Pretty much playing SAO? In other words, farming XP... Farming a lot of XP... for a long time

[The constellation "Author-san" is apologizing, but Time-skips are needed for the greater good.]

As Yami read the message he had to nod his head. The first part of SAO was great, but there were major time skips and only parts of the whole two years were shown. It was a problem but one could live with it. Most of the time was fighting against monsters and doing quests and the anime just skipped the interesting and important parts.

But at the moment he really didn't like that there was that little information, this intel would have made things much easier for him. At the moment he still needed to understand and get a grasp on the SAO-game.

The way towards the town was long. Now he understood what was meant with "mental-exhaustion" because he had to constantly focus on evading or fighting monsters. Thankfully the nights were lighted by themselves, otherwise he wouldn't even be able to see his own hand in front of him, much less a monster that attacked him.

At the start he killed every monster that came his way, he needed to gain experience quickly. His current objectives were items and quests that were limited, these were the most important things if he was stuck on the first floor for more than one month. With all the time he would do the repeatable quests and loot refillable chests later. The really good stuff he wanted wasn't easy to obtain but the reward was worth the risk.

After several hours he stopped fighting the monsters and started to go around them or sneak past them. They were higher level than him and there was a good chance that several of them would gang up on him while he was preoccupied fighting another one. This would lead to a very dangerous and deadly situation.

"Hmm?"

He was currently in a forest and had climbed up a tree to get a better view of what was around him. First scouting the area then making a plan according to the situation, that's how he managed to avoid being put into a disadvantageous position.

From his high position he was able to see a chest in the distance which was guarded by something that looked like a deer, but more monster-like. It had red eyes and its antlers were sharp as swords.

(Eve, what level is it?)

{Level four mini-boss.}

(Do you know if whatever is in this chest is worth it?)

Before either running the moment you see something dangerous or just rushing into the fight, it was better to think about your options.

{I can't tell you the exact loot but I can run some calculations based on the data I have. Wait a moment… This boss is probably one of the things you are searching for because it won't respawn. Meaning, that whatever is in this chest is an item that is unique and probably one of the strongest you can get one the first floor. But your odds of defeating it are very low. Even mini-bosses are designed to fight against one or more parties. The good thing is that the power of bosses is adjusted accordingly to the number of players that fight it.}

Yami was still overlooking the deer which wasn't moving much and didn't seem like it had detected him. He once again took a look at the map and noticed that the town wasn't very far from his current position. After that he took a look at his status. He was still level one, but his EXP bar was near level 2. Of course level 2 was the fastest and easiest to reach, the higher the level the longer it was going to take to attain it. He also still once had a sword that was dropped by one of the defeated monsters. It wasn't bad but not very good either.

"Fighting against all odds, that's what all the main-characters do… I'm the main character of God's story, there is only one right thing to do!"

[The constellation "A main character should do what a main character should do." is nodding.]

[...]

{...}

"NIGERUNDAYO!!!!"

Yami started to run towards the city without even looking back at the deer.

[The constellation "The Joestar's most POWERFUL technique" is speechless but can just nod at your decision.]

"I'm not an idiot like all those MC's! Instead of running to my death I will just get stronger and then face it! That item is not worth the high risk of me dying!"

With the secret technique activated he only needed a bit of time before entering the save area of the town.

He couldn't see any other players at the moment but he knew that there were at least a few beta-testers who already arrived at this city, they were probably all hunting or doing a quest at the moment.

The town was called Ragni.

"Oh, the greatest server of one of the greatest games!"

[The constellation "Appreciator of beauty" is nodding.]

"But you also stole that name, do you really not have any original ideas?"

[The constellation "God father" has fixed his halo already and is just nodding.]

"You are not even ashamed of it anymore?! At least it is a good reference, I will let it slide but someday you will be sued by the lawyers of the anime-industry for all your copyright-violations!"

Yami walked towards one of the inns around the city while taking jabs at God. He was tired after only resting for short intervals and sleeping on top of trees where the monsters couldn't get him. He wasn't sure whether Players could do the same or if only he could do something like that but it reminded him of an illogical scene from Hunger Games.

[The constellation "Survival Games" has gotten an idea.]

"I dare you, I double dare you motherfucker! Send me into this god damned game and I will turn it around into a damned god game!"

[The constellation "What?" is asking: what?]

"... No, I'm not going to start screaming again in the middle of a town. And I will hold on to these quotes for a better time. "English motherfucker, do you speak it", can be used in very great ways!"

While arguing with "several" constellations, who were literally all just God, Yami finally entered an inn and booked one of the rooms from the NPC that was standing at the counter. After killing many monsters he had earned a bit of money, but it wasn't really that much. It was still day but he retired to his room and sat down on the bed.

"Good night Eve."

{Good nyaight dear.}

[The constellation "

Before he could even read the message from God his eyes were already shut and shortly after he was fast asleep. The mental fatigue he experienced was just that hard. Only his adrenaline had kept him from sleeping on the spot. He could also regain his mental stamina from sitting around but sleeping was more effective. As one should know; in the night the mind still works and processes all you have experienced during the day, it is similar here.

- - -

The feeling when he woke up was great, he had slept for several hours and it was already early morning the next day. Yami's head felt lighter than the day before. Every time he created something in paradise or exhausted himself, his "energy" would be depleted, the same if he used magic a lot. However, this "energy" wasn't the same as mana. Mana was connected to his Magic stat while his "energy" was a combination of all his stats, meaning that his "energy" would get stronger if he leveled up in the Main world. Regenerating limbs or even his head was possible in the Main world since he was a slime, he would also need his "energy" for that. But he didn't know how much and he didn't want to test it.

Wanting to finally get this whole game started for real he first took a look around the town. There was a board with quests on it and NPC's from whom he could accept quests.

After that he decided to try to get to level 2. What was he going to do? Accept a high level quest? Run into the wilderness and fight epic uphill battles?

Nope, he went towards the outskirts of the town and lured a single monster near him. Then he attacked it. It was a level 3 goblin. The good thing was that it looked pretty normal and was also weak. But it would still be hard to kill it while only being level 1. Solution?

Yami used the protection of the town, if he was in danger he would just "withdraw" into the safe zone that was guarded by NPCs.

That way he spent a few hours. He managed to level up but nothing special happened. His HP went up and Eve distributed the points he got. Yami planned to be a fast attacker who focused on speed and damage, speed more than damage. It was the best idea for a solo player like him. Running isn't a shameful thing, it is actually intelligent most of the time, especially if there is nothing to lose from withdrawing.

He also accepted all kinds of quests, maybe there was one that only one person could accept after all. While doing that he found something interesting; a quest that needs two people, a male and a female to accept.

In the afternoon of the day Yami decided that he was prepared enough to go out of town and into the fields.

While fighting one vs one with the monsters he lured towards the city he improved a bit. Fighting a being that wanted to kill you is something completely different from sparring with others. He also needed to get used to fighting non-humans that would attack with their claws and teeth unlike most humans.

With a stronger sword he got in hand, he walked towards the forest where he found the deer. Of course he wasn't foolish enough to think that he could already defeat it, but he planned to kill it soon and for that he needed to get stronger. If he waited it could also be killed by someone else, however the chance of that happening wasn't high. Only Beta-testers would be here already and even they would need to either be a very high level, which needed time; or a group of them would need to team up, which was very unlikely with how rare they were and that they were already scattered all over the first floor. And the really good players probably already knew better spots and wouldn't need to take this risk. Getting worse teammates as cannon-fodder wasn't a good tactic since the monster got stronger the more people fought it

And if the monster was killed before he got ready, he couldn't do anything about it. He wasn't in a rush to lose his life.

As he walked he spotted two goblins, none of them had a weapon.

Yami hid behind one of the surrounding trees and waited for a good opportunity. And after a while one of them neared his tree while the other one was looking around somewhere else. With a quick motion he jumped out from behind his cover and stabbed the monster right through its chest with a Sword Skill.

The other goblin spotted him but Yami already ran towards him. Without a weapon a monster was easy prey and Yami gave it two consecutive slashes before decapitating it with smooth movement.

Yami was already trained in sword fighting, the thing he lacked was real experience and thus he was rapidly improving in real fighting situations. Another advantage he had was that he wouldn't only use his sword but was highly trained in hand to hand combat and the actual killing because of his training in Konoha. He wasn't idle in his free time either, he studied things like the human body and vital spots of different beings, particularly humans. Tsunade was happy to help him with his studies even if they mostly revolved around fighting. It didn't matter if it was about hand to hand combat techniques, sword styles or knowledge about guns and other weapons, he absorbed all of them. But he also learned about healing others from Tsunade, but couldn't get the skill for some reason. Once she asked him why he was training and trying that hard and he replied: "Because I want to protect what is dear to me with my own strength, you." Tsunade was very happy at that and supported him in any way she could, she even asked a few of the Anbu to teach him a thing or two. At that time Yami washed his mouth after saying shit like that. It wasn't false because he wanted the strength to protect himself and all his future Wifes but he just couldn't stand the shonen-shit he said.

"Alright, enough of that, let's get back to fighting and leveling."

Yami continued to fight individual monsters or tried to separate larger groups if possible. He wanted to avoid being overrun by numbers but he knew that he needed to learn how to battle several enemies simultaneously.

He didn't go deep into the forest and only walked around the outskirts of the forest since the deeper he went the higher the danger.

His EXP had risen by ¼ after more than half a day of farming, that's how hard it was to level even at the lowest of levels. It would get harder and harder to advance in levels from here on out but Yami wasn't worried, he will probably need a lot of time to get level 100 in the Main world and this was only one of the steps of the road ahead of him.

"And you will all become my stepping stones."

Looking at the pack of gray wolves that were coming at him he took one of the stances he started to try out to make his own fighting style.

Stances are very important actually since they decide what movements you can do. Of course he couldn't do something like; I go into a stance, unsheathe my katana, sheath my katana, and the enemy splits into two. It's looking cool but not really how things work, at least not in SAO. If it was another Anime world, it might be pretty normal.

He put his left foot forward while putting his right foot behind his body and making it face his right. Now he was in a stable position and wouldn't get knocked off-balance once he was attacked. Next he grabbed the handle with two hands and held it vertically facing his front. He could easily stab the blade just by thrusting it forward or quickly change into a downward slash which had the momentum of gravity on its side and would thus be much stronger.

Yami also made sure that his sword had a crossguard. Although katanas and such blades were cool and all, they were actually pretty bad weapons. A crossguard is able to defend you from many different attacks and with one you can let the blade of the enemy slide along your blade and let it hit the crossguard while without it your body could easily be slashed.

*Howl*

Yami had finished his preparations but as did the wolves, they had surrounded him and started circling waiting for Yami to expose an opening.

The most obvious was Yami's back but that wasn't actually true. With his position he could just rotate towards the right side while keeping his balance on the still standing left foot, it only needed a small movement and because of the momentum of turning around the strike would do even more damage, even more so if they ran towards him and he could slice downwards and cut down the wolve in an instant. And if they lunged at him he could easily deal with that as well since his sword was already raised up.

The mosters of course were too dumb to understand such things. They wanted to attack him all at once and had to follow their leader who would sound the charge.

Around him were six, five normal level two wolves and a level three who was probably the leader.

But it seemed that not all of them were following its orders since suddenly one of the wolves decided to lunge at him on its own. It jumped at him from behind but since it wasn't intelligent it howled while attacking, making it even easier for Yami to correctly know where it came from and where he needed to slash, without even looking at it with his eyes.

Actually, since Yami didn't have his heightened senses from his skills, he wouldn't be able to defend against this attack if it was an intelligent human or stronger monster, but he also knew that and knew that he could deal with them on his own.

He turned around and slashed horizontal into the open maw of the wolf. Because he just turned 180° and his right foot once again stood behind his body he could take the exact same stance again. There was room for improvement in his movement but it wasn't executed badly.

The rest of the wolves were now ready as well and reacted accordingly.

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to fend off several at once he crouched down a bit more and tensed his leg muscles getting ready to charge forward himself.

Both parties moved simultaneously, some of the monsters lunged at him like the last one and the rest ran towards him. Yami responded in kind as he kicked off the floor and thrust his sword right into the exposed belly of the wolf that jumped at him. While still having the body stabbed on the blade Yami swung it around and lightly hit one of the four remaining monsters. He jumped back to create some distance while the body on his sword started to dissipate.

*Grrrrr*

Both the leader of the pack and Yami started into another's eyes.

Yami didn't wait for them to regroup and activate a sword skill while positioning the blade behind himself and dashing towards the one he already injured just now. A quick upward strike was enough to slice its head off.

Now there were only three remaining and all of them were once again running at him. Within split seconds he needed to decide what to do. As the first one arrived Yami didn't use his sword but just kicked him with his foot. Not expecting something like that the monster flew a bit away, because of the speed of his charge the kick did even more damage to it. The second one and the leader also came from both his right and his left. He was still off-balance from the kick just now and decided to do something strange, he twirled his handle around, now holding it the other way and stabbed to his right while instantly shifting his focus on the leader who came from the right. It once again lunged at Yami, or rather, into the elbow that was buried into its face the next second. Not letting this chance slip Yami let go of the sword in his right hand while using it to grab the still stunned wolf. All the others had already died and Yami wanted to use it as a guinea pig. He grabbed the head and neck and started to twist it. He wanted to see if he could kill monsters in such ways or if it was only limited to them being cut through by a blade.

*Crack*

It wasn't actually a sound but it was something that would normally accompany what Yami saw. The head was now in the completely opposite place than it should be in. The next moment the monster started to dissipate as well and Yami was holding onto nothing anymore, no, not nothing, the monster had dropped another sword.

It was gray and had a red crossguard. It looked better than the other swords Yami had seen and it was better from in the stats department as well. He equipped it and decided to use it for the time being.

After that fight Yami went back to town and sat down in the inn.

{The constellation "Sword Fighting is badass" is stating the fact that you looked badass while sword fighting, 300 Points have been sponsored.}

"God you haven't given me Points in quite a while, did you suddenly become Scrooge McDuck or what?"

{The constellation "Air-head" said that it forgot.}

"I demand compensation! Let me speak to your manager!"

{The constellation "Karens are dangerous" is opening his wallet, 600 Points have been sponsored.}

Yami nodded at those words, one shouldn't even try to start a discussion, even if you can't lose you also can't win.

(From now on I will be doing quests, farming EXP and well, doing more quests and farming more EXP… Yeah, those time-skips in SAO were really great for the author. He doesn't need to come up with stuff to make things interesting, it is really easier to just skip to the important and interesting parts. Even more so in the anime, the novel had more stuff but I didn't read much of it…)

Yami laid down and thought about timeskips.

#Foreshadowing#

Now that he had some time he had another question.

"Right, Eve, I can still enter Paradise from here, right? It's my Soul-world after all."