Chapter 38: The Cube 1

The team said goodbye to Jo’ra and headed to Kutch and Ormon’s place, which was not far away. It was a bit closer to a city and wasn’t that close to the dumpsters.

It was a two-bedroom apartment, simple and cozy. Kutch showed the place to Safo and Achraf repeating over and over that he would appreciate it if no one would touch his stuff. It was a tough call considering that the apartment was full of his stuff. Toys, knives, guns, all sorts of game consoles, and many other unidentified things for Safo. Safo and Achraf didn’t mind living with the rules that the owner of the place had set. They both were still too excited about the game.

O’rmon went to her room and stayed there leaving the boys with their toys. She made plans for the next day, she wanted to get her well-deserved rest and quiet.

Kutch made a soft bed for his guests in the living room and they both rushed into the game.

Safo was allowed to play only at night when he slept, to clean his day for the practice with Kutch, and to get more physical training.

Before sleep, he consumed the first part of the slimy liquid that Halazar, the Regal Advisor, sent for him. Safo didn’t feel anything changing after consuming, except sickness while drinking the thing. The liquid tasted like rancid mucus. But he overcame himself, if the disgusting juice could make him better physically he would not lose the chance because of the taste.

Soon after, they wished goodnight and good luck to each other and went back to the game.

"Okay, I will fight these mud creatures and after three days, I will delete my account and create a new one so I will have a cool skin too." Motivated Safo Nur entered the game, same as last time Luna appeared behind him.

Achraf, on his game, found the village on the map and began his voyage across half of the first cube world.

As Kutch instructed Safo Nur went to meet a Chief of the village. Every new player's first quest was to talk with him so they could get their first gift along with other things. It was a boost for new adventurers. Gift worked as a lottery giving random things, starting with some money all up to a good set of armor.

A secret quest and a character perk could also be received from the Chief. Secret quest - a unique quest that was created for every new player individually. A character perk - was also a unique gift for each character, it could be an ability, skill, or gear.

Both Luna and Safo approached the chief. Luna went first, after Chief’s speech she received some items that were sent to her inventory and notifications about further quests along with information about her new perk.

After checking the messages she told Safo that she got a Tier 1 bow with some arrows, and a few materials for armor crafting. She also received 10 Time fragments, which was the mysterious item in the game. Up to date, no one knew what they were for. Many speculations roamed the game, however, major players believed that it could be items that would be useful at 8th or 9th cubes.

Further notifications stated that Luna’s perk was an active skill called “Birds-eye view”. It allowed her to change her vision, even while being on the ground she was able to look down from the sky like a bird.

“We will change our characters anyway.” She also read about her secret quest but childishly giggling she refused to share it.

Tier 1 weapon as a gift was a sign of a good start. Generally, there were 4 tiers in the game. Beginning with Tier 0 being- the basic, that could be purchased at the village plaza for a cheap price and ending with Tier 3 being the best possible weapon or armor. Usually, Tier 3 was a reward for the most impossible quests or dropped from the Boss monsters.

While tier 0 multiplied the attack damage by 5, tier 1 could do the same at a rate from 5 to 10. Tier 1 - the regular weapons commonly dropped from low-level monsters.

Then it was Safu Nur’s turn to talk with the Chief.

He received a basic shield with +1 to defense.

2 Time fragments and 1 gold.

Gold, silver, and copper worked as a currency in a game world. Adventurers could buy potions, jewelry, craft materials, armor, and weaponry as well as many other things for money.

Safo Nur wasn't interested in his belongings for two reasons. First, Kutch told him not to use any equipment while training with mud monsters. Second, he was determined to change his skin and start the game all over, anyway.

His character's perk was: Ground's blessing. He could heal himself by standing motionless on the ground. His legs could put down roots from where he will be able to receive the healing power of nature.

Safo didn't even bother to read his secret quest. Instead, they went to the muddy pond that was located next to the village. The place was a shelter for level 1 mud monsters.

Luna ran, jumped, and sniffed everything, she even tried to taste the grass. She didn't receive money from her pack or else she wanted to spend all of her money on food. Transferring items from inventory didn't work on Cube 1.

Before starting a fight Safo Nur stopped to check his status.

[Name: WorldDestroyer

Level: 1

Exp (Experience) 0/10

HP (Health Points): 10/10

MP (Mental Points): 0/0

Strength: 0.1

Agility: 0.1

Mental Power: 0.1]

That was every new gamer’s status, all players had a similar start. Only by hunting monsters, gaining EXP, and increasing the stat points one could get stronger.

‘I think I need to change my name too, maybe something a bit humble next time.’ The “WorldDestroyer” seemed a dope name at first, but very soon he realized that it was a lame name. And on top of that Luna also had the same name as Safo Nur. Yet another reason to delete the character.

When it was 50 meters left to engage in a fight with his first monster Safo Nur heard a whistling sound passing by him. It was a wooden arrow from Luna's Branch Bow.

The bow that Luna received from the Beginner's pack gift was a Tier 1 bow. It multiplied Luna’s strength by 10. The outcome was, (0.1 Strength) × 10 = 1, that her attack power was equal to "1" when she equipped the bow.

Mud monsters had 3 HP.

Arrow inserted itself right into a dirty brown substance. Mud monsters looked like slime in anime or manga, only made of mud. They had two huge eyes and a mouth in front and long arms by their sides. Mud monsters were rather slow and couldn’t survive for long on the ground. The mud was their territory.

Once it got shot by an arrow it started its way towards Luna ignoring Safo Nur but soon stopped at the edge of the pond sending angry looks towards Luna. If it moved forward it would start losing mud and its health with it.

Safo Nur saw that the monster completely ignored him, so he chose not to engage with it too. With her bow equipped, Luna could kill this monster in three shots and the poor monster couldn’t even reach her. Bows were the perfect weapon against these creatures.

Luna though missed the next two arrows but managed to kill her enemy with the following two attempts. Fortunately, every arrow that was placed in monsters came back to her inventory after killing it. She jumped high in and went to pick up her missed arrows and went on hunting for more monsters.

Luna was enjoying her hunt and the game itself. For the first time in a very long time, she felt truly alive. She couldn't stop smiling, she was infinitely happy, the game gave her that real life took away from her.

Mud monsters weren't a big threat for Luna, very soon she became better with her bow skills and finished killing her tenth mud monster. With that, aside from Time fragments and muddy gauntlets that she looted, she received a red orb of strength. Every tenth kill of the same species or a type of monster gave an orb. There were 3 types of orbs. The red orb of strength, the green orb of agility, and the blue orb of mental power.

Each orb added one to its corresponding stat point. Each Cube world had its own rules and limitations, at Cube 1, only one orb of each color could be consumed. And a player could gather an orb from killing ten same low-level creatures. Other cubes were not like that, players needed to hunt ten different types of monsters, not below their level to fill one orb.

Monsters also had three categories, strength type, agility type, and mental user type or so-called magical creatures. At the current cube, each tenth kill of the same type of monster-filled the orb with 0.1. Meaning beginners could kill ten mud monsters and already have their strength orb filled. That meant to reach the limit, the player should kill at least 30 monsters.

The max level in Cube 1 was level 9, with the max status points of 0.9 for every type of attribute. After consuming all the orbs, adventurers could raise their status point up to a perfect number of 1.9 for strength, agility, and mental power at the time of leaving Cube 1.

Right now after killing her 10th mud monster Luna received the red orb of strength, which added 1 to her strength. Also, she gained enough exp to reach level 2.

[Name: WorldDestroyer(1)

Level: 2

Exp (Experience) 14/20

HP (Health Points): 15/15

MP (Mental Points): 0/0

Strength: 0.2+1(red orb)

Agility: 0.2

Mental Power: 0.2]