Anton entered his tent and lay down on his sleeping mat. He had no intention to sleep since what he wanted to do was continue leveling up. He was level thirty-two and just fully explored the Frigid Highlands.
What he needed to do next was rescue the NPC Anya since the quest reward of plus ten to all resistances was good for him especially since it would be applied to his body in the real world as well.
Since Anton was exploring every nook and cranny of the game, of course, he would do all the quest so that meant that he would also kill the necromancer NPC Nihlathak. He was able to fully explore the Crystalline Passage to do the Anya Quest and fully explored The Frozen River where she was located and then the Arreat Plateau. He enjoyed destroying the monsters since the spell Frozen Orb made it very easy for him.
This brought him to level thirty-three. He increased the skills Frozen Orb and Cold Mastery and had only two skill points remaining. He was lucky enough to acquire a two-slotted full helm, three-slotted gothic shield, and two-slotted field plate.
Anton went back to Harrogath created a new Stealth runeword armor using the field plate since it had a higher defense and gave his old one to his mercenary. Since he also had the runes for Lore runeword helm and Ancient Pledge runeword shield he made those as well. So now he had three somewhat decent runeword items. The Lore Helm, Ancient Pledge Shield, and Stealth Field Plate armor. The other noteworthy item that he had was the Stone of Jordan. The rest of his items were just rare items containing faster casting stats and resistances. The weapon that he was using was the smoked sphere that was given to him by Anya which added one to all cold spells, some points in energy, and some mana points. The moment he made the runeword weapon Spirit, he would replace the smoked sphere.
He also started collecting small and large charms that contained resistances since he now had the inventory space to store them. Once he completed Act IV, he planned to farm the Cow Level to get a crystal sword that he could let the NPC Larzuk create into a four-slotted sword so he could create the runeword item Spirit. He even had the runes for it already and the only thing missing was the base sword.
Anton felt satisfied with his new items then he checked the time and discovered that it was late so he minimized the game and slept.
The next day, the whole group immediately left after breakfast since Anders wanted to be far away from where the bandit ambush happened. Nermina and Lunelle insisted on driving their cart which Anton expected and Anna wanted to sleep in the carriage since she said she slept really late last night since she was reading the stories in her notebook. He joined Anders in the driver’s seat first since he wanted to talk to his father.
“Father, do you want to hire someone to drive the carriage for us when we arrive in the next village?”
At first, Anton expected his father to say that they did not need anyone since he was enough but his father paused, thinking deeply.
“I think it would be a good idea for us to hire someone. This would be a very long journey and driving all the time would become tedious. The problem we’ll encounter is, that the person we will hire would need to commit a large part of his time to us since it could take at least a year for that person to return to his village. Another option for us is to hire temporary drivers like someone who will accompany us to a specific location not far from where he lives then we hire a new one after that contract ends.”
“That’s a good idea, Father! I’m impressed,” Anton said.
“It’s a common practice,” Anders laughed.
“I know you will be able to handle this Father so I’ll leave it to you. How long before we arrive at the next village Father?”
“We’ll arrive there the day after tomorrow.”
Anton stayed with his father and continued talking about different things. He even took out his lute to practice and play some songs and he could see that his father enjoyed the songs that he chose to play that day. When lunchtime arrived, they stopped to rest the horses and he helped Anna to take care of the horses by providing their mounts drinking water which was the mana water that he conjured from controlling his Frozen Orb spell. He also didn’t forget to activate the Prayer Aura skill so the horses would heal and renew quickly.
After taking care of the horses, Anton removed the animals from the party system and added everyone back in and when they were eating lunch he activated the aura so everyone would receive its benefit. Anton wondered why the Prayer Aura did not have any visual effect, and then a pop-up window appeared on his view asking him if he wanted auras to appear visually in the real world. Curious, Anton mentally clicked on yes and a light show appeared on his feet. The Prayer Aura appeared the same as it was in the game which was a foggy light blue smoke light effect that startled everyone.
“I’m sorry everyone. It’s the visual effect of my healing skill. I noticed an option to have it appear visually and this thing came out,” Anton said.
“It’s beautiful brother! You look like one of those saints in the cathedral in the holy city of Tiande that Mother was telling us about. Supposedly saints will appear glowing like that among the masses,’ Anna said.
“It’s distracting so let me turn it off,” Anton said.
“No leave it for now so we’ll know when you’re using it and besides when you use that spell you don’t use it long right?” Anton’s father asked.
“Usually, a few minutes at most. I’ll just leave it then. I wonder if it glows at night? We could use it as a source of light,” Anton joked and his father and Anna laughed.
Anton turned off the aura after a couple more minutes and the light fixture coming from his feet disappeared.
“Sir Anton, we heard you playing your lute and singing while you were beside your father. I just want to tell you that your voice is truly beautiful and it made our travels more pleasant,” Lunelle said while blushing.
“Thank you Lunelle, I appreciate that. This afternoon though I would not be playing the lute since I’ll go back to meditating.”
“In that case, I’ll join Nermina and Lunelle in their cart so I’ll have someone to talk to,” Anna said and Anton just shrugged.
After lunch, they all went back to traveling and Anton immediately entered the game after he sat inside the carriage. He was excited to continue playing the game since he had new items and was more powerful.