-"Nothing nothing, see you tomorrow, I'll come by at around 7:15"

-"Yes, don't worry, blacksmiths are early risers, dawn is the best time to forge."

....

That night, in a basement somewhere in Little Root Town.

Several men wearing red clothes were having a feast. The place reeked of alcohol and blood.

-"Boss, you were right. Many adventurers appeared, they are basically walking bag of money," said someone while grabbing a chicken leg.

-"Yes, it was a great idea to post that request to make them go towards the eastern forest," said another man with his mouth still full.

-"Yes boss, I killed one today, he wasn't strong, even our lackeys can deal with someone of that level... and as you said after killing, the corpse disappeared but I got a dagger and some wild herbs"

-"Hahaha, me too but I got a sword!"

The boss was calmly listening to the conversation of the captains. He was sipping his wine while slowly caressing a young woman wearing revealing clothes seated on his lap.

-"That's good," said the boss. "As from tomorrow, set up ambushes around the road towards the eastern forest during the afternoon when they return with their harvest. You can attack lonely adventurers but try to remain discreet. If they are in groups, don't bother them for now. And avoid killing, as long as they give you something its fine, you know the procedure. It is best to respect the bottom line of the authorities. After the first phase, we'll be able to directly look for them in the forest!"

-"As you wish boss!"

-"Yes, boss!"

....

Li Wei's night was calm, even though he was not used to sleeping that early, the quiet atmosphere of the town was very soothing and easily induced sleep. It was completely different to the bright and animated Beijing he was used to.

Li Wei already started to develop the habit of regularly checking the forum, it was like reading newspapers every day. He found that someone in Little Root Town had already reached level 5. That player wasn't a beta tester but was able to find a hidden chest and from that, triggered a unique quest that led to a lot of exp.

There were many posts on the forum, many were just players complaining about how hard it was to kill wild animals, others were party requests. But there was also some useful information in the middle of these random posts. Li Wei found out that few people ended up dying, apparently, when dying, all equipment had a 100% chance of dropping while items in the inventory had a 5% chance to drop, they would also lose 1 level.

When dying players would end up in an ethereal state for 1 hour, unable to leave a 3 meters radius of the location they died and would after that be respawned at the graveyard in the southern part of the town. As for how the players died, Li Wei did not really bother reading. He thought that they were just too excited and fought some strong animals.

"If only I could just be lucky and find some hidden items… It would be perfect," said Li Wei to himself. He had to admit, he was slightly jealous of the lucky player.

...

The next morning, Li Wei ate his breakfast as usual and went straight to the blacksmith shop. He was very excited to see what Carlos forged.

When he arrived, Carlos greeted him and directly put what he was waiting for on the counter.

Li Wei was puzzled. "Aren't they just needles?"

There were 10 needles-like objects on the counter, they were completely white and of a length of about 10 cm. They had a very sharp end and a blunt one that was thicker.

-"Yes, but they are throwing needles similar to darts, They are made of iron and are very resistant. Since they are much thinner than your dagger, they have a better penetrative force. If you are accurate enough, you can directly kill your target if you hit vital parts. If you are really good, you can hold one between each finger and send all of them at once. Give it a try, there's a target in the backroom."

Li Wei grabbed one of the needles and went into position. It felt similar to the dagger but was much lighter. He directly threw it.

-"Tac"

The needle flew straight into the center of the target.

-"Not bad, they are very good, I'll take them, here 75 silver."

-"I said 1 gold, right? "

-"Yes, but don't forget the discount so it's now 75 silvers," said Li Wei while smiling. Since he had been tricked into accepting a quest, Li Wei had no qualms in fully taking advantage of his deal.

Carlos grumbled but could not argue back. "D*mn… You better bring those ores back soon."

And with that, Li Wei left the town again with 10 new needles on his belt.