MMORPG: Rise of the Peerless Pumpkinmancer
chapter-46

A man could be seen excitingly skipping toward a nearby house in the empty New Leaf village.

Jack was in a good mood, no a great mood! This Clucking Aegis was all he had wanted and more.

Hell, it was as if the universe was thanking him for his good deeds by rewarding him with incredible luck. What good deeds? Eh….maybe feeding poor hungry wolves? Who knew! Anyway, why stop there!

Right now, Jack was completely set with his weapons. He was 99% sure that it was impossible to have anything better at this stage of the game.

Jewelry would be impossible for now. He had to focus on the basic armor pieces (5/9). They were respectively: Helmet, chest, gloves, leggings, and shoes. It was time to visit plenty of NPCs!

Jack first passed by the potion shop. The old lady was still showing her wrinkly body in all its ugliness. “What can I do for you, dear?” she murmured.

“The question should be more what I can do for you, beautiful.” What was a white lie in the grand scheme of farming affection points?

“Do for me? Do you think that I need your help to concoct potions or something?! I’m perfectly capable of accomplishing everything on my own!” She replied curtly. “I’ll be damned if I let a youngster tell me how to do my fucking job!”

“What about gathering ingredients?” Jack offered.

“Oh? I do need help with that. But don’t expect too much money since I’m the one that has the hard work of mixing it all. It requires great skill and—”

“What do you need exactly?”

“I’ve been lacking in ingredients to craft health potions recently. I’ll need you to venture into the New Leaf Forest and find some New Bloom’s Brachyschomes as well as Begonias. I’ll need about 12 of each. They look-like—”

She began a long description but suddenly stopped in her track. Jack had just taken out what she had requested. She couldn’t help but gasp. “Wow, okay, what are the odds of you having some on you? Wow, just wow!”

She happily grabbed them all before handing him over three health potions. Seeing this, Jack couldn’t help but grumble: “C’mon, you’re going to make 12 of them with what I gave you. Three potions, really?”

“Tch— Fine, there you go. This is my final offer.” Jack now had six potions in total, with each healing 20 HP. It would be beneficial for his upcoming endeavors.

“Great doing business with you. Is there anything else that you require?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. There’s a recipe I’ve been meaning to try. It requires 10 New Bloom’s Poppy and 11 Chicory. These flowers look-like—”

“There you go.” Jack happily handed it over.

“How the hell do you have that already?! Chicories can only be found in wolf territory?! Actually, I don’t really care. I’ll be back in a second. Wait here.” She then retreated to the backroom, only to come out 10 minutes later.

“Ta-da! How is it? Notice anything different?” She appeared to be glowing and was fishing for a compliment.

“Excuse me, young miss, have you seen the owner of this shop?” Jack played along.

She had just concocted herself a new beauty cream. It was effective but barely. Still, he could hear the affection points rising (almost).

“Ho-ho-ho! It is I, the fair maiden and owner of this shop!” But then she looked at herself in the mirror. “Actually, there is another recipe that I’d like to test. Would you fetch a few more ingredients for me?”

When NPCs instantly suggested a new quest, it could be one of tho things:

1. This was a motherfucking chain quest!

2. They had realized the player was a sucker that could be exploited.

“Sure thing.” Jack amicably replied.

“This time, I’ll need 11 Brachyschomes, 12 Poppies, 13 Begonias, and a single Last Bloom’s Darkrovia. Oh, and also a few fruits: here’s a list (it was long). Now this time there’s no way that—”

But she instantly choked on her words. Jack was already getting everything ready. She couldn’t help but rub her eyes as she saw him take out all the flowers along with apples, oranges, pears, and melons.

“H-how?!”

“I got the flowers in the forest, and the fruits from Steven'” Jack explained.

“What?” He shared his fruit stash with you?! He always tells me that it’s private and that he can’t afford to sell me any! This is so unfair!”

First world problem Infinite edition: an old lady raging about her inability to buy fresh fruits. But, she then proceeded to grab it all before hiding in the backroom once more. A few minutes later, she was back, a cloud on her face.

“I was so close to succeeding! I can feel it. I just need one more try and—” She was complaining aloud.

Jack wordlessly pushed more ingredients her way. This instantly wiped all that he still had. Sure he had gathered from a large forest area, but only once and alone. There was a limit to his stock.

A few minutes later, she was back, overflowing with happiness. “Damn, this rejuvenating smoothie tasted so good. I can’t believe it’s that amazing!”

“You definitely look younger! Very pretty!” Jack gave her a thumbs up. This time the difference was noticeable with the naked eye.

“Thank you so much! I’ll be researching this some more. Oh, right. I should reward you for helping me. Here, take this since I’m in a good mood.” She shoved a pair of gloves in his hands before disappearing.

— Ta-da-da! Acquired Gloves!—

He quickly equipped it, already heading for his next target. While the gloves were pretty average, they did have a trait that made them pretty nice and gave an attribute.

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Uncommon Alchemist Gloves

Rank F

Level 5

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[Armor Rating] 2

[Armor Type] Leather

[Durability] Average

[Attribute] +1 SPI

[Trait] + Bonus Potion Healing

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Now, who should he visit? There was the general merchant, the magical Florist, the butcher, the training instructor, or even the village chief as a last resort.

Jack hurriedly headed to Steven’s shop. “Hey there, I need some equipment. Do you have anything to sell?” He thundered.

“Oh, it’s you! You’re the one that helped me the other day to sort my new shipment. I swear you’re the only good Samaritan in this village! You said equipment, right?”

As the man checked his shop inventory, Jack couldn’t help but find the situation funny. The NPC had a better opinion of him just because the players didn’t want to do his worthless quest.

To be fair, he could understand them. They weren’t suckers that would clean up for free! Many probably had PTSD of their parents/spouse nagging them to clean their shit. They wouldn’t do something like that for free!

“You’re in luck! I have pants and boots. Is there any that interests you? I can put them aside for you if you don’t have the funds just yet.” Steven asked with a warm smile.

“Any possibility to barter for it? I have lots of pelts from foxes and wolves.”

“Pelts? Most certainly, we can trade. How many do you have?”

That is when Jack showed the collection of pelt he had assembled by diligently snatching the corpses from the wolf army. “Oh, this is awesome! I’ll be able to turn a profit in no time.

Here you go, these two items shall be yours then.”

“Pleasure doing business with you.” It had only taken a minute to do the exchange, and this was another power spike for Jack.

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Uncommon Traveler’s Boots

Rank F

Level 5

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[Armor Rating] 2

[Armor Type] Leather

[Durability] Good

[Attribute] +1 AGI

[Trait] + Bonus Walking Speed (Road)

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The passive was completely useless in the forest, but the AGI was definitely something he lacked. It was the same for the leggings as they both came from the Traveler series.

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Uncommon Traveler’s Legging

Rank F

Level 5

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[Armor Rating] 2

[Armor Type] Leather

[Durability] Good

[Attribute] +1 AGI

[Trait] + Bonus Walking Speed (Road)

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Now, Jack was only missing a chest and a helmet. The Florist would likely be useless to him as he was the trainer for the mages…but didn’t know necromancy. The training instructor would probably have skills to offer.

That’s why he headed toward the butcher shop. What did this have to do with the equipment? Well, Jack had plenty of meat to bargain with. That and what lied below the surface of it…

As he entered the blood-smelling butcher shop, he was welcomed by the grin of the shopkeeper.

“Hey there! Would you like some thick sausages? I can assure you that mine are incredibly delicious!

But, he didn’t have too much time to waste with that and went straight to the point. “I need gear. Do you have anything lying around by any chance?”

“Brother, this is a butcher shop. What are you expecting?”

“Is that a no then?” Jack asked.

“Ah, let me check. I may have some stuff from my adventuring days.” He soon returned with a helmet in his hands. “That’s all that I have. But honestly, I’m not sure if it could hold in battle”.

There was a metallic helmet in his hands that had seen better days. It was slightly rusty, and there seemed to be traces of blood on it. Yet, even with such a pitiful look, it didn’t daunt Jack in the least.

“Nice! How about I trade it for some meat?”

“Maybe, but it will take a lot of it.”

“Here, how about this?” Jack began taking Fox and Wolf meat out, with the NPC nodding at the relatively well-made cuts.

But that’s when Jack made human meat appear. Instantly, the NPC’s face changed. Yet, there wasn’t any sign of repulsion on it.

No, he was suddenly grinning…..

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[A/N] The upcoming chapters are sponsored by Ragewaar! Is it a bird, is it a plane? It’s a goddamn Spacecraft!! ?? Thanks for the message promotion ^_^v

Creator’s Thought

Questing can be useful. It’s a great way to kickstart one’s progression. This especially applies in beginner villages. After all, when spawning one is completely naked. In a few minutes, I had already more than doubled my items. Great, am I right? I wasn’t even remotely done either!