Quest and Level Up

WEXO.

A fantasy game set on a planet twice the size of the earth. The land area covers half of the globe.

There are only four major continents sharing this large area of land.

The continent of Fargo is located in the north.

The continent of Gloria, down the east.

The continent of Kreil, south of Gloria.

And the continent of Eru, down the west of Gloria, south of Fargo.

Of the four continents, only Gloria contains the remaining human settlements that were large enough to keep the populace safe.

That settlement is, approximately, as large as a single castle town. Covering a total of 5km diameter, the last fort of the human species.

During this time, the players' intervention started.

Treated as foreigners to their world by the residents, the players will lead the human race to recover what was once theirs.

And so, with this setting, the game launched.

After a mere 3 months, there are already a total of 30 new kingdoms that stood tall.

Among these kingdoms, a single player was a head above all others.

He was the first player to have breached the 3-digit level marker.

With his level reaching 127, he commanded the largest kingdom there currently is.

With his strength, monsters were pushed back and peace was gained for a while.

However, peace cannot be maintained indefinitely.

- - -

"Good Day, stranger."

An old maid was sitting peacefully on her rocking chair as she basked in the morning sun.

"Good day. Could you be, by any chance, Mrs. Carmelia?"

"Yes, I am. Is there anything you need?"

"Actually, I heard that you are in need of leather. Is that true?"

Zeus was now trying to get his first quest!

The old maid was one of the best tailors in the whole city. Furthermore, she was also one of the best quest-givers around the city.

"Yes. If you could bring me some leather, I would happily make some clothes for you."

Then, as soon as she said that, a window appeared.

- - -

QUEST ACCEPTED.

You have accepted the quest of the old maid. Due to her age, she needs to use her skill regularly to prevent them from deteriorating.

Difficulty: E

Requirements: Bring some leather to the old maid

Rewards: Custom-made clothes/armor

- - -

"I would like to, but I presently do not have spare leather with me. I would go and gather some now."

"Take care of yourself. Here take this."

The old maid gave Zeus a piece of a red apple. Without standing in ceremony, he immediately accepted her goodwill.

"Thank you for your kindness. Then, I'll come back at a later time after I gathered materials."

As they finished their conversation, Zeus headed towards the nearest gate.

After reaching the gate, a confirmation window appeared.

[4 hours have passed you can now go out of the city]

"Just in time."

As a gamer, Zeus is an ardent believer of efficiency. Once he is on a roll, it will be hard to stop his momentum. Doing things repeatedly until the action reached the maximum efficiency.

"ZEUS!!"

Then, suddenly, someone called him from behind.

"Weird.." he thought. That's because there is no way to know who is who unless you tell them your name… The person who called him undoubtedly knows his face and his name.

Turning around, a girl wearing basic priest equipment was running.

"W-WAIT!!"

She was wearing a pure white robe matched with gold lining on the edges. On her hand, a small staff.

"Minami?"

Yes, the girl running toward him was Minami.

"I want to go with you!"

"Well… I guess it's fine but… can you get out already?"

"Of course!"

Minami answered energetically, placing her hands on her waist.

"Oh, and by the way, it's Faye, not Minami okay?"

Faye smiled as she announced her character name.

The two then walked out of the gate. Outside was a wide plain surrounded by a thick forest that exudes an indescribable pressure. Around the plains, low-level monsters are wandering about.

"By the way, I thought you'll come back late. What happened with your friends?"

"It's already past 8 PM on the other side now you know. We spent time from 4 up to a little before 7 then I went home quickly. Then, I immediately logged in hoping to gain up on you."

"So you mean we logged in at the same time… How convenient."

"What a coincidence right?"

"You're skills are?"

"Holy Light and Healing Hand. One is attack magic, the other is support."

"Then, as planned, I'll tank and you'll handle the support."

"Okay!"

This isn't the first time the two of them played a game together. As Zeus is usually a melee DPS, Faye usually takes a support role. This exchange isn't that new to them. After planning, the two walked towards a crowd of 5 Moon Rabbits.

Moon Rabbits are monsters that are level 2. The lowest level among monsters.

"Now, let's start!"

As he shouted, Zeus ran towards the group. As soon as he approached, the Moon Rabbits turned towards him instantly. And in a moment, an addition of 3 more rabbits came.

"Let's see the damage output first."

He swung his sword quickly. The motion was similar to a quick draw. A swift horizontal strike. The rabbits within his range received the blow and were wounded gravely. Damage counts of -20 to -25 appeared on the game log. However, it was not enough to kill them as the rabbits had at least 50 HP.

"Min-, I mean, Faye, your turn to test your skills!"

As he shouted, Faye tried casting her offensive spell, Holy Light. Casting basic spells in the game just required the player to stand still for a few seconds before the spell is activated, chanting is optional. However, higher-level spells need chanting or drawing runes which will raise the hurdle for spellcasting players at higher levels.

After a few seconds, a bright light fell on several Moon Rabbits. It was a wide area magic covering a radius of 1 meter. Damages of -30 to -40 appeared on her game log. Those who were damaged already fell simultaneously. Those with full health managed to survive but they were already shaking on their legs.

"Damage outputs are almost similar… Now for the resilience."

After checking their damage to the rabbits, Zeus now planned to take their blows.

When he glanced at the semi-transparent information window in a corner of his vision, an idea popped into his head.

He quickly picked up his adventurer card and dragged the line for his Health and Mana to his upper left view.

"So it can be used like this…"

Learning another trick, he quickly approached a moon rabbit.

Having earned the hate of moon rabbits due to his equipment, he was immediately attacked. His health went down a little.

"8 points… Now, let's try reducing the defense."

He now tried to step back and took off his gauntlet and breastplate.

He then received another blow.

"Ugh.. 17 points… Looks like defense is quite reliable in reducing damage."

After removing more than half his defense, the damage almost doubled. He then immediately reequipped his gauntlets and breastplate.

"Now…"

He then moved to try his next experiment. He ran to the rabbits once more. This time, wielding his sword firmly.

When he approached, the rabbit jumped and aimed to bite his arm. Zeus immediately raised his sword and blocked the attack.

"Attacks could be blocked… Then…"

He threw the rabbit biting his sword. Then, he ran to a new group of 3 rabbits. The rabbits immediately attacked by trying to tackle him.

Zeus used the basic footwork taught at the training center and evaded the attacks. One, two, three. After taking 3 steps, he managed to avoid all the attacks.

"Evasion is nice but it feels tiring…"

His low stamina was already being reflected clearly. Moving rashly causes his body to feel fatigued.

"Okay! Faye! Last experiment! Heal me!"

As he shouted, Faye immediately cast her healing spell. After 3 seconds, a warm light flowed around Zeus's body. His health then recovered a total of 25 points.

"Quite weak… Okay. Let's clear this set first."

After completing his experiments, he aimed to clear the mobs.

He ran around the remaining rabbits and lured them close to each other, as he did, a beam of light fell down the group. Immediately after, he swung his sword and killed all the remaining rabbits.

- - -

- You killed Moon Rabbit x5

- Earned 60 experience. Experience will be shared with party members accordingly.

- You picked up Moon Rabbit's Leather x2.

- You picked up 20 D

- - -

Judging from the notification, it seems that the battle conclusion only shows after you are out of battle. It also only shows the number of monsters you personally killed and not the number killed by the party.

After clearing the first wave, they regrouped once again in front of the gates. There, the two discussed how to improve their current performance.

"First of all, your healing magic is still weak. We need to consider the timing of using it. How many times can you cast it?"

"Um… About 7 times before my mana cannot cope up."

As her eyes were looking at something in her top left view, she must have known already how to use the interface.

"Then… Next is our course of action from here on. We will aim for maximum efficiency, so I will try to improve my stats as much as I can before leveling up. How about you?"

"Well… The most important stat for Priests is wisdom and intelligence so having those two boosted will be a great help. Maybe I'll go buy some books."

"Books costs 500D at least… How much do you have?"

"About 400D left."

"Then, reducing our food expenses… Okay. Buy one now. I'll be waiting here for 5 minutes."

Faye immediately ran away. Reading books was one way to improve both intelligence and wisdom stats. Since stats like strength and endurance can be increased with basic workouts, Zeus can train without buying anything. While waiting, Zeus continuously swings his sword.

5 minutes passed and Faye came back, out of breath.

"Did you manage to buy one?"

"Y-Yeah… C-Costs me 196 Darks…"

Zeus nodded.

"Then read it when you're idle. While walking or while in battle. Finish it as soon as you can."

"Okay."

"Then, let's do this. Ready your Attack Skill."

As he spoke, he immediately ran around groups of Moon Rabbits. He only chose those which are far from other parties that are also hunting. After he went back, behind him was a stunning group of 40 Moon Rabbits.

"Goddess of Light, Cleanse the souls of these tainted beings! Holy Light!"

This time, Faye chanted to cast the skill. Although basic skills can be cast by just standing, chanting can boost the casting speed by half a second at most. Since there's not much improvement to the speed, most newbies just ditch the chanting altogether. As she chanted, light burst down and slowed down half of the group. Not missing this chance, Zeus immediately swung his sword.

Every time he swung his sword, the Moon Rabbits will be blown away. Then, after about 15 seconds, the second batch of Holy Light fell down. In a matter of less than a minute, they managed to kill 40 Moon Rabbits. His HP was reduced to 22.

- - -

- You killed Moon Rabbits x 21

- Earned 162 experience. Experience will be shared with party members accordingly.

- You picked up Moon Rabbit's Leather x11

- You picked up 84 D.

- You gained 80 experience from your party.

- You can now level up!

- Would you like to increase your level?

- - -

"No." Zeus immediately canceled the level-up notification.

- - -

- Level still at 2.

- Strength has increased by 4.

- Agility has increased by 3.

- Wisdom increased by 2.

- Intelligence increased by 1.

- Vitality increased by 5.

- Endurance increased by 7.

- Concentration increased by 4.

- Evasion increased by 1.

- Skill Evasion's Level has increased by 1. Evading will now use 20% lower stamina.

- Skill Warrior's Heart Level has increased by 1. Health will now be increased by 75.

- - -

After achieving the requirements for level up, stats will increase based on the training that you have done. And one of the best features of this game is that you could choose when to level up.

Not Levelling up will not waste the experience gained. Rather, it stacks them. This is what Zeus is aiming for. The extra experience gained for fighting Higher Levelled Monsters!

"My Maximum Health is now at 197. Mana is still at 30. How about you Faye?"

"HP increased, now it's 109. My mana is at 55."

"Don't level up yet okay?"

Hearing his words, Faye immediately stopped her finger, almost pressing the confirm button.

"I get it. You should have said so earlier."

"Okay. Now to the next hunt!"

The two of them, both on Level 2, wandered straight towards the forest area while clearing the rabbits that attacked them.

This part of the field is where monsters of level 5 and above wanders. However, most of the time, they are acting alone.

While walking, Faye was continuously casting her healing spell as soon as it cools down.

Walking for a while, they finally encountered a monster, a tree monster Treant. Treant is a monster that is about level 6. Its main attack pattern is by swinging the vines on its branches and flailing its roots.

"Keep your distance. Let's try this one first."

Having his health recovered fully, he bravely stepped forward. As soon as he did, the roots attacked him from behind.

"Wha-!"

He barely dodged it by rolling on the forest floor. However, it still managed to scrape him. A scrape alone managed to reduce his health by 10 points.

"Looks like this is quite a difficult enemy… Faye, Focus on healing only!"

As he shouted, he quickly ran towards the Treant.

Treants are weak against metal weapons. They also have quite a high resistance against magic except for fire-based magic. In other words, Faye can only act as support here.

The vines of the Treant moved in pairs. This being the case, Zeus still easily evaded the vines. However, once in a while he purposely allowed the vines to scratch him reducing his health by 12 each time.

He quickly moved around the Treant. Since it is a tree-based monster, its agility is extremely low. Once he got behind it, Zeus initiated attacks continuously. Damages of -4 to -5 flooded his game log.

He basically dealt around 8-10 damage per second on average. However, the Treant has high vitality and recovers 5 HP every second

Continuing this exchange of attacking the back of the monster, it took 5 minutes for the two of them to kill the Treant.

- - -

- You killed Treant x1

- Due to the high difference in level, you earned 1,200 experience points. Experience will be shared with party members accordingly.

- You picked up Treant's Bark x2.

- You picked up Aloha Fruit x8.

- You picked up the rare item Treant's Whip. Luck increased by 1.

- Due to the hard battle, all stats increased by 2.

- Vitality and Endurance increased by an additional of 2.

- Agility increased by an additional of 3.

- Strength increased by an additional of 5.

- Skill Evasion's Level has increased by 1. Evading will now use 22% less stamina.

- Skill Warrior's Heart's Level has increased by 1. Health will now be increased by 100.

- A new stat has been added, Courage, with a total of 1 point.

- - -

The taste of hunting something out of your league!

"Experience increased by quite a lot… We can probably level up 3 times here already."

"Stats increased by a lot too. My skill even increased twice in level."

If any normal Player saw how these two monsters played, they would be shocked beyond comparison. The degree of control the two of them have over their movements was beyond a reasonable range. Zeus even took some hits intentionally just to train his vitality and endurance when normal users did all they could just to not get hit by their enemies.

This is how Zeus hunted normally. Minami, the closest (only) friend he had, always came with him on any game he played. She was long accustomed to his ways, that's why she always choose a support role.

"Let's hunt for about 1 hour before returning."

"Let's make that 2 hours. I want to increase my mana too."

And so, the two monsters hunted to their heart's content.