48 - Luminaris' Nightmare: The Undead Who Never Sleep
---Third POV---
"Really? Such a sweet deal?" Hedgehog snapped his dropped jaw back into place. "Goodness, hogging it all to yourself!"
This task was something he had never seen the three veteran players mention on the forums.
"Keep it low-key, low-key," ProGamer_Daddy chuckled slyly.
Bragging about something this envy-inducing? That was just begging for trouble.
"Plus, the goddess only issued the quest once. No matter how much you try to find it again, there's no second quest, and she avoids us now!"
ProGamer_Daddy crossed his arms and squinted. "I strongly suspect this was a bug in the goddess AI's settings. Once we discovered it, they must've scrapped and rebuilt it."
Hedgehog rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"So NPCs having low IQ can trigger 'foolish money bags' bugs, huh? Learned something new today!"
ProGamer_Daddy let out a proud hum.
After all, he was the one who first discovered the task—it was deeply satisfying.
Bang!
Suddenly, a stone bench fell from the sky and landed right at ProGamer_Daddy's feet.
"Holy—! Where'd this rock come from?!"
He patted his chest, still in shock, and stared at the rock near his foot.
If not for his sharp reflexes, his foot would've been squashed like a pancake!
Hedgehog's eyes sparkled. "Damn, Daddy, your reflexes are insane!"
"Wait until you hit level four—your reflexes will be about the same as mine then," ProGamer_Daddy said casually.
He glanced up at the perfectly intact roof and muttered in confusion.
"Doesn't make sense... is this game really bugging out?"
A stone... spawning in midair?
At this moment, Garble covered his mouth awkwardly and admitted, "Uh… this might be my fault."
His tone was filled with guilt.
Just earlier, while ProGamer_Daddy and Hedgehog were enthusiastically chatting, he had been experimenting with the game's newly added backpack feature.
The method of use was the same as pulling up the game panel.
You just had to mentally think about "storing" or "retrieving" items from the backpack, and it would work—super simple.
He was testing how much a single backpack slot could hold, and what would happen when it overflowed.
He hadn't expected that when a stone bench couldn't fit, it would just materialize and fall from the sky!
Almost a disaster.
"Huh? Backpacks come with a hidden danger too?" Hedgehog's mind lit up.
"So, during combat with monsters, if we run out of weapons, couldn't we just stuff nearby stones or logs into the backpack and unleash a meteor attack?"
Hedgehog shot him a side-eye. "Yeah, sure, and randomly crush everyone—no distinction between friend or foe."
No idea if the monsters would die, but for sure, a few squishy human allies would.
Garble shook his head. "It's not as simple as you think. Try it yourself, and you'll see."
Maybe it was due to the special nature of this game.
Its backpack function was different from most other games.
Each backpack slot could hold up to 99 items, but the categories were very specific.
For example, stone benches, pebbles, and boulders were all classified as "stone items" and could share one slot.
Garble had crammed a ton of oddly shaped pebbles and boulders into the same slot as the stone bench, which led to the airborne stone bench situation.
"Isn't that a good thing?" ProGamer_Daddy asked, puzzled.
Originally, he was worried the backpack's lack of growth attributes would make the five slots feel too small.
But now that it was quantity-based rather than volume-based, there was a lot of room to work with!
Pebbles were stones, but so were stone houses!
And they all only took up one unit!
"No, I wasn't finished," Garble interjected. "The weight of items stored in the backpack still gets applied to the character."
In other words, putting a stone bench in the backpack didn't mean you wouldn't feel its weight—you just wouldn't have to hold it in your hands.
"What? That's so useless!" Hedgehog scoffed.
Unconvinced, he tried putting the stone bench, which had already chipped one of its legs, into his backpack.
The moment he succeeded, a weight slammed onto his shoulders, pulling him down.
It felt like his entire body had doubled in weight.
Walking became noticeably heavier.
Hedgehog took the bench back out, looking disappointed.
"Guess we can't carry all our possessions with us anymore. We'll need a base of operations!"
"Ugh, so much for running around the world with tons of junk."
The backpack's weight limit was a huge blow to exploration-focused players!
Everyone knew.
Exploration players' backpacks often contained 999+ weeds, 999+ wildflowers, even 999+ piles of animal dung…
All in the name of settling down, leaving nothing untouched wherever they go.
But that was all possible because backpacks normally didn't penalize weight.
ProGamer_Daddy shrugged.
"We're not primarily exploration players, so it's not a big deal. Five slots for weapons and gear is more than enough!"
"But haha, rookie players are still going to suffer as pack mules for a while!"
Garble shook his head helplessly. That laugh was too smug.
Let's not forget—they weren't alone here.
A hand suddenly wrapped around ProGamer_Daddy's neck from behind, the voice dripping with menace. "Think veterans are so great?"
"Who'd have thought, after just a few days of beta testing, we'd already have traitors among players who don't look out for their own kind!" another rookie said, feigning heartbreak.
The two rookies wrestled ProGamer_Daddy to the ground.
"Today, we're cleaning house!"
ProGamer_Daddy's eyes widened in shock. He'd taken schadenfreude way too far this time!
He stretched out his hand dramatically, like a soap opera character pleading for help.
"Uh… calm down, I was just joking… ack! Garble, Hedgehog, help me!"
Hedgehog folded his arms and watched as ProGamer_Daddy finally got a taste of his own medicine.
The grin on his face didn't disappear—it just moved from ProGamer_Daddy's face to his own.
"Don't forget, I'm a rookie too. You'd better just accept the righteous punishment of us newcomers!"
Garble silently averted his gaze, pretending not to notice.
ProGamer_Daddy stared at the two traitors in disbelief.
Two fists couldn't match four hands.
In no time, he was pinned down by the sneak-attacking rookies.
Garble shook his head, uninterested in their playful scuffle, and turned to leave.
"I'm heading off to complete some quests. Have fun, but don't take too long—don't forget we still have that new event to tackle."
"I'm coming too!" Hedgehog shouted, quickly following behind.
ProGamer_Daddy was left there, humiliated, defeated by two rookies with no skills to their name, nearly becoming a spectacle for the other newcomers.
---
After an entire day spent scouring the abandoned houses in the town.
None of the three veterans found any useful information.
The town remained unchanged, as if the event hadn't even started. They couldn't find a single document or book with text.
However.
Thanks to the extra experience from exploring Honeyvale, Garble was the first to reach level five and unlock a second spell.
In the evening, under a red sunset, NeverShowOff and the others accompanied Garble to unlock his second skill.
They also wanted to watch and see if there were any differences compared to unlocking the first spell.
Their timing was perfect.
They arrived just as a rookie player unlocked Fireball, who happily ran off to test their new spell, leaving the spot open for them.
NeverShowOff looked at the rookie's retreating figure with pity.
"Another poor soul heading down a path of no return."
Despite NeverShowOff's forum posts explaining the drawbacks of Fireball.
There were always players too stubborn to listen, drawn in by Viktor's grand promises of a massive fireball, eager to become human lighters.
---
A familiar statue, a familiar location, and a familiar golden glow.
In front of Garble, a brand-new game window popped up.
[Please select the skill branch you want to learn:
- Fireball Technique
- Wind Manipulation Technique
- Holy Light Technique
- Water Arrow Technique]
[Selected: Wind Manipulation Technique]
[Please select the skill you want to focus:
- Wind Blade
Launches a wind blade that deals wind attribute damage to the enemy and has a chance to slow them
- Wind Concealment
Temporarily disappears into the wind, becoming invisible and increasing attack speed. Attacks deal additional wind attribute damage and may stun the enemy
- Enhance the existing Wind Manipulation Technique by one level
Note: Advanced skills influence your class orientation beyond level 10. Please choose carefully.]
Unlike the initial skill selection window, this time the advanced skill selection came with a lot more options.
"Fireball Technique, Holy Light Technique... After learning Wind Manipulation Technique, can I still pick other major skill branches?"
A hint of surprise flashed across his eyes.
The note mentioned class orientation after level 10.
What if someone learned multiple major skill branches at once? Wouldn't the class system become chaotic?
Additionally, there was a brand-new major skill branch called Water Arrow Technique.
Garble clicked on the detailed description and found that it was a skill similar to Fireball Technique.
The difference was that Fireball shot fireballs, while Water Arrow launched water arrows.
The subdivisions under Wind Manipulation Technique, however, were the real advanced skills.
Their effects were clearly explained as well.
Garble leaned toward Wind Concealment.
His intended development path was that of an assassin, and the invisibility and attack speed boost of Wind Concealment perfectly suited his style!
Still, the third option, enhancing the existing Wind Manipulation Technique, also caught his attention.
He had recently been practicing this technique, and had successfully increased its duration from six seconds to a longer time while improving its speed slightly.
That could be considered an enhancement of the skill.
Is there a difference between system-enhanced first-level skills and self-practiced enhancements? Garble wondered silently.
The skills didn't display any levels.
What exactly could system-enhanced first-level skills achieve?
It was hard to say for sure…
Luminaris, growing impatient, interrupted, "Have you chosen yet?"
Why was this undead standing there in a daze? Hurry up and finish—he needed to go back to sleep!
"Oh, oh, almost," Garble snapped out of his thoughts.
Even though he couldn't understand Luminaris' words, the tone of dissatisfaction was unmistakable.
The abundance of information on advanced skills had made time fly.
His hand hovered over the options and decisively stopped on [Wind Concealment].
Wind Manipulation Technique could be trained independently, so there was no need to waste a chance to learn a new skill on enhancing it.
Even though he was curious about how much system-enhanced skills could improve, satisfying his curiosity wasn't worth the opportunity cost during the early exploration phase.
The Water Arrow Technique was also appealing and well-suited for the next version of the game, but it could be left for Hedgehog to learn.
Since wind and water complemented each other, his wind-based skills would be far less affected underwater compared to NeverShowOff's fire-based ones.
Having made his choice, the window turned into a golden stream of light and flowed into his body.
Familiar training memories replayed in his mind like a slideshow.
While the new players marveled at the phenomenon, Garble, having experienced it once before, was less surprised.
However, the memories this time lasted longer than with Wind Manipulation Technique.
This seemed to indicate that the learning difficulty was higher.
When he opened his eyes again, a faint green light flashed in them.
Luminaris yawned and climbed back onto the statue.
"All done!"
Hopefully, no one else would disturb his sleep anytime soon.
At first, he thought guarding the statue would be an easy job.
But who would have thought these undead would seek him out day and night?
He was exhausted!
NeverShowOff and the others approached.
"How's the new skill?" he asked.
Garble had taken so long to choose that they were all extremely curious, as if a cat had been scratching at their hearts.
"Very good—a skill that's great for both attacking and retreating."
After sharing the skill details and the contents of the advanced skill window with the group, they all showed expressions of realization.
"So, there really are new skills!"
"Not bad. I'll check if the starting skills have changed. If so, I'll pick Water Arrow Technique!"
"Yeah, I'll switch to Water Arrow Technique too. This Fireball Technique is just…"
The group discussed for a while.
Garble patted his chest and promised that with the addition of a second wind skill, his understanding of wind magic had greatly improved.
His combat power had more than doubled compared to the start!
He even gave them a live demonstration.
"Whoa, invisibility!" Hedgehog exclaimed, staring at the footprints on the ground.
"Not just that!" NeverShowOff gulped as he watched Garble dash over ten meters in two seconds.
"These two skills together can work like a teleport!"
The invisibility skill only lasted three seconds, with limited movement range.
But combined with Wind Manipulation Technique's speed boost, the range increased dramatically.
The possibilities were endless!
Compared to the previous version of Wind Manipulation Technique, which was mostly useful for traveling, this was a game-changer!
The obvious improvement motivated the others to complete their tasks with renewed enthusiasm.
NeverShowOff, in particular, gathered enough experience points to exchange for the Water Arrow Technique within an hour.
Originally, it would have taken ProGamer_Daddy until the next day to reach level five.
But he pushed through the night to grind it out!
Even though Luminaris had already fallen asleep, he was forcibly woken up, grumpily expending 20 divine power points to process the skill selection.
ProGamer_Daddy didn't even take the time to fully explore the new skill before collapsing to the ground and being forcibly logged off.
When his character's face hit the ground, it still bore a satisfied smile.
"…"
If all his divine power in the future was going to be spent working for these undead, he'd rather have none at all!
To prevent the overly energetic undead from causing a ruckus at his statue the next morning, he decided to finish the job.
He dragged the human body—several times heavier than himself—back to the players' logout point.
---
Three days passed.
Viktor calculated the divine power consumption over that period.
After the veteran players reached level five, their daily divine power contribution increased to 3 points each.
The new players had also reached level two, contributing 2 points each per day.
However, the initial skills required 10 divine power points each, and advanced skills cost 20 points.
Even with these contributions, the divine power balance had decreased, now sitting at 525 points.
Of course, there were benefits.
Although the players caused their fair share of chaos, Honeyvale had finally gotten back on track.
New wooden houses were built, and the town's leftover trash had been cleaned up.
Some players, dissatisfied with the overly peaceful tutorial phase, had begun looking beyond Honeyvale...