Chapter 14 – Cat Dad is P2W Whale
While Xiaomao let the customers exchange their fish with his cards, Xiaomao leisurely brought out new fish to eat, starting with the goldfish.
The taste was weird, mushy, and muddy.
It was disgusting!
Ding
<You have eaten a goldfish.>
<Your Vitality cannot be increased further than 50.>
‘Eh, goldfish increases VIT? Fine. I’ll just use them to grind my skill mastery. Next fish!’
This time, Xiaomao brought out a sardine and chew it whole in glee. The sight of Xiaomao chewing a fish attracted many players’ attention, and they took several screenshots and pictures of him.
Ding
<You have eaten a Sardine.>
<Your Wisdom has permanently increased by 1.>
Seeing the increase in his status attribute, Xiaomao meowed in a good mood.
“Nom-Nom, give me fishes, you peasant, munya!”
Because of his cute voice, more customers and other players came to his shop. A few female players even purchased fresh common fishes and pet food from NPCs and gifted them to Xiaomao.
Xiaomao happily received every gift they showered him.
On the surface, he made a cute expression like an animal in a zoo. But inwardly, he sneered at them.
‘That’s right, you peasants. Worship this king, munya!’
Ding
<You have eaten a Tuna.>
<Your Intelligence has permanently increased by 1.>
<You have eaten a Betta.>
<Your Agility has permanently increased by 1.>
<You have eaten a Koi.>
<Your Dexterity has permanently increased by 1.>
Xiaomao checked the notification panels and confirmed what fish he needed the most. He focused on eating Betta, Tuna, Sardine, and Koi fishes to increase his status attributes as highest as possible. While Xiaomao was at it, he also ate the baby fish that he got from the seaweed monsters to increase his skill mastery.
…
An hour later, while Xiaomao was waiting for the players to buy all of his cards, he chewed and swallowed the 500th fish in his mouth. Then, he burped.
Ding
<You cannot eat any more food today.>
‘Hmm?’
Xiaomao frowned. He thought that he could eat unlimited fish with the add-on passive skill. However, he reached the cap of what he could eat in a day.
Since he could not eat anything anymore, he closed the shop and checked his current status.
.
LEVEL: 1
EXP: 2,500 / 100,000
Status Attributes
STR: 50
DEX: 50
AGI: 50
VIT: 50
INT: 50
WIS: 50
Allocable Status Points: 25
.
Combat Status
ATK: 25 + 10
DEF: 25 + 10
HP: 500 / 500
MP: 500 / 500
.
Protein from Fish (Passive) – Mastery 6.67%
Your status attributes permanently increase whenever you eat rare fishes or rare fish monsters.
Current Effect – Increase any status attribute by 1 per fish. (Max 50 Points per attribute).
.
Xiaomao was delighted. He reached the cap that his status attributes could grow at the current skill’s mastery level.
With the extra boost from the raw stats, Xiaomao believed that he was ready for some hardcore grinding. But first, he needed to practice and get used to the upgraded agility and dexterity.
As soon as Xiaomao jumped to get out of the cardboard box, he accidentally leaped two meters high!
“MUNYA?!”
Panicked, Xiaomao wiggled and flapped his tentacles like wings while he was suspended the in air. A second later, he fell to earth.
The eight tentacles straightened and pointed toward the ground. As soon as Xiaomao landed, the tentacles bent and absorbed the fall impact.
He suffered no fall damage.
It didn’t hurt at all.
On the contrary, Xiaomao felt that his tentacles acted like a flexible spring, ready to use the momentum to jump again.
Because Xiaomao wasn’t used to the body of a catopus, the tentacles reacted by reflex. They kicked the ground and jumped again.
This time, Xiaomao jumped five meters high!
“MUNYA!!”
The sudden jump astonished Xiaomao and the busy players in the market. They looked at the cat.
“What’s he doing?”
“Is he playing?”
“I think he’s testing his flying technique.”
“It’s weird. How can those small tentacles produce such force?”
Xiaomao couldn’t hear what everybody was gossiping about. He slowly adjusted his balance and controlled his body in midair.
Upon landing on the ground the 2nd time, Xiaomao negated the fall damage with his tentacles and jumped again.
He jumped up three meters this time. He managed to control a bit of his strength, but he didn’t know to stop jumping.
Xiaomao hopped around the market for five minutes before he managed to learn the bunny hop technique. He felt like he played a pogo jumper with his tentacles.
‘Okay! With this, I can travel faster. It’s odd, but it’s better than running with eight legs like spiders.’
Xiaomao mustered his tentacle strength and jumped with full force. He launched himself five meters to the sky and landed on the rooftop of a concrete building.
Upon landing, he took a breather and scanned the city on the high ground.
This newbie town was one of a hundred starting villages. It was located in the far north of a small continent, far from province capital cities and major cities.
As the game didn’t provide a system map or any guide in-game, he could only inspect the surroundings with his eyes. He also looked at the sky, looking for the North Star and a certain constellation.
‘I’m lucky that I got spawned in the same town as my previous life. But I don’t know the exact location of the first world boss to trigger the main scenario quest. I need to find the branch manager of the adventurer guild first.’
Xiaomao jumped down from the roof and rushed toward the town hall.
The town hall was located in the east of the city. It was a luxurious marble building with a round roof and four tall towers, which looked similar to a mosque from afar.
Over a thousand players crowded in front of the building. They formed queues and waited to take to the NPCs, who had been sitting behind long counters inside the town hall. The end of the queue held a wooden sign [End of Queue Here] to inform other players that they needed to go there if they had any businesses with the town hall NPCs.
Xiaomao didn’t join the queue right away. He hopped on a lamp post to look at everyone from above.
“Oh, look. A cat!”
One of the players spotted Xiaomao. Yet, not many people paid attention to Xiaomao or the girl as they were minding their businesses.
Xiaomao also ignored his fans. He calmly opened the game’s cash shop to search for a specific item to buy.
What Xiaomao was looking for was the town hall pack, which enabled him to use the premium warehouse of the town hall.
However, before he searched for the items, he checked the discount promotions on the front page.
And he found what he had been searching for.
…
Premium Adventurer Package (VIP)
By purchasing this package, you will get the following items:
1. Premium Adventurer Backpack (Permanent)
2. Premium Adventurer Warehouse (Permanent)
3. Premium Adventurer Guild Pass (Permanent)
4. Premium Merchant Guild Pass (Permanent)
5. Premium Labor Guild Pass (Permanent)
DISCOUNTED PRICE – 88,888 PACT
…
Premium Adventurer Backpack (Permanent) (Consumable)
Normal Price – 30,000 PACT
Upon consumption, permanently unlock Premium Backpack, allowing your character to have 100 extra inventory slots.
…
Premium Adventurer Warehouse (Permanent) (Consumable)
Normal Price – 30,000 PACT
Upon consumption, permanently unlock Premium Warehouse at every town hall. Players can access their premium warehouse in every city, town, and village, and the warehouse can store up to 1,000 types of items. All equipment, bound items, quest items, and unique items cannot be stored in the premium warehouse.
…
Premium Adventurer Guild Pass (Permanent)
Normal Price – 20,000 PACT
This Guild Pass is bound to the character. Can be stored in Premium Backpack.
If you carry this pass with you, you can accept public quests from every city, town, and village’s adventurer guild. Quest difficulty, ranks, and rewards depend on your quest records, level, and performance.
…
Premium Merchant Guild Pass (Permanent)
Normal Price – 20,000 PACT
This Guild Pass is bound to the character. Can be stored in Premium Backpack.
If you carry this pass with you, you can accept commission quests from every city, town, and village’s merchant guild. Quest difficulty, ranks, and rewards depend on your quest records, level, and performance.
…
Premium Labor Guild Pass (Permanent)
Normal Price – 20,000 PACT
This Guild Pass is bound to the character. Can be stored in Premium Backpack.
If you carry this pass with you, you can either employ slaves or register official slaves at every city, town, and village’s labor guild.
Note: You need a proper resident for your slaves. Please consult the local mayor, castellan, or noble of your affiliated city for more information.
…
Xiaomao sighed. He had expected this, but it was still expensive.
Extra inventory slots weren’t that necessary, but they were nice to have. Soon, Xiaomao would need them to store more items as 100 inventory slots would never be enough for mid-game and late-game content.
However, the other three items on the list were a must-have if a player wanted to play this game for years as players needed them to access some features in the game, such as adventurer guild, merchant guild, and labor guild.
The Adventurer Guild gave random daily quests, weekly quests, and monthly quests to players. This was the main source of Contribution EXP.
The Merchant Guild, on the other hand, was the main source of gold coins as they gave out money-making commissions, such as escort missions, delivery missions, or crafting missions. They also provided daily quests, weekly quests, and monthly quests like how adventurer guilds did.
The Labor Guild was their official name, but players called them “Slave Guild”. They sold slaves to players, and players with a slave-management-related job could bring their captives to brand and register them as official slaves. They could even auction pets, humanoid slaves, or tamed monsters by using the Labor Guild as a medium!
In short, getting all of them would make Xiaomao’s life a lot easier in the game. These were true P2W items that he needed.
Although there were cheaper versions of these items, such as 7-day, 30-day, 60-day, 90-day, or 180-day versions, Xiaomao wasn’t interested in them as the expenditure for extending the expiry dates in the future would be more expensive than buying the permanent ones now.
Xiaomao gritted his teeth and looked at his remaining token balance.
90,700 PACT
“Munyaaaa.”
Xiaomao cried. He pressed the purchase button and sobbed as he watched his money flying away.
CHA-CHING
1,812 PACT remained.
‘It’s alright. It’s a long-term investment. I’ll get all of them back soon… very soon.’
Xiaomao pressed the Premium Adventurer Backpack and Premium Adventurer Warehouse items in his inventory and activated them. Both items vanished, but the authority of his character was granted.
Ding
<You have used Premium Adventurer Backpack.>
<You have unlocked premium backpack inventory slots.>
<You have used Premium Adventurer Warehouse.>
<You have unlocked premium warehouses in every city, town, and village.>