Second Life: Welcome to Gaia

Chapter 38: The Old Shop

When he got back to the Alchemists' Guild, an attendant readily went to notify the manager that Ye Yan was back in the guild. After only 3 minutes, he came back to lead him to the manager's room.

"Did you spoke with that contact of yours?" The gnome asked as soon as he entered the room.

"Yes. He said his only interest is in the potion, then if the terms are the same as we discussed before, we can sign the contract." Ye Yan told him.

"Good. I had prepared the contract beforehand, so we wouldn't waste time with these trivialities." The gnome said, handing the contract to Ye Yan to sign.

He took the contract and look at it.

"Do you have a magnifier?" He asked because the font size is very little and while it is possible for him to read it if he brings the scroll close to his face, he is afraid that the gnome had written something so little that he can't see with his naked eyes. His vision in-game is a little worse than it is in real life, because he, like most of the inhabitants of the big cities, uses a bionic lens[1] to improve his vision while in the game he did not have access to such a gadget yet.

"No." The gnome answered smiling.

Looking at his smile made him become more suspicious. As there is no other way, Ye Yan took the paper up to 5cm from the eyes and started to read. The contract is written exactly as they discussed before, so he signed it and handed the recipe to him, getting his 3 gold coins in return.

Ye Yan told him that he would gather the ingredients and bring them to him as soon as possible, for him to make the potions. The gnome told him what he knew about the pyramids and the sea monsters, and sold him a pill for him to breathe underwater before he left the guild.

Before he left for the sea, Ye Yan contacted his friends to know where they are now because they didn't get the reward from the Adventurers' Guild yet. But most of his friends are away from the city except by Spell Bound, that called Ye Yan to join him to do a quest.

They agreed to meet in front of the Adventurer's Guild near the north gate.

"Why did you took so long to get here?" Spell Bound said impatiently.

"Did you forget how far it is from the Alchemists' Guild to here?" Ye Yan took a pulled rickshaw[2] to get to the north gate faster but, even the NPC running five times faster than Ye Yan, it took several minutes for him to arrive.

"Ok, ok. Come with me!" Spell Bound pulled Ye Yan to go with him to a little shop not far from the gate.

The shop is old and needs maintenance. The only indication that it is a shop is the signboard above the door written Shop only with calligraphy so strange that the person may suffer from Parkson[3].

Spell Bound opened the shop's door with caution, afraid of it break in his hands.

"Excuse me, sir". Spell Bound said while entered because the shop does not have a bell to notify the people inside of their presence and he doesn't know if it is open or close at the moment.

Inside the shop is no better them the outside. The floor and the walls need repairs, the old balcony has more termites than wood and there are so many spider webs that a hundred spider should live there.

"Oh, it's you again. So this is the friend you spoke of before?" The shop owner asked him. He is an old man with long white hair, glasses, and a roundback.

"Yes, he is. He will help me gather the item necessary for you to complete your invention." Spell Bound told the shop owner.

"Great! I am sure that with both of you, soon I can complete my creation." The old man said excitedly.

Ye Yan accepted the quest and both of them left the shop. They need to kill special spiders that weaves its web with wire. There is a cavern not very far from the city that serves as these spiders' nest.

Spell Bound entered this shop before and the old man was almost crying inside because to spent all his family's money on his invention but couldn't complete it. He needs one last item so he can finish the prototype. Then, the owner asked him to get [Wire Web] for him but he advises that the location is too dangerous for him to go alone and he would need one more person to enter the cave. That's why he asked Ye Yan to join him.

As they are near the north gate already, they walked there. And to save time, Ye Yan wore simple clothes with almost no weight and piggybacked Spell Bound. As a mage, Spell Bound focuses mainly on intelligence and dexterity, leaving no points to agility, and because of it, his movement speed is very slow compared to Ye Yan, even with his movement speed with a 25% penalization.

Ye Yan, rotating between running and walking, soon arrived in front of the cave indicate on the map the old man gave to them. He changed into his battle gear while complaining to himself about the sacrifices he needed to do to save time.

Spell Bound that hadn't to do any effort, looked at his clothes and passed his hands over it to take the wrinkles out.

"We need a better way of transportation as soon as possible." Spell Bound told Ye Yan.

After listening to what his friend said, Ye Yan pondered with he should punch him in the face or not. The temptation is big, but they have to kill the spiders now. He sighed and decided to leave it for when they complete the quest.

The cave isn't big and they would have difficulty fighting inside, so Ye Yan decided to kite the spiders while Spell Bound would wait for him outside of the cave and when Ye Yan is near enough, he would tell him through the communication stone, so he would cast his new spell [Meteor Rain] in the entrance of the cave. As the spell has a long cast time, he wouldn't wait for him to appear for him to start casting.

When Ye Yan come out of the cave, there were about a hundred spiders following him. Every one of them is the size of a basketball and is silver in color.

When he saw Spell Bound, he started to run as soon after, the fireballs started to fall. This spell is different from the one used by the Goblin Sorcerer. It is very weak but the space between the fireballs is only 1 meter.

The spell killed almost all the spiders and the few survivors were killed by Ye Yan's attacks and Spell Bound's firebolts. The spiders were very weak to fire damage, so the spells could kill it with only one hit.

Every time the cooldown of Meteor Rain end, Ye Yan went into the cave to attract more monsters until the cave became empty.

Afterward, they entered the cave and started to collect the wire webs. There were webs all over the cave, with some having dead bodies wrapped by the wires, which gave them some other types of items like snake bones, wolf's fang, and other such things. There is no chest but the loot was good enough already.

When they got out of there, their bags were so full that they had to leave some wire webs behind. Because of this, they saw the need to get a new bag as soon as possible.

"Wait!" Ye Yan said to Spell Bound. "I forgot something."

"What?" Spell Bund answered him.

"This!" Ye Yan gave a good punch on his friend's face, leaving him like a panda bear. "So refreshing!" He felt really good after the punch.

"The fuck! Why did you do this?" He knew he can't defeat him in a fight, so he didn't even try to get back at him. At least he had done it in the game, which he adjusted the pain to the minimum.

"You deserved it for being an asshole."

"Tsk. l will make the other let the dishes for you to wash today." Spell Bound doesn't like the dishwasher machines because he didn't think the pans and dishes come out of it clean enough. And he says the special detergent used is bad and all that. That's why they had to wash it with their own hands. They had tried to pay someone to do the housework but every time there was a problem, from falling in love with Hu Ling (or his wallet) to theft.

After they argued enough, they walked back to the shop and handed the wire webs over to the excited old man.

"Haha. With this, I can complete the prototype and will have enough to make two more. I will get to work right away. You two can come back tomorrow to see my finished work." The old man said it and ran away through a door to his workshop.

As it is too late already, they log out of the game, wondering what the old man's invention would be.

........

[1] Since 2015, a company had announced that it had succeeded in producing an intraocular lens that could improve the vision, shifting the focus of a human eye from a distance to a very close range without perceptible time lag. Goodbye to bifocal glasses.

[2] A pulled rickshaw is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart that seats one or two people.

[3] It is a brain disorder that leads to shaking, stiffness, and difficulty with walking, balance, and coordination. Luckily there are medications to help control the sintoms.

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