Author’s Corner: Good morning everyone! Today’s chapter is brought to you by insomnia! All hail the holiday season. Also, feel free to post a review on the story’s main page, as I will be watching those as well. For those curious about the Average Views dropping like they are, it’s rather simple. After I posted the first two chapters, Chapter One had a sudden influx of over 45k views, which could very likely have been a glitch. Since the Average Views are just the total views divided by the number of chapters, that number is steadily decreasing as I post more.

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After waiting for my health to recover, I discovered something that had left me a bit speechless. Rather than the normal scenario where my wound would fully recover as my health rose, the wound didn’t fully heal after closing. Likewise, my health had stopped recovering at 87, meaning that I would probably need actual healing to recover the last bit of damage. It would probably also mean I could be more easily damaged if I aggravated the injury.

“Really need to find those herbs…” I groaned to myself, knowing that I couldn’t use any healing spells until I first learned how to brew the potion. Scanning around, I noticed some of the familiar red weed in small bundles growing nearby. A few of the stalks were damaged, likely from the rabbits eating them.

I used my dagger to cut off the root that was holding my leg, leaving the body of the root wrapped around it for now. If nothing else, it’d make me feel better knowing that I wouldn’t randomly start bleeding out. When I finally stood up, I let out a hiss of pain, being forced to acknowledge that the wound really hadn’t fully healed.

Walking over, I carefully retrieved the weeds, digging the roots out with my dagger. While I wasn’t notably skilled at herbalism, I had dabbled with it in other games enough to know how not to damage most plants.

New Skill Acquired!Herbology - Beginner Level 1

Exp: 2%

This skill measures your knowledge regarding the various plants throughout the universe, and their possible effects.

New Sub-Skill Acquired!Gathering - Beginner Level 5

Exp: 20%

This is the basic skill that allows you to gather various ingredients from nature.

Current applicable skills: Herbology

Two skills, huh? Guess Herbology must be because I know that blood weed was used in healing potions. Still, 2%? Why do I feel like it’s just teasing me… I shook my head and dismissed the windows while gathering the rest of the blood weed in the area. Thankfully they all stacked in my inventory, so that wasn’t an issue. When I got back to Jacobs, he told me that I could have this set of rabbits, since I was the only one actually injured by them.

After thanking him, we again set out to find more rabbits. Our mana had recovered enough that we were confident taking on another group of the same size, but this time we knew to be more careful of them. The next group we came across was likewise another set of four, which were nibbling away at more blood weed. They really like that stuff, huh?

I entertained a brief notion of trying to tame one of the rabbits with the aid of the herb, but the pain in my leg seemed to demand vengeance against the fluffy race. This time, I decided to use my bow to try and shoot one, with my dagger kept strapped to my waist. Going through the motions, I shot out a Lesser Spiral Arrow. Thanks to my complete inability to hit what I aimed for, I purposely aimed for the spot between the four rabbits, hoping it would go off course enough to hit one of them.

Lucky ShotFatal Blow dealt, Wild Luck skill increased.

The body of the rabbit practically exploded as the arrow tore through it, making me wince at the loss of profit. It was bad enough that we couldn’t shove all the rabbit corpses into our inventory due to a lack of spaces available, but now I had utterly destroyed one of the bodies.

Jacobs didn’t miss this fact either, and let out a tired sigh while quickly activating his gravity spell. This time, he had aimed it a bit more carefully, so none of the remaining three rabbits had a chance to escape the field before it was set. Again, I finished the battle with a series of Wind Bullets. This time, we would really have to take a break for a while to recover mana, so we decided to head back to town after gathering the dead rabbits. The three in tact bodies were added to Jacobs’ catch, while the head of the fourth was mine, as it was all we could recover of it…

You have leveled up!

I quickly added another three points to agility, and two to wisdom. After we had the bodies, and I went around gathering more of the blood weed, we decided to head back to town for a little while. Staying out in the open while smelling of blood, without the means to defend ourselves was just asking for a wolf or something to attack.

Once we got back, we found a guard to sell our seven(and a third) corpses to. He didn’t seem at all bothered by the bodies of the fluffy race, and paid a price of ten copper for each full body, only managing to earn three for the lone head. With this, if I could manage to find some fireflower, I would already meet the requirements to learn alchemy!

“So… how long will you have to wait for your mana to get back?” Jacobs asked after we left the guard.

I looked at my mana, and saw that it was missing around seventy points. Doing a quick bit of math in my head I came to a conclusion. “Almost fifteen minutes. You?”

He smirked a bit, seemingly proud of himself. “Only ten for me. But I’m building a full caster build.”

I let out a sigh, not at all wanting to spend the next fifteen minutes just walking around. “I’m going to log out for a few minutes, check on the house.”

He nodded to me, and I looked through the menu for the logout button. It.. .wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Typically, the logout button was at the very bottom of the menu, and I almost panicked when I didn’t find it. It’d been ages since an accidental virtualization happened, but it was always that distant possibility. Then, I noticed that the option was just hidden a few slots higher, and grumbled under my breath.

Soon, my world turned black. I was no longer Falenel, the failure half-elf, but John Hulett, the NEET human. With a thought, the Seed opened up, allowing me to exit, and light to pour in. I pulled off the mask and stood up, giving a light stretch. There was still a pain in my leg from where the rabbit had speared me, but I chalked it up to phantom pains. After all, there wasn’t a visible wound over the spot, just a feeling of deep soreness.

The next thing I noticed was an ever-so-slight reduction in my gamer gut. If nothing else, that made me happy, since it meant that the Seed really was worth the money spent on it. Walking to the nearby door, I got a rather annoying jolt of static when I gripped the handle, but was otherwise unimpeded as I put on some clothes and went downstairs. I wasn’t very hungry, but decided it would be best to grab a small snack and a drink before heading back.

On my way back to my room, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror, and for a moment I thought something was off. I just couldn’t quite place it, so I just attributed it to losing a bit of weight. I only needed to spend three minutes out of the game, thanks to the time differences, so I quickly made my way back to the Seed, and logged in once I had satisfied my stomach.

To my surprise, this satisfaction actually carried over to the game, and I didn’t feel the need to stuff my face with stale bread anymore. I was, however, lying sprawled out on the ground, with a rather annoyed looking Jacobs standing next to my body.

“Note for the future, logging out does not make the character disappear.” He explained simply, making me understand what had happened. I must have fallen to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Then, to make sure I wasn’t robbed or killed, Jacobs had to stand watch over me while I was gone.

“Sorry about that. Good news is, it seems like eating in the real world will also help here.” He raised an eyebrow at that curiously. People who had been virtualized never really felt the need to eat unless it was simulated in the game they played, so that wasn’t likely too big of a deal for him.

By now, both of our mana pools had recovered, so we once again headed back out to hunt. Since we knew the general area where the rabbits lived, it didn’t take long for us to find them. We would hunt two groups between each break, gathering the blood weed and bodies after each fight. Jacobs and I both hit level 4 by the time we were ready for our second break, and he hit level 5 just after we got hunting again.

Thankfully for me, I managed to find some fireflower during our second excursion, though it was still massively outmatched by the amount of blood weed I had collected. I could only hope that the alchemy instructor would either buy the excess blood weed from me, or the recipes would make use of it. I didn’t want to carry around tons of the herb forever.

Another thing of note was that after hitting level 5, Jacobs said his inventory grew, from a 2 x 2 grid to 3 x 3. We were thankful for the extra five slots, since it meant we could carry over twice as much. On our third trip, we finally hit our goal of ten rabbits each, finishing the quest that we had taken. Thanks to our caution after the first hunt, we didn’t take any additional injuries, give or take a couple small scratches.

You have completed the quest Culling the Herd

You have leveled up!You have reached level 5! Inventory size increased.

I had saved up my points from the last few hunts, and decided to accurately check the meaning and effects behind a few of the stats. So far, I had been spending mostly based on intuition, but that wouldn’t be good for the long run.

StrengthThis stat measures the character's ability to exert physical force. A higher strength increases melee damage with physical weapons, the amount a character can lift, and grants bragging rights among other males.AgilityThis stat measures the character's ability to quickly and accurately move their body. A higher agility increases run speed and jump height.DexterityThis stat measures the character's ability to perform small, detailed actions. A higher dexterity increases ranged accuracy, and the success rate for certain skills.VitalityThis stat measures the strength of the character's life force. A higher vitality grants increased health and natural resistance to certain status effects.WisdomThis stat measures the character's mental processing ability. A higher wisdom allows greater mana regeneration, as you are more accurately able to pull in the mana around you.IntelligenceThis stat measures the character's intellect and memorization skills. A higher intelligence provides an increased mana pool, and can grant helpful hints based on previous knowledge.CharismaThis stat measures the attractiveness of a character, through either words or appearance. A higher charisma causes the character to be more appealing, and makes others listen to their opinion more easily.LuckThis stat measures pure chance. A higher luck stat will cause things to go your way more often, to a certain degree. This stat can only do so much, so do not expect any miracles.

Looking through the stat descriptions, I nodded my head slightly. Wisdom and intelligence were as I expected, but I had been placing a higher importance on agility when I should have focused on dexterity. Using the points I had saved up, I did my best to fix this snafu, before heading to the alchemy instructor with my shiny new silver coin, and inventory full of herbs. On the way, I took another look at my status and skills, somewhat pleased with myself for not being a total weakling now.

NameFalenelRaceHalf-Elf(Woodland)TitlesN/AFame0Level 55.23%ClassNoviceHealth97/100Health Regen0.17Mana210/210Mana Regen0.07Strength12Wisdom20Agility20Intelligence21Dexterity17Charisma9Vitality10Luck14Points Remaining0

SkillsMana Manipulation - Beginner Level 4: 10.3%Nature Magic - Beginner Level 3: 41.6%Wind Magic - Beginner Level 4: 1.5%Archery - Beginner Level 3: 25.9%Dagger Mastery - Beginner Level 2: 4.1%Wild Luck - Beginner Level 5: 20%Sketching - Basic Level 6: 50%Herbology - Beginner Level 1: 2%Gathering - Beginner Level 6: 6%