Chapter 4 – Slightly Tipsy

The area went quiet, and the surrounding villagers began staring at him. Karlo embarrassedly walked away and found a place to sit.

‘Okay, no one is giving me good directions. I’ll ask someone else, but I’m guessing they’ll just give me a stupid answer too. I suppose this is the reason it’s a mission. Old Man Garber would surely know where the place is... right? Even if he did, I doubt he’d tell me, also something about asking him feels wrong given that he’s paying me to complete the mission myself. What can I do then?’

So Karlo sat there thinking for a while, ‘Actually, this mission has felt a bit fishy from the start. The old man gave me a silver coin with just a single reply, also, this feels like it has nothing to do with cultivation whatsoever. Maybe there’s a way I can use my Qi somehow. Although I doubt the others could do that, there shouldn’t be any harm in trying.’

While he had been walking around, thanks to his talent, he had been able to see specs of Qi in the air. He had a theory on how his talent might work, and this would be his first test.

He began to meditate, just as he had when activating the cultivation technique for the first time. He breathed and began to feel the Qi in his body, only this time he could see more than he had earlier. The pathways were more detailed, and each individual bit of Qi was visible in his eyes. His Dantian had grown from the size of a golf ball to the size of a baseball.

As he began to feel the Qi outside his body more intensely, he noticed something he hadn’t seen before; two strings of Qi were connected to his body and travelling in different directions. Perhaps, it was more accurate to say he was in the middle of a single string of Qi.

This experiment had at least partially confirmed his theory.

Now the only question was which path to follow. For now, they both went in relatively similar directions, away from the main entrance, so he went that way. He arrived at the residential area, at which point the paths branched off, one to the tundra side, and the other to the desert.

He decided to first check the tundra path, just to confirm if his thoughts were correct. As he left the other path, he noticed that the string of Qi was, in fact, attached to his body because no matter how he moved, he couldn’t separate himself from it.

When he reached the destination of the string of Qi, he found that the destination was exactly as he had expected; it was connected to Old Man Garber, still sitting outside his house.

If Karlo’s logic was correct, there was only one place the other end could lead to.

So, he followed that direction, straight into the desert side. All this swapping and switching between burning and freezing temperatures had begun to take its toll, though. Even with his increased strength, he began feeling a bit dizzy. No doubt his hunger contributed to that, but there was another factor he hadn’t considered.

Following the Qi, he eventually found himself at a dead end. The line simply went straight over the wall. If it was before cultivating, Karlo would’ve had to find another route, but now, he had more options.

He simply climbed the 2-story wall, holding on to barely visible cracks. When he reached the top, he found himself in the midst of a rooftop gathering. At least 30 people were drinking wine and staring at him.

“Don’t mind me,” he said as he made his way through the crowd, “I’ll be out of your hair in just a moment.”

There were stairs leading into the building below, but Karlo doubted the people here would be happy with him going inside, so he began climbing down the front of the building. Leaving with the words, “Enjoy the party, everyone!”

When he reached the bottom, he found himself in the middle of a desert market. At this point, he felt as if he was losing his mind. There was apparently an entirely different area of the village that was inaccessible by ordinary means. He thought that it might be the same on the tundra side.

Although he wanted to explore, Karlo stayed focused and kept following the string of Qi. He was growing more and more tired, like he’d soon collapse if he didn’t get some food.

The line led to a dungeon-like staircase that went underground. Despite feeling suspicious, his talent didn’t reveal anything to him, so he took the plunge.

It went far further down than he’d expected. He went past many doors on his way down, each with plaques of different stores, such as Rory Blacksmiths and Mermont Carpenters.

By now, his slight dizziness had turned into a throbbing headache. Finally, though, he came to the right door. The plaque read, Dandy Tailors. He knocked on the door and heard a young girl’s voice, “Coming!”

As the door opened, he began falling and could vaguely hear a scream, before going completely unconscious.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

While unconscious, he felt as though he was underwater. He could hear the muffled sound of people talking around him, but couldn't quite grasp what they were saying.

When he came to, he found that he was in his room, or at least, a room that was eerily similar to his own. The only way he could tell it wasn’t, was by the lack of ink stains everywhere. Same as his room, there were no windows, and it was only lit by a single, unusually bright, candle.

Before he could think about where he was, an elderly woman walked in. She looked familiar somehow, only he couldn't put his finger on it. She wore a greenish-brown, old, ankle-length dress, tied at the waist, and a white apron over top. Her gray hair was long and flowed down messily.

“So you’ve come to, have ya? A lot sooner than I’d expected.”

Listening to her voice, Karlo immediately recognized her and said with a husky voice, “You’re that old lady I asked for directions to the tailor’s.”

“Who are you calling old!” she shouted as she poured him a glass of water.

“But you’re right, that was me.”

“You’re Mrs. Dandy?”

“The one and only,” she said, and she sat on the chair by the desk.

“But then, why did you send me to that other tailor?”

She looked at him smugly, “That old Garber is paying good money for that mission you took. Can’t make it too easy, can I?”

Karlo blinked a few times, “Who are you?”

“Oh, you outer folk are so paranoid. We natives are quite aware of this ‘game’ of yours, or whatever you call it. That Garber ain’t sitting in the freezing cold for no reason. By giving you missions, we get something out of it too.”

Karlo tried to get up but was stopped by Mrs. Dandy, “Ah, you’re in pretty bad shape. Rest up a while longer, you should be good to go soon.”

“What happened to me?”

“Qi depletion, I don’t know how you managed to do that, seeing as you probably don’t have any techniques that use Qi. And another thing, I suspect you haven’t eaten in a while, right?”

He simply looked away.

“That’d do it. I’ll make you something to eat, but it’s gonna come out of that silver coin you got.”

Karlo suddenly remembered, “Oh, can I get a coat for my mission too?”

“Sure, but the coat, food, and my time are gonna end up costing you all you got.”

He sighed, “No problem.”

Finally alone, Karlo looked at his panel.

[Karlo Berrio

Cultivation: F

Qi: 3/10

Life: 60yrs

Affiliations: Yellow, Blue

Talents: Truth Seeker

Techniques: True Basic Qi Gathering (5/per hour); Qi Sense (Lv. 1)]

If what the old lady said was true, and he’d been knocked out by Qi depletion, since he now had 3 Qi, he had probably been unconscious for a little over 36 minutes. It had obviously been caused by the new technique on his panel, “Qi Sense”.

While annoyed at himself for making such a blunder, he couldn't help but feel happy at gaining a technique on his own. He supposed the basic Qi sensing he had done when first activating the cultivation technique hadn’t been enough to gain a technique.

Thinking of this, he wondered why he hadn’t gotten any notifications for anything.

‘I got a notification when I first unlocked the panel by going into the desert and tundra. Well, I guess since then, every time something interesting has happened, I was unconscious.’

That meant he’d just have to explore the game on his own.

‘Missions.’

[F Grade Mission: Old Man Garber’s Coat

Mission Objective: Purchase a coat from the tailor, Mrs. Dandy, and give it to Old Man Garber (0/1)

Reward: 1 Silver Coin (minus price of coat)]

‘I wonder what the grades mean? That’s right. There was a chat function, maybe some on there will know.’

‘Chat.’

Nothing happened.

‘Chat!’

Again, nothing.

‘Message?’

‘Forum?’

At last, something came up.

[Forum Rules:

1. No discussion involving any of the following will be tolerated: Locations; Names; or Game World History. You may only mention locations and names in private messages with players within a 5km radius of you.

2. You may not discuss methods to gain any specific talent or technique, or to gain or complete specific missions.

3. No spam.

4. Anything that goes against the spirit of these rules will result in a permanent ban.

These rules are subject to change at any time.

Do you accept?]

‘Accept.’

[Choose Username]

Karlo thought about it for a while and settled on a name.

[Do you choose, “TheBerriBest” as your username? Warning: This cannot be changed later.]

He hesitated at that, but thought that it shouldn’t be too important, ‘Yes.’

What appeared before Karlo was a screen reminiscent of the forums he used to browse on Earth. There were 4 categories available: Green; Blue; Yellow; and Red.

He could only access the Blue and Yellow categories, as the other two were greyed out. Which was funny because the village he was currently in was called Green Village. He knew it must refer to the forest though.

‘Red must refer to the mountains then. Maybe there are volcanoes up there.’

He went into the Yellow section and found that it was further divided into many sub-categories. For now, though, he stuck to Main. There were already over a hundred thousand posts and new ones popping up every second, most of which were worthless.

He decided to sort by most popular to see if he could find any useful information.

What appeared at the top was a stupid Drake meme. Karlo had no idea how someone had managed to get that image, and he didn’t care.

The next post was more informative:

On Talents, Techniques, and Missions

He immediately went into it.

I will first preface this by saying that a lot of content had to be cut from this article, as the rules prevent me from discussing many important facts about specific talents, techniques, and missions. Nonetheless, this will be a general guide on the functions and operations of these.

I have delved deeply into the forum and gathered data from it, my own experience, and the experience of fellow players near me...

Karlo kept reading until he’d finished the entire thing.

A lot of it was simply confirming things he had already assumed, but the most interesting information had to do with missions.

Apparently, besides the first grade, it was impossible to increase your cultivation without first completing 3 missions of the same grade. So to increase your cultivation from F to F+ would require you to complete 3 F-grade missions.

It was possible to receive missions of a higher grade, but they would only contribute to completing the required missions of that grade. However, the game system would increase or decrease the reward depending on the difference between your cultivation grade and the mission grade.

It was at that moment that Karlo suddenly remembered what he had forgotten.

‘What the hell. I got so sidetracked that I forgot about the most pressing matter. Why do the natives know about the game system, and how much do they know?’