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n“Mngh…” Feeling like he had gotten his best sleep to date, Valyr’s consciousness gradually sprung to life as the sun’s faint rays pierced through his window, shining a light on his face. Tossing and turning around on his bed a couple times to move away from the rays, he eventually stopped doing so as he felt the bed start to absorb some of the sun’s heat. Inwardly letting out a sigh, he gradually roused himself, sitting on his bed to do some light stretching with his upper body.

n“Gah…!” However, rather than feel a sense of pleasure from stretching out his limbs, an indescribable pain instead spread throughout his body whenever he did so. Noticing this, he could not help but wryly smile as he softly muttered, “I knew my body would be sore by the time I woke up, but never did I expect myself to be this sore.”

nTaking in deep breaths as he forced himself to stretch his body amidst the pain, he eventually got out of bed, stretching his lower limbs only to find out that they, too, felt sore as well. Accepting the fact that he felt sore all over, he sat down on the side of his bed for now, wondering if there was anything he could buy from the contribution point shop to alleviate the pain.

n“Let’s check the item section…” Valyr muttered to himself, scrolling through the list of items shown on the screen. After some time, his eyes slightly widened in surprise as he inwardly let out a sigh of relief, his attention focused on a certain item. “Ah, thank the heavens.”

nDing!

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nPain Relief Pills

nA bottle of pills designed to alleviate bodily pain within minutes. Highly advisable to only take one pill when needed.

nPrerequisites: Guard rank

nCost: 10 contribution points

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nSeeing as he had twice as much contribution points than what was needed, Valyr unhesitatingly bought the item, wondering how the item would be delivered to him. However, contrary to his expectations, once he had accepted the prompt to buy the item, a small pill bottle manifested out of thin air in front of him, smoothly landing on his palms.

nGetting over his initial feelings of amazement from the unique delivery mechanic, he went ahead and opened the pill bottle, quickly counting that the number of pills in the bottle would last him for quite some time. Popping one out of the bottle, he then swallowed the pill alongside a few gulps of water, feeling immense relief wash over his body a few seconds later.

n“Although the pain’s still somewhat there, it’s not as intense as earlier,” he muttered, taking less effort to stand up before making his way to the bathroom to take a shower.

n‘In any case, I should rest my body for the time being. There’s no point in me pushing my body to its limit if it means my health can take a turn for the worse,’ he thought, making sure to be thorough while scrubbing his body from head to toe.

nOnce he got out from the bathroom a few minutes later, he took a quick whiff of the uniform he had worn to sleep, lightly nodding when he still smelled hints of a pleasant scent emanating from it. With that, he wore the uniform once more, smoothing out the wrinkles on its surface before affixing the wooden spear he had haphazardly placed on the ground last night on his back.

nAfter that, he left his room, making his way to the cafeteria to get some breakfast.

nBy the time he got there, he noticed a few familiar faces, with a couple of them waving at them with a light yet tired smile on their faces. Obtaining the tray of food he had ordered, he gradually made his way to the people who waved at him before sitting beside them.

n“Good morning, Valyr. How was sleep?” Leon asked as Valyr took a bite of toast slathered with fruit jam.

n,c “It was good for the most part… then I woke up,” said Valyr in response, eliciting a bit of laughter from the others.

n“Well, that’s no surprise,” Jonas said, his tone somewhat deep since he had just woken up like the others. “Damian told us you pushed your body to the limits. Then, you went ahead and participated in the night patrol on top of that.”𝒐𝒱𝐥xt.𝒸𝗈𝕞

n“I did tell him to take a rest after what he had done,” replied a voice from afar, which gradually got closer to them. Seeing as their guard leader wanted to sit beside them, Valyr and the others quickly made space. “But I guess that’s also a kind of learning experience.”

n“In any case, how does it feel to be a village guard now that you’ve gone through your first day?” asked Damian soon after.

nFinishing a piece of toast before starting to scarf down another, Valyr replied. “It feels nice, that’s for sure.”

n“Glad to hear that.” Hearing those words come out of Damian’s mouth, Leon and the others could not help but smile as they continued to talk about some things while they ate their respective breakfasts.

nEventually, everyone was done eating, prompting them to go their separate ways. But before they did, Damian gave Valyr a piece of advice. “Since you’ve overexerted yourself yesterday, take a rest for today. If you’re feeling restless, you could train a bit in the training field, but that’s all. A balance between work and rest is also important.”

nAfter saying those words, Damian finally left the premises, with Valyr committing his words to memory. Looking around the cafeteria for a while, he eventually decided to take a stroll for today, thinking about buying a couple of clothes to change into aside from the uniforms he was given. Recalling the money pouch Tryndall had given him before they parted ways, he quickly made a detour to his dormitory as a certain memory flashed in his mind.

n‘Now that I think about it, I could’ve gotten a sizable chunk of money from selling those monster corpses,’ he thought, slightly regretting the fact that he had not considered doing so yesterday. Although he felt like the corpses were still there, considering how sparsely scattered the monsters in the area were, he decided that it was better for the ground to claim the corpses instead. After all, no one wanted to buy rotting corpses.

nPlacing the money pouch into his pocket, Valyr leisurely made his way to the barracks’ entrance before leaving, strolling around the village as he thought about some of the things he wanted to do before the beta version began.

n‘First off, I need to get my hands on the basic Blacksmith skills,’ he thought to himself, gazing far away at a building with a seemingly tall chimney. ‘Speaking of which, I should probably make a trip to the village smithy later. I have to unlock the Blacksmith Technology Tree if I want to make progress.’

nRecalling what he knew about the requirements to obtain the Blacksmith class, he knew that he would have to dip his hands into the Technology Tree, something he could not avoid in the long run.

nFrom the name of the feature alone, one could easily infer that the Technology Tree had something to do with a system that branched out like a tree, and one would be correct. However, the Technology Tree’s purpose went far beyond that, with most players considering it to be the most important thing for a player to focus on aside from skills.

nThe Technology Tree could be split up into three broad sections: Combat, Production, and Innovation. Naturally, all of these sections had their own branches, with the Combat section’s branches being the various weapons, and the Production section’s branches being the various fields of production one could undertake, with blacksmithing being one of them.

nHowever, if one were to ask any player which section of the Technology Tree was of paramount importance, they would unanimously agree that the title would have to go to the Innovation section.

nNow, one might wonder why that would be the case. Well, the answer to that would be simple.

nThe Innovation section gave access to more advanced technology.

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