40 Traveling

The next morning, Li Wei woke up to the alarm he set up. The sun was just barely appearing at the Horizon. He quickly prepared himself and went down for a quick breakfast, it was very early but there were already a few players seated in the dining hall. He had already planned his journey and what he needed to do now was to go to the stables to rent a horse.

He needed to travel a rather long distance and could only come back in time if he used a horse. There was no public transport there, players needed to move like in medieval times. Although teleportation portals existed, these only linked cities together and had a significant price.

Li Wei quickly made his way through the city. Many players were actually up and were leaving the city, it was different from the beginner's town, players here worked a lot harder. It did not take long to reach the stables where he was greeted by an NPC, he was a bearded man whose name was Marcus.

A large variety of horses could be seen everywhere being tended by some young men. Li Wei knew nothing about horses, he was very impressed at the sight of these animals which were quite rare in the cities of the real world.

Through negotiations, he booked a horse for a week for 2 gold. The company owning the stables operated through the whole empire, one could take a horse and leave it in any town or city's stables after use, they did not necessarily have to come back to their starting point. However, in case the horse perished or was severely injured, a fine would be levied.

Li Wei was quickly invited to test his horse on a training field beside the stables. Marcus was happily boasting the merit of the horse he brought to Li Wei and taught him how to properly guide the horse. With that information in mind, Li Wei quickly jumped on it with the help of Marcus. The horse struggled for a moment but was quickly patted and calmed down by Marcus.

Li Wei felt an awkward feeling on top of the horse. The constant motion made him feel really uncomfortable. The game did simplify the task since horses were the main means of transport by giving every player the "Riding" skill. Even though it did not appear in the character window, its effects were already active or else, Li Wei would have already been thrown away with the rough way he jumped onto the horse.

After walking the horse around for a little bit, the feeling of discomfort gradually disappeared. He gradually increased the pace and even guided the horse through an obstacle course. The feeling of speed was marvelous but he instantly felt sick as the horse started to jump over haystacks.

With a laugh, the bearded man quickly came to his rescue and recomforted him" It's totally normal, it takes some time to get used to horse riding, it's already impressive that you did not fall from the jump"

...

A few minutes later, Li Wei was leaving the city on top of the horse. The guard at the north gate did not stop him but players who saw him did send him a curious look. Riding a horse implied that the players were going to cover long distances but normally, players doing that would be on an escort mission to nearby towns.

Having gotten used to the horse, Li Wei was silently enjoying the view, it was a great feeling to be at this height.

He quickly arrived in front of the dungeon, since he was going north, it was inevitable for him to go near the dungeon. But as he was quietly passing by, he was stopped by a group of guards stationed near the entrance.

"Hello, adventurer! There is an emergency mission being released, would you like to participate?" asked one of the guard.

"An emergency? What happened?" curiously asked Li Wei.

"Actually it is not really an emergency but during the night, the dungeon went through a modification, it is a normal thing for the dungeon to mutate once in a while but this time, the first 10 floors all changed at the same time, we are now looking for adventurers to explore and map these floors, will you help us?"

At the same time, a voice was heard,

[System prompt: You have received the quest,"Map the dungeon", do you want to accept?]

[Information]

Walk through the first ten floors of the dungeon, a map will be automatically recorded as you explore the floors,

Reward: 2000 exp per floor

Completion: 0%

Note: This quest is being given to all players near the dungeon simultaneously, the rewards for each floor can only be claimed once, please make haste!

"This..." Li Wei was instantly surprised, a quest at that moment, but he quickly noticed other players being stopped by other guards, it was clear that the competition was going to be fierce. 2000 exp per floor was huge, though it would take about 1 hour to fully explore a floor if they ignored fighting against monsters, this represented a massive amount of exp.

He hesitated for a while but eventually decided to reject the quest. It would take him a whole hour for just 1 floor and he did not know how many players were already working on this quest. He preferred to continue on his journey; the guards did not seem disappointed, they simply wished him safe travels.

As he was leaving, he saw a large group of Stone Defenders approaching, it was clear that they would be taking advantage of the quest. Quickly moving away, Li Wei took the opportunity to send a quick message to Cai Wenji, informing him of the event.

Not waiting for an answer, he lightly kicked the horse, making it accelerate and quickly left the area. There was a long distance to travel, all he could see around him were farms and fields. Occasionally, he would see some farmers tending to their fields or animals, some would wave at him while others would just completely ignore him.

A few hours later, Li Wei was still quietly riding the horse, he started to feel bored, the landscape was very repetitive, although the farms became rarer, endless fields were still in view. That was one of the issues with traveling, there was nothing productive he could do meanwhile.

"Maybe I should have borrowed a book at the library or something," thought Li Wei. Still, he felt that he made the right choice, going to Abe's forest was a good way to break from the monotony of hunting monsters daily. It was also a good way to explore the world and not restrict himself to the city.

As he was deep in thoughts, he suddenly got a message from the guild chat, "All available players of the guild are to meet quickly at the inn, contribution points will be given for presence!"

"Just what is happening?" thought Li Wei. He only left the city for half a day, what could have already happened?

With a quick exchange of message with Cai Wenji, he learned that an event was taking place at the dungeon. While exploring the floors, the players came across secret rooms and were now fighting for the treasures inside.

The Fleeting Clouds Sect itself was gathering its troop to fight for the treasures and so a message was sent to each guild affiliated to the sect. However, Li Wei decided to ignore that, he was already too far from the dungeon to come back in time. It would be better for him to continue on his journey when he explained it to Cai Wenji, the latter also approved of his decision and then left to focus on the event.

"Ahh, maybe I should have accepted the quest, I might have been the one to find the treasures first." sighed Li Wei. But the opportunity was already gone.

...

A few hours later, the sun was about to set as Li Wei finally arrived near a nameless forest. He had finally left the farmers' fields and was now in complete wilderness. He quickly jumped off the horse, the animal also had its own fatigue level, although it had much better endurance than humans, it still looked very happy to see that they were stopping for the night.

Li Wei quickly took out the provisions for the horse. Marcus at the stables offered those together with the horse as he would need to feed it for the duration, it was all included in the price he paid.

"Good girl," said Li Wei as he patted the horse, he silently attached the horse to one of the nearby trees, the rope was long enough to allow the horse to move a bit, but it could not run away. There was no danger in leaving the horse outside, despite its appearance, it was a level 15 beast. Although it was not at the level of war horses, a kick from it could easily push Li Wei away.

Besides, this forest could be considered to be very safe, sheltering only creatures below level 10. The night cycle would slightly strengthen the beasts but as long as he did not set his camp in the middle of the forest, there would be no issue.

Having taken care of the horse, Li Wei proceeded in setting up the camp. It was an extremely easy task, collecting some wood for a fire camp did not take long while the tent could be set automatically. It would have been too complex to have to build the tent, it just came out as a triangular shelter as Li Wei took it out his inventory.

With everything ready, it was time for a quick session of [Gliding Steps] before dinner.

It was already the 3rd time Li Wei was practicing these moves. He already got quite used to it, his body did not tremble as much when he had to stand on tiptoe. 30 minutes later, the system prompt finally came:

[System prompt: You have completed a training cycle of [Gliding Steps], completion rate: 80%]

"This? How come it is only 80%?" asked Li Wei to himself. He was sure that he did get more proficient than last time, but why did the completion rate actually decrease? He thought for a while and finally found the reason.

It was due to his environment, using the training center did come with unseen benefits. What would be the point of paying for a training area if there were no benefits? Training there boosted the completion rate by about 10% which made it totally worth the price. Additionally, fatigue increased at a slower rate at the training center.

He took a quick look at his character window to find that his [gliding steps] was now displaying 43%. it would not be long before he would be able to use that technique.

With nothing else to do, he decided to hunt for a bit in the forest, even with the night cycle, he was confident since the beast there were supposedly very weak. Although horse riding during the entire day did bring him some exp, it was far from a day of hunting. Seeing his exp bar so close to being full, he could not help but want to fill it immediately.

Even with the camp already set up, Li Wei set out and hunted on the outskirt of the forest, he did not go too far from the tent. But he did not hunt for long, there was still a lot of traveling to do the next day and he could not afford too much fatigue for now.

...

An hour later, Li Wei was finally lying under his tent. Rolling for a bit, he still failed to fall asleep. It was a completely different environment, the lack of comfort from a bed and the constant sounds of the wild prevented him from resting properly. Sleeping outside was a new experience for Li Wei, he could not help but tense when he heard the sudden rustling of leaves caused by the beasts.

Unable to sleep, he started to recall the past few days and remembered that he promised Bright Sun to find a way to improve the Gliding Steps for her. Now that he had time, he pondered over the problem for a while. He was definitely sure that this technique was more meant for men than women. It was just an intuition at first but when he thought about it, men and women were different.

Li Wei did have some knowledge of biology since influenced by his peers, medicine was the career path he chose to take when he would attend university. Leaving aside the difference in muscle mass, Li Wei knew that women had larger pelvis than men which results in different hip joints and allowed for a wider range of movement.

With this clue in mind, Li Wei started to think about his own movements when he did the technique, what needed to be changed for it to be more appropriate for women? He had no idea; his knowledge in the human anatomy was very shallow, but following his own intuition, he came up with some possible modifications in the movements, they were nothing major, but they would put in more stress on the hip joints. There was no way for him to test his hypothesis, he could only wait to go back and ask Bright Sun about it.

Unbeknown to him, his mind slowly drifted away and as the image of the scene of Sun Rose and Bright Sun at the trading district appeared in his mind, he finally fell asleep.