The First Store System

Chapter 95: Breakthrough

After taking the meditation art from Elsie, Aakesh left the group on their own and proceeded toward the jungle.

After he reached the jungle, he found a comfortable place to sit down. After finding a good spot, he sat down and opened the rolled animal skin.

The name of the meditation art was 'Ordinary Meditation Art'. It had a pretty basic approach to energy leveling. The book followed the primary way of promoting the physical body to increase your level. According to the art, as the body grows, the person's level would automatically increase.

Aakesh couldn't help but sigh disappointedly, seeing the name of the meditation art and then the introduction regarding it. He finally knew why the town-head acted mysteriously around it in the auction.

If only he had announced the name of the art in the auction, it wouldn't have even gained half of the bidding price.

Whatever was written in the animal skin was already known to Aakesh. He knew way more than that, but the system had plainly told him, without getting the same information in the virtual world, he couldn't use the knowledge of the actual world to help him in the breakthrough.

Since Aakesh had already bought the meditation art by granting a favor, he couldn't waste it. The next moment, he stood up and started making the exact postures shown in the art.

It wasn't hard for Aakesh, so he did 108 postures in around a minute. Time flew by, and he continued making the same posture for around 1111 times.

Right after he completed the 1111th posture, a sudden blue light engulfed him, and the next moment it disappeared. Aakesh knew he was now a Level 2 instead of Level 1.

The next moment, he thought of his status screen, and a blue window containing all his details appeared in front of him.

Personal Status:

Name: Aakesh,

Race: [*****],

Gender: Male,

Class: None,

Level: Level 2,

HP: 110/110,

Energy: 110/110,

Physical attributes:

Strength: 10,

Agility: 10,

Intelligence: -0-,

Endurance: -0-,

Comprehensions: Hand fighting (100%), Archery (100%), Swordsmanship (100%)... 

Skills: Wolfbane, Ability-Learning.

Aakesh nodded after seeing his details. His hp and energy have both expanded by ten points, whereas his strength and agility remained the same, without any increase.

"Hey, system, what would be my level if I compared my stats with others?" He asked as the status screen disappeared.

[Host, you've stats of Level 10, but you can defeat up to Level 15 with ease considering the experience in the combat you have.]

The system responded in its emotionless and mechanical voice. Aakesh nodded and didn't ask another question.

Time flew by, and hours passed. Aakesh didn't stop standing in postures after a single breakthrough. He continued the same process again, only to stop when the system informed him that a new day had come, and it was time to open his store in the real world.

Still, his hard work was not without any result. He was Level 6 at the time of stopping. He decided to check his status last time before exiting Panagea.

The next moment, a blue window containing all his details of Panagea appeared in front of him.

Level: Level 6,

HP: 150/110,

Energy: 150/110,

Physical attributes:

Strength: 16 (+6),

Agility: 16 (+6),

Aakesh nodded after seeing the all-around improvement and waved his hands. The next moment, the status screen disappeared.

He then disappeared from the jungle and appeared in the store. He decided to take a bath first and then open the door of the store.

After he took his bath and wore his regular clothes, he came down and opened the door. A group of familiar people was already standing at the door when Aakesh opened the store.

"Senior, you got late today!" Mark smilingly responded as Aakesh was some minutes late from his usual opening time.

In response, Aakesh only nodded, walked around to his comfortable chair, and sat down. The group then entered the store. The group had four members, and they were Bislo, Bisal, Mark, and Pento.

"Hello, senior!" Pento respectfully greeted after entering the store.

"Senior, six hours for all of us!" Bislo said. When he had left Panagea yesterday, the group was in a favorable position, so he was confident that they could successfully complete the quest today.

Bislo then handed 800 inferior Primal stones to Aakesh after taking their share from each member. Aakesh nodded, and the next moment, the mountain of Primal stones disappeared from the store.

They then made their way to the portal room while thinking about the success of their quest, but they had no idea what they were going to find when they entered Panagea.

Only ten minutes had passed when Mark and Bisal spawned in the store.

"Damn it! How could this happen?" They cursed right after spawning. Only a few seconds had passed when Bislo too appeared with a pale face. Only Pento was left in panagea fighting the metal wolves.

"Damn him!" Bislo cursed Pento after spawning, as he couldn't curse him in front of him.

"That bastard had ruined our quest after the Kingdom!" Bisal too cursed the prince.

"Senior, what's the cost of failure of the first quest?" Bislo ignored the ramblings of his son as completing the quest was now a foregone conclusion for them.

When they appeared in Gandoline, they saw a sea of wolves fighting a number of Elves. Seeing the situation, it doesn't look like they would be able to handle the onslaught of the wolves for even a day now.

"Nothing! You would get a new quest, and that would be several times more difficult than the previous," Aakesh expressionlessly answered. He didn't stop and continued, "if you failed that one too, you would get one last quest. If you failed in completing that quest, you would lose the ability to cultivate energy in Panagea. Instead, new classes will awaken for you, like blacksmiths, alchemists, etc."

"We can learn alchemy in Panagea?" Bisal excitedly asked before Bislo could say something.

"Yes, you can do anything in Panagea that you can do in the actual world. You can even become a God in Panagea and then in the real world as long as you can afford the price for entering," Aakesh expressionlessly responded.

After learning that they could learn alchemy in Panagea, the group of the three decided to quit the quest right away and instead attempt to start learning alchemy right away. 

Aakesh also told them that they could grow in levels by doing alchemy quests, but the only side effect was that they would always be weaker than other counterparts of the same level as them. Since they didn't gain the energy from the world by completing the first quest, but instead, they would get that ability by their class, so they would always be weaker than those who completed their first quest.

The group had no problem with staying weaker than others as they could never die in Panagea.

"You can become an alchemist even after completing the quest," Aakesh expressionlessly suggested to them before they could enter the Panagea and quit the quests.

He didn't care whether they completed the quest or not. He only suggested this because a new mode would activate in the Panagea when an adventurer would activate other classes. He didn't want the mode to activate currently, as he didn't have enough customers and portals.

Wry smiles appeared on the group's faces hearing Aakesh. They couldn't complete the quest even if they wanted to. The horde of metal wolves had already grown dangerous enough to threaten the entire town of Gandoline.

"Aren't you growing stronger by fighting them, and there's no risk of death, so why are you afraid of the quest?" Aakesh expressionlessly said, seeing their expressions.

"Senior-"

Bislo was going to respond when his voice got stuck in his throat as the next moment, Pento spawned in the store.

"What're you doing here?" He angrily asked the group with a hint of killing intent. 

In reality, Pento was an arrogant and cruel man. He only acted subserviently in the store because of the fear of Aakesh. He started taking it seriously since he got the confirmation that becoming a king in Panagea for him was possible. After becoming the king, he could use the gain of Panagea to become a king in the actual world, but dying alone due to the group not coming back for minutes made him erupt in anger despite him being in the presence of Aakesh.

"Young Prince, we were talking to senior about alchem-"

"I don't care! Let's go. After us, my guards would enter Panagea and fight the metal wolves," Pento cut Bislo off and said with a commanding tone.

Bislo wanted to respond, but words got stuck in his throat when he found Pento glaring at him. He may be stronger when compared with Pento in power, but his authority was nowhere near him. He couldn't even land a finger on Pento, but Pento only had to say it, and no one would know what happened with him.

Bislo stopped speaking and made his way toward the portal room after seeing the actual nature of Pento. Bisal and Mark followed Bislo while looking down. They didn't even dare to look into Pento's eyes, as they've heard enough of the stories of actions of Pento. Pento also followed after them.

***

A/N: Happy Deepavali to all the Indian and the world readers across the globe. May this festival bring light into this dark world of ours!

Thank you for supporting the book until now! I'm very grateful.

Happy Deepavali once again ^_^