Even after two years when he created his account in his past life, he could see that its difficulty didn't decrease much after the upgrades. The game company insisted that such a quest would enable the player to get better acquainted with the different options the game could provide allowing them to improve their co-ordination and techniques and have a better experience with the game later.
In fact, the Metis technologies didn't really care much about the players enjoyment. It insisted on this quest as the scientist believed that hard quest would improve the players compatibility with the somnium technology. Also, it would have an unconscious effect on all player to improve their physical abilities.
So, Shadow could only imagine that the quest wouldn't be simple or easy at all. It would need people in large numbers to attempt the quest as it happened in his previous life or they could level up. Seeing that it just became a town and new territories opened, it would be best to explore them before the craze for the special dungeon 'Cave of Wargs' subsided.
It was always a rule in games that dungeons would provide more experience and resources than farming in the wild. After that came quests. Everybody considered that quests gave better rewards. So, most would try to complete the dungeon runs before they go and attempt the quest for clearing the path to the city.
Assuming the best-case time to finish the dungeon in 60 minutes and having a total of 6 possible runs per day, they could assume 6 hours to be spent by most players at the dungeon. Let the worst case be 4 hours. This still gave Shadow a significant advantage to explore the plains and with these thoughts in mind, he suggested that the explore the plains instead.
"At least, let me pull your levels up. The plains have good farming spots. Then you can go and attempt the quest like others. I have already explored that area in stealth during your attempt with elite dungeon. There are a lot of monsters and without being ready, we would face a situation similar to the hell mode," said Shadow.
"Fine, if you could raise our level quickly. We can still attempt the quest afterwards. The quest is supposed to be a valid one till we reach level 10 anyway. We wouldn't be able to enter the city without reaching level 10 even if we finish the quest," said Quiet Fire.
"Ya, it would probably make the quest a bit easier. Let us try and see. It is always better to get a hold of farming spots early to level up. We lost our chance at the hell mode of dungeon. This is the best time to improve our levels," agreed Tetsujin.
With both Quiet Fire and Tetsujin agreeing, the rest also decided to try and see. During their attempt at the dungeon, Slaine as suggested by Balthazar took Rudra, Brick, Light and Roll to explore the plains in a 5-man team.
Brick Wall was a guardian, Perennial Light a Druid and Duck 'n' Roll was an assassin. They had been playing games with Slaine for a long time and were already working from the workshop that they prepared.
They had mostly moved along the river and targeted boars. With a team, isolated boars were good targets if one had a proficient team. All the thief needs to do is aggro the boar towards the team and they ambushed it. It was easy to agro the board and it wouldn't run away. A couple of control skills or a decent tank would provide them the chance to whittle down its health.
Slaine also used poison on his arrows and along with their ambush tactics, they had a decent hunt in the plains. Farming at the plains was easy. All one had to remember was to pull isolated creatures into ambushes and not waste their time with docile monsters if they didn't have enough control skills. Farming in this manner allowed them to quickly gain experience and crossed level 6.
This way, Rudra, Slaine and the other three made their way towards the river. The river was one of the places that they didn't explore well as it had a higher concentration of monsters. Even if most of them were docile one's, accidentally causing more than one boar or other kind of monsters wasn't appealing as they were all higher leveled monsters than the team.
Slaine and Roll had the highest perception among the group. Roll went closer to the river and he could see that the river also had monsters, but they were small fishes and moved at a fast pace continuously. He felt like it is a waste to even attempt attacking them.
Slaine attempted to shoot a couple of them but as soon as the arrow touched the water the fish swam away as if it noticed the attack. He made a few more attempts, but they were all futile. They also could see few monsters which looked like crocodiles in the river, but these monsters were just still. Moreover, they were at level 15.
{Langstonia] (Common Monsters)
Level 15;
HP: 7000/7000;
Langstonia were monsters similar to crocodiles. But unlike crocodiles they were fast on both land and water. They had a length of 2-3 meters with 3 feet long legs which allowed them to move around easily on land. But like crocodiles these reptiles spend most of their time in water. The only moving monsters that were in range and had similar level were fishes.
It looks like the game only allowed them to catch fish by fishing or getting into the water to attack. But looking at the langstonia, any such thoughts evaporated instantly. The continued to attack the monsters along the river in the same fashion as before. After a few minutes, they saw an isolated cabin on the banks of the river.
The cabin was large and had a large fishing deck that extended on to the river. There was a crippled old person fishing in a wheel chair while a guard was on the lookout on the deck. As they approached the cabin, the guard immediately came towards them with his sword.
"Why are you here?" asked the guard rudely pointing his sword at them. The guard was a level 15 character and had a yellow mark on him indicating he was a neutral NPC.
"We are just adventurers from the Blackrock town. We are exploring the region and hunting a few monsters," answered Rudra before the guard would get any doubts. If he was a neutral NPC, there might be a good chance to get a quest from him, if he talks to them in a decent and respectful manner.
"Don't frighten them, Bill. Send them to me," said the old person in the wheelchair suddenly. The guard led them to the deck when they could notice the old guy. The old man had grey hair cut like that of a soldier, bright green eyes which almost sparkled and wore what looked like a guard uniform. From the uniform, it was apparent that he was high-level personnel among the guards.
He was definitely a mage as he had a 5-foot long sceptre in a stand attached to the wheelchair. The sceptre had scarlet blade at the end instead of a gemstone like the usual ones. It was a very odd one.
As the old guy turned around in the wheelchair, they noticed that the wheelchair was also powered by magic and had runes flashing on it. There was a pressure that couldn't understand pressing on their minds when he came closer.
[Battlemage Arius Wright] (NPC - Light Faction)
Level: ??? (Crippled)
HP: ????
"Don't be frightened," said Arius and at the same time the pressure they felt suddenly disappeared. It was clear to them that the old man was a very powerful NPC.
"Respected Sir, we have been given a quest to explore the area and hunt monsters in the plains to make it safer for the new town. This quest was given by the guards," said Rudra before anything was asked of him.
"I guessed that young man," said Arius calmly. "I am Arius and have been an advisor to the royal guards for a long time. I came here to look at the new town and see if there are any strong foreign aggressors who might pose a danger," continued Arius introducing himself and his purpose there.
"Nothing worth my effort here. The entire endeavor was boring. The only issue with this place is lack of provisions. They don't have enough food so as to scrape me a decent meal here. This cabin was made by me just for fishing and gathering food. Help us gather some food and in return I will teach you a few simple tricks. They will surely be useful to you," said mage as a list appeared in front of them.
The list included various things like manuals for fishing, enchantments, alchemy and other trade professions. But the most enticing things were skill books. Thought the skill books corresponded to the profession of mages and berserkers. The guy had very rare skill books too and he calls them simple tricks.
"Sir, we surely will try our best to help you," said Rudra as he gathered all the meat, he had from hunting the monsters. He had also collected meat from Cave of wargs and had a total 56 meat pieces together. He began to regret leaving the meat at the storage of the shop he had rented.
"Tcch! It is not that easy to learn tricks from me," said Arius as the costs below the skill appeared. They were all extremely high. Even the manual for fishing, enchantments cost 50 meats. The other skills like frost nova, Thunderstorm were in high hundreds.
"Don't underestimate them. They were improved versions made by me and not the cheap stuff you find at any shop. By the way I don't intend to spend more than 2 hours here and am partial to seafood. We can lend you some fishing equipment," continued Arius.
At the same time, new prices for books appeared if they traded with fish. The prices were half the previous ones when using seafood. A new quest notification popped up.
New Quest: Help Sir Arius gather food (preferably seafood)
Reward: Skills and manuals.
Looking at the quest, Rudra was awfully tempted. He wanted Slaine to run back to the town and get all the meat he could from the shop. During Rudra's talk with Arius, Slaine was also contacted by Balthazar to check if they found anything useful in the plains.
"Found an NPC who is willing to provide skill books for meat. Get as much meat as you have immediately," he replied sending an image of his location in the map.
"Balthazar is coming with meat supplies from the town," he immediately informed his team. "Get the fishing manual and learn. It is the best we can try. I doubt we can get enough meat on our own for any of the other main occupation skills," suggested Slaine immediately.
Rudra was the only one who didn't yet learn any trade profession skill. He was the guild leader and had always focused on it. He wanted to learn merchant and engineering but were considered higher tier trade professions not available before level 10. Moreover, Slaine knew that Rudra was always had hunting and fishing experience in real life. So, he shouldn't have much issue in a virtual reality.
So, he was the one to learn fishing. Luckily, the book was better than the normal ones available in general shops. It directly improved his skill level to level 2. This was better than expected. But he still needed fishing supplies.
"Bill these guys need some bait and supplies. Loan them a few would you?" said Arius winking at the soldier. The soldier immediately bought out a fishing rod and supplies like bait and a storage case.
"Costs 5 silver per hour," said the soldier stretching out his hand. It was clear that they system wasn't going to make it easy for them to gather skills easily. The rental rate was very high for some trade profession goods like these.
[Simple Fishing Rod] (Fishing Rod)
Min Skill: 0;
Min level: 1;
Damage: 15-20 per second;
Durability: 20/20;
The manual not only provide him the 2nd level of fishing skill but also provided information about how to tie bait properly to the fishing rod. It also contained information on different kinds of various kinds of fish that can be found in various environments.
Rudra seated himself on the fishing deck at a distance from Arius and swung his fishing rod in a direction a bit distant from Arius. It wasn't sensible for multiple people to fish at a same point. He also tried to imitate and learn from Arius after going through the book.
Fishing was quite similar to hunting other monsters, once a fish is hooked the players needs to maintain the fish on the hook. The damage is caused as long the fish is on hook and once it dies, it can be reeled in.
If the player stubbornly reels in the fish if it tries to swim away after being hooked without giving a care to how much force he feels, the fish would break away and it would also lower the durability of the fishing rod. This mechanism isn't exactly like real fishing obviously. But it was quite similar to the other games and made fishing a bit more of a challenge. But mostly fishing was considered one of the leisure activities of the game.
While Rudra was focused on fishing, the remaining continued to search for other monsters to collect more meat and Balthazar was coming towards them with more than 1500 meats. Each stack of meats contained up to 20 pieces which could be put in one slot of bag space. A single player has 20 slots of bag space by default. So, the seven of them could carry a maximum of 2800 meats.
Shadow even gave Merlin a few gold and had him buy up whatever meat he could find from the auction house along with the red moss as he went to shop to retrieve the stored meats. Merlin managed to get up to 300 meats from the auction house. Apart from that he also had all the meat the team and Shadow collected till now. He even had more than one variety of cooked meat.
Shadow also bought another sprinkler which he could have someone else in the team use. It would also enable the rest of the team to hunt monsters faster. If Merlin used a confusion skill like Terror Wave followed by Tetsujin and other holding the monster down, even a docile monster could be taken down easily.
With cave of wargs frequently producing meat, a lot of player began to sell it and Rudra stocked up his shop with them. These were all collected by Balthazar and his team. They filled their bag spaces with them and made way to the location specified by Slaine.
Rudra was also not bad. He soon got the hang of it and managed to pull up a few fish. Luckily, the fish were lower leveled one's with little health and he didn't need much to hold on to them for much time before he could reel them in. After 15 minutes of him starting, he had a steady rate of getting at least two fishes per minute.
In 30 minutes, Balthazar and his team managed to reach the cabin and contact Rudra. He immediately exchanged the 1500 meat pieces he had with Rudra, so that he could exchange for some skills.