Chapter 14

Inn.

The sun rises and shone through the inn window. The sunlight hit Ethan's face and woke him up. He took a bath and checked out of the inn. Today, he planned to complete the jobs he took from the adventurer guild. Before going to the prairie, he ate breakfast at a small café near the inn and packed some for Wafu and Gooey. He then went straight to Modo to get the skills he asked Haruto to get yesterday.

Modo Shop.

"You are earlier today," said Haruto.

"I come to get my skills," said Ethan.

"About that, there is something that I decide by myself that I think will benefit you a lot," said Haruto.

"Benefit? What is it?" asked Ethan.

"Because of your skill drop, now I am their important customer. I want to buy storage equipment for you but he offered me something better," said Haruto.

"Something better? What is it?" asked Ethan.

"Do you know that The System can be upgrade?" said Haruto.

"We can upgrade The System?!" Ethan shocked.

"Yes, you can. The System is actually a skill but it is not categorized as normal skills or special skills. It can be upgrade but not the same way we upgrade our skills. We can upgrade The System if we have The System's upgrade crystal. This upgrade crystal is manmade and they are super expensive since the material to produce it is rare," said Haruto.

"If it is that expensive I don't think what I provide you will be enough to buy it," said Ethan.

"I bought the crystal and use some of my money. You can pay me back slowly," said Haruto.

"How much did you use your money?" asked Ethan.

"Hmm~ if I were to total it together with your money, your money paid for 1/20 of the crystal price," said Haruto while smiling.

"Wait isn't that really expensive?" said Ethan.

"Don't worry about it. You are my important business partner. Your high quality material you sold me all this time gained me lots of profit. So, helping my business partner to become stronger is helping myself too. After you buy everything important that you have plan before, you can start paying me back. It won't take you long to pay me back, so no need to fret too much," said Haruto.

Ethan nodded and decided to work harder now that he had debt to pay. Haruto pulled the crystal and gave it to Ethan. Ethan hold the crystal and the crystal melt and enter his body.

'Ting~ System Upgrade. Please wait while The System is upgrade'

"Will this take a while?" asked Ethan.

"Around 5 minutes. That crystal will give The System storage capability. If you are Rank 0 level 1, the storage will give you 10 slots. Every level up, the storage slot increase to same amount of your stats limit. Since you are level 3 now, you will have 30 slots same as your stat limit,"

"Only that much, isn't it better to buy storage equipment then," said Ethan

"I'm not finish yet. Each slot can store 1 type of thing. If the same thing were stored inside, it will enter into the same slot, stacking the item and there is no limit to how much you can stack them. By the way, no one can see what inside your storage and no one can steal your things" said Haruto.

"Wow~ now I can see why this is expensive. Do you have one too?" asked Ethan.

"I do," said Haruto.

'Ting~ system upgrade complete. User can now access the storage. Currently the storage has 30 empty slots' the system notified Ethan.

"I forgot to mention that you can store your monster inside this storage too so you don't need to buy Tame: Storage and the storage is time proof. Food or vegetables or meat will stay the same from the time you put it inside the storage," added Haruto.

"This really benefit me. With my high quality and skill drop, it will be safer for me," said Ethan while smiling. "Thanks a lot Haruto, I will pay you back once I buy the land and build my house."

After that, Ethan went to the daycare where he left Wafu and Gooey and they went straight to the prairie.

A few hours later.

"Wafu use tackle," ordered Ethan.

The horned rabbit use combo moves, Null: Rush and Null: Stab and went straight towards Ethan. While it was rushing towards Ethan, Wafu comes from its side and tackle the horned rabbit. The horned rabbit flew far due to the impact and died

'Ting~ Choose your drop 1. Pelt (A grade) 2. Meat (A grade) 3. Bones (B grade)'

"I choose E grade pelt," said Ethan.

'Pelt (E grade) obtain. The drop is store in the storage.' The System notified Ethan.

Ethan found out that when he got new drops, The System will automatically store the drops inside the storage. Ethan found this function to be really good. It helps him a lot as he didn't have to take it and put it in the storage manually. Other than that, it prevents people to know what he got especially if he got skills as it will be dangerous if people know he got drops.

'Ting~ Rabbit Pelt (50/50). You complete the jobs'

"Yes! We finish both the slime and rabbit jobs," said Ethan while clenching his fist. "Good job Wafu and Gooey," Ethan praise both Wafu and Gooey while petting their head. "Let's go hunting for more and then we can rest for lunch," said Ethan while he and Gooey hopped on Wafu. They then walked to find more prey.

"Kyaa~" Ethan, Wafu and Gooey heard a girl's voice screaming.

"Wafu, let's go that way," ordered Ethan to Wafu. Wafu then run towards the direction of the voice.

When Ethan reached there, he saw a girl with long light blue hair on the ground injured and fainted and a red magpie was attacking her. That girl was the same girl who laughed him before. Ethan ordered Wafu and Gooey to distract the red magpie and he went straight to the girl to help her. When he reached the girl, he pulled out the HP potion from his potion and poured it into her mouth. He then joined Wafu and Gooey and killed the red magpie.

"Urghh~ what happen?" the girl gained consciousness. She looked around and Wafu was beside her and saw Ethan who was hunting for more monster. She panicked when she saw Wafu but calm down as she saw Ethan walked towards her.

"Are you okay. A red magpie attacked you. Luckily I was nearby," said Ethan.

"Thank you for saving me," said the girl.

"I saw your bow. You must be an archer, right?" asked Ethan.

"Yes I am," said the girl.

"The red magpie must have snipe you from behind. It happens a lot with archer in this area," said Ethan.

"Ah, I didn't know that. I should be more careful….!!! My bow!!! No!!!" screamed the girl while crying.

Ethan who saw the girl crying got panicked and he didn't know what to do and then he said, "You can buy a new one,"

"But I don't have any money, I'm broke," said the girl and then 'Growl~~' her stomach growling, "I'm hungry too," said the girl while her head down with tears flowing down her eyes.

"It's lunchtime now, I will buy you lunch. My treat," said Ethan while trying to console her.

"Really?" said the girl while looking at Ethan with hopeful eyes.

"Yes. If you can walk let's go now. If you can't you can ride Wafu," said Ethan.

"I can walk," the girl stands up and they all walk back to the city.

…

"I'm alive! Thank you so much… err~ I'm sorry I don't know your name," said the girl.

"I'm Ethan. Your name?" asked Ethan.

"I'm Lilia. Thank you so much. You save me and now you treat me lunch too. I don't know how I can repay you since I'm broke now," said Lilia.

"You don't need to repay me. I don't mind at all. I know the feeling of not having enough money," said Ethan.

"But what happen to you? Why are you broke? I remember you were laughing at me before when I killed that baby slime and at that time I thought you must be someone talented," asked Ethan.

Lilia lowered her head. "I'm sorry I laughed at you before. I'm really weak. My talents are super low. Below 10% affinity. My progress has been slow and I can't kill many monster too since I'm an archer. You should know, archer is weak in closed ranged. With my talents so low, I can't progress much with my accuracy so I missed my attacks a lot and lose my target and being an archer is costly. You need lots of arrow," said Lilia depressed.

"There are refill quiver, right? Why didn't you buy that?" asked Ethan.

"They are really expensive," said Lilia.

"Your family didn't help you," asked Ethan again.

Lilia paused a bit and replied, "I-I'm an orphan. I can only support myself."

Ethan went silent.

"Lilia. Do you want to form a party with me?" asked Ethan.

"HUH?"