Chapter 15: Spicing it Up

Chapter 15: Spicing it Up

After obtaining leather and boar meat Winter scanned his surroundings to look at the knocked over trees. An idea popped into his head and he took out his wood cutting axe. With it, he was easily able to harvest logs from them. Next he gathered a few small leftover pieces of wood together and lit a fire to cook the boar meat on, relaxing and eating it once it was done.

The meat was chewy and tasted awful, akin to a rubbery old shoe, but it helped recover his stamina back to full over the next few minutes. His mana took a bit longer to regenerate by itself, but eventually he was as good as new. He stood up, dusted himself off, stretched out his arms and legs began searching for the next boar.

It didn’t take long to find one and once he had he started the process anew. It was easier exhausting the second one now that he knew what to expect and how to utilize the surrounding environment to the fullest. He tried to take advantage of the fact that the boars could be used to help him level woodcutting if he had them ram into the right type of trees, and during just the second encounter, he got some significant improvements.



Level Up!: Minor Heal reached level 2!

Attribute Up!: You’ve gained +1 Agility

Attribute Up!: You’ve gained +1 Constitution

Congratulations, you have reached level 2!: 3 attribute points available, +24 health, +10 mana!



He took a moment to catch his breath as the second boar collapsed, navigating to his character window and looking over his stats. With each level he’d be able to assign 3 points to any of his main attributes but he wasn’t sure yet which he should focus on. Constitution would help with his stamina, agility with his movement, intelligence with his magic power, spirit with his magic regeneration. Strength could help him block more and help with taking the heavy blows. The stats had obvious offensive benefits as well but Winter could ignore that aspect of them given his intended playstyle.

“Leveling fast... recovery rate would be most important, right? Constitution and spirit... for now let’s get those up to lower my downtime.” He thought out loud. He added 2 points to his constitution, and 1 to his spirit, and saw that his stats reflected the changes once he applied the attributes. Each point of constitution was raising his maximum stamina by 2, and points in spirit were raising his mana recovery rate by roughly 1mp per minute. His stamina recovery was a percentage of maximum based on his hunger, so the higher the maximum got, the faster it’d recover on its own.

Feeling satisfied with these choices, he pulled out the knife again and headed over to his second victim’s corpse, pausing for a moment as he stood over it to wipe sweat from his forehead once more. It was quiet around him, sirene even. The sound of the wind blowing through the trees, birds singing in the distance.

He took in a deep breath of fresh forest air and the scents of the nearby vegetation filled his nose. He didn’t want to admit it to himself completely yet, but he closed his eyes to enjoy the moment - he was starting to like the game.

“Right, let’s get to it then.”

Harvest boar, harvest logs, cook meat, recover, find the next boar, run it to exhaustion, repeat. Winter followed this process for the next couple of hours.



Level Up!: Minor Heal reached level 3!

Level Up!: Shield Mastery reached level 5!



“I uh... I’m playing the game a bit much, right? Just like David did.” Eli said aloud as he thought about it.

“Is that why you’re making that face? Oh please.” She rolled her eyes at him. “You’re not nearly as bad as I was when I was younger.” She smiled as she leaned up against the counter to face him.

“If we’re both playing, then I don’t want it to be like it was with David, where only one of us sits all day in the Simbox...” Eli suggested before taking in a mouthful of food.

“That would be nice, but we’re trying to save up for your schooling right now, remember? Simboxes ain't cheap.” His mother raised her eyebrow at him.

“That’s what I want to use the game for, if I can get enough currency in-game I can convert it into real world money and buy one.” He was reluctant to tell her his other goal in the game, as he knew if she heard he was trying to make David delete his character, she wouldn’t approve.

“Sure Eli, but I want you to prioritize your education over playing together.” She replied sternly.

“I can handle both, don’t worry.” Eli replied confidently.

“Is that so, hm?” She smiled. “How about you focus on your Exams, and if you do well, I’ll try calling in some favors with my boss to try and get my hands on one of the discarded Simboxes lying around at work. They’ve got some in storage that are just missing a few replacement parts to work, and one of my coworkers' spouses knows how to repair them. Said they’d be willing to do it for the price of parts if I could get the box, which at first look seemed to be under 200$.”

“That sounds... really planned out already.” Eli stared quizzically.

“Yeah... I was going to do all that anyway.” She smirked back at him. “Derrick's not the only one excited you’re playing something, gotta use this summer to show you what your old lady is made of!” She grinned with pride while flexing one arm and patting her biceps with the other. “Kalmoore’s kinda far though, so, be a good son and find out for me how I can get there from Lanusk.” She said this with a poor helpless girl voice to try and garner sympathy, and Eli bought into it with absolute enthusiasm.

“Y-yeah, sure, I’ll figure it out. Just a warning though, I’m gonna be working hard to make money, so I probably won’t be riding horses with you much.”

“You better not be. Once your school's paid for you’ll have to buy us the new Simbox models that came out, heard they up the immersion significantly, with auto-cleaning functionality. Dream play enabled... Oh, and momma wants one of those them there Auto-kitchens for the house.” She winked.

“Just how much money are you expecting me to make?” Eli nearly spit out his food, knowing state-of-the-art hardware she was describing cost about as much as an Autocar.

“You’ve got all summer, right? So, a lot. I mean, as long as you know what you’re doing. I don’t think you were dying to a boar 3 days straight just for fun, right?” Her devious smile returned.

“I know what I’m doing.” Eli grinned.