"Huff… huff… huff…"
After an intense battle, Kane was heavily panting while also near exhaustion. Despite that, he was smiling. He was smiling because this was the first time he was thrilled after a very long time.
'I feel good. I totally forgot all the shit that happened today.'
But in the middle of his deep breaths, he saw the injured Maria on the ground. Kane approached her and reached out his hand. She grabbed it, and Kane helped her stand up. Of course, what kind of a Non-Playable Character or NPC would refuse help from a Player?
"Don't worry about those guys, they won't be bother—"
SLAP!
"Asshole!"
Maria suddenly shoved his hand away and slapped his face. Kane was astounded at the actions of the NPC.
'What the hell was that?'
That was the only words that Kane could think of while Maria scoffed away from him. It seemed the arrogant Kane forgot that he was the one who pushed Maria away.
"Hey! What about my rewa—"
*CHING*
A notification box suddenly appeared.
[Quest Failed]
[Fame decreased]
[Reputation decreased]
[Tutorial Tips: How Players and NPCs would interact with you highly depends on Fame and Reputation. Reputation is the accumulated points that a Player can gain in a CITY and is different for every city. However, Fame is the accumulated points a Player earned in the world of Arcadia, including all the Reputation points.]
"What?! I failed?! Then I went through all these hassles for no reason!! Where's that shitty Maria?!"
Kane swiped away the notification to look for Maria. But the road was empty. Thankfully, Maria managed to run away from this hooligan.
"Damn it. Because of this stupid panels appearing everywhere. Now what?"
[Do you want to disable Tutorial Tips?]
"Yes! You fucker!"
[Tutorial Tips disabled.]
With nothing to do, Kane sat for a moment to look at his stats.
Name: Kane250
Level: 2 (0/100)
Class: N/A
Title: N/A
Titles Acquired: N/A
Health: 120/120
Mana: 50/50
Stamina: 20/20
Weight: 10/200
Stat Points: 10
STR: 10
AGI: 10
INT: 10
Luc—
But there were too many variables that Kane didn't understand. How would this idiot know when he turned off the tips.
Kane scrolled down and saw two stats that caught his attention.
FAME: 0
HERALD CITY REPUTATION: 0
"Hmmm, I wonder what will happen now that I have zero reputation."
Kane spent a few minutes of stretching while waiting for something to happen. During his wait, Kane realized that each and everything you do in Arcadia mattered. From 0/100 experience points, it moved to 5/100.
'I would've just kept on stretching to level up, but this is a complete waste of time. I've been stretching for more than 30 minutes now and only racked up 5 XP points. While I fought those guys earlier and leveled up in just 5 minutes. But... what now?'
Kane waited for another 5 minutes. And then 30 minutes. And finally, those minutes became an hour.
"AHHHHH, SHIT!! HOW LONG WAS I SUPPOSE TO WAIT?!"
Nothing was happening. Kane was just waiting there at the village roads without anything to do like a madman. He was idle for too long that his back didn't even hurt anymore.
"What kind of game is this?! What am I supposed to do? Was it because I skipped the tutorial?? Damn it. I better search for something."
Luckily for stupid players like him, there was a free in-game search engine panel that people could use. All the information that could be searched in this engine came from the other players only. Because of that, the details were not 100% reliable. The only information that was released by Arcanos themselves were solutions to technical equipment problems.
Every player could materialize this panel anytime they wanted to. However, it was recommended to use it outside combat as it would hinder the player's sight.
Search: What to do after your encounter with Maria.
'Nice, now search.'
Multiple guides appeared in front of him. But as he was about to click a link, he suddenly went back to the search engine and searched for another keyword.
Search: How to Make Moonwrath Armor.
But nothing came out. Kane was confused.
'That's weird. Did Joshua lie to me? Nope... I doubt that.'
Because of that, he changed the keyword again.
Search: Where to find Moonshards.
Joshua. That was the name of Kane's friend and Mr. Lee's son. Before he died, he would tell Kane his adventures in Arcadia and would like Kane to join him. However, Kane was never interested in games.
One of the dreams that Joshua told him was the making of the legendary Moonwrath Armor. An armor that was supposed to give the user the ability to manipulate gravity. And one of the materials needed for that was the Moonshard.
Search Results: Moonshards
Moonshards were magical fragments of the moon that fell on earth. The material itself is hard and durable, but no other use except for crafting. They are usually mined in silver caves.
'Nice. Now let's find that shit.'
Kane finally stood up and walked away from his nesting place. He decided to walk toward while also using the search bar. He didn't realize he was headed to the town square.
Search: Where to find Silver Caves near Herald City
Search Results: 3 Caves Available.
Lakewild Cave.
Fruit Eye Cave.
Nightmouth Cave.
Ugh!
Thud!
Kane banged on another player because he was too busy using the search engine. Only Kane was the one who dropped to the ground because the other guy got higher strength.
"Hey! Watch out, newbie!"
Kane apologized by nodding. Suddenly, he heard a voice. A man wearing a green cape was shouting in the middle of the town square.
"This is a raiding party, we need one more member!"
Kane was just curious at first and decided to just watch over them. The man continued shouting.
"We are going to the Fruit Eye Cave! Anyone wants to join!"
'Oh! Look at my luck!'
Kane was delighted. He suddenly stood up and approached them with a smile on his face.
"Do you need a member?"
"Yes, what level are you?"
"30."
"30? Are you kidding me, bro? Stop wasting my time and scram away."
"Why? I'm level 30!"
"Level 30, my ass. You're wearing Ripped clothes! That's for fucking level 1!"
In the world of Arcadia, players could never see another player's level. The only way for some players to know another player's level was to check on their equipment as items in Arcadia had a required level for a player to wield. It might not be accurate, but at least, they had an idea about that person's level.
And the default starting equipment for every player was the Ripped Leather Set.
Kane and the guy kept on bickering at each other as Kane was forcing himself to the party, pretending to be level 30. Suddenly, a guy equipped with red armor and a red shield appeared.
"Dreyer, it's okay. We only need a party to raise the difficulty so that we'll get more rewards. We'll carry him."
"But Birthos, we still need to find a suitable member. This guy is probably level 2! He's just an additional baggage!"
"It's okay."
The man gently tapped Dreyer's shoulder before facing Kane. He looked at the ID above Kane's head and saw the Kane250.
In Arcadia, everyone could see each others' in-game ID as long as their face wasn't covered. As for this case, Kane didn't have any helmet that his Kane250 was displayed for everyone to see.
"Ah, so you're Kane250?"
"Huh? Do we know each other!?"
"Haha! I see that you're really level 1 or 2. Your name is displayed above your head just like mine."
The dude pointed above his own head, for Kane to see the floating text above his hair.
ID: Birthos
"Ah, so you're Birthos?"
"Yeah, and you? Kane250?"
"Kane. Just Kane."
"Alright, welcome to the party. My name is Birthos, I'm the party leader of this group. These guys behind me were Dreyer, Malloy, and Rafter. Don't worry if you're feeling out of place. We all just met and partied on this day just for this raid."
"Uhuh…"
And with that. Kane joined the squad with ease, although Dreyer was still wary of him. Birthos gathered the players and explained the situation. Luckily, Birthos was considerate enough to tell everything at Kane.
There were many ways to level and gain items in Arcadia. One of them was raiding dungeons. Most of the dungeons that could be found on Herald Island were caves.
Caves were usually straightforward. The players will go in, kill some monsters, fight the boss, collect all the loot, and then go out. However, among the caves in the Herald Island or the tutorial island, the Fruit Eye Cave was considered the worst cave on the island as it was not your usual cave.
Unlike the other caves that the players will instantly gain XP upon killing a monster, the Fruit Eye Cave will only give XP to the players once they killed the boss. To add to that, the rooms were not straightforward, and players, including professionals, had a hard time going through the maze.
So, why bother going to this cave?
Rewards in Arcadia highly depended on two things. The difficulty and the number of times it was cleared. The harder the Dungeon, the better the rewards. The fewer times it was cleared, the better the rewards. Since people hated Fruit Eye Cave the most, it was currently the one with the best loots.
Upon hearing all that, Kane agreed in almost everything. But he couldn't help but be bothered by one thing.
"Okay. I get it. But how sure are you that we're not gonna be trapped in that cave. You said it yourself, it was a maze."
Birthos chuckled. He raised his hand, flicked it, and a floating textbox appeared that everyone could see.
[Birthos LVL 12]
Guild: B33FK1NG
But unlike Kane's simple blue textbox, Birthos' textbox is different. There's an emblem in the back in the figure of a shadow of a man wearing a crown. And the edges even had a design like it was a frame on an expensive painting more than a virtual panel. Kane was in awe.
"Woah. Why are your panels like that? And what's with that guild name… B… three… three…"
People in the room started laughing. Malloy shouted,
"This fucker is really a newbie!! Wahahaha!!"
Dreyer explained,
"It's Beefking. It was a Famous B-class guild. The insignia in the textbox is the logo of that guild. We will all gain one if we enter a guild."
Birthos nodded.
"Correct. And if we're successful on this raid, I'll recommend you to our guild leader."
"Oh, really!" Rafter shouted.
But Kane was really not interested as the critical question was still left unanswered.
"You still haven't answered as to why we are not gonna get lost."
"One of the few people who cleared this cave my our guild leader. Because of that, I have this map. I can't show it to you because it's locked, and I'm the only one here who could access it. But believe me, this map is 100% accurate."
Kane reluctantly agreed.
"Okay, then. I'm under your care. But why do you need me?"
"The more number of players that entered that dungeon will increase the difficulty. Higher difficulty, better rewards."
Kane was just constantly nodding at all the things that Birthos said while the others were subtly chuckling at his lack of basic knowledge. Kane didn't really care anyway as he only cared for the making of the legendary armor.
As they were about to leave, Birthos took out a sword from his inventory and tossed it at Kane.
"As a gift. Since you don't even have a weapon, I'll give you this sword."
[You received ENHANCED IRON SWORD]
Attack: +10
'I don't actually need this since I don't know how to use a sword, but I think it's a bit rude to refuse his generosity.'
Kane put up a fake smile and accepted the gift.
"Alright, thanks."
With all of them ready, Birthos went to the front and shouted,
"Alright, Birthos Party, let's get moving!"
After 20 mins of walking, they reached a spooky swamp. Tall grasses were blocking their view as they move forward the swamp.
The others were covering their nose because of the smell. That was an indicator that the others were using a VR capsule. However, for Kane, he didn't need to cover his nose as he couldn't smell anything.
Despite that, Kane couldn't stop his legs from shivering. Even though he knew this was just a game, the weird sounds coming from the swamp water felt so real that he couldn't help but somehow feel afraid. Kane thought that some creatures might appear from the water at some point.
Luckily, nothing happened, and they reached the cave.
'Huff… huff… shit. What was that?'
Kane tried to hide being scared. Thankfully, none of them were interested in him. Because the real problems were just right in front of them.
The ground started shaking. Kane could hear tens or maybe a hundred steps closing in from the dark. Birthos and the others took out their sword to prepare.
Kane was a brave man since he was a former athlete. However, even a man like him couldn't help but feel afraid at the sight of monsters. Almost a hundred rabid wolves appeared from the dark and swarmed the group. Kane immediately turned around and ran away.