This local branch of the adventurer's guild, despite being housed in a tree, was not the vaulted ‘Guild Tree’. According to the lore, the Guild Tree had been burned down thousands of year ago when the Gods left the world; it had been home to all ten races living together in peace and harmony.

After it burned down, the races scattered over the world and built empires and guilds, which began conflicting with one another, the harmony of the world lost. The Demigods claimed the weave of fate declared that only when the world was united once more would the Gods return.

That they said this while causing moral wars due to their own internal disputes, it was true hypocrisy.

The adventurer's guild itself was quite large, consisting of four floor connected with a spiral staircase on the outside of the tree. As someone who was not a member yet, Sunshine could only enter the first floor, which consisted of registration, a bar and restaurant, and tables to relax at which constantly seated many players chatting, along with the bounty board - if someone who was not a member of the guild killed a player with the bounty, they would still still be able to receive it, albeit at a 10% penalty.

Sunshine approached the elf NPC at the registration desk, it was an older looking elf woman with a calm smile, but serious eyes, she radiated professionalism. Above her head was the name [Koko], and next to that her title, [Guild Receptionist].

“Greetings. Are you here to register?” she asked Sunshine.

“I am," Sunshine replied quickly. The faster she raced through the dialogue, the better.

“For your test-”

“I accept.”

“Please-”

The NPCs were very advanced, Koko had a thin smile of annoyance as Sunshine raced out the doorway of the guild. If anyone was close enough, they could have heard her mumble, “Headstrong girls these days, they think just because they're a bit pretty and haven't gotten wrinkles yet, they can be rude to their elders.”

Sunshine double checking that the quest in her log was the same as the one she had researched as she ran back down the stairs she just climbed up, but this time intending to go south to a flower field. The goal was to collect twenty [Crystal Flowers], a crafting ingredient.

However, the area was guarded by level 5 monsters known as [Leech Teeth Pythons]. For most people, doing the quest at level 1 would be unfeasible, the pythons would rip them to shreds; even if they managed to avoid the monsters, having to tiptoe around them would slow the quest way too much.

However, the Leech Teeth Pythons had a big weakness to fire damage! This was a trait they shared in common with many creatures in the elven forest.

Each of Sunshine's Fire Burst casts would deal double damage. Although the Leech Teeth Pythons had 710 health, she could burn through 600 of it in two casts from a distance, and then finish with a two handed melee attack after it approached. As a level 5 monster, it would grant a base of 500xp, plus 4% for being 4 levels over, for a total of 520 xp. Sunshine had enough mana to kill seven of them, which would not get her to level 2, but would be enough to clear an area where she could gather the Crystal Flowers in peace.

Reaching the spot, she aligned her gaze to the nearest Leech Teeth Python, standing on the very edge of the range of her Fire Burst spell. Holding her axe in one hand and forming symbols with her other as she chanted, she unleashed a sizable gout of fire from her mouth, enveloping the Leech Teeth Python.

Enraged and slightly crispy, the python quickly snaked its way towards her, resolute on sucking the blood from her body to restore its wounds. As it charged, Sunshine was already preparing her second Fire Blast, finishing as it closed in. Shifting from hand symbols to grasping her axe in two hands just as it sprang out of the grass towards her face, Sunshine cleaved precisely down its center, bisecting it, its blood falling around her.

She repeated this six more times without failure.

It should be known, if her movements were even a fraction slower, she would be unable to kill the Leech Teeth Pythons without taking at least one hit of damage, which would not only harm her and force her to waste resources on healing herself, but prolong the fight

Essentially, the only way she could have gotten access to a sufficiently sized patch of flowers was to perform six kills perfectly. She technically had wiggle room on the seventh kill, and did not need to perform it all, but chose to to get access to more than the twenty flowers she needed.

There were no ‘quest items’ in the game except those that were truly unique, if a quest required you to gather something, it would be something that would drop normally as well, and usually could be sold to other players. If Sunshine had the money and didn't mind wasting it, she could have gone to purchase the flowers instead of gathering them herself. In addition to being used for this quest, they were a low level crafting ingredient for several crafting professions.

The only reasons players were not farming this spot for flowers was because there was a much more abundant spot also nearby, but guarded by level 30 monsters. For players who could kill level 30 monsters easily, which was most of the player base at this point in the game's life cycle, they would stay there instead of coming here.

In any case, the primary reason performing so perfectly was possible for Chan Si was a combination of various pieces of basic knowledge she had gained. The Ballista class had provided her basic skill on how to quickly switch between ranged and melee, as the class needed such capability if it was going to be capable of defending itself against enemies that got nearby.

This was meant for the class's weapons, but the knowledge worked equally well between spellcasting and melee, it made shifting between stances between aiming and striking more effecient. Still, it would have been impractical if her Dark Weaver class did not grant the basic skills for how to cast with one hand while holding something in the other, which while something all classes could technically do, required basic skills or experience to do properly.

Yet still, combining it all together effectively from the very first time and not messing up even once, that was Chan Si's intelligence. The things she would become capable of after she got a proper toolset from leveling and gear, the thought would have terrified anyone.

Sunshine managed to harvest 24 crystal flowers, 20 for the class and 4 she could sell. She did not have a harvesting class that could pick the flowers, which normally meant she would have had only a 10% chance of successful harvesting, but because she had a quest for them, her harvesting success rate was 100%. This was something she planned to exploit regarding particular quests at a later date in time. She would have loved to pick more than 24 crystal flowers, in fact she wanted the whole field, but there was only so much she could accomplish without mana.

She ran back to the guild hall and, without giving Koko a chance to open her mouth, dumped twenty Crystal Flowers on her desk.

Koko said, “Congra-”

“What's next?”

“You-”

“I accept.” Sunshine said as she snatched the pouch of money that Koko had pulled out as a quest reward, and sprinted out.

Koko grasped the bundle of crystal flowers a little too tightly, and tossed them under her desk.

The reward for the quest was 2000 experience flat - quests could have level requirements but didn't have levels, and thus never provided an experience bonus or penalty - and fifty silver. The fifty silver was far less than Sunshine could get selling the Crystal Flowers on the market, where people would pay 1 gold for a bundle of 20, five silver each. If it weren't a quest, anyone would believe they were being ripped off.

With the four Crystal Flowers she had left, she could still earn 20 silver more, but decided to hold onto them at the moment until she could make the most efficient use of her time by selling multiple things in the market at once. As for her experience, between the seven leeches she killed and the 2000 experience reward for the quest, Sunshine was at 5,640/10,000, over halfway to level 2.

The second quest thankfully involved no combat, else Sunshine would need to spend time and money on mana regeneration. It was a ‘treasure hunt’ type quest, artificially set up by the guild to test new recruits in how well they could follow clues to the final destination. Of course, with the power of an online guide, Sunshine could go directly to the final locations.

It was randomized between one of ten possible final locations, but checking them all directly was still faster than going through the quest properly. The closest location was an abandoned home whose tiny door was drilled into the side of the tree and covered with a pink silk sheet with “Warning” written in sloppy ink across it. Sunshine cut through it with her axe and stepped inside. It was a dark location where one was supposed to bring a light source to navigate the junk filled home without stepping on sharp objects, but Sunshine could confidently dash through entirely blind thanks to the online guide.

When she reached the end, she picked up the treasure case, but her quest didn't update, meaning it wasn't the right one. However, it also meant she could keep the treasure case. It was only a level 5 common treasure case for each location, it wasn't worth Sunshine's time to keep gathering them once she found the proper case, but it was still an okay consolation prize.

She left the home and ran to the next location. It was behind a stone statue to an elven war hero from the lore. There was more than one empire with elves, though only this one was considered the ‘elven empire’ because over 90% of its citizens were elves. They had split from another empire containing primarily elves because they felt they hadn't respected trees enough, and that tree respect was the proper way to honor the Guild Tree.

Prior to the split, there was a civil war, and this statue was to the elf who won the civil war, allowing the empire to split. That other empire was still a neighbor, though the war had ended long ago. Still, relations were tense, and the only reason that empire had not joined in the war against the elven empire when the elven empire had attacked the empire containing mostly orcs and lizardfolk, was because the other empire was too tightly bound in trade with the elven empire.

Unlike with the home, there was no special or difficult task to obtain the treasure, it was just obscured behind some foilage. Each path had different challenges at different parts, and sometimes it really was as simple as finding the treasure case. However, the second treasure did not update Sunshine's quest, either.

The third case also did not update the quest, nor the fourth, or fifth, or seventh, eight, or ninth!

It was extremely unlucky for Sunshine, as it being the tenth and final case was not only the least efficient outcome possible, it was even less efficient than just doing the quest properly. On average going directly to the final locations was more efficient, and would still be more efficient even if one had to go to the ninth location, but if it was in the tenth location, it was a slight time loss. While obtaining nine level five common treasure cases did make up for things partly, she still would have rather gotten the quest over with as soon as possible.

There wasn't even some special reward for presenting all ten to the guild, the receptionist would just look at you and take the one meant for the quest.

After grabbing the final treasure case, Sunshine climbed down the branches of the tree she had to climb to reach it. Despite her unluckiness, she was actually ecstatic, as she had discovered a bug only she could use, and which the AI would never detect. She had already known that gaining basic skills on one character would allow her to access those same skills on all her characters, because it was something being taught to her in real life, it wasn't like [Skills].

However, it appeared that temporary skills from items applied across her characters as well!

Gearme had reached level 20 in the Provisioner [Skill] and, selling most of what he crafted to NPCs, earned around thirty gold. The gloves of climbing turned out to be twelve gold, meaning he needed thirty two more gold to afford the Golden Silk Pants. The benefit came from when he equipped the gloves of climbing. It would grant temporary skill to the wearer to climb better, meaning that while the actual knowledge would not be given to them such that they could remember it, the gloves would correct their body movements to be more effective when climbing, a built in muscle memory.

When Gearme put them on, Chan Si found her other characters could climb better as well. She even felt she could climb better in real life, though she couldn't test that yet. It was a result outside of her expectations, as various stats provided corrections to player movement as well, but had no similar impact.

Chan Si hypothesized the difference was that the stats were heavily interwoven with how the game world and gameplay operated, it wasn't actually changing player movements, it was just changing the underlying mechanical interactions, and player movement would adjust to fit that mechanical interaction. Meanwhile something like gloves of climbing, it acted directly on the player's nervous system to apply the adjustments.

Chan Si briefly wondered if, when Gearme put on the triple enchanted Golden Silk Pants, her other characters would receive the enhanced senses? She didn't know yet, though she could at least predict they wouldn't receive the increased range, as that was primarily a mechanical change.

In any case, this news was tremendous to Chan Si, she was ecstatic. Not only did this mean she could obtain five times the benefit by wearing certain items, but one of those benefits would be her Monstrous Character, who would not normally be able to access such things. Of course, before she went out and bought every item that could possibly give her benefit being used like this, Chan Si wanted to test the boundaries of what was possible further, figuring out what the limitations truly were, and perform this testing as cheaply as possible.

Therefore she began researching every item, enchantment, and effect on the wiki and forums that could possibly have a similar outcome. She wouldn't be able to get every scrap of information, not even close, but it was a start.

A beautiful, breathtaking, buggy start.

As Sunshine returned towards the guild, she opened the treasure cases that were not from the quest.

Normally, treasure cases would make a fancy flashing light and spin the air a few times before revealing the items. Chan Si had turned this option off in the menu for all her characters, and rapidly opened them.

Her overall haul was split into four pieces of common gear, twenty four consumables, and seventeen raw materials. Thankfully there were multiples of various items, so it all fit into her inventory, just barely, with only one inventory slot remaining.

Sunshine didn't care for the raw materials, she couldn't use any of them and they were all common anyway, so she calculated the total selling price if she sold at the market. Her income from them would be thirty one silver, they were not highly valuable materials. As for the consumables, she wanted to keep a few of them - there were two common health potions, three common mana potions, and two common stamina potions, all of which she could find use for. In fact, as she ran, she downed a stamina potion immediately to run for longer.

Besides the 1% regeneration of stamina instantly - only 1 stamina for Sunshine - it restored 50 stamina, for a total of 51. It was enough to run for 10 more seconds by itself. She downed her second one soon after.

Of the other consumables, there was also four copies of the same food item, [Cornucopia of Berries], which provided a buff of 1% additional mana regain per minute, and 1% additional stamina regain per second, for five minutes. It would help her reduce downtime later, so she would keep it.

As for the other thirteen consumables, it wasn't that they were useless to Sunshine, but that she could get greater benefits from selling them than using them. That would net her an additional one gold and six silver.

Finally, there was the four common pieces of gear. The basic gear for Dual Elemental Masters was not very good, the robes provided a bonus of 1 to Acuity and Force, and the shoes provided a bonus of 1 to Stability. Of course the class also wore pants, but they provided no bonus.

The common gear she had obtained was a dagger which she planned to sell, leather pants which offered +2 to physique and required level 2, a bandanna for the head slot which had no stats so she would sell as well, and a new pair of shoes which granted 1 Stability and 1 Reflexes, without a level requirement.

She debated wearing them, but the gain of only 1 reflexes was very marginal in the first place, and she was not a physically focused class, so decided to sell them too. Thus she would only keep the pants, and equip them as soon as she was level 2, as it would be an additional 100 health, plus 10 more damage on her axe.

Common gear of such low quality would sell a relatively steady price under the price of what dissemblers could get for the raw materials, these three items would fetch Sunshine only sixteen silver. If she kept them with her until she met with Pickapart to disassemble them she could get twenty silver from them, but a gain of four silver was not worth the bag space at the moment, and she was certain she would find better items before meeting up with Pickapart.

Most of that money was from the Bandana, which was the only item that sold above the price for its raw materials, as even though it was a statless item for the head slot, it could still be enchanted. Sunshine would have picked that option if purchasing enchantments were cheap, but even the cheapest common enchantments cost five gold.

It was bad for Sunshine, but great for Gearme, who was crafting them as fast as he could to make money - the crafting time of enchantments were much slower than other types of crafting, so it slowed down his experience gain in Provisioner significantly, but it was still the far away best money making method as a level 20 Provisioner, and would be until level 50, though if he crafted enchantments until level 50 it would take weeks, so Chan Si only planned for him to do so when the money gained would directly benefit her short term plans, and focus on leveling otherwise.

Of course, Gearme did not receive five gold per common enchantment, the prices were supressed in the local market due to Provisioners, so enchantments went for four gold instead. It was still the best.