Chapter 23 – Relaxed & Casual Apple Picking

[System tutorial: Resource scarcity in Edenquest.]

Greetings, adventurer. As you explore the world of Edenquest, you will come across fruits, vegetables, monster drops, ores, and many other collectibles in the wilderness.

Spawn rates are influenced by many variables, including the object in question, its location, rarity, and other considerations.

==

Closing the straightforward tutorial message, Daniel looked back at the scramble occurring for apple collection in the Raskal gardens. Groups of competing players camped areas where the apples frequently spawned, and snatched up each apple the moment that they appeared. Sometimes, apples appeared somewhere that they did not spawn before, creating a disturbance as multiple players ran to be the first to collect the apples.

Several players completed their collection of the required dozen for quest completion and left the garden victorious, while other players that just arrived at the garden watched in amazement at the mad scramble of players fighting for apples.

Daniel expected this kind of easy fetch quest task to be a breeze, and yet it was shaping up to be quite a competition. Opening up the latch to the gate, he entered with a novice wizard behind him. He felt like he was entering a boxing ring with other challengers, just to complete an easy fetch quest.

“Hey, watch it!” a male novice warrior sneered as a female novice warrior brushed past him and snatched an apple from right under his nose. “That one’s mine, hand it back!”

The female warrior shrugged. “Don’t complain to me because you’re too slow.”

Snarling, the male warrior drew his tutorial given sword. “If you don’t give it back, I’ll slice you in half.”

“I’d like to see you try! This is within city grounds, remember? Good luck with the city guards.”

Advancing, the male warrior pulled his sword back, but stayed his hand at the last moment. “Hmph. I’ll remember your face. Don’t let me catch you walking around outside of city boundaries.”

All for a single apple, Daniel thought. What a trivial thing to fight over. Then again, this was the first day so every little advantage seemed more significant simply because all the players were experiencing this world for the first time. The first day of school was always a more taut and nerve wracking experience than the hundredth day of school.

With no desire to incite any more conflict in an already conflict-filled day for him, Daniel patiently waited at a less occupied tree branch near the edge of the garden, where a small pond and several frogs hopped about. There were fewer people here due to the area having a lower spawn rate, but at least Daniel didn’t have to fight over every apple.

The equation for obtaining apples boiled down to the spawn rate at a given location, multiplied by the percent chance of nabbing that apple compared to other players. So for example, if an apple spawned at this quaint pond location every twenty minutes, and Daniel’s chance of nabbing it was a solid 100%, then he would obtain one apple every twenty minutes.

In comparison, if an apple spawned in a busy location every five minutes, and Daniel had a 25% chance of nabbing it, then he would also obtain one apple every twenty minutes on average. This was because his expected value from every five minutes was ¼ of an apple.

Without actual concrete information on spawn rates and nab chance, he just had to rely on his senses. But more importantly, in the end, this was just for a bunch of apples for some shitty fetch quest. The result of this calculation did not matter enough for him to commit too much brain power to it.

Just apples for a fetch quest. It didn’t matter.

Knowing what did and didn’t matter was a mark of an effective executive decision maker. Not every fight needed to be won. Not every decision needed to be correct.

Waiting patiently at the side of the Raskal gardens, Daniel relaxed under the shade of a fantastical gourd-shaped apple tree near a pond, lounging with Aerie while casually picking an apple from the tree every once in a while. Other players in the middle of the hanging gardens frantically scrambled for apples, and Daniel was beginning to notice that that strategy actually yielded a higher apple/minute count, but he made peace with his decision, since– as he said before, taking a less optimal path here did not matter so much.

“How are you holding up?” Daniel whispered to Aerie, who moved out of his hood to a bed of leaves nearby to relax. She was out of view of the other players, who were still busy scrambling to complete the fetch quest.

“I feel a bit better now,” Aerie said. “The garden has nice fresh air, it’s a lot easier to breath there than in the stuffy merchant market…”

Daniel nodded, in full agreement. The merchant markets had a peculiar stifling smell from the wares on sale there, whether they be metallic odors from ores or distinct residual monster fumes from the freshly skinned monster hides on sale.

After relaxing for a while, the aspiring merchant finally collected the dozen apples required to complete the fetch quest.

“It’s time for us to go, Aerie,” Daniel said, standing up.

“Aw, can’t we stay a bit longer?” Aerie chimed in a joking fashion. “The scenery and air is nice here~”

Daniel laughed as Aerie flew back into his hood, and he checked his inventory again to confirm [x12 apples] in there.

They left the Raskal gardens, alongside a few battle weary players who also just finished their task. One of them was a familiar face, a mage with a tutorial mace hanging at his side.

“Felix?” Daniel said in surprise at running into one of his highschool crew. “Where’s Eric and Donovan?”

“I was too slow, so they went ahead without me, haha…” the reddish haired friend replied, ruffling his hair while smiling.