Progress

"Haah…" Feeling the sun's rays peer through his window for the umpteenth time, Valyr let out a long exhale, stifling a yawn as he slowly got out of bed. Going through his usual routine, he left his room to head to the cafeteria sometime later in a set of clean looking clothes.

By the time he had arrived, he quickly noticed a few familiar people sitting on a certain table, prompting him to quickly grab his breakfast and make his way there.

"Morning," Valyr said to these people, receiving light waves, nods, and yawns in response. Sitting down, he took a cursory glance at the bowl of soup he got, putting a spoonful of it into his mouth before inwardly nodding in satisfaction. "Ahh… good soup."

"Morning, Valyr," Leon replied, his hair still somewhat messy. "Us here were just talking that it's been over a week since you've become a village guard. Damian also told us you enlisted as a village guard the first day you came to the village, so there's also that. Anyways, how have you been enjoying your stay in the village so far?"

"It's been pretty good, I guess," answered Valyr with a shrug of his shoulders. "I don't really have anything else to compare it to, but having access to free food is definitely nice."

"Call it a perk of being a village guard," said Louie with a light smile on his face. "In any case, didn't you tell us you were going to head to the village clinic today?"

Hearing those words, the others' ears perked up, their eyes gaining a bit of vigor as they listened in on the conversation. As for Valyr, he lightly nodded in response to those words after pondering over it for a bit. "Yeah, I think I did say something like that."

"So? Are you going to tell us?" Louie asked soon after, eliciting nods of agreement from the others listening in.

"Tell you what?" Although Valyr knew what they wanted to know, he acted oblivious, continuing to put spoonfuls of hot soup into his mouth. "I don't think I have anything to tell you."

"Don't play dumb," said Leon in response, pointing his spoon at Valyr. "You asked us a week ago if we knew any alchemists in the village. Sure, you mentioned to us that you'll attempt to meet up with an alchemist today a couple of days ago, but you still haven't told us what you wanted that alchemist to concoct. After all, that's the reason why you're meeting up with one, right?"

"Yep." Valyr nodded in response, slurping up the remaining contents in the bowl before returning his tray. Returning to where the others were, he scratched his head as he pondered over it for a bit, deciding to reveal a bit more than what he revealed before. "Well, let's just say the village will go into a frenzy if word got out."

"Still vague as always." Hearing Valyr's response, everyone could not help but sigh in slight annoyance. For some, their imaginations ran amok as they tried to form a conclusion with the vague information Valyr was giving them.

"Since you're being so secretive… are you asking an alchemist to help you concoct… poison?" Being one of those who allowed their imaginations to let loose, Jonas decided to ask Valyr, eliciting wide-eyed stares from the others as they looked at Valyr in slight shock.

"Do you want me to?" said Valyr in response, receiving wry chuckles not long after. "In any case, no. I'm not concocting poison."

Standing up from his seat, Valyr soon bade farewell to the others, only to stop in his tracks after taking a few steps. Scratching his head in slight fury, he looked back at the others, deciding to satiate their curiosity once and for all. "Agh… fine. I'll tell you guys what I had the alchemist concoct once I back."

With the others loudly cheering in excitement from those words, which quickly earned the ire of the others in the cafeteria, Valyr finally made his way back to his room, sitting down on his bed as he opened up his status screen.

Ding!

As a small screen appeared in front of his field of vision, it was only then did Valyr realize that a lot had actually changed for him during the past week.

 ————

[Valyr Zeihardt]

Class: Civilian (Rank 0)

Species: Human

Level: 5

Power Level: 42 (C)

Unused XP: 2,369

————

HP: 50/50

MP: 50/50

Stats: 5 VIT, 5 STR, 5 AGI, 5 DEX, 5 INT, 5 WIS, 5 PER, 5 LUK (5 unassigned points)

Remarks: Far stronger than the average person for sure, but nothing still stands out.

————

"Huh. To think I've actually leveled up this much during the past week," Valyr muttered. "I guess it is possible to reach Level 7 within the time Tristan gave me."

During the past week, Valyr had come to the decision to kill 20 monsters a day, bringing two back to the village for selling. Because of this, he had amassed a great amount of XP, allowing him to reach Level 5 while having enough stored to increase his level to Level 6 if need be.

"Should I raise my level to 6?" he pondered. "I mean… I could, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the routine I've been doing for the past week."

"Speaking of which, I should grab the stuff I need from the shop, lest I forget." With that in mind, Valyr closed his status screen, opening up the contribution point shop on another screen soon after. With great haste, he scrolled through the shop's item tab, buying all of the materials he needed for the elixirs as his contribution points quickly returned to how it was on his second day.

Whoosh!

In an instant, a few eye-catching items manifested out of thin air, landing on Valyr's palm as he placed each one on the floor. After that, he stood up from his bed and grabbed a bag he had bought a couple of days ago, placing all of the items that had manifested inside it. "Thankfully I had the hindsight to actually bring back some corpses to the village for selling. If not, I would probably be contemplating how I was going to bring all of this with me."

Although the two corpses he had brought back to the village only gave him a silver coin, the corpses he brought back on the days after that were of a higher level, reflecting his level at that moment. With that, the quality of the hide and meat from the corpses were better, allowing him to get more money from every transaction.

Because of that, he now had close to 10 silver coins to his name, though it would've been over 10, if not for a couple of it going toward the bag he had bought. Nevertheless, he thought it was a worthwhile purchase.

Affixing the wooden spear on his back while slinging the bag over his right shoulder, Valyr looked around his room to make sure that he did not forget anything. After double checking that everything important was on him, he then left the dormitory to make his way to the village clinic. While doing so, he finally came to a decision over a certain question he had.

"Well… better to be safe than sorry, I guess."

Ding!

[2068 XP has been allocated. You are now Level 6.]

[All of your stats have been increased by 1 point.]

[You have gained 1 unassigned stat point.]