So busy, but still no progress!
"That's how things stand, so raising the price wasn't my idea either."
She put on a helpless expression as she sorted through her medicine chest, but her face was actually full of a merchant's smug, mercenary delight, forming a stark contrast with the innocent, bewildered little girl beside her.
"It really was for my daughter originally. Her serious illness required [Little Nepenthes Ovules], and as payment, the first young adventurer did take our ancestral [Anneal Blade]. But afterward, for some reason, several more adventurers came asking about my daughter's illness."
"Only through one young man's frantic, muddled words did I realize you were here for the sword. But we only had one ancestral sword. Luckily, my husband is the town blacksmith. He thought this was a good opportunity, so he makes some extra [Anneal Blades] outside work and leaves them at home, because for some reason, the adventurers arriving lately always come to our house asking about swords."
"Fifteen thousand Cor, or two [Little Nepenthes Ovules], or other medicinal herbs, provided they're worth enough, of course. With all the adventurers arriving lately, medicinal herbs have started running short too. The town's pharmacy is already preparing to raise its prices."
"Does that clear things up, young man?"
Yes, I understand now. Ma'am, please stop smiling. The wrinkles on your face are practically biting people.
Wang Shui had carefully crossed the dense forest, following faintly discernible hunters' trails to find this little village, [Horunka]. Small as it was, it had everything: an inn, a weapons shop, an item shop, a general store, and more. It was also [inside the area]-a safe zone.
It looked like a supply point set up for clearing the dense forest.
When he saw the village's name, Wang Shui remembered the information on the strategy website and gained a sense of where he was.
And this smug, mercenary woman was the trigger for one of the village's most valuable quests. Completing her [Secret Medicine of the Forest] quest awarded a rare one-handed sword called the [Anneal Blade], a powerful piece of equipment that would remain competitive even on the third floor.
Almost everything Wang Shui knew about the game came from browsing forums over the past few days. He only remembered the broad plot and a few famous scenes from the original story.
According to the online guides, this was supposed to be a fixed, semi-hidden quest that let everyone obtain a rare weapon early on. But now it seemed this realistically modified SAO had rationalized the bug that endlessly respawned ancestral swords.
Wang Shui did not care how the game justified itself. He only cared about the result.
"That may be so, ma'am, but how good are the [Anneal Blades] you're selling now? If they're just ordinary shop gear, I'm not interested."
"Listen to you! Weapons aren't powerful because they're old. As long as you use rare materials with high-level forging techniques, their strength will certainly keep improving with each iteration! Come and look. These are my husband's proud creations, fine weapons you can't even buy at the town's weapons shop!"
As she spoke, the woman opened an upright wooden cabinet. Three identical-looking one-handed swords lay horizontally inside.
These three weapons had a completely different feel from the [Bronze Sword] in Wang Shui's hand. Their elongated points looked extremely sharp, only beginning to straighten out around twenty centimeters down, followed by long blades that steadily widened. Black protective lacquer covered the spines, the cutting edges were relatively narrow, and the blades were thick overall. They looked heavy.
They were one-handed swords suited to both thrusting and slashing, though a little too long, almost twice the length of the starting [Short Sword]. Still, they looked fairly suitable for Wang Shui's reach.
Wang Shui opened the stats:
---- [Anneal Blade] [Range: short] [Weapon type: One-Handed Straight Sword] [Attack: 45-50] [Durability: 100] [Weight: 30] [Equipment requirement: level 3] [Enhancement limit: 8] [Strength: +5] [Agility: +2] [Weapon-exclusive skill: none] ----
Good stuff.
In attack alone, it was more than five times as strong as the starting weapon. Saying it could last until the third floor was no exaggeration. By comparison, the town's weapons shop only stocked things like [Bronze Swords]. Had the woman's husband pocketed all the good materials? Perhaps to emphasize that they were individually forged, the three swords on the rack did not have completely identical stats. Their attack, durability, and weight differed by single-digit amounts. Among the bonus stats, one sword had a particularly outrageous strength bonus of "7." Wang Shui immediately fixed his eyes on it.
"I'll take the quest, but can I reserve this one first? I can provide ten percent more resources."
"Oh, business must be conducted honestly. Normally, I wouldn't give anyone special treatment. Whoever finishes first gets first pick. But since you're so sensible, young man, I'll put this one aside for you."
Wang Shui had seen that smile before on the face of the landlord who encouraged him to work hard at his job. It was still just as heartfelt and warm.
After leaving, Wang Shui first went to the armor shop and bought a set of leather armor. Rather than leather lamellar or extensively woven armor, it consisted of cotton clothing reinforced with leather plates over vital areas.
The multiple layers of tanned leather had a glossy brown-black sheen. There were also versions with embedded metal plates, but those cost much more.
The top Wang Shui bought reinforced his chest, shoulders, and forearms, while the trousers only reinforced his shins. The plates also varied in thickness by location. Overall, it was reasonably flexible, but weighed considerably more than his previous coarse-cloth clothing. Together with his newly purchased thick-soled leather boots, it would take some getting used to before combat.
At any rate, his defense had increased considerably.
For supplies, Wang Shui also bought a few pieces of black bread and ten packets of salt!
That was all. He had run all the way here without grinding extra monsters, and his money only covered the armor. Fortunately, beginner armor was the cheapest.
A small river ran near the village. Wang Shui headed out and explored along it, which made returning easy without paying much attention to the map, while also letting him conveniently fill his waterskin.
In reality, many people felt they rarely encountered animals when entering dense forests. That was actually just because wooded areas near cities were smaller, and people moving around during the day frightened animals away.
When you ventured deep into a real forest, quietly spent some time with it, and observed carefully, you would discover that the forest had come "alive."
Snakes, insects, rodents, and ants of every kind were everywhere, along with larger monkeys, foxes, and deer. As Wang Shui slowly made his way through the forest, he discovered some creatures unique to the game.
Enormous beetles and worms, giant boars with moss on their backs, and-huge walking plants.
Their main bodies resembled pitcher plants, though giant pitcher plants two or three meters tall were rather unnervingly terrifying. Beneath them were masses of rootlike vines used for movement. The toothed rims of their pitchers had also been very unscientifically turned into sharp animal canines, making them look capable of biting and tearing with their teeth.
In fact, these monsters attacked by stabbing and whipping with the vines that helped them walk, or by spitting corrosive mucus from their mouths. Fruiting Nepenthes also attacked with wide-area poisonous mist, which summoned nearby little Nepenthes as well. The [Ovules] required for the quest only appeared on flowering Nepenthes and were rare drops.
After finding his quest targets, Wang Shui stopped to survey the terrain. He discovered he was not alone nearby: there were sounds and light effects from other players grinding monsters, though the dense forest only allowed him to make out their general direction.
Anyone who could reach this area now was basically a hardcore grinder in the first or second wave. They probably would not want to share experience with Wang Shui. Besides, parties did not gain extra drops in this game. Even if this were not a life-or-death game, these people would absolutely not share drops peacefully with him.
Wang Shui knew this well, because he was that sort of person too. He also preferred acting alone.
Detailed guides to the quest monsters called Nepenthes had long been available on the forums. After all, there were plenty of one-handed sword players, and this quest was fairly important.
According to the guides, the two most important points when dealing with these monsters were "watch your footing" and "don't aggro fruiting Nepenthes."
The forest floor was extremely complicated. Small rocks and uneven tree roots were hidden beneath fallen leaves and shrubs, making it easy for players to trip.
Fruiting Nepenthes needed no further explanation. Players started with only a little over three hundred HP, and even with higher levels and equipment bonuses, they would not exceed a thousand. Early on, they certainly could not withstand its damage-over-time poison and the surrounding minions it summoned to swarm them.
So Wang Shui chose one of the many methods listed on the forums: pull one, kill one.
First, choose a clearing and remove debris underfoot, then find a Nepenthes and lure it over by throwing a stone.
Repeatedly killing Nepenthes would refresh their spawns until a flowering individual appeared, with its single-digit percentage spawn rate. Only that kind of monster had a chance of dropping the quest item, [Ovule].
Grinding monsters was a defining feature of MMORPGs. He had to sample it.
Wang Shui carefully crept behind a Nepenthes, picked up a pebble from the ground, and hurled it hard.
From just four or five meters away, a damage number of -1 appeared over the enormous Nepenthes's head. It immediately turned and chased him.
As Wang Shui ran back toward the fighting area he had just cleared, he felt thoroughly depressed. That one point of damage from throwing a stone reminded him of his second skill slot, which [Gathering] occupied.
Originally, Wang Shui had planned to learn [Flying Sword]. Oh, don't misunderstand. Despite the name, it was actually a throwing skill.
The Sword Skills included with [Flying Sword]-yes, they were also called Sword Skills-made projectiles fly farther and deal more damage, with very little mental strain too. Using Sword Skills required concentration. The only restriction was ammunition: during battle, players needed to manually equip spare projectiles.
Early on, he could even level it by throwing pebbles, which were everywhere. Although pebbles would not deal much damage, they were still decent in the early game.
Most importantly, [Flying Sword] was one of the few, perhaps the only, means of ranged attack in this game.
His thoughts wandered for a while. The Nepenthes moved far more slowly than Wang Shui had estimated, and he returned to the clearing well ahead of it. Watching its swaying form, he kept feeling that perhaps he could do something.
As that fat body squeezed out of the forest, Wang Shui opened with [Rage Spike]. This was a low-level charging Sword Skill for one-handed swords. It dealt somewhat more damage than [Linear], a general-purpose skill more commonly used with [Rapiers], though its charge distance and speed were considerably worse than [Linear].
"-70"
It was not a critical hit, but it still took away around one-tenth of the enemy's HP. Wang Shui quickly hopped sideways, swinging and slashing diagonally from side to side in the fastest, least strenuous way possible.
That was the advantage of fighting monsters with stiff movements. There was no need to consider openings in his sword moves; he only needed to strike quickly and powerfully.
Damage numbers in the teens and twenties popped up in large quantities as Wang Shui circled and attacked. In under two minutes, the enormous Nepenthes slumped sideways and died.
Just over a hundred experience, a dozen or so Cor, and vine material drops. The small popup containing those three categories of information flashed and vanished. Wang Shui had set it to close automatically.
Good. These seem quick to grind, and the experience is decent.
The windup for its "spit," which qualified as a ranged attack, was particularly obvious. It first stopped everything else, tightened its pitcher-shaped body to build up force, then abruptly relaxed and sprayed. Even walking slowly, Wang Shui could get out from in front of it.
Instead, its bundled-vine piercing attacks were much more dangerously fast than expected. Wang Shui did not keep his circling speed in check while attacking, only taking a couple of quick running steps when the vines, which had a slight tracking effect, locked onto him.
Though he always escaped without incident, seeing those vines pierce straight through a tree one person could barely wrap their arms around made Wang Shui reckon that being pierced could be very dangerous. The seemingly easy-to-kill Nepenthes concealed considerable risks.
Wang Shui rolled his neck and prepared to lure another one over, but stopped after just two steps-he turned back toward the dead Nepenthes.
Huh? Little bro, why haven't you despawned?
No one on the forums had ever mentioned this phenomenon, and Wang Shui had not seen any Nepenthes corpses along the way either.
He ran back in a few strides and reached out to touch the Nepenthes. A small popup appeared with just one line:
[Use Gathering? Using gathering tools or gathering manually will yield more items!]
Huh? Doesn't Gathering only work on naturally growing materials?
Pleasantly surprised, Wang Shui chose to gather directly. He did not know what tools were needed to gather from a Nepenthes. The only item on him that seemed usable was his sword, and he could not bear to waste its durability like that.
The gathering progress bar filled quickly. The final drop was a stoppered reagent bottle.
---- [Nepenthes Honey] [Item type: material, consumable] [Quantity: 500 ml × 1] [Description: unidentified] ----
An unexpected windfall? That cloudy, yellow-green, snotlike liquid inside is called honey?
I'll put up with Nepenthes dropping honey, but can you explain how you grew this glass reagent bottle?
Wang Shui did not remember seeing this item's name before. It did not seem to be on the Nepenthes drop list.
Rather than tracing its origins, he cared more about whether it had any value. After all, gathering medicinal herbs was worthwhile, while gathering firewood was not worth much. He could not be sure what use this slimy honey gathered from a monster had.
Wang Shui wrote directly to Argo. Along with his questions, he sent word that the [Anneal Blade] quest had become harder, and that herbs and potions might rise in price.
The information broker Argo soon replied. First came thanks for the information, then a statement that this extra Nepenthes drop was something never encountered before, followed by a question in bold black text.
"Heavenly Book, do you already have enough skill slots to equip [Gathering]? Removing skills gets more and more expensive. Even at the level cap, you probably won't have enough skill slots, so most people only choose one or two weapon skills. Are you planning to specialize in gathering work?"
Reading that, Wang Shui nearly cried. He had originally intended to be a man who conquered the world alongside Lord Kirito. Instead, before he had even left the beginner village, his shitty talent had screwed him over twice.
Not only did [Gathering] occupy a slot, preventing him from training other skills early, but it also meant reserving ten thousand Cor for a chance to remove it.
Before I fucking delete this skill, I have to earn at least twenty thousand with it!
The gathered Nepenthes dissolved into blue glasslike motes like a normal dead monster, and Wang Shui started grinding again.
While searching for monsters, he finally spotted various medicinal herbs on the ground and in the trees.
Unlike monsters, medicinal herbs not only asked whether he wanted to gather them directly, but helpfully listed the tools needed. Some required a shovel, others a small knife. Most annoyingly, one kind of berry asked whether he wanted to use the gathering tool "hand." No shit. What else would I use, my feet?
It seemed he would have to return to the village soon. Even if it took some time, he needed to buy these little tools that looked inexpensive, and ask about the value of the various herbs he carried and the honey obtained as an extra monster drop. Only by watching his money increase bit by bit like that would he avoid feeling tired and worn out.
For some inexplicable reason, Wang Shui felt his gaming journey was exceptionally slow and eventful.