With an inventory full of herbs and a sliver of renewed purpose, Kage made his way back to Oakhaven. The bustling starter town was even more chaotic now. Player traffic clogged the dirt roads, their chatter a constant wall of noise.
As he walked, his ears, finely tuned to pick out valuable data from background noise, snagged on snippets of conversation.
"...heard he was a cheater, found some bug in the Founder's Legacy quest. GMs erased his whole account."
"Nah, my buddy in the Crimson Lions said the guy who got the world first just... vanished. The announcement got deleted. Poof. Like he never existed."
"I'm telling you, it was Asura. He found a backdoor to a dev room or something, and they panicked and covered it up."
Kage filed the misinformation away as irrelevant. Let them chase ghosts. He had a payroll to meet. His goal was the town's market district. He ignored the crowded auction house and the boisterous general store, seeking out a quieter, more specialized corner of the city.
He found it tucked away on a side street, nestled between a fletcher and a tailor. The sign above the door was a simple, hand-carved wooden plank depicting a mortar and pestle. The air around it was thick with the scent of dried leaves, soil, and something vaguely medicinal. The Verdant Apothecary.
Inside, the shop was a stark contrast to the noisy forge where he'd bought his swords. It was quiet, cluttered, and filled with a calming, aromatic scent. Bunches of dried herbs hung from the rafters. Shelves overflowed with glass jars containing colorful powders, twisted roots, and preserved flowers.
Behind a worn wooden counter stood an elderly woman, her face a roadmap of wrinkles, her hands stained a faint green. She peered at him over a pair of spectacles, her eyes filled with a placid, intelligent curiosity. The handle read [Old Anya].
Kage walked to the counter and initiated the trade window, placing his entire stack of herbs into the selling slot.
Anya didn't just accept the transaction. She picked up one of the High Quality Sunpetal Herbs he'd gathered. She held it up to the light filtering through a dusty window, her brow furrowed. She even brought it close to her nose and took a delicate sniff.
"My word…" she murmured, her voice soft and raspy, like dry leaves skittering across pavement. "The vitality in these petals. It's been a long time since I've seen a harvest this… spirited." She looked up at him, her gaze sharp. "You have a gentle touch, young man, not the clumsy, grasping grip of most adventurers."
She offered a price. It was twenty percent higher than the standard vendor rate for common herbs, and a staggering five times the price for the High Quality ones. Kage's total earnings came to a respectable 3 Silver and 40 Copper. A solid starting capital.
As he accepted the coin, Anya continued, more to herself than to him. "Spirit is good for calming nerves and easing fevers. But some ailments are more stubborn. They dig their roots deep into the body, like old stone."
Kage's internal quest parser flared. This was a hook. Instead of a polite nod, he gave her a verbal prompt. "You need something stronger."
Anya seemed startled by his directness, but a thoughtful look crossed her face. "Indeed I do. Old Man Herman, the miner, took a bad fall. A nasty break, and the bone-setter's work isn't taking. It needs a special poultice, one that requires a very particular ingredient." She sighed. "A rare lichen, a 'Gloom-moss,' they call it. It only grows in the deepest parts of the old mines east of here, where the sun has never touched. It thrives on darkness and damp stone."
Her gaze met his. "The mines are overrun with Goblins, I hear. Not a place for a simple herbalist. But a young adventurer like yourself…"
A system window materialized.
[New Quest Available: A Stubborn Ailment]
Old Anya needs a rare ingredient, [Gloom-moss], to craft a potent healing poultice for an injured miner. The ingredient can only be found in the depths of the Goblin Mines.
Quest Grade: Uncommon
Objective: Gather [Gloom-moss] x5
Reward: 15 Silver, Increased Reputation with Anya, Lvl 10 Uncommon Weapon
"I'll get it," Kage said, accepting the quest without any further preamble. His tone was flat, transactional.
Anya blinked, a little taken aback. "Oh. Well... that's wonderful, young man. But be careful. The Goblins are a nasty lot."
Kage simply nodded, turned, and walked out of the aromatic calm of the shop, back into the chaotic thrum of Oakhaven.
He had barely taken five steps into the main plaza when a wall of polished steel and embroidered cloth blocked his path. He looked up, his senses immediately flagging the group as high-level players. They were clad in gear that looked much better than the starting one.
A guild, one with significant resources.
The player at their center was a tall man with an arrogant smirk plastered on his face. His gear was a cut above the rest, a full set of plate that probably cost more than Klaid's rent for the next six months. Kage's analytical eye identified him instantly: Argent, leader of The Gilded Jackals, a notorious elitist and one-percenter from half a dozen other titles.
Argent's eyes flickered over Kage's pathetic starter shirt and worn trousers, then to the humble herbalist's shop he had just exited. A loud, barking laugh erupted from his chest.
"No way," Argent boomed, drawing the attention of everyone nearby. "The game's been live for hours and you're still in starter gear, picking flowers? Pathetic."
His cronies snickered. Argent's gaze narrowed, his eyes catching the nameplate above Kage's head.
"'Kage'?" he scoffed, his voice dripping with condescension. "Please. I heard the real Kage was playing. You must be one of the sad copycats trying to ride his coattails. Smart, I guess. A famous name is the only thing a scrub like you has going for you."
The insult landed like a physical blow. It wasn't just mockery; it was an attack on his legacy, his one untouchable asset.
Argent leaned in, his voice dropping to a patronizing whisper that was still loud enough for the surrounding players to hear. "Listen, kid. A word of advice from someone who actually knows how to play. This isn't one of those old games you can cheese your way through. You need gear, you need a guild, and you need to stop wasting your time with useless life skills."
He clapped Kage hard on the shoulder, a gesture of dominance disguised as camaraderie.
"But hey," Argent finished, his smirk widening as he turned to leave. "Somebody's got to supply the materials for real players. Keep up the good work."
His group, The Gilded Jackals, roared with laughter as they shoved past, leaving Kage standing alone in a newly formed circle of whispering, staring players.
Kage didn't move for a full minute. He let the whispers and the stares wash over him, processing them as ambient data. His face remained a perfect, unreadable mask of neutrality. He didn't clench his fists. He didn't flush with shame. He simply stood.
But inside, a profound shift was occurring.
There was no rage this time. No hot, desperate fury. The emotional outburst by the stream had served its purpose. It had shattered a wall. Now, in the rubble, something new was being built.
Argent wasn't an enemy. He was a variable.
The humiliation wasn't an insult. It was a data point.
The Operator's cold, clear calculation took over, forging a new directive. Argent's power was a simple equation:
Time plus Gold equals Gear, which equals Power.
It was the philosophy of the brute-force grind, the meta Kage himself had once mastered. To them, his new path was laughable, a dead-end of inefficiency.
They were wrong.
Kage's primary objective had been to survive, to endure this pathetic class until Level 25 where he could discard it like a broken tool. That was a passive goal. A loser's goal.
His new objective solidified, hard and clear as diamond.
Master this power.
He would weaponize it. He would dissect its every hidden rule, every esoteric syntax, until he could bend the world's narrative to his will. He would find a new kind of efficiency, one that Argent's simple, linear mind couldn't even comprehend.
He would prove that a single, perfectly crafted word was more powerful than a mountain of gold.
The whispers of the crowd faded into white noise. Argent and his guild were already forgotten, reduced to a mere benchmark in a long-term projection. Kage turned, his gaze set toward the distant mountains where the Goblin Mines lay.
He had a quest to complete, a theory to test, and a point to prove. Not to the world, not to Argent, but to the cold, unforgiving logic of the system itself.
He was not a copycat. He was Kage. And they would all learn the difference.