Competition

"So you finally came! We were about to start, and we thought you decided to bail out! Did Andy force you to come here?" said one of the fishermen named Bryan. He was a burly man who easily stood out of the crowd due to this bear-like appearance. Not far from him, stood his two sons who shared similar physical characteristics.

"No no! I am here and ready to compete," said Li Wei as he greeted the fishermen. Andy was walking behind him, gently tapping his shoulder to show his encouragement.

In truth, Li Wei really wanted to leave this place. 25 gold was not a small sum and he still did not know how to fish properly but Andy was there and would make him feel bad about leaving. Andy was, in fact, one of the prospective winners of this competition. How could he let go of 25 free gold like that?

"Since everyone is here, let's begin and explain the rules! This time, we have 600 gold as prize money, I will suggest that we divide the prize; 1st place gets 300, 2nd place gets 200 and 3rd place gets 100. What does everyone think?" asked an elderly man.

"Yeah, it's a good idea," quickly declared one of the fishermen,

"Sounds good to me,"

"What are you talking about? That's equivalent to sharing my prize..." shouted Bryan.

"Oh! You think you are going to win?"

"Enough enough!" said the elderly man with his weak voice. But despite his almost imperceptible voice, all the fishermen immediately stopped talking. "Let's just vote, it would be simpler, those in favor raise your hands."

And obviously, the voting ended up in favor of sharing the prize. It would give the less skilled fishermen a greater chance to win a prize. Bryan wanted to complain but he refrained from doing so upon seeing the elderly man's stare.

"As for how we will choose the winner, we shall do that by weighing your catches. This way, it does not matter if you aim for many small salmons or the fewer but larger salmons. In the end, it is the total weight that will matter. If we have no questions, we shall start in 10 minutes and will end at sunset with a one-hour break for lunch."

...

With nothing to say, Li Wei was given a fishing rod and a set of baits. Each fisherman had their own techniques. He could see a couple of them carrying harpoons and going to another part of the lake to avoid affecting others. At the same time, another group jumped on boats and started to sail towards the center of the lake; Bryan and his sons formed part of this group.

As for Li Wei, he went back to yesterday's spot with the same group of people, but this time, they were more spaced out. "Sigh... Let's try our best" said Li Wei. He had already given his gold like all the others to the elderly man who will keep the prize until the end of the competition.

Since he did not have the required amount, he had to leave part of his harvest at the Abe's Forest to make up for it.

'What kind of mess did I get myself into?'

As the competition began, Li Wei immediately tossed his bait and poured all his concentration into the fishing rod. This time, Andy would not be helping him since he was a competitor.

15 minutes later, no one in Li Wei's group caught something yet but none of the fishermen found this abnormal. Their catch could greatly vary each day. Just to be safe, Li Wei pulled back his bait; he was delighted to find that it was still there and quickly tossed it back.

Nobody talked, and it was not long before Andy and another guy caught something. 5 minutes later, another fisherman caught something, but Li Wei did not feel anything yet from his fishing rod. Full of doubts, he pulled his fishing rod, only to find that his bait was gone. Everyone around looked at him with wry smiles.

An hour later, Li Wei already had to change his bait 4 times. He was now on the 5th one. The fishermen around him all caught some fishes; Andy was the most successful one with 9 in his bucket.

He was starting to feel frustrated when suddenly, Li Wei felt a very faint, almost imperceptible vibration for a fraction of a second, he had been intently focusing on his rod all the time; sometimes he looked at the bait, sometimes on the wooden grip or even the line. Li Wei was not sure of himself. It might just have been the vibration of water since Andy just caught another fish but still, he quickly pulled out only to find that a small salmon was effectively hooked to the bait.

Quickly, Li Wei pulled the salmon and place it in his previously empty bucket. At the same time, the nearby fishermen all showed appreciative looks.

[System prompt: You have successfully caught a level 1 Salmon. Congratulations. You are awarded 50 exp]

[System prompt: You have made your first catch. You have obtained the profession: Fisherman]

"Fisherman? Really? That's my profession?" sighed Li Wei as he opened his character window to see that his profession was updated to Fisherman Grade 0.

All sorts of professions existed and could be obtained. Players were not limited to only one profession but only one will be displayed. The profession of Fisherman could also be obtained at Algate City at a fish farm, but it was not a popular option since it was not combat related. Fisherman was a profession that was easily obtained but Li Wei actually obtained it the hard way; fishing in the wild was definitely much harder than in the fish farms.

"Anyway. I'll look at it after the competition," said Li Wei to himself. He was delighted to have finally caught something, but he had a long way to go to catch up with Andy and the others.

He quickly threw another bait and sat down to wait. Ten minutes went by without anyone catching any fishes. Suddenly, Li Wei once again felt the same vibrations as last time. He promptly pulled out and successfully caught another level 1 salmon. With 2 successful catches in a row, his confidence rose up.

Li Wei once again threw his bait. As he looked at Andy, the latter gave him a thumbs-up to encourage him before pulling out another salmon. Li Wei quickly noticed the difference, his two salmons were smaller than those caught by Andy; Li Wei's were only level 1 while Andy's were at least level 3. The difference in level clearly affected their size and weight.

15 minutes went by, but Li Wei still did not feel anything. He did not get discouraged, the fishes might not necessarily bite at regular intervals; he needed to be patient. He quickly realized that fishing was not as simple as it seemed; not only did it train his patience but also his sensitivity.

Another 15 minutes went by but still nothing. Full of doubts, Li Wei decided to check his bait since everyone else had caught something during the last half hour and to his surprise, the bait was gone.

"How is that possible? Could it be that the higher the level of the salmon, the harder it is to feel when they take the bait?"

Li Wei quickly replaced the bait and focused. "Is there any other way? What if I use Earth Wall to trap some Salmon? Never mind, the cooldown is too long anyway."

Two hours went by and it was now time for the pause. Everyone gathered as they shared some sandwiches and since everyone was there, the elderly man decided to start weighing everyone's catch so that it will be faster in the evening."

"Bryan! You go first"

"Haha. Of course! Let me show you," declared Bryan as he carried a net full of salmons of varying size.

A balance was set up near the lake for the competition. With a quick swing, Bryan flung the net onto the balance. The pointer immediately moved and oscillated for a moment before landing on 180 Kg.

"Yahhh" shouted Bryan, proud of himself. It was a huge catch for just half a day of work. With a quick look, Li Wei immediately noticed that the salmons he caught were all above level 5.

The rest of the fishermen and Li Wei quickly followed and weighed one by one their catch. In the end, Bryan was first, Andy second with 168Kg followed by another fisherman known as Mike with 159Kg.

As for Li Wei, he was at the very bottom of the ranking with only 59Kg. It was an honorable score since the one in front of him only had 75Kg, especially considering he only learned fishing yesterday.

Most of Li Wei's catch was level 1 and 2. After a few failures, he finally succeeded in catching level 2 salmons but failed for the higher level ones. He was after all just a grade 0 fisherman, the system greatly simplified the fishing process but there was no guarantee of successfully catching the fish.

"Well, I suppose that the trial period is over. It's time to go all out!"

A voice rang out from the crowd as the mage of the group stood out and walked towards the lake. The one-hour break was already over, and everyone could already go back fishing.

Unexpectedly, the mage did not even bring his fishing rod with him, leaving it near the balance. Instead, he took out his wand and started casting.

[Water Lance]

Immediately, a spear shot out of the mage's wand and pierced through the lake. A second later, the spear retracted into the mage's hand while carrying a fat salmon that was pierced at its abdomen.

Li Wei's jaws immediately dropped. "Is this allowed?" asked Li Wei but visibly, he was the only one surprised.

"Of course, none of the rules say that it's not. In fact, you are about to witness the real competition, we always let this get to our head. If it was not for the lack of mana, I bet they would have already done so this morning," said Andy.

With the mage having paved the way, several fishermen approached the lake. They were not mages and could not use magic, but two of them were rangers that took out their bows. They swiftly tied their arrow with a thin rope before shooting them into the lake. As the ropes stopped moving, they quickly pulled back the arrows to the shore, together with the salmons impaled by the arrows.

At the same time, Bryan and his sons took off their top and grabbed some harpoons before diving into the lake. Some rogues pulled out small crossbows and started aiming at the salmons inside. But not everyone could do so, Andy and a small group of fishermen chose to move to a quieter spot to continue with their usual way.

"Well, the gold can already be considered gone. There is no way I can compete with these machines!" said Li Wei. He clearly did not have any techniques that could rival the mage and with his fishing rate, there was no way he could climb back to the top 3.

He was dejected, but he still chose to follow Andy and at least have an honorable defeat.

4 hours went by. Li Wei caught 20 more salmons which was definitely a feat for him. To have obtained the profession also helped him to some extent, the system would naturally help him with. But he could not help but get depressed when he looked at the others. The mage was now lying on the grass, visibly tired but next to him, was a pile of salmons. The rangers and rogues also had piles of salmons but they were clearly smaller than that of the mage.

The most impressive, was Bryan and his sons. 3 mountains of salmons were erected on the grass. And more importantly, these salmons were clearly larger than the others as they came from the depths of the lake.

There was still about 1 hour left before the sunset but when he looked at his own catch, he already knew that it was over. With a quick estimate, he could guess that he now had about 120Kg but that was not even above the weights recorded at lunch.

At this point, Li Wei's morale was at its lowest. Losing 25 gold because of alcohol. It was a life lesson. He no longer focused on his fishing since he knew it was pointless.

But at that moment, a voice rang in his head: "Hey? Why are you so depressed?"

Hearing the voice, Li Wei quickly looked around him, only to find all the fishermen focusing on their task. He was surprised as the voice clearly belonged to a woman, but he did not find any near him. Few women were present; they were all standing near the balance waiting for their husband to come back.

"Do you not hear me? You just need to think to talk to me," said the voice again.

"I do hear you, who are you?" loudly thought Li Wei.

The voice giggled for a second, "You met my sister yesterday. She told me she met a very interesting person. So, I came to have a look, but you don't seem to be in the mood."

"A Lake Fairy?... You sound different from the previous one I met." From his previous encounter, he believed that Lake Fairies were dull and antisocial creatures but yet, there was one conversing with him right now and she sounded like a cheerful person

"All Lake Fairies aren't the same. Just like humans, we also have different personalities and ideologies!" answered the Lake Fairy as if she openly read Li Wei's mind.

"You look really depressed. Aren't you supposed to be having fun fishing with your comrades?" continued the Lake Fairy

"How am I supposed to feel at losing a huge sum of money?" answered Li Wei.

"Money? Humans really only care about that. You should focus on fishing and be enjoying your life."

"Don't talk to me about fishing. You have been observing me for a while, right? Then you should know the situation. Look at these guys? How am I supposed to beat them?" said Li Wei.

The Lake Fairy once again giggled, "If you just want to win, I guess we can make a deal, giving you some fishes should be pretty easy for me. What do you think?"

"A deal? But what can I give you in exchange for that?"