《Class Neutral: Stranger is Coming》Chapter 9
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Quest completion. Skull. Ancient coin.
“Just wait. I’d like to ask you something.” I stopped the silvan who was about to disappear. “I met a creature called a Bony Bear. Do you happen to know anything about it?”
The Forest Keeper and the fox looked at each other meaningfully, and I understood at once that they knew something. The developers are great guys, they are so skillfully portraying characters that their emotions seem real!
“Stranger, have you seen this monster yet?” The fox’s voice was surprised.
I nodded and she continued, “This is another unusual creature that dwells here, unlike other monsters, it was born in the Gardens of Death. Try to avoid such creatures by any means. You’ll never be able to defeat them.”
“Um... but I…” I couldn’t find the right words and took out the elk-tahr from my bag. “I’ve killed it recently.”
“How? How did you do that?” Reena exclaimed. “We have tried to kill them so many times, but they were always revived in just a few hours or days.”
“So, is it already reborn?”
“No, if you’ve got its elk-tahr, the monster has died finally.” Reena started walking from side to side. “You’re still small and weak. How did you manage to do it?”
She called my levels and parameters small and weak. Well, I just need to level up...but then I’ll show some super results.
“At first I fed the beast with this Fly Agaric.” I showed them the mushroom. “Then I hit the bear with a rotten stick, tore off its skull, and put it in a big box in my house. I put the rest of its bones in the other boxes.”
“I get it.” The Keeper nodded. “So, for the final killing of a Gardens of Death creature, it’s necessary to tear off their heads and separate the parts of their bodies for a while so that they can’t come back together.” The silvan stroked his beard. “That’s smart.”
“That’s amazing. It’s a real feat,” Reena said, supporting the silvan. “So, you are able to cope with it. But you’d better level up, anyway.”
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“You praise me so much that I’m embarrassed. I was just lucky: the mushroom and the stick helped me in the beginning. I tore the monster apart because of my extraordinary greed, as I wanted to collect as much loot as possible.”
Quest ‘Training with Silvan I’ is completed
Received reward: + 500 to your Experience, + 100 to your Reputation with the Forest Keeper
I’ve completed my first quest. It’s great! Of course, the award is trivial, but I’m still happy. I need more gold and missions. So, more than twenty free stat points are available, but I had better save them.
“What about this man who died?” I wanted to figure it out to get another quest. “Is it possible to figure out how he happened to wander into this forest and to find his tracks?”
“I’ll do it while you and Reena do your job,” the silvan replied. “I’ll find out something else. I’m very interested in your method of destroying the Gardens of Death’s creatures.”
“Head to the village and grow a bit, otherwise it’ll be difficult for you to live in our world,” Reena added. “I need to get around the area.”
“Hold on…” I didn’t finish; they had disappeared.
***
I didn’t get a new quest.
I seem to be doing something wrong or trying to reveal the secret of these places. I’ll try to think logically. Why would the silvan and the fox hide information from me?
Let’s start with Reena. She clearly doesn’t behave like a standard game NPC, and I’m certain that she isn’t the silvan’s assistant. She is highly likely to be a forest spirit or a second Forest Keeper. I was sent to the village so I wouldn’t interfere or reveal the secret information.
Now about that dead man. According to the silvan, he escaped from the Gardens of Death, which is a terrible world of the dead—if you believe the game help—and the strangers have not been able to get there yet. That’s interesting.
If this place is difficult to get to, then getting out must be even harder or impossible. But if that man managed to do it, it turns out that he was a unique person. He probably stole some little thing, or an artifact, or a weapon, or an ingredient for some potions. He might not have stolen it. Perhaps he took it honestly. It doesn’t matter. He understood his goal and knew how to get back. Therefore, he had information from a book or from a sentient being.
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I was getting more interested. Most likely, the deceased guy had a benefactor according to the standard of the genre. This guy wasn’t a powerful wizard because he died and did nothing. He probably moved here through some portal, ran a distance through the forest, and then died here. In what way, though?
The silvan said that the Death Tree’s sprout had devoured part of the guy, but it didn’t clarify anything. Though, he did mention the Hellish creatures living in this forest. The silvan also remembered that the guy was trying to say something before he died. He must have had some valuable information. I wish I knew how he came to this world.
Also, I wonder why they were discussing the growth of my level; I can’t see theirs. Their own levels seemed to be rather low. I’m deceiving myself. They are likely to have a hundredth or even two-hundredth level. I was tired of pondering and made up my mind to go to the village. I wonder where I’ll get the money to buy everything I need.
I took the old coin out of my pocket and looked at it carefully. It seemed to be made of gold and was probably worth a lot in this wilderness. Stop! Where did the gold coins come from in the middle of nowhere?
Surely this gold had belonged to the dead man. I leaned over to the skull of the man and showed the empty eye sockets the coin with its profile of some ruler and letters that were incomprehensible to me.
I am illiterate in this game, I can neither read nor write in the local language.
“Is this yours?” I asked, not waiting for an answer. However, the skull somehow nodded. I froze. It’s great. I’m so introverted in real life due to the lack of normal communication that now I’m talking to animals, silvans, Bony Bears and the dead. The most interesting thing is that they understand me and respond.
“Tell me about this coin,” I asked. Instead of an answer, the window with the object properties emerged.
Ancient gold coin
Description: M/#go l*! ]{ZD )(l% of % EC¬ this coin, WR%MENA /RA*len*| W%I^o!about A%ha#’ K)()(%Aras|{, che}{ Li|/ and from:already|/n and the%the program... \|/ate\|/Ko} !Hm?e{}and A><}[RA. G\|\RYA&, h\|\o only l\|\nil on one%y mo\|\t* m[]Ter *at&Lira a{}Uch%yn)( and{}arr}{ZIL m~STO, ~ka*a""e-I NR\|\ the limits of the Empire, and %an&EN does not belong to her. With**/ ]}measures}{I. Here only} d%Yoko, not all are able to& see&et re on them&the program.... One%/|/s great.
Is the coding broken? Most likely the skull had no vision because it had no eyes; it also likely had no memory as well because there was no brain and all the data was damaged. But most importantly, it dawned on me, the coin belonged to the deceased man and was a very unusual object. The silvan seemed to be a dangerous creature, and I had every reason not to trust him. I wish the NPC didn’t betray. But I can handle it.
“Well... do you want to come with me?” I asked the dead man. “I don’t think you’ve found peace.”
The skull just nodded. I’m willing to bet that if that skull had a face, I’d see a happy smile right now. I threw all the bones of the dead man into the bag and looked into the empty sockets again. I smiled, remembering Hamlet’s thoughts, and put the skull in my inventory. Now I have another interesting friend.
I’ll go to the cabin first. Maybe there’s some stuff there that I can sell or trade.
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The Gray
From out of nowhere, a mysterious company called Seis Pillars announced the world's first deeply immersive VMMORPG. Unprecedented amounts of freedom and choices had people eagerly awaiting for its release. Yet a select few where chosen to take part in an early beta. And Larson Reed was one of them. After a near death accident left him broken and unable to move, he was more than willing to become a beta tester. The promise of a new life, albeit a virtual one, was like something out of a dream. In a land where the only limit seems to be your imagination and a temperamental system decides your status, a man desperate for a fresh start gets thrown head first into an epic adventure. Welcome to the world of Waylim. Commission of a casual Larson by Jake
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Tale of Family - Book 1 - WIP
The world is peaceful in 2063. Fusion reactor and Diamon battery had taken care of the energetical problem. Countries were stable. Automation was everywhere. Life wasn't hard anymore, at least not in the United States of Europe. Summer break is about to start and, finally, Zoe will turn 18 and be able to play the game, Binding Fate. A simple video game, a vrmmo, but what swam under its surface wasn't simple. Power, fame and money were but the tip of the iceberg... State: Hiatus because I've an idea for another story. Quick F.A.Q. : - Yuri/female homosexual relation? Yes.- Yaoi/male homosexual relation? Maybe.- Explicit Sexual Content? Maybe.- Full Fledged Tragedy? No. Never, ever ever.- Body Modification/Body Horror? Yes. (Note: what one person think is body horror can be acceptable for someone else. If you want to see to what length I can go, read a bit of The Other Labyrinth. However, I won't go as high as quickly in the body mod/horror, so relax.- Gore? Hell yeah! I love gore! spraying blood and viscera etc...- Torture? Hurgh... maybe? Idk. Not at the start at the very least.- Memory loss/erasing? No, or at least not permanently. I basically hate this trope because it's like taking out all the character grow from a character, destroying everything that makes them what and who they are. so no.- Overpowered protagonist? You will see mufufu...- Will characters stay relevant seeing how numerous they are? YES, MOTHERFUCKING YES, I hate when characters relevance decay over time for no good reasons ^^'- Plot Armor? First of all, a definition: "Sometimes referred to as "Script Immunity" or a "Character Shield", Plot Armor is when a main character's life and health are safeguarded by the fact that he's the one person who can't be removed from the story. Therefore, whenever Bob is in a situation where he could be killed (or at the least very seriously injured), he comes out unharmed with no logical, in-universe explanation." (courtesy of https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor I love you guys ^^) So now that this is said, do my characters have plot armour? No, because I always have an in-universe explanation, even if you don't know it yet ^^ Something is illogical or don't make sense? Read more, the answer is surely in the story ^u^- Balanced system? If you want to crush numbers and have a perfect equation balancing all the system, that's not the story for you. The system is more like a living being, and the rewards aren't forcibly tied to the level of the player. In fact, the system is purposely unbalanced ^^' Author's note: My goal here is to write a slow-paced story revolving around the bonds linking the characters, be them family, friends or lovers. Fight will be part of it, but I intend to build an actual interesting world before making truly large-scale battle happen, because the bigger a battle is, the larger its causes and effects are. I also aim at telling a story about how the characters actually help each other becoming stronger, more stable and happier. I particularly despise the lone MC type that becomes so powerful that every other character of the current setting become irrelevant beside being hostage targets, so this will not happen. I also like crafting, arrays, blacksmithing etc... so there may be crafting. Another thing I like is management game like sim-city or the like, so this while also appears, keeping in mind that I like MC's that make people around them stronger... For the tropers around here, a list of tropes that I like to use (note that I may not use all of them ^^) (this list will be updated as I dive deeper and deeper into our dear trope wiki.)- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BodyHorror- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SealedGoodInACan- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouAreNotAlone- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ZombieAdvocate (In particular since I see a lot of things that aren't human as worthy to live and to live with)- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvenEvilHasLovedOnes- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvenEvilHasStandards- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeelFaceTurn- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CorruptTheCutie (Note: being corrupted don't mean you're a villain, only different than before.)- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DefectingForLove (Of course.)- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainousRescue- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InterspeciesAdoption (For the same reasons as zombie advocate, since I love family stuff)- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrokenBird (to go with corrupt the cutie if it's a girl)Cover: "The Bard" by John Martin, 1817.
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Naturalism is the power to use arcana to shape the world around you and it's Daimyon's time to learn how to use this power. He enrolls at West Gaia Academy to start this long journey where he meets a shy girl named Kiyonna who holds incredible hidden power and is immediately thrust into protecting her from the dangerous Shadow Walkers. On the bright side Bones "The Spirit Reaper" decided to take him under his wing and train him. He'll protect his friends at any cost unless Bones training kills him first. On Hiatus.
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In a blink, I found myself in an unknown land, greeted by the textbox of an unfriendly system. It wanted me to become a great hero, save the world, win the love of the people and all that crap. But this new world already had a hero. Why should I bust my ass, deal with dragons and the unknown, for people I didn't know? Let him deal with that. It's his job! So instead of being tempted by the system's nonsense, I chose a simple class. Potion maker. I wasn't interested in cultivating mana and defying the heavens, courting death, none of that crap. Unfortunately, the town I spawned near was suffering crippling inflation, merchants and people were leaving, and they themselves lacked high-demand businesses. The town would soon be going under.Not if I have anything to say about it. But will it be that easy to escape fate...? Novel contains: Strong MC in a slice of life environment, dungeon diving, boss battles, cultivation and elements, mana/magic, mc exclusive system but it doesn't do the work for him, treasures, adventurers, slow world building, build-up, features that will not be introduced all at once (upgrades so on), actual good loot at the end of very powerful bosses, romance(no harem). As characters develop throughout the series, issues and emotions and even the mc may find himself in a corner or two. A story of an upcoming potion shopkeeper and his apprentices. Building an S-ranked Potion Shop is easier said than done... Current schedule:3-6 times a week- Mon, Wed, Fri.Daily chapter on Patreon. [All chapters are 3k words or more. As of this update 8/11/22, book 1 has been professionally edited by my editor and is now available on Amazon:https://mybook.to/PotionMaker. 103k words. Book 2 is in progress and chapters are uploaded daily Patreon.] The final version of the cover will be an anime cover, but will not be uploaded to RR. You may see it on my facebook/twitter page. Volume 1: https://mybook.to/PotionMaker [Audiobook is currently searching for narrator as of 8/12/2022.]
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Will troian find out a dirty secret about Patrick and will she find out she got engaged to the wrong man? And will Keegan fall in love with his bestie? Xoxo
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