He was tired, out of willpower, and his head was killing him. But he wasn't going to just log out, and abandon his hard-earned loot to the whims of the environment around him. For all that he knew, as soon as he left, the forest would swallow the corpse up.
Tom looked at it, and he knew what he had to do. He hadn't realized what a privilege it had been to fight non-flesh and blood enemies. Their corpses were so much easier to deal with. If he wanted to find a golems core, he would only have to move a couple of rocks around, but now he would have to fish around this carcass to find it.
Then again, this creature was much smaller compared to the golems, so he could probably take the whole corpse with him and see if it had any value. As he already had first-hand experience that at least its blades were sharp enough and could make for nice knives. So instead of fishing around in its insides, he picked the whole carcass up and started walking towards the city, deciding to leave the bisecting to the professionals.
While he walked, he wondered if he could log out while in the wilderness, as it would be valuable information if he ever wanted to travel any further.
Tom's return journey took far less time, he had thrown most of his caution to the wind, as he was so low on willpower that he was sure that he would lose, and if there were other predators around. And on top of that, they would have surely attacked while they were fighting, if they were any nearby, drawn by the scent of blood and sounds of battle.
On his way, he picked up his backpack and continued on, soon arriving in the city. He held a blood-soaked sack in which he had placed the creature's carcass. He made a b-line for the trader's ship.
He had noticed that even while he was in the forest, his willpower recovery was close to non-existent. He could only think that he was so tired that it somehow affected it. So he wanted to get this over with as soon as possible, as he desperately needed a break.
He walked in unceremoniously, plopped the bloody sack on the counter, and asked the robot for a price evaluation.
The robot swiftly opened the sack and started to examine the corpse.
"Hmmm. An ambush predator... In the middle stages of tier zero... Good claws. A camouflage core." This must have been one nasty enemy." The robot stated as it continued to examine the corpse while muttering to itself.
Tom's tired mind was also having its own investigation going, was this robot sentient? It seemed sentient enough, if it wasn't for its appearance, Tom was sure that he wouldn't have any suspicions. However he would just have to bury his suspicions as the answer didn't seem to be forthcoming, and asking about it seemed like a remarkably rude thing to do, just to sate his curiosity, so he managed to hold himself back.
This small mental exercise was already pushing the limits of what his mind was willing to tolerate, as he felt his tiredness compounded, demanding him to let it rest.
"How about one credit for the whole carcass?" The robot finally asked to Tom's relief, after it had looked at it from every possible angle.
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Tom didn't see any use for the core for himself, so he agreed to the price, too tired to haggle, trusting in the protection the Empire provided during the integration that he wouldn't get too badly scammed.
Then he logged out and immediately went to sleep.
Once he woke up, he noticed that for once he had actually woken up in the morning. He had no idea at what time he had gone to sleep, but then again, it didn't matter to him. His life had fully switched to a mode where he only rested when he could spare the time or was forced to do so.
While he lay in bed, he decided to open up the Empire Net and find some answers to questions that had been bothering him.
He went to humanity's forums looking for how "logging out" actually worked. And to his relief, he didn't have to look for all the answers alone, as there were now literary billions of others asking the same questions. He soon found a compiled answer, collected and combined from the massive quantity of information that was the Empire Net.
"One has to stay still for 10 minutes if one is in wilderness or area controlled by a hostile force. This rule will also come into effect if a friendly area is contested by a hostile force.
And if an area is conquered, all offline players will be teleported to the nearest area controlled by the faction. While suffering the full death penalty, losing all of their gear on them, and getting the death timer calculated as if they were killed by a same-level individual."
Tom could immediately see how profitable it would be to sneak into a city when everyone was asleep and claim it for himself. It was quite an inviting idea. However, to his disappointment, the only settlements he knew were human controlled, and it sounded like a bad idea to go against your own race. Then again, he wasn't even sure how he would go about claiming an area controlled by other players. Would it be the same as with the golems? Or would there be some other steps?
He didn't spend any more of his brain power on the problem filing it away for the future, as he knew that he currently could do nothing with the information.
On the other hand, the death timer was a hyperlink in the post, so he curiously clicked it, and he realized that the 12 hours he had gotten was literally just the most lenient punishment.
"
* If one dies by another party that their faction is at war with the death penalty is doubled.
* If one gets killed by an individual who has a lower level of cultivation than them, the penalty is increased based on the level difference.
* If one gets killed by an individual who has a higher level of cultivation than them, the penalty is decreased based on the level difference.
* If killed by a higher-level monster, the death penalty is increased based on the level of difference.
Then there were countless other affecting factors, like some poisons that could increase the time and such. The list just kept on going, and Tom skimmed through it. Most of the factors seemed like something he wouldn't have to never even worry about. The list ended on a note that the AI calculated and could modify the timmer as it saw fit.
And in combat with multiple participants, it would depend on how much each participant had affected the outcome, and modify the death penalty based on it.
After Tom finished reading the list, one thing was sure to him, the Empire wanted its citizens to challenge themselves by fighting above their own weight class. However, at the same time not to abuse the respawn system by continuously challenging some great monster in the hopes of getting a ridiculously big payday.
While he surfed the web, he ran into countless posts of people sharing all the new and exciting things they had found and bought. Tom would be lying if he didn't want some of the stuff they were talking about.
Like an AI assistant with a robot body, which could take care of all of his chores and other mundane tasks like handling his finances. It sounded like something that would make his life so much easier. He could just log out of the Secverse, and everything would be ready for him. He could already see how it was showing in his apartment that he had done nothing more than played the Secverse for over ten days. There were piles of dishes waiting and every other task was just ignored.
He knew he wanted to buy something like that, something that would make his life a lot easier, but he controlled himself, having already decided where his next credits would go, the Cultivations basics guide.
As he continued surfing he only ran into more and more tempting prospects for his credits. He almost gave in to the temptation once he looked at different kinds of cores, and saw one-for-one credit, calling to him to purchase it. Oh, how nice it would be able to feel the same power in his body as he felt in the Secverse, alas one has to keep their priorities straight, as what could he actually do with it in the real world? Go look for a fights? And then wait for the Empires forces to descend on him and place him in an undisclosed location, maybe alive maybe not. He needed to focus on the frontier where he could actually leverage his cultivation to its full extent.
He didn't dare to surf the Empire Net any longer, all he saw were just temptations calling for him to spend his hard-earned credits on them.
Tom got out of bed and started exercising, not daring to forgo the basics. After that, he made sure that he could spend as long as possible in the Secverse at once, pumping his body full of nutrients by eating and then logging back in.