Haven Online

After they exited through the door, Xinya and Melting Snow realized that they were back where they started, on top of the island, surrounded by water. The sky was bright and sunny, exactly the same way it was when they went into the dungeon, but looking at the clock, Xinya could see that one day had already passed.

"That was a lot of fun, I wish I had quests like yours." Melting Snow said.

"Don't you have to do quests to get your skills?" asked Xinya.

Shrugging, Melting Snow replied. "Well, I do. But they are mostly fetching quests, so very boring."

"You're jealous of my quests while I'm envious of yours. What a pair we make." Xinya said with a slight smile on his face.

"We are a fine pair." Melting Snow said while laughing. "Anyway let's get off this island."

Xinya took out the raft kit from his inventory and opened it up. The raft that appeared was a wooden one, it was a high-grade one so it wasn't just some logs, with two oars tied to it. It was finely crafted, with two raised sides so that passengers wouldn't fall out if the water were to get rough. It had one long seat built in the middle and it was padded for comfort. The oars were connected to the raft so there was no way they would fall into the water if there was a slip of the hand, also the raft had bonus speed +5.

Melting Snow walked around the boat, looking at every inch of it in curiosity. "This is so cool, I have never been on a raft ever in my life, real or in-game."

"Me either, but there is a first time for everything," Xinya said.

Pushing the boat into the water was quite a strenuous ordeal. Xinya felt a little stupid, he should have opened it near the water but, for some reason, he thought they would have to put it together themselves. He couldn't do anything about it now, next time he would read the item description more carefully. Once the raft was in the water, he and Melting Snow got on it, each one of them grabbing an oar.

"So…" Melting Snow asked carefully. "We just paddle one at a time? Like, I paddle then you paddle?"

Xinya was as clueless as Melting Snow, so he said, "We can try that."

Doing as Melting Snow suggested, they took turns paddling, but what wound up happening was that the raft kept turning in circles. Knowing that they were doing it wrong, Xinya stopped and opened the internet interface and looked it up. It seemed they had to move the oars at the same time.

"Melting Snow, stop. We are doing it wrong," Xinya said.

"What should we do?" Melting Snow asked.

Xinya explained what they had to do, telling him they had to row at the same time, in sync with each other. At first, it was a little awkward, but Melting Snow started singing a little tune that got them in sync with each other and they began to paddle as if they had been doing it for ages.

There was no need to navigate since it was a straight path to where they needed to land, but it did take a while for them to reach their destination, while they were paddling Melting Snow asked about Xinya's throw skill and what it does.

"It's nothing special," Xinya said while paddling. "It just allows me to throw potions from far away at monsters. I think that one skill you used, the one thousand sword impalement, was nice, although a bit flashy."

"Hey now, people love flashy skills, that's the whole point of getting them." Melting Snow said.

"Really… I thought people get skills to make them stronger?" Xinya asked sarcastically.

"Well, that too, but mostly to look cool."

"Whatever you say," Xinya replied, laughing.

"You don't believe me? Well, let me tell you…" Melting Snow began, going on and on about how flashy skills are the best until they reached land.

Xinya who gave up on listening to Melting Snow talk a long time ago, gave a sigh of relief once they landed. They landed on a slight clearing, only a few feet away was a dense forest. Xinya had a feeling that a person could get lost in those woods for days without even trying. Since it would be dark in an hour or so, he decided to set up camp for the night, because who knows what type of dangerous monsters lurk in those woods.

There wasn't much they needed to do, just make a fire. Although this wasn't an official campground, there was one thing all players knew, if they are out in the wild, they must make sure to always light a fire at night, this will keep the monsters at bay. Not any fire would do though, it had to be a fire pit registered to each person or they won't be safe.

Once it was fully dark and the fire was lit, there wasn't anything for them to do but wait until sunrise, so Melting Snow sat by the water to fish, while Xinya sat next to him, soaking his feet. Xinya wasn't fishing, he was looking at his combat potion journal and at Shilvak's notes.

One year into the war

'I've been healing the soldiers that were injured by the monsters every day since this war began. I know that helping people is a great virtue, but I can't shake the feeling that I should be doing more. I also want to be on the front lines destroying those monsters who have been killing us for no reason, but all I know is how to make potions. Will I ever be of use?'

-Shilvak

Two years into the war

'I could take it no longer, I can't just sit on the sidelines any longer, I must help my fellow men in more ways. I have been secretly working on potions that would destroy rather than help and I finally made some progress. While making a health potion I accidentally knocked a glow flower in the mixture, it made a giant explosion. After tweaking it for a while, I can now create mini fireballs, the damage is not great and it can only attack two monsters at a time, but it's something. Now I know that the health potion, mixed with certain flowers, can create fire type potions that will do great damage to monsters. I will call them... combat potions.'

-Shilvak

A notification popped up in front of Xinya, telling him that he learned the recipe for the mini fireball potion. Xinya was thrilled, he finally had a combat potion that would do damage. There were two more paragraphs in his combat journal but they were blurred, he guessed he wasn't a high enough level to see those yet but, at the moment, it didn't matter. He finally didn't need his giant cutlery anymore. Getting up from the water, Xinya pulled out his portable potion-making kit and got to work, making the two combat potion recipes he got. It was lucky he got those glowing flowers from beginner town.