Forsyx stood on a high branch, watching the sun rise over the horizon. A full day had passed in-game—and nearly ten hours in real life.
Even though he had been here for such a long time, he felt more energized than when he first entered the game.
He looked at the distant Blackwater Village and could feel the clock ticking inside his mind.
The Awakening Cycle was only two in-game days away. He knew he couldn't wait any longer.
He looked up at the sky and jumped down with a smile on his face. The next moment, a white, dumb-looking bird appeared in his place.
"Cooooooooo!"
With a high-pitched, loud scream, the Pipler bird flapped its wings and started sailing through the trees like it was born for this.
It zigzags through the cluster of trees, avoiding every branch with ease.
Soon, it saw the last line of trees.
Instead of slowing down, the bird increased its speed while flying as low as possible.
Just when it was about to touch the ground, the bird disappeared, and instead, a green snake took its place.
Hsss!
Its forked tongue moved around in the air as it hissed and used the momentum to slither across the ground.
Hssssss...
Soon, the snake's speed started to slow down, but then Forsyx appeared in the snake's place.
He took one roll on the ground and then started running on his feet like he had been running the entire time.
The chill morning wind hit his eyes, making them moist. He maintained his big, wide smile as he started to slow down.
Just this small maneuver helped him cover a distance that would have taken him five minutes in less than thirty seconds.
What was even better was that the other players around him didn't even notice anything strange.
They just saw a man rolling out of the forest; that's all.
Just this much made his last day spent on training worth it.
As he walked to the main gate of Blackwater Village, he stopped smiling when he felt the tension.
There were hundreds of players walking back into the village, all of them devoid of the enthusiasm he saw in them yesterday.
Well, that was expected—only those who aimed to become pros stayed active during the morning.
In Apex Online, the beginner villages were kind of special in terms of rewards.
First, you had a high chance of getting class-based rewards, which were almost impossible to get beyond the beginner villages.
Then, the quality of rewards for the same quests was also a notch above the rest of the game.
For anyone who wanted to become a pro player, getting these rewards was a must.
It was one way to get ahead of the common pack, especially since most players here started with basic classes.
He was also here to aim for these class-specific rewards.
Especially, if possible, get a new template. Although his class relied on creating the templates inside the lab, it was impossible to gain them from outside.
But the special reward system of the beginner village was a kind of cheat that allowed such a possibility. However, he was not sure of how high of a task he had to do to get them.
It won't be easy, for sure.
As for why all the players were here at the same time, it was because of the chain quest mechanics.
Every morning, all the NPCs in the beginner village gave out these chain quests.
It was the same for every beginner village. Kind of interesting because, beyond the beginner villages, there was no real concept of NPCs giving quests in the same way.
Though there were still the area-based events.
This made progression in the Apex ascension a notch harder, as not getting a quest didn't mean the local population of NPCs had no quest.
No, it was the complete opposite. It was just that no system interface managed these tasks.
Also, the NPCs in Apex were a tad smarter than the general player population.
In the initial years, there were many cases where players did tasks for NPCs and, in return, got stones as rewards.
Heck, he remembered when he started playing as the guild master, there was this entire group of merchants. Those guys worked his guild to the bone and, in return, just gave some fcking red soil.
Though he got his revenge later on, it was a big learning experience for him.
Well, him getting defrauded was nothing compared to the biggest fraud event of the Niyoni Fall.
Niyoni used to be a famous guild that gained traction in the very first year of the game launch—about the time when he started playing.
They were one of the giant player guilds, but they made the mistake of taking the assassination request of a city mayor.
With their power, they easily completed the task, but they made one mistake: not hiding themselves.
On that day, players worldwide got to know that the biggest crime in Apex was to kill NPCs in the open.
Once the information got leaked, not even a day passed before a kingdom-wide announcement placed a bounty on the heads of all the Niyoni guild members.
Those NPCs didn't even move themselves and just used the players against themselves. The bounty rewarded everyone who killed Niyoni guild members.
Even an organization as strong as Niyoni crumbled in a few days under the greed of the entire player base.
They got killed to the point that each of them dropped to level one. And the NPCs didn't stop there—they started a nationwide capturing quest.
That entire event concluded in under a month, and the royals captured and imprisoned all the level 1 members in the royal prison.
In his past life, even after more than half a dozen years passed, those players still said their characters were bound in the prison.
It was eye-opening for the players. However, with time, players discovered that killing NPCs wasn't the crime. Getting caught was.
Though there were few ways around it depending on your connection with NPCs.
Well, currently, every NPC's kingdom favored a group of guilds, which gave them more power than others.
It was the same with the Rowali kingdom, and the Akinu guild was part of those favored guilds.
This world of Apex was full of fraudsters, from NPCs to players. Here, you had to be a tad bit smarter, or else you'd get used by the NPCs.
However, the beginner villages were an exception to this, as the NPCs here would give proper quests with fixed rewards.
The system ensured no cheating from either side.
Forsyx shook his head and walked to the market.
There were already huge lines before different shops—potion-making, blacksmiths, tailors, and more. Each of them gave different kinds of collection tasks.
He had no interest in wasting time searching for resources.
Instead, he headed deeper into the market and joined the longest line—at the butcher's shop.
After all, the butcher was one of the few who gave hunting quests. The best kind of quest where he could push to his limit.