Chapter 46 Lightning Fast

Everyone has their own ambitions, and Xiao Jie did not try to persuade him further. The two went to the tavern and prepared to log off.

Before logging off, Xiao Jie took stock of today's leveling gains.

A total of four pieces of trash, plain white equipment were harvested, all of which he had equipped.

355 copper coins.

One cellar key.

A total of 12 pieces of venison, mutton, and rabbit meat.

A total of 6 items including deer hide, deer antlers, and sheepskin.

Consumables used: six steamed buns, one health potion, one Herculean pill, 17 crude feathered arrows, and repair fees amounting to 135 wen.

Overall, the profits were quite good, much higher than cutting firewood and herding sheep. The crucial point was that he could level up, and that was the most important thing.

Today could be considered just a modest display of skill; because of time constraints, he only went up by one level. Tomorrow would be different. Xiao Jie had a feeling that there were definitely good things inside the old Tian family residence. As long as it could be opened, it would definitely lead to a massive takeoff.

Originally, he had planned to go back and feed the dogs, but by this time, the sky was already turning dark, and it would soon be unsafe outside. He had no choice but to bid farewell to I Want To Become An Immortal and log off respectively.

The sky finally grew completely dark, and a starless darkness enveloped the quiet little mountain village.

The villagers all hid in their own houses, bolted their doors and windows, and extinguished the candles and fires.

Even the night-watch militia hid inside the barracks.

Only the night watchman, dressed in black and holding an oil lamp, appeared on the village streets, wandering like a ghost in the dark night while striking his wooden clappers.

In this silent and ominous darkness, a figure suddenly appeared out of thin air inside the tavern.

Yelu looked at the surrounding darkness, feeling both excited and nervous. Taking a deep breath, she walked out of the tavern's front door; it was time to start leveling up.

Wielding the ebony sword in her hand, Yelu walked toward the darkness.

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Xiao Jie exited the game and let out a sigh of relief as he looked at his computer desktop.

However, things were not over yet.

Although the game session had ended, the review had just begun.

It was time to organize the game data collected during this period.

He first took out a prepared map paper, on which a large portion had already been drawn. The layout of Ginkgo Village could be seen on it. He had drawn this while looking for odd jobs around the village earlier, and the layout of the entire Ginkgo Village was almost fully visible, with all major NPCs marked upon it.

Hanging the village map on the wall, Xiao Jie pulled out a new piece of map paper and began to draw.

This time, what he drew was a rough map of Ginkgo Valley.

Since only a small portion had been explored so far, the map was not yet complete, but given time, a complete topographic map would certainly be obtained.

Having a map would allow for more intuitive planning during layout design, which was also the habit of a professional gamer.

With a few strokes, Xiao Jie sketched the general terrain onto the paper.

On the western hillside, Xiao Jie marked the respawn locations of a few solitary bandits, as well as the place that was suspected to be a bandit camp.

In the middle of the map, he drew the path leading from the valley to the outside world, as well as the route the corpse-driver had taken. After a moment of hesitation, he drew a skull symbol there, which represented danger. After thinking about it, he also drew a skull at the bandit camp.

Next was the old Tian family residence in the east, along with the surrounding farmland. This area felt relatively safer, and Xiao Jie drew a question mark over the old Tian family residence.

How to enter the old Tian family residence was a mystery that urgently needed to be solved at present.

Unfortunately, this game had no official guides or player forums to check, so he could only study it slowly by himself. However, based on Xiao Jie's dozen years of gaming experience, any mystery in a game always left behind clues, giving players a chance to crack it.

Although this game was incomparably magical, in terms of content design, it clearly still maintained the structural mindset of a gaming world, so Xiao Jie did not believe this mystery was unsolvable.

Speaking of which, someone in Ginkgo Village should know the story of the Tian family, right? Oh right, when he was looking for a job, it seemed he had encountered an NPC surnamed Tian. He could go ask tomorrow.

After finishing the game planning, Xiao Jie made his own dinner. Since he couldn't log in at night, he had plenty of time.

Having eaten a hearty meal, once he finished dinner, Xiao Jie walked out of the residential compound once more.

He planned to go to the park for a night run and, by the way, properly experience the physical changes brought about by the increased attributes.

Walking on the way to the park, he didn't feel much change, but once he arrived at the park and started running along the winding mountain road, he immediately felt the difference.

His body became exceptionally light, and his speed had noticeably increased quite a bit. He used to run pretty fast anyway, but his stamina was a bit poor; sprinting was alright, but long-distance running would completely exhaust him.

This time, however, the sensation was exceptionally distinct. Under a full-out sprint, Xiao Jie felt the scenery on both sides rapidly flash past behind him, his whole body moving as swiftly as if he had wind under his feet.

Yet, under an all-out burst, the consumption of stamina was also much more severe; after running for just over ten seconds, his lungs felt as though they were about to explode.

Staggering as he reduced his speed, he slowed down to a jog and gradually came to a halt. Xiao Jie thought to himself that this was too exhilarating; his speed could probably reach about twelve to thirteen seconds per hundred meters.

And this was only with 15 agility. If he turned around and raised his agility to 20, 30, or even 40, wouldn't he become the Flash?

Even Usain Bolt would be completely outclassed.

By the way, do game players get to participate in sports meetings?

It was just that his stamina was still too poor. Xiao Jie breathed heavily, thinking that if he had spare attribute points later on, he would also have to allocate some to stamina and strength.

Based on the changes brought by the two attribute point allocations and his own understanding, Xiao Jie deduced that an increase in physique should improve his overall physical fitness, including blood circulation, the immune system, the speed of wound healing, and resistance to disease.

Strength should increase muscle strength and muscle explosive power. If strength points were high, his body's muscles would probably become quite developed.

Stamina, roughly speaking, would be muscle fatigue resistance as well as cardiopulmonary function.

And agility would roughly be neural reaction speed, balance, coordination, and so on.

Now that his neural reaction speed had gone up, but his muscle fatigue resistance and cardiopulmonary function had failed to keep pace, he naturally couldn't last long.

It seemed that extreme, single-minded stat allocation was not very useful in reality. If viewed purely from the perspective of daily life, a balanced development of all four attributes was the most reasonable.

However, considering battles in the game, single-minded stat allocation was also unavoidable.

Fortunately, an ordinary person's attributes were too weak, and he could surpass mortals by casually adding a few points, so he didn't need to dwell on it too much.

As Xiao Jie was thinking, his lungs finally returned to normal. Just as he was about to run a circle around the hill and go home, he suddenly raised his head and found a pair of small green eyes looking at him from the darkness.

Oh, it was that black cat again. But this time, the look the black cat gave him was obviously filled with complete vigilance, entirely unlike that disdainful and contemptuous little look from before.

Could it be because it saw him running just now?

Speaking of which, ever since he had learned Beast Language, he hadn't used it in reality yet.

He might as well use you to give it a try.

"Hey little guy, good evening," Xiao Jie said.

That black cat, however, showed no reaction at all.

No, this skill wasn't used like this. He still remembered the skill description of Beast Language.

[Beast Language (Mystic Art)
Usage: Requires concentration.
Skill Description: A strange art created by a half-demon that has attained spiritual enlightenment, capable of being used to conduct mental communication with humans or beasts, condensing the information to be conveyed within words, seemingly conversing while actually communicating on a spiritual level.]

That was it. Beasts did not have complex languages like humans, but instead conducted relatively simplified communication through tone, pitch, and scent.

Beast Language went a step further, acting directly on the mind, somewhat similar to telepathy. Words served more as a medium, much like incantations when casting a spell.

Xiao Jie closed his eyes, striving to search for that feeling in his memory.

This was not an easy thing to do, but fortunately, having the experience of mastering Kite Flips and Severed in One Slash, he quickly found the feeling.

Xiao Jie abruptly opened his eyes, staring directly into the black cat's eyes, "Hey little guy, good evening."

The black cat's pupils noticeably dilated for a moment.

On its round, furry face, an expression of solemnity suddenly appeared.

"Meow, you've finally come after all, aren't you? Did you come to challenge my position as king, you big clumsy cat? Although you have some strength, I won't easily surrender my power."