Chương 6: Finding faith?

I was very careful not to excite some kind of a wild beast as I was familiarising with the environment.

The whole east side of the village was a mountainous surrounding. From time to time I could hear howling of the wolves and some other strange sounds. If I could choose I would gladly choose hearing howling of the wolves every day over those strange sounds. It sounded like some kind of a scream, but not human or animal, more somewhere in between. I made a mental note and continued with quick footsteps. At the south side of the village was a little graveyard and then a smaller forest until the fields. As for the roads, there was one along the mountains heading south. You can get on it from the south gate, but from the north, there wasn't any visible road, only options were either across the mountain or through the forest.

Since I saw everything important for now I headed into the village and logged out for lunch. After lunch, I logged into the game once again. Sun was already up and villagers started their daily lives. There was almost no other player in the village except me so I didn't need to hide. I saw chief and villagers getting ready for the fields so I joined them. I nodded to the chief and my bald farming teacher and they nodded back to me. Soon we departed. I saw one more group with half a dozen men with bows and arrows going into the forest. Those must be village hunters I concluded.

Thanks to the blessing from Veles working in fields was a lot easier today. At one moment before meal break, I heard a notification in my ears.

, Repeating certain actions will gain you stat boosts. Hard physical work gained you 1 point in strength and endurance."

Wow, I exclaimed in my head. This quest will not earn me only experience but also stat boost. Since leveling was hard every stat point is a win. I was thinking what to do after this farming. I knew that other players we soon find out this method to raise their levels so I decided that I will farm only one more day.

On the forums players still made a fuss over hard leveling. It seems that no one else discovered prayers, or if they did, which is more likely, they wanted to keep it for themselves.

Next day in school students were a little calmer than the last two days. On one of the breaks, Maria approached me and thanked me with a smile for my advice from before. That was the first time she smiled at me. I lost myself in a moment and she noticed that. I didn't have a chance to respond and she just giggled and turned around to sit with Anna. Even though it was autumn when she turned around I could smell spring in her hair. I stood frozen for I moment before I came to myself. Maria and Anna giggled like they knew something I didn't. It seems that the distance between us was shortening little by little. I couldn't help but smile to that.

One more day of farming brought me two more stat points, like yesterday 1 in strength and 1 in endurance. While I was going back to the village I started a conversation with the chief.

, Chief I would like to help the village in some other way than farming. There are also more travelers maybe they would like to help you farm."

, Young man, that is not a bad idea, with more travelers we can finish sooner" said chief , and since you want to help us, go to smithy tomorrow early in the morning. Donar my have some work for you." Donar must be village blacksmith. I thanked the chief and a notification rang in my head.

, Quest completed

Help in the fields

Villagers of Little Rock village are sowing wheat, help them until they are finished.

Difficulty: Normal

Reward: 500 EXP points per day, the reward will be gained on the last day of work

Gained 3000 EXP points."

With this much experience, I rose to level 2. I also gained 20 stat points to distribute them, but I decided to wait until I am certain where to put them or in a situation where it was unavoidable.

Finally, it happened. Forums were on fire. While I was on one of the breaks from class, forums exploded. Forth day since the game was released on Monday, October first, players finally found out about prayer buffs. I would bet my house, which was my parent's property of course, but you know what I mean, that 99% of the player population thought that gods were only story points, final bosses in some cases, and maybe quest givers. Few, like me, had an idea to pray to them and to actually gain anything from that. So how did it happen, you ask. Men's stupidity and lust. Yeah, I know. I as a man was totally embarrassed when I read the article which revealed the power of the gods.

There were some idiots that tried to do funny staff with female players. It happened on the first two days but it didn't gain much attention. Girls logged out or gathered together in bigger numbers. But one girl, the one which wrote the article that started everything, was by some bad luck, harassed by a group of male players. So what did she do?

She found female NPC and asked her for help. Female NPC told her to pray to goddess which was the protector of women. In every mythology, there is a goddess which protects women. In some cases more of one. So this girl did just that. And what do you know, it worked.

When those players came to her again they could only regret their actions. Verbal harassment, stats go down by half for two hours, more talking, stats go to zero. Physical harassment forced out of the game for six hours. Punishments varied from region to region and form goddess to goddess. There were fast like lightning or divine arrow from the sky, or even painfully slow ones which included water, earth, and fire. Some male players later in the game tried again thinking that girls would forget about prayer for protection. But they were mistaken. First thing girls did upon login every day was to pray in temples. And since protection prayer didn't count as a buff prayer for a day it wasn't hard for girls to pray twice.

Hence, Blue Rose, the girl which revealed this aspect of the game to the world, was a first worldwide known player, her fame was well earned. She was also the first player from Age of Gods to have her own fan club.

That is how players finally started having faith in gods. From that day on, temples always had players inside them. Some even prayed for hours, but that is a story for later.

Of course, students again raised the temperature in the classroom, this was a great finding and they had to talk about it until the end of the day. I somehow managed to survive the day and after reminding them about the test next week, slowly went home.

I slept until lunch since I knew that in the night I wouldn't have any success for now. After lunch and a little talk about the game with Hope, I logged into the game.

First I entered the temple. There were a few players in it praying. Since I was about to go to the blacksmith I prayed to Horz. Then I heard a new notification.

, Blessing of the Sun God Horz

Gain 10 points in strength and endurance. Duration 12 hours."

This blessing may on first look be weaker than that of Veles but this buff can be used everywhere and the one from Veles is useful only in forests and fields. I wonder what kind of buffs other gods can give me. I could look at forums but where is a surprise in that.

I exited the temple and started walking towards the smithy. Donar, the blacksmith wasn't here so I waited for him in front of the smithy. Not much time passed as I saw him walking towards me.

, You are the one chief sent to me?" he asked me with a tone that said keep up.

, Yes"I answered quickly and simply.

, Wait here" he said and entered the smithy.

I could only wait outside with patience. Ten minutes later he came out with two sacks over his back and one leather bag over his shoulder. He gave me one of the sacks and said

, Carry this and follow me." With that, he started walking towards the south gate. I quickly went after him. I could hear other players calling one another, talking about fields. I was right others found out about farming. Well, I gained quite a lot from it so it's time for the next quest. Speaking of it I didn't even get one yet.

, Respected Donar what am I supposed to help you with?"

, You don't have to speak like a little girl, call me Donar. You are going to help me excavate some ore in the mountain mine. Just do as I tell you."

Ding! Quest gained"

, Help blacksmith Donar

Help Doran to dig iron ore in the mountains and bring them back to the village

Difficulty: Normal

Reward: 1000 EXP points and extra reward for every found ore"

, All right, but are there monsters in the mountain?"

, Monsters? Do you think this is my first time looking for ores! Even if there were monsters there I don't care. I only need you to carry back the ones we find, otherwise, I would have gone by myself."

After that response, I could only follow him. He must have already seen monsters and fought with them. He won for sure, him being not afraid, speaks a lot.

We went through the south gate. Guards didn't stop us, they just nodded and said good luck. We were going to the part of hills and mountain which was bare of trees. That was probably region with the ores. I slowly followed Donar as we climbed the hills. There was small vegetation on the hills, some kind of grass which can probably grow everywhere. That was it there was a small tree here and there, but as we climbed higher and higher there were no more trees, only small patches of grass.

Two hours later we finally arrived at a place full of rocks. This is the place I thought. There were big and small rocks cheeped from the mountain, probably from the previous excavation. Doran stopped and put his sack on the ground. I did the same and waited for his instructions. He took out two pickaxes from his sack and gave one to me.

, Start first with that big one, when you finish come to me." He walked to one side, spat in his hands and started swinging at the mountain. I looked at the big rock not far from me. It had a height of tree men and width of five. Does he really think I can do this by myself? Knowing that he doesn't care I could only start swinging away.

As I was swinging the pickax at the boulder I was surprised how easy was to swing it and how fast I was doing it. Boulder was cheeped very fast. If I continue to hit it like this I may break it in three hours. An hour later I couldn't help but find this situation strange. Prayer buff was good but it shouldn't be this easy. I looked at the pickax and tried to appraise it. It took four tries until I could see it's information.

Donar's sturdy pickax

Uncommon

17-20 attack

Grants Mining Skill

Pickax made by Master Blacksmith Donar who is also an advanced miner

Even a total novice can mine with this pickax

Well, you can't judge a book by its cover. Donar may be unfriendly but he is master in his craft. Him giving this tool to me means that he is a good guy. Enough of thinking I should continue.