At the center of the novice village is 3 big stone monuments. On the stone statues, there are player's names along with their village numbers. One of the monuments is the ranking of players with the highest level. Another monument holds the ranking for the players with the most wealth. While the last monument holds the ranking of the player with the most combat power.
At this moment, everyone in village 1003 is freaking out because, on 2 of the monuments, a player from their village holds the first place. The player's name is Adam White and while he is level 5 which places him in the top twenty in the level ranking, he is first place in both wealth ranking and combat power ranking.
While everyone is discussing loudly thanks to the proximity chat that is integrated into the game, the person in question is standing in front of the statue looking amused. As he thought, he is the strongest player in the game and not just his server. The highest level player currently is level 6 and there are 10 other players on the same level.
If Adam wanted to he could easily reach level 10 and become the best player in the whole game. But Adam wants to do something else. He wants to first accumulate free exp and level up all his skills to rank EX and maybe even max out his EX skills. Leaving the stone monuments, Adam goes to the village's shop to see what he can buy.
In front of the shop is a hanging sign with a merchant symbol on it. Adam opens the door and a bell rings as he steps into the shop.
"Hello, how may I help you?"
A young man in his mid-20s is standing behind the counter greets him as he enters the shop.
"Hello. May I know what type of stuff you sell here?"
Adam asks as he arrives right in front of the counter.
"We sell a variety of stuff, sir. There are weapons, potions, food, armor, and even skill books."
Hearing skill books, Adam immediately becomes interested.
"Yes, sir. We have a few skill books in our storage but they are quite pricey. After all, they are quite hard to get."
Hearing the seller talk Adam frowns a little. If the price is too high, he might not be able to buy them. If the price is higher than 3 gold coins, he might be in trouble.
"The price for each F-rank skill book is 1 gold coin. Unfortunately, we don't have any skill books above F-rank."
Adam's face immediately brightened up again after he heard that each skill book cost 1 gold coin.
"May I know what skill books there are on sale?"
"Wait a moment, sir. I will bring them out."
The seller goes to the storage room behind the shop and takes out 3 skill books.
"Here are the skill books, sir."
On the counter, there are five different skill books. [Heal],[Sneak] and [Mana Shield]. Thinking about it, he decides to only buy [Heal] and [Sneak].
He takes out 2 gold coins from his inventory and hands it out to the seller.
"Here, I shall take the [Heal] and [Sneak] skill books please."
"Thank you for your purchase. Is there anything else you need?"
Adam thinks about it for a moment and decides to buy a sword.
"Is there any good sword here?"
"Of course, sir. Our shop only sells top-of-the-line products in its rank. What type of sword would you need?"
"What can I get for 5 silver?"
"For five silver, you can buy our E-rank steel sword."
"I would like 1 steel sword please."
"Please wait a moment sir."
After a moment of searching, the seller takes out a steel sword from the storage room and handed it out to Adam. Adam pays with the last gold coin and gains back 5 silver coins.
Adam holds the sword and its status appears.
[Steel sword]
Item type: Equipment
Rank: E
Level 1
Physical Damage +10
Satisfied with his purchase, Adam left the shop and exited the village to test his new weapon. Before he exited the village, he suddenly remembered his newly bought skill books. He takes them out of his inventory and learns them.
Warm energy flows through his body and he instantly knows how to cast the spells.
[Heal]
Skill type: Active
Rank: F
Level 1(0/10)
Desc: Instantly heals 5% of target's health.
[Sneak]
Skill type: Active
Rank: F
Level 1(0/10)
Desc: Reduce sound produced when moving by 10% for 30 seconds
Looking at the skills, Adam max out the skill's level and evolves them
[Great Heal]
Skill type: Active
Rank: C
Level 1(0/100)
Desc: Instantly heals 50% of the target's health. Regenerates 1% every second of the target's health for 5 seconds
[Stealth]
Skill type: Active
Rank: C
Level 1(0/100)
Desc: Reduce sound produced when moving by 100% for 300 seconds. Reduce the target's presence by 10% for 300 seconds
Closing the status window, Adam exited the village walks into the wilderness. He walks for a few minutes and sees a few players along the way. Some of them are killing a slime while others are killing goblins. He walks further into the forest and he encounters his first monster since he enters the wilderness.
[Grey Wolf]
Rank: F
Level 5
Adam readies his swords to fight the wolf when suddenly the wolf jumps at him faster than anything he has seen so far. Thankfully this is not his first fight and he is also stronger than before. Side-stepping the wolf's attack, Adam swings his swords towards the wolf's hind leg. With that one swing, the wolf's leg gets chopped off, and the wolf falls to the ground.
The wolf whimpers and growls at Adam when it sees that Adam is coming closer to it. Adam without any shred of mercy beheaded the wolf and let its corpse lay there.
[Free exp +20]
Adam l dismisses the notification and proceeds to keep the wolf's corpse inside the inventory. Unlike the corpse of the rabbits, this corpse didn't disappear as it is the main source of income for players. They need to bring the corpse of the monster they killed and bring it back to the village's butcher to sell.
Adam doesn't dwell too long at the place and delves deeper into the forest. His goal today is to find a level 10 monster and gain enough exp to upgrade [Sword Aura] and [Mana Manipulation] to rank EX.