CH 3.1

Ji He walked into the depths of the bamboo forest. After a while, he lowered his head worriedly, but the mark under his feet was still displayed. Unlike earlier, the cursor was now extended backwards.

With this, Ji He could fully relinquish his concerns and continue to walk forward, not afraid of getting lost in the bamboo forest.

[Master, what are you going to do?]

‘Didn’t you suggest I complete the mission? I have to look for things nearby.’ Ji He answered the system’s words while looking for something on the ground.

After listening to his words the system didn’t dare to disturb Ji He’s task progress, so it obediently shut up.

However, Ji He suddenly remembered something and asked the system, ‘Didn’t you used to call me host before? How did it suddenly change into master?’

[I think master is more in line with your big shot aura~ If you don’t like it though, I can continue to call you host.] The system trembled with a mechanical sound as it stiffly spoke with a forced happy tone. Due to watching Ji He whack Wang Xuan over the head, the system really did think that Ji He was a big shot.

Ji He raised his eyebrows noncommittally. Just as he was about to answer, his attention was caught by something poking up not far away. He took two quick steps forward and began to dig away the surrounding soil with the small shovel in his hand.

Soon, the small bamboo shoots that were had been poking out of the soil were dug up by him.

[Ding- Task Updated]

[Distinguish Edible Plants: 1/10] 

[Skill Unlocked – Picking Lv.1] 

[Skill Unlocked – Digging Lv.1] 

‘Tem, you work a lot like online games. Do you learn from them a lot?’ Ji He listened to the system’s broadcast silently, and when the broadcast was over, Ji He casually teased the system.

The system wondered, [What is an online game?]

Ji He didn’t answer and just put the bamboo shoots he had dug up into his backpack. He knew that the things here were generally very large, but it was still terrifying to dig up bamboo shoots as long as his arm.

Refilling the overturned soil back into the pit, Ji He suddenly thought of something. He no longer wandered aimlessly in the bamboo forest, but began to seriously search for the things buried in the soil.

He soon found a second bamboo shoot in the dirt. Hearing that the completion of the task was +1, Ji He nodded with satisfaction. Sure enough there was no specified species, so grinding it out like this was fine.

It’s a pity that the two skills just unlocked didn’t show an increase, but Ji He guessed that since they were both Lv.1 they upgraded based on accumulated experience. Maybe the more they were used, the faster they would level.

With the method to complete the task known, Ji He completed it quickly.

[Ding- Task Completed]

[Distinguish Edible Plants: 10/10] 

[Reward Granted: Highlighting Mode]

?

‘Tem, explain it?’

[Master, you’ll know when you turn on the map highlighting mode~ This is a very good function~] The system continued to pinch its voice to try to show cuteness towards Ji He as Ji He listened silently. Unfortunately due to pinching up its own voice to obtain a fake ‘cutsey’ effect, the voice contrarily become more shrill and trembling.

Following the system’s instructions of operation, Ji He opened the highlight mode from the reward he had just earned. Originally, Ji He thought that the highlighted position would be displayed on the map, but he hadn’t expected it to be displayed directly through his sight.

After turning on the highlight mode, Ji He moved to the highlighted clump of grass in the distance and carefully used his shovel to dig out the things underneath.

‘This is… ginger?’

Ji He held the ginger carefully in his hand, and suddenly understood what the highlight meant. It looked like all of the things highlighted in his vision should be edible plants.

He didn’t know why there was ginger here. If they hadn’t had a highlight around them he might have missed them.

‘Tem, how long will this highlight mode last?’

Ji He kept digging ginger while he began to ask the system specific questions about the mode. If this mode could only last for a certain length of time, he would finish up with this spot as soon as possible and move to another location to see if there was anything else to grab.

[The highlight mode is permanent, but the current highlight mode level is relatively low. It can only display low-level nodes that can be picked by the master. Later on master will be able to upgrade the highlight mode by doing tasks, and then you will be able to see more things that you have not found yet.]

“…”

For a moment Ji He wanted to ask if this system allowed micro-transactions so he could directly upgrade the highlight mode to full level, but after thinking about the system’s previous words he cast the thought aside. This system probably wouldn’t let you swipe money but would have you swipe your life instead.

Still, even if he was dissatisfied with the current level of highlight mode, Ji He still felt overall quite satisfied. After all, he had just passed by this patch of grass so many times, but he hadn’t noticed the ginger in it before.

Ji He finished picking the ginger and followed the navigation trail back to camp with the bamboo shoots and ginger he had collected in his backpack. He saw several more bamboo shoots along the way, but the backpack couldn’t fit any more and they were too big to carry by hand, so he could only regrettably leave them behind. Anyways, simply leaving behind those few bamboo shoots wouldn’t cause him to lose any sleep. As long as he still had his highlight mode, Ji He could dive back into the bamboo forest at any time.