Walking on a small road going towards the mountains, without wind, not too hot nor too cold, the ideal temperature, a young man looked to the sides and he sighed, this young man was Liu Yang.
As he walked down the road, he noticed that the place had practically no sign of life, was an inhuman silence, finding a place to rest, Liu Yang found a large tree that managed to produce a good shade.
"I think it's good to rest here and see what the instructor gave me."
Opening the backpack and taking item by item, he found: dry rations, water bottles, mining tools, a map, and a ticket.
Opening the map, it was seen that it was practically the mapped terrain, showing where it should be doing the alleged work, in addition, there were some places marked as dangerous, areas of risk where there could be accidents.
Looking at the note, it was written:
"Young adventurer Ward, I, Miss Veola, am grateful to have accepted the part-time job offer as a thank you, I am sending some useful items during the work, regards Miss Veola."
Out of curiosity, Liu Yang took a look at the backpack statistics.
Backpack
Description: Used by travelers wishing to go to remote places.
Effect: Can store a maximum of one tonne without changing the weight of the backpack.
Weight: 200 grams
Requirement: No requirement
"What…!!!!!" Liu Yang was amazed after looking at the statistics of the backpack.
"A tonne? What do they think I'll find on this mountain to give such an item? I think I'll put whatever stone I can dig into the backpack. That way I will not disperse the item. "
Putting everything back in the pack, minus the map and the letter, Liu Yang guided by the map, the maze of trees, the narrow mountain roads, he came across a cave hidden among the rocks, according to the map, this is an ancient crystal mine that the founders of the Lands of Fire discovered, even after hundreds of years, there were still crystals to mine.
Sometime later…
"I finally arrived, after so many setbacks, I almost lost my life sometimes trying to get here, but how I finally got to the destination, time to work."
Activating the mining ability, Liu Yang could vaguely feel the places where it can contain some crystal. So he stayed working for several hours but stopped once in a while to replenish the energies. After twelve hours of work his result was:
27 dark red stones, 15 dark blue stones, 22 dark yellow stones, 2 light red stones, and 1 semi-transparent white stone.
"It looks like the result was quite considerable, but how do I level the mining ability?"
Opening his window of skills, Liu Yang saw that the mining ability had seemed a little different.
Mining skill - Level 1 (73 - 100)
Description: This ability allows the player to find gems more easily, the higher the skill level, the greater the chance of finding rare stones.
(It seems I need to extract the stones to be able to level the skill, at least my luck was not bad, I can find a white crystal of rank B. I think it's time for a little experiment)
In an attempt to find some crystals, Liu Yang spent another hour trying. In the end, he got: 2 dark blue crystals and 1 dark green.
Looking for mining skill.
Mining skill - Level 1 (76 - 100)
"As I thought, the dark stones increase by one point, so the other stones increase by how many points?"
Thinking about it, Liu Yang continued with the experience, but this time whenever he found a crystal, he checked how much the skill level, after four hours, managed to level the skill to level 2, at the same time came to the following conclusion.
"Rank D = 1 point, rank C = 2 points, rank B = 5 points, rank A = ??, rank S = ??"
Mining skill - Level 2 (2 - 200)
"Now I need to do four times the effort if I just find D-rank crystals since now these D-rank crystals gave only half a point, it seems like every time I level the skill the necessary points to level in addition to having folded, it was even harder to get the points."
"I'm already in the game for almost twenty hours, which is equivalent to five hours ago in the real world, I think it's time to sleep, tomorrow I still have class".
...
The next day...
At school, at the beginning of class, the teacher starts talking.
"Good morning, today I have some news, for some it is good, but for others, it can be bad. Do you want to listen now or at the end of class?"
After listening to this information, the students made only two types of expression: anxiety and doubt, but they thought it was better to get the news sooner rather than later.
"It may be now!!" Most said.
.
"Okay then, class pay attention: As of this year, the high school has been confirmed that students who have been in New Earth for more than a year, will have to report weekly on their progress, but as we know that each of you have different classes, the forms of evaluation will change according to the respective classes, these methods have not yet been decided.
As for students who are less than a year old, they will have to make a monthly report on their progress. This was done as a way to encourage students, as the college is rewarding those who make more progress, receive more rewards and its vary from items to real money. At the end of the year, those who made the most progress will receive a rare item from the high school, the Adventurers' Ring. Now I'll show it statistics." The teacher showed the item statistics on an image projector.
Adventurer Ring
Description: Ring created by the founder of the Alliance of Adventurers, given to those who most influenced the guild in the last year.
Effect: + 5% on all stats
Weight: 10 grams
Requirement: No requirement
After reading about the ring, the room went into turmoil with several students start to scream, others began to whisper among themselves, some began to link it to someone else.
"But what a ring most OP!"
"Where did the high school get a ring like that?!"
"It looks like the competition this year is going to be complicated"
"Quiet for a moment, this item can only be completed by those who have another year of play, so the only one in this class that cannot compete is Ward."
That said the teacher looked at Liu Yang, seeing that he showed no change, the teacher sighed internally with relief.
While the class was still frantic, the next words left the group shocked.
"The other thing you will have to do from time to time is: form a group of three or four components and do a leveling or quests together, thus producing a report on what they did and how teamwork was. As you may know inside the game you will never be able to do everything on your own, this is a way to start interacting with each other.
But do not worry about it now, because it's only next month that the first group assignment will take place, while it would be interesting, you get to know each other a little bit since you'll spend a whole year together as classmates. But leave it for the interval or the end of class."
After the speech, the teacher began to give the content, the lesson was a continuation of yesterday's lesson on the emergence of New Earth with some emphasis on the main figures of the four races.
Tong ... Tong ...
To the sound of the sign of the college.
"It's time for a break."
That said the teacher left the room, leaving the students, some started to talk to each other, others chose to go out in groups, some were eating.
Liu Yang left the room to buy something to eat, going to the canteen, saw that the queue was not too big, he entered it. Buying a cheese bread and a glass of juice, returning to the living room and eating in his chair.
Tong ... Tong
The signal rings and the students begin to return gradually, the teacher arrives and continues giving the lesson.
After a few hours...
Tong ... Tong ...
"It's just for today, until tomorrow."
That said, the students began to leave the room and some remained talking to new friends.
Liu Yang left as quickly as possible, trying to get home quickly because his quest was still active. It would have a total of 1440 total hours according to the contract, but since the world of New Earth was four times faster than the real world, then there are only 360 hours or 15 days left.
From the time that Liu Yang accepted the contract so far, have spent sixteen hours in the real world, so he still has a total of 344 hours of contract. After half an hour of travel, Liu Yang comes home, going to connect again.
...
Inside the mine, Liu Yang was looking at the map and trying to see some possible places that could have more rare crystals, but as there were many, he chose one casually and was going towards there. Along the way, whenever he felt he could have a crystal, he would stop and start digging.
That's how he spent his next few days in real life: going to school in the morning, from late into the evening he played Project: Unknown.
After the twelfth day, Liu Yang was already in one of the danger spots described on the map. Trying to find his luck on the spot.
The place was narrow, the tunnel was only two meters high and one wide, the lighting was terrible because there were not many torches around.
Feeling some crystal on the wall, Liu Yang tried his luck, but because the height was too low, he hits the pickaxe on the roof of the tunnel making a clang of "Clang" as if it were hitting some kind of metal.
Placing a torch up with his hands, Liu Yang saw that there was a small silver glow in the ceiling and he was thrilled.
"Jackpot!!!! Could it be some crystal A rank or higher? Let me see".
After checking that there was no danger, Liu Yang began to hit the ceiling with the pick, knocking until forming a small hole, a piece of stone falls to the ground, looking at the stone, he saw that it was irregular, because the silver glow it came from something that was inside the stone.
So trying to see what it was, Liu Yang used the pick to try to break part of the stone and release the rest of the contents, when it finished breaking, he saw that what emitted the silver glow was a small box made of silver on the top it had a square hole and there were some inscriptions on it.
"It looks like I need some key to open it if the box is here, then the key should also be somewhere around here, but where?"
As he thought to himself, Liu Yang looked at the statistics of the box.
Unknown Silver Box
Description: A box made of silver that contains some object inside, to be opened needs some key to be opened.
Weight: 100 grams.
"It seems like I did not think wrong, in fact, I need a key, but I do not know if I can find it, I only have 72 hours in the real world to find it."
Guarding the unknown box in his inventory, Liu Yang continued to search for rare stones, however, his main goal now was to find the silver box key.