Chapter 2 Part 2

Qin Lang couldn’t be bothered to engage with Xia Xifeng’s sharp tongue: “First, make a set of crudely-made equipment. After the equipment is done, I’ll go find monsters to kill.”

“What’s with your tone? I’m the one keeping you now. Show me some respect! Beg humbly!” Xia Xifeng stood up, activated his Gathering Sight, and went to find stones, wood blocks, mud, and grass to grind experience.

Qin Lang: “Fine. I beg you to first make a set of crudely-made equipment.”

Xia Xifeng’s expression stiffened. He rubbed the goosebumps on his arm: “Disgusting.”

Qin Lang couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to Xia Xifeng, who always had a retort ready, and continued studying his system, testing out the general skills.

Xia Xifeng was testing skills too.

He picked up a stone without using his skill. The stone was just a stone, with no use, taking up one inventory slot.

He activated Gathering Sight and picked up a stone that had a “name.” The stone automatically turned into a piece of Stone Material, stackable up to 999 in the inventory slot.

Other gatherable materials were the same.

Wood would become Timber, grass would become Fiber, mud would become Clay, river water would become Drinking Water…

“Qin Lang! There are edible berries!” Xia Xifeng excitedly raised the fruit in his hand and looked back. Huh? Where’s Qin Lang?

Startled, Xia Xifeng hurriedly searched for Qin Lang through the map. He found his poor companion several dozen meters away, stuck headfirst in the sand.

Qin Lang, who normally paid great attention to his appearance and demeanor, was now half-buried in the sand pile, wriggling and squirming, all dignity lost.

“Pfft… hahahahaha! What are you doing?” Xia Xifeng ran to Qin Lang’s side, pulled him out of the sand pile, and doubled over laughing.

Qin Lang shook the sand off his body, his face cold and silent.

Xia Xifeng held his stomach: “Performance art?”

Qin Lang spat out a mouthful of sand and went to the riverside to rinse his mouth.

As he walked towards the river, his figure stuttered, teleporting several meters at a time.

Xia Xifeng instantly understood why Qin Lang had ended up diving into the sand pile earlier.

Although Qin Lang was a highly skilled technique-type player, a keyboard-and-mouse online game was very different from a “full-dive.” Skill combinations that were originally familiar, when executed by a human body, could produce bizarre effects due to various movements and inertia.

For example, Qin Lang’s stuttering teleportations were the general skill “Wind Step.”

If used in the game, Wind Step would allow the player to instantly teleport one to three meters (based on proficiency).

In reality, Wind Step wasn’t teleportation but a “dash” or “leap.” Although it looked like a teleportation effect, the human body would generate significant inertia in the direction Wind Step traveled.

Qin Lang had failed to brake and had rolled around in the sand for a long time.

Fortunately, he had prepared beforehand, testing the skill on the soft sand, otherwise he might have crashed into a tree or rock, fallen into the water, and gotten injured.

If Wind Step was this troublesome, other skills would be even worse.

Every attack skill had a motion. Although the system would “guide” Qin Lang’s body when activating a skill, if Qin Lang hadn’t adapted his body to the skill’s movements, not only would there be a lag between skill and skill, but his body could also get injured due to uncoordinated limbs—like twisting an ankle or cramping a muscle.

After rinsing his mouth, Qin Lang said to Xia Xifeng: “Is there any food that restores the blue bar?”

The red bar was the HP bar. Xia Xifeng’s blue bar was Stamina, drained when he worked. Qin Lang’s blue bar was Energy, drained when he used skills.

Xia Xifeng raised the berries he had just picked: “All cooked foods can restore blue. Let’s eat roasted berries!”

Cooking fell under the Handicrafts skill. The most basic cooking skill Xia Xifeng could use was roasting various items. Besides restoring HP, blue, and satiety, they had no other additional benefits.

Food and medicine could both be used during combat. However, firstly, it was inconvenient to eat cooked food while fighting (represented by a cast bar in the game), and secondly, once satiety was reached, force-feeding couldn’t restore more HP or blue (represented by being unable to eat at all in-game). Therefore, HP and Energy potions were still needed for combat.

Xia Xifeng had also unlocked the skill to craft basic HP and Energy potions, but there were no herbs in this grassland, so he couldn’t make any.

“Here, my carefully prepared roasted berries… Ugh, disgusting.” Xia Xifeng dry-heaved.

What did those roasted berries taste like? Exactly like roasting very sour berries—not only sour, but also with a strange rancid odor. Hua people could never get used to any kind of roasted fruit, let alone roasted berries that were sour enough to kill.

Qin Lang frowned, forced himself to fill his blue bar, and continued training.

Having already laughed once, Xia Xifeng didn’t laugh again when he saw Qin Lang fall into all sorts of strange poses in the sand.

He reluctantly filled his own stomach, rubbed his aching waist and hands, and continued bending over to gather materials until he had enough fiber, stone, and wood to make crudely-made equipment and weapons.

Xia Xifeng first created a simple Workbench.

Like 3D printing, a phantom image of a crude wooden Workbench first appeared at the location Xia Xifeng selected. After Xia Xifeng confirmed the crafting, as the system’s progress bar ticked, the Workbench transformed from phantom to solid.

With the Workbench available, Xia Xifeng clicked on the “Sewing” and “Forging” skills.

A mass of light and shadow on the Workbench slowly rotated. After the progress bar finished, what he had crafted appeared on the Workbench.

Everything was very game-like and very magical.

Equipping items was also very game-like and very magical.

Xia Xifeng could wear equipment just like putting on clothes, but he could also first store the equipment in his backpack, then select “Wear” in the system inventory, and the equipment would directly overlay onto his body.

He could even hide the equipment. For instance, hiding the chest piece made the tactile sensation and visual effect as if he was shirtless.

If someone stabbed his upper body with a wooden sword, they would still strike a layer of nonexistent “armor.” Meaning, although Xia Xifeng didn’t feel like he was wearing clothes, the equipment’s effect remained.

Equipment and costume were not the same slot. Hiding equipment in the game was just so players would spend money on various beautiful costume combinations. In reality, they could use this to hide their true power.

Xia Xifeng transferred the equipment and stone sword to Qin Lang’s backpack, along with a small wooden bow and twenty stone arrows.

He could also use this equipment, but without skills, he could only swing and shoot like an ordinary person.

Qin Lang’s general skills included Sword Strike and Archery, granting weapon attack trajectory correction, extra damage bonuses, and negative status effects on vital point hits (like crippling, critical hits, pain).

The motion ranges of general skills weren’t large. Qin Lang quickly adapted to using the weapons and prepared to enter the forest to find some small animals to test them on.

Xia Xifeng worriedly asked, “Can you really bring yourself to do it?” Neither of them had even killed a chicken before.

As soon as his words fell, howls and the chaotic sounds of trampled branches and undergrowth came from the forest.

“HELP!!!”

Just as Xia Xifeng looked over, he saw a child, only about one meter tall, screaming and rushing out of the forest. Five beasts that looked like either wolves or dogs were chasing him.

Seeing a child in danger, Xia Xifeng reflexively ran forward two steps.

Impatience flashed in Qin Lang’s eyes. He tightened his grip on the stone sword, preparing to activate a skill.

Xia Xifeng had just charged forward two steps when he rapidly spun around, grabbed Qin Lang—who was “standing there dumbly”—and ran in the opposite direction: “RUN!”

Qin Lang matched Xia Xifeng’s pace: “Not saving that child?”

Cold sweat poured down Xia Xifeng’s forehead: “Save my ass! Staying alive is what matters! Can you use that Wind Step to carry someone? Get me out of here faster!”

Qin Lang didn’t answer. He directly wrapped his arm around Xia Xifeng’s waist, first used Wind Step to reach a taller tree, then used a Leap skill, followed by a Double Jump, landing on a thick branch.

“Sit tight.” Qin Lang placed Xia Xifeng on the branch, then executed another Wind Step diagonally downwards, shortening the vertical distance to the ground and landing steadily on his feet.

Watching Qin Lang run towards the beast pack, Xia Xifeng, hugging the tree trunk, shouted nervously: “Come back! Are you crazy?!”

Qin Lang wasn’t the type to sacrifice himself for others or act out of heroic duty! Why was he suddenly going crazy?!

The child had seen Qin Lang and Xia Xifeng when he fled to the grassland. Perhaps because Qin Lang and Xia Xifeng didn’t look like they could fight, though the child screamed “Help!” from his mouth, he veered off, leading the beasts in a direction away from Qin Lang and Xia Xifeng.

When he saw Qin Lang charging over with a sword, his face was full of disbelief: “Don’t come throw your life away!”

Qin Lang saw the man’s golden bushy beard and the corner of his mouth curved up slightly.

He hadn’t misobserved. This short “child” wasn’t a child but an adult Halfling.

As Qin Lang rapidly approached the beasts, he used the Archery skill. The arrow trajectory was corrected, and it embedded itself in the beast’s hide.

Qin Lang frowned slightly.

He had aimed for the beast’s eye but almost missed even hitting the beast. “Full-dive” was indeed hard to control.

Not hitting the vital point, this arrow was still enough to draw aggro. The lead beast lunged at Qin Lang.

Qin Lang tossed a disgusting roasted berry into his mouth, calculated his blue bar, and used Wind Step and archery to skirmish with the beasts, drawing another beast to chase after him.

The bushy-bearded Halfling now only had the three slowest beasts left behind him.

“Thanks!” He suddenly turned around, arms raised level. Two large axes materialized in his hands. “Beasts, meet your death!”

The bushy-bearded Halfling charged at one beast. His axe cleaved through the beast’s skull, blood splashing all over him.