Destiny Online: Halo Paladin

Chapter 4: Server Open

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

It was fun reading comments in the game forum. Half a day went by while Nocturne scrolled through the comments while playing with his cat.

He got up and poured himself a glass of milk. A sip later, he sat back down and continued surfing the forum.

Chubby Blue snuck up to the table and sniffed the glass of milk, it seemed like it was trying to have a taste.

“Hey, you can’t have it!” Nocturne carried Chubby Blue away.

“Meow~” Chubby Blue meowed with a jealous tone.

“You can’t drink normal milk. If you really want it, I’ll make some goat milk for you.”

Most cats were lactose intolerant and they would either suffer from diarrhea or throw up. Therefore, it would be best not to feed a kitten pure milk from a cow, goat milk powder would be a better substitute. It was safer and rather affordable as well. 

If there was no goat milk available, any low lactose milk would be a great substitute.

Three minutes later, a bowl of warm goat milk was ready.

Chubby Blue gave it a sniff before it started to drink.

“Geez. What’s the hurry, you got milk all over your face.”

Nocturne raised his glass of milk at Chubby Blue and performed a toast at the happy cat.

“To having a great time in-game. And you, having a great time with your games.”

The milk tasted sweet.

…

8:00 p.m.

“Ding!”

A clear chime notified Nocturne that the game server was opened. 

His sight blurred out for a moment and soon enough, he found himself in an old village.

Nocturne appeared in Newbie Village No.1024, he had his typical newbie rags and wooden sword with him when he appeared in a spacious spot of the village.

In the blink of an eye, more and more players appeared around Nocturne and soon filled up the spacious place.

It was an overwhelming scene as countless players filled his sight. Plus, since everyone in the game was new, the situation soon went out of control.

Some wanted to fight monsters; some wanted to take quests; some wanted to learn lifestyle skills; some wanted to simply explore the place.

The village suddenly became crowded and messy.

Since the game was made with hyperrealism, players could not simply walk through players like in old online games. However, in order to prevent the players bumping into each other, when the players entered the game, a thin layer of air veil enveloped their bodies. 

No matter how crowded it was, players could not physically bump into each other.

Destiny Online’s newbie village was modeled after a raid dungeon. When the maximum number of players was reached, a new newbie village would appear to house the rest.

“Holy sh*t! This game is awesome!”

“Excuse me! Coming through! Coming through!”

“Hey stop pushing! It’s not like you are going to hell!”

…

A while later, as the majority of the players left the village to start killing monsters, the rest who were left behind finally got some space to breath.

Nocturne was unfortunate because he was held up by the crowd, he could barely move when he was sandwiched in between. It was only after most of the players had left for quests that he finally got the space to move around.

During the start of the game, the system treated every class equally. All classes had the same attributes and equipment, which was a set of rags and wooden weapons for their respective classes.

He also found some items in his bag.

Small Bun x 3. Cool Fountain Water x 3. 1 Silver.

[Small Bun (Common)]

[Usage: Consume it and recover 50 HP in 18 seconds. Unavailable during combat.]

[Requirement: Level 1]

[Cool Fountain Water (Common)]

[Usage: Consume it and recover 50 Mana in 18 seconds. Unavailable during combat.]

[Requirement: Level 1]

All the items in the game were categorized according to its color: Gray Junk, White Common, Green Great, Blue Refined, Purple Epic, and Orange Legendary.

“I think I should get my quest from the village chief first.”

The chief of village No.1024 had his hands behind his back as he stared into the fields outside the village, looking troubled.

“A group of wild boars appeared out of nowhere and ruined our crops! The village’s rations are in danger! What should we do? Nocturne, can you help us to get rid of them?”

Nocturne answered, “Not a problem. Leave it to me.”

Then, the system’s voice sounded.

“You have accepted a new quest: Eliminate Wild Boars.”

Nocturne tapped on the notification and checked the mission requirement.

“Eliminate Wild Boars: Difficulty Level D”

“Quest description: You have accepted the chief’s request. Kill 10 wild boars outside the village to protect the villagers!”

“Completion: Wild Boars 0/10”

In Destiny Online, the quest difficulties ranged from D, C, B, A and S, and there were two factors affecting the difficulty.

The first factor would be the level difference between the player and the monster; the second factor would be the monster’s strength.

If it was a gathering quest, the difficulty would be determined by the rarity of the items required.

The quest that Nocturne just got from the chief required him to kill 10 Level 1 wild boars. The system identified that the quest was extremely easy to Nocturne, a newbie.

As a side note, when the quest required a player to kill a boss but the player’s level exceeded the boss by a lot and could easily kill the boss, the quest difficulty would also be Level D.

Level D quests were basically the easiest, most of them were clearing random monsters and running errands for NPC. 

Level D quests were the common ones, usually requiring a player to be fully equipped in order to clear the quest easier.

Level C quests would be harder than normal ones. Solo players might find it difficult to clear Level B quests unless the player was extremely powerful.

Level A quests required a full party to clear, while Level S quests required a full raid party, which consisted of multiple individual parties, to clear.

After Nocturne got the quest, he went out of the village and he saw a swarm of players killing every single wild boar within his sight. The players cleaned out every wild boar like a swarm of locusts.

The moment a wild boar spawned, several players attacked it at the same time and before it could even react, it disintegrated into a bunch of EXP.

Nocturne was troubled by what he saw. The number of players exceeded the number of spawning monsters, meaning it would take him a long time to clear a simple quest.

The game actually had a system calculating who got the kill but Nocturne had no idea how it worked, he only knew there was such a system.

He stood there blankly for a moment before he noticed a long river by the village.

“I remember lifestyle skills can also increase EXP.”

He then went back to the village and searched for the shop selling fishing gear.

The owner of the shop greeted Nocturne the moment he entered. “What can I get you, young man?”

“I’ll have a look first.”

“Great, call me if you need something. I’ll attend to other customers first.”

‘Wow, I can even interact with NPC?’

Players would receive a list of items on sale when entering a shop. After choosing what the player needed, the NPC would provide the player with the respective items and the money would be automatically deducted from the player’s pocket. 

If the player made a wrong purchase, he or she would simply ask for a refund before walking out of the shop. If the player walked out of the shop, items bought were not refundable.

‘Hmmm, quite intelligent I’d say…’

After entering an NPC shop, the shop’s space would be enlarged to house the number of players. If a player wanted to rent a room from the NPC, the room would transform into an independent space and unless the player had party members with him or her, other players would not be able to enter.

It was extremely dark at night in the game and if a player did not have a death wish, it would be best to stay indoors or within the village. It was also the reason why villages and cities were crowded during the night. 

Players performing lifestyle skills, selling things or simply walking around and drinking at taverns or bars increased the liveliness of the villages and cities.

Players could bring a torch into the dark but it was inefficient and monsters could simply leave their own territory at night. If a player ran into a high level monster at night, the player would be as good as dead.

After Level 10, players would lose 5% of EXP upon dying outside safety zones. Every death would lower the integrity of equipment, so it was not recommended to hunt monsters at night.

However, it was not mandatory to return to villages or cities at night, there were camps in the wild to house wandering players.

In short, the number of players would surge at night.

The developers were quite meticulous with the details. They were afraid that players might get bored at night since it was difficult to hunt monsters, so they made a lot of mini games in the taverns for players to play at night. 

Most of the mini games were card games, similar to Hearthstone, Gwent and so on.

It was literally playing a game within a game.

After browsing through the list, Nocturne ticked what he wanted and called the owner.

“Owner, I want to learn how to fish. I also want to buy a fishing rod, 100 fish bait and a fish basket.”

“Okay. Thank you very much. That would be 60 Copper.”

The system voice then sounded. “You have acquired Fishing Rod x 1, Fish Bait x 100, Fish Basket x 1.”

[Fishing Rod (Common)]

[Two-handed. Damage: 0 ~ 1.]

[Increase fishing skill mastery by 1.]

[Requirement: Fishing (1)]

[Fishing Bait (Common)]

[Note: It can only attract some normal small fishes.]

[Fish Basket (Common)]

[Note: You can keep the fish you fished in it.]

Nocturne then realized it would be a waste if he did not learn culinary after fishing, so he went to the cook in the village to learn culinary skills. He also bought a recipe and it cost him 40 Copper in total.

[Recipe: Fried Fish.]

[Required Ingredients: Tasty Fish x 1, Seasoning.]

[Usage: Consume it and recover 90 HP in 18 seconds. Unavailable during combat.]

[Requirement: Culinary (1)]

The class skills and lifestyle skills in the game were calculated differently.

Class skills could be leveled up once the player fulfilled the requirement; Lifestyle skills had no levels, only mastery.

Successfully cooking a dish would increase the culinary skill’s mastery by a little.

Unfortunately, Nocturne was out of money. He still had to buy cooking utensils to be able to cook whenever he wanted. However, the cooking utensils were rather expensive and he might not be able to get them at his current stage.

Fortunately, the restaurant in the village had an open kitchen, which he could use to cook his fish.

After the shopping session, Nocturne went out of the village and stopped by a secluded river.

The water in the river was crystal clear, he could clearly see fish swimming inside.

“Okay, here it goes!”

He took his fishing rod out, put on the bait and tossed it into the water.

Every action was done seamlessly, as if he was an experienced fisher with steady hands.

A few seconds after the bait entered the water, fish started to gather.

Then, the float started to shake.

“Now!”

“The fish escaped…”

“What the… Again!”

“The fish escaped…”

“Okay, again! I’ll do better this time!”

“Acquired: Grass (Junk)”

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“What in the heck? How did I fish grass out of the water?! Tell me! How did the hook hook the grass! Damn it!”

“Again!”

“Acquired: Broken Shoe (Junk)”

“Who the heck throws a shoe in the river?!”

(╯￣Д￣)╯┻━┻