Chapter 16 - Humans?

Kyle woke up right before sunrise. This was the day that he would go further away from the forest and look for other intelligent beings that he would be able to communicate with.

Kyle had to find out a couple of things:

What is this word and who lives here?

What is considered a norm of the way to getting stronger?

Any insights in the ways he can boost his strength faster?

Kyle also wanted to understand that if survival can be dealt with just a little bit more of strength, what would other peoples end goal be? Defying heavens and getting immortality? Or is there some other thing that everyone in this world strives towards?

Kyle knew that he only wanted to get to the top of the world. Just like with any other MMORPG, he wanted to become the max level character with the best gear and become the final boss that everyone wanted to defeat. Kyle wanted strength, power and fame. Everything a young lad like Kyle would want.

As Kyle set out for the settlement, he marked the cave where he camped with a Red Cross on the entrance. He made the red colour out of the fruits that were growing close to it in the hope that rain won't wash it away.

Kyle wasn't sure which direction to choose, but it had to be further away from the forest. He hasn't met anything close to being intelligent there. So his path was north through the grasslands that he started to explore right after the huge battle.

Kyle moved like this for at least 7 days, constantly targeting only north. He was travelling at speed much faster than before as he could run without being tired due to the energy within and his running speed was much faster than before as well.

'I guess Catter didn't lie when she said something about this world constantly expanding. I am still on the same grass plane after travelling for so long.' Kyle was still travelling straight north as he didn't want to forget where the forest was. He had much to explore and absorb in there. Every night and morning right before Kyle started to move, he would do the practice for at least 2 hours, which slowed him down but also made sure to have some progress. Also, while Running Kyle practised the breathing technique to collect free qi into his dantian.

After 8 days of running, Kyle was standing on the peak of the huge mountain, at least a thousand metres above the ground, he climbed it to see if anything surrounding him suggested civilisation. Right now, you could see a huge smile appear on Kyle's face. He finally found a settlement.

From such a huge view, it was difficult to tell if it was still occupied, but it had wooden spikes that were also like walls and there also were many wooden building with dark red roofs. Kyle moved to the settlement.

After getting quite close, Kyle's observations got confirmed. It was a small and very uncivilised village. 'There shouldn't be any more than 200 population in here. I only care that I am not alone for now.' Kyle rushed to the gate.

There wasn't anyone at the gate, but at the wall, there was an old man that was dressed like a guard. He greeted Kyle, "Hello, and who are you? What are you doing in such a deep wilderness forest?"

Kyle at first didn't see where the voice was coming from as the wall were very tall, and the guard himself was not a typical human that he expected to see in such a typical village. He was around 1 and a half metres tall and had an unnatural intense brown colour to his skin, his proportion were in the norm that indicated that he was still a human, but nothing that Kyle saw on earth.

Also what surprised him that he didn't understand at first what the guard was saying, then a prompt from the system appeared.

[ Teaching the common languages of Game world ]

[ Rivendale Language learned ]

As the words were spoken, the guard casually asked the same question again, but now he understood what he was saying.

"I was adventuring in the nearby forests and stumbled upon this village. Is this a human village? Are there any more villages around this area?" As Kyle was about to ask more questions, guard smirked and said angrily, "I am not here to be your guide, go to the tavern, there are more of adventurers such as yourself there. You can also pay in the tavern to get information."

Kyle was really annoyed by this attitude, he didn't want to go inside the walls where an enemy of the human race could trap him, but it seemed he had no choice. Kyle walked inside the village and straight away could smell piss and other weird smells. Considering that Kyle always lived in a clean city, and he has spent all the last weeks before travelling in the forest, this smell was too strong for Kyle to tolerate. Kyle saw that there was a building up ahead from the gate that had a wooden sign with beer mug on it, he guessed it was a tavern. The building itself was not too big, but when he stepped in, he saw that there were many people and nearly all of the tables occupied.

The first thing that Kyle noticed was that these people were not only human. To tell the truth, he couldn't see a single human that resembled him. There were the same humans as the guard outside that were shorter and had darker skin. Also, he could straight away spot gnomes with heavy hammers, dwarfs that wore steel armour and a couple of elves that were all dressed differently and were only males. There was also a female elf, but she was wearing a cape that covered her face and body with only pointy ears showing through the cape. Nearly all of the people here had some type of weapon on them and also were wearing the full set of armour.

As Kyle entered, no-one noticed his presence and so he carried on walking towards the bartender that was a woman that was pouring another pint of beer or ale for someone. As she saw Kyle, she smiled and said, "What brings you into our little village? Are you an adventure with the White Wolf guild of Zrefton as well?"

Kyle greeted her back and replied, "No, I have recently only started my adventure and not really certain of where am I. I would like to buy information and maps of this place. The guard told me to speak to someone inside the tavern."

"Oh well how kind of him!" The bartender said, "Of course, I will answer all of the questions you have for one silver coin, or you can pay 300 copper coins for a single question." This seemed to be a transaction that she did often.

"In reality, I don't have any money on me right now," As Kyle said that the face of the bartender changed straight away and the smile disappeared, "But I have many items that I want to sell. I first need to appraise them. Where can I do that in this village?" Kyle had the items from the beasts but no normal gold that could be used to trade.

"Oh, you were lucky in the wilderness, weren't you? Don't go spouting about anything that you have for sale. You might lose your little life." Bartended looked at the figures that were talking passionately and drinking behind Kyle. "As you might see, we have a tiny village. There are no representatives from the merchant guild, so you will have to sell most of your things in the city. But if you have beast cores and spirit stones I can give you an 80% discounted price for them here." The grin on her face grew even wider. She didn't pause for a second and has poured at least 10 cups of ale while talking to Kyle.

Kyle had no other choice than to accept this scam; he could trade some small part of his stock of items here and save the most for later. He only needed money right now to get information, get a belly full of food and get a nights rest in a warm bed. "Okay, I am willing to trade some of the things for this rip off price. Can you show me an example of beast core and spirit stones so I can see the quality of stuff you want to buy?" Kyle didn't know how to explain this, but he had to hope that the bartender wasn't smart enough to question what he wanted to see. Kyle had no idea what she meant with those names.

Bartender without a second thought brought up a crate from a room that was just right behind her. There were neatly lying on a piece of leather a different sizes and shapes of the purple crystals, exactly the same as what he has been collecting. "This is the best quality monster cores that I have for sale, the cheapest one here is around 10 silver and the most expensive," she pointed at the red crystal, "This one I can sell for 100 gold to you. You probably know that you will get immense benefits if you consume a core. You can boost your energy considerably." She knew that Kyle couldn't buy anything but still named the prices to underrate the quality of beast cores that Kyle had. This was an excellent strategy to bargain.

Kyle, without understanding what was going on, brought out from inside his clothes as to not alarm the bartender of the storage device 10 purple crystals the size of a grape, "Okay, how much for those?"

1000 copper = 1 silver coin

1000 silver coins = 1 gold coin