Saad made his way down and saw that his 'mother and sister' weren't home. It was a relief since he didn't want to waste time chatting with the NPCs when he had other more important things to do. Though the servants did seem rather taken aback by the murky ball of blood floating around their young master. It was ominous but Saad was too busy to notice it.
Saad made his way straight to the store that Kael's family owned. As he entered the shop, he saw that his grandfather was sitting in the manager's room. Of course because of the clear large window. He felt like he needed to go in and greet, it seemed like an obvious thing to do.
So Saad went inside and the old NPC Thorneval smiled at him as he closed his thick register. "You are back for work? You missed three days. Your mother and father were worried."
It was clear that regardless of the gentle look in his eyes, Thorneval was obviously displeased. He looked almost scary with his big stature. Saad did feel momentarily taken aback. He seemed to keep on forgetting how closely this game resembled reality and thus, just like real life, it was important to forge and keep relationships. Especially the relationship with his well off rich virtual family was extremely important.
"And that…What is that thing following you?" Thorneval looked skeptical, it was obvious that he had a lot of questions and Saad had a feeling that if he messed up, his familiarity level with Thorneval and even his family might drop.
The crimson sovereign floated on that question, as if validating its existence and went to rest on top of Saad's head. Not like the liquid was touching him, it was still in air but it almost looked as if it was sitting on his head.
Saad thought of opening the suggestion box but he felt like he should be just honest. It's not like he had done anything bad. So the NPC shouldn't react negatively.
"I was at the serpent's den, to get my class. I had no idea that it would take so long. And this guy here is a reward from a dungeon." Saad explained as the crimson sovereign continued to float. Saad looked at the NPC, wondering how he would react to it.
In the end he was an NPC, perhaps he should have checked the suggestion box. But soon the grandfather's expressions changed. He seemed interested in what Saad was saying. The man hummed in understanding.
"You should have come home and informed us. That sets a bad example for your sister too. And your parents were really worried. But a compulsory letter arrived from the association. What would you have done if that wasn't the case?" The grandfather spoke with a smile and a message flashed.
[Your virtue points have increased by 1.]
That message came as surprise to him. But he understood it right away. Since his 'grandfather' already knew that truth and he made the choice to not lie about it. And so his virtue had increased. It was pretty simple. Though there was no message of familiarity increasing, perhaps there was no level higher than ally.
"I will definitely tell you beforehand next time." He told Thorneval and the man nodded in response. His expressions had softened and he looked like he wasn't even angry.
"Good. Good. Now get back to work." The man said with a kind smile on his face. He looked like he was happy with his 'grandson' being truthful to him.
Saad nodded to the man and got to the work. The work as merchant was plenty fun. There were multiple players that visited but more than that, there were NPCs. The work at the store helped raise his negotiation skill.
[Your negotiation skill has increased by 0.02%]
[Your perception has increased by 0.02%]
[You have received 6 spheres.]
The messages started to appear as soon as his shift ended. In the end there were many game like features there to not make it as boring as reality. The money was transferred automatically and he also realized that working for one hour increased his negotiation and perception skills by 0.01%. While it wasn't a lot, it was something.
The crimson sovereign had gone back inside his inventory soon after his shift had started. There was message that did make him a little curious though. Since when that red blob went back, a curious message window had appeared.
[The crimson sovereign is low on life energy. Please provide life energy to charge the shield.]
But that blob said nothing and Saad wondered just what that life energy was. Was it referring to the demon essence?
That being said, the game hadn't even entered the scenario of angels and devils. No continent other than Gaia was even open so- how was he going to hunt a demon? The shield was good for now, but wouldn't it get annoying in the long run if it was in its incomplete form.
Saad came out of the store after bidding farewell to his grandfather. He checked the map and since he had bought the information that other day, the information of stich witch's dungeon and the direction was there. Though, Saad was annoyed, why was there no mount here yet? It was so annoying to go anywhere on foot.
Most games started with mounts and yet here he was, running full speed to a dungeon. This was just absurd.
In the end he had to run full speed to the dungeon that was fifteen minutes away, even with him running toward it full speed.
[Your stamina has decreased by 1]
The message kept flashing after every four minutes. In the end, high stamina stat was necessary. The running did have one good effect though. That was the increased of his movement speed.
[Your movement speed has increased by 0.01.]
----
The dungeon system in chimerical world system had an interesting little back story. According to the game lore, the world was once peaceful and void of monsters but when the first war of Gods started, the followers of each God and Goddess were far too weak to help in the war of divine and thus to train them and to avoid the law of casualty and fate, the dungeons were created.
They were the designated trials and also the way for people to obtain powers without being liable to the casualty. Thus the dungeons weren't always dark and gloomy places but rather the place where the adventurers received the boon of the gods.
Each dungeon had a dungeon master who operated the dungeon and maintained all functions. Each dungeon had its own specialty and people often went there to forge or raise their levels. But it was only for the dungeons which had known masters and those masters were the servants of the Gods. Thus in normal dungeons, the purpose was mainly to fight monsters and raise level and get the material.
That didn't mean that dungeons were a friendly place. They were dangerous. Thus every known dungeon already had a grade and requirement. Stich witch's domain was one of those dungeons. It was a beginner friendly dungeon but the monsters were low level and thus the chances of finding a rare material was 0.001%. The drop rate was also low on the initial floors and you could only get more as you went deeper into the maze.
But right now, it was crawling with players.
There were multiple reasons for that. One, the game had only released four months ago and there were only three servers as of now with a smaller content and most importantly. Clothing was important and most shops required you to bring clothing material and thus, it wasn't strange that the one of two clothing material dungeons of Seraphia would be so packed.