The rest of the day passed the way most did now—chores finished, dinner cleared, a few quiet minutes with his parents before Ethan finally climbed the stairs to his room. He settled back against the headrest, and when the calibration prompt blinked into view, he said the two words that still didn’t feel entirely ordinary no matter how many times he’d spoken them.
"Link Start."
The ceiling dissolved into calibration light, and by the time his vision cleared, it wasn’t his ceiling anymore.
Morning light spilled through the narrow mouth of a cave, painting warm streaks across rough stone. Outside, the wetland’s early chorus rose over the steady murmur of a nearby river.
Ember opened his eyes a beat before his internal alarm sounded, the last of the drowsiness burning off as the scent of wet silt reached him before his eyes had even adjusted.
He sat up from his bedroll, joints popping as he stretched out the stiffness of sleep. His gear waited exactly where he’d left it—pack against the dry rock wall, bow resting on the flat ledge beside it. Gear first. It had stopped feeling like a rule somewhere along the way and started feeling like just how mornings worked now.
A pillar of soft blue light flickered near the cave entrance, resolving into Mia mid-yawn, her staff nearly slipping from her grip before she caught it.
"Morning," she mumbled, dropping onto her own bedroll and rubbing at her eyes. Then she blinked properly awake and squinted at him. "You’re already dressed. How early do you even log in?"
Ember glanced up from where he was running a thumb along the belly of his bow, checking the wood for damage from yesterday’s damp. "Wanted to check this before the mist got into the grain. Didn’t want to find out it warped mid-shot."
"That’s either very responsible or very paranoid."
"Can it be both?"
That got a small laugh out of her, enough to shake the last of the sleep from her voice. She reached for her water flask. "Please tell me there’s food left. I will fight you for the last of that fish."
"It’s in my pack. Cold, but edible."
"Cold’s fine. I’ve had worse from ration biscuits."
They ate on the stone ledge overlooking the misty river, picking apart the last of yesterday’s grilled trout and a handful of wild berries Mia had wrapped in cloth. Neither of them talked much. The quiet wasn’t awkward—just unhurried, the kind of morning neither of them had a reason to rush.
Once they’d finished, Ember scattered the cold ashes of last night’s fire and buried the pit under loose dirt until it looked like undisturbed ground, then made his way down to the reed beds to check the fish trap he’d set the evening before.
Three Silverfin Trout thrashed against the woven willow lattice.
"Not bad," he murmured, transferring the catch into his pack before rinsing the mud from the trap.
When he turned back, Mia was leaning against a mossy boulder, arms crossed, watching him with open amusement.
"You know," she said, "most people our level are still figuring out which end of the bow the arrow goes on."
Ember huffed something almost like a laugh. "Had a good teacher."
"Clearly. Does he teach fire-pit etiquette too, or is that a personal quirk?"
"Bit of both." He shouldered his pack. "Ready?"
"Lead the way, woodcrafter."
They left the ridge behind and descended into Crescent Marsh.
The trail dissolved gradually—packed dirt giving way to black muck, then ankle-deep standing water. Gnarled trees leaned at odd angles, roots arched above the silt like frozen serpents, and low curtains of moss cut off what little breeze made it through the canopy. Dragonflies skimmed between the reeds, and somewhere deeper in the swamp, bullfrogs kept up a slow, rhythmic thrum.
Ember slowed, boot sinking an inch into the mud. "The birds stopped."
Mia’s hand drifted toward her staff. "We’re in a denser zone now. Bigger territories mean the small stuff either hides or gets eaten."
He eased an arrow loose in his quiver, just enough that it wouldn’t catch on the strap if he needed it fast.
The light dimmed further as the canopy thickened, water climbing to their shins, cold enough to bite through leather. The smell of rot mixed uneasily with wet stone.
"From here," Mia said, quieter now, "don’t pull anything unless you’ve got somewhere to run to."
"Wasn’t planning on it."
An hour later they reached a wide, still stretch of water scattered with slate-gray stones. Too still. No ripples, no insects skimming the surface—just rock after rock breaking the grey water.
Ember scanned the clearing slowly. "No tracks anywhere. That doesn’t sit right."
Mia frowned down at her mini-map. "There should be spawns through here. Unless something already cleared them out—"
One of the stones to their left lifted.
It didn’t roll with a current—it climbed, unfolding on four crystalline legs that drove into the mud with a wet, grinding click. A pair of massive claws rose above the waterline, catching the light in sharp geometric fractures, and a shell studded with rough quartz crowned its back.
[Appraisal]
Monster
Name: Crystal Shell Crab
Level: 7
Rank: Common
HP: 100%
Behavior: Defensive
Special Attack: Shell Crash
Description: A sturdy crab with a shell reinforced by naturally formed river crystals — slow-moving, but able to shrug off repeated hits before striking back with surprising force.
It let out a wet, grinding hiss and lunged sideways with a speed that didn’t match its size.
Ember drew and released in one motion.
CLANG.
The arrow skidded off the crystal shell in a spray of sparks, the shaft spinning uselessly into the water.
"It’s not even slowing down!" He backed onto a half-submerged root for footing.
"Don’t waste arrows on the shell—that thing’s built to eat hits!" Mia planted her staff, already sweeping mud from its legs with a gust of pressurized air. "I’ll try to get under it!"
The wind tore a channel through the silt, and for half a second the crab’s underside—where limb met softer flesh—showed pale beneath the shell.
Ember’s fingers twitched on the string. Wasting the shot now meant losing the window; the crab was already drawing its legs in tight, shell angling to cover the gap again.
It’s winding up.
"It’s about to charge!" he shouted. "Get clear!"
Mia didn’t retreat. She slammed the end of her staff into the water. "Ice Lance!"
A jagged spear of ice erupted from the mud and caught the crab’s trailing leg just as it launched, the sudden anchor wrenching its whole charge sideways. Momentum it couldn’t cancel dragged the shell up and over, exposing the pale, unarmored belly beneath.
Ember didn’t think. He drew to his ear and loosed.
THWIP.
The arrow buried itself deep between the chest plates. He had a second nocked and away before the first had stopped quivering, driving straight into the same gap.
The Crystal Shell Crab shuddered, claws flailing once, twice—and then went entirely limp, collapsing heavy and motionless into the shallow water.
[Skill Proficiency Increased]
Basic Archery
Practice has improved your proficiency.
+0.5%
[Experience Gained]
Crystal Shell Crab defeated.
+60 EXP
[Bonus Experience]
You have defeated an opponent of a significantly higher level.
+18 EXP (+30%)
Ember let out a breath, wiping a smear of river mud off his cheek as he stepped down from the root.
The massive, quartz-studded carcass lay half-sunk in the black silt. It didn’t fade away.
Ember unclasped his hunting knife from his belt and crouched over the heavy shell. "That plate is absurdly thick."
"Built to punish anyone who just spams attacks," Mia said, wading over to watch as he wedged the blade into the soft seam where the chest plate met the lower legs. "You held your shot instead of panicking. That’s more than I can say for half the people I’ve partied with."
"Almost didn’t. If you hadn’t pinned the leg, I wouldn’t have had the angle."
"That’s the whole point of a party, isn’t it." She said it lightly. "You find the gap. I make one when there isn’t one yet."
Ember worked the knife methodically, applying leverage until a large, crystalline plate pried loose with a heavy, wet snap, followed by two intact pincers. He sliced away three pristine slabs of firm meat from beneath the upper carapace before wiping his blade on a patch of moss.
[Basic Gathering]
Harvesting complete.
[Item Obtained]
Crystal Shell Fragment ×1
Shimmering Claw ×2
Fresh Crab Meat ×3
"Not bad yields," Ember said, stowing the materials into his pack inventory before rinsing his knife in the current.
The rest of the morning fell into a steadier rhythm—gathering more than hunting. Mia showed him how to harvest Moon Reed without tearing the root system, preserving its mana purity for alchemy. Ember, in turn, recognized a mat of pale green moss clinging to the shaded side of a fallen trunk.
"Mist Moss," he said, working it free with his knife into a leather pouch. "Holds moisture without rotting. Better than linen for wrapping a burn."
Mia studied it, surprised. "I thought that was just a low-tier dye reagent."
"In a menu, maybe." He tied off the pouch. "In the field it keeps a bandage from sticking to an open wound."
"You really didn’t learn this game from a wiki, did you."
"No." He straightened, tucking the pouch away. "Just from someone who cared more about keeping me alive than teaching me to look good doing it."
By noon they reached a wide, spring-fed pool beneath three drooping willows, the water clear enough to see straight to the silt-free bottom. Fish drifted between the rocks—Silverfin Trout, a few Golden Carp, and near the center, something long and pale that caught the light like polished mother-of-pearl.
Mia leaned over the bank, eyes wide. "Is that a Moonscale Koi? I read those barely spawn in this zone."
Ember was already unstrapping his rod. "Then don’t scare it off."
Too late. Mia dropped her line in with an eager splash directly above the fish’s shadow, and the whole school vanished into the weeds.
"...Okay. That was on me."
"A little." He settled onto a flat rock a few feet back from the water. "Clear water, they see everything coming. Drop upstream and let the current carry the bait to them instead."
"You could’ve told me that before I did the exact opposite."
"I was going to. You cast first."
He made a soft underhand cast upstream, letting the float drift into the slow eddy near the pool’s center, then settled in to wait.
Mia crouched beside him, chin on her knees, watching the float with the particular impatience of someone who didn’t get much practice sitting still. "It’s not moving."
"It won’t for a while."
"How do you even know that?"
"I don’t. I’m guessing, same as you." He shrugged. "Guessing just gets easier the more times you’re wrong."
That earned a quiet laugh. Neither of them said much after that, the silence stretching out easy between them until, several minutes later, the float dipped—not a plunge, just a slight lean to the side.
Ember waited for the line to tighten before lifting the rod in one smooth motion. The wood bent hard, the tip trembling as something big fought the pull.
"That’s it, that’s it—don’t lose it!" Mia was on her feet, nearly slipping in the mud.
He didn’t rush it. He let the rod’s flex absorb the frantic runs toward the roots, walking backward up the bank until the fish tired enough to guide into the shallows and under the landing net.
[Fishing Successful] Caught: Moonscale Koi (High Quality) ×1
[Skill Proficiency Increased] Basic Gathering +0.9%
[Skill Proficiency Increased] Basic Survival +0.3%
"You absolute—" Mia stared at the fish in the net, then up at him, something between disbelief and betrayal. "I wanted to catch it."
"There’s more down there."
"That’s not the point." But she was already smiling, arms crossed like she was trying to hide it.
They cooked the catch over a hidden fire near the willow roots, Marsh Mint cutting the grease of the trout while Bluewater Lily roots roasted in the embers until they split open like baked potatoes.
Between bites, the conversation wandered somewhere looser than usual. Mia talked about wanting to reach Oakhaven eventually, about unlocking her second elemental tree, about the half-buried ruins scattered across the southern maps nobody had properly mapped yet. Ember mostly listened, aware of how much bigger the world felt than the stretch of forest he’d spent weeks pacing around Azure Shore.
"You really don’t care about the leaderboards, do you," Mia said eventually, leaning back against the willow bark.
"Not really." He turned his empty skewer over in his hands. "I care about not dying. And about knowing what I’m walking into before I can’t walk back out of it."
She looked at him for a moment, afternoon light dappling across her face through the leaves. "That’s probably why you’re still here. Half the people who started when we did already burned their first life counter on something stupid."
Ember looked out over the still water. "Then we make sure we’re not part of that number."
Mia huffed, something close to agreement. "Confident."
"Careful," he corrected. "There’s a difference."
The light had shifted while they ate, the white-gold of midday softening into something dimmer and more amber. Ember only noticed it slowly—the way the sounds of the marsh had changed again without him catching exactly when.
The ambient drone of dragonflies and small birds had slowly drifted into total stillness. The embers of their cooking fire crackled softly in the quiet.
Then, from somewhere deeper in the dark water where the willow shadows pooled thickest, came a heavy, resonant croak. It wasn’t the rhythmic thrum of the bullfrogs they’d heard earlier. It was lower, wetter, vibrating straight through the muddy bank beneath them.
A second call answered it from the opposite side of the pool, closer this time.
Mia’s relaxed posture vanished instantly, her eyes locking onto the dark tree line. "That’s... not a background sound."
Ember was already on one knee, reaching for his bow as he kicked damp dirt over the remaining embers of their fire. "No," he said, pulling an arrow from his quiver. "Something big just moved into this area."
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter