In SAO, the dungeon location differed on every floor, and the internal structure was even more complex.
A single dungeon could contain multiple—or even dozens—of sub-levels, filled with branching paths and winding corridors. Finding the dungeon was only the first step. Locating the boss room was extremely time-consuming. Only after defeating the boss and activating the teleport gate could players proceed to the next floor.
With only three days, time was tight. He had to find the dungeon and mine enough ore within that window. There was no time to waste.
Lillian quickly arrived at the potion shop.
The moment he pushed open the glass door, he saw many players crowded at the counter—most of them women. Understandable. In a hyper-realistic game like this, female players tended to be more cautious. Higher chances of injury meant stocking up on potions was wise.
But…
Seeing the gloomy expressions on everyone's faces, Lillian immediately knew—the potion shop was just as expensive as the blacksmith's.
"What?! A potion that restores 300 HP costs 500 Col?! That's daylight robbery!"
"I only have six hundred total…"
"Hey, hey! In an RPG adventure game, selling potions this expensive is totally unscientific, isn't it?!"
"Can't afford it."
"Exactly!"
The shop owner was a long-haired woman in her early thirties, her features sharp and severe. Sitting behind the counter, she listened to the players' complaints with an expression full of impatience. She snapped coldly, "So are you buying or not? If not, get out!"
"Hey! What kind of attitude is that?!"
Everyone was shocked by her reaction. In most players' understanding, NPCs existed to serve players—especially those in the starting town. They were supposed to be gentle and friendly, the kind that would hand out a pile of potions just for talking to them a little.
"My attitude is simple—if you're not buying, stop spouting nonsense!" The woman shot the speaking player a contemptuous glance. "You don't even have this little Col and you still dare come shopping?"
"What did you say?!"
Players arguing with NPCs was a rare sight. In most other games, it would be outright impossible. Only in a full-dive game like this, with NPCs possessing a certain level of intelligence, did players even feel the urge to interact this way—precisely because they felt real.
Of course, this realism had its limits. It wasn't like those web novels where NPCs casually developed human-level intelligence. In SAO, if you told an NPC something like "I'm a player and you're just code," they'd simply reply, "I don't understand what you're saying," without any deeper reasoning.
At the moment, the female shopkeeper was holding her own in a verbal battle against a crowd of players. Meanwhile, Lillian forced himself to ignore the noisy atmosphere and focused on examining the potions displayed on the counter.
[Slow Recovery Potion - Low Grade]
Effect: Restores 500 HP over 10 seconds. Cannot stack with potions of the same type.
Price: 400 Col
…
[Recovery Potion - Low Grade]
Effect: Instantly restores 300 HP.
Price: 500 Col
…
Lillian examined the first two potions. The second was the one the players had just been complaining about. To be fair, it was expensive.
Col seemed easy enough to earn on paper. Even the weakest Frenzied Mountain Boar dropped an average of 20–25 Col. Farm for an hour and you'd theoretically earn several thousand.
In theory.
The problem was—where were you supposed to find that many monsters?
In RPG online games, the key issue was that resources were limited. In other words, there simply weren't enough resources to support a massive number of high-level, well-equipped players. That was why competition was inevitable. Beta testers had already rushed to other villages, monopolizing—or at least sharing among a few—the best leveling areas.
But beta testers numbered only a thousand. The rest of the players didn't know how to safely reach other villages or even which routes to take, so they were stuck farming around the Starting Town.
Once tens of thousands of players poured out of the gates, the situation became absurd—there were more players than monsters. Solo players often couldn't get a single kill. A boar would spawn, and in the next second more than ten weapons would slam into it at once. As a result, the leveling zones near the Starting Town were completely overcrowded, with frequent disputes—and even fights—breaking out over monster ownership.
That was why many players had already begun thinking about leaving for other villages. Quite a few of them were right here in the shop.
As for the potions, the reason the second one restored less HP but cost more was simple—it was an instant heal.
In any game, instant recovery potions were always more expensive than gradual ones. When you were on the brink of death, being hacked apart by monsters, what would you prefer—a potion that slowly healed you, or one that immediately shot your HP bar back up?
The answer was obvious.
Lillian was no exception. Still, the price hurt. After some thought, he bought one instant recovery potion and one slow recovery potion, spending 800 Col in total. Then he bought another potion—one he considered even more important than healing potions.
[Antidote Potion - Low Grade]
Effect: Grants resistance to low-level negative status effects such as paralysis, bleeding, and stun for one hour.
Price: 1000 Col
…
This was the key item.
If he was going to enter the dungeon alone, this potion was absolutely indispensable. Poison attacks were divided into levels—Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and so on. A low-grade antidote like this probably only resisted Level 1 poison, but that was enough.
If the first-floor dungeon was packed with high-level poison debuffs, then what was the point of clearing it at all? Everyone might as well jump off Aincrad and end it right there.
As for better potions, those would only be available on higher floors. The first floor definitely didn't sell them. As for advanced items like [Recovery Crystals] or [Antidote Crystals], they were even more expensive and extremely rare—often impossible to buy at all.
So in Lillian's view, these low-grade potions were sufficient for now. Even so, the price made his teeth ache. He gritted his teeth and bought it anyway—another 1,000 Col vanished from his inventory.
His original 3,100 Col instantly dropped to 1,300.
Painful.
The surrounding players stared at him in shock as he stored the three potions away. Envious murmurs immediately filled the room.
"Hey, you've got a lot of Col! Did you earn it all from grinding?"
"You spent it all on potions? You're not saving any?"
"Boss-level player!!!"
"Hey, do you have a party? If not, want to join ours? We've got swordsmen and tanks!"
Faced with their enthusiasm, Lillian hurriedly waved his hands, saying, "No, no, that's not it," while slipping out of the shop amid the shopkeeper's casual, "Come again next time."
The other players could only watch him leave. Without being able to see names or levels, they had no idea who he really was.
Of course, it was only the first day after launch. There was no such thing as a true "legend" yet. Even beta testers couldn't widen the gap dramatically in a single day—they still had to progress step by step.
"Still got 1,100 left. Minus 500 for dinner and lodging, that leaves 600. Back to square one in an instant…"
Walking down the street, Lillian calculated his remaining Col. Even with selling several weapons for an extra 1,500, he'd barely been able to afford those three potions. Without that, he wouldn't have been able to buy them at all.
This was probably one reason many players weren't enthusiastic about joining raid groups. Seriously—Kayaba, couldn't you make essential items cheaper? This was ridiculous.
Checking the system clock, he saw there were only two hours left before nightfall. In the game, the day–night cycle was extremely precise—far more reliable than any weather forecast. Ordinary players wouldn't dare leave town at this hour. The wilderness at night was far more dangerous.
But Lillian was different.
He hadn't originally planned to leave the Starting Town today, but now that he'd accepted the quest, every second mattered. He exited the town directly, picked up a repeatable quest to hunt wild wolves from the guard officer along the way, and ran forward across the plains.
Just like his speed, his stamina remained unchanged. In other words, he could run continuously for an hour without feeling tired at all. With this advantage, his movement efficiency far surpassed that of ordinary players. Relying solely on his legs, he could thoroughly explore the entire first floor—it wouldn't be difficult to find the dungeon. Besides, he already had a rough memory of its location.
Because Aincrad tapered as it rose, the bottommost first floor was the largest. The nearly circular floor had a diameter of almost ten kilometers.
Such vast space resulted in a wide variety of terrain. At the southernmost end was a semi-circular area about one kilometer in diameter, enclosed by city walls—known as the Starting City, where Lillian currently was. Nearby monsters were mostly animals like mountain boars, wild wolves, and poison bees. Their levels were relatively low, making them easy targets for leveling.
Heading northwest across the plains led into a deep forest. Continuing northeast brought one into swamp lands. Beyond the swamps lay valleys and ancient ruins.
Without a doubt, monsters in those regions were far stronger, making leveling more difficult—but correspondingly, they offered higher Col rewards and better drop rates for equipment.
At the northernmost edge of the first floor stood a gigantic tower—roughly three hundred meters in diameter and about a hundred meters tall. This was the Labyrinth Zone of Floor One.
It was easy to understand why clearing the first floor had taken so long. The vast terrain was one reason, but another was that players were still struggling to adapt and find their rhythm. Once they adjusted, progress became much smoother. That was why it had taken over a month to clear the first floor, yet only two years to reach the seventy-fifth. If it really took a month per floor, clearing seventy-five floors would have taken more than six years.
Near each of these regions were "safe zones" similar to the Starting Town. They weren't as large, but they still provided places where players could rest, resupply, and log out safely. Because of this, Lillian's goal was to sprint all the way to the safe zone at the forest's edge—Horunka Village—before sunset.
Thus, under the glow of the setting sun, players who had exhausted themselves competing for monsters began packing up to return to town. That was when they noticed a lone player sprinting toward the distance, quickly disappearing from sight.
"What's with that guy? Doesn't he know it's about to get dark?"
"Who cares. Let's head back. I made enough Col today for a decent meal."
"Yeah, let's go."