After Jack finished his second bounty, he received another 1,000 gold. In the cave, he also found a wooden chest. Inside were a couple of talent books, a few weak health potions, and a backpack. The latter was a good find. He stowed the health potions away in the backpack and hung it on his back. As for the talent books, he learned them but didn’t bother to read their descriptions yet. He could do it later. For now, he had to focus on fulfilling bounties and earning gold.

When he exited the cave, he realized he had to tweak his plan a little. The rewards for bounties of easy difficulty were 1,000 gold each, but Jack didn’t have time to do eight more such bounties, because the nightfall was just around the corner. So after checking the list one more time, he accepted a bounty that was more difficult but also more rewarding.

Type Bounty Objective Kill fifteen bloodsuckers. Difficulty Normal Recommended level 5-10 Reward 3,000 gold

This time, on his map was shown not a pin of the exact location for the bounty but a general area where it could be fulfilled. He turned in the right direction and set off.

As he learned a little later, bloodsuckers were those mosquito-like creatures that he’d already encountered before. He’d killed plenty of such critters, so he knew what to expect from them and had no trouble dealing with them. At some point, he discovered another cave. He wasn’t sure if he needed to go in, though. He checked the map and saw that the cave entrance was located inside the area of his current bounty. So he decided to check it out. Maybe there would be more bloodsuckers to kill.

There weren’t any of them inside, though, only cave rats, but he discovered another chest in the last cavern. Inside it, he found a few more weak health potions, yet another talent book, and some armor. He first learned the talent from the book and then put the health potions in his backpack. After that, he took the armor from the chest. As it turned out, it was a full set of light leather armor consisting of a pair of high boots, pants, a leather tunic with long sleeves, and a belt, to which his sheathed sword could be attached.

Item Ranger Leather Armor Set Rarity Uncommon Description A full set of light leather armor that gives you some protection against physical damage and helps you move a little bit faster. Primary effects

* Increases your overall movement speed by 5%.

* Increases your Physical Resistance by 5%.

Temporary effects None Enchantments None

It was definitely a good find. Jack quickly undressed to his underwear and then put on the light armor. All the articles of armor fit his body perfectly as if the system had been aware that he’d been about to open the chest and in the blink of an eye, had designed this armor set specifically for him. Maybe that was the case. Maybe that was how things worked in this magical game-like world.

He then attached his uncommon sword to the belt, hanging it at his left hip.

There was one more item in the chest. Jack took it out.

Item Identification Scroll Type Consumable Level 1 Uses 3 Description Allows you to get information about your environment.

It seemed like a good find too. He unrolled the scroll. There were some magical symbols written on it. How to use the scroll, though? As soon as he thought that, the scroll disappeared in a brief flash of light, and a notification emerged in his vision.

You have learned an identification spell. You can use it 3 times.

So he could identify something now, huh? Jack decided to use this spell on some of the monsters he would encounter next.

When he made his way out of the cavern, he immediately noticed that he was moving somewhat faster now. The ranger light armor he now wore would definitely help him in dodging his enemies’ attacks in future fights.

Jack left the cave. It didn’t take him long to find some more bloodsuckers and kill them, fulfilling the bounty and receiving 3,000 gold. He hadn’t forgotten to use his identification spell on one of those creatures before he killed it.

Name Bloodsucker Race Insectoid Rarity Common Faction Beasts Special abilities Unknown Magical abilities Unknown Resistances Unknown Weaknesses Unknown

He didn’t receive much information about the creature, though, only its name, race, rarity, and faction. He wasn’t sure what the last of those meant. Probably, he would find out later on. The identification spell hadn’t revealed the full information about the creature, but that was most likely because the level of the spell was only 1, which meant that there were more powerful identification spells. He would surely find them at some point. As he learned a little later, now that he’d identified one bloodsucker, he could now summon stats of any other bloodsuckers.

So he needed to earn 5,000 more gold. When he brought up the list of available bounties and looked it over, he found one that interested him the most.

Type Bounty Objective Kill all the creatures in a cave. Difficulty Hard Recommended level 5-10 Reward 5,000 gold

The difficulty of this bounty was hard, but the level recommendation was the same, so he should be able to fulfill his bounty. It didn’t say what kind of enemies he would encounter, though, and it bothered him a little. In the end, he decided to accept the bounty, because the reward was too tempting to resist.

He then brought up his stats. He’d collected enough Essence to level up two times. He put one of the skill points into Strength to become a little stronger and deal even more damage. He put the other skill point into Constitution because he assumed it would make his body more robust.

As he made his way to the cave, he examined his surroundings and realized he could use the identification spell on almost anything he saw, not only on monsters. He used the spell on a tree that kind of looked like a pine, and its description appeared in his vision. He learned that by felling that tree, he could gain some valuable crafting materials such as logs and sticks that could be used to build structures and craft various items. It was a useful piece of information. The discovery he’s just made would definitely come in handy later on.

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In the cave, Jack encountered some more croc-rats. He used the identification spell on one of them.

Name Cave Rat Race Beasts Rarity Common Faction Beasts Special abilities Unknown Magical abilities Unknown Resistances Unknown Weaknesses Unknown

All the three uses of the spell were spent now, unfortunately. It was definitely a useful spell. It taught him some new things about this game-like world and the system itself. Jack hoped that he would find another identification scroll soon enough.

Besides croc-rats, there were some slimes in the cave. They were somewhat more dangerous enemies, but there were few of them, and they attacked him one at a time, so he didn’t have much trouble taking care of them.

Finally, the cave was cleared out, and the bounty was fulfilled. He received 5,000 gold and had more than 10,000 gold now. In the chest that sat in the final cavern of the cave, he found some more health potions and talent books.

By the time he was outside again, it’d gotten dark in the forest, but the moon wasn’t up yet. Jack wandered around for a little bit until he found a good spot. He brought up the Store and spent 10,000 gold to buy the building he’d been collecting money for. Before his eyes appeared a green translucent outline of the building. It followed his gaze wherever he looked. When the outline intersected a plant, its color turned red. Jack looked at an empty spot not occupied by any trees or bushes, and the outline became green again. Jack gave a mental command to put the building there, and the green outline was immediately replaced by an actual concrete building.

Jack walked around it. The one-story wooden structure was pretty small, with four walls and a flat roof. It had one door and no windows. Jack stepped inside the only room of the building. It was empty, but there was enough space for him to lie down at full height, and that was all he needed. The door had a wooden latch, but since there were no windows or any sources of light in the building, he decided not to close the door just yet in order to let some of the moonlight seep in.

He had a little gold left, so he bought some food and bottled water, and his small house filled with the steam and aromas of the self-heats being opened. After he satisfied his hunger, he closed the door and slid the latch closed. Only when he lay down on the wooden floor did he realize how tired he was. It’d been a difficult day, but he’d managed to accomplish what he’d planned for today. It hadn’t been easy, but he’d pulled it off, and it made him feel good about himself.

After he rested for a little while, he opened his stats. He noticed that his One-handed talent had increased only to 15. It’d reached level 10 pretty quickly but was now improving at a noticeably slower rate. Still, Jack couldn’t help but notice that with each increase of this talent, his ability to wield his sword improved.

He’d learned a few new talents but hadn’t read the descriptions yet. Now that he was finally in the safety of his house, he decided to check the new talents out. All of them were survival-based.

Name Crafting Description Crafting lets you create various small items. The more experienced you are at crafting, the better items you create and the longer they serve you.

Name Building Description Building lets you build various structures. The more experienced you are at building, the better and sturdier structures you build and the longer they serve you.

Name Hunting Description Hunting lets you track both small and big game. The more experienced you are at hunting, the more tracks left by animals you notice.

Name Cooking Description Cooking lets you prepare food for eating by applying heat. The more experienced you are at cooking, the better the food you cook satisfies your hunger.

Name Felling Description Felling teaches you to fell trees using tools like axes and chainsaws. The higher your Felling talent, the more efficient you are at cutting down trees as well as at limbing (the process of removing branches from a standing or fallen tree trunk) and bucking (the process of cutting a felled and delimbed tree trunk into logs).

Jack then checked out all the current stats of his character.

Name Jack Nolan Level 7 Current Essence 135 Essence to Next Level 1,000 Available Skill Points 0 Gold 100 Survived 2 days

Strength 2 Constitution 1 Agility 2 Perception 2 Intelligence 0 Magic 0

Talents

Battle:

* One-handed: 15 [Agility]

Survival:

* Crafting: 0 [Intelligence]

* Building: 0 [Intelligence]

* Hunting: 0 [Perception]

* Cooking: 0 [Perception]

* Felling: 0 [Strength]

Abilities Slot 1: Unlocks at Level 10 Spells, Runes, and Enchantments None Perks

Slot 1: None

Slot 2: Unlocks at Level 15

Resistances Physical Resistance: 5% Crafting/Building None

As Jack lay on the floor of his house, he listened to the sounds of the night forest. He thought he heard some creatures shuffling just outside the building. The unknown creatures scratched the wooden walls with their claws but didn’t try to get inside. After a few minutes, they went away, probably searching for easier prey.

Jack closed his eyes. It didn’t take him long to fall asleep. And this time, nothing disturbed his sleep.