Making my way back towards the town, I kill all the monsters I come across, gathering material and money.
I also manage to get myself to level 14, and gain another 5 stat points.
Very nice.
By the time I made it back to town, it seemed like it was starting to get a bit dark so I’ll probably log out and wait for a new day after I figure out what's up with that key.
I quickly, as I do most things, make my way across the town and towards the graveyard I remembered seeing when I walked around the day before.
I walk into the graveyard and start looking around for any signs of the grave keeper.
After a couple of minutes of looking, I manage to find him standing by a grave, unsurprisingly.
The keeper is a man who looks to be in his mid-sixties.
“Hey there” I call out to the older man.
“Hello, what are you doing here all by your lonesome? Are ya here to reminisce with someone?” The grave keeper responds.
“Not quite. I was here to talk to you actually.” I say back.
“Oho, here to see me, that's quite rare.” He says while rubbing his chin.
“Yes, I wanted to ask if you knew anything about this-” I said while showing him the bone key.
“Oh, that old key. I remember, that key opens up the gate to the northeastern mountain graveyard. I thought I had lost it. Where’d you find it?” The old man asked.
“I found it after killing a slime deep in the forest,” I tell him.
“Ah, I see now, I must have dropped it, and one of those pesky slimes must have got to it first.” The old man says with clarity.
“I’m glad to have it back now, though if you have some extra time could I ask for a favor.” The old man asks me sincerely.
“Sure, what is it you need?” I reply.
“Well, It has been quite a long time since I last cleaned out that old place, so if it doesn’t trouble you too much, could I ask you to come with me to assist?” He asks me.
“No problem” I give confirmation.
“Thanks so much,” he says earnestly, “I’ll meet you at the entrance to the northeastern mountains when you’re ready, and lead us to the graveyard so we can begin clearing it out.” He says with a kind smile.
*Quest received - Decrepit Crypt - Meet up with the old Grave keeper and help him clear out the long forgotten graveyard of the northeastern mountains.*
‘I guess It was part of a quest then, neat.’
‘I don’t think I’ll meet up with him right away though, he said one of those slimes, which implies that the mobs of that graveyard will be some kind of slime, probably a lesser version of that other one. If it is like that though, I think I’ll need some kind of weapon that can do actual damage to them.’
I decide I’ll take a couple days to grind some materials and money, while I wait for Iz to set up her shop in town, to see if she can make me a weapon I need to kill those slimes.
I also want to try and get better at using those threads.
What the skill does is spawn some slightly sticky slime threads, like much thinner versions of the pseudopods the deep slime tried to hit me with. I could then control them as easily as I would any other limb, thanks to the wonders of Deep-dive tech.
I could spawn as many of them as I wanted, but as I made more, my control of them exponentially dropped off until they would all despawn at once when I reached my limit.
Stolen novel; please report.
I wanted to get more used to using them so that I could control a greater amount of them at once.
But for now, I decide to log off for the day and start the resource grind from tomorrow until Iz opens up her shop.
____________________________________________________________________________
It ended up being only 2 days of grinding before Iz set up her shop, 6 total days after the beginning of the game, very fast for a player run shop to be set up, but I’ve learned not to question things.
When Maple got to her shop, she seemed like she had been established in that place for around a week, and considering the very unlikely scenario of the devs doing the first event more than a couple of weeks after the start of the game, it seems like maple will be joining the game pretty soon.
From my 2 days of grinding, I managed to make a couple million gold, grab a shit ton of materials, level up to 18, and get spear mastery up to 3 which was pretty nice.
I decided to take a quick look at my stats to get a better Idea of what I need before I go in and have Iz make me some things.
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Status
Flak
1. 18
Stats
HP 12/12
MP 12/12
[ STR- 0 < +20 > ]
[ VIT- 0 ]
[ AGI- 145 (290) ]
[ DEX- 0 ]
[ INT- 0 ]
Equipment
Head [--]
Body [ Townsfolk shirt ]
Right Hand [ Beginner’s spear ]
Left Hand [ Beginner’s spear ]
Legs [ Townsfolk pants ]
Shoes [--]
Accessories [--]
Skills
Active- Deep Slime Eater - Deep slime threads
Passive- Giant slaying, Spear Mastery III, Total Speed
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‘Pretty impressive if I do say so myself.’ I think to myself while standing outside nearby Iz’s shop.
I walk up to the door and enter her shop.
“Welcome” I hear coming from the blue haired woman standing behind the counter in front of me.
“What can I get for you?” she says.
“I just saw this place, and decided I’d come in and check out one of the few player run shop. What’ve you got to offer?” I ask.
“Well, I mainly do crafting, but I can also synthesize and do alchemy if needed.” She explains.
“Crafting specialist huh, I could use a few things, but they’re kinda specific.” I say after “considering” for a couple seconds.
I know from the show that Iz is an amazing crafter, so I planned on commissioning her from the start.
“I can probably handle it. Lay it on me.” She says with a grin.
“First off, I need a long spear, preferably a pike, that has some sort of life drain ability” I start with.
“Hmm, I can make it, but it will cost a bit, and I’ll need some specialty items, probably a good lot of the drops from the bleeding mosquito mob.”
“I have quite a bit of money, and I likely can hand over any amount of items you need, so don’t worry.” I assure her.
“Alright hot shot, I can make it then, what else do you need?” She says with a raised eyebrow.
“This one is the weird one, I need something like a quiver that can hold and allow me to quick swap spears.” I say with a wry smile.
She puts her hand on her chin and ponders for a moment.
“Hmm, I don’t know about that, the length of the spears would make it very hard to have something like a large quiver on your back and retain mobility, along with the spears making it not very ergonomic to take them out, sorry.” she says with a look that says she is more disappointed with her lack of being able to do it, rather than my ridiculous request.
“Wait just a moment, before giving up, why don’t you take a look at this.” I say, while handing her one of the vials of condensed deep.
You see, I had been thinkin about one thing after my fight with the concentrated deep slime.
‘Why was I unable to hit it?’
So after thinking about it for a bit, I came up with what I thought was the only reasonable explanation.
It was bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside.
It didn’t feel like my attacks were being halted by anything, and if It was impervious to all damage until an item was used, eating it wouldn’t have been effective either. So I must have just been unable to reach whatever core it had, probably the key.
Which means if I broke the core, I probably wouldn’t have got the quest.
So after piecing that together, I figured out that the vials must be some kind of space compressing crafting material, perfect for the spear quiver I wanted.
After I handed her one of the vials, she looked at it with her eyes slightly shining, probably due to some kind of appraisal skill.
After a couple seconds of examination, her eyes light up, metaphorically this time.
“This will work perfectly, I can definitely make what you wanted with this” She says excitedly.
“Awesome” I say, slightly mirroring her enthusiasm.
“This kind of material is revolutionary, where’d you find it?” she asks.
“Sorry, can't tell ya that.” I say, sounding not sorry at all.
“Awwww,” she whines “That’s fair, I’ll waive the fee for this one because using this new material will probably get me up to greater crafting 12.”
“Thank you kindly” I say back.
The way crafters level in this game is instead of upping their actual level, they mainly focus on grading up whatever production skill they have and sell their services based on that. Though they usually get their parties to power level them as needed.
Also, skills can evolve at grade 20, but production skills grade up a lot faster than other skills. When they evolve, they can become “greater” versions of the skill, or a more specialized version of it. The official rankings for crafting skills is as follows.
The basic skill, greater, superior, and supreme. Though the developers said that there are definitely many more rankings that will be discovered as time goes on. Certain materials also follow this trend, like iron, and mithril.
“Alright then come back in a couple of hours, and I’ll have your items ready for you.” she says after I give her the materials and materials for the pike, and hand over the rest of the vials for the bag.
“See you later then” I say while walking away.
“See you then” I hear her say as I leave through the door.