The Immortal Player

"Yes!" The trio gladly accepted the quest.

The higher the rating of the quest, the more difficult it is to complete and the higher the chance of a player dying in the process.

Despite that, their experience on their past quest, killing wild pigs, gave them the idea that the game felt more real compared to other AVR Games, where such things don't happen, made them confident on taking quests related to hunting. Pedro knew this and its drawback. It's true that monsters can be killed in unconventional ways, however, each monster has a different intellectual level.

Just like the trolls, Pedro faced earlier. Compared to wild pigs, their intelligence was far higher, so if one would want to kill those with ease, one must formulate an unconventional method appropriate to the intelligence level of the monster.

Due to the threat of instant death, players tend to be more cautious to avoid even the slightest contact with monsters at the early levels. Only after a month of the official launch in Pedro's past life of the game that this method or ways became well known. Few closed beta players knew about this, yet it was leaked later on. This gave them an advantage of a month in Pedro's past life.

Every player tried the method on every monster. This made the low intelligence monster farm areas to be crowded and the race to leveling up started. Later, players were able to deal with the monsters with higher intelligence.

"Very well! Rest now! Settle the things you need to settle! Restock of things you would need for 3 days at most!" Village soldier Tam commanded excitedly as his shift would be over.

The trio left and entered the village.

...

Almost an hour ago...

"Before anything else! I must go and secure ALLOT of Intermediate potions! Although this is a village, unlike other AVR Games, Bearth has no safe zone!" Pedro uttered worriedly as he strives fast towards the village shop.

The goal of the developers was to make the game as close to reality as possible, so the battle in villages was not restricted by the system and players don't have immunity on damages. However, to keep villages peaceful and to protect the village, There were guards who were tasked to guard and catch those who were involved in a battle or conflict. This includes harassment on female players and other NPCs.

Another notable difference of Bearth from other AVR Games is the new logout mechanics. The character would not vanish when a player logged out of the game, instead, it would just look like it just had become unconscious or entered a state of sleep. This was the most hilarious part of the closed beta test's first day. Beta player's in Pedro's past life log off and their bodies fell like a dead body and scattered around novice villages. This scene was recorded by players who preferred to play a bit longer than others and uploaded to the Bearth forum created after the first day of Beta testing.

This was a fun experience for those players. Some even took the newbie equipment and weapon of the players who logged off and succeeded. After this event, the developers released some guides on what to do and how to be safe when logging off.

One is to hire a fellow player or an NPC while you log off or also known by players as "Sleeping mode". This was the riskier method, for players and even NPCs can betray you and take your items.

This was one of the game features Pedro was confused at.

Currently, players have the inventory in the player interface, hence, stealing is out of the picture when one logged out. A player can simply store his or her belongings to the inventory and be worry free of losing them.

But in his past life, when he started playing the game, players had a bag with them to activate the inventory interface and access all the items stored in that bag.

Those bags were not bound and can be taken when one logged off and this is where the second method has the advantage compared to the first method.

The second method is to obtain a rare crystal stone sphere. The rare crystal stone spere is a light blue crystal sphere a size of a coin, that wraps the player with a diamond looking cocoon to protect him or her from anything. It also has a monster repelling effect so players can be worry-free when they needed to log off while in the wilderness.

However, this crystal stone sphere can only be obtained through A-rated quest or above dungeons. The first dungeons were level 5 dungeons. At the start, its drop seemed to low due to the difficulty of level 5 dungeons and the rarity of A-rated quests before the first adventurer tragedy. Other than that, the only downside of the crystal stone sphere is that it would take a spot in one's inventory which was very critical especially when dealing dungeons and quests that gives generous amount of rewards.

Each novice village was made unique however, they had quests of almost the same rating. Pedro and the trio suspected that the developers have somehow planted some high rating quests in this beta testing for those top tier players to experience them early on and get their feedback about it.

Based on Pedro's past life, A-rated quests, items, etc. started to appear when the first adventurer tragedy occurred. However, S-rated quests and such were almost unheard of. The same goes for skills, players normally have Bronze-rated skills up to Silver-rated skills. Other than those Legendary-rated and lower skills from character name selection, there was not even a single rumor of Gold-rated or above skills until players reached level 20.

...

After minutes of walking to the village shop and observing other players along the way, Pedro reached the village shop once again.

"Sire! welcome! come in! come in!" The saleswoman greeted excitedly to Pedro as if Pedro become a patron to the shop. Pedro nodded in response.

"Seeing sire came back, what business does sire have with the village shop?" The saleswoman confidently asked Pedro.

"Ahh... The potion... was of normal quality... since I have some use of the potion, I was wondering if I could procure more of it..." Pedro talked slowly while moving around the shop. Though there was no sign of equipment, weapons or accessories at the sale, there were various things displayed on the shop. They were red crystals inscribing an old looking paper.

"Purchasable skills?" Pedro was stared at the saleswoman with a surprised look. Skill crystals or well- known as Purchasable skills were skills available to be purchased on some store or shops located on Bearth. Although not all shops and stores sell skills, most common players' skill set was composed of purchasable skills. It was only at the start that the mainstream players obtain skills from quests, however, after the players reach the kingdoms in Pedro's past life, most of the mainstream players depend on the purchasable skills.

These skills were sufficient to cater to the demands of the players. The only backdrop of the purchasable skills was it was too pricy to players who were below level 20. The cost ranges from some silver coins to a gold coin. Quests below level 20 rewards players bronze coins to silver coins only. The daily cost of living like, food, shelter and cost of repairs, was enough to drain the pockets of the players. However, when the quests were above level 20, its difficulty increases too high, that the rewards obtained also increases. Hence, securing purchasable skills when one is above level 20 and capable enough to finish quests above level 20 was not that hard even to mainstream players.

"Sire is well informed!" the saleswoman smirked knowing that the purchasable skill was too attractive to players or to NPCs, "adventurers".

"How much does one cost?" Pedro asked as he stares to one red crystal with an ancient looking paper with golden writing on it.

"We have skill crystals priced at 80 silver coins, 90 silver coins, and the exclusive at 1 gold coin!" the saleswoman informed happily.

'I had 2 gold coins with me currently! Unfortunately, I can't spend all on purchasable skills, I need to secure a huge amount of intermediate potion! Unless... there is a skill enough to compensate or has the same effect with the intermediate potion...'

Pedro was not shocked by the prices of the purchasable skills. In his past life, purchasable skills normally cost around a gold coin. He can only shake his head.

At the current stage of the game, the main priority of the players is survivability. Each skill they obtain, can contribute and increase their survivability by a huge margin.

To Pedro, he had already obtained that survivability by utilizing the Intermediate potions. Hence, the potions were of much importance to him compared to the purchasable skills, unless it is similar to the capability of the potion.