The Survival Logs || Sword Art Online Fanfic

Chapter 5 - Exploration

4 December 2022

Path to Urbus, 2nd Floor

When I took my first step into the 2nd Floor, I never thought it would look completely different than the 1st Floor.

Unlike the 1st Floor, which had varying terrain throughout its wide circular surface, the 2nd Floor had a distinct focus in its geography : flat-ranged mountains covered the whole of my view, which formed very wide valleys in between them.

I spent about an hour exploring with Agil's guild as we took down new kinds of monsters, which looked like oxen. This meant that the main focus of the type of monsters found on this floor was most probably ox-type monsters.

I was briefly reminded of the Minotaur, found in Greek mythology, who was said to be half bull, half man, and I was almost sure that some monster that was or at least looked like the Minotaur would be found in the 2nd Floor.

I parted ways with Agil's guild when we reached the main town of the 2nd Floor, which was known as Urbus.

"Message me anytime if you find anything interesting on the 2nd Floor." Agil had told me. "I'll contact you too if I find any good hunting spots."

"Deal." I shook his hand again. There's lots to be explored in the 2nd Floor, and I needed to visit and do as many areas and quests as soon as possible, before the 2nd Floor gets cleared.

Speaking of clearing floors, the boss fight I participated in a couple of hours ago was too stressful. I realized that if Illfang the Kobold Lord was this hard to defeat, the next few floor bosses would be no different.

In fact, they may even be stronger than Illfang.

I needed to get even stronger and obtain better weapons and equipment before I can participate in a floor boss raid again.

I decided to spend my time exploring the next few floors before trying to participate in floor-clearing again. I know what it's like fighting a floor boss, but I can't put myself at great risk frequently.

I'm not a professional gamer like some of the floor clearers were. I'm just a player trying to survive in this floating castle.

The very first thing I did in Urbus was to look for an inn to stay in.

The town was already filled with players, the teleport gate still handling the player traffic moving into Urbus, though not many players were appearing in the teleport gate by the time I reached it.

Using the map function of my menu, I was able to reach an inn swiftly. The NPC innkeeper charged me 50 col ( the currency here in SAO) per night to stay at his inn, which I gladly paid due to the possibility of not finding a vacant room later on. I bet the other players needed rooms for themselves if they want to stay in Urbus for quite a while. No one wants to sleep outside in town, even if it was a safe area for players.

After I closed the door of my inn room while inside, I sat on the bed provided by the inn and sighed.

The clearing of the 1st Floor was big news to the whole SAO player population. And I was one of the players who helped made it happen.

I laid my back on the bed while still sitting on it and brought down my menu. I selected the section titled 'Skills' and the menu gave me an interface that showed my current learned skills.

I had 4 skills slots, 3 of them filled but the last one empty, which was the skill slot that must have appeared when I reached a certain level. I briefly checked my 'Status' section, which I realized that I had leveled up from level 9 to 12.

"Wow..." I muttered. The large amount of EXP I got must have mostly come from participating in the 1st Floor boss fight. And the fact that I just got an additional skill slot meant that players get their fourth skill slot at level 12.

When I started out in SAO, I was given 2 skill slots to learn skills. The Spear skill was the very first skill I learnt in the game. At level 6, a third skill slot was granted to me, allowing me to learn another skill. I figured more skill slots would be granted to me as I leveled up more, but I never thought that I would get yet another skill slot at level 12.

Skills are abilities that players use in SAO. They can be leveled up to make them stronger or more effective whether in combat or not. I had seen in an SAO game trailer that they were many skills in SAO, but I couldn't even set an estimate on the number of available skills that can be learnt in SAO.

Skills are independent of a player's level, so they can be leveled up as much as possible, up to level 1000, in which they are considered 'Completed'.

Aside from the Spear skill, which was in my first skill slot, I had learnt 2 other skills, namely the Sneaking and Battle Healing skills, both of which were useful in hunting enemy monsters easily and without risk during my exploration of the 1st Floor. They allowed me to take on a single enemy without gaining agro ( getting detected in gaming terms) from other enemy monsters. This was my favourite method in farming EXP and dropped items so far.

Knowing that I could learn a fourth skill, I chose the Sprint skill to reside in my fourth skill slot. I needed more mobility during combat and to make emergency escapes from enemies if I wanted to. You never know what dangers that might lurk in the 2nd Floor. Plus, I'm not as confident as one of those beta testers, who were probably exploring areas beyond Urbus already.

After taking a bath in the bathroom ( Yes, there was a bathroom provided, and I unequipped all my clothing) , I reequipped my shirt and pants, left my brown coat and my Sharp Javelin+1 in my inventory, and laid properly on my bed for a good night's rest. It was already nighttime in SAO, and I wanted to start tomorrow hunting bull monsters which looked like they had anger management issues. How wonderful would that be?

Jokes aside, I wondered about the Singaporean players trapped with me in SAO. How many of them were among the 2000 players who died on the 1st Floor? I dared not to think about that number, even if it was less than 300.

Right now, progressing through the 2nd Floor was my priority, and I planned to do that at my own pace.