When Winter approached the items, cards appeared above them detailing what they were, similar to the information he’d get from items in his inventory. The grey orb had revealed a giant boar tusk resembling the Boar King’s. One of the green orbs had a small dagger that looked to be made out of the same tusk material, and there was a pair of green quality leather boots from the final orb.

Name: Boartusk Dagger

Slot: Weapon (One Hand)

Type: Dagger

Damage: 17-21

Speed: Fast

Quality: 41%

Durability: 45/45

Requirements: Level 5

Option 1: +5% Damage dealt to beasts.

Description: A small dagger made from the tusks of the Boar King.

Name: Boar King’s Treads

Slot: Feet

Type: Leather Armor

Armor: 12

Quality: 40%

Durability: 50/50

Requirements: Level 5

Option 1: -5% Damage taken from beasts.

Description: Leather shoes made from the hide of the Boar King.

Name: Boar King’s Tusk

Type: Crafting Material

Option: Increases damage dealt to beasts.

Quality: 36%

It all lined up from what Winter knew from reading the manual. Any item of a quality below 40% was considered common and colored white. Above 40% was considered uncommon and showed up as green. Above 60% was rare and came up as blue, while 80% and above was considered Magnificent and colored purple, 90% and above was colored orange and considered Mastercraft, and 100% was considered Perfect and colored red, but none had been found thus far - from what Winter had read, only a handful of Mastercraft items had even been found.

He was mainly interested in the Tusk. There were no detailed crafting recipes in The Shattered World Online, only basics - to craft powerful equipment one needed to get creative in how they go about it. Certain materials had different options, and it was up to the crafter to add them into the basic recipe so that it would gain the properties of that item.

Since he had the recipes for most of the basic equipment already he started pondering how he could incorporate the Boar King’s Tusk into them so that the craft would gain its properties, also taking into consideration how he could use the artistry skill to change the way it looked. With good quality ore, careful technique, and the right additional materials, he might be able to craft an item worth a lot of gold - though trying to add too many additional materials to a recipe could mess up the process and cause the craft to complete with 1 or 0 maximum durability, which meant a failed craft. He imagined with enough practice and high enough skill levels, he could add 3, 4, or even 5 bonus materials to his weapons. Thinking of the money he’d make turned his pupils into gold coins.

“Probably not worth it to add to copper crafts… should wait until I can use Iron.” He mumbled aloud as he fixated on the tusk. Silentwire was drooling over the dagger however.

“D-do you mind if I take it? It’s better than mine.” She asked. Winter looked it over for a moment - he thought it might be worth a good bit of gold, but would help him level faster if Silentwire was really determined to stick with him.

“Go for it.”

“Okay, thanks! You should take the leather boots!” She smiled as she grabbed the dagger and sheathed it. She picked up the pair of boots and handed them to Winter as he finished stuffing the tusk into his inventory. He gladly took and equipped them while remembering the notification of his new skill. Pressing his menu in his peripheral vision he navigated through it to get to the skill window and read it.

Leather Armor Proficiency - Level 1 (Beginner)

Improves the effectiveness of Leather Armor when only leather armor is being worn, as well as movement speed. Bonus does not take effect when wearing any pieces of Cloth, Mail, or Plate armor.

Armor Bonus: 1%

Movement Bonus: 0.2%

Next, he assigned his attribute points from leveling up by putting 2 in spirit, 1 in constitution.

“You killed that boss pretty fast, by the way. Are all bosses that easy?” Winter asked while pulling out his harvesting knife.

“I think it was level 5 so I did extra damage, since I’m higher level.” She shrugged. “Usually bosses take full groups of players to take down but I’m pretty sure the beginner bosses around this forest are made easier for new players.”

“It didn’t hit like it was made for new players…” he grumbled. “Listen, the hard part is up next. You see all that?” Winter pointed over the destroyed forest littered with broken trees, and the giant pile of dead boars in front of the cave. “I have an important mission for you, don’t let anyone steal my stuff until I’ve gathered it all.” His eyes beaming, he dug his blade into the Boar King and started harvesting it for anything useful.

“I got it… you want me to kill other players if they start trying?” She asked innocently. To Winter’s surprise, she seemed perfectly okay with this.

“Ah, well - persuade them to go away. Tell them it’s all property of your party or something.” Winter replied, and she nodded. It took Winter 5 minutes to get done with the Boar King, but it was beyond worth it. He was able to harvest a second tusk as well as 3 pieces of Boar King Hide, which had the property to reduce damage taken from beasts. Unfortunately none of it was above 20% quality - his creature harvesting was still too low to get better.

With one hand armed with his skinning knife, the other with his wooden axe, he unleashed the power of his inner survivalist. The sun came up in The Shattered World and morning dew formed on the leaves and grass. The birds returned to the trees and sang once more, having fled during the commotion.

The sound of his axe hitting the logs echoed off of the surrounding forest. The tasks were menial, it gave him a long time to think about things as he worked. The thought of doing hands-on work like this in the wilderness wasn’t something he’d ever imagine doing in his life, it was so farfetched from what he did in the real world with all of its conveniences. At the same time though, he was enjoying it, it felt incredibly rewarding to watch his experience bars and inventory fill up.

He’d also pondered more about Selena. She was doing nothing but patrolling about and watching him work for several hours straight without a single complaint. She deterred a few low level players who wandered nearby, preventing them from touching the logs and bodies, and none tried to press the issue against her. She was either incredibly patient, or something else was going on, Winter thought.

After 8 hours of diligent work and endless apple digestion, Winter had finished. His harvesting had gotten high enough during the ordeal that he started gaining more than 1 log and leather per harvest, and ended up with close to 1000 logs and 600 leather, and enough steak to feed a family of 5 for a year. His bags were nearing their limits, and his tools were about done for.

“What next?” Silentwire yawned and stretched when she noticed Winter wrapping things up.

“I can’t do much with this stuff without Copper, but bags are stuffed. Gotta head back to Orm and find a place to stash all of it.” Winter said as he got his bearings and started heading eastward.

“Okay.” She said sleepily.

“The crafting and gathering’s pretty boring, you don’t have to follow me around y’know.” Winter replied.

“I’m okay.” She rubbed her eyes.

“You don’t want to go hunt something while I craft?” Winter raised an eyebrow.

“Nope.”

“What sort of equipment do thieves use? I could craft you something.”

“Daggers, throwing knives... leather armor… uhm, oh a lockpicking set would be nice. And tripwires for traps and things.” She pondered.

“I’ll try to make some while I’m crafting.”

“Okay.” Her face lit up. It wasn't long before the pair made it back to Orm. Despite it being afternoon in-game it was still very early morning in the world, so as expected there was no sign of Keldan and the goons.

Silentwire led Winter to the storage building of Orm where Herilon could be found sitting on a bench outside reading an in-game book, Winter curiously peaking to see the title ‘The Grand Abyssal Voyage’ on the cover. He looked up when Winter passed and they exchanged nods of recognition briefly before he unloaded his wood into the storage hall, a large stone structure with several Kalmoore guards patrolling about.

When he entered he was directed to a large iron door off to the side, and upon touching the door it opened for him revealing a quite large empty stone chamber. The logs took up a lot of space but he made sure to organize it properly to maximize the area, keeping the leather on him.

When he was done he stepped outside, Silentwire unable to enter on her own.

“Oh, me too.” She stepped forward and touched the door, but when she opened it, a completely different chamber appeared filled with all manner of items scattered around the floor sloppily. Winter peaked inside to see a large pile of torn and discarded cloth, rusty looking weapons, broken arrows, the sort. Silentwire took the time to drop off a few more broken weapons from her inventory before rejoining Winter. “Okay, all set.” She patted her hands together.

Resisting the urge to ask her about her storage, he opened his inventory to see the readily available pickaxes he’d made, and saw he only had 1 copper shield remaining from the battle with the boar. He double checked the mining quest he had, he needed 3 copper ores of 50% quality. The best he’d gotten so far was a 20, and only one at that.

“So… my goal is to get to Iron to make money. I’m gonna be mining a lot… gonna try to improve my bag size first…” Winter was trying to hint at Silentwire his boring plans.

“Okay.” She smiled and nodded as the two left the storage building, completely oblivious. Winter subtly shook his head to himself. He started by selling excess steak to some players and NPCs for extra gold, then used the gold to buy cloth and sewing materials. He combined that with the leather he had gathered in the Craftsman Guildhall to expand his inventory significantly, he’d wager he could hold close to 8000 copper ore if he had nothing else, but at that point he ran out of money and cloth.

“How much copper ore can you carry?” He asked Silentwire while walking out of the Guildhall.

“Uhm, about 2000 I think?” She shrugged while munching on a piece of bread. “You are going mining now? It’s pretty late.” She asked.

“I know, but…”

“You’re having fun, huh?” Silentwire smiled. “Me too, I’ll help with whatever!”

“There’s no way you’re gonna sit around watching me mine is there?” He raised his eyebrow at her. She was starting to feel less like a potential threat and more like a lost puppy. “If you’re gonna be the sword, you should use the time to get sharper, or whatever.” Winter insisted while walking westward a few steps with her.

“Oh, uhm… I guess there are some skill quests around the thieves guild, but it's over in the neighboring city.”

“You should go and do them.” Winter suggested, “I’ll be mining for a while, we can meet up after.”

“Are you sure? What if Keldan and those guys come back?” She asked worriedly.

“Then I’ll have an excuse to sleep a bit.” He shrugged.

“Heh… okay… can we add each other to friends?”

“Yeah, of course.” He sent her a request and she accepted immediately - he now had 3 on his list.

“Got it!”

“Great. I’ll see you later then. Thanks for helping.” Winter bowed politely to her.

“I had a lot of fun. I’ll go as fast as possible!” She smiled and waved before turning and running off in the opposite direction, however she remained in his party interface. Winter moved forward with determination, hopefully for the last time towards the copper hills. He arrived without any trouble and immediately began mining.

100 ore, 200 ore, eating his spiced boar steaks in between to keep his stamina up, watching the quality of the ore as he gathered it - unfortunately nothing particularly high. He got a level in mining and from it saw a few more 20% quality and one at 22%, but it was around that time a message popped up on his screen.

WARNING: User has entered a sleeping state.

This Simbox does not support Dreamstate Simulation, logging out…

Despite his best efforts to stay awake, the menial task of mining eventually made him pass out.

Silentwire was about halfway to the Capital city of Kalmoore, Kordas, following the main road when she got the notification that Winter had logged out.

“I guess he fell asleep.” She yawned to herself, “I hope I wasn’t acting too weird. I think I was being too weird. Ughh I’m so stupid!” She shouted to the sky, which garnered her strange stares from the passing caravan. She sighed and opened her interface, opening up the settings menu and seeing his name on her friends list next to several other names and unanswered messages.

She opened the messaging window to a player named Jaese.

“I can’t believe you actually rerolled. The guild leader is pissed - we can’t even clear Marauder's keep anymore. We got killed by the twin-headed Voxen's enrage without your damage.”

“Hey you’re ignoring me now?”

“Guild leader says if you don’t rejoin when you hit level 90 again he’s coming after you.”

She huffed and closed the messages from Jaese and instead opened another set from a player named Nejina.

“I’m proud of you, go get him girl! Make sure you don’t regret it!”

“Hope he appreciates what you gave up just to play with him.”

“Gimme all the juicy deets asap!”

A big smile stretched over her face as she wrote a message back to Nejina.

“I forgot I was only level 8 and almost got us both killed..."

"Best day ever!”