Chapter 6

Regarding the work "Sword Art Online," Yalin Li didn't know much about it, having only watched the anime once. He knew the general plot: a group of gamers were trapped in the game world and could only save themselves by defeating the final boss.

Now, he found himself in a virtual online game world. Unlike the players in this world, who were not fully immersed physically but mentally, his body, along with his flesh and blood, had come to this world!

Just now, Yalin Li pinched himself hard, and the pain made him instantly realize that he could bleed and be injured in this world. If he died here, he would face true death!

When SAO was in its beta test, although players would die in reality if they died in the game, at least they wouldn't feel pain, bleed, or become weak after being injured. They would maintain maximum combat power until their health bar was depleted.

However, Yalin Li was different. If he was injured, he would become weak, and if he bled without treatment, he would die. Just thinking about this made Yalin Li instinctively feel a sense of fear.

For Yalin Li, this world was not virtual but real! He had to survive in this dangerous real world and complete all the tasks!

To be honest, Yalin Li was afraid, but he also knew he had no way out! To find a way home and to survive in the duels, Yalin Li had to turn all his fears into motivation. Being injured and bleeding was better than dying, right?

With this motivation, Yalin Li began to check the changes in his body. The pain before he entered this world still made him shudder when he thought about it, but precisely because he had experienced such pain, Yalin Li was even more curious about his changes.

He stood up straight, jumped, and ran back and forth. To his surprise, he found that his physical strength had become very good. Originally, running a hundred meters would make him pant and be out of breath, but now he had run several hundred meters without changing his expression or heart rate, only slightly out of breath.

In addition to the improvement in his physical strength, Yalin Li found that his strength had also increased significantly. However, there were no suitable materials around for him to test it.

Although it was painful, this enhancement was indeed very powerful.

What made Yalin Li a bit depressed was that his body had not been digitized. The health bar and experience points he had imagined did not appear, let alone any data on strength and physical condition.

Without experience points, how could he earn any experience? There was no motivation to level up, and this task seemed to be mocking him.

Fortunately, when Yalin Li searched the system interface, he found two new options: the skill bar and the item bar.

The skill bar was straightforward. When opened, it showed a set of skills awarded by the system. Except for the two skills at the bottom, which were gray and showed the skill names, the rest of the skill tree was black, and he couldn't even see how many skills were available to learn.

He tried to click on the two gray skills, and as soon as his finger touched the virtual interface, the skills were activated.

Instant Step and Combat Mastery, the two initial skills, were crucial for Yalin Li's survival in this world.

Although he was eager to try them out, Yalin Li restrained himself and continued to check his item bar.

This was the so-called spatial bag awarded by the system. Similar to the anime, after the small icons, there were the names of the items. Clicking on the item names allowed him to choose to view, materialize, or discard them.

The reason he understood this so clearly was that he saw an item in the item bar.

A one-handed straight sword, with only a name and no simple introduction, let alone any values like sharpness or durability. Although getting a free weapon made Yalin Li happy, in this situation, he couldn't feel the atmosphere of an online game.

This was indeed a real world.

Forget it, worrying about such issues was just making trouble for himself.

Materializing the one-handed sword in his hand, he swung it a few times and found it quite handy. The increase in strength allowed him to wield the weapon better. Next, he needed to explore this world!

Yalin Li didn't plan to rush into fighting monsters and leveling up. After just arriving in this world, there was a lot to figure out, at least to solve his basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.

Yalin Li didn't walk far before he arrived at the legendary starting town, the so-called SAO newbie village.

Although it was called a town, to Yalin Li, it looked more like a huge city. The streets and buildings exuded a strong medieval European architectural style, similar to Aincrad.

Here, Yalin Li didn't encounter the gamers he had imagined, nor any NPCs. In fact, after interacting with the local residents, he found that they were all flesh-and-blood humans, not cold, intelligent programs.

Of course, if technology had advanced to the point where all NPCs were equipped with high-level AI, Yalin Li would have nothing to say, but at least he couldn't treat these people as NPCs.

After gathering some information, Yalin Li made an important discovery: money!

To survive in this world, besides facing fierce beasts and monsters, the most important thing was to earn money!

Without money, Yalin Li couldn't eat, stay in an inn, or buy equipment and supplies. Although he had come to another world, the saying "money is omnipotent" still held true.

With no other choice, Yalin Li had to earn money. Being given a free weapon was already a great help, and he didn't expect anything more.

How to earn money in an online game?

It was simple: fight monsters. In this world, Yalin Li had to go to the wilderness to fight monsters and earn money and equipment. Alternatively, he could stay in the town and do odd jobs.

However, the wages from odd jobs were pitifully low, and Yalin Li didn't want to live a poor life, so he naturally wouldn't consider this option.

After organizing his equipment, which was just the one-handed sword given by the system, Yalin Li stepped out of the starting town and began his first hunting journey.

To start fighting monsters, besides the weapon, the two skills given by the system were the most important. After some research, Yalin Li fully understood how to use these skills.

Instant Step, in simple terms, was an escape skill. Once activated, it allowed for instant rapid movement, but it consumed a lot of stamina. If used continuously, the consumption would be even greater, so it was best not to use it unless absolutely necessary.

As for the other skill, Combat Mastery, it was more mysterious. The skill description said it passively increased combat power, but Yalin Li didn't understand what that meant.

It wasn't until he started fighting that he realized he could wield the sword skillfully, all thanks to the Combat Mastery skill. Although it was a passive skill, it was truly useful.

After understanding the skills, Yalin Li finally understood the purpose of experience points. The experience points mentioned in the tasks were used to level up skills, which was quite different from the proficiency in the original work.

However, by now, Yalin Li no longer saw this world as the original SAO. It was a world that felt both strange and familiar, with more information waiting for him to explore.