For the first time since coming to this world, Yi Qiang felt a wave of hot anger rising in him. As a professional, and expert sniper, Yi Qiang had developed a marksman's pride. This, through years of experience, had been ingrained into his bones. Now that he had been killed without even a chance to fight back, it was all but impossible for the usually cool-headed player to suppress his rage. All he could do was direct it.

I must get stronger.

Yi Qiang, familiar with the way there, headed to the training center once again. And now, he had concrete goals.

Fueled by rage and indignance, Yi Qiang burst through the door, heading for the training dummies. Elgael also emerged, but seeing Yi Qiang's demeanor and angry aura, he silently backed in, the experienced warrior able to discern the best course of action.

The first thing Yi Qiang did was take a training dummy and tie it to his back using the snapped-off bowstring of his training bow. This would have been idiotic, but Yi Qiang was sure that he would be able to find a way to get money in the city.

The weight was difficult enough, but Yi Qiang also then retrieved an arrow from his quiver, looking at it for an instant before angling it towards his thigh and plunging it in deep.

If Constitution affects Health and Stamina recovery, it's most efficient to have it regenerate both values at once.

It was as if Yi Qiang felt no pain as he then broke off the arrowhead and lodged it into the wound, making it so that it would cause increasing damage whenever he moved the leg. That would tax Vitality as well, through the damage, and make it so that it would take him far longer to completely recover from the wound.

200 Strength. 200 Agility. 180 Dexterity. 190 Vitality. 220 Constitution.

Almost by habit, Yi Qiang returned to his corner, lifting himself into a perfectly stable handstand and ignoring the blood traveling down his already-worn pants. He, without tire or halt, cranked out pushups in perfect form, not losing his balance at all despite the training dummy strapped to him.

The sun fell, the moon rose, the moon fell, and the sun was high in the sky. Yi Qiang refused to eat. Every interval of 30 minutes, he would check his status screen, not stopping the exercise even as he looked at his stats.

Finally, Yi Qiang popped up, still bleeding as much as ever but unaffected.

Yi Qiang's eyes immediately focused on the sandbags on the ground a few meters away from him, which must have been dropped off at some point in his training. They'll be useful.

Running while hoisting the sandbags as high in the air as possible, still strapped to the dummy, ensued, which, from Yi Qiang's examination of his status screen, paid dividends towards all of his targeted stats - specifically Strength and Agility.

Yi Qiang continued, more machine than elf, each exercise more creative and taxing than the last.

As the third day was in its progression(luckily for Yi Qiang, though he hadn't consciously noticed it, a high Vitality score did indeed lower the requirements for both sleep and food), Elgael discreetly watched him.

"Really, these Chosen are monsters," he muttered to himself. "I don't even know his name, but it's easy to tell that boy is no ordinary elf."

He shook his head, knocking himself out of his shocked state. "Don't have time for this. Too much to do. Still have to get those new weights from old Aldirion."

Status

Name: One

Race: Dragonblood Elf

Class: None

Resources:

Health: 1950

Health Regeneration: 228/min

Stamina: 875

Stamina Regeneration: 127/min

Mana: 670

Mana Regeneration: 70/min

Stats:

Strength: 200

Dexterity: 184

Agility: 213

Vitality: 195

Constitution: 228

Intelligence: 67

Wisdom: 60

Spirit: 70

Free Stats: 25

Skills:

Active:

Arrow Pierce(Level 4 Apprentice)

Arrow Burst(Level 1 Apprentice)

Mark(Level 10 Novice)

Analyze(Lvl NA)

Passive:

Rapid Training(Lvl NA)

Toughness(Lvl 2 Journeyman)

Grace(Lvl 4 Apprentice)

Bow Mastery(Lvl 3 Journeyman)

After a week straight of constant training and not-so-subtle(but still, somehow, barely noticed) assistance from the ever-so-helpful Elgael, Yi Qiang had reached, and even slightly surpassed, his goals.

He had also long finished venting in his own productive manner, so Yi Qiang knocked on Elgael's door.

He opened quickly. Does that man hide his power or something? How does he open the door almost instantly? No matter, I suppose, and it makes sense that he would hide his power - to be a training instructor for a whole city, there has to be more than meets the eye here.

"Yes, boy?"

"Hello. I need to know how to earn money in this city. I must repay you for the tools and the assistance, and I need gear."

Elgael smiled. Inwardly, he was proud of this newcomer who was willing to work and help the city, even if his motivations weren't out of the good of his heart. From his experience, the Chosen were spectacularly rude, as if they saw themselves above the other members of the world. That this man was grounded enough to ask for help from a normal member of the city, on how to help other members of the city, was impressive to him.

"Well, first off, consider the tools a gift to someone in which I see potential. Second, if you want to start earning money, serious money, you're going to have to do a bit more than a few odd jobs."

"What does it take?"

Maybe I've been going about this the wrong way. He had assaulted this task with his normal vigor and focus, treating it like training, which meant no shortcuts - just hard work and grinding through the task. But that wasn't what this was. If Yi Qiang was honest with himself, there were very few benefits to completing this outside of the reward offered.

He knocked on another wooden door at the inn. It opened, revealing a tall, lanky elf. A quick Analyze showed him to be Chosen, at Level 25. Good, he'll do.

"Hello. I was hired to spread the word about something here that might be beneficial to Chosen like us." Yi Qiang began, his voice as serious as ever.

"Yeah, what's up? Is it an event or something?" The elf responded, his dignified and handsome appearance clashing with the lazy way he spoke.

"You could say so. The point is, I recommend you to head over to the blacksmith's shop, Ororil. He has something planned that could benefit you."

"Alright, I'll check it out later."

Hearing this, Yi Qiang took his leave. He still had a lot of work ahead of him.

If Yi Qiang completed this, he'd be able to buy the bow he had been eyeing, a Level 10 Uncommon quality item with 150 damage and multiple bonuses to his stats. That, combined with his high stats, would make leveling easy, almost too easy.

But it was work to get there. Considering the bow's expensive price tag of 70 gold coins, and the fact that each simple task he completed only earned Yi Qiang an average of 50 silver, it was quite the grind to afford it.

The money system, which Yi Qiang had to learn by necessity, was simple: 100 copper coins to a silver coin, 100 silver coins to a gold coin, and 100 gold coins to a mark. Of course, marks were far beyond Yi Qiang's reach at the moment, but he was confident he would get there.

At the moment, Yi Qiang had a grand total of 60 gold coins. That was the result of two weeks of nonstop work, catering to every need of every citizen for any reward, no matter how small. But this was the biggest job Yi Qiang had had so far.

The city's top blacksmith, Ororil, needed a team of 20 Chosen to adventure out into the wilderness and retrieve something for him.

Yi Qiang had joined that team already, but that had still left a void of 19 spaces that needed to be filled by capable Chosen. And Chosen at that level, Yi Qiang had soon learned, weren't exactly easy to deal with.

That was why Ororil paid him a full 50 silver coins for each adventurer recruited. And, since he had already recruited 14 of those, he only needed five before that bow was his.

Two days passed quickly, and Yi Qiang found himself in front of a burly elven blacksmith.

"Thanks for the help. Most of you Chosen are incredibly difficult to deal with, no offense, so I figured the help of one of their own would make things easier. Here's the 20 gold, as promised, just don't forget to meet back here tomorrow, at noon!" Ororil, somehow, managed to be even more boisterous than Elgael. What is with me and knowing loud elven men? I'm starting to think they're the norm, or at least much more common than I thought...

"Of course. Thank you, I was glad to help." Silently enjoying the weight of gold in his pocket, Yi Qiang headed along the clean streets, moving directly towards the merchant who owned the bow he wanted.

"Hello, young man! So, have you finally raised the money to buy that bow that caught your eye?"

Yi Qiang was already familiar with this particular merchant's kind voice, and nodded his head in response.

"Yes, I can finally purchase it. Thank you for holding it for me."

"Oh, no trouble at all! You know what, I like your attitude. I'll throw in an extra quiver of arrows along with the bow, just as a little sign of respect for all that trouble you went through to achieve your goal. The world needs more young adventurers like you, and don't forget it!"

After exchanging some pleasantries, Yi Qiang went over to the inn he stayed at and quickly went to sleep, wanting to be ready for the gathering of the group of Chosen tomorrow.

The experienced marksman woke up early, as he always did, and headed to the gym. He hadn't given up on training his stats, and though progress had certainly slowed down as of late, Yi Qiang always got a few stat gains every day from morning exercise. He also practiced a bit with his new bow, quickly getting a feel of it, which would allow him to use it comfortably in battle.

The sun was almost at its peak when Yi Qiang made his way over to the gathering spot for the expedition. There were already 10 or 11 people gathered, which was more than Yi Qiang had expected - punctuality didn't seem to be very important for a lot of Chosen, since this world was 'fake'.

Not much was said between the medium-sized group as Yi Qiang sized them up again. Having recruited them in the first place, there were a number of people Yi Qiang had already singled up as a cut above the rest, or simply mysterious. Three of the four players that he had decided to pay extra special attention to were already there, giving him a chance to subtly inspect them some more, not finding anything that marked them as an outright threat, but solidifying their status as more skillful than most of the other Chosen.

It was a good half-hour after noon when everyone had gathered(thankfully, no one had decided to skip), and Ororil began, calling the attention of the entire group.

"Alright, let's talk about what I need you to do."