Reign of the Hunters

Chapter 3 The Side Quest

Fate Officials were despicable.

Not only that, they had shrouded the closed beta in mystery. The server launch was announced out of the blue as well.

12 days before its launch, Fate popped out just like that, out of nowhere. As if the 10 years of silence from its developers were in preparation for the 12 days of frenzy that followed.

In these 12 days, there was only one word left in the world, Fate.

As mentioned, Fate’s officials were despicable.

Even with their endless streams of promotion, there was very few announcements or content about the game on its official website.

Things such as Character Traits did not even exist in the closed beta, not to mention on the official website.

The time was 13:30:51, 51 seconds after the server’s launching.

Even with 9999 other players logging into the game with Ye Ci, all of them were still tangled with race and class combination, as well as those damned Character Traits.

Nobody could achieve a First Blood yet.

Although being sure about that, Ye Ci did not dare to let her guard down.

Everything had an exception.

She headed straight for the house at the village chief’s left.

Although the quest was to kill the rabbits in the “surrounding areas” of the village, Ye Ci knew from her knowledge of the game that killing the rabbits behind the house was sufficient to fulfill the “Rabbit Hunting” quest.

The rabbits at the spot were highly concentrated. There were around 30 of them, but the downside was that the respawn rate was slow.

Nevertheless, the spot was very close to the village chief, making it the perfect place for Ye Ci. Besides, she only needed 15 kills to complete the quest.

She equipped the newbie equipments gifted by the System and charged into the horde of rabbits, swinging her dagger.

Even at level 1, the rabbit’s attack damage were not low. Each of their attacks dealt 2 to 5 damage points to Ye Ci.

Ye Ci was very adapted to playing as a Human sorceress. She was able to maintain an outstanding positioning while dodging attacks with a character that had very low speed and agility. With her playing as the agile and fast Elven Huntress, she shed a tear of joy.

It was such a boon to play as a class with high mobility in the early stage of this game.

Ye Ci slew 15 rabbits under 3 minutes and managed to collect 6 Rabbit Teeth and 7 Rabbit Meat. She wasted no time to head back to the village chief after collecting 10 Rabbit Teeth and Rabbit Meat.

They were the quest items required for the follow-up quest. Although the First Blood for the “Bunny Hunting” quest was her priority, she could not suppress the greed to get First Blood for the next 2 missions and therefore took the risk. She silently prayed that nobody had completed the quest before her.

“Young adventurer, you’re the bravest individual I’ve ever met, in such a short time….” the village chief was bullshitting as usual.

Ye Ci immediately activated the “skip conversation” option.

It was common to offend an NPC if one interrupted or skipped the NPC’s dialogue, as everything in Fate had 99% realism.

One could have the sense of smell, touch, and sight in Fate, just like one did in the real world. Every NPC in the game was capable of higher thought functions. Every single action could affect an NPC’s view of a player, which would subsequently affect the quality and quantity of the quests given out by the NPC’s.

Although certain quests would still be given to players that were hated by NPC’s, they could only obtain the high-valued, somewhat rare Random Quests through their high Intimacy with NPC’s.

This was what made players in Fate appear humble in front of NPC’s, even when they were willing to kill each other.

Ye Ci, however, skipped the village chief’s dialogue without fear, not because she did not care about her Intimacy level with the village chief. This was due to one of the character traits that she had chosen — Sly.

The description of Sly was vague: Sometimes, you might need to do just that.

Sly was placed as one of the last options as a Character Attribute. On top of its vague description, most of the players would not notice it.

No one actually noticed it at the beginning of Fate.

Not many chose such an attribute while creating a character. After all, who would want something negative to be included in their Character Attributes?

But a newbie had picked Sly as one of his attributes by pure chance and, out of sheer coincidence, learnt about the true nature of the attribute. Once it made its way into the forum, it became the regret of hundreds of thousands of players. A large number of them even recreated their accounts to acquire Sly.

There was only one simple reason to that. Sly enabled a player to interrupt or skip an NPC’s dialogue when interacting with it. The NPC would still recognise that the player was listening to it attentively and with good attitude.

One did not simply look down on such attribute. Its usefulness to Red Named players or those that had low prestige points was very high. Some would even complain that the attribute was broken.

The village chief gave Ye Ci a nod and a satisfied smile even after his dialogue was skipped. “Young adventurer, you’ve contributed greatly to the village and you have a very sincere attitude. The Jiama Continent shall prosper because of youngsters like you.”

A system notification rang beside Ye Ci’s ear right after the village chief finished his speech, “Congratulations for being the first player to complete the quest “Rabbit Hunting”, do you want your ID to remain hidden?”

After the baptism of her previous life’s mistakes, Ye Ci had learnt the important lesson of humility. Her priority was to take care of her parents while simultaneously leading a simple life. Reputation was no longer the thing that she craved for.

She did not hesitate to press “Yes”, after which golden letters flooded the System channel, accompanied by a soft female voice.

“Congratulations player **** for achieving First Blood for the quest ‘Rabbit Hunting’. Rewards: Gold 1, system prestige 1000 points.”

“Congratulations player **** for achieving First Blood for the quest ‘Rabbit Hunting’. Rewards: Gold 1, system prestige 1000 points.”

……

Ye Ci looked at the time and let out a long sigh. It was 13:36:42.

She had gotten the First Blood.

She noticed that her palms were sweating, and she couldn’t suppress the laughter that escaped her lips. Since when had she become so nervous?

Ye Ci was alone in the newbie village. This was why she missed all the cursing from the other players that saw the announcement.

Her entire attention was focused on the village chief. Her mind was filled with thoughts of the thread on the forum, the activation of the one and only side quest. Was it possible? Was it even remotely possible!?

“Ah, young adventurer, I can see some traces of gracefulness possessed by the late Elven King Dau’er on you. Are you interested in some stories of the past?”

It’s here! Ye Ci almost jumped with joy.

It’s true! What was said on that thread was real!

She called herself the Great Encyclopedia of Fate, but in all her knowledge and understanding, there was no such quest in the Elven newbie villages.

No, to be accurate, it wasn’t her ignorance.

The only reason she did not know of the existence of such quest was because she entirely had no chance of coming across this quest! Nobody else did either.

“Of course.” Ye Ci replied with a warm tone that she had never used before.

“A long long time ago…” The village chief began his illustration, but Ye Ci did not have the time to listen to his story. She did not know how long it would take.

She once again chose to skip the dialogue, saving it down just in case she needed it in the future.

“You will now embark on a journey following Dau’er’s footsteps. Oh young adventurer, this is a road full of hardship. Are you willing to walk down this path?” The village chief’s dialogue was cut short to the part where he offered a quest to Ye Ci.

“Yes, I am willing.”

“Head to the Icy Cave and bring me the fang of Shator!”

Ye Ci was no stranger to Icy Cave. It was one of Fate’s top 10 preparation dungeons. The difficulty was moderate, but its Normal and Elite difficulty settings was why players from level 3 to 15 flocked to the place.

In her last life, she had graduated from Icy Cave at lvl 18 with a complete set of Blue Equipment.

She was so familiar with this dungeon that she could complete it with her eyes closed.

Shator was Icy Cave’s normal difficulty BOSS. The lowest level requirement was lvl 3, but considering that she was doing it solo, she decided to brave the dungeon when she reached lvl 5.

Of course, one of the more important reason was that she could learn two basic Huntress skills at lvl 5 — Slash and Bow Proficiency. Although a Huntress’s trademark skill, Pet Raising, could only be learned at lvl 8, Ye Ci was not worried.

As a high leveled mage, one with enough SOLO experience and knowledge of everything there was to know about Fate, Ye Ci trusted herself to handle the dungeon once she had learned Bow Proficiency.

“Your honor, I will do my best to complete the assignment.” Ye Ci placed her left hand on her chest, spread out her right hand, and bowed. She could immediately hear the System’s hint: “Your Intimacy level with the village chief has increased by 10.”

That action was the sincerest form of greeting in Fate. When one greeted an NPC in such way, it could increase his or her Intimacy level with the NPC, but it only worked once.

It was not a secret in the later stage of the game, but it was currently one of the ways to stay ahead of others.