Artha could forcibly cut off the impromptu question and answer session. Wonder how he would feel if he knew how powerful Zoya was and he dared to stop her.
"I would love to sit and discuss with you, my esteemed lady. However, I have a prior appointment and I am going to be late."
Zoya apparently had a one track mind. "Appointment? With whom? Where? Why?"
"With my fellow members. Near black wolf area in the forest. The reason is not worthy to sally your ears."
"Wait! Don't go to your appointment, don't meet other. Instead, go back. Finish reading the book completely."
"Obviously, I'll finish reading the book. But right now, I have work to do. So I'll do it in evening."
"Go back, NOW!!" The order was issued. Heck, it was no longer a talk between friends. He got a f*cking task, marked, urgent, red hot, compulsory, yada, yada, yada.
Zoya meant it, it seemed. The status bar activated on it own to show the details of the task.
GO NOW!
FINISH THE BOOK!!!!
COME BACK AND REPORT TO ZOYA!!!!
Yep! Even AI turned snotty after hugging a high level NPC. It gave orders, oops, tasks, in whole capital letters! Artha just had to be satisfied that it didn't go to extreme and add abbreviations or emoticons, heaven forbid gifs or memes. Those sent by people itself was so horrifying! Ones by AI, auto generated, it would be endless loop.
Artha sighed! Good bye my XPs and new items in new maps! He hastily sent a message to his babysitter in Bloody Rose that he would be late, probably so late that he may decide not to come at all, thus no need to wait for him in the usual spot. He would call or message if he finishes early and ready to grind with them. Thank you. You lose nothing by being polite. That's what his parents had taught him. The life added, just watch to whom you are being polite, few are not worth it. However, this was just a game. That too, just the beginning. No one will draw a fine line and try to get the player delete his gaming avatar/ character. So, he followed the words of parents.
He didn't go to nook. He sat on the bed in the room and started. Reading. Progress bar inching closer to 100%..... Finally! Done! The game AI actually sent the content of the whole book into his mind. He tsked. Where were you when I was running around like a mad person in the library to read books. Wish there was a hack like this in real world. He would be able to read hundreds and thousands of books each month. Others want to play this game to play. Here is our boy who wants to play the game to read. Atta boy! Seriously! If the game AI could send contents of textbooks into mind, all the colleges would make this game mandatory.
He toyed with the idea of starting to copy the book. But in the end, common sense prevailed. He hightailed to Zoya's place to finish the task. He had not wasted much time. He could still rendezvous with the Roses.
The reward for completing the mandatory and urgent task? New lifestyle job- Herbologist!
What's this? He was getting new jobs left and right. Once it's a trader. Next time it's a herbologist. Why can't he get the job he actually intended?
Once the mental rant came off, he asked Zoya directly about the job. He really had some link with her. The trader job was due to her help too.
Herbology turns out to be an auxiliary profession. Sort of miner to blacksmith or a fabric maker to a tailor. Herbs after all are the key ingredients in making potions. Only a herbologist can make out the difference between fresh herbs and stored ones, few days old and few years old.
The effect - when herbologist collects plant based items, he gathers them precisely, making sure the effect is not diminished. He can appraise any plant based product and name the ingredients.( Nitpicker title did similar job.) Of course, appraisal was based on herbologist had learnt. Currently, Artha was level 0 in that too. So he worked and learn simultaneously.
If a herbologist became a potioneer, it was like getting wings. He could adjust the recipe or the steps to ensure maximum usage, thus completion rate, efficacy rate would be rather higher than other potioneers. But the biggest gain would come later, when the players could create their own recipes. If the potioneer is a herbologist too, creating new recipes would be oh so easy! Wrong assumption, sorry. The process would be easier, and cheaper.
This game was tempting him, Artha thought as Zoya was glorified the herbologist profession. Obviously Zoya would be biased as she was a herbologist herself. It was handing out bonuses which would be worthwhile only in later date. He seriously had to ponder about if he should continue playing this game or not.
Then Zoya gave a sweet news. As he was a herbologist, it would be a waste of he wasn't a potioneer. So she waived off the requirement of copying the book. Now we are talking!!! But before, he could get excited, she imposed new portion to be that task's substitute. Collecting items. Loads of it. Different ones. Basically, he had to give over half of what he had collected already. Remaining items were all from level 5 maps, he had not collected enough and he had not ventured into every level 5 map yet.
Artha thought for some time. He went back to his room in the inn, ruthlessly put all the items needed for the quest into few trader bags and deposited them at Zoya's. This way he would have lots of free bags to full the items and he could keep an eye on the items which were not needed to handover for the quest and which ones were needed.
Needless to say, Zoya was impressed. Impressed that a low level blessed immortal could get that much raw resource so soon. Somehow, it turned into wrong impression of Artha having an army of blessed immortals working for him. That impression would come back to bite him later. Or maybe not. Risk and rewards walk hand in hand after all. When all said and done, this is a game, a semblance of fair play is a necessity.
With a new josh, Artha decided to run towards level 5 maps. As the levels increased, the maps became vast and varied. The game was slowly cooking the frog, slowly shedding previous ways of playing games and to allow players to try new ways. So, inspite of having more than half of over five thousand players at level 4 and higher, not all the level 5 maps were explored. Majority of them were actually searching for dungeon entrances rather than truly exploring. As different villages found the dungeons, the pressure on remaining villages and players increased.
In some villages, players had extraordinary luck and had already explored more than half of the dungeon. Even if it had resulted in drastic level loss and deaths of players, the gains outweighed them. The number of equipments and weapons, potions and scrolls collected from the dungeons made everyone envious. Even a noob like Artha felt the pull when he saw screenshots and short videos of the loots within the dungeons. Just think how would others, veterans, would feel.