Back in Willis's yard, the Nilfgaardians had already helped the dwarf rebuild his workshop and added another set of equipment.
This was for Chen Xu, so the smithy now had to produce one and a half times as much each day.
The panel listed a [Daily Quest] for fifteen swords, bringing in a steady 50 experience points and 1 point every day.
Chen Xu discussed it with Willis, and they divided the work: he would forge the sword blanks, while the dwarf would polish them.
As long as he was not aiming for quality, smithing was now a breeze for him.
After finishing today's quest, Chen Xu strapped both swords onto his back and quietly left.
Most wild resources in White Orchard were guarded by monsters, but he knew Geralt had already cleared the griffin's nest and the cemetery where celandine grew.
He could go to those two places and pick up some easy gains.
Not supplies Geralt had left behind-that was impossible. A witcher's perception and eyesight were even better than his own; anywhere Geralt had looted would be picked clean.
What Chen Xu wanted to check out were the original game's special must-visit spots-Places of Power.
Past Woesong Bridge and Hanged Man's Alley, the mill's wooden door stood wide open. Geralt had clearly already looted everything inside.
Following his memory straight to the cemetery, he spotted a stone pillar standing among the graves from a distance. Brilliant purple light swirled in the hole at its center.
He crouched and activated [Stealth] vision.
Everything dimmed before his eyes. After confirming that no one nearby was watching, he nervously placed his hand on the stone pillar.
In the original game, Geralt had to meditate in front of the pillar. He did not know whether touching it directly with his body would work.
[Discovered a Place of Power. Skill points +1]
A dense, peculiar energy flowed through the stone pillar, but when Chen Xu tried to hold some of it back, it slipped through his fingers like a breeze.
He was certain this was a form of dark energy, but he could find no way to use it.
At least it had given him a [Skill Point], which let him actively upgrade a skill once.
Chen Xu repeated the process and obtained another skill point from the Place of Power near the griffin's nest.
Fortunately, White Orchard was small, or all that running would have worn his legs out.
By then, the sky was growing dark, and the hunger in his belly urged Chen Xu back to the tavern. The proprietress, Elsa, had been updating her menu frequently lately, because Chen Xu had offered her some suggestions during his meals over the past few days.
A flatbread wrapped around vegetables and diced meat could sell for the same price as a steak; pig's blood, offal, and brains, which few people wanted to eat, became novel and appetizing when their odors were removed with strong liquor and they were cooked with minced garlic, chili, and other spices.
Even the Nilfgaardian soldiers patrolling the road were often drawn in by the aroma.
Profits kept rising, and as thanks, Chen Xu's three daily meals had turned into taste-testing for Elsa.
He did not know whether it was because his Constitution had increased, but his appetite had also grown to almost twice what it had been before entering the battlefield. For tonight's operation, however, he deliberately restrained his appetite and rose to leave after eating until he was only seventy percent full.
On that dark, windy night, he pulled his collar tighter and headed toward the herbalist Tomira's cottage.
The wolf packs were more active in the forest at night, but Chen Xu's body had already mostly recovered.
[Detection] activated:
-------- Wolf Lv.2: Constitution 2, Strength 1, Reflexes 3. Awards 5 experience points upon killing. --------
So weak... If the materials from their bodies weren't useful, they would barely be worth killing.
Chen Xu activated [Stealth]. Rather than avoiding the wolf pack, he crept closer, until one wolf caught his scent and let out a terrified howl.
A slaughter erupted in an instant. His steel sword, Gram, left its sheath, and with [Dodge], he farmed the pack of seven wolves without taking a hit.
After extracting the dog tallow from the wolf carcasses, he knocked on the herbalist's door:
"Want me to drive those deserters away for you?"
The swelling from the slap mark on Tomira's face had only just subsided, but now her cheeks flushed slightly again. Chen Xu was so helpful that she thought he had fallen for her:
"Don't risk yourself for me. I'm fine."
What are you blushing for? Chen Xu gave her a strange look and continued steering the conversation. "You don't want to be forced to move into the village, do you?"
Tomira's voice was barely a whisper. "You're no match for them..."
"Don't worry about that." Chen Xu had already set his sights on the deserters during the day. He had only come here to see whether he could trigger a quest along the way:
"I'm confident, but I need your help, auntie."
[Deception] triggered. Tomira looked as though lightning had struck her, her face instantly turning liver-red. After holding it in for a long while, she squeezed out one word:
"Fine!"
[You have triggered the difficult quest [Drive Away the Deserters]: Drive away the deserters occupying the area two kilometers northwest of White Orchard village, preventing them from harassing Tomira, White Orchard's herbalist, again. (This quest is extremely dangerous. Those at mortal tier high stage are advised to form a party.) Base rewards: Experience points ×250, Points ×7]
The points were pitifully few, but the experience reward was fairly generous, barely living up to the quest's difficulty.
The three Temerian stragglers that morning had all been reasonably strong. He could not deal with enemies like these through brute force.
He would need a few tricks.
Chen Xu borrowed Tomira's potion-making tools and picked several herbs from her garden.
The [Alchemy] skill Tomira had taught him activated. Fibers, mandrake root, parsley leaves... He added them to the pot one after another according to how their medicinal properties balanced one another, then mixed in dog tallow, boiled the mixture, and filtered out the dregs.
A bottle of thick liquid with a paralyzing effect was produced.
-------- Unnamed decoction (35 mg) Effect: When taken orally, each mg causes neural paralysis in creatures with Constitution below 10, lasting 15 minutes. The lower the Constitution, the stronger the effect. Creatures with Constitution above 13 are immune. Continuous paralysis lasting over 1 hour may cause symptoms including a sharp drop in blood pressure, respiratory arrest, and loss of consciousness. Severe cases may result in death. The unnecessary addition of dog tallow weakened its potency. --------
It was toxic enough to knock out anyone other than a witcher. Chen Xu was fairly satisfied with the information Detection revealed.
After leaving the herbalist's cottage, he specifically spent two skill points to raise [Stealth] to its maximum level, Lv.3.
Light and shadow became exceptionally distinct in his vision. His body began instinctively adopting and imitating the rhythms of his surroundings, further improving his stealth speed and concealment.
Only after pushing his senses to their limits as well did he dare creep cautiously into the depths of the forest.
There was a reason for such caution.
As a starter village, White Orchard's strongest force was neither the Nilfgaardians nor the witcher, much less any ghoul or griffin, but a boss monster hidden in the forest-a chort.
The original game had a "cow killer" Easter egg. After players killed the cows raised on the farm at the entrance to White Orchard village, an unstoppable level 37 chort would charge out of the forest and hunt down the players, who were generally only level 3 or 4 at that point.
He did not know whether the gods had kept this Easter egg. Either way, caution was best.
He sneaked all the way to the deserters' camp he remembered. It had originally been a natural forest clearing, but more than a dozen Temerian stragglers now occupied it.
The entire stretch of grass had been trampled into ruin by men and horses, exposing the mud beneath.
Campfires flickered inside the camp, where there were plenty of people and watchful eyes. In Stealth vision, he could find almost no shadows to hide in.
Chen Xu circled the perimeter to observe and spotted a crooked tree above the deserter standing guard at the entrance.
[You have learned the skill [Climbing] Lv.1]
He quietly climbed onto a branch directly above the sentry's head, drew Gram, and dropped straight down from nearly four meters up.
[Sneak Attack] triggered. Driven by the force of Chen Xu's fall, the steel sword easily pierced the deserter sentry's neck, instantly pinning him dead to the ground.
[You have killed a mortal tier middle stage light-armored infantryman. Experience points +20]
Warm liquid splashed onto his face. The revulsion of killing was not particularly strong.
Subconsciously, this sort of NPC still seemed like a piece of data he could copy and paste.
Although it had been an instant kill, the sound of the steel sword piercing a human body still alerted the nearby deserters. Years of military training put them on guard immediately, and they picked up their weapons and approached to investigate.