Soul Art Online

Soul Art Online 

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 3: Llyne

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- Arthas -

I woke up to the sound of Veena's call and quickly gathered myself.

We had camped after taking a bath.

While I normally slept in caves or at the top of trees in a sleeping bag, she had somehow ordered a tent from her recent income.

I didn't even know the beginner's village would have such things.

Still, we both didn't share the tent….despite her invitation.

I offered to guard her while she slept and she would do the same for me.

This was still a forest area and we never knew what could happen.

She liked the plan and agreed. Although before sleeping, she scattered some kind of powder which I later found out was a Repelling Powder.

It did exactly as the name suggested.

A low grade repelling powder kept animals of Tier 1 away.

I woke up and stretched before leaving the tent only to see Veena cooking something on a bonfire.

"Good Morning, Arthas." She smiled at me as I came out of the tent. "It was already morning so I decided to prepare some breakfast for us."

She removed the pot from the bonfire and opened it to reveal boiled eggs.

There were already two plates ready with sandwiches and she added the eggs after peeling the shells off to the plates. "There, all ready."

"....thank you."

"Oh don't mind it. I did say that I will take care of the expenses of the trip, didn't I?"

"You have already done more than I could ask for during the hunt. This is…."

"And I gained experience from the hunt too. It was something we both agreed to. Now wash up and get ready. You don't want the food to get cold."

I nodded and went to the pond to wash.

We had a simple breakfast and while she cleaned everything up, I packed the Tent and gave it to her.

We talked about some random topics.

Finally, we set off for the Town of Llyne to complete our journey.

The rest of the journey was quite uneventful as we didn't stop anywhere to rest or hunt.

While we would have loved to do so, first, we were in a different area now, and the level of animals near the area was higher. Secondly, Veena didn't have any of her special pouches anymore so we didn't dare take any risk.

It was late in the afternoon that I saw huge walls in the distance.

The Town of Llyne was up ahead.

After arriving, we saw a big wooden gate with two guards.

Veena took the lead and spoke to the two guards.

We had to pay some money at the gate and were easily allowed entry.

Welcome to Llyne

A message flashed in front of my eyes and I stopped for a second.

Veena's steps halted so she must have seen the message too.

We looked at the town which looked like a town right out of mediaeval Europe. Stone buildings with red tiled roofs, people going around the place using carriages and horses.

The roads were paved with a stone which looked quite similar to granite 

"What's the plan now?" She asked me.

"Let's find a place to stay first. Then we can go around and search for information and share whatever we find. And finally, we can sell the things we've hunted." I proposed.

She was good at communicating with people and thus could get information from places which I couldn't. I wasn't so arrogant that I wouldn't accept that she was better at such things than myself.

"That sounds like a good plan."

We asked around and found an inn.

The cost of renting a room in this town was ten times more than back in the village.

It was understandable but surprising.

We booked two rooms and left outside to collect information.

I asked for the Hunter's Association or as they called it here Hunter's Lodge to try and see if there was a quest for T4 Class for a Hunter.

From what I learned, the town had a separate commercial area where most of the associations in the town were.

With some directions from the people, I was able to walk there in twenty minutes.

I saw the Archer's Guild, Adventurer's Guild, Blacksmith's Guild, etc, each grander than the other.

The Merchant's Association was on the other side of the town near the market.

The Hunter's Lodge was a similar building, completely made of stone.

It had the emblem of the Hunter's Lodge on top of the huge gate.

On entering the building, I directly went to the counter.

The receptionist was named Sasha.

"Hello, what can I do for you?"

"My name is Arthas. I am from the Redwick Village." I placed my Hunter's Badge on the desk. "I recently became a Hunter and wanted to register here."

"Oh! A new hunter from Redwick. How is that old man Gunter doing?" She asked, as she took the badge and started the procedure.

"He is fine. Mostly enjoying his semi-retired life."

"Hahahaha he has always been like that." She handed me my badge back and laughed. "At the Llyne Hunter's Lodge, we have eight advisors who assist the Hunters. I am your advisor. You can submit your quests to me as well as ask me any of your doubts. I look forward to working with you, Arthas."

"Thank you. I did have a few questions and was wondering if you could answer them."

"Sure. Ask away."

"What is the next class advancement for Hunters?"

"Oh! Thinking about a Class Advancement already? Quite ambitious I see. Good, I like it. Class Advancement is a complicated thing. There can be several branches you can be qualified for and several rare ones are unknown so you will have to figure them out for yourself. We, at the Hunter's Lodge do have a few standard ones. You can check and see if you see something you like." She brought out a brown coloured leather bound book from one of the cupboards behind her and handed it to me.

I opened the book and took a seat nearby.

The book explained about the Job System in quite details.

As Sasha told me earlier, the Job Trees were complicated.

Methods to reach till the T5 level was available quite easily.

It was when people wanted to go beyond T5 that the real problem began.

Not all classes had the same upper limit and if one cannot unlock a higher Class, they can never advance.

This makes a huge difference in their power levels.

For example, a level cap T5 will be level 150 while a level cap T6 will be level 210, getting 60 extra levels from the T6 Class.

And generally, all classes which are that advanced give a huge stat gain which makes a great difference.

Hundreds of stats of difference can make T6 Players be in a league of their own when compared to a common T5.

This is why most people kept the way to advance to higher Classes a secret and any type of knowledge about them was one of the most valuable products in this world.

In fact, the social hierarchy of this world was greatly dependent on this as well.

For example, anyone with a T6 Class could be given the title of a noble by the government and they could rise in Rank as their Tier Increased. They could also open private Guilds of their own.

To put things into perspective, the King of this Country was a T8 Swordsmaster and was the strongest person in the country and there were only six such countries. Other countries only had T7 Kings and were far smaller.

Tier 9 Jobs were legendary and Tier 10 was almost the thing of Myths.

The Hunter Class Tree was also only up to T5 in this book.

It had several options for a T4 Job.

The standard one was the Ranger Class.

It was basically an advanced version of the Hunter Class.with greater stats and skills.

There were a few non-standard ones, one of which was something I qualified for example, Bounty Hunter and Mercenary.

There was also the fact that this book only contained the legal Class Trees Apart from these, there were the illegal Class Trees which are not included in the books.

Apart from this, many Jobs are race specific which means only people of certain races can get those.

For the Ranger Job, I just had to level up my Hunter to the max level and pass another test at the Hunter's Lodge to get the badge.

The Ranger Class further branches off in three parts, Combat Ranger, Snipping Ranger, and Trapping Ranger. Unfortunately, the method to reach those was not recorded here. I will have to go to a bigger town or maybe the capital to find that.

Apart from this, the rarity of Classes also mattered as rarer Classes gave a greater stat gain and allowed someone to fight ones with higher Tier Classes.

There was also the fact that once someone reached T6, levelling up became extremely hard.

I also found something important.

Turns out that people are supposed to take their Hunter's Test in towns not the villages.

There are however certain exceptions which can be made and that's when someone hunts a Mutated Beast solo.

Originally, the Hunter's Test in this town is actually easier than in the Redwick Village.

Fuck.

I didn't know or I would have left for the town earlier.

I did note that I could change into a Knight after levelling up my Squire Class to full level and taking a test at the Knight's Association.

I noted down whatever I could and bought several necessary things like the maps of the nearby area before leaving the building and checked out the other associations, before returning back to the Inn.