Sean, a young man who had opened the energy stones shop in the virtual world, looks at the empty store devoid of customers. In fact, Sean came from a wealthy family from the Main Star. His family has big businesses, and the youngest in the family and still in school. He could live a comfortable life with his family spoiling him. But, looking at his business giant father, CEO brother, and Famous sister, he feels like a failure.
So, with the determination of starting his own business, he came to the virtual world and opened an energy stones shop. Though he felt it was strange that there were not even five energy-stones shops on this planet. He thought that the shop would become popular since he had good quality stones with fair prices, but even after six months, there were only a pitiful number of customers.
After asking around for a while, he discovered that the energy stones in virtual games are indeed useful to improve ability levels, but it is only 30% as efficient as the real energy stones. Thus, ability users were not interested in spending their coins on them. Sean felt heartbroken. His first business was to be closed even before starting, and he felt like crying.
He sat on the counter, his head in his hand, looking at the ground, while a pair of shoes came into his view. He stared at the pair of shoes, that it was the newcomers' shoes before they bought shoes here. It took him a few seconds to realize that someone was standing in front of him, who could be the customer. Sean looked up to see a handsome youth with white hair and green eyes looking at him. He was stunned for a moment before remembering that people can choose the appearance they want in the virtual world, and it may not be the youth's real appearance.
"Aha, hello, are you here for the energy stones? If so, I have all kinds of energy stones of the best quality at a fair price." Sean immediately said with a smile to the person in front.
"Yeah. Of course, or else why would I be here?" the customer said to the funny shop owner with an amused smile.
“Which type of energy stones do you want?” Sean asked him, excitement coursing through his veins.
"Water-type with good quality." The customers replied. Sean quickly showed him to the part of the shop containing water-type energy stones.
"Here, the lowest grade is 1000 a stone, the middle grade is 2000, and the high grade is 5000."
“Can I choose it myself?” The customer asked Sean.
"Sure, you can," Sean replied and watched as the customers picked ten lowest grade, five middle grade, and one high-grade stone among many and gave it to him, meaning he would be taking these.
"Oh! There are also the unchecked stones at the front with the price of 1000 each. If you are interested, you can try your luck there." Sean remembered the lucky pool and asked the customer if he was interested.
The youth nodded, and Sean took him to the place in front of many hundred big stones. The handsome youth looked stunned for a moment. Sean thought it was because the youth misunderstood that Sean wants to scam him with fake stones and hurriedly explained.
"Ah, you don't need to buy them if you don't want to. Though these stones are from the mining factories and were not checked. There is only a 10 % chance that you will pick an energy stone though."
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"How much do you say these stones are?" The customers asked him, and he replied the price of stones again.
The customers picked 20 stones from the pile and put them on the counter. Sean calculates the bills, and it comes out as 85,000 coins. Sean was so excited to make money. The customers paid immediately, put the stones in his inventory, and left.
Shen Li was standing in the cave on the ability user plant. There are many places where you can train on this planet, and Shen Li chose the forest, which is the place the least people chose. She sat down on the ground and took out the energy stones from the shops he had just bought.
Shen Li knew that energy stones here are only 30% as efficient as the real ones. It might not be a lot for others, but with Shen Li's new way of absorbing, he can at least get 50%, and it was enough for Shen Li. Shen Li found this cave behind the waterfall in the deep of the forest using his wood ability, and no need to worry about people finding him there. So, he left ten low and five high-grade stones in the cave. After that, he took out the 'lucky draw' stones.
When he saw these stones at the store, he was surprised because he could sense high-level energy from some of those stones. He only bought 20 and did not change the number of previously chosen stones, not to raise suspicion. He will keep the high-level energy stones for later, and will only use them after he reaches level 2. Which will be after he had absorbed all of the low and mid-grade stones he bought this time.
After that, he decided to train his wood powers since he could not train them in the real world. After training for a few hours, Shen Li decided to take a rest and familiarize himself with this planet. There are four main areas on this planet, the Main city, the forest, the training ground, and the battle area. The forest was divided into the safe and the monster's zone. There are holographic zergs(monsters) in the monster's area for ability users to practice. There are also four small cities in four directions.
Most students came here to train to fight against the monsters, including zergs. The forest was divided into five levels, from the outermost level-5 to the core level level-1. Based on the difficulty and strength of the zergs, they were arranged in each level, with level-5 being the easiest. There are barriers between each level, and you could only pass onto another level after collecting enough points.
Once you went inside the monster's area, a blood bar will appear on you. While fighting the monsters, the blood bar will reduce according to the amount of damage and the player's endurance if you get hurt. It is like games on earth. If the whole blood bar is gone, you would be kicked out of the area and will have to start from the beginning again.
When you pass each level, your points will be recorded and appear on the pillar list in the Main city. Your points are decided on the amount of time, amount and strength of monsters you killed, and your blood level. The user name 'Abyss' had been on the top of the pillar for years since nobody was able to break his record. 'Abyss' was a mysterious figure at the top pillar of both spiritual power and ability users list.
Even though it has been thousands of years since the Empire was built, the number of people who had awoken as both sentinel and ability users were very rare. As for guides, there has not been even a single guide with ability. That is why the 'Abyss' who was both sentinel and ability user power, who was on top of both pillars was very famous. After many tries, many people were suspicious that the 'Abyss' was the young General Corner.
Shen Li look at the list, and he was also determined to climb to the top of these pillars. Shen Li first decided to train his wood power in the outermost level of the forest. Since this is the forest, Shen Li with wood ability has an advantage. He did not want straight to the big monsters but start from the lower-level monsters.
Shen Li had trained how to use his wood ability in a battle by fighting against zombies in the yellow area, outside the safe zones. Since there were vaccines already, humans did not need to fear getting affected. It was not a problem for him to fight against these monsters and accumulate points.
He was fast and careful, adapting from low levels to the high-level monsters, hitting the critical points on the monsters with sharpened veins and his prized sword, which he received from his grandpa when he said he wanted to go out of the green zones. After fighting for a few hours, he decided to end it for today and to come here again tomorrow to continue. If users log out when they are in this area, their point and time would be stopped, and it would only continue the next time they log in.
Shen Li got out of the virtual pod and headed to the kitchen to drink water. The big advantage of training in the virtual world is that the time there is three times faster than in the real world. Shen Li spends 12 hours in the virtual world, while only 4 hours have gone in the real world. Shen Li checked his light brain and was happy to see that 9.5 million received from the researchers association together with a message that they will need time to review the four answers that were left.
Shen Li transferred 5 million coins to his emergency account and left the other in his account. After ordering some plants and herbs seed from the shop on Star Net. Shen Li went into the storage room, where the pieces of equipment he need were set up to make more potions. If Shen Li had checked the popular news on Star Net, he would have found out that people were discussing heatedly of his potions.