Prosperous Age Rose

Chapter 1

"Willow, your package arrived today, and I signed for it on your behalf," Willow Martin, who was studying in the library, received a text message from her dorm mate Kayla Harris. She responded with a smiley face, "Thank you, I'll bring you some dumplings later!"

"If you forget, I'll throw your package out from the fifth floor!" Kayla Harris, not mincing her words, threatened back.

Willow smiled, and her hands began to tidy up her books.

It must be the package sent by Devin McDaniel. He had been nagging her the entire summer, urging her to play the newly developed online game called "Chaos" together with him. It was a game with a helmet holographic interface. Initially, she declined because she thought the helmet device was too expensive. However, Devin McDaniel insisted that as long as she was willing to play, he would do a small job to help her buy the helmet.

It was quite a casual offer for him to do a small job. Thinking of this, Willow paused in her book packing, a smile playing on her lips. Devin McDaniel was three years older than her, already working at the Provincial Design Institute as a rising star. He could easily earn a substantial sum by simply sketching a small design. It was no wonder he could casually promise to get her a helmet worth three or four thousand.

Now there was no reason to refuse. The second half of her junior year had very few classes, and although she claimed to be studying in the library, she spent a lot of time daydreaming.

With her backpack on, she walked briskly back to the dormitory.

Hmm... it only took 20 minutes to download the 40GB game. The dormitory's internet speed was indeed perfect for playing this game. Kayla Harris, munching on a fresh dumpling, leaned against her shoulder, "Willow, is this the game you want to play? It's huge..."

"Yes, I heard it's one of the few games in the country that uses a helmet interface, so it might be a bit complicated..." She fiddled with the helmet cable, quickly sorting it out. Before putting on the helmet, she glanced at Kayla Harris, "Or maybe you should try it too?..."

"Uh, I think I haven't finished my homework yet..." Kayla Harris, biting into her bun, moved away, jokingly. She didn't want to expose her skin to the strong radiation from the computer like Willow Martin did. She wasn't naturally pretty like Willow Martin, and she was confident enough not to worry about losing it. Besides, she had no idea what to do now. It was better to let Willow pioneer the way—

Willow put on the helmet, pressed the access switch, and officially entered the game.

"Network access—iris identification complete—registration complete—character image simulation complete—"

In the darkness, there was only a semi-transparent input box in front of her, and the system voice prompted, "Please enter your character name."

"Willow." The intelligent voice recognition system immediately entered her name into the input box.

Select race—Fairy, Human, Demon.

Um... Willow glanced at the advantages of each race. Fairies mainly relied on divine power, were dignified and elegant, excelling in defense, but each character was randomly equipped with a killing skill to meet the needs of leveling up and PK; Humans, with balanced attack and defense capabilities, excelled in strategy and had the innate talent for creation and comprehension skills compared to the other two races; Demons had higher attack power among the three races, were charming in appearance, and randomly acquired self-defense skills.

After a brief consideration, Willow decided to choose the Human race—although it was a moderate race, it was evenly matched in attack and defense, and most importantly, it had perception...

Human race.

"Please select the initial attribute distribution."

Intelligence, Constitution, Dexterity, Strength, Agility, Luck.

Intelligence affects magical attack and healing abilities, Constitution affects resistance to status effects and defense, Dexterity affects the speed of spell casting and arrow attack power, Strength affects physical attack power and carrying capacity, Agility affects evasion and movement speed, while Luck affects critical hit rate and the success rate of random skills.

Early on, Willow had studied the game extensively and decisively allocated her initial twelve points to Constitution, Dexterity, and Intelligence. She had already decided to choose the priest profession in the game, a pure support role. As for the reason—well, a priest, capable of using healing spells, was unlikely to die easily...

"Character creation complete," the system prompted. Then, with another "ding," the system announced, "Congratulations on becoming the 999,999th player and receiving a system reward."

"System reward, holder of the hidden occupation contract and contract spirit tool, please select."

—Devin McDaniel never mentioned anything about this.

Willow paused for a moment, considering this prompt as a sign of her good fortune, and chose "holder."

"Selection complete. Welcome to 'Chaos,' may you have a perfect gaming experience."

As the darkness faded, she found herself amidst verdant hills and clear waters. Glancing at her attire, she couldn't discern the novice outfit of her profession. Opening the communication panel, she called Devin McDaniel's ID, "Elegant Gentleman." —After calling, she couldn't help but shiver elegantly. Devin McDaniel, at twenty-four, still went by such a tacky name. Clearly, mental and physiological age were unrelated.

Soon, a message replied.

"Willow?... I'm having a meeting in the guild, I'll come pick you up later. Wait in the novice village."

She murmured an acknowledgment and then turned off the communicator to wander around.

The novice village had no name, or rather, its name was simply Novice Village. It seemed very tranquil and peaceful. Due to the protection settings for low-level novices, forced PK was prohibited in the novice village. Everywhere she looked, it was quiet and peaceful, at least—on the surface.

As she wandered around, she came across a group of NPC children bullying a cat.

She approached to take a look. Although they were all NPCs in the game, she couldn't bear to see these children tormenting the poor cat. So she spoke up, "Stop bullying this cat, alright?" —As soon as the words left her mouth, she began to regret. She must be the first player to stupidly ask NPCs not to bully another NPC. Sure enough—

"Ah... someone finally came to stop us." Relief was evident in the voice of one of the children NPCs, a boy wearing a red bellyband. "You don't know, I've been waiting for someone to trigger this plot since the game's closed beta testing six months ago. It's not until today that someone finally did. I've been teasing this cat for almost half a year, it's driving me crazy!"

—Can NPCs go crazy too...? Willow was speechless.

After the boy in the red bellyband finished complaining, he continued professionally, "This... Willow player, congratulations on triggering the hidden plot—in which you rescue a stray cat. The system awards you 30,000 experience points and a divine beast, increasing your reputation by 100 points."

While accepting the reward, the system also broadcasted across the entire server—

"Game hidden mission—rescue the stray cat completed. Task reward: divine beast taming—"

As soon as this announcement flashed, the entire server erupted. Divine beast taming! Seriously, in the six months since the server opened, the highest-level pet was only a level 90 Blue-Eyed Demon Dragon—and there was only one, in the hands of the leader of the largest faction from beyond the heavens—this level of pet already made many players jealous. But compared to divine beasts, it was like comparing a worm to a dragon. Having a high-level pet meant almost no need to level up manually, just sit by and gain experience, watch the pet's intimacy, and feed it when it got tired from fighting.

The public chat channel erupted with countless screams.

Wandering: Ahhh! Where did this task come from? How come I've never heard of it after playing for so long!

ClearSkyDawnPig: A server-wide hidden-tier divine beast taming quest!!! Where's the divine beast! I want to see, I want to see, I want to see!

SwordWithoutBloodButRice: Why didn't you tell me the player's ID? I want to go snatch the divine beast!

KeepCalm: Rice, be careful not to be bitten to death by the divine beast...

SwordWithoutBloodButRice: Death under the divine beast's jaws is still a glorious end!

...

Willow looked speechlessly at the contents of the public chat channel, then glanced at the skinny and unkempt cat in front of her. Regardless of how she looked at it, she couldn't connect this half-year-bullied little stray cat with the flashy "divine beast" in the system. So, it wasn't unreasonable for everyone to overlook this task for half a year.

Who would believe that a divine beast would have such a temperament—

The boy with the red bellyband smiled at her, revealing NPC's perfect white teeth. "Willow, actually, this task requires a lot of bargaining with us NPCs before you can complete it when you trigger it. But, to thank you for letting me stop this boring task of watching the divine beast, I'm just letting you through."

She nodded in surprise, looking at the character attributes panel. When the system said it distributed 30,000 experience points just now, she had no concept of how much it was, but now, looking at her level, she felt fulfilled—30,000 experience points had directly promoted her from a level 1 newbie to level 23.

"The divine beast is yours. As a personal token of gratitude from me, take this." The boy with the red bellyband somehow took out a silver ring from somewhere and handed it to her, then patted his buttocks and ran around the village with a bunch of kids.

Temporal Ring—Lower-grade spiritual artifact, unlimited storage function, increases resistance to confusion by 30%, hidden abilities unknown.

The player's normal item grid only has 80 slots, with limited capacity for carrying things, but this ring is obviously a mobile warehouse, much better than the bank in the NPC area, which has to be paid for and is not portable.

Uh—could this be the legendary good luck...

Willow put on the ring and squinted in the sunlight of the game. Tsk, it's still a spiritual artifact...

She subtly glanced at the skinny cat with watery eyes at her feet, thin and with round eyes looking at her. She softened for a moment, squatting down and reaching out to it, "Come here, kitty..." Uh—why call it kitty... She always regretted it after saying it. This cat, after all, was a divine beast... If it got angry...

But worrying was unnecessary. The divine beast—just that cat—happily "meowed" and agilely jumped into her arms, then cleverly rubbed against her chest.

She smiled, "...I'll call you Meow Meow from now on..." Being modest is essential—she had seen the words of those people in the public chat channel. If people really knew she had obtained this divine beast, a level 23 newbie would probably die in the hands of a pro 23 times, not even using ten seconds...

The divine beast meowed in agreement.

So she walked to the entrance of the novice village with the cat in her arms, and at the same time, opened the communicator. Just as Elegant Gentleman's message came—

"Willow, where are you? I'm at the entrance of the novice village."

Taking a look, she saw the constant stream of novices coming and going at the entrance of the village, and there stood a swordsman dressed in armor—that was the feature of "Chaos," where both Eastern and Western mythical professions were available—that was Elegant Gentleman.

Upon seeing Willow, Elegant Gentleman felt something was off but couldn't quite pinpoint it. He casually clicked on the character's basic information panel and was completely speechless.

"How did you reach level 23..." Although there were some small tasks suitable for newbies in the novice village, it would still take a while to complete those tasks, and the experience wasn't very abundant. How could Willow have risen to level 23 in such a short time...

So Willow, holding Meow Meow, casually recounted everything that had just happened at the entrance of the novice village. Under Elegant Gentleman's speechless expression, she somewhat smugly stroked Meow Meow's neck.

—"So, you're the one who took the task and got the divine beast?"

She nodded, holding the little cat up to his eyes, "It's this one."

Eyes met, big and small.

Meow Meow softly "meowed," directly shocking Elegant Gentleman three steps backward, "This cat?—" A crazed voice.

But after all, he was a person who had seen the world through his work, and he quickly calmed down, "That's fine too. A cat is better than a flashy divine beast. Which profession are you planning to switch to?"

Once you reach level 10, you can choose a profession. He originally wanted to take her to level 10, but now she could switch, so he might as well save the trouble.

"Priest."