CHAPTER 2

I didn’t make it very far before running out of stamina. I fell face first into the sand, gasping for breath. I forgot that my stamina was so low from using stealth repeatedly. I heard the galloping of a horse behind me. I rolled onto my back and looked up at Sophia. She looked down at me, “Did you forget about your horse?”

“Ah hem,” I let out an embarrassed cough. Now that I thought about it, it would be silly to waste my stamina running around the island. Why not just use a horse? I summoned my horse and mounted it.

‘

We traveled along the beach as we slowly made our way around the island. It wasn’t too large, perhaps the size of Tore. I scanned the sea, trying to find a small island off the shore. Ten minutes after I mounted my horse, I found it. I pulled out the treasure map and tried to figure out where we were.

“How close are we?” Sophia asked at my side.

“Hmm,” I looked up and pointed ahead of us, “should be within a minute or two.”

A minute later, I found something weird. It was the X mark, except that it was painted onto the sand! How strange. I dismounted and walked over to the mark. Sophia asked, “Did you find it?”

“Can’t you see this giant red X mark on the sand?” I looked over at her with surprise.

“What X mark?”

I guess I’m the only one that can see it. But why? Ah, perhaps it was because I was holding the treasure map? I tossed it over to her, and sure enough the red X mark disappeared. As soon as Sophia touched the map, she looked down at her feet, “Oh, there it is!”

I summoned a shovel from my inventory. It was one of the things I kept with me at all times. I began to dig as I sung, “We’re on an adventure, digging for treasure!”

I didn’t have an extra shovel for Sophia, so she stood at the side and watched. Of what little stamina I recovered, it was quickly consumed. When I made a decent sized hole in the ground, I handed the shovel to Sophia.

The X mark was large, at least twenty feet in each direction. We continued to switch every ten minutes. The hole grew larger and larger. We even gained a new skill after 30 minutes.

Digging - Trainee 1

Digging consumes 10% less stamina.

Right after I received that message, my shovel hit something hard. Something that wasn’t sand. My eyes lit up as I exclaimed, “Found it!”

Sophia quickly ran over and watched as I dug out a small chest. When it was completely unearthed, I unsummoned the shovel and knelt down. The chest was about two feet wide and made out of wood. The wood was cracked and old. I cast inspect.

Poor Treasure Chest

Contains Treasure.

Value: 0

“Heh, heh, heh. Our first treasure chest!” I chuckled strangely as I hugged the chest.

“Gross. Just open it already,” Sophia said with some disgust.

I placed the chest on the ground. My hand shook excitedly as I opened the latch holding the chest shut. As I cracked open the chest, a bright light came from inside. OHHH! It must be good!

The light disappeared a second later, revealing the treasure that was hidden inside. I picked up the item and held it in front of me. The chest disappeared into motes light. I activated inspect. My smile froze as I read the notification.

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Crude Rusty Iron Boot

So old and debilitated that it can't be equipped.

Value: 15

“Eh… that’s our loot?” Sophia said with a frown.

I threw the boot on the ground as I roared to the sky, “How dare you call this treasure, System! How dare you toy with my feelings like this! How dare you! I thought I was going to get a Mythic level item, but you gave me a Crude boot instead! It can’t even be equipped!”

I collapsed to the ground and covered my face, afraid of letting the System see my tears. I can’t let it know. Sophia ignored me as she asked, “What’s its value?”

“15…” I said hoarsely.

“Hm. And we can’t store it in our inventory, so we have to carry it around, huh?” Sophia said with a frown.

“You want to keep it?” I looked at her in bewilderment. How could she want such a… such a shameful item!

Sophia climbed out of the hole with the boot, “It would be a waste. Plus, we don’t know what this value thing really means yet. It could be good.”

I stood up and climbed out of the hole. Maybe she was right. This was the highest value item we’ve seen this far, so it could be worth a lot. My despair quickly evaporated, replaced by hope. I summoned my soul book and took a look at the map of the island. My soul book automatically mapped out where I’ve traveled. Sophia looked at the map as well. I unsummoned my soul book as I said, “Let’s go get another treasure map!”

“Hang on. We should finish exploring the island first. We don’t know if there are any other inhabitants here,” Sophia suggested.

“Oh, right.”

We didn’t know if we were alone on this island. What if there were humans or monsters inland? With a goal in mind, we rode our horses around the outskirts of the island. I wanted to map out the beech first. When we were around 50% done, we spotted a village in the distance. Well, it couldn’t even be called a village. At most, it was a few huts with a small pier.

Finding civilization, we rode up to the small village with excitement. As we got closer, I noticed a figure walk out of the hut. Eh? That wasn’t a human, was it?

“Let’s dismount here, I don’t want to alarm them,” Sophia said.

We slowed to a stop before climbing off our horses. We walked up to the small village. The figure noticed us. A smile broke across their face as they turned towards us. I guess they were friendly?

As we walked towards each other, I took a close look at the creature. It was almost as tall as me. The most distinguishing thing between it and us was that it had a large shell on its back. No, wait. It wasn’t that the shell was on its back, but that it was IN the shell itself. Was this…? I cast inspect.

Name: Wartle

Title: None

Age: 90

Race: Tortillian

Health: 90/90

Health Regeneration: .45/m

Stamina: 60/70

Stamina Regeneration: .35/m

Strength: 27

Vitality: 45

Agility: 13

Endurance: 35

Intelligence: 12

It looked like the rules of inspect changed again. Hey, wait a second, this was a demi-beast! They were known as the tortillian race, half human and half turtle. From what Grandpa said, they were friendly and good natured. There was never an instance of them attacking humans first. I briefly explained to Sophia what it was.

The tortillian called Wartle ran up to us with a beaming smile. He clapped his hands and jumped up and down, “Hey, hey! Are you two humans? It's been awhile since I saw one. Are you here to play with me?”

Uhh. It did say his age was 90, right? Why was he behaving like a child?

Sophia giggled at the rambunctious tortillian, “What do you want to play?”

“Oh, oh! We can do so many things,” Wartle’s eyes lit up, “We can do a swimming race, a fishing race, a breathing race…”

The tortillian prattled on, listing all types of races. Sophia couldn’t help but laugh, “You sure love races, huh?”

“Oh, yes, yes, yes! Races are so much fun!” Wartle said excitedly.

I couldn’t help but feel friendly towards this tortillian. He was just so pure and innocent. I nodded, “Okay, we can do a swimming race, but first, I have a question for you.”

Wartle ran up to me and grabbed my hand before jumping up and down in excitement, “Yay, Wartle found another friend to play with! I will try and answer anything you want, but Wartle isn’t that smart!”

“Don’t worry,” Sophia said before showing him the boot, “Do you know what value is? This boot says it has a value of 15, but we don’t know what that means.”

“Ohh!” Wartle’s eyes light up as he beamed, “Wartle know this! You want to sell this item, right? You need to go see Old Hardshell. He is the leader of my village, and the only trader I know of!”

I learned a few things from this. One, items with value could be sold. And two, you could sell them to traders. Sophia and I looked at each other before nodding, “Can you take us to him?”

“Okay, but don’t forget you said you’d play with me!”

Wartle led us into the village. He looked around before finding a tortillian sitting on the pier. Wartle ran up the the tortillian and said excitedly, “Old Hardshell, look, two humans have arrived. They want to trade with you, but more importantly, they said they’d play with me!”

“Oh, hoh, hoh,” Old Hardshell chuckled hoarsely before turning around and taking a look at us, “Is that so? How nice of them.”

This tortillian was old. Much older than Wartle. His back was hunched, and his shell was cracked in some places. His skin was wrinkly. I cast inspect.

Name: Hardshell

Title: Trader

Age: 439

Race: Tortillian

Health: 110/110

Health Regeneration: .55/m

Stamina: 86/88

Stamina Regeneration: .44/m

Strength: 45

Vitality: 55

Agility: 19

Endurance: 44

Intelligence: 22

The first thing that popped out was his age. 439 years old?! That’s incredible! No wonder Wartle acted like a kid, I bet he actually was one.