Chapter 3: First Quest
Other than the guards barracks, there was also several shops, for different professions: cksmith, Alchemist, Engineer And of course, there were the inhabitants of the vige. In total, there should be around 600 NPCs in the vige.
At the start of the game, there were two ways to level up: kill Monsters, or do Quests. Quests rewarded way more XP, but there were only a few of them. And some asked certain requirements. That''s why, some chose to hunt instead of doing quests.
That was especially the case for guilds. If enough guild members gathered in a town, they could form groups and huntrge amounts of monsters.
But that was none of Adam''s concern. Right now, he would rather do quests. Every NPC had a yellow exmation mark above their heads, so it was easy to find a few quests.
But they were several hundreds to have spawned in this vige, so the few NPCs Adam could see were already swarmed with yers, and he would waste a lot of time if he queued waiting to get the quest.
So, Adam headed for the vige chief''s house. As the most important person in the vige, he would also give the best quests. Unfortunately, Adam was disappointed. The vige chief didn''t give out any quest, he couldn''t even speak with him.
As Adam was about to leave the vige to hunt for monsters, he saw a big group of yers leave a NPC. Adam was curious, he could understand if yers who got the quest left, but here even those who didn''t get it left.
That''s why he approached one of the yers who left and asked "Hey, may I ask what''s the problem with this NPC?"
The yer looked at him and said "Don''t waste your time, his quest is impossible and has a time limit. If in an hour no one haspleted it the quest will disappear."
Adam asked "Why not try? Even if you fail you will just have wasted an hour." The yer rolled his eyes and said "If you fail the quest you will be reset to Level 1. Moreover, you won''t be able to level up for one natural day. Now, if you want to waste your time, feel free to do so, but stop wasting mine."
Seeing the yer''s attitude, Adam wryly smiled. He was just asking a question, no need to get upset Adam looked at the old NPC who was looking at his feet, while sitting on his tool, and decided to go see him. Others may see this as a waste of time, but he didn''t. The harder the quest, the better the rewards.
As Adam approached the old man, he was able to see his name, his level and his HP. Above the head of every NPC and monster, those three stats would appear, as well as their rank. For example, this old man.
[Harold] (Level 5, Iron)
HP: 200/200
NPCs and monsters had different ranks to them. For NPCs, their ranks represented their jobs'' advancement, while for Monsters it simply represented their strength. And the first Rank for yers and NPCs was Iron, followed by Bronze. As for Monsters, they begin at Common, followed by Elite.
Adam arrived near the old man, and saw a few peoplee too. Apparently he wasn''t the only curious one. Harold lifted his head and sneered "Still here? Get out of my sight, you bunch of cowards!"
The yers were surprised, this NPC was able to hold a grudge over the other yers? A young guy on Adam''s left side tried to calm him down "Chill old man, we just want to hear about your quest. It won''t harm you to tell us, right?"
Harold groaned something iprehensible, but still said "It''s my son. He wants to be an adventurer, and he isn''t a coward like you bunch of Anyway, Arno went to hunt a monster in the forest, a strong one, but I fear he is in danger. Bring him back alive, and I''ll reward you."
[Ding! New Quest detected, ''Save Arno''!]
Quest Detail: The old Harold asks you to save his son and bring him back.
Quest Level: 5
Quest Difficulty: B
Objective: Bring Arno back, alive. Can only be done alone.
Deadline: One hour
Reward: [Hard Fists], ??
Failure penalty: Reset Level at 1, and makes it impossible to harvest XP for 24 natural hours.
The yers around sweated. The quest itself was very difficult, as it was B. In the game, every quest, like the skills, has a rating to it. The lowest being F, then E, D But this difficulty didn''t take into ount the strength and level of the yer.
So this was B difficulty, assuming the yer is Level 5. That meant, for a Level 20 yer this quest wouldn''t even be F difficulty, but for a Level 1 yer it is at least A, or S, maybe SS (Definitely not SS but he''s a newbie.)
And with the time limit of 1 hour, they wouldn''t have the time to level up. Just going to the quest location anding back would probably take at least 30 minutes.
Coupled with the terrible penalty in case of failure, no one would ept this quest. After all, the yers'' perception of time was modified by a factor of two, meaning 24 natural hours was 48 hours in game. Although yers needed to make pauses and couldn''t go and y for two days straight, they would still get far behind if they couldn''t get XP for 48 hours.
That modification of the perception of time was a big revolution in gaming, and it had been instated for years already. At first it was problematic, because the modified perception of time gave headaches, but since then it has been perfected, and for those who really wanted to y on extended periods of time there existed special nutriments that nourished the mind like the body.
As not to make their games pay to wins though, the price of those nutriments is quite low, so what people dreaded the most was still buying the 9000$ cabin. Fortunately, you only got to pay one in your whole life as after that the cabin could just upgrade itself through updates.
Back to the game, the yers dispersed because they would lose too much by epting this quest as recreating an ount during the first week was impossible.
Seeing this, Harold lowered his head again, but didn''t say anything. Even though he called the others cowards, he knew that his quest was too much for those rookie adventurers. But the life of his son was on the line, so of course he was disappointed.
"I can help you." Harold lifted his head in shock, one of them actually stayed behind? He looked at the young man up and down, and immediately recognized him. The adventurer in front of him was easily a head or two taller than the rest.
So he asked "Is your dad a giant or what?" Adam was shocked by the question, he had read the realism would be pushed by a notch, but that was a whole other level. It really looked like the NPCs were people, and not just rows of data.
Still, he shook himself out of his shock and said "He is no giant, just that I drunk a lot of milk. About your son, can I have some more information?"
[Ding! Quest ''Save Arno'' epted!]
Harold sighed and said "He went in the forest to hunt an Elite Monster, but I fear it is too much for him"
As Harold finished Adam saw an orange point appear on his mini map. That was his quest''s objective. He nodded to the old man and said "I can''t promise you I will bring him back, but what I can promise you is that I''ll try my hardest. See you soon, I hope."
However, before he could leave Harold got up from his stool and took out a bag "Wait a second Here, take this."
Harold presented a small vial filled with red liquid to Adam.
[Basic Health Potion]
HP: +100
Adam epted the potion, putting it into his inventory, and said "Thanks, that will help me fetch your son. Now, I shall go before its toote."
Harold nodded and started shooing him off, making Adam smile. Harold actually reminded him of his grandfather. Thinking of him, Adam couldn''t help but sadden. He hadn''t seen his grandparents for a long time as they got in an argument with his parents when he was young. Adam didn''t remember why they fought as this happened when he was a young kid, but he still remembers he liked his grandparents a lot.
Adam shook his head and stopped thinking of that, and instead opened his inventory. In there, there was of course the [Basic Health Potion], but also some other things.
There was 10 [Bread] regenerating 25HP over 7 seconds. This was something everyone would get, and mages would even get 10 [Juice] additionally for their MP. Even though he had MP too, Adam would only use itter in the game if he gets magical skills.