Yushin finally logs in. He is standing outside Faint Forest, near lots of players are going in and out in a hurry, yet in view of that huge sea of trees, they are but ants.

He goes back to Red Clay City, his inventory is almost full and weapons were broken. No trouble arises on the way. Too many players roaming about, he can even see a few NPCs patrolling the roads.

His haul was not massive but still pretty good, with blood, fangs, skins, claws, fur, broken gears with jewels, a broken guitar like object and an armor piece. Rain also got a lot of the drops from before.

Inside Red Clay, Yushin knows he first needs to make some money, buy some weapons and then decide what to do. Repairing the ones he has wouldn’t be enough, the quality drop is obvious. After thinking for a while, he decides to give the new blood types to Aurei, sell the skins and fur, and give the claws, fangs, and armor to Bitter Cat. They are both his exclusive blacksmith and alchemist, in the future progress cannot be small, their skills are very important.

Actually, the first one to message was Aurei, he wanted to update Yushin on his progress, “H-hello, mister! I was experimenting and found out a few things…”

Aurei found out the common Kruik’s blood had very strong dark element and it’s even stronger on the rare. It seemed to work as a [Darkness Attribute Amplifying Reagent] according to the system. That meant it could be mixed when refining pills or brewing potions of that type to increase its power!

Of course, with the amount they had, it was only good enough for testing purposes. If they ever found out the kruik’s lair, that would be another thing entirely. About the teeth, it could be ground into powder and used for alchemy. It was full of iron and other good ingredients but lacked anything else special.

As for formulas, he discovered a simple healing potion formula, using a common rank one herb, Ukku Leaf. It was present everywhere in the game, and the formula only needed boiling the herb in a flask of water with a few easy and ordained steps. It was the most basic recipe, but he was happy about it!

As for effectiveness, it only healed 10% of the HP over 10 seconds. It was hardly any use during a battle, but that was expected of such a low-grade potion. Yushin told him to meet and Aurei went over happily.

“Here.” He handed over [Ratre’s Fangs x11], [Ratre’s Blood x10], [Ranroth’s Fangs x8], [Ranroth’s Claws x7], [Ranroth’s Blood x10], [Yrb’s Elite Blood x1] and [Yrb’s Elite Armor Piece x1]. Since Bitter Cat wasn’t on, he handed her part to Aurei.

“M-mister, you should bring s-someone with [Gathering skill] o-or learn it, otherwise you can’t pick herbs…” In Tales, to learn skills, you’d have to find a teacher, buy the skill book or obtain good fortune. Alchemist guilds sold skill books and also had teachers, but Yushin couldn’t afford them right now. Aurei level wasn’t high enough to teach either.

“I’ll just bring you along,” said Yushin half-jokingly, “I’ll learn it when I can. Oh, you should also give these to your sister.” He handed over the broken weapons as well. He heard they can be used as scrap by smiths. If nothing else, they can fix it and sell as crappy weapons.

Yushin and Aurei said goodbye, the young alchie had to leave. His sister gave him some tasks he had to complete before she comes back. He dared not forget. He mentioned she was in a bad mood. Smithing is tough, requires a lot of timing and precision, is much harder than low-level alchemy in the game. She broke many weapons and wasted a lot of resources.

Yushin shivers, he doesn’t want to meet her in a bad mood!

What they don’t know is that alchemy is not easier, but much harder, requires skill, precision, and order. In fact, many alchemists didn’t even find their first formula after an entire day! Aurei is different, he is very gifted, grasped the system fast, made it seem easier than it is.

Yushin decides to look for merchants, he still has [Ratre’s Skin x11] and [Ranroth’s Fur x10], besides [Broken Gears with Jewel]. Merchants are not rare in Red Clay City, but most of them are peddlers and beginners. Setting shop requires space and [Permit], for the newbie players it is impossible to get with ease.

Therefore Yushin looks for merchant NPCs, he will wait until players grow richer before attempting to trade. The merchant NPC is a smooth talker, very surprisingly, tries to [Bargain]. There isn’t an option to sell them for a set price, he functions exactly like a merchant would.

After checking around, Skins can be used for clothes, leather, and miscellaneous tools. There are many professions, they can have more uses he isn’t aware of right now. Beast furs can be used for clothes and armors, some even have special properties. Too bad the Ratres and Ranroths that Yushin killed were not special in any way.

The NPC also appraised the quality of the goods. Yushin skinning is still too low to make a difference in both quality and quantity, only had [Poor] and [Normal] quality among them. For those, he can get one silver coin for poor and two for normal goods. In the end, Yushin walks away with 32 silver coins, a lot more than he had before.

This time he bought three normal quality spears, 2 Silver Coins each, one shortsword for a silver coin and a longsword for 2 silver coins. At the rate he is going through weapons he still kept thinking it was not enough but is not like he had infinite space in inventory.

As for armor, he wanted something with high mobility that still offered some protection. In those shops, he could see some great armor with nice stats and high mobility, but those were [Magic enchanted] items that cost a lot of gold, so he quickly forgot about those. Finally settling on leather armor set, it barely restricted his movements at all, but had no special features. He spent two more silver on it for a grand total of 11 Silver Coins on equipment.

Shopping a bit more, he bought two [Low-grade Healing Potion], with 20% healing over ten seconds, twice the effectiveness as Aurei’s, for one silver each. Better potions are a lot more expensive, 25% healing over 8 seconds at 10 silver coins, 30% at 20 silver coins! Above that was considered another tier, and cost gold coins!

He asked around about those broken gears with jewels. The gear itself is worthless, but the jewels unexpectedly are [Rank one Magic Jewel], called [Blue Cloud]. This type of jewel is mainly used as a magic container of sorts, with strong magic restriction property. It’s not possible to know what they used it for only with those pieces of unused jewels.

As for the price, Yushin smiles, found a pleasant surprise, that kind of magic jewel is expensive, this one costs one gold coin! He has seven of those, moreover, Rain also has many, she will also be very happy.

He decides to keep them for now, it is too soon to start getting rid of rare items, he may come to regret. The broken guitar couldn’t be appraised without a [High-Level Engineer]. His next step is to learn about cooking and food, he forgot about it before.

Yushin discovers food is a huge thing in Tales, not for the player base only, but also for the NPCs. Even though players will survive without food, NPCs need it to survive in city management. That means if all food sources are gone from a city, all NPCs will eventually die!

Since players can hire NPCs for their guilds, settlements, forts, and buildings, naturally they will need to worry about food supply. Eventually, many Player controlled cities and kingdoms will rise. Protecting farms become very important, and there are many quests because of it. Hunting is also a great way to profit.

Cooking by itself has many benefits to players, including specific boosts to stats and skills. Monster meat will only drop if someone has the [Cooking skill] or [Advanced Skinning Skill], respectively for Chefs and Hunters. That is also the reason Yushin got no meat drops before, his skill level is not high enough. Also, raw food ingredients will not go bad in inventory, and they become very useful for long dungeons and journeys. Right now traveling ways are few, without any news of teleport between Kingdoms.

In fact, it is not that they don’t exist, but with thin mana, the royal families keep a tight leash on [Teleport Formations]. The cost of opening one for a short time is very high on Magic Stones! There is no way they will open it for players without sufficient reason. So, restricting the information flow, it is very easy for the player base to think they do not exist at all.

Yushin goes to one of the [Mage’s Guild] to ask about Magic Jewels. He finds one called [Spellforce]. There is nothing really remarkable about the first sight in there, except that it is one of the longest standing buildings of the city and one of the very first to be found. It looks simple inside, but Yushin got the feeling some obscuring magic was involved. He felt something was out of place, but couldn’t exactly pinpoint what.

Spellforce didn’t bind players and was mainly based on research and development of magic, so it was the right spot to go as far as Magic Jewels are concerned. Yushin also decided to join, since it didn’t restrict his freedom, and he had access to the [Support Magic] skillset. As with the other guilds, he joins as a Rank One member, without many privileges. He did get info on Magic Jewels.

Magic Jewels are a joint product of [Jewelry Master] and [Mage]. It says mage because, out of the many types of magic, most of them could be used to refine jewels, even though the actual process requires many pieces of equipment and even sometimes help from other skills or professions. Therefore, Magic Jewels are rare, and [Magic Jewelry Masters] even more so.

The ones Yushin has are [Blue Cloud Jewels], Rank One. They are used to store magic to work mainly as a power source for an array or magic formation, but can also store many types of low-grade magic for instant use. The price, as stated before, is one gold coin. He could sell it for less to attain more contribution points.

He hangs onto them for now and makes a trip to the Hunter’s Lodge to share info. It wasn’t enough to rank up, so he left and decided to once again visit the Faint Forest. Even though he has not gone to the other places yet, the forest is very suitable for him and an interesting place. He also needs clues to discover its secret and complete the quest.

Not long after, in a common beginner’s spot, a player is jumping around full of happiness and joy, like jumping was the greatest thing in the world. He jumped on walls, on air, tried to double jump, tried to jump over random obstacles, did a somersault. It was a funny scene to behold.

He had the body of a middle-aged man with long green hair and marvelous beard, with a fierce look and red face like a famous general of the Warring States. Bow and arrow on his back gave away his starting weapon of choice.

Yushin was about to leave when the newbie looked over at him, his sight resting on the leather armor. Of course, it wasn’t a high quality or expensive item, but all around most people did not have one, so Yushin stuck out like a sore thumb from it alone. He also had good bearing and an aura of friendliness around, so the player was quick to approach.

“Young man, wait!” The voice was solid and clear but aged. The person playing definitely was an old man. He could have sent a voice-to-text message over or even a PM, but instead, was shouting on open mic.

“Yes, Elder?” Yushin went over and bowed.

“What Elder, can’t you see I’m a middle-aged uncle?” Complained the Old Man.

“Er.. Yes, Sir?” Yushin definitely thought this grandpa is new to gaming.

“What do I do now? I want to run around and fight!”

“Oh… Have you tried the Beginner’s Dungeon yet?”

“Right, that notice said something about it. Hey, Young One, I need a gun. This bow isn’t my thing!”

“I don’t think there are any guns around right now,” answered Yushin honestly.

“This game doesn’t have guns? What preposterous thing is this!”

“Elder, err, I mean, Uncle sir, it’s too soon to know, but at our level there definitely isn’t any,” he didn’t want to confirm the existence of magic guns, but from what he knew about the system, they are definitely a possibility.

“Oh well, I guess this old bow will do! Now, where is this dungeon thing?”

Yushin showed him the way and told him what to expect. The old man didn’t seem to be paying much attention as he kept fiddling with his bow and jumping around.

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Old Man!’

He suddenly nodded and went into the dungeon. After a few minutes, he was already out, even though Yushin warned him about the difficulty. It was not surprising that he died quickly. It was also a [Mob Clear] type of dungeon and the old man ran forward as his life depended on it, soon being mobbed by many wolf type beasts along the way!

He could barely get one shot off before dying.

“Hahahahahahahahaha!” He seemed really happy, not caring a little bit about his death. “Young Man, where are more of these things? Quickly, let’s go hunt! I need to learn how to shoot properly!”

Yushin thought about refusing, but seeing how excited the old man was, how could he?

Also, being with him would definitely not be boring!

“Alright, I have a place in mind, let’s make a party.” He invited the old man to the party, which he accepted after Yushin explained what it was for.

[[email protected] joined the party.]

‘Definitely old!’ Yushin wept after seeing the Old Man’s in-game name. He decided to bring him over to the Faint Forest, even though it was probably going to be very tough for him. However, if the Old Man was going to give up in front of a little difficulty, this definitely wasn’t the game for him in the long run.

Before crossing the gate, a group of players is talking about how the difficulty of the mobs had scaled up since yesterday. The monsters seemed to be leveling up from killing other monsters and players!

They also talked about a Furious Bear wiping everyone out at the Faint Forest, already considered a [Boss Class Monster]!