Haven Online

Xinya, who was kneeling beside the hatch, lowered his Glow flower down into the opening to see if there was a method for them to use, like stairs, ladder, or rope to reach the bottom. 

As soon as the flower was inside the pitch-black hole, it pierced through the veil of darkness, exposing everything hidden. Xinya couldn't help but think how similar it was to him, flipping on a light switch in real life.

Now that there was light, he could see that there was a long stone staircase leading down to a green door. He was really surprised by how far down he could see, usually, when he used a Glow Flower, their luminosity is only as bright as a flashlight, but this one felt like a high powered lantern.

Questioning why that was, Xinya took the flower out of the opening to look at its details. 

Melting Snow, who noticed something strange with the flower as well, said, "Hey, why is your Glow flower so much better than mine?"

"It seems," Xinya begins after reading the details of his flower. "That this is the evolved form of the Glow flower. I must have picked it up with the others without even noticing." 

Scratching his head in bewilderment, Melting Snow looked at Xinya for a moment before glancing at the flower. "Plants can evolve?"

"Of course they can, they are similar to pets. The higher level they are, the better they become," Xinya explained.

Melting Snow had no clue that plants could evolve, but then again, he never really cared that much about the farming aspects of this game before. Suddenly a strange thought went through his head that made him look at the green-eyed man again. 

"Does that mean when you cook with evolved ingredients, the food will taste better?"

Xinya couldn't help but laugh at the boy's question, his little wolf pup was such a foodie. "You guessed it. The more high-grade quality of ingredients I use, the tastier the food I prepare with them will be."

Those words sealed it. Melting Snow now knew what he needed to do, and that was to get the farming skill. That way, he could help Drifting Cloud take care of his crops so that they can evolve faster. For the sake of delicious food, it must be done.

"It will be dark soon, let's hurry and check out what's down there," Xinya said while standing up and wrapping the Glow flower around his head. 

"Okay," Melting Snow replied, standing up as well. "Let's go!"

~

With Xinya leading the way, the duo slowly descended down the stone steps. On their way down, Xinya made sure to examine every step just in case the stone stairs weren't safe and were on the verge of crumbling. 

Some may say that he is overly cautious, but he would rather be called that than have one of these stones break, causing Melting Snow and him to tumble down the stairs like Jack and Jill. That would just be embarrassing. 

Although, because he tested each step before venturing down to the next one, it did take them a good ten minutes before they arrived at the bottom. Which, in turn, wasted a lot of their time. 

"I told you that you didn't need to test the stairs. Stone doesn't rot like wood." Melting Snow could only sigh at his friend's mindfulness. 

Pushing open the large green door that was in front of him, Xinya walked through and shrugged. "It's better to be safe than sorry."

The first thing Xinya noticed when he walked into the room was that this was a root cellar like he expected. But it wasn't a normal one; just with a glance, he could see that the NPC who owned this land before him must have spent a lot of coins on this room. 

"Wow, this place is huge!" Exclaimed Melting Snow as he walked into the room. Immediately after, he started to sneeze, his ears twitching with everyone.

"God, this place is so full of dust! And it's so dry…'' After this, he sneezed a couple more times before settling down.

Although Xinya heard Melting Snow's words, he wasn't really listening; instead, he was trying to take in every detail of the cellar. From the barrel vault ceiling, which had to be very difficult to build underground, to the stone walls covered with light brown plaster, which he knew had to be there to keep the dampness out. He could see some marks on the plaster it was like something scratched it. Did the owner try repairing a part of it? Did the fire cause it? 

Every small detail showed just how much effort the NPC who had owned this cottage previously put into this place. As he looked around some more, he saw that there were rows of dusty, lacquered, wooden hickory shelves filled with pickled fruit. 

Just looking at them, Xinya knew they had gone bad. Since pickled fruit can only last about 5-6 months, and he knew that this farm had been up for sale for way longer than that.

As he looked down, he saw that the floor was made from large slabs of obsidian, which sadly appeared to have cracked with age. At one time, the stone floor must have been shiny, but now it was only a dull luster. 

With some cleaning and filling, this floor would be as good as new, but he would need help with that. Some polishing afterward wouldn't hurt either. 

'It looked as if my luck once again gave me something good,' Xinya thought to himself as he walked further into the root cellar looking at the shelves of moldy pickled fruits.

So far, this cellar looked completely different from the small cheaply made ones he had seen on the forums. The only thing he could think as he peered around the room was that this was the freaking king of root cellars. 

He could see that it hasn't been opened for a long time. Not mentioning the moldy pickled fruit, there were also spider webs behind the shelves and the shelves themselves were shaky. 

It's possible that some other bugs might have gotten in and have eaten through them. But the wood was high quality so it held up. The dry smell of the cellar mixed in with some acidity of the pickled fruits. He noticed that one of the jars was cracked and some of the mixtures was dripping out. 

Melting Snow, who had gotten over his awe of the enormous cellar and the obstacle called dust, rushed over to the green-haired man who was looking at the shelves. 

Picking up one of the nearest glass jars, he begins to shake it curiously while peering inside it. "What is inside of these jars?"

"They are pickled fruits," Xinya began while picking up one of the jars himself. "Pickling fruits are necessary for farmers, it's a way to preserve food for more extended periods of time.'' 

"Oh, I see. So these fruits are still edible?" Melting Snow asked innocently, not knowing how long is an extended period of time. 

Giving a chortle, Xinya shook his head, "The only way they would still be edible is if they were made to be poison."

While Xinya was being amused by his own wittiness, Melting Snow smiled mischievously and swiftly put one of the jars into his inventory. 'I so found a gift for Rose Lily.' 

Placing the fruit jar back where he found it, Xinya continued to explore the cellar. After passing by twenty wooden shelves full of pickled fruit that were placed along both sides of the wall, he came upon some red alder wine racks. 

To be exact, eight of them all lined up across from some sort of weird metal machine. However, as Xinya got closer to it, he saw that the shape was familiar.

'That's what it looks like... a huge wine barrel.' The only thing that set it apart was that it was metal, had tons of buttons everywhere, and there was a long pipe with a funnel attached to it. 

"What kind of machine is this, Drifting Cloud? Is this what you need to use to pickle fruit?" Questioned Melting Snow, looking at the buttons with great interest.

"To be honest, I really don't have any clue," Xinya replied with a grin. "But I know for certain that it's not for the fruits."

"What do you think it would be for then?" Melting Snow asked curiously.

Glancing at the empty wine racks, Xinya suddenly had a thought. "I think it might be a machine for making wine."

"Making wine..." Suddenly a thought crossed his mind. "You should learn how to do that, Drifting Cloud." 

"Oh? Why do you think I should?" Xinya asked. He had never come across any information about wine that would be useful, but maybe Melting Snow knew something he didn't. 

Gazing away from the machine, Melting Snow seriously looked at his friend. "Because I heard that meat tastes better with wine. Although I can't drink it in reality, it would be alright in-game, and I want to see if it's actually true."

'I should have known it would be something to do with food,' Xinya thought with a sweatdrop. "I'll think about it."