By the time the crafting was done, and a few more minutes making certain that my new items were comfortable enough (that is, running and jumping around playing), the sun had already set. There was still a hint of light though, or so I convinced myself, and I was quite hungry at this point, so I headed to the inn to fill my belly before departing for whatever the Elder had in store for me.

Dinner was steak, not quite surprising considering the amount of meat I, and probably a ton more players, had deposited to the general store, a byproduct of the poor animal lynching that had befallen the surrounding animal life.

Seeing as it was a waste to let my own cooking skill rot, I also tipped the lovely lady in the kitchen a few extra coppers, just enough to get a list of herbs that actually changed the poor excuse of food I cooked myself to that quite tasty piece of meat the inn actually served.

During my short time eating, I finally had a little spare time to take another glance at the forums. Checking the "new player guide" that was copy pasted from the beta forums, the initial poster had the good manners of posting a huge red edit in its beginning stating that, according to the reports, the guide was now obsolete, since a ton of stuff has changed from beta to release.

I rewarded myself by chuckling softly at all those unfortunate souls that had spent their time reading the 20+ pages guide only to find it useless, or even harmful.

Next in line was a short browse, trying to find any information on skills, but it seems players either didn't take the time to actually write that, and instead focused on playing (tsk tsk, shame on them!) or, even worse, they were being all secretive about those. Naturally, I didn't post anything either, but that was to be expected, I was too bored and too underleveled to do so!

The last thing that caught my attention was a huge thread, that had already exploded to more than a hundred pages, talking about PKs at newbie areas. The post that had actually managed to draw the attention of all those responses was actually from a player who was righteous enough to report that someone had offered him a ridiculously high amount of real life money to PK and aggravate newcomers, with the ulterior motive to cause them to quit. Why this offer was made it was anyone guess, but most people seemed to think that it was either from a company that already had found time altering virtual programming and was trying to keep it hidden from the rest of the world, or stuff following this thought-line. Which frankly, didn't seem impossible to me either.

Finishing my meal, it was finally time to go back to the witch. She opened the door and ushered me inside while throwing a totally suspicious glance outside of her house for anyone watching. Totally creeped out, I followed her instructions and sat on the chair, while I had to keep up with her pacing around the room, mumbling to herself stuff about consequences, and stealing glances towards me.

After five minutes, I was already of half a mind to just make a desperate dash towards the door, hoping that I could get out of there before being eaten alive. As I steeled myself, ready to get killed, or worse, by an NPC, she finally sat down opposite of me, sighed, and opened her mouth to start talking.

Or not. She closed it immediately, like having second thoughts. And then opened it again. And then closed it. And then opened it.

"How much do you know about monster spawning?" She finally asked.

Easy question. It feels like high school all over. "Nothing at all!". Even the answers are similar!

"Well, whoever says he knows a lot, is lying. Even after sages had spent hundreds of years, the exact mechanic is still not fully understood. BUT! One thing is for sure." She said with emphasis like she was about to divulge some deep esoteric knowledge.

I, on the other hand, was thankful that I still wasn't eaten alive by the witch. Remembering her previous warning, I let her continue without interrupting with some obvious banter that was itching to come out of my mouth.

And continue she did. "The one thing we know is that it takes a tremendous amount of soul energy to form even a single one of them, even the simplest of them. That's why the towns, the villages, our houses, are not overrun by them. That's why we can safely open the door to our homes without first checking if something had spawned inside while we were out working."

She took a deep breath, and slammed her palm right on the table, causing the cutlery, and mainly me, to jump.

With my attention now split between her mouth and how close the door was, I saw her smile a wicked smile before continuing. "That is until the first monster is spawned. After that, everything, EVERYTHING, changes. Somehow, monsters act as catalysts for even more monsters, which act as a catalyst for even more monsters, and in the blink of the eye, they multiply.

This is why keeping a village, a city, clean of monsters is actually easy. Kill all of them to make the first one ridiculously improbable to spawn. But on places like the forest? A single goblin left alive will cause more goblins to spawn which will cause even more goblins to spawn and etc. And when a critical mass is achieved, monsters with similar soul signatures, like orcs or ogres in the goblin case, will start spawning and the cycle goes on and on and on.

Most common folk would argue that all monsters should perish. But on the flipside, monsters are our only source of actual, tangible, soul energy. Our only source of monster stones. And soul energy is soooo powerful, soooo beautiful. It's like someone took mana and multiplied it by infinity. It makes US do wonders. And it is what keeps the world spinning, both figuratively, and literally.

Now, I want to send you on a mission. But exactly because of what I explained, you need to be more than discreet about it. You need to actually be unseen. Because if not, You will cause panic, and you will cause me problems. And I dislike both panic AND problems. It is a mission so delicate, that for the past dozen or so years, I only undertook it myself. But, with a cataclysm on the horizon, I find myself running out of the most precious resource, time. And I rather waste your time, rather than waste my time. Ok?

So, do you accept? Yes, or no?"

"Of course I do!" I exclaimed instantly when I was finally given the chance to break her monologue.

"Just like that? You won't even inquire? What's your game?!" I really couldn't understand this NPC, even though I readily agreed, now she was glaring at me like I was some sort of planner!

"Yup. Just like that. Tell me what needs to be done." Who cares about lore and stuff?! This is a quest. A QUEST! And with such a dramatic monologue, it seems like it would pay quite a bit. Well, I've already received a skill and promised a second, and that also happens to be the coveted meditation. Bring it on!

"...I'll trust you. Break that trust, and you'll realize that not being able to die may at some cases be a curse rather than a blessing boy." She said trying to be menacing, but I couldn't stop smiling like an invalid while thinking the sweet xp that was inbound.

Judging that her threat was enough, the elder continued, FINALLY, with the quest description. "As you have probably realized, I need monster stones for both the potions that keep the population safe, as well as for my own personal research, again, all for the prosperity and safeguarding of this place... and further. Hunting goblins is way time inefficient for that, let alone that due to the wolves, there aren't even enough of them to cover my needs.

But, as I explained, monsters won't spawn where monsters aren't in the first place. And the last thing I would want is a monster surge inside the village. So, I've taken the liberty of actually... planting... some seeds. Somewhere close enough for me to be able to easily farm them, but just far away that, if managed properly, won't be a threat to the village.

The thing is, those monsters require frequent pruning. Keeping their population in check, so that they won't actually grow strong enough to start affecting a larger area. And the time to harvest them is near. So, your task is simple. After midnight, to minimize the chance of villagers actually seeing you, climb down the well. Follow the underwater stream north, and you shall come upon a small underground lake. It's basically beneath the village, but deep enough to not cause monsters to spawn up here. At the edges of the lake there should be a variant of slimes, tiny sized ones, really weak on their own, but just barely big enough to actually produce a tiny monster core. Hunt them down, but not to extinction, leaving at least twenty of them alive, but bring me at least twenty of their crystals. The rest you'll find, keep them as part of the reward.

Keep in mind boy, that if you're seen going down the well, or if people realize that there are monsters down the well, I'll personally lead the lynching mob against you. And if you overhunt them, denying me my easy farm of crystals, then I will personally hunt you as well.

Now, any questions?"

Underground lakes, crystals, loot! Everything sounds awesome! Those are the real quests, not the stupid 'hunt 50 rabbits' crap the hunters had! Not to mention, that the only important part of this wall of text was that I'm probably the first one going down there!

Quest mode chat engaged!

"Yes Elder! I'll gladly sneak unnoticed and get you those precious materials without endangering your reputation! Just one thing, since you went to all this trouble to put a monster of your choice. What can you tell me about said slimes?"

"They're baby slimes. Probably just a tiny bit harder than the average goblin, but even more stupid. Actually, completely mindless. Even though it would be an awful idea to actually waste your dagger against them, since you know, slimes and metal don't mix well, it should be even easier than the goblins for you if you use your fire elementals, since the kind that's down there is a subspecies of a water based slime."

"Stop, stop, stop. From the beginning! Why not use metal and how did you know about fire elementals!"

"Obviously, slimes corrode metal, so your weapons are useless. Let alone highly resistant to everything except blunt physical damage and magical damage. As for elementals... let's say that exactly how I knew you were a Lost soul and not a native, that's how I know you can commands elementals. And as I told you before, I'll tell you how I do that AFTER you finish the quest." She said as a matter of fact.

Quest accepted: Thin the population of the baby water slimes while remaining unseen. Reward: Soulbind, Meditation, Reputation with Grinea village. Penalties: Forced removal of Soulbind skill, Severe drop in Reputation with Grinea village, Humans, Ivory City

Ha! Who cares about penalties? It's not that I will fail. Or to be more precise, with those penalties, I can't AFFORD to fail!

The elder, which I should probably ask her name at some point because it's getting annoying to simply think her as a village elder, and those penalties indicate that she actually might be of some importance even later on, looked out of the window before shutting it close, and then turned towards me, her evil glare and intensity gone. And with a voice like a typical older villager, she smiled and beckoned. "Now, there are a few hours left till midnight, you will spend them inside here. Right? There's soup in the pot on the fireplace, help yourself!" Damn! I wasted a whole silver for dinner when the quest came with free food?!

But it was true. If I needed fire to kill those stuff, I had to craft some extra flame burst stones, since, after the last trap, I was left with exactly zero...

Looking at the dim fire, I unceremoniously pulled out my bag of coals, and emptied one-third of it in the fireplace, accidentally filling the place with coal dust. And I started cooking my very own batch of coals for the next batch of flame bursts. It took a bit concentration to ignore the coughing and the searing glare of the old lady as I was doing my best not to initiate any kind of talk, especially since the whole part of the floor in front of the fireplace has been covered in black dust, and I really didn't want to have to clean that...

Alas, before the coals even lit, her gentle (but really scary) voice sounded directly over my shoulder. "Say, boy. How do you plan to create fire to summon your elementals down in the cave? Please tell me that you're not actually going to use coals for that!"

...Ok, I'll be honest. I've totally skipped that part.

I slowly turned towards the woman looming over my shoulder, smiled as naturally as I could (that is, not at all), and then simply asked. "Wouldn't flint work? I could gather some sticks..."

At this point, she just closed her eyes, but I want to imagine that she was doing her best impression of a facepalm. Before she resigned to simply swing her head disappointed while murmuring "I'll see what I can find..." I'm pretty sure I heard her murmuring something about flint as she retreated somewhere towards the back of the house. At least I could work in peace while she was gone!

And then production started. Clamp, coal, scratch, chant, inventory, wait for mana, clamp, coal, scratch, chant, inventory, wait for mana, repeat add infinity, or, actually about thirty times. Keeping an eye on the game's clock, I diligently stopped at about a quarter before midnight. As I took a breath and stretched my arms, my gaze fell on the elder who had shifted the chair next to me and was looking straight at the burning embers. Her eyes were shining and I could swear that if they could they would have long now transformed to look star shaped.

Nodding cheerfully, she turned towards me. "Fascinating! So, just because you gave them life, they agree to be trapped into those tiny prisons for eternity. Just with the promise that at some point, you might actually use them and release them! Really fascinating, you'll HAVE to show me how exactly you do that slave contract at some point!"

It takes a certain kind of a person to turn a consumable creating skill to something akin to eternal slavery. The same exact kind of person you never want as an enemy. So, naturally, I smiled politely as I nodded my head. Better not put the answer to words, you never know when I could find myself bound under a slave contract just for saying yes to her...

Still, she seemed satisfied as she procured a single log, about the length of my elbow to my palm, and shoved it towards me. "Here, this is an everburning wood. For starters, no matter how good your vision is, down there is pitch black. Say 'ignite' while holding this log and pouring mana inside it to make it lit like a small fire. Not big enough to scare the slimes, but hopefully big enough that your keen vision would be enough to see the inside of the whole cave, and more importantly, a source of fire to summon fire elementals from. Now..."

She turned towards the window, opening, and extending her hand towards the moonlighten night sky. I felt something like a fresh gentle gush of wind all around me, but somehow it felt different. It actually felt familiar, more like... the feeling I got when I summoned elementals! Only this time, instead of being inside me, it was all around me. Watching the witch, I realized that it wasn't even around me, it was around HER, encompassing the whole room, and for a split second, I think I saw something like invisible currents flowing all around her.

You have gained skill Mana sense Lv1

What I could only quantify as 'huge' amounts of mana seemed to swirl all around her, and slowly drifting from her hand towards the night sky.

Slowly, a dark cover, like a huge, black, blanket, started covering the sky, slowly but surely blocking the stars and the moon from shedding their light. Like a huge cloud was gathering above the village.

The witch turned towards me and smiled. "How lucky, there isn't even moonlight. Truly, the best time to sneak around unseen! Now, GO!"

And, obviously, I went.