Starmoon City was infinitely larger than what was seen on a computer monitor.
Luckily, the layout of buildings and districts remained mostly unchanged.
Mack quickly located the trainers for various secondary professions.
Cooking, First Aid, and Fishing—he learned all of these secondary skills without missing a single one.
Next were primary professions.
If he could only learn two, Mack had only two targets in mind: Tailoring and Jewelcrafting.
Since he could only learn skills from the game and couldn’t bring physical items out, crafting high-end gear for the real world required primary production skills.
With three caster classes, Tailoring was an absolute must.
Jewelcrafting could create rings, necklaces, and trinkets.
Furthermore, various gemstones existed in the Marvel world too; although vastly different from Azeroth, there was at least a chance to experiment, wasn’t there?
So Mack quickly learned the two target skills and hurried toward the next profession trainer.
The next goal was naturally Blacksmithing!
Although Hunters wore Leather armor early on, they switched to Mail gear later, and weapons also required Blacksmithing to craft.
As for bows and crossbows, America had no shortage of those.
Even if they didn’t quite match game stats, they’d work.
Staves, however, were out of the question—*World of Warcraft* didn’t actually have a primary profession for crafting staves.
Luckily, casters could use one-handed weapons such as spell swords, daggers, and maces!
Fortuitously, after successfully learning Blacksmithing, Mack breathed a sigh of relief!
Great, it seemed primary professions could be learned in multiples too!
In that case, Mack swiftly set about learning the rest.
For the early stage, the three gathering professions were essential.
Why?
To make money, of course!
Having multiple classes meant higher skill learning costs, and Skinning, Mining, and Herbalism were all great money-makers.
Next, Mack learned Enchanting and Leatherworking.
When he tried to learn Engineering next, the delayed game system prompt finally arrived, informing him that he had reached the upper limit for primary profession skills.
Well, the rule of two primary professions per class hadn’t changed; it was simply that possessing four classes simultaneously allowed him to hold eight primary professions at once.
Among them, Leatherworking could be swapped out for Engineering once he hit level 70.
As for Alchemy, he would deal with it when the need arose.
Finding real-world substitutes in Marvel for Azerothian herbs would likely take quite some time anyway.
Having learned his professions, Mack was held back by his low level and had no new quests available, leaving mob grinding as his only path forward.
From the gates of Silvermoon City, he headed out into the wilderness.
Any mob he encountered received an arrow to the face; squishy ones died instantly, while chunkier ones took two arrows at most!
“Under these conditions, eight times the experience requirement actually seems fair!”
Watching his HP and MP bars remain virtually untouched, Mack did the math: his clearing speed was more than eight times faster than regular players!
Maybe his leveling speed wouldn’t lag far behind others after all!
Mack checked the time again—it was almost 10:00 AM.
Wasting no time, he sprinted to the coast, where level 7–8 Murlocs spawned in large clusters.
Sweeping from left to right, by the time he finished a full circuit, new Murlocs would already be respawning at the start.
He chose this spot because there was only a single quest to kill a boss mob here.
Players usually killed the boss and left, so almost nobody competed for regular mobs.
His default Hunter 8-slot quiver, holding 200 arrows per stack, was plenty for now.
After grinding for a full hour, his level finally reached 8.
This level was sufficient to start clearing quests on this map.
Using his Hearthstone to return to Silverwing Square, he followed the path from the Dead Scar to Farstriders’ Enclave, then onward to the Blood Elf outposts, clearing every quest one by one.
Finally, right before 12:00 PM, he finished every quest on the map.
With the bonus experience from killing mobs along the way, he successfully reached level 10!
His secondary Human racial trait was finally coming into play.
Quests aside, his mother’s call for lunch echoed from the living room at that exact moment.
Well, it looked like the level 10 Hunter Tame Beast quest would have to wait until the afternoon!
Opening his bedroom door, he met Daisy’s somewhat villainous glare.
Mack casually reached out to ruffle her hair before heading into the kitchen to help carry dishes.
Fortunately, his family was Chinese—even Daisy was half-Chinese—so white-people food rarely appeared on their dining table.
Otherwise, eating burgers, sandwiches, and apple pie every day would have driven Mack insane.
During the meal, Daisy gnawed on pork ribs with fierce intensity, occasionally baring her teeth at Mack like a tiny, aggressive kitten.
“Mack, did you forget what you promised Daisy?”
His mother reminded him, prompting a warm, knowing smile from both her and his father.
“I didn’t forget!
Hasn’t summer break just started?
I was thinking of staying home doing nothing for three days, then relaxing for a week…
Okay, okay, relaxing for three days!
Three days should be fine, right?
I still need to make some preparations!”
Mack quickly caught on, remembering his promise to go on a road trip with Daisy during summer break, and spoke rapidly.
He had originally wanted to stall for a week, but after seeing Daisy’s glare—like she wanted to eat him alive—he hurriedly changed his tune.
Three days would be enough for him to power up and adapt to the abilities he gained from the game.
“I’ve already prepared everything.
What else is missing?” Daisy retorted impatiently.
“Swimsuits, fishing rods, and ideally a bow and arrow set!
Also, tweak the route a bit—I think we should definitely visit the beach!”
Mack thought about what would pique Daisy’s interest and quickly came up with an answer.
Plus, he could score some free gear off his dad.
That’s right—he didn’t plan to spend his own pocket money on a bow and arrow.
Without him even asking directly, getting his dad to buy a bow set wouldn’t be a problem at all.
“You’re interested in archery?
What kind of bow are you looking for?”
Sure enough, his father always granted his requests and immediately looked over with interest.
“I’ve been reading *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* lately, so I got curious about ancient Chinese bows and crossbows.
I want to see if I can use one for hunting!”
Mack spouted nonsense off the cuff without hesitation; for his father, any excuse would do.
His dad was just like that: whenever he had a bit of secret pocket money, he wanted to buy stuff for his wife and kid.
Unfortunately, with Mack’s help over the years, his father’s “pocket money” had grown larger and larger, to the point where it was practically unspendable.
Of course, “unspendable” was only relative to American middle-class standards, not comparable to ultra-wealthy moguls.
Unlike typical American middle-class households, the Chow family maintained a habit of saving money.
On his mother’s side, she managed the family’s largest stash of savings—a cool five million US dollars—enjoying high-tier interest rates at 4.5% post-tax annually.
As for his dad’s pocket money, back a few years ago under Mack’s advice, it had been converted into shares of Sina, the first Chinese company to list in the United States back in 2000.
Over the years, as the stock capital accumulated, it generated over $100,000 a year in returns.
That was why Mack and Daisy didn’t have to worry about college tuition for the coming years and could freely plan a graduation trip.
After all, family financial conditions like theirs were extremely rare among the American middle class.
Most American middle-class families looked shiny on the outside but were incredibly fragile; if the primary breadwinner lost their job, the family could easily go bankrupt in under six months.
“No problem.
I happen to know an old guy in Chinatown.
If I recall correctly, his shop custom-makes ancient Chinese weapons and armor!
Three days?
Shouldn’t be a problem.
I’ll head over this afternoon and ask for you!”
Sure enough, his dad had connections.
Chinese folks in Queens usually had ties to Manhattan’s Chinatown.
Unlike Chinatown where Chinese residents were heavily concentrated, Flushing had a mix of Koreans and Little Japan alongside Chinese residents.
“Thanks, Dad!
I’ll wait for your good news!”
Mack quickly finished his meal, said his goodbyes, and locked himself back in his room.
As for Daisy’s aggrieved pouting, Mack couldn’t help it—nothing was going to delay him from getting stronger!