Chapter 8: The Verdant Abyss

Notification

Congratulations! You have been selected to compete in the Five Seasons and fight for the survival of your home world.

Multiple notifications popped up in front of me, all of which I ignored. I simply willed for them to minimize, and they became a small notification blip in the corner of my vision that I could come back to later. I arrived at the same location where I remember I did in my last life, a place later known as the Whistling Emerald Canopy. I remember how I was completely taken aback by the sight in the past. Towering trees stretched into the sky, with huge green leaves forming a protective canopy overhead. This world's sun was filtered through the thick foliage, casting an ethereal glow on the forest floor. This place, although beautiful, was more famous for the sounds one heard while traveling through. The air was filled with the echoing melody of birdsong and the gentle rustling of leaves in the breeze. The birdsong had some kind of magical effect, causing players like me to have increased stamina while in the area.

"Just as I remembered it. But what I'm most excited about is this."

I turned my attention to the groups of flowers cascading down from the branches. They had different colors, some being crimson, blue, or gold. I looked through the flowers and looked for any black flowers that found their way onto the branches. It took me several precious minutes, but I finally found one and plucked it free. The flower was star-shaped, with velvety petals as dark as the midnight sky. Another trait of this particular flower was that it smelled really bad, a result of it being saturated with both necromantic and nature energy. The smell was what helped me locate the flower so quickly.

Notification

Congratulations! You are the first of your species to obtain a rare ingredient. You will receive the following benefits:

Title: Eye for Ingredients

+5 Mind

Toggle Ability: Harvest Time

[Casting Time: Instant] [Cooldown: None] [Duration: Permanent/Toggle]

Ingredients glow with a faint, dim light when within 5 meters of the user. The color of the glow depends on the rarity of the ingredient. Common ingredients glow gray, uncommon ingredients glow green, rare ingredients glow blue, epic ingredients glow purple, and legendary ingredients glow with a bright gold. This is a toggle ability that can be turned off or on at will.

"Hell yeah, first to grab. I'd like to get the first blood title for getting the first kill, but I'm sure that's already gone during the time I spent finding you."

I waved the flower around a bit before triumphantly putting it into a Ziploc bag. These black flowers were known as an Obsidian Nightbloom, a flower that I was quite familiar with from the past. I remembered that these were among the various rare and epic ingredients that everyone scoured this area for during the final month of the season. These flowers were a key ingredient in various healing elixirs that had the side effect of magically increasing the life energy of the person who drank them. Essentially, this was a key ingredient in a drink that would extend someone's life and make them look younger.

"Right now, I should be the only one who knows about these flowers. I can always come back later; I just need to do it before the secret gets out."

Now that I had secured the title and toggle ability I was desperate for, I turned my attention back to the small notification blips in the corner of my vision. I rolled my eyes as I willed for the notification windows to expand again.

Notification

Congratulations! You have been selected to compete in the Five Seasons and fight for the survival of your home world.

Notification

You are one of one million members of your species in the competition. Stay alive and secure points for your people. After a period of 90 days, the species that survives to the end with the most points moves on to the next season while all other participants are eliminated and their home worlds are destroyed!

Notification

The current competing species are Veldan, Alorae, and Humanity. View objective goals and point totals to see how you can score higher than the competition.

Notification

Would you like to receive a tutorial for the system?

Confirmation [Yes/No]

I declined the tutorial for the system because I already knew everything there was to know about it and more. It was just going to run me through the basic functions and how to navigate. I didn't have time for that right now because I needed to start hunting for achievements. The way that the system worked was that it rewarded people for doing one of two things: either you were the first to accomplish something, or you accomplished something unbelievable.

"It's time to be an asshole."

Going east wasn't hard for me, thanks to my extensive knowledge of this world and the compass that was in my pack. I traveled for the next half hour, only taking brief pauses to occasionally glance at the compass. There were plenty of other humans, Veldan and Alorae, in the forest, all of whom I avoided like the plague. Even at level 1, Veldan and Alorae were already strong and could pose a threat to me, even with my inflated stats. They were alien species that already evolved with more bells and whistles than humans, so it was understandable.

Humans were nothing more than sport for them for the first month we were here, but we scaled well thanks to the system. We were able to meet them on an equal footing and eventually overtake both the Veldan and Alorae in points by the end of the first season thanks to a broken hunting spot that we were able to take from the Veldan. There was a location in this forest that spawned weak monsters with high levels that the Veldan refused to hunt because they considered the monsters to be beneath them. Fortunately for humanity, we don't care about shit like that. We kill innocent animals that can't fight back for sport all the time.

I had two goals to accomplish here on the first day, and taking over the hunting spot was going to be goal number two. Fortunately, goal number one was right next door.

"It's time to kill the boss monster at level 1. I better get a fucking good achievement for this because this might end up killing me."