Eve

Adapting

    “Yes, Airyse!!?” My eyebrows rose up.

    “Have you never learned about being polite? I am older than you!” I teased him.

    “I am sorry. Ms. Airyse…” said David slowly.

    “I was just joking. You seem so scared of me. Am I that scary?”

    “No, you are not. I am sorry, Ms. Airyse.”

    “Don’t call me miss. I am still young. Um… David, may I know where you are from?”

    “I lived in LA.”

    “I see. But uh… Are you Chinese? Korean? Japanese?”

    “Both of my parents are Chinese. My mother is from Xi An and my father is from Taiwan.”

    “I see. Then just call me Jie Jie. Airyse Jie Jie (**-older sister in Chinese). I am also Chinese and I live in Singapore right now.”

    “Okay, jie jie.”

    “How old are you?”

    “I am 10 years old.”

    “Ah.. I am 21 years old. We have 11 years difference.” I smiled a bit.

    “By the way, did you save some berries inside your inventory?”

    David shaked his head. He was so cute. I rubbed his hair softly. I took out some berries and gave them to him. He then put the berries into his inventory. We walked along the road and arrived in an open massive field. We saw many people had gathered there and they were hitting some creatures.

    “Slimes…” I spoke softly.

    I looked at David worriedly.

    “Dave, are you sure that you want to follow me?”

    “We might need to kill some monsters if you want to follow me. Do you… happen to play some games?”

    “Yes, I played some games before. I understand this world a little bit too.”

    “Shall we try something then?” I asked David.

    “Party”

    A blue window popped out in front of me showing my party status. Party was a system inside a game to enable you to invite some people into your group. This system normally allowed you to share certain information within your party members. Although party system had different types of mechanics within each game, normally it would allow you to share things such as experience points and loot, or even give you information about your party members’ health points, position inside a map, and other stuff.

    There was an icon inside my party window with the word ‘Invite’ on it. I pressed it and saw several names inside the window. All the names that were in the invitation window seemed based on how close the distance between me and the other people was. I sent the party invitation to someone called David Hui. A message window popped out in front of David and asked him whether he wanted to join the party. He pressed the checked icon. We officially became a party.

    We walked away from the crowd and tried to find a quieter place. Both of us took our wooden sword from the inventory. We walked to the closest slime and swung our swords. As we swung our swords a couple of times, the slime splashed and disappeared, leaving some slimy liquid behind.

    “You can take it.” I said

    David put the loot inside his inventory. After that, we began to hunt some slimes nearby and share our loots between us.

    “Isn’t it scary?” I asked David.

    “Scary?”

    “We are here with some monsters lurking around. And we even kill them.”

    “You made us sound like very bad people,” he answered.

    “Did I?” I smiled.

    “No matter what, killing is always a bad thing. You know that right?” I asked him.

    “Yes, I know.”

    “Good, we only do this because we need to survive. That’s all. Okay?”

    He is so calm when killing monsters. Are kids these days very immersed already with video games? I shook my head and focused back on killing the slimes.

    You have leveled up!

    A message popped out in front of me. I was surprised. It only gave us so low experience points just to reach level 3. The first quest that gave me 500 experience points had already turned me to level two. After that we killed around 30 slimes to reach level 3.

    “Did you level up too, Dave?” I asked.

    “Yes, I had just leveled up. My level is 3 now!” he answered.

    Normally, when you played some games, everytime the players killed monsters or finished their given quests, they would be given some experience points. Experience points were needed to level up your character inside again and provide some additional bonuses to help in progressing the game. After leveling up, the system would give some status points to increase the character attributes to excel better in the game. However, since this world followed the game system…

    “Have you used your status points, Dave?”

    “Yes, I put them into agility first.”

    “All 4?”

    This world provided us with 2 status points everytime we leveled up. The points could be distributed into 6 status categories, which were; Str (Strength), Agi (Agility), Dex (Dexterity), Vit (Vitality), Int (Intelligence), and Wis (Wisdom). And after you put in some status, the system would confirm to put them on permanently. After several attempts to raise my status up, there was something that I learned about each status effect.

    Increasing Str would increase your ‘Physical Attack’ and ‘Physical Pierce Chance’. Increasing Agi would increase your ‘Attack Speed’, ‘Movement Speed’ and ‘Evasion’. Increasing Dex would increase your ‘Accuracy’, ‘Critical Hit Chance’, and ‘Critical Damage’. Increasing Vitality would increase your ‘Physical Defense’, ‘Maximum Health Point (HP)’, and ‘Health Point Regeneration’. Increasing Intelligence would increase your ‘Magic Attack’ and ‘Magic Pierce Chance’. While increasing Wisdom would increase your ‘Magic Defense’, ‘Maximum Mana Point (MP)’, and ‘Mana Point Regeneration’.

    “How about you, jie?” David asked.

    “I still do not know which status I will increase. Maybe later.” I answered.

    I opened my skill window, and there was no such thing as Skill Points. In some games that I played, besides status points that were given everytime we leveled up, there were also skill points that would be given too. Skill points were normally used to either learn new skills or increase the skill level. However, since there were no skill points given after we leveled up…

    Proficiency system?

    Beside the skill points system, there were some games that had proficiency systems regarding skill levels and learning new skills. With the proficiency skill system, as we kept using particular skills over and over, the proficiency of the skill would rise up. Proficiency skill system provided the players to level every skill that they had with hard work.

    “Did you play this kind of game too back then?”

    “Yes.”

    “Which class did you use to choose?”

    “It was either swordsman or assassin.”

    “I see! I also played some of these kinds of games back then. I usually play mage or priest.” I answered.

    “Are you scared? It does not feel real right? The fact that we go to this type of world?”

    “Yes jie. It is sad yet exciting too.”

    I smiled at his answer. He was just a kid anyway. It might be something fun for him too. Killing monsters huh… Will we ever be forgiven?

    “Do you want me to be your healer, Dave?”

    “Sure! I will be the strongest one here!”

    I laughed at his answer. We continued to walk further while killing some slimes nearby.

****

    “Dave, sssst…!” I asked David to be quiet.

    I grabbed David’s hand and we ran and hid near the bushes. We saw some people who came to the world with us drawing their swords and fighting against each other.

    “Dave… You've played this kind of game before, right? We do not know what happened with the other previous lifes. We need to be careful, there are dangerous people here.”

    The world where people who died with regrets came. The world where many people who are filled with anger, sadness, disappointment to the previous world might come. And they were even given some power now.

    I grabbed David’s hand tightly and we went to the forest nearby.

    “Dave… do not trust anyone here. Okay?”

    David nodded and his face was ashen.

    We ran deep to the forest and found a river. We sat there and scoop some water to drink. Our heavy breath started to lessen. I looked at David’s face. He was still a bit shocked. I reached his head and patted him.

    “Do you want to go back to the camp?” I asked him.

    He shook his head.

    “Okay… Let’s take a rest here.”

    We took out some berries and ate them. I asked David to rest on the big boulder near the riverbed.

    “You should rest a bit more. I will gather some berries first. Okay?”

    David nodded. I ran around and tried to gather some berries. There were some blueberry bushes in the forest. As I gathered some blueberries, I spotted some flowers in the deeper forest. I walked there and found a small garden filled with colorful flowers there.

Yarrow flowers...

    Yarrow flowers are known to be one of the remedies to stop bleeding. I drew my sword and started to cut the flowers and gathered them. The Harvest skill was very helpful when gathering these flowers. When I cut the flowers and put them into the inventory, sometimes the amount of the flowers that I got were doubled.

    I opened my map and party window from time to time to check David’s position. He had not yet moved anywhere.

    What an obedient boy.

    As I gathered more flowers and berries around, I noticed that David’s HP started to depleted. I was shocked. I ran towards him rapidly.

    David… please be safe.

    I saw David from far away. He was standing in front of a pack of wolves. There were 4 wolves in total and all of them started to surround him. I drew my sword and charged the wolves.

    “Dave!! Are you ok?”

    “Jie.. I.. only have 36 HP left” he said in pain.

    I took out some yarrow flowers that I had gathered before and threw them on David.

    “Let’s make our way to the river, soak the flowers into the water and press them on your wounds.”

    “Okay.”

    We walked step by step to the river when trying to defend ourselves from the wolves. One of the wolves jumped towards me. I slashed it with my sword. He was thrown away and rose up. David tried to make his way to the river. One of the wolves ran towards him. I charged the wolf and slashed it. David looked at me.

    “Don’t stop. Quick!!”

    Two wolves charged at me and bit me.

    “Ahhhh!!” I struggled and slashed them back. 30 HP drained from two bites.

    I ran to the river too, we soaked the flowers and pressed them to our wounds.

Yarrow Flower - Achillea millefolium 

Yarrow flower is a perennial plant that produces several stems and has a spreading growth form. Commonly found in white or pink color. It is often used as a feed for livestocks. With proper usage, it can stop bleeding and treat wounds.

    The wounds were gone and our HP was healed. I looked at David. We nodded. As David had put all of his stat to Agi, he was a little bit faster than me. He charged at one of the wolves and slashed its leg. The other two came and tried to bite David. I ran and slashed them.

    As we fought, we started to grow tired. All the 4 wolves were still standing strong. It seemed like all the damage we dealt towards them was too small. I started to contemplate.

    That’s it!

    I gathered the mana that I had into my sword. I charge and s***h the closest wolf to me. The wolf howled out of pain.

    It’s working!!

You have gained a skill!

Slash (Active) Lvl. 1

One of the basic swordsman skills. By using the blade side of a sword, deal a total of (100% attack power + 30 additional damage) to one enemy.

Mana Required: 25        Skill Cooldown: 3 seconds

    My very first active skill! Then…

    I ran towards the same wolf, while transferring some of my mana to the tip of the sword. I stabbed its body with all the strength that I had.

    You have gained a skill!

Stab (Active) Lvl. 1

One of the basic swordsman skills. By using the tip of a sword, deal a total of (90% attack power + 50 additional damage) to one enemy.

Mana Required: 25      Skill Cooldown: 5 seconds

    David watched everything and copied the same thing that I did. Soon after, the wolves were defeated. We were so tired. We sat on the river bed and healed our wounds with the flowers. I looked at David.

    “Are you Okay?”

    “Yes. Thank you jie. The fight was extremely difficult. And oh, how did you find these flowers?”

    “Somewhere deeper in the forest. You did well. You survived well…”

    “I’m sorry Dave. I shouldn’t leave you at that time.”

    “It’s okay. You saved me. We are fine. Thank you.”

    “Did you level up too?”

    “Yes!” he smiled.

    We gained 2 levels from killing the wolves. It seemed like the wolves were at a higher level compared to us.

    “You seem to know a lot about flowers, jie.”

    “Eh? No… That was just a coincidence.”

    “Should we gather more flowers, jie?”

    “Yes, we used quite a lot of them before. Let’s stock up and level up there. There are some blueberries and mushroom-looking monsters there too.” I answered excitedly.

    We moved to the place that I found. We picked up more blueberries, yarrow flowers, and twigs. David then told me while gathering, he obtained the same skill with me. Harvest. Soon, the sun started to set.

    “We should stop and find a shelter. It’s getting dark now.”

    “Yes, jie jie.” answered him happily.

    We decided to go back to the river again and walk alongside the river. We tried to find a cave or something for us to stay at night. We were so exhausted.

    After walking for some time, we couldn’t find any cave. We found a big tree and decided to stay there. I took out some twigs and started to rub two twigs together. David saw me and started to copy what I do. The twigs sparked and I put them into the other twigs. It started to fire up.

    I gathered some dried leaves nearby and put the leaves into the fire.

    “Should we… cook the meat?”

    “The wolf’s meat?” I asked.

    “Yes, I get bored eating blueberries”

    “We don’t have salt or pepper for the taste.”

    “Let’s try one?”

    “Hahaha… Okay, sure”.

    I took out the wolf’s meat that was dropped by the wolves we fought before. I stuck it into the branch and started grilling it. It smelled so delicious.

    Will it be ok to cook meals here? It won’t attract monsters right? Uh...

    David picked up some leaves and ran to the river. He washed the leaves and his sword. He gave his sword to me, I cut the meat into smaller pieces. We ate the meat and the berries.

    “It was so good!” said David.

    “I miss eating meat so much”

    “Hahaha.. Shall we hunt wolves more tomorrow?” I asked.

    “Yes, yes!”

    We began to gather more leaves and made a bed from them. We laid down on top of it. David hugged me closely and rested his head on my shoulder. We were extremely exhausted and fell asleep straight away.