The World Of Skill

First Town

“I guess I should log out for today.”

After finally finishing the quest from Randy, Ryu’s character already leveled up once. He is getting tired of playing the game because he wasn’t used to it. His body is still okay but his mind is weary due to experiencing unexpected-hard battles.

Green World doesn’t have a limitation on the number of hours a player can log in to the game. After all, the virtual reality pods supported the nutrients needed by the body and put it in a rested condition. The mind however doesn’t really get the chance to rest since the brain is still active while inside the game. Only advice to control your gaming time and not to overdo it is listed on the virtual reality pods.

Coming out of the virtual reality pods, Ryu feels a little bit dizzy. The dissonance of his brain to come back to reality having adjusted to his virtual body is happening. Most of the people call it the third-dimension syndrome. Some severe case makes the patient unable to divide between reality and the virtual world. Where a couple of patients died due to being dazed when crossing the street or jumping out of their room on high floors thinking that they will respawn or their strengthened body from inside the game can survive the fall.

After resting his body for a while and feeling better, he did some light stretching and make sure that there is no other problem. Feeling relieved that he probably just feeling dizzy because it is the first time for him to use the virtual reality pods, Ryu decided to sleep to rest his tired mind.

***

The next morning comes as fast as he blinks. He started his day by running around the complex and meditate in his family archery range to adjust his breathing. Since it was still the summer holiday, he doesn’t need to go to school and so he decides to do his afternoon shooting practice right now with the goal of playing the game all day long.

“Sh*t. Shooting the target feels so easy now. I even feel like I can hit them with my eyes closed. Compared to the monster movement, this is so relaxing.”

One after another his arrow hit the target. After showering himself and eat breakfast, Ryu leaves a message to Ginji to add him as a friend and logged back into the game.

The next part of the tutorial on the training grounds covers all of the basic knowledge needed by Ryu to play the game. He was glad that he chooses to do the tutorial since this is the first time Ryu played a virtual reality game but the tutorial tells him all he needs to know. His basic won’t be different from other players who have played the game for a long time.

As finishing the quest giving him experience, he has leveled up twice in the progress but he hasn’t allocated his stats. He also hasn’t acquired any other skill other than hiding which is a little bit disappointing for him. The last NPC on the training ground is now asking which town would Ryu be transported to.

Should he wait for Ginji so they can play together and be in the same town? There is a teleportation service and travel is possible inside the game so he shouldn’t be too focused on it. It seems that it is better to choose a town where his class main-headquarters is located. So, should take the archer class? Or should he try focusing on spellcasting? 

There is no magic spell that he could try yet so he didn’t know how is his accuracy in hitting the spell to the target but surely it won’t be easier than archery right? He knows very well that he is used to archery so being an archer inside the game can be considered as training. Playing the game and training at the same time, killing two birds with one stone is still the best choice.

No matter how hard Ryu denied about archery using his mouth, it seems that it really runs in his blood. He actually enjoyed archery, the sensation of the bow hitting the target always give him satisfaction. Not to mention when hitting the monster inside the game which is harder in difficulty, he is feeling really happy and proud of his achievement.

“So, have you decided on where to start?”

“Yes, to 【Veloz】 please.”

“Alright then, hope you have a wonderful journey.”

***

It only took a blink of an eye before Ryu is transported to Veloz. At this point, Veloz will be his respawn town unless he goes to a church in another town and register that as his new respawn place. The respawn place is also near the church, it seemed that the back story of respawning is possible due to the grace of God.

Ryu arrived at Veloz's main square; it was a city with a lot of greenery. It is almost like a city in the middle of a forest. As the city for archer, the forest is one of the best terrains for them to show their ability. Cover prepared by the dense tree and bushes can be fully taken advantage of by ranged attackers.

The smell of nature is something that Ryu rarely experienced in the real world. Taking a deep breath of a bucolic side which is far from modernization makes him feel reinvigorated.

“There are really many good things from Green World. This town which similar to the countryside area can be visited inside the game. Not to mention various fantasy-like scenery. No wonder the Green World Tour package and virtual reality holiday becoming a trend. Now, what should I do?”

Just like any other VR game, Green World is giving players almost unlimited freedom. Aside from a couple of rules, a player can do anything they want. The quest can be acquired when speaking to NPC which is blending with the players and hard to differentiate. So, it will require Ryu to speak to a lot of people before determining which one is a quest giver NPC because not all of them will give quest too. He can also try to search for information online but that is too mainstream and finishing quests isn’t his goal.

He will just play the game to his heart’s content. No restriction and no pressure.

“Alright, since I have nothing better to do, I guess I will first try to reach level 10 and change class to an archer. Seven more levels to go, I wonder how many days will it take?”

Checking his inventory, he has enough bread and arrow acquired from clearing the tutorial and ready to hunt. He also has ten health potions for emergency given by Randy for finishing the bitten carrot tutorial.

On his way out of the town, Ryu didn’t see a lot of people in this town. Archer is a rare class indeed. Unlike other towns that are filled to the brim with a player, Veloz looks spacious but not really empty. He can see some people sitting and chatting on the main square and what seemed to be villager NPC coming out and in from buildings. There is also some stall on the side selling apple, food, and equipment.

“It feels like I am back in medieval times. I am a hunter going out to find my prey. With bow and arrows, I want to prove that I can also bring food to my family’s table.”

Engrossed with his own delusion, it didn’t take long before Ryu arrived at the town outskirts. Unlike in the tutorial ground, some monster may move in a flock and attack him together when one of them is attacked. Ryu is trying to find his first prey and it didn’t take long before he finds a lone wild boar.

Taking out his bow, with a steady posture he waited for the right moment and released his arrow.

-40

It lands on the boar body and turning its body to Ryu, the boar is moving its front leg repeatedly trying to launch a charge attack. However, Ryu won’t give it time to complete its preparation as another arrow landed on its body.

-35

It doesn’t seem to affect the boar as it completed its preparation and charged forward. While it moves in a straight line towards him, Ryu landed another attack and dodged to the side at the last minute.

The boar went past by him and turned its body towards him again. Another chance to attack and the arrow hits again. After repeating this five times, the boar fell to the ground.

「You have killed the wild boar. You have earned 80 experience. 」

“The boar sure has a lot of health but its movement is simple. It also gives more experience than the mad rabbit. As I thought before, the mad rabbit is really something the developer created to make things hard for a newbie. They sure have some nasty personality for teasing new players. Alright, with this amount of experience, I think I can level up three to four times today. Let’s do this!”

Looting the wild boar body gives him wild boar meat. It is too bad that the arrow used can’t be gathered back and counted as consumable. 

It took him six more wild boar before he leveled up and finally run out of arrow since killing the wild boar took a lot.

“I guess I should sell the drop and buy some more arrow before I can continue hunting.”

Finding an NPC to sell his drop didn’t take a lot of time. As there is a general item shop with a big sign in front of it. It also sells the basic health potion, plain bread, and some necessities for hunting. Of course, the price is higher than when you buy them individually from the stall at the side of the street but you can basically get all you need in one place.

Ryu at this point realizes one of the reasons why archer is a rare profession.

From hunting seven wild boar, he gained 56 copper. While it took him around 12-15 arrows to took one down, the price for one arrow is 1 copper. Aside from 100 copper as starting money, this hunting session is a clear deficit if he doesn’t take account of his experience gain.

“Darn it. I never knew that being an archer is such a money squandering job. Should I just change my weapon and didn’t become an archer? Or I should try to reduce my arrow consumption? After I bait that wild boar to charge at me, I think I can attack it with a dagger or short sword as I dodge sideways.”

One of the important features in any game is about grinding. Either it is grinding level, equipment, or money. Trying out different strategies to maximizing earning while minimizing loss is one of the basics of everything.

“Or should I find someone to hunt with? A melee attacker would be appreciated. They can give me the opportunity to attack and reduce my arrow consumption. We can also try to hunt higher level monsters that will give more money or better drops. But where would I find someone to hunt with? I am only level 4 and this is the town of archers. At most I can only find another new archer player to play with. Still, it is better than hunting alone and I bet they are also struggling with the arrow consumption. I guess I will try to find someone to party with.”

Ryu walked towards the main square and try to look for another new player. It wasn’t that hard to find a new player, in principle they should still be wearing basic training clothes just like him. The problem is, he cannot find someone who is still wearing the basic training clothes.

Most of the player that he sees wears good looking clothes, not like shabby ones like him. They sure to be higher level than him and won’t be hunting with him. It's like carrying extra baggage with no use while they could choose to get a useful companion to hunt with.

“I guess I should just try my best alone until I run out of money.”

With that resolution, Ryu walks out of the town to hunt again.