As I walked towards the rabbit cemetery, I found our friendly neighborhood hunters trying to steal my prey, as they hunted down the poor things as well, well, hunting is a very generous word, they were basically ganging up on them and annihilating them. Someone should really call PETA or something!

Seeing me, one of them, vaguely familiar, which makes sense since I've talked to him half an hour ago waved towards me.

"Hey! Back from the elder already? You left so hastily the last time I didn't even catch your name." He shouted, as he over-enthusiastically stuffed a dead bunny into a bag that was slung over his shoulder.

"Yeah, sorry for that, I was in a hurry. I'm Qualexys. So... erm... Hunter?" I swear to God he had told me his name, but you know how things are with those nameless NPCs right? Would it hurt them if they had something like nametags? "Do you really need to kill all those rabbits? I was kinda in the mood to hunt them myself you see."

"...The name's Mark" Ohhhh yeah, that was it. "And would you really bother with hunting down rabbits? I'm not the one to stop you. Hell! I'll even enjoy the reduced workload. Those things reproduce like mad, each day we have to hunt like a million of them before they destroy everything in their path. Tell you what, since I know you enter the forest, kill 50 of them and I'll throw you a bonus. A trick of the trade if you will, that's bound to be of use to a hunter like you."

Yes! Another quest!

Quest accepted: Mark, leader of the village hunters has asked you to eliminate 50 rabbits before the day is over. Rewards: 300xp, Basic hunter skill, Really minor reputation gain with Grinea village

"Anything for the wellbeing of the village!" I said rushing off to kill the white menaces.

What do you know? It turns out that stats do matter! I nearly died fighting a damn rabbit! Thankfully, Rock-kun was there to save the day and tank it till the rabbit died. But even his damage seemed woefully low. So, probably, even he is affected by my stats.

But a man has to do what a man has to do. That is, getting his ass kicked while waiting for a stupid debuff to wear off. At least I got like ten of those critters down, and the increased difficulty meant extra skill growth. That's the key, positive thinking!

After the debuff wore off, what happened is a bit blurry in my memory. I remember white fur, blood, and death. The rabbit reaper had descended upon the plains, sparing not one of the annoying, hoping disasters. There were scenes of violence, scenes of gore, but mostly scenes of me alternating between tanking the furballs, and completely evading them, as I tried to equally level up my defensive skills, the memory of an arrow sticking out of chest a dread reminder that, I too, regardless of my awesomeness, needed a bit of system help so as not to die.

When I awoke from my trance, slightly overweight from all the meat and fur in my inventory, I was already level 4. And this time, I was serious. Cloth armor combined with light armor mastery in the blink of the eye, deleting both skills from my character sheet, and replacing them with . Which truth to be told, I found a bit unfair, since, while yes, my light armor mastery was Lv3, my cloth armor mastery was at Lv4! Give me back my lost skill xp damn system!

Naturally, since I was promised an awesome (I hope) mana regeneration skill, the stat point naturally went to intelligence for even more mana. And the skill point brought Infused elementals up to Lv5, which gave me a weird talent, namely which I would probably have to experiment with. Later. The rest were more or less expected. I did gain an skill while jumping around dodging hits from the rabbits though, and a new attack talent from the dagger line, which basically was just a quick attack, doing just regular damage but being blinding fast, basically doubling my attack at that point at the cost of my stamina.

Hobbling my way towards the trio of the hunters who were still busy ganging up to their own targets, I once more thanked the gods that apart from the NPCs, there was only one more player hunting rabbits, leaving enough targets free. The fact that this simply meant that most people had long since graduated from bunnyslaying was irrelevant.

"Hey, Matt!" I shouted towards the one hunter I knew, which for some reason caused him to scowl towards me. "I'm done already!" I continued unfazed while pulling 50 tiny hides from my inventory, which mind you, when you actually pulled them all together out, where nothing tiny actually made a small hill.

"It's Mark, and it took you long enough! We were actually betting how many you had killed already. Dirk here was betting for a hundred!" Damn, yet another name to somehow remember. I wish this game had something like an in-game notepad. Or, I don't know, GOD DAMNED NAMEPLATES!

As for the betting part, I couldn't tell if it was a good thing, like, did I look so awesome as to kill a 100 of them in this timeframe, or a bad one, like, do I suck? So I simply went the easy way and chose to ignore it.

Thankfully, Matt had the decency to stop his own onslaught and started showing me how to... dig holes? Ohhhhh I see. He actually taught me how to put up snares and minor traps to capture game in the forest. Rewarding me with skill.

Delighted, I took a quick look at my status screen.

Name: Qualexis Race: Wildkin Gender: Male Level: 4 Experience: 940/4000 HP: 40 MP: 54 Rage: 0/100 Stamina: 100/100 HPregeneration: 0.06/sec MPregeneration: 0.1/sec - STregeneration: 10/sec Strength: 8 Dexterity: 12 Agility: 12 Constitution: 6 Intelligence: 11 Wisdom: 10 - - Physical attack: 26 (30) Magical Attack: 21 Physical defense: 26 Magical defense: 64 Critical chance: +2% Critical damage: -2% Speed: +2% Reputations: Elves: Favorable, Fey: Favorable, Grinea: Favorable, Avon: Noticed EXP%: 1x, +0.2x bonus for hunter related skills. Skills: Talents: Natural camouflage Lv4 - Feral senses Lv4 - Elementalism Lv5 Summon minor elemental, Inscribe Lv3 Minor P.Att rune, Minor P.Def rune, Dagger Mastery Lv5 Stab, Backstab, Quick slash Sneak Lv4 Outdated Stonemanship Lv1 Toughness Lv3 Hunter armor mastery Lv3 Cooking Lv1 Dissasembling Lv4 Leatherworking Lv1 Throwing Lv2 Tracking Lv2 Infused Elementals Lv5 Inscribe minor elemental, Double inscription, Soulbind Lv1 Acrobatics Lv1 Trapping Lv1 Set minor snare Combination Points: 0

It was getting late, giving me maybe two or three hours of daylight at most by this point, and I still needed two more wolf hides for my boots and gloves. So, naturally, I went to the leatherworker to unload my stash of useless tiny hides.

I greeted the giant of a man as I unloaded my stash on one of his benches.

For some reason, the second he saw that, his eyes opened wide, and a vein popped out on his forehead. Finally culminating into clenched teeth that suddenly opened, allowing him to shout "Go away!".

Dubiously, I rechecked my status screen, making certain that I had indeed favorable reputation with the village before I turned back to him. "What's the issue? Why are you mad?"

"Why I'm mad? WHY I'M MAD? You keep coming here and selling me those worthless tiny pelts! I don't NEED any more of those! Go hunt something useful for once, like a wolf or something! I'm running low on actual money! I really want to find and punch the idiot who taught you how to skin in the face!"

"HEY!" This time it was MY turn to be angry. "You're talking? You're really complaining? I've paid you an arm and a leg for recipes! Most of my gold has come back to you! And because those recipes are just a piece of paper that you can write any time, you basically got all those pelts for free! Now buy the damned pelts before I get really angry!" I finished with a humph as I crossed my arms over my chest, trying my best to straighten my back, just so that I could gain a few centimeters of height against this giant.

At least, that seemed to have put him back into his place, if only a bit. "I'll buy 10 more of those and not one more."

"20. And you'll trade the rest for a recipe."

"FINE!"

Hey! If you're agreeing why are you shouting? Stupid oaf.

"Here's a pouch recipe and a gold piece for forty of those. Keep the rest to make pouches or to stick them up your..."

"Ok, ok, I got it." And with that, I snatched the piece of paper and the coin, while putting back ten pelts into my inventory.

What is even this pouch, I'm pretty sure that I didn't see it in the recipe list! At least it's cheap, only 2 tiny hides to make.

I quickly made one of them on the spot just to check what that was, and I got something really nice!

Small pouch: 1 inventory slot. Items stored here can be pulled a lot quicker compared to inventory.

Hey! That's really great for someone that keeps pulling consumables out of his inventory!

There's only a slight problem. Where do I even put that? On my character panel there was a slot where I equipped my backpack, but nothing more.

"Hey! Shopkeeper!"

"What is it again? I told you, NO, I won't buy any more rabbit stuff."

"No, it has nothing to do with that! Where do I even put that pouch?" I called towards him, showing off the small sack that I had just crafted.

"When did you even make it! God damned Lost souls, ruining the economy wherever you set foot!"

"Yeah, yeah. Now, where do I even put it?"

"Where do you put a pouch? In a belt obviously!" Well, yeah, I mean I had my dagger sheath hanging from a piece of string, which seemed kinda awful.

"Belt? There wasn't a recipe for..." I had checked those earlier. Maybe with the reputation gain it...

"FOR A CHANGE BUY SOMETHING! HERE! Leather Belt, Cheap! just 5 silvers!" His face was so red at this point that I was worried he would have a stroke,

"Give that here, you damned con-man" I said as I threw the gold piece back to him.

...

"Give me my change back you con-man!" I yelled when he seemingly forgot to do so.

I won't even go to the fact that a huge backpack becomes invisible the moment you equip it, but the tiny pouches remained visible on my belt...

God. Leaving the shop I already had a slight headache from all the shouting. But I think it worked out ok! I had 5 silvers to spare, and FINALLY, that meant I could get rid of those old rags I started the game with. I quickly run to the general store where I purchased a set of simple clothes, which was basically just a white blouse and some black trousers, and once again I lamented the clique that cloth armor users were.

You see, the simple clothes, with just 5 silvers, gave +1 intelligence and +1 wisdom each piece, for overall +2 intelligence and +2 wisdom. For 5 silvers! Where's the justice in that when my poor leather armor, which costs up to 1 gold per piece, just gave a bit of armor!

Regardless, that meant more mana and more mana regeneration, so I shut up and quickly swapped my old rags. Throwing them somewhere away, ashamed to be found even wearing them. I also found the opportunity to unload thirty or so of the meat, getting 3 silvers, which were locked somewhere deep within my pockets never to be touched for frivolous things. That was my fund for the inn and the meals! Only one piece of starting equipment was left now to be changed, the badly torn shoes.

And to make my cool boots, I needed wolves. With my weight under control now, It was finally time to go hunting. So, obviously, I run towards... a rock to make my consumables first.

I quickly tried, once more, now that my skill level had risen to 5, to add an air elemental to one of my stone arrowheads, but after I done it, even though the system had said nothing, it actually felt wrong. Like something was missing. Pondering a bit, remembering the actual name of the talent I got for the level, I tried adding an earth elemental as well in the mix.

Minor Air Dart: The sharp stone will fly with great force and explode into stone shards when it embeds itself into the target. Combination of Air and Earth elementals on a sharp stone. Damage: 30-50 piercing physical, Radius: 0 Range: 10m

That seems ridiculously overpowered compared to the rest of them! And despite it basically requiring two times the inscription, and two chants, it is, once again, done in 2 minutes, same as the single version! And it only costs 35 mana each, when each single element costs 25. How does that even work? Devs.. do you even math?

I really need to find some time to sit and check for other double combination if they are so powerful!

But now, crafting.

I spend a bit less than an hour, making just 10 of those. I really need to do something about that mana regeneration thing fast. At least I didn't sit on my ass waiting for my mana to return. I contemplated for a second to go hunt some rabbits using just my dagger, but in the end, not wanting to overburden myself with stuff that the Con-man wouldn't buy any more, I resigned myself to just basically run and jump like an idiot around. Thankfully, the trio of the hunters had left the area by now, because I couldn't take the ridicule. But I was a man with a purpose. And that purpose required to actually raise the acrobatic skill at the moment since that looked like it directly tied to my dodge chance, which weirdly wasn't shown anywhere on my status screen.

And finally, with the sun having started to set, I rushed to the forest. Praying that I would find the two wolves I wanted before full nightfall. You didn't really need to be a genius to know that it would be extremely harmful to one's self to disregard a promise with that crazy old witch.

It took me only 10 minutes to find the first set of tracks, and like the game was on my side, it was a double set! Although I had never fought two full-health wolves simultaneously, I was feeling pretty confident about my chances, or very stupid, only time would tell. To top it off, I was REALLY pressed for time at this moment, so, here we go!

I followed the tracks until I finally caught up with the pair. They seemed to have picked up something as they were looking around nervously. And at this point I prayed that soulbound camouflage thingy actually worked. Slowly, I backtracked just a bit, just to be outside of their visual range, and hoping that I had a bit of time before they caught on my smell. There was this one thing that I really wanted to test.

Carefully, I placed a stone burst pebble on a small hole I dug with my hands on the ground, then thinking a bit, I added a flaming burst stone as well... well, what the hell, I put my remaining second flame blast stone in as well as another two stone burst ones, covered the hole lightly, and used the set snare skill on the mass of consumables.

You've created a Trapping talent: Minor blasting earth deathtrap. Requires 2 stone burst pebbles and 2 flame blast stones

Hey, game choose: Either minor OR deathtrap, you can't have both!

I gave one Air Dart to Dirt-kun and moved even further back, and mentally thought the image of Dirt-kun finding the wolves ahead, throwing the dart towards one of them, and then running straight back here. As per usual, the tiny elemental started running towards the last seen location of the wolves. For a brief second, my heart stopped. That second was when Dirt-kun run straight over the trap. Thankfully, for whatever reason, it didn't explode. I just hoped that this reason wasn't that the trap simply didn't work. Fingers crossed, I waited.

A few seconds later I was rewarded with a loud yelp, followed by a cry from a wolf. After a few more seconds, Dirt-kun emerged, trying his best to run towards here. Revealing the critical error of my masterplan. Obviously, the stumpy Dirt-kun was way slower than the wolves, even if they were injured. In fact, the image that appeared in front of me was a poor elemental walking forward, getting mauled on his back by a wolf, standing up, taking two steps forward, getting mauled again, and repeat.

I tried to encourage him, he was sooooooooo near the trap now, just a few more seconds! You can do it Dirt-kun, I believe in you!

He took two more steps, raised his head towards me, almost as if he could hear my encouragement, and an amazingly loud noise shook the forest as the wolf touched the trap with his paw. Poor Dirt-kun flew in the air from the explosion, drawing a beautiful ark in the sky as he vanished from sight, probably blown to pieces.

The explosion blasted the wolf into oblivion though, so at least his sacrifice wasn't in vain.

Unfortunately, the wolf that was mauling Dirt-kun, and was subsequently caught in the explosion, was the healthy one, since the other one was obviously slowed, a huge gaping wound on his side when he showed up. That meant that I still had two wolves to deal with, and no more Dirt-kun.

I unleashed Windy-chan to this one, urging her to take revenge for the untimely death of Dirt-kun (he still had like 1 minute remaining on his duration!) while I circled around the one that was still reeling in from the explosion, which seemed more or less dead to me. I backstabbed and stabbed, unleashing a quick slash simultaneously, which left me with just 20/100 stamina in a matter of seconds but seemed enough to finish off the wolf as it dropped down dead.

Testing the pouch, it really made a ton of a difference taking out one more Air Dart. If I was a betting man, I would bet that it cut the initial 1second delay to pull items down to 0.5seconds. And threw the Dart towards the last remaining wolf. It flew with tremendous speed, maybe even faster than even a crossbow bolt, and dug itself into the flesh of the poor wolf, before exploding and cutting a huge chunk out of him. Naturally, he tried to run away, but I jumped right in front of him, cutting his path of escape. By this point, the outcome of the battle was clear. He vainly tried to take a bite off me, but I simply dodged it, and the moment I hit 40 energy, I attacked with a normal attack and added a Quick slash, ending his misery.

The hunt had, surprisingly, ended quite faster. And for a second I thought about searching for some more wolves. But in the end, the preservation instinct of not being even a second late for the village Elder kicked in, and I rushed back. Of course, I did spend half an hour the second I entered the village to actually craft my gloves and my boots.

No more newbie gear for this hero!