Jack then took a look at his stats to see the progress he had made thus far.
*
Storm Wind
Class: Fighter / magician
Level 13 / Level 12
Attributes:
- HP = 580
- Stamina = 230
- MP = 220
- Strength = 59
- Dexterity = 51 (+2)
- Intelligence = 56
- Endurance = 58
- Reflex = 45
- Wisdom = 57
- Luck = 12 (+1)
- Free attribute point = 6
- Free skill point = 6/6
*
Equipment:
- Right-hand weapon = Storm Breaker (level 12, one-handed sword, physical damage: 59)
- Left-hand weapon = Apprentice staff (level 1/10 magic weapon, magical damage: 10)
- Head = none
- Chest = Leather armor (5/15 normal medium armor, physical defense: 9, magical defense: 7)
- Shoulder = Leather pads (5/15 normal medium armor, physical defense: 7, magical defense: 3)
- Arms = Leather bracers (1/10 normal light armor, physical defense: 2, magical defense: 2)
- Belt = none
- Pants = Leather pants (1/10 normal light armor, physical defense: 2, magical defense: 2)
- Boots = Leather boots (10/20 normal medium armor, physical defense: 12, magical defense: 8)
- Cloak = none
- Necklace = none
- Ring 1 = Ring of Luck (Accessory, Luck +1)
- Ring 2 = none
- Special equipment = Administrator God-Eye
Physical Defense = 32
Magical Defense = 22
*
There were still many empty armor slots. He wondered if he would be able to equip a full collection before he hit level 15.
After he finished tidying up his equipment, Jack looked at the recipe. It was a recipe for an artisan job that he had never touched before.
*
Small Health potion (Alchemist recipe, Apprentice grade)
Create a potion that recovers 100 HP
Ingredients: 1 green leaf
*
Jack proceeded to learn the recipe. Peniel, who was beside him, asked, "Do you plan to learn every recipe that comes your way? Even those from different jobs?"
"Something wrong with that?" Jack asked.
The Fairy shrugged, "Well, it's up to you actually, but I have to tell you that you can only level up one job to the highest rank of Grandmaster, then another one to Master rank. While the remaining two jobs can only reach the Expert Rank. So, it is better to just focus on one or two artisan jobs rather than wasting your time learning all of them. That way, you can sell the recipes for the jobs that you don't need, or give them to a friend who focuses on that job. In that way, you can complement each other."
"But I don't have any friends other than you, nor a shop to sell the recipe to," Jack countered.
"You will," Peniel replied with indifference.
Jack no longer bothered to ask her what she meant. She would simply ask him to wait and see.
During his grinding, he also went around scavenging for any resources he could find. He mostly found ingredients, medicine or food. But once, when he went into a home appliance superstore, his God-eye monocle picked up two items of interest. One was a tent and the other was a portable stove. He inspected them with his monocle.
*
Camping Tent (common item)
Reduce the time needed for full-recovery rest in the wilderness
Reduce the chance of being ambushed during rest in the wilderness
*
Apprentice Cooking Stove (common Cooking tool)
Allows cooking in the wilderness
Increase speed of cooking by 10%
*
He grinned with satisfaction at finding these. With these two tools and his mobile blacksmith tools, he didn't need to worry about looking for a place to rest during his travels.
Seeing his grin, Peniel smirked and said, "The stove is a useful item, but as for the tent, you probably should just throw it away."
"Why is that?" Jack asked in confusion.
"The reduction in the chance of being ambushed from that common grade tent is very small. It might as well be non-existent. Unless you already found a safe place before setting up the tent, you will likely get attacked by the creatures of the night during your sleep nine times out of ten.
You should forget about sleeping in the open until you get a higher grade tent. The lowest grade you should aim for is uncommon. That grade of tent will usually have an alarm function incorporated to warn you when monsters come within range. More rare ones will have stealth function or repelling function which provides an even better safety feature."
"I see," Jack was depressed, but he still stored the tent in his bag. He had plenty of space inside his storage bag. When he finds a place where he can sell his stock of equipment, he might be able to sell this tent as well.
He continued his routine of killing monsters for another two days. He was about to hit level 13 for his Magician class when he heard a loud notification.
"One hundred players have reached level 10. Tutorial Period will come to an end. Please proceed to the designated point to transfer to the main world. You have until noon, five days from now, to reach the designated place. Failure to do so will result in a heavy penalty."
The notification voice was very loud, and it sounded as if it came from the sky itself. Jack imagined that the voice could be heard from the entire city. The notification repeated another two times before silence reclaimed the city. A beacon of purple light appeared in the sky shining down at a place a fair distance away.
"Tutorial?" Jack was confounded by the notifications. "What does it mean?"
"It means what it sounded like," Peniel replied with a callous expression. "Your learning time is at an end; time to move to a grander stage."
"You mean this whole time this was just a tutorial stage? What tutorial? There was no one around to tutor me!"
"Do you expect someone to hold your hand as you learn about this world? This is no place for weaklings. You either learn and survive, or fail and perish."
"Damn, that's one harsh way."
"It is what it is," Peniel said without changing her expression.
Jack shrugged, "So this end of Tutorial Period is what you have been telling me to wait for?"
"It is," she replied.
"Is that purple light showing us the place we are supposed to go?" He pointed to the distant light beaming down from the sky.
"Yes."
"What is at that place?"
"A doorway to the main world, didn't you pay attention to the voice?" Peniel said with annoyance.
"What main world? Is it the real world? The real world where I came from?"
Peniel looked at him coolly. During the time she spent with him, he had bothered her with questions about some place he called 'the real world' that had no magic, no monsters. And people spent their days doing routine work and relied mostly on technology.
"I have no idea about this 'real world' you say you originated from. THIS is the real world! You'd better get your head in the game and stop thinking about that nonsense."
"Time to wrap up your business here and start to make way to that designated place," she added. "As the voice said, if you fail to go through the doorway, when the time limit ends, this tutorial space will collapse and you will suffer a penalty."
"Penalty? This place will collapse? As in, this city will be destroyed? If that happens, wouldn't we die? What sort of penalty will matter anymore if we die?"
"The penalty will be the same as if you had died during this tutorial period."
"Huh?" Jack was confused. "Wait, are you saying that it is not the end if we died during this tutorial period?"
Peniel glanced at him, no longer bothering to explain further she said, "just hurry with your preparations, we should depart soon. You can only travel on foot and it is better to arrive early than be late and suffer the consequences."
"And I thought we had bonded these past few days, yet you still like to keep your secrets," Jack said mockingly.
The Fairy ignored him and disappeared into thin air.
"And there she goes, doing the vanishing act again," Jack shook his head.
"Well, no point in hanging around here anyway. Better go to that 'designated place' and find out what's going on for myself."
He went back to the Trigitech building to rest, since it was pretty late in the day already. He would sort out all his things and rest before he departed tomorrow to find the place that the voice in the sky had instructed.
"One hundred players, eh?" He mumbled before he went to sleep, "Didn't expect there were so many people in the city."