When Abel woke up, it was a slightly past 2:30 am on Luminara. He got out of bed and washed up before heading out for an hour long run.
After a round of Tai chi practice and a quick shower, he checked up on the pelts then fixed himself a bowl of cereal and left a note for the couple to not wait on him for breakfast. Subsequently, he paid a brief visit to the bathroom before getting into his pod.
Whooooooosh
The cascading colors came and went as they established his Neuro-Link with the virtual world. He intended to transfer the money to Frankie in his user home before he logged into the game. As he was accessing his coalition account, he noticed that same icon denoting the forum was flashing with a new message.
‘What’s this…’
When he opened it up, he found a message from Sstar.
“Hey~
I just wanted to let you know that Serena Tay asked about you. I didn’t tell her anything, I figured you wanted some privacy since your post was shot in first person. I just thought I should let you know that it might be on the evening news, although this is a great chance to propel yourself to fame. Take care~ ”
He saw the timestamp indicating the message was sent yesterday afternoon, he just didn’t notice it last night because he was in a hurry to disconnect. He found the girls tone to be a little weird, they didn’t know each other so why was she trying to sound all cute while explaining herself.
Even before Xiaowen’s merger, Abel was astute enough to pick up certain queues with his high EQ. He just couldn’t understand why she was acting this way, she didn’t know how he looked like and she didn’t know if he was rich. While he had a lot of knowledge about the game, it wasn’t enough of a reason for her to try and get close to him.
He had already shared something of use with her, unless she wanted to know more. But then she could just ask him normally, he just couldn’t understand it and he didn’t want to waste his time thinking about such useless things.
‘Maybe that’s just her personality I guess… whatever, it doesn’t matter.’
“You guessed right, I like my privacy. I don’t want to be famous, thank you.” After writing out a short reply, he clicked send and went back to his earlier task, completely forgetting about his earlier promise to Mell.
He accessed his coalition account and sent Frankie 376 credits, 300 of which were for the Realm Quest subscription and 70 for his share of the bills for the past month, the 6 remaining credits were the cost for the transfer. Once he was done with this little task, he clicked on the Realm Quest portal and logged back into the game.
He found himself outside the auction house but he didn’t go back in to check on his current items. It had barely been half a day; his posting still had another day and a half to go. He took in the view from the cliff district during day time; the salty sea breeze, the flurry of people going about their day and the shouts of the sailors out on the waters created a congruence that reminded him of Luminara’s port, except it was more rustic here.
‘I should go and look for that dungeon but I should also stock up on some things…’ He didn’t waste any more time tarrying and headed down the mountain, only stopping by some stores to purchase some supplies like firewood, arrows and some spices.
Once he was out of the city, he headed towards the beach as he was curious about the sea here. He was a pretty good swimmer in reality and he doubted it would take him long to learn the swimming skill in-game.
The swimming skill would reduce stamina consumption and allow him to hold his breath for longer while diving. He didn’t know how that worked exactly but he was eager to test it out. Though he hoped he wouldn’t come across strong monsters as fighting in water would be much more difficult than a battle on land due to several reasons. The water has great buoyancy which creates resistance to movement and greater drag than in air. Every action in water requires more effort because of this, making attacks and overall mobility slower and more energy-consuming.
‘I doubt there are monster this close to the shore, I should be fine. Hopefully I can swim to that unclaimed dungeon I read about in the study.’
The dungeon close to Stormwatch city was in a cave under the cliffs to the adjacent mountain. It was home to Coral Crawlers that are a blend of crustacean creatures with coral growths over their bodies. They take on the shapes of most crustacean creatures such as crabs and lobsters but their commonality would be their coral growth all over their bodies.
Coral Crawlers possess strong, clawed appendages that are adept at crushing shells and gripping onto rocks. These claws allow them to navigate both the ocean floor and rocky surfaces alike. Their exoskeleton come in various colors, ranging from vivid red and orange to serene blue and green and they serve as both a protective armor and as a means of camouflage within their coral reef habitats. They were usually level 15 to 20 monsters but they could max out at level 25, barely reaching the first tier.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
When present in large numbers, they can pose a severe threat to local fishermen which is why the Navy regularly culls their population. It also helps that their body parts can aid a multitude of professions from alchemists and portioneers to herbalists and blacksmith.
Their exoskeleton and claws can be refashioned into armor and weapons or crushed into powder to aid the growth of plants. Their compound eyes also seemed to be a requirement in night vision potions as well as underwater breathing potions.
As Abel went through the list of things this monster’s loot could be used for, he found himself standing on the sandy beach. The golden-white sand reflected the morning sun as the waves of the sea battered themselves onto the sandy beach.
He could see several other players also swimming and mucking about on the beach, though there wasn’t many of them. He slowly took off his armor and other equipment and placed them all in his spatial bag before diving right into the sea.
The full immersion was truly fantastic, he felt like he was swimming on Luminara’s beach when he closed his eyes. The wavy motion, the smell and taste of salty water, the buoyancy and rhythm of the sea were all present with nothing missing from reality.
‘I’m not here to have fun like those players, let’s start swimming toward the elephant’s cliff.’
He could make out the elephant’s cliff in the distance, it was a cliff that extended downwards towards the reef but had a gaping hole in between making the cliff look like a pillar reminiscent to an elephant’s trunk. The local’s called it elephant mountain due to this distinctive feature and behind the elephant’s “trunk” there was a cave that led to the dungeon.
Abel took a deep breath as he distanced himself from the other players and dove underwater. He wanted to test how long he could hold his breath in-game with his stronger stats and at the same time, it would prevent other people from seeing where he was swimming towards.
‘I can see underwater too, even though things look murky but the darkness below can’t stop my adaptive eye skill.’
Once he dove down 2 meters, he started swimming towards the earlier direction he had oriented himself towards. He realized his adaptive eye skill would also work while he was diving, unlike a typical night-vision skill that would only be applicable at night, his adaptive eye skill seemed to work against all manner of light.
An entirely new world opened up before his eyes as his eye skill revealed a spectrum of blue hues, ranging from the azure surface to deeper shades as he descended. He saw a multitude of fish swimming past along with a variety of aquatic flora.
The different schools of fish were swimming in coordinated patterns, their scales shimmering in a display of iridescence beauty with varying size and color, creating a dynamic and lively atmosphere. The backdrop in the distance came into view, creating a mesmerizing underwater landscape. The corals in the distance showcased a kaleidoscope of colors, including pink, orange, purple, and green as their intricate formations showed off a magnificent beauty.
Abel admired it for a few seconds before he began to truly swim and kick in earnest. His practiced arm movements synchronized with the swinging of his legs propelled him forward for a few meters before he repeated his motions again.
The duration a person can hold their breath while diving varies widely but its mostly influenced by factors such as fitness level, breath-holding techniques and the amount of energy consumed while diving. On average, most untrained individuals can hold their breath for around 30 seconds to 2 minutes while trained professionals can reach upwards of 10 minutes.
Although Abel had never trained professionally or learned specific breath-holding techniques, his experience living on Luminara afforded him the ability to hold his breath underwater for upwards of 3 minutes. He wondered how much longer he could extend this duration with his increased in-game stats.
He kept swimming forward, bypassing some beautiful sights and several normal fish before he came back up for air. He wasn’t sure how much of a distance he covered due to the difficulty of gauging distances underwater.
*gaaaaasp*
After catching his breath, he started treading water as he looked around him. When he turned out, he saw the players on the beach were now smaller than an olive seed while he barely covered a third of the distance to the elephant’s cliff. He then checked out the time in his panel to see how long he’d held out for.
‘4 minutes and I’m guessing around 2 kilometers. It’s not too bad, definitely much faster than in reality…’
It was a massive difference than real life, Abel could barely cover 600 meters in freestyle swimming on the surface within the same time frame in reality, much less underwater. After a few seconds of catching his breath, he dove back down and continued on his way. He could see a few small monsters in the distance but it was normal considering he was quite far off the beach now, he bypassed them easily and came up for another round of air.
After repeatedly bypassing several small aquatic monsters and coming up for air a couple of times, he finally reached the reef he read about in old man Rye’s journal. He could make out the poles used to rope in the boat’s when the navy came to clear the area. Once he pulled himself out of the water, he re-equipped his armor and weapons and started looking around.
The cliff was massive from his view, but the cave entrance was pretty easy to spot. It was the only opening available behind the “trunk” so he figured this had to be it. There weren’t any monsters outside but as soon as he walked into the cave, the system notification popped up.
*Ding*
You have discovered a new dungeon- Coral Catacombs! Every monster killed within the next 24 hours will give double EXP.
+30 Reputation
‘YES! Hahaha, I knew it. I guess I won’t be leaving for the next day at least.’
Once he saw the system notification, Abel threw his previous plans right out the window. He wouldn’t leave this dungeon till the double EXP expired at the very least, he was hoping he’d level up as much as possible before he headed off on the monster expedition.