The Temple of Thought was located on a mountain top over a thousand miles away. In order to reach it, Carter had to go through 2 different portals each costing a single gold. Looking at it on a map, Carter threw away the idea of trying to walk there. A year or more would've past by the time he reached the mountain, at which point he would've likely killed enough monsters to reach level 10 as a scholar. The main reason Carter wanted to go to the school was to learn the martial arts and level up the spell casting skills necessary to become a wizard. He'd never played a magic class during the game, so he had no idea how to train for that.
Leaving the portal in disgust, Carter thought for a moment before heading out of the rich district towards one of the middle class areas. Shops in the rich district already had permanent suppliers so they usually didn't need help gathering supplies, but in the lower class districts missions were posted by store owners on a regular basis.
As Carter was walking, he realized that he'd never assigned his experience from killing those thugs. Opening up his status he put 100 points into Scholar and raised it up to level 2, with 0/200 experience towards level 3. Carter smiled suddenly as he remembered the first couple of hours after the Planar Realms had been released as a video game. People had been all over the forums talking about how easy it was to level up in the game. Then, someone got to level 9 and started freaking out on the forums about how the experience required to level up doubled with every level. Going from level 9 to level 10 took 25,600 experience points, and the forums went crazy for weeks as people complained about being stuck at level 9. That was the beginning of a trend for the game, where level 1-6 was easy but 7-10 took forever no matter what class or profession you were leveling.
The energy that surrounds you when you level up dropped away from Carter as he took a final turn into what they'd called Mission Row in the early stages of the game. Here, you could always find several gathering missions, and if you were good you could easily make 10 silver a day. Carter figured he could probably make a gold a day if he really pushed it thanks to his inventory and experience.
Pushing open the door to a shop called "Stuff", he saw a teenage girl behind a counter who didn't even bother to glance up from her book as he walked in. Taking a close look at her, Carter almost wished this world was placed in a modern setting so she could be talking on the phone in a bored voice while popping bubblegum. Putting the girl out of his mind, Carter walked to the back of the shop where a board had been placed with people asking for supplies. He ignored most of the missions, only picking up the repeatable ones that he knew would be easy to complete. Carter's goal was to spend a week or two in the forest and come back with enough in his inventory to buy both trips through the portals with at least a couple gold left over.
As he was about to walk out of the room, Carter remembered to grab some food, water, and a fire starter. "That'll be 1 silver, 8 copper." The bored girl looked up just long enough to tell him when he walked up to her.
With a smile on his face, Carter handed over the money before putting his items away and walking out of the room with a blinking light in the top left corner of his vision.
Clicking on it, the missions tab expanded to show several new missions.
-> Collect 10 Rabbit Horns - 1 silver (Repeatable)
-> Collect 5 Wolfs Hide - 5 silver (Repeatable)
-> Collect 10 Wolf's Teeth - 2 Silver (Repeatable)
-> Collect 10 Boar Hide - 20 Silver (Repeatable)
Carter could've accepted more missions but figured his inventory was only 10x10 and he didn't need THAT much money. Going into the options, he setup the mission log so that he could see all current mission objectives in the top right corner of his vision. He'd set his hud(heads up display) to be transparent so that it wouldn't bother him and he couldn't read the information unless he focused on it. It was how he'd always done it in VR Games, so it wasn't distracting him in anyway.
In the game, everyone was given the gathering skill and all you had to do was walk up to the monsters and touch them. They'd transform after 3-10 seconds and you'd pick up whatever was left behind and move on to the next monster. Somehow, Carter doubted that strategy would work in real life so he visited a tanner next.
"Welcome!" A man said as he glanced up from where he was cutting away the excess fur from a new hide.
"Hi, I'm about to go hunting in the forest and would like to learn how to skin properly." Carter said as he watched the man move with the grace of an expert. His speed was consistent, his technique accurate.
"2 Silver." The man said.
Carter sighed as he handed over the money and checked his wallet. "Only have 5 silver left." He thought glumly.
A minute later, the man was done working on the hide and he took a break to lead Carter out the back and begin his lecture on skinning.
An hour after that, Carter walked out having spent another 50 copper on the necessary tools and gained a skill.
-> Congratulations you have learned - Gathering Skill: Skinning
Next, Carter made his way to the butcher where he walked up the counter and asked, "You guys need any Wolf or Boar meat?"
"We don't buy wolf meat." A beefy man said as he walked into view, "But if you've got any boar we'll buy it at 10 copper a pound."
Carter smiled, "Perfect, I'm about to spend some time in the forest hunting wolves and boars. Is there anything I should know about when collecting the meat?"
"Nah, we'll take the whole carcass. I'd advise you learn to skin it though, you can make a lot off boar hides." The proprietor said.
"Already got that covered. I should be back in a week with some meat for you." Carter said as he left the butcher.
That covered, he made a pit stop at the apothecary to buy some bandages and low-level healing potions where he spent another 2 silvers. Looking at his wallet, Carter sighed as he realized he only had 2 Silvers and 50 copper left.
"Money in, Money out." Carter mumbled under his breath as he made his way towards the main gates. Warren closes all their gates at 5 pm, and it was already after 4 so he was one of the few people leaving the city at that time.
"The gates close in 40 minutes!" A guard yelled to remind him.
"Thanks, but I'll be gone for a week or two. What's the gate tax these days?"
"1 Silver for normal people, 10 silver per merchant." The guard said, and Carter walked out the gate without looking back.
As soon as he was outside the city, Carter took a moment to look around. Warren was a small city sitting on top of a hill. Farmers worked outside the walls covering the surroundings with field after field of wheat and vegetables. City guards roamed the area night and day trying to keep thieves and monsters away from the food supply. About 10 miles to the southwest Carter could see where the forest begins.
"It's beautiful." A voice said to Carter's left. Turning, he found a man wearing a dusty robe standing next to him gazing at the farms with a smile on his face.
"Yes, but I honestly prefer the forests and the mountains to the cities." Carter said.
The man turned to walk towards the city gates saying, "You and me both."