Artha's quest was doozy to say the least. Maybe it was because they gave quest under duress, the difficulty of the quest was quite high.
Peehu, the tailor, would have asked to kill 10 level 4 grey wolves, get atleast 5 grey wolf pelts, 10 wolf skin, 20 rooster feathers to apply as an apprentice. Yes, all this was just to get qualification to request for apprenticeship. The consequent quest would depend upon how long it took to complete the quest, how well the task was completed and as such.
In Artha's case, he had to kill wolf king, get pelts from red wolves, wolf skin from dark wolves, beaks from elite roosters, feathers from rooster boss and more. Wouldn't it take nearly a week for him to even reach the wolf den, still longer to be able to kill it? How much longer to kill a wolf king? The bosses, especially field bosses were generally considered property of guilds because it needed lots of people including expertsto reach the maps and bring these bosses to red.
Even a level 0 field boss sapped guild like Dragon Slayers, so how much human resource would be needed to kill higher level boss? And they spawned randomly and at different times even after their deaths. On top of it, the bosses were less in number. It was an unwritten understanding that bosses belonged to guilds because only they had enough energy and manpower to tackle them.
This quest was basically telling Artha to give up the hope of being apprentice to Peehu.
Tavish was even more outrageous. He directly asked to get rare monster drops from level 5 to 8 map areas and that too 10 sets. On top of it he had to get 20 sets of different ores, minimum of 5 types.
Zoya handed over a big time with faded cursive handwriting and drawings. It read 'True ways to distinguish A million herbs'. She just wanted him to copy it and hand it over within a week. Oh, also gather herbs needed for 100 sets of basic red and blue pots. Oh! Were you waiting for the list of herbs? Isn't it written in the book? Please read and find them yourself.
Zumi hummed and hawed. In the end, he said his quests were all over level 10. He felt a bit bad on seeing Artha's puppy face so he sold the writing materials a bit cheaply.
Vinzo's place had a chef and bartender. The self proclaimed chef was a narcissist of highest order but his behaviour was like a cook. As befitting his status, he ordered to 50 sets of premium ingredients for cooking.
The bartender, a wine fanatic just wanted to make fruit wines, so he gave a quest to gather different types of fruits and stuffs that could be used to make wine. Oh, around 100 sets would be probably enough for experiment.
Being a Nitpicker had costed him a lot. Handing over 1 set or ten set or even hundred didn't worry him. If he could not gather, he would purchase and multiply using his XP. The problem was only killing part. Probably he will have to shed a layer of skin to get cooperation of some guild to fulfill that portion. Even then he may not be able to kill the boss. As he pondered on the problem, he used the the bonus he got for sleeping in the hotel room and tried to increase his XP. He direly needed the XP to increase the the number of items he had. He had bought many items, 1 at a time, all in the preparation of using multipler bonus.
By the looks of it, he will not have a pot of gold by becoming first apprentice in any of the common lifestyles. By the looks of it, a wine maker seemed easiest to be but how much could be earn making fresh fruit wine, as an apprentice? He put that thought in the farthest end in his mind and continued to follow the course mapped before. It yielded faster way to gather XP and wasting less time. He teamed up with his usual team for kill stealing. Thankfully he came in late enough that they had nearly finished their tasks but not completely. He even got on spot guidance from a tank. A tank teaching a mage. It was a beautiful scene. Obviously it got immortalized by Artha for learning purpose and others in the team for pulling the leg.
It was not all walk on bed of roses even when he sought help of a group. They also had to run away far from aggro range from time to time. Some times, Artha would be a tad slow, suffering damage and nearly dying but he always kept a one health potion at hand and chug it directly irrespective of it was in cooldown or not.
But what Artha was facing was less than what others suffered, even the regular guild members. Yes, they were becoming better at dodging and killing the monsters but they could not get used to share the map. Occasional kill stealing by other players pulled their nerves. They were too used to rule the maps and behave superiorly but now they had to hide their teeth and tuck their tails and behave as one of the normal folks. So, their progress was limited and far below better independent groups and this was a situation they hated to be with. They wanted to rush forward, pioneer new maps and hog the resources and spend lavishly (compared to normal independent players).
If the situation continued similarly everywhere, the rate of progress would slow down drastically but players didn't complain much. Come on, people would bitch even when they recieve freebies. Compared to the hype and hoopla of the first day, the second day felt like a really playing the game. The casual players, the game loving players who formed the majority, found comradeship and shared whatever they found, deduced, whether it was right or wrong.
The market didn't have any items which pulled out the darkness hidden within the players till now. So who knows how long this comradeship would last?
The hidden battles between various guilds, workshops and other powers which had started from the first day continued.
Artha found an unique feature which could help him.