- Drop us off here! - The four fighters, having thrown back the awning, jumped off the car and disappeared into the fog.

“Here is the highest point of the pass,” Sour commented to the newcomers. “There are usually two sentinels here. It is now cloudy and damp here, but when the gloom descends, you can see it from here for thirty kilometers in all directions. Through good optics, even the Geckho base on the other side of the bay can be seen. And two fighters usually control the path in the mountains below, so that no one leaks to us from the side of the forest.

Maybe from here in clear weather there were beautiful views, but now I could not see more than two or three meters. Although the car really went downhill, and after a couple of minutes we abruptly emerged from the gray fog.

- Look, the sea! What a beauty!!! - Irishka shouted, her bad mood instantly disappeared.

In front of us, far below, from the foot of the hills and to the very horizon, the azure sea really stretched. Our bus, spinning for several minutes on a mountain serpentine, went down to the water itself. Here we were already waiting for four fighters, stripped to the waist and tanned to black.

- Let's jump out! We don't delay shipping! – hurried Sour, and we hastily got out of the bus.

Everyone liked the idea of ​​walking to the pier. I don’t know what interests Imran and Irishka pursued in this walk, maybe just the satisfaction of curiosity, but I saw a lot of positive moments. Firstly, leveling up the Cartography skill, since three kilometers of unexplored and unmarked coast on my map foreshadowed the active use of the skill. Secondly, our path lay along a crumbling stone slope, and I hoped to teach Mineralogy. Thirdly, communication with the Geckho is a pull-up of the Cosmo-Linguistics skill. And, of course, it was also interesting for me to take a walk into the distance and see new places of the Antique Beach, since further sitting here in a stone tower did not bode anything interesting.

The Medium Armor skill has been upgraded to the second level!

The message that popped up got me thinking. The sun scorched mercilessly, and, following the example of Sour, I was going to put in my inventory almost all the details of the equipment, except perhaps for boots (since walking barefoot on hot sand is an extremely unsuccessful idea), and change into my “civilian” jeans. But since even just wearing a Kevlar jacket gradually pumped the Medium Armor skill, I had to abandon the idea of ​​changing clothes and endure the heat. The Medium Armor skill was very useful and, as you leveled up, it not only increased the character's defense, but also increased the durability of equipment items, and also made it possible to use more advanced body armor in the future.

Unlike me, Irishka undressed almost immediately, remaining in a light light top and short shorts, and putting on a cap with a visor on her head. My friend was not at all afraid of getting burned in the sun, since her even bronze tan spoke of southern resorts or many hours spent in the solarium. Imran, on the other hand, stripped to the waist, with obvious pride showing everyone, and especially a pretty girl, his athletic pumped-up body. I even caught a few long evaluative glances of Irishka at the muscular guy, although the girl didn’t say anything aloud.

And then suddenly, the character’s hunger indicator flashed alarmingly several times - the satiety scale dropped below half the mark. At the warehouse in the Capital, I received some briquettes with food today, and therefore rummaged through my inventory. Indeed, in the backpack there were strips of cured meat, bread and some dried fibers of clearly vegetable origin. Well, of course, but chewing all this dry food was somehow completely inconvenient. Water was needed, which can be obtained at the Gekkho base.

- Let's go faster! - I turned around and shouted to my companions, who somehow completely slowed down to a snail's speed, often stopped and poked around in the sand.

Crouched Irishka, carefully examining something in the surf zone, straightened up and wiped her wet palms on her light-colored shorts:

- Wait, Mosquito! Here shells of the most different caused by a storm. Very beautiful come across. And in almost every one someone lives. Maybe some of them contain pearls?

- That's right, there are pearls! - Imran shouted contentedly, opening one of the shells with a blade and demonstrating a pearl-colored ball of half a centimeter diameter in his palm.

Sea pearls (commodity for trade)

I came closer and carefully examined both the pearl itself and the clam shell. Two clumsy brown-black valves, inside are whitish torn remains of the body of a tiny mollusk. The game system immediately helpfully informed me that the mollusk is food. Basically, why not? I tore the slimy, sinewy meat from the doors and carefully placed it in my mouth.

“Ugh, how can you eat this dirty trick?! - Irishka grimaced and hurried to move away so as not to see an unpleasant sight for herself.

I carefully chewed the mollusk and swallowed it. Hmm ... Well, what can I say ... Peculiar, of course, but it is quite possible. The satiety indicator of the character has slightly grown. Looking at the shells again, I activated the Scan icon, wanting to look for similar shells in the immediate vicinity.

The Scan skill has been upgraded to the seventh level!

Level 6 reached!

Received three free skill points!

Wow, cool! Although, before I dealt with the distribution of free points, I nevertheless first of all got acquainted with the results of the scan. But this was even cooler - on the mini-map there were indeed marks from several dozen pearl shells found during the last scan. This meant that I could set the parameters of the items I needed and search for them using scanning! After a couple of minutes, I shook out thirty brown-black bivalve shells on the sand in front of Imran.

“I don’t understand how you open them,” I admitted. - There is even nowhere to insert a knife, the doors are so tightly compressed!

The gladiator grinned and deftly, literally in a minute, opened all the shells with his "sickle". Pearls were found only in four of them, and I wanted to equally share the trophies with Imran, but the Caucasian refused:

- No, it's yours. I already took my reward - thanks to these shells of yours, the Melee Weapon skill almost instantly increased by two levels! The third level of the character received! So bring everything you find, I'll work with great pleasure as an "opener"!

I did not argue and, picking out the meat of mollusks from the wings, I began to eat it right raw. The character's satiety bar quickly rose to eighty percent, but it didn't creep any further, no matter how much I consumed this slimy meat. Why? I asked this question out loud and Imran explained:

“Komar, you just missed the very beginning of today’s introductory lecture, that’s where this tall diplomat…forgot his name…talked about the game menu and all the colored stripes before his eyes. Somewhere deep in the settings, you can detail the indicator of the hunger scale, but in general this is not necessary. You just need to know that in the game, any character needs three components in food for a normal existence. Conventionally, he called them red, blue and green. Each food is rich in one thing, but contains almost no other components. Red is commonly found in meat foods. Blue in seafood. Green in plant foods. All this is very conditional, but I think you understand me.

- It's clear. You need to eat varied, and you will be happy, - I chuckled.

- Yes exactly. By the way, our doctor friend Irina said at the lecture at the same time that she was a staunch vegetarian and would not eat meat even in the game. And fish too...

We both turned our heads towards the girl at the same time. Irishka, who also somehow got the third level of her character, managed to climb quite high up the stone steep and, enthusiastically poking at one of the boulders with a knife, tried to scoop something out of it. Finally, she succeeded, the girl straightened up and called us to her. Imran, using his ability of an instant jerk, in a second overcame the distance separating him and Irishka, and from there yelled at me:

- Mosquito, come here to us! The girl found gold!

Gold?! Very interesting! My Level 6 Prospector was not able to move instantly, but I, deftly jumping over the stones like a mountain goat, climbed over the crumbling boulders to my friends.

- Here! Gold! - Irina proudly showed me a piece of a fine-grained golden-colored druse cut off from a large stone.

I didn't even need to pick up this piece of stone to understand my friends' delusion. By the way, this is a typical mistake that before Irishka was made by many people who saw crystalline iron sulfide for the first time. The mineral pyrite, or as it is also called "fool's gold", really has a color and appearance similar to a gold nugget. That is what I told my friends.

- You are sure? - the blonde beauty asked with doubt in her voice.

She clearly did not want to part with the dream of a rich find. Yes, and the chipped piece was designated for me “Unknown mineral”, and for sure the “gold diggers” saw the same designation.

“Yes, I’m 100% sure it’s pyrite,” I repeated with emphasis, and a miracle happened:

The Mineralogy skill has been upgraded to the second level!

The Mineralogy skill has been upgraded to the third level!

The Mineralogy skill has been upgraded to the fourth level!

The Mineralogy skill has been upgraded to level 5!

The Mineralogy skill has been upgraded to level 6!

Level 7 reached!

Received three free skill points! (6 points accumulated in total)

About how ... Somehow the game system estimated the definition of a single mineral too generously, I was even somewhat frightened by such an abundance of messages. Only the following explanation came to mind: the mineral pyrite could only be determined at the sixth level of Mineralogy, and since I managed to do it, the game corrected my skills.

“Still, it’s not gold, but some kind of nonsense,” the Level 3 Medic threw out a useless, in her opinion, stone.

I disagreed and explained that pyrite is used in the chemical industry for the production of sulfuric acid, iron sulfate and other purposes. In any case, I marked an iron sulfide deposit on my map - I will inform the management upon my return to the Capital, and then let the high authorities decide whether mining and development is economically justified here or not.

The Cartography skill has been upgraded to level 8!

I looked at the inscription that jumped out before my eyes, after which I looked around. The sea was stormy. Heavy waves, one after another, crashed onto the shore and with a rustle rolled out shells and small pebbles onto a wide sand and pebble beach. Further, beyond the reach of the waves, stretched a whole shaft of iodine-scented algae washed up on the shore. Behind him was a heap of stones, steeply going up, it seemed, to the very heavens. From this point, it was even incomprehensible how we even managed to cross such a seemingly insurmountable obstacle on an unprepossessing “bus”.

So, newbies, listen carefully! That stone tower over there,” Sour pointed to a massive square structure behind him, “is our Eighth Outpost. There is a good firing point, loopholes in all directions, and it is possible to securely lock up and withstand any attack until reinforcements arrive. In addition to this beach, only fifty paces wide, neighbors can only enter our territory high in the mountains - where our fighters landed from the bus. Therefore, I occupy the tower with a machine gun, and the centaurs and the rest will not trample along the beach - they have tried it many times already, and each time they were burned. They know me and my machine gun well and are afraid.

A couple of seconds, and on our muscular head of the detachment appeared metal armor, like a medieval knight. Another second, and in the hands of Sour appeared a huge heavy machine gun shimmering with blue-green flashes with fancy optics and numerous screwed incomprehensible bells and whistles.

- My favorite toy! - the stern warrior said with tenderness in his voice, patting his formidable weapon with his palm. - I took the usual easel "Kord" as a basis, but I invested heavily in modifications to lighten the weight and penetrating ability. And not in vain! Once, a level 80 Minotaur came from the other side, quickly killed our entire squad, but the fire of my favorite did not survive. It was a pleasure to watch how the bullets pierced right through his horned head!

Sour turned around and, throwing the machine gun over his shoulder, headed for the stone tower. The three of us looked at each other in surprise.

- Eh ... commander, what should we do? Imran called out to the outgoing machine gunner.

- To you? Sour turned around in surprise. - Yes, in principle, whatever you want, do it. On the tower, I can manage alone, but there is still no use in battle from players of the second-fifth level. If you want, go up to the watch tower, from there you can see living centaurs. Or walk along the beach, collect shells, pearls often come across in them. Just don't swim in the sea - the game rules are simple to the point of primitiveness: if the character does not have the Swimming skill, he will immediately drown. And in four hours, the “bus” already familiar to you will come for us and take us to the base. I will report to the authorities that you all did an excellent job of duty.

Well, zashib ... Sour frankly considered us superfluous and useless ballast, imposed on his neck by his superiors, and did not hide his attitude. Perhaps this corresponded to the state of affairs, but it was still insulting to hear such a thing. What can you really do for four hours? Following the machine gunner, I climbed the tower and approached the loophole. From here, a view of the pillars with stretched barbed wire, which, however, was torn in some places, opened up to the sea.

“The thorn does not hold them,” Sour shook his head, noticing my interest in the broken line of fortifications. “The minotaurs tear wire with their bare hands, and many centaurs do too.

By the way, I noticed that the machine gunner again took off his armor, remaining only in Bermuda shorts.

- And where, in fact, are the opponents? - Irishka, standing behind me, said in surprise.

Indeed, beyond the border marked with barbed wire, there was a view of the same deserted, lifeless beach and rocks. In response, Sour pointed the girl to the distant bushes and reeds: