The Strategy Guide Appears Early

Three days later, in the early morning, several players wanted to head to the next leveling area. After discussing it, they decided to go to the item shop to buy a map. They then suddenly noticed that a book priced at zero had appeared on the item shop's product list. Out of curiosity, they all acquired this book.

The book was called the Newbie Strategy Guide, a simple book made of parchment. The cover featured round ears, with three whiskers drawn on either side of the ears. Below the illustration was a slightly exaggerated note: "Don't worry, this is Argo's strategy guide."

In addition to this, at the very bottom, there was a special note: Provided by Beta Testers.

In the anime, strategy guides did not have this note. However, influenced by Wang Yang, Argo decided to add this line to the strategy guide.

Several players didn't pay much attention to the book's cover. Instead, they flipped to the first page and saw the monster traits, skills, situations to be aware of, detailed quest flows, and methods for learning skills, locations, usage methods, and their effects. It was truly the most detailed newbie strategy guide.

Upon discovering this free newbie strategy guide, the players immediately rushed out of the item shop, spreading the news. At the same time, newbie strategy guides also appeared in the item shops of the village strongholds on the First Floor.

After Wang Yang came out of the inn, he heard players discussing the newbie strategy guide. He couldn't help but smile slightly, thinking that Argo had indeed spent three days to bring the strategy guide to fruition.

However, due to his sponsorship, the strategy guide was released early. The impact it would have on the plot was unknown, but Wang Yang had no regrets.

After some thought, he walked towards the item shop. Fortunately, he left the inn at noon, and most players had already acquired the newbie strategy guide. Therefore, when he arrived at the item shop, there was no crowd.

Easily acquiring the newbie strategy guide, Wang Yang went to a secluded staircase in the Central Plaza and began to read with great interest.

He skimmed through the monster introductions and then looked at the quest flow section. He realized that there were quite a few quests available in the Town of Beginnings. Although the profit was low, they were not dangerous. The only drawback was that there was a cooldown period for accepting quests. This cooldown period was not individual but applied to all players.

For example, a very simple flower delivery quest involved accepting the quest on West Street and delivering the flowers to a designated NPC on East Street to complete it, earning a meager 50 Kael and 50 Experience Points. However, if one person accepted and completed the quest, the yellow exclamation mark above the quest-issuing NPC's head would disappear. It would only reappear after the quest cooldown period passed, allowing other players to accept it. Of course, quests had a completion time limit, which was the trigger time for a quest round.

This setting was truly a rip-off. It would be better to limit each person to completing one quest per day, which would be both harmonious and satisfactory. Fortunately, there were quite a few of these simple quests. However, even with a limited number, players had no ability or standing to complain.

After much thought, he figured this was another way SAO controlled resources, forcing players to fight. So, a month later, even if some players were too afraid to engage in combat, they would eventually be forced to fight monsters.

Of course, the most fundamental reason was that the Army had taken over all quest sources, gathering all resources from a position of justice and then distributing them reasonably.

At the same time, after a long period of hunting, the spawn points around the Town of Beginnings would eventually stop dropping items. Helpless, players would have no choice but to join the Army, obey orders, and obtain Kael or food to support their lives. However, this was the situation a month later.

Wang Yang glanced briefly at these low-yield quests and then moved on to the next section.

Skills... it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say they were the primary condition for survival in SAO. Even with strong attributes, one might not be as good as learning a good skill.

Seeing this section, Wang Yang also became serious. If there was anything he was unfamiliar with in SAO, it was mostly related to skills.

After studying diligently for two hours, Wang Yang began to digest the information about skills.

First, there were Basic Skills, such as the One-Handed Straight Sword. As Proficiency increased, its level would also rise, with the effect of reducing Attack Time and Stiff Time. Simultaneously, as the Proficiency of this skill reached a certain level, sword skills that players could choose would appear in the Skill Bar, with a certain chance of Special Skills appearing.

Each player could only choose one Combat Skill. If a player wanted to Respec, they would have to give up their originally chosen Basic Skill.

It had to be said that the strategy guide provided extremely detailed explanations of the effects of all currently learnable skills. However, what Wang Yang was more concerned about was the source of Guard Skills, but he couldn't find any information about guarding in the book. Helplessly, he could only equate Guard Skills with Kirito's unique Dual Blades skill.

As for Special Skills, Wang Yang didn't consider them, as Special Skills needed to be derived from Basic Skills.

After reading the introduction to Combat Skills, the final section was about Weapon Enhancement. In SAO, weapons had five enhancement options: Weight, Speed, Sharpness, Accuracy, and Durability. The Quality of each piece of Equipment determined the Enhancement Count. Better equipment could be enhanced more times. Once the Enhancement Count was used up, it could not be enhanced further, and there was a possibility of failure during enhancement.

Seeing this, Wang Yang opened his equipment tab and checked the Enhancement Count for Boar's Repentance and Wind Flower Sword. He found that Boar's Repentance had nine enhancement counts, while Wind Flower Sword only had eight.

He still had around 30,000 Kael on him, so he could consider enhancing his equipment to increase his Survival Ability.

Just then, the system suddenly notified Wang Yang of a Message. Upon opening it, he saw: "You can read a newbie guide with such gusto?"

Wang Yang looked at the Message, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

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