《After The Mountains Are Flattened》 Chapter 1 - Luring the Tyrant of Saana into a Trap The year 2050, the far, far, far distant future, a time when cars will drive themselves and seaweed will dominate the food pyramid. In the decades between now and then, the world would be reshaped by many momentous occurrences, but none of these would be more significant (as far as this story is concerned) than the creation of the life-like virtual reality fantasy MMORPG Saana Online. Saana Online! Saana Online, it would become a world away from the world, a world where an average salaryman could be a star loved by millions and a kindergartner could behead a fifty-foot-tall skeletal abomination! Saana Online, it would become the game on the tongues of every teenager in school antsy to get home and of every disappointed parent struggling to find a solution for their failing grades at PTA meetings! Saana Online, it would become THE game! A dreamless place, tens of millions of bodies stacked in a pile, all of them in various states of dying. The strange pile¡¯s bottom layer was composed of gargantuan monsters with tentacles split, wings severed, fangs smashed, eyesockets emptied. Above them lay the smaller monsters in no better state. Then there was the layer of soldiers: the elves, the dwarves, and the humans in armour pierced and crushed. Above them were the criminals with nooses around their necks, decapitated heads, and faces blue with poison. And the topmost layer was the citizens: the men, the women, and the children, whose skin had been blackened by the flames of the castles in which they¡¯d sheltered, turned green from the plagues that¡¯d swept their lands. None were fully-dead, though. The dying, stuck for eternity in the last moments of their lives, squirmed and shoved, wailed and howled to be freed from the crushing mass of each other. On the face of this mountain of the near-dead, a solitary figure was climbing. Using the bodies as hand- and foot-holds, he was forced to dig his fingers deep into their flesh to secure his grip. The closer he neared the summit, the steeper grew the mountain, the fiercer the gale winds that eternally threatened to knock him off. He¡¯d lost count of how many times he¡¯d fallen and been forced to restart. This time, too, he would fall, he knew. Nevertheless, he could not stop the climb... Real life. The city of Auckland, New Zealand. A commercial district late in the evening, its traffic flowing with inhuman grace. Inside one of the auto-taxis speeding along at hundreds of kilometres per hour, a solitary figure was leaning forward to pick up a book he¡¯d accidentally dropped while dozing off. In Saana, Henry was a notorious personage, a titan of gaming whose many usernames echoed across the digital world inspiring countless thoughts - some of jealousy, some of hatred, and some of admiration. In the real world, however, he was just another one of 2050¡¯s forgettable youth. His only noteworthy characteristic was a face that seemed to be permanently frozen in the same exhausted, fed-up expression that one might find on a grey-haired retiree disturbed from his Sunday nap. The auto-taxi glided out of the flow of traffic and came to a gentle stop by the curb. ¡°Mr. Lee,¡± the car¡¯s robotic voice addressed him, ¡°please confirm that we¡¯ve arrived at the correct destination.¡± The vehicle¡¯s window lowered on its own to reveal a row of quaint little restaurants. Henry peeked a glance outside. In front of an Italian restaurant, a young couple he recognised were loitering, leaning against a wall in the consciously aloof manner of fashion models mid-photoshoot. The male model was styled according to the latest trend: shimmering parachute pants, a fluorescent green wife-beater, and a long, flowing mullet dyed all colours of the rainbow. His female companion defied the norm with faded jeans and a tattered band shirt depicting a zombie being graphically impaled by metal spears. Henry¡¯s tired gaze rose over the couple, to an object above their heads. Fixed outside the restaurant was a bronze carving of the sun that appeared, comically, to have been encased in a ball of flames. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. "No way this is a coincidence..." he muttered. After he confirmed the destination to the auto-taxi''s A.I., the car door sprung open, a robotic voice wishing him a pleasant evening. Henry approached the models unnoticed, overhearing something that piqued his attention. ¡°I¡¯m telling you, A.,¡± the male model was saying. ¡°The way your blade erupted from that Orc commander¡¯s chest, it was music, it was poetry!¡± Henry realised they were playing Saana now. That wasn¡¯t too suspicious. A few months earlier, the developers had increased the pace of production for their VR units while simultaneously slashing their cost by four-fifths. Since then, the player base had exploded to two hundred million, a number which grew each day by another million and a half. Still, Henry''s schoolfriends taking up the game suddenly was an unexpected development, and the past few years had taught him to be wary of the unexpected. He announced his presence with a cough. ¡°Abigail, Anderson, it¡¯s been a while.¡± The pair had been part of his high-school friend group. He hadn''t had much contact with them for two years, since dropping out to work. Abigail swivelled her head at his greeting, a pair of silver shurikens hanging from her left earlobe jingling. ¡°It has.¡± ¡°H.¡± Anderson, not bothering to move from his spot either, gave a rather intrusive full-body inspection. ¡°Firstly, stop growing. You''ve reached the appropriate height for your personality. Secondly...¡± He tried to continue but found himself at a loss for words. Where were they to begin with Henry''s tragic attire? Scuffed shoes, unironed jeans, a plain white T-shirt without a dash of colour, hair that hadn¡¯t seen a comb or a brush or dab of styling moose since it¡¯d first sprouted from the follicle - their friend¡¯s attire was a failure on all fronts. Worse, there was no mending this atrocity. Their Henry''s family was too financially strained to have him outfitted in something less...offensive to the senses, yet he would also refuse any offer from them of help. The mule-headed pride of the poor, Anderson wanted to curse it. Henry made no reply as he mind-read this judgement in his schoolfriend''s pretentious glance. He''d actually become much wealthier than either of them now. Filthy rich. However, it disgusted him a bit to flaunt it. Anderson threw his hands in defeat in the air. ¡°...Never mind. Come, join us, H., and spin before us the threads we¡¯ve missed of your life.¡± Henry joined the two in posing against the restaurant¡¯s fa?ade. They speed through the usual clich¨¦s of reunion. Henry told them a white lie that he''d been working a job doing ''digital investing'', then Anderson quickly swung the conversation back to the game. ¡°So H., Saana Online, the thing du jour, are you familiar with it?¡± ¡°These days, who isn¡¯t?¡± Henry didn''t elaborate further, being more familiar with the game than any human reasonably should be. ¡°Excellent. I was just praising our dear Abigail for her finesse on the battlefield.¡± Henry asked her what Class she was playing out of courtesy. ¡°Cutthroat,¡± Abigail replied coolly. Cutthroat, this was the prototypical fantasy rogue class, specialised in assassination, thievery, duelling, scouting, and dungeon exploration. Henry guessed she¡¯d chosen it to roleplay as a ninja, his friend being a weeb. It also explained the shuriken earrings and an uncharacteristic silence she seemed to be maintaining to appear mysterious - the game was so immersive that it wasn¡¯t unusual for one¡¯s in-game role to bleed over into real life. Henry''d once himself played the same Class, half a decade ago in the previous game instalment. That''d been the first thing he''d earned notoriety for. His rivals used to call him ''The Cripple'', although he couldn''t remember the last time anyone had referred to him by that nickname. These days, they used a different insult. He mentioned none of this. ¡°Let me tell you, H.," said Anderson, "''play¡¯, our A. does not play a Cutthroat. The Cutthroat is the brush and she the calligrapher, the battlefield her canvas, the blood of her enemies the ink. Everywhere she goes, she inscribes another stanza for her endless poem of death...¡± Praising his girlfriend, the guy proceeded to dramatically re-enact a dungeon encounter in which, after their tank had drawn the attention of too many monsters, Abigail had temporarily occupied five of them on her own purely through dodging. The girlfriend didn¡¯t openly encourage or discourage the adulation being heaped on herself. However, when Henry, pretending to be impressed by these newbie feats, remarked how impressive it all was, she couldn¡¯t hide a small smile of pride. Anderson was about to show footage of the fight on his e-assistant when another auto-taxi pulled up to the restaurant. Out of it disembarked a short, chubby girl in a plain-blue dress that conservatively covered from her wrists to her ankles. ¡°I¡¯m so so so so sorry I¡¯m late!" The girl hobbled up to them, before discarding a wicker handbag she¡¯d been carrying onto the pavement and locking Henry in a bear hug. This was Cathy, another school friend, the mother of the group. Henry struggled to breathe. ¡°How was the trip?¡± Cathy, ignoring the question, pushed him back without fully releasing, and a look of life-and-death concern flared in her eyes. ¡°Why¡¯s your skin so pale? You¡¯re too thin! Is your boss not giving you enough holidays? Here...¡± Bending over to rummage through the bag, she pulled a plastic object and thrust it into his grip. Henry gave the pills a curious look. The label read, ¡®Dr. Maxi¡¯s Organonaturevitality Twice-a-day All-life Multivitamin¡¯. ¡°Only one bottle?" he asked. "Guess I can''t share. Drat!¡± ¡°They¡¯ve got theirs," Cathy replied seriously. "Don¡¯t joke. Your health is a serious issue. My naturopath prescribed them. These are backed by the latest science. They¡¯ve got vitamin A and antioxidants, and plenty of phytonutrients. I take them once after breakfast, and again after dinner, and I¡¯ve never felt better. They strengthen your bones and skin and blood vessels, and they prevent Alzheimer¡¯s...¡± As the fretting girl continued to rattle on, the four of them went inside the restaurant. Another friend was due, but he had the uncanny ability to always appear five minutes after anything began. Unbeknownst to Henry, except sensed perhaps in a quiet mood of paranoia, this tardy friend wouldn''t be the only one joining them tonight, this first night in his latest strange adventure. Chapter 2 - The 17-Year-Old Retiree A boutique Italian restaurant about two car lengths across, with only four tables served by a single waiter, the air heavy with the scent of pasta sauce and scheming. ¡°...Don¡¯t just say you¡¯ll take them. You need to take them regularly, and, don¡¯t forget, only after a meal. Your gastric juices need to be released to dissolve the capsule; otherwise, you¡¯ll experience indigestion. I¡¯ll show you how to take them after dinner. How was your drive over here? Did the auto drive at a safe speed? These Kiwi autos are¡ªif you¡¯ll excuse my harsh language¡ªawful in comparison to what they have over in Canberra. Isn¡¯t that unsafe? Don¡¯t you think that¡¯s unsafe, Abby?¡± ¡°Mhm.¡± ¡°I felt like I was strapped down to a rusty rollercoaster. The state of this country, I can¡¯t say...¡± As Henry, seated with his school friends, flicked through the menu, he mentally filtered out Cathy¡¯s nagging as one might tune the dial of an old analogue radio until the signal became an indistinctive hiss of white noise. Handled this way, her nagging could be almost soothing. ¡°...Henry, don¡¯t refuse right away. There''s nothing embarrassing about prioritising your health. Say the word, and I¡¯ll call up your boss for you to discuss relaxing your hours...¡± When the waiter took their orders, Henry, unable to find any non-alcoholic drinks, made do with a glass of water. Anderson was mildly offended by the tasteless choice. ¡°Don¡¯t fret about the price, H. We¡¯re the ones who invited you out here.¡± "The price?" Henry replied in confusion. The price wasn¡¯t the issue. The drinks in this restaurant were on the expensive side, but they were still only around the 20 trillion dollar range. (Author''s note: The AI revolution had tanked New Zealand¡¯s economy for a few years.) Before he could explain that he wasn¡¯t poor anymore¡ªin fact, thanks to Saana, he was now disgustingly rich¡ªa voice spoke up from behind. ¡°Little Henry is wanting to avoid jail.¡± The group turned to see a speaker who was wearing...who resembled a...well...their late friend Brian looked like a regular dude. Henry took the non-descript hand being offered to him and immediately felt a sharp sensation in his palm. He was being stung by one of those tacky electric-shock gag devices. Brian frowned at the total lack of visible reaction. ¡°A hilarious prank and nothing? Have you died inside since we last saw you?¡± Cathy, already alarmed by the jail remark, became distraught. ¡°But why''s he dying? Henry, what haven''t you¡ª¡± ¡°My health¡¯s perfect.¡± Henry cut her off. ¡°I¡¯m just underage.¡± He was still 17. Many, discovering that fact, would have been astounded. His friends were also surprised, experiencing a simultaneous flash of remembrance. In the time apart they¡¯d forgotten that, despite being in the same school grade, Henry was a few years their junior, having skipped a couple. Cathy reached across the table, took his hand, and patted it with a grandmotherly condescension. ¡°And of course you shouldn¡¯t drink either. The last thing a developing brain needs is to be fed this kind of poison.¡± The drinks came and went, and then they ordered their appetisers. Henry got a platter of locally-procured cheeses and coldcuts. Having eaten the chef''s catering at a private event, he was especially fond of their Caprino-style cheese, which the chef¡¯s family fermented from the milk of goats raised in the highlands of the southern island of his country. Much to Henry''s delight, by the time they were nibbling away at their food, the unwanted attention had been drawn away from himself and onto his friends and their lives over in Australia. They were attending the same university in Canberra, which had broken for the summer holidays. As they came from wealth and none of them were concerned about the bleak job market, the studying aspect of their stories was minimal. Instead, their days were occupied by petty campus dramas, parties, clubs, etc. At one point, the topic of Saana returned, the game appearing to be the staging ground for the next saga in his schoolfriends'' whimsical escapades. As before, Henry carefully avoided mentioning that he¡¯d also been playing, and he diverted the conversation back to their college drama. Their chatter was interesting enough to him. There was a certain quality in their tales, at times infuriatingly naive and at others infectiously joyous. No matter where his friends went, it seemed that the world was waiting to wrap itself snugly around them like a well-worn winter coat. Never had they entertained the possibility it might treat them otherwise. This quality, the unspoiled optimism of youth, Henry did his best to stay absorbed in it, to allow himself to be contaminated by the positivity. ¡°...I¡¯m telling you, H., you¡¯ve got to check him out. Growing up in the Tanami Desert, untainted by the corrupting influences of Western culture, his only education in the form of the narrative being the word of mouth tales handed down by his ancestors...¡± A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. As Anderson was wafting on about this obscure novelist, the table beside the group was noisy with the clatter of dishes being cleared in a hurry. This talk of books, which may have been a sleeping pill for most of the youths of 2050, was a rare delight for Henry. If it weren¡¯t for something else constantly interfering in his life, he would have happily spent the rest of it doing nothing but reading and talking books. ¡°I¡¯ll check him out, but I¡¯m a little sceptical,¡± Henry replied. ¡°Sceptical? What¡¯s there to be sceptical about?¡± Henry¡¯s drowsy pupils suddenly ignited with the flame of excitement. ¡°Well, the question is not of the artist himself, Anderson, but of his origins. A core insight from the Post-Maximalist school, with its devotion to the More Principle, has been into the neglected accumulative facet of creative expression. To summarise: within each artistic tradition and sub-tradition, each new generation of genius can be thought of as cutting off a piece of themselves and glueing it to a collective body of inherited knowledge, which in turn becomes, through the contribution of each luminary, more rich, more vibrant, more weighty, more satisfying, more More. In this respect, oral arts, which lack the memory aid of physical writing, tend to be limited in the maximum scope of what¡ª¡° Lucky for the reader, this mind-numbing monologue was suddenly obliterated by a thunderous clap. Thwack! Henry, a painful jolt shooting from his shoulder to his lower back, turned to the assailant who¡¯d slapped him, and, within a few milliseconds, the flame that¡¯d been growing in his eye was snuffed out, his tired expression returning. From the deepest, most exasperated part of his body, he sighed. Henry knew it¡­nothing in his life was ever allowed to just be a boring coincidence¡­ A young man who''d slapped his shoulder grinned arrogantly. ¡°Well, well, well, WELL! Wifey, look who we¡¯ve run into here. What a surprising coincidence!¡±¡¯ This newcomer was a tall Chinese fellow in his early twenties with a long face and small eyes. He wore a Mafioso-like pinstripe suit. His head was topped by a meticulously-sculpted mullet, gelled thickly and dyed with streaks of brown and blonde, resembling a wet beaver humping his skull. Behind this beaver-head was a dainty woman wearing a qipao that fell softly over a pregnant belly. She gave Henry an apologetic wave. ¡°Henry, mon ami,¡± continued the beaver-head, ¡°why aren¡¯t you introducing us to your little buddies?¡± Henry sighed. "Everyone, this is Alex, my...uh..." How was he supposed to introduce this moron? Torturer? Antagonist? Leech? Puppet? Objectively, they were best friends, but that description wouldn''t capture a tenth of their complicated relationship. Cathy leapt out of her chair. ¡°Oh, we already know Alex!" Henry, watching the girl shake the couple''s hands, gave a shrug. If they played Saana, they¡¯d, of course, be familiar with Alex Wong a.k.a. Mayonnaise. Alex, the public face of their guild, was so arrogant that he didn¡¯t alter the appearance of his in-game avatar, claiming it could not be improved upon. As such, Saana had made him an international celebrity, even outside of the game. Henry''d luckily reached the end of his career without being exposed and facing those problems. ¡°Aha!" Anderson recognised the beaver-head as well. ¡°Alex Wong, wasn¡¯t it? You ran the school club our H. was in for that year, correct?" "It had that funny name," said Brian. "What was it again?" Henry did a double-take at his friends focusing on such a small detail and not Alex''s supposed identity as The Tyrant of Saana. Reviewing parts of their earlier dinner conversation, like the mention of such low-level monsters, he quickly realised what was happening. His friends were turbonoobs...social gamers, ignorant of absolutely everything at the pinnacle of Saana. Nice, he thought, although social gamers repulsed him slightly. While Henry was assessing his friends, one of them was side-eyeing him, having recognised Alex in a different light and therefore the remarkability of their acquaintance. ¡°The Digital Justice Club!¡± Alex laughed, playing along. ¡°Boy, that sure brings back fond memories. How long ago was that, Henry?¡± The Digital Justice Club had been the first form of their guild. After some guy had been mean to Alex on the internet, he''d set up a club at their school to recruit impressionable juniors into a stupidly elaborate plan for revenge. Henry had been one of those roped into the scheme. The story of how this school club had transformed into the behemoth that was their guild today was dull and not worth elaborating on. Suffice it to say, it''d been your typical case of lucky timing and a leader who''d refused to listen to all doubt or logic in his mad ascension to the top. ¡°About five years,¡± Henry answered. It''d been five miserable, exhausting years... ¡°Five years!" Alex clapped with joy. "Five years of beautiful, sumptuous memories, a perfect accompaniment to a sumptuous feast, don¡¯t you think? You kids ordered yet?¡± Henry gave him a stern glare. "We have." ¡°But it looks like you¡¯re only finishing your appetisers. Vicky and I can compensate with dessert later. Why don¡¯t we link tables, make it a group date?¡± Henry wasn''t interested in the slightest, having seen enough of this dude''s smug mug to content him for a thousand years. Thinking he should probably pretend to be somewhat normal around his school friends, he searched for a socially-appropriate way to tell this guy to get lost. Such a high-class restaurant might be annoyed with them scraping up the floors? Alex would probably call the head chef over to ask. Unfortunately, they both had partial ownership stakes in this place. The alcohol fumes might warp the development of the fetus in Alex''s wife¡¯s stomach? His friend was a negligent father who didn''t care much about children. Henry raised his hands with exasperation. "Alex, can you just go away? I¡¯m trying to enjoy my retirement here. A relaxing, uneventful dinner with my schoolmates, that''s my single ambition for the evening. Is that too much to ask for?" His school-friends were puzzled by the word ''retirement'', Henry being, again, only 17. But it was true. Despite his tender age, he''d already retired, had already exited the ranks of those who sweat and labour, had transitioned to the comforts of his twilight years. The remainder of his life would be like tonight, a series of unremarkable episodes in which he ate pretentious cheeses while chatting about avant-garde literature. Alex puckered his face in disgust at this nonsense. ¡°No, guys like us never retire. Best we can do is change career." "I did." Henry tapped a book on the table, the one he''d been reading in the taxi earlier. These days, he was writing masturbatory novels. He''d yet to have any commercial or critical success. But soon, no doubt, his literary enemies, those vile Neo-Neo-Minimalists, would be bowing before him in adoration, praising him according to his most towering title yet: HL, Unrivalled Even in The Heavens, The Galaxy''s Greatest Wordsmith! Alex masked a grin rising from a point of secret knowledge. "We''ll see how that works out." The beaver-head snapped his fingers at a waiter, who¡ªafraid of offending their tyrannical boss¡ªquickly rushed to cram the groups'' tables together. Chapter 3 - The Wager An Italian restaurant in New Zealand, a group of youths dining together. Since Henry''s friends were part of that alien race known as the socially well-adjusted, they were all chummy by the time they¡¯d finished ordering the first course. What small bumps remained in the conversation were soon ironed out by the arrival of their meal. His colleague Alex spoke at length about his and Henry''s recent trip to China. The three of them, along with Alex¡¯s firstborn, had gone over to visit Alex¡¯s extended family in Harbin. The plan was for Alex and Henry to then head off on their own to Vladivostok, from which they would have ridden the historical trans-Siberian railway to Moscow, before holidaying in Europe. Alas, the trip had been cut short to handle some unexpected problems with their ¡®business¡¯. Although Henry¡¯s friends themselves travelled frequently, they were surprised that he could afford such a luxury, Henry having been a broke scholarship student. This made them even more curious about the ''digital investing'' job he''d apparently already retired from. "Digital investing''s pretty vague," said Brian, who''d been studying Business Management. "IPs? Virtual Estates?" "Even I''m not exactly sure what he does." Alex was running a comb through the tail of his beaver-shaped mullet. "Henry, I''m also intrigued. What type of investments have you been making? Specifically. Please list them." Henry gave his frenemy a flat, calculating stare, studying each of the treacherous muscles of the beaver-head''s face. "I dabbled in a bit of everything. It doesn''t matter. I came, I worked, I retired. End of story." During their dinner, Henry''d been busy trying to fit together the various puzzle pieces to figure out Alex''s motives this evening. Here were the facts: One, Henry''d retired from his duties in Saana two weeks earlier, their cancelled trip being a celebration of the end of his career. Two, the ¡®unexpected problem¡¯ with their ¡®business¡¯ that''d brought them back had been a competing guild in the game conquering a territory earlier than their analysts had predicted. Even though this issue could have easily been resolved on the road, Alex had thrown a fit insisting they return to the country to coordinate a response in person. As a show of strength, the beaver-head had redirected resources to boost his character''s level before an upcoming Winter PVP event. Three, barely after stepping back onto native soil, Henry''d received a call from Cathy, who had also, coincidentally, arrived back in the country with the others and wanted to catch up over dinner. Four, of all the restaurants in the city, Cathy suggested coming to this one, which was popular enough that bookings needed to be made weeks in advance. This restaurant also happened to be affiliated with one of Henry and Alex¡¯s subsidiary guilds, Flaming Sun, as could be seen by the logo hanging outside the entrance, the sun which had jokingly been set extra on fire. Five, at dinner now, he''d learned that his friends had started playing Saana a little over a week ago. Strange. Six, Alex turned up for dinner almost at the same time as them, despite supposedly being so worried about dealing with the opposition guild. A glaring contradiction. The conclusion from all this? It was obvious to Henry that Alex was using his friends for some evil machination related to the game. The questions were in what way and why? History might suggest that Alex was setting him up for another childish prank between friends. For example, earlier that same day, Henry had been tricked into appearing in the middle of an interview that was being broadcast live over the in-game television network. He didn''t have to wait long before the scheme against him was sprung, the conspirators drawing their daggers. Alex''s pregnant wife was the first to stab. Prompted by her husband, she let slip what Henry''d been trying with great difficulty not to reveal to these school-friends. "Henry!" Cathy, clasping her hands in joy, emitted a screech so loud it even drew the attention of a middle-aged couple a table down from them. ¡°You¡¯re playing, too? Why didn¡¯t you say so earlier?¡± Henry glanced suspiciously between Alex, his wife, and Cathy. "Some of my investments require a small degree of online presence. I don''t really play in any conventional sense.¡± This was another white lie. For the past half-year leading up to his retirement, he¡¯d been performing mostly administrative duties in order to get the guild functioning autonomously before he quit. Would normal people call that playing a videogame? No. Cathy beamed. ¡°Oh my god¡ªapologies for my language¡ªHenry, you¡¯re playing too? That¡¯s awesome! You¡¯re on holiday, right? No, you''ve retired! That means you can group, right?¡± Henry frowned, her response not logically progressing from his own. As for grouping with his buddies, he could imagine it now. A small band of chums travelling the wide world of Saana...experiencing the romance of adventure...sleeping under the digital stars..overcoming challenges slightly beyond their capabilities on paper using the power of friendship...meeting a constantly shifting cast of newcomers attracted by his friends¡¯ overly social tendencies... Disgusting. Henry, trying to be polite, explained to Cathy that the planet of Saana was an eighth the size of the earth and, as of yet, had no methods for instantaneous transport. Travelling from zone to zone could take multiple real-life weeks, making the idea of casually meeting up with people preposterous. But, coincidentally, his friends, out of thirty-odd starting areas, had picked Suchi, the zone closest to his character''s present location at his guild''s island base and a short trip away by boat. Undefeated, Henry then explained that he had an end-game, Tier-5 character. His friends meanwhile were training to participate for fun in a monthly recruitment fighting tournament hosted by his own guild, a tournament that was restricted to Tier-0 characters. Obviously, he couldn''t join them. ¡°The level difference might not be a problem," countered Alex. Henry turned to the beaver-head, who was giving him a shameless, arrogant look, much like that of an alcoholic son demanding his father''s last kidney, the surgery knife already in hand, the second dagger drawn. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡°Well," said Henry through gritted teeth, "at the moment, I''m Tier-5, far beyond the appropriate level range of Suchi.¡± Simultaneously, he sent Alex a message on his e-assistant. -Henry Lee: Stop it, you dick. Alex, reading the message, smiled even more arrogantly. ¡°You¡¯re a tier-5 Scholar, but what about your Martial Class? What level was that exactly?¡± In this, Alex, the disloyal oaf, was referring to the fact that Henry had only levelled his production and crafting skills. In two years of playing the most recent instalment, he¡¯d avoided choosing one of the ¡®Martial Classes¡¯ that about 95% of the player base picked, such as a Cutthroat or a Shaman. Henry''s reason for avoiding doing so was simple: he didn¡¯t want to. Saana was tiring, time-wasting, hard, overly-competitive, and stressful. He¡¯d been sick of the game before the new server even opened. This was the third instalment of Saana. In the previous one, which Alex had hoodwinked him into playing during high school, their guild had also lucked its way into moderate success. At the start of the most recent version of the game, the developers had sent Henry a free VR set, as they did most notable players who were too poor to afford one. Henry, however, having seen the peak of the mountain once, had felt no interest to undergo the ordeal again. His only reason for creating a character this time around had been to exploit one of Saana¡¯s new features, a time-dilation effect that made time in the game last four times longer than reality. He¡¯d wanted to exploit this effect to have more time to read and work on his hobby of writing in between shifts at his parents¡¯ fast food restaurant. If it weren¡¯t for Alex catching wind of him making a character and pressuring him to start another guild, Henry would still be in his in-game bookstore happily drowning in a sea of comfy novels. Henry, with Alex interceding now, finally saw his motivations in joining them tonight, in orchestrating this farce of a dinner. Alex wanted him to start levelling a Martial class with his friends using this tournament as an excuse, in order to reinvolve Henry in the game and cancel his retirement. ¡°So does that mean you can group with us?¡± asked Cathy. Henry could produce many further excuses, but if Alex were motivated, they would all be refuted. Technically, nothing was stopping him from participating in the tournament...his own tournament. But how ridiculous would that be, participating in your own recruitment tournament? Embarrassing. When Henry turned to reply to Cathy, he was shocked. In her eyes too, there was also a shameless, arrogant look, like a grandmother blackmailing her grandchild into giving a loan that she expected to die before repaying. Et tu, Cathe? This so-called friend of his had armed herself with a third dagger in the conspiracy alongside Alex, who''d perhaps won her over with some sob story about how Henry was suffering from burn-out or clinical depression and suggested that nothing would brighten his mood more than a two-week-long dose of social gaming. Now, she was trying to force Henry''s hand, through that sharpest and most deadly of weapons: peer pressure. But, thought Henry, this level of manipulation wasn''t enough to work on him. The ordeals of his career had hardened his heart to the point where, emotionally, he''d feel absolutely nothing telling a childhood friend to get bent. In fact, if it weren''t illegal and they didn''t live in a surveillance state, he could have effortlessly leaned across the table and slapped the smugness from both their faces. These conspirators needed to offer him more incentive than this. The extra incentive arrived now. Henry''s wrist vibrated with a message. "One second,¡± he said to Cathy, excusing himself. Few at this dinner would realise the gravity of what he was about to read. -Alex Wong: holy crap just agree already!!!! what''s taking so long!! here¡¯s the deal: if u get 1st in the 1v1, i won¡¯t pull that card again.¡¯ The card, Henry''s attention honed in on this. The card! What was the card? Long ago Alex had helped his family out in a massive way when Henry''s mother had fallen ill. Since then, it''d been reminders of this favour that''d motivated Henry to put up with Alex''s nonsense. In a way, the card was the last thing binding them together. Once it was removed, it''d really be over...Henry would be retired for good. So that was tonight''s wager: first place in his own recruitment tournament in exchange for eternal freedom, the warm bliss that lay beyond the mountain''s frosty slopes. Henry, totally ignoring Cathy, leaned back to contemplate the offer while, across from him, his long-time comrade feigned indifference sawing through a piece of pork. The Card... The Card...the Car¡ª But wasn''t this underhanded scheming too much? What had Henry ever done to deserve this treatment? Had it really been too much to ask for a 17-year-old man to retire quietly in peace? Had he not put in enough work for one lifetime? It seemed so silly to him. Recently, in the spirit of retirement, he''d been doing much reading about his new non-vocation. The greatest insights had come from the bearded philosophers of ancient China, who''d captured the essence of quitting perfectly with the principle of Wu-Wei, or non-doing. Non-doing, one might argue that this was the secret spice to all human advancement. Just as the life of an individual required offsetting its more active, doing parts with more restful, non-doing parts to maintain a functional balance, so too might this greater life which we call civilisation require offsetting its more active, doing people with more restful, non-doing people. Man was a creature of comparison, and without the low achiever, could anyone truly be a high achiever? Behind every great man of action, Henry would assert there was another man¡ªmuch less great but no less important¡ªa man of inaction, a man whose inert, flabby example terrified the great man and drove him to strive on to ever-higher altitudes. And who were we, the non-doers, to strip this great man of his vital motivation? Ask yourself, if the next Einstein walked through the door right now, would you deny him his potential? Henry could never be so selfish. For the greater good of society, he would leap in front of the lazy bullet. He would sacrifice himself by becoming one of those men who dare, boldly, to do nothing. As for his great man, he could be any one of the souls brimming with untapped potential around him - he could be the waiter, he could be an anonymous diner, and, why of course, he could even be you. While Henry was fantasising about the restaurant applauding this silly monologue, his body was undergoing a very different reaction to Alex''s wager, a feeling surging up from his deepest core, a warmth being carried out through his blood to his tired limbs. The source of this feeling was hard to say. Once upon a time, in a past life, he''d been a prominent duellist, his soul steeped in the gory romance of the 1v1. Perhaps this desire to fight originated from that nostalgia. What the heck, thought Henry. It was only two weeks. Two weeks of playing a videogame, two weeks of giving the latest generation of youths a humble taste of his wrinkled knuckles...that was a tiny price to pay for The Card. Refusing Alex''s first offer, he messaged back to negotiate terms. Actually, first place, even against noobs, was beyond his capability, their recruitment tournament averaging about 5,000 participants in each zone. What''s more, Henry was long out of practice with duelling, and his specific talents, for complicated reasons, weren''t suited to the simple, standardised format. 1v1s also had some level of intrinsic unpredictability - even the greatest duellist of all time might get randomly eliminated by a meathead amateur who just happened to swing their sword a few milliseconds quicker. After a rapid text exchange between them, he managed to reduce his win condition to placing in the top 10. In exchange, he wouldn''t be able to exploit their guild''s resources or his other spy networks, Henry having to do everything alone from scratch. Alex also weaselled in a clause mandating a minimum number of hours hanging out with his school friends, predicting correctly that Henry would otherwise have ditched them to maximise his solo training. Their wager settled informally for now, the two would meet again later at their company headquarters to sign contracts. ¡°Sorry about the delay there, Cathy," Henry apologised, he and the beaver-head''s negotiations taking less than a minute in total. "Some psychopath had gotten a hold of my number. Anyway, this tournament thing, do you have any info on it, just so I can double-check my eligibility? I wouldn¡¯t want to waste a boat ride.¡± Cathy clapped her hands in joy. ¡°Let me bring up the website!" And with that, the wager was made, Henry setting aside the next two weeks for a quirky little side-adventure with The Card as the prize. Two more weeks playing a videogame...this was barely anything to him, who''d played much longer. Before you could blink, victory would be his and he''d be right back to this luxurious retiree life of inactivity. Beginning of Volume 1: History''s Longest Tutorial Chapter 4 - Towards Eternal Victory Volume I - History''s Longest Tutorial A day and a half after the dinner. In game. The bay of Suchi, one of Saana''s Starting Zones. A convoy of merchant ships from Chayoka broke the horizon as they sailed into the harbour. Each vessel flew the same ash-grey flag, and on the deck of each, a similar scene was taking place. Hearing the news of their imminent arrival, players and NPCs alike had begun to flood out of the lower levels of the ships to catch their first glimpse of Suchi. From the shoreline, the terrain rose very gently to a peak of around fifty metres about a kilometre inland. On top of this small crest was built the Central City of Suchi with its magnificent, imposing red walls of magic-reinforced clay, and a spectacular tower in the centre topped by a chamber of 360-degree glass. In contrast to the city''s opulence, it was surrounded by vast slum of hundreds of thousands of haphazardly-constructed shacks. Positioned as they were below and around the much wealthier city, these shacks might have made for a depressing view like a bunch of desperate famine-sufferers clawing for rations; however, this sad impression was mitigated by thousands of sky-scraping pillars dotted around the slum, erected by its proud inhabitants. Aside from a river to the west and a small settlement on one forested bank, in all other directions, the land resembled the savannas of Africa during the dry season. To the horizon, a flat land of crimson clay was dominated by dehydrated yellowgrass and the occasional sickly acacia. With a telescope, a passenger on the boats sailing into the bay would be able to see a strange sight in the distance, as tens of thousands of madmen and madwomen in loincloths wrestled with a herd of Golden-Horned Wildebeest. With the naked eye, however, this crazy game was just a small cloud of blood-red dust. The passengers on each ship felt a swelling in their hearts at the approaching vision of this rugged land called Suchi. In the depths of the eyes of many players returning shone a nostalgic glimmer for the trials survived in the harsh contest between the city, the surrounding slums, and the romantic savannah. The eyes of newcomers meanwhile also sparkled with the anticipation of their own heroic struggles. The glances of a few gazing at this strange place, however, were not so positive. Henry, disguised with an avatar completely different from his real-world teen appearance, stood staring on the deck of one ship with the hood of a cloak drawn covertly over his head, his brow creased in a deep, frustrated frown. He sighed. Here it was, Suchi, the battleground for his final adventure in Saana. Suchi, the most trash zone in this most trash of games, a backwater garbage-heap plagued by rats and noobs and criminals, a miserable shithole. Suchi... But what would be gained by fixating on this region''s problems? For the next two weeks, Henry''s sole focus was winning the wager with his frenemy. His task was to train himself back into fighting shape, place top 10 in his guild''s recruitment duelling tournament, and then return to his blissful retirement of Wu-Wei, the philosophy of Non-Doing. That would be his sole focus. Towards this single goal, one surprise twist had already been thrown in. Unknown to Henry, whose past responsibilities had been too large to pay attention to this insignificant zone, there''d been a recent shift in the regional political situation. The Slum part of Suchi had previously been ruled by warring gangs of player and NPC ruffians. It''d since been unified in the past six months. The victorious gang, led by an Argentinian mastermind, Ramiro¡ªknown locally as ''The Saviour''¡ªhad restructured and rebranded themselves to gain legitimacy into a pseudo-empire. The conquered gangs were now stylised as ''Kingdoms'', ''Duchies'', ''Villages''. Most of that was irrelevant to Henry, but, as part of the reforms of ''King Ramiro'' creating a Hogwarts-style inter-''Kingdom'' competition, new players were both encouraged to linger in Suchi, a Starting Zone they should have promoted beyond within a week or two, and to participate in Henry''s recruitment tournament to win something called ''Slum Points''. Consequently, the number of noobs to be pummelled had expanded from the anticipated five-thousand to a hundred thousand. This would make the top 10 finish agreed upon for the bet much more challenging. Alex, aware of Henry''s habit of ignoring this dogshit zone, had duped him. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. As the ship he was riding approached Suchi''s dockyards, the captain reversed the direction of a magically-summoned wind billowing in its sails, causing the vessel to quickly slow down. Below on the pier, dozens of broad-shouldered workmen were awakening their muscles with stretches, and guards and customs officers were waiting to inspect the arriving passengers and goods. A group of local ruffians or ''Villagers'' on the deck beside Henry leapt off the prow to beat the rest of them. "I¡¯m free! Finally!" yelled a jumping player of the Fighter Class, before he tripped on the edge of the boat, slammed his head against the dock, and flopped clumsily into the sea. As his friends fished him out, they all broke into laughter. Henry sighed. This place... These people... He couldn¡¯t help thinking of an adventurer¡¯s proverb he¡¯d coined right now. ¡®As the journey ends, the troubles begin.¡¯ These fools did not know that the true oppression was awaiting them on the land they were sprinting so enthusiastically towards. But as Henry watched the burly dockworkers hauling over a portable staircase, he put an end to these useless complaints and refocused himself on the wager. The bet with Alex was all that mattered. Since learning of his frenemy''s deception, during the voyage here, Henry''d countered by arranging an elaborate surveillance apparatus to monitor his multiplied competitors and note their exploitable habits and weakness. Now, five-thousand, hundred-thousand, a million, no matter how many noobs this universe tossed at him, all that would change would be the number of teeth knocked out by his all-knowing, cheap-shotting fists. The wretched youths of Suchi would tremble before him as before an oracle, a monster predicting their every (pre-documented) combo. Was this morally cheating? Yes. Was this technically cheating? Also yes. Did Henry care? No. Who was he to trip on such a petty barrier as the rules of an amateur duelling tournament? He was The Invincible Cripple, The Supreme Cheat Magnet, The Cockroach, The Weevil, The Mouse, The Hydra, he was The...well, everyone knew the last title. The point was that, in the years of tiresome climbing through which he''d earned these many epithets, it hadn''t been by playing according to anyone else''s rules that he''d reached the summit. Even his own rules, in his own recruitment tournament, could not restrain him. Fraudantum brevis, victoria aeternis, as the ancient Romans used to regularly say. Cheating is brief; victory is forever. When the dockworkers finished attaching the staircase, Henry joined the throng of disembarking passengers, the travellers in happy spirits to finally stretch their feet along more space than the crowded deck and cargo bay. Amongst them were the characters of several offline players, tagging along automatically behind their friends. While logging off normally made one vanish, one could also entrust a character to follow another - a practical necessity with Saana''s 4x time-dilation feature, where logging off to poop for five minutes would correspond with twenty minutes transpiring in-game. These offline characters were quite creepy. They moved at a zombie-slow, automated shuffle. Their eyes, open, never blinking, were devoid of pupils and irises, just the pure white of sclera. They made no reaction to those bumping into them; one could even thrust a blade into their belly without a whimper. Henry stepped onto the docks, planting his foot with the firm resolve of a conquistador, unafraid of the tasks of this fortnight, nor the tasks of today. Today''s first task: finish the tutorial to unlock his character''s basic combat abilities. Because players could not unlock skills on their own for some reason, he''d hired an NPC trainer to work exclusively with him as he blitzed through the process. From Level 0 to Level 5, he would learn the basic skills common to all Martial Classes, such as temporary super strength and reflex enhancements. After Level 5, the trainer would then unlock the specialised abilities of the Martial Class Henry had chosen. Entry in his recruitment tournament capped out at Level 20, the maximum for Tier-0, which he would grind to in a few hours. Then, in the afternoon, he''d dive straight into duelling practice, exercising his muscles and brushing up on the old skills he''d let go to waste. To boost his training, he''d commissioned the building of a small private arena, so he wouldn''t have to rely on the shoddy, overly-crowded local facilities. His arena should be completed and opened in about 40 in-game or 10 real-life hours, construction in Saana being quite fast with magical assistance. Two weeks of practice later, he, history''s greatest duellist, The Invincible Cripple, would demolish a bunch of noobs in an amateur tournament and win back The Card. Good game; easy lol. Somewhere within all that, he''d hang out with his school friends as a minor distraction. And, if he could find the time to squeeze it in, maybe, he might also create an unstoppable army of sentient monster wolves and rats. This minor side-scheme would really depend on whether his hypothesised game mechanic interactions turned out to be accurate. The plan could be a non-starter. As he stepped onto the dock, he mimicked Alex''s usual expression of supreme arrogance and cast a look of disdain upon this rotten land of Suchi. His mind''s eye began to radiate with a shimmering vision of it all being swept away by a billion-strong army of howling, screeching beasts. Some of the noobs would flee, others would stand and fight to protect their homes, all would be transformed into piles of slightly pink bone. And behind this cleansing scourge, there would be he, in a comfortable villa several kilometres away, relaxing with a cup of tea and a good book, too far to even hear a squeak of the symphony of terror. The crazed look beginning to ignite in Henry''s tired eyes vanished when he noticed trouble coming his way. ¡°I told you that I¡¯m not interested,¡± he shouted, drawing his hood even further over his head, attempting to walk faster. A blue-haired NPC was bulldozing in his direction. ¡°Consider it one last time, brother!¡± Henry sighed, as he attempted to slip away from his pursuer. This place...these people... Chapter 5 - Striking an Illegal Arms Deal A dockyard, swarming with passengers disembarking from a recently arrived tradefleet. ¡°I told you that I¡¯m not interested,¡± Henry said, drawing his hood even further over his head, attempting to walk faster. ¡°Consider it one last time, brother!¡± yelled a blue-haired NPC bulldozing in his direction. Henry sighed, as he attempted to slip away from his pursuer. This place...these people Elsewhere on the ship Henry¡¯d ridden, there had been an NPC Merchant by the name of Ga. At a glance, Merchant Ga''s model bore a striking resemblance to Henry¡¯s current disguise.. Aside from Henry making his obese, they shared the same azure-coloured hair, skin the colour of alabaster, and noses with nostrils large enough to allow the entrance of a thumb and two extra fingers. Their shared appearance corresponded to the inhabitants of the mountainous, Scottland-esque island of Togavi, a region almost as trash as Suchi. Henry, during the boat ride, had used special magic to disguise himself as an NPC in order to leave his base without detection from nuisance spies that followed him everywhere. A consequence of the disguise was that this Merchant NPC, mistaking Henry for a fellow countryman, had tried to cosy up to him and even offer him a chance to join a smuggling operation to sneak weapons into Suchi¡¯s Slums. Saana was always giving one these kinds of hassles, trying to them into random, elicit schemes, or ''Quests'' as normal players might describe them. Henry blamed poor game design. Escaping the NPC through the mass of disembarking passengers, he joined one of two queues for customs inspection, hiding his face in a novel. A minute later, however, the Merchant had skipped ahead to squeeze in beside him. "I''m not interested," Henry answered with a stern rejection of the weapons smuggling offer, his frustration rising at all of the guards around them failing to maintain the queue order. Merchant Ga laughed as heartily as Karnon, Togavi''s joyful trickster god. ¡°All right, all right, brother. If a man does not want the world, then I¡¯m not going to be one to force it upon him. Just don¡¯t come begging when I strike it rich.¡± Henry, ignoring the trader, flipped to the next page of his book, concentrating on a story that had absolutely nothing to do with Saana. Many books from the real-world had been imported into the game as ''Tomes of Rapid Language Absorption'', enabling player characters to quickly learn Saana''s thousands of NPC languages for which the system would then automate translation. Henry, though, read for leisure. His current choice was an Uzbek novella, The Dead Lake. The story, set in the 20th century, focused on a genius violinist whose physical growth stopped in childhood due to exposure to radiation from Soviet nuclear testing. With Henry¡¯s present predicament in Suchi, he had a lot of sympathy for the stunted protagonist. In a way, he and everyone else here was wasting away in their own toxic mire. ¡°Never mind then, brother!¡± Merchant Ga patted Henry''s rotund belly, causing a ripple of fat to propagate outwards. ¡°Don¡¯t do that," Henry warned. The Merchant chuckled. ¡°Don¡¯t be so frigid, brother!¡± Their queue moved much faster than the other. Theirs was for passengers who¡¯d paid the travel fare in full. For them, the inspectors only asked three or four questions, before checking their Attention Identification Emblems. These IDs slash passports slash discount cards were necessary for accessing the many services offered by The Attention East Saana Trading Company, such as passage on their vessels. The second, slower-moving line was for subsidised passengers. In addition to the identification check, they were also taking turns to summon various goods from their Spatial Bracelets. The inspectors were weighing these items, spinning them around or spinning around them if they were too large, all while stroking their chins contemplatively. If nothing were amiss, the inspectors would then order the dockworkers to transfer the goods to the local Trading Post and reward the passenger with a bag that jingled ever so sweetly. As to be expected in this lawless zone, Henry saw one player get caught and fined for drinking a case of expensive beer and diluting them with saltwater. The Merchant prodded him. ¡°Brother, isn¡¯t their monopoly a crime? The Company should spread the wealth to some of us smaller traders.¡± Henry lifted his eyes from his novel to throw the Togavian a tired glance. ¡°If you''re envious, you should have set up a competing service.¡± Should have - this Merchant would never get the opportunity to correct his poor life choices, having picked the single worst person in Saana to invite into a smuggling deal. Merchant Ga scoffed. ¡°Sure, and while I am it, I¡¯ll also marry a Rangbitan princess and tame an Imbahalaala to hand-feed grapes to our mocha-skinned children. What a ridiculous suggestion!¡± The Merchant had solid ground to refute him. The materials to build a fleet, the wages of the sailors, supplies for pioneering a safe travel route through the deadly oceans¨Call of this required unfathomable amounts of capital. And say you did manage to scrape together the initial cost, one storm, one pirate raid, one minor king in need of an emergency navy, one Hyperborean Kraken, and all your investment would be like the petals of The Great Togavi Tulip Sea when The Maelstrom makes landfall, spirited away in seconds. Henry gave a lazy shrug, raising his shoulders barely an eighth of an inch. ¡°I''m just saying I¡¯ve seen these things be done." After a pause, he clarified. "Not the taming of an Imbahalaala. That would be...difficult." The Imbahalaala were demonic monsters that could predict and dodge the path of all attacks and telepathically explode the hearts of enemies. They were more powerful than the game''s Gods. In a previous adventure, Henry''d found a way to approach these creatures safely and even learn their language, but taming or killing one was far beyond him. The Imbahalaala seemed to be related to one of this game instalment''s final questlines. Henry''s queue moved fast even for an unsubsidised fare. Unlike at others ports, their inventories went unchecked. With the openness of the savanna and the chaos of The Slums, there were too many ways to sneak contraband past this point if one intended to, like the Merchant. Instead, goods would be given proper scrutiny when entering the gates of the Central City, where law and order began. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! It wouldn''t be in the comfort of the city that Henry''d be training these two upcoming weeks before the tournament. His school friends, and in turn himself, had joined The Slum ''Empire'', joined a subsidiary gang of Australians once known as the ''3-23 Westside Boyz'' but renamed ''Byzantium Village''. He was trying not to think about that. It should be irrelevant to his duelling efforts, Henry being able to ignore Suchi''s politics like he was the NPC trader tailing him. He was soon freed from the Merchant, who was apprehended by a squad of soldiers and taken away for questioning and execution. Henry, despite the Merchant acting buddy-buddy during the voyage, had ratted him out without hesitation. Unfortunately for Merchant Ga, the specific place he was smuggling weapons from happened to be Henry''s in-game kingdom. The cities where the weapons were forged, the fleet on which they''d sailed across the sea, the customs inspectors, the guards, this dock - all this belonged to the guild he''d built over the past two years, The Company. They were quite a big organisation, spanning Saana''s digital globe with hundreds of thousands of player members and an even larger NPC force, involved in trade and other things. It''d been through this enterprise that he''d amassed the filthy riches with which he could retire happily at 17. The Merchant, by propositioning Henry, had accidentally chosen death. Henry, heading from the docks to one of his guild''s Trading Posts, met up again with the squad transporting the smuggler and handed over evidence, the Merchant screaming at him for the betrayal. During the exchange, Henry noted several peculiarities with the soldiers'' handling of the case. Firstly, they failed to abide by the standard operating procedure of binding the criminal, an especially disconcerting fact because Ga''s Martial Class was a Cutthroat like Henry''s friend Abigail, designed for escape and stealth kills. Secondly, the soldiers walloped the Merchant simply for using foul language. Thirdly, while Henry was leaving, the guard captain approached him privately with a request to identify himself in order to collect his reward for snitching and get listed on a special honour board. This last oddity alarmed Henry the most, given that he was still disguised as an NPC. His guild went through immense effort to safeguard the anonymity of native informants, who, in The Slums especially, were at constant risk of retaliatory assassination and who, unlike the players, didn''t respawn when they died. In the past, Henry might have investigated these peculiarities further. However, having retired, he chalked everything up to corruption from this corrupted zone, and he moved on with a shrug. To hell with Suchi, he thought, to hell with the guild. These problems were no longer his responsibility. Snitching on a weapons smuggler would be his final good deed. As he was leaving the exchange, the Merchant to his back being dragged away swearing at him, a floating dark-blue eyesore popped up in the bottom-left corner of his vision to stop him.
The quest Forging a New Path has been updated to Save Merchant Ga!
Quest Title: Save Merchant Ga! Description: A fellow clansman from Togavi approached you with a benevolent offer to join him in pioneering a new trade route between the repressed craftsmen of the Kingdom of Chayoka and the burgeoning Slum Empire of Suchi. For some reason, you leaked his plans, and now Merchant Ga has been apprehended by the Tyrant of Saana¡¯s agents. Although you seem to have erred, there is still a chance to redeem yourself. Before Merchant Ga is executed, find a way to break into the Trading Post and liberate him from the abominable clutches of The Company. Rewards: Merchant Experience. Reputation with the Lis Clan. A new trade route. Conditions: Quest will end if Merchant Ga is murdered before you can rescue him.
Henry squinted with disdain at the biased flavour text. Who exactly was the game system calling repressed? His kingdom¡¯s craftsmen? His craftsmen? Their labourers had the longest lifespans, were the freest of illness and war, were the most productive, had the greatest number of leisure hours. They couldn¡¯t sell their products to whomever they wished, so what? In exchange, they received free housing and food, generous wages, subsidised crafting materials for practice, access to mentorship programs and opportunities for career promotion. If they didn''t like the arrangement, they were free to go elsewhere on his fare-subsidised ships. This smuggling quest was just another example of unfair demonisation against his guild''s regime. What always seemed to be neglected in the criticism of his regime was the alternative. Saana looked nothing like modern world. In its medieval fantasy setting, might alone proved right, life was nasty, brutish, and brief. The soft of heart had their kingdoms overrun and their citizens put to the sword or the whip. Your average NPC king treated his craftsmen like pack-mules. As for player-run regions, one could just imagine how hellish an actual kingdom would be, with semi-realistic political dynamics, when managed by overlords who viewed their citizens as 0s and 1s. "Repressed...ridiculous game." Henry swatted away the quest box like a fly too fat for its wings. Guilt-free, he strolled up the shoreline and roamed a short distance into Suchi''s Slums, which covered the whole expanse between the port and Central City. The Slums were about as trash as when he''d last visited over half a year ago. He passed through the narrow, pot-hole-strewn streets, past the driftwood shacks of the locals. Down one alleyway, he spotted a boar-sized rat shoulder-deep in the guts of a dog it''d killed. There were no criminals out yet, the days being a tad safer, but, come nightfall, the streets would teem with bandits and deranged players roleplaying as serial killers. The main change was the greater presence of players with their ''Villages'' scattered throughout the Slums. These encampments, lacking any consistent architectural style, were demarcated by ludicrously-tall ''Achievement Pillars'' - on some of the towering structures could be spotted Villagers trying to grow theirs by climbing with heavy blocks of wood strapped to their backs. The players'' carefree manner made for a bizarre contrast with the NPCs living in squalor around them. This lawless dump, this was the alternative to his guild, what it meant to not be ''repressed''. Henry, despite not venturing particularly far, had to dodge barefoot children in what appeared to be stolen clothes and a rowdy parade of loin-clothed players carrying the bus-sized carcass of a Golden-Horned Wildebeest. He also encountered a group of drunken imbeciles shooting arrows and spells at seagulls. Annoyed, he tossed food crumbs at the brats, causing them to get swarmed. After finding an empty tent in a Village whose members were offline, he discarded the disguise used for the voyage, swapping his obese Togavian avatar to his real body and swapping his user ID from the NPC one, by which the Merchant had mistaken him as a compatriot, to a normal player ID. The first swap wasn''t noteworthy, the game having arcane engineering devices to dismember and reconstruct a body. The second, however, would be very unusual to most players, as it required a unique Legendary identity-spoofing ring artefact. In his past quests, Henry had acquired a ton of rare and strange game-breaking cheat items - dozens right now were just sitting casually in his inventory. One might say he''d come a little overprepared for a noob Starting Zone, but that would be failing to understand the tremendous difficulties of this hellhole and game. While changing his avatar, his mind kept turning back to the oddities with the guards during the Merchant''s arrest. To purge himself of these thoughts, he contacted his guild''s spy-network to report his observations. Having already quit the guild and his former leadership position, he gave no official orders, they could do with the information as they pleased. But that deed¡ªhe renewed his commitment to Wu-Wei¡ªthat had been the last and only official action he would squander his precious time on. Henry, the retiree, refused to be enslaved further by the demented ideology of Doing. The adventure ahead, if one could even call it an adventure, was strictly about duelling, about winning a bet, about valiantly quitting. Chapter 6 - A Series of Bad Coincidences Several kilometres into Suchi''s Slums, the noon sky shining a bright, cloudless blue. A donkey-drawn wagon with its driver and a customer on the back was bumping along through an empty section of The Slums. The run-down shacks grew around them dense and chaotic like the foliage of a jungle untouched by mankind''s orderly fingers. This area was inhabited by the Ibanmothe or Sandpeople, Suchi''s lowest caste, who didn''t bother with urban planning. What would have been the point? Once a month, during a ritual known as The Cleansing, they were forced to pack up and migrate into the savannah as the Ibangua or Claypeople, the region''s native residents, emerged from their walled city and set fire to anything that remained. Thus, the Sandpeople, modelled themselves after the material for which they were named. Not burdened by too many possessions, they stayed light enough to be carried away on the wind and settled on whatever patch of dirt would entertain them for a while. The customer on the donkey-driven wagon, like many players, had dressed strangely in West African-style silk garments with a zebra-head mask to disguise his face. The eyes through the slit of his mask, usually tired, were now creased into an ominous, foreboding frown. It was a type of frown out of place for a sunny day in a videogame, one more appropriate to that hard-to-place paranoia of a nighttime moments before a struggle over life and death. What a miserable beginning, Henry thought, a string of sighs echoing through the hollow chambers of his soul. Barely half an hour had passed since dealing with the weapon-smuggling merchant, and this zone had already pestered him with several more annoyances. First, he''d visited one of his guild''s outposts in order to pick up documents containing information on Suchi to bring up to date with recent developments regarding the gangs. Barred as part of the wager from accessing the guild¡¯s own database, Henry had anonymously commissioned new reports to be produced through one of the guild¡¯s local area managers. These managers were regularly hired for such tasks by the general public. The information Henry would have access to would not be as detailed as the guild¡¯s, but partially informed was better than completely ignorant. That should have been a brief stopover. Instead, the Senior Director NPC managing the outpost broke protocol and held the documents hostage until Henry met with him. The guy, having figured out Henry was the same anonymous figure commissioning a private practise arena, attempted to blackmail him for more gold by threatening to delay the construction process. In the end, Henry pretended to be an agent of a covert necromancer prince and threatened the Senior Director back that he''d murder the dude''s family and turn them into skeleton puppets. That boast had just been nonsense to speedrun the encounter, but, obviously, the corrupt official would be apprehended soon by The Company''s agents and executed, Henry snitching again. From a few observations at the dude''s office, it also appeared that the Senior Director had been the one coordinating the weapons smuggling, which seemed to be a much larger operation than first presumed, involving multiple Merchants. While Henry''d been finishing up that sidequest, he''d then received the untimely news that the trainer he''d hired to race through the tutorial was no longer available due to being stuck transformed as a monster. Prepared for this trash zone to throw such challenges at him, Henry had hired a backup trainer. This backup, however, he also learned, had been incapacitated by a curse while exploring an ancient ruin. A third, backup backup trainer had left the country in pursuit of an arsonist that''d torched her shack. Three trainers taken out of commission, had that been a pure coincidence? Maybe. Suchi was a horrendous place. One could see its abysmalness from a third strange incident unfolding right now. To find a new trainer, Henry''d intended to go to Suchi''s initial spawn area and hire one of the tutors offering public services to noobs. Alas, for some reason, the wagon-driver he''d paid to taxi his character over had taken him in the opposite direction, to a deserted part of The Slums. Now, Henry''s paranoia senses were tingling, warning him that he was about to get jumped by a gang of thugs. Suchi...couldn''t it at least wait for him to pick up an ability before trying to kill him? A weird sound slipped from his mouth, a mix between a laugh, a sigh, and a groan. "Discover something funny again, sir?" asked the driver, who''d been chatting idly with him. "Something like that," Henry answered. He took a moment to study the driver...just to be certain. Red-haired and with the ambiguous race of the ethnically-mixed Sandpeople caste, the fellow looked too pale for someone who actually worked every day bussing customers around in Suchi''s relentless sun. His tone earlier had been overly nervous. Back when Henry''d hired him, he''d noted no signs of a Martial Class, the game marking each with distinctive visual clues. So, this pale, nervous driver was either a rookie in his first week who''d gotten lost or, pretending to be a driver, he''d planned to lead this customer somewhere to get killed and looted by his stronger buddies. What a conundrum... Henry couldn''t tell which explanation sounded more plausible. His gut said the latter, but his intuition had become slightly unreliable as of late, frequent attempts by spies to kill him having made him somewhat distrustful. Luckily, he had the perfect tool for solving these kinds of problems in a rational, detached manner. Closing his right eye, he entered his Mental Library, a special feature of his Scholar class. In the iris of the closed eye, miniature glowing scrolls of vellum, splotches of ink, and quills began swimming about excitedly. The darkness of his eyelid deepened and expanded, a scene opening before him as if the eye belonged to a separate body floating in another physical dimension. Filling this space in every direction were rows of shelves towering a dozen storeys high and stretching beyond the horizon, shelves swollen with treatises, manuscripts, tractates, and reports. In the sky above this archive of incomprehensibly-vast knowledge, the stars had been rearranged to form the glittering words of the last page Henry''d been reading. Every item here had been copied from a material-original in Saana, written by his guild''s historians, linguists, and anthropologists, borrowed from national libraries, dug up in chests in ancient ruins. Henry, making a daily habit to copy the latest procurements brought to his kingdom''s archives, had collected more than ten million items, ranging from trashy fiction written by players today to philosophical masterpieces by in-game civilisations that''d perished over six millennia earlier. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Books - these were the sword and hammer of his Scholar Class. Aside from crafting Spelltomes, translation-work, and roleplaying as a teacher, the Scholar''s main function was to use their absorbed archives for research, rediscovering lost crafting methods, tracking down obscure tidbits of information to solve quests. In addition to manually browsing it, their Mental Library could be queried like an advanced search engine. If, for example, Henry found a rare item he couldn''t recognise, he could input its physical characteristics into a search for books containing mentions of them. In other words, the Scholar was a walking, human version of Google. Even if it weren''t the most exciting Class in a fantasy setting with volcanic dragons and cosmic apocalypse demons, one shouldn''t underestimate its utility. The burden of knowledge in Saana was gargantuan and information really was a means to power. It was just as important as money, military might, cheats, and even luck. Many times, the success of Henry''s schemes had hinged upon unearthing a rare fact buried in the archives. Giving his Mental Library a command, he ordered it to sift through the documents he''d just picked up from the corrupt official''s office, having the system search for cases of crimes committed against players by the Sandpeople within the past three months. In an instant, a selection from the archive of thousands of books and paper reports appeared as one giant floating wall before him. The items numbered 17578 in total, the corrupt official having gone above and beyond in his procurements with the hopes to tie up Henry''s time and pressure him further. After threatening the Senior Director, Henry''d copied the whole lot in a couple of minutes using a high-level technique, then set fire to the originals to cover his traces. At his query, the wall began to fly past at a dizzying pace, occasionally pausing to throw a book or a report behind him. Half a minute later, he was repositioned before a smaller wall.
Mental Library Inquiry complete. Returned a list of 194 documents containing 40,934 relevant entries. 208 Universal Productivity consumed. 73676 out of 92160 remaining.
Universal Productivity was the shared resource for all the Civilian professions. Every non-combative ability drew from the same pool, from the Waterworker magic used to sail the ships Henry''d ridden this morning to the Scholar queries he was making now. The sharing of the resource corresponded to the fact that players could skill multiple Civilian professions with certain restrictions and draw from all of them for multi-Class, hybrid abilities. The UP-pool refreshed every 24 real-life hours. Forty-one thousand entries, Henry thought, reflecting on the gargantuan output. So much crime...this was truly the game''s worst zone. He should have known to be more specific. His open eye scrutinised the driver more carefully, picking up additional information. The driver seemed about 16, his height stunted by malnourishment, and, from the state of his attire, on the poorer end of the Sandpeople. In contrast to this last fact, he carried the faint scent of an expensive-smelling, spearminty, cola-ish perfume. Pursuing the incongruency, Henry refined his Mental Library inquiry, reducing the selection to any incidents mentioning distinctive smells or perfumes. A single entry was returned from a report on the Italian Village of Valencia. Three days ago, one of their Merchants had been ambushed by a band of masked spearmen after arriving at a meeting point he''d arranged with a strange-smelling Ibanmothe claiming to be an investor. Henry conducted another search for incidents with groups of masked spearmen in the past week, discovering 63 more cases. Skimming these, he noted that there were several distinct groups, one of whom, involved in at least 11 cases, were dousing their spears with poison and/or chanting in a strange language. Henry''s instincts told him the answer lay in this. He searched his database for criminal organisations associated with Ibanmothe, spears, a distinctive scent, foreign connections, and poisons, checking for all potential combinations of those five. In one of the subsequent hits, he found the entry he was after, an organisation matching four of the variables, including scent. The cult were called The Primordial Path of Nerin. They targeted disenfranchised Sandpeople youth for recruitment by promising the ''true path'' to salvation. All one had to do was adhere to the original teachings of the Goddess Nerin, whom they claimed gained her strength through cannibalism. Henry, having met the God herself while doing Suchi''s main questline, The Trials of Nerin, could confirm that she was, indeed, a cannibal. Among the group¡¯s distinguishing features listed were the use of double-pointed spears, Nerin''s supposed favourite weapon, spell incantations cast in a dialect of Old Rangbitan, Nerin''s supposed original language, and a perfume made from the Borskola Nut, Nerin''s supposed favourite scent. The spear preference, Henry knew to be true. The second feature was false, Nerin not being a Rangbitan but a pygmy originating from jungles to the far southeast of Suchi. The perfume part might have been true, but he remembered her smelling like a goat. The cult''s noted criminal activities were cannibalism, drug trafficking, and kidnapping. No mention was made of eating Offworlders, but, based on the language of their incantations and the ambushers chanting with ''poison''-doused spears, the group may have recently imported a demonic empowerment technique from Saana''s Western continent, where the language they spoke had originated. In conclusion, it seemed that Henry was on his way to be ambushed by a gang of cannibals. That was something he''d prefer not to experience. By his estimation, he still had a couple of minutes before they reached the ambush site. Using a sketch feature in his Mental Library, he quickly brainstormed his available options using the tools he had on hand, from running away to intentionally falling into the trap and decimating the cultists. Eventually, he settled on a middle-ground solution. A scribbled note left in his Mental Library read, ''Shirt. Confirm. Check AP, response, and HP. Kill. Steal donkey.'' He would have to kill this dude. The fundamental mistake of the driver''s, aside from joining a cannibal cult, had been leading Henry so far away from the newbie training grounds. Henry was usually a very easy going person, who''d choose practicality over justice - even if his e-life was being threatened, if it were the more efficient option, he would have slipped away and forgotten about the issue, taking no offence at being threatened in a videogame. Alas, with them having travelled 8 kilometres from his desired destination, killing the driver and stealing his donkey would now be faster than jogging the distance. As for the rest of the cannibal cult, Henry would simply ignore them, this wagon never reaching the ambush site. The Slums weren''t his guild''s jurisdiction and, even if it had been, what did any of these problems have to do with him, who''d retired? Henry, in all his caution and charity, would make a final check of the driver''s guilt. For this purpose, the distinguishing features listed in the cult''s profile offered several possibilities. He could pretend to be a cult member too by speaking their language. He could create an elaborate excuse to swap clothing and look for the scars that should be on the driver¡¯s torso from an initiation ritual in which members consumed bits of each other¡¯s flesh. To save energy and time, he opted for a cruder, more direct method. Sighing at this miserable zone, Henry waited for the wagon to near a shack with a second-floor balcony, onto which he could leap and escape if the situation turned south. In incredibly poor timing, another hiccup appeared. As the shadow of the balcony was passing over the head of the donkey pulling the wagon, four players suddenly strolled out hand-in-hand from a side street. The group consisted of a Shaman mother, a Miracleworker father, a boy Qi Master of about 11, and a girl Arcanist of about 5. All were Tier-0. A family. The family gave Henry and the driver the friendly but curt wave one gives strangers met in an isolated area. Henry, judging them an instant not to be colluders with this cannibal, decided against altering his plans. Fixing the zebra mask he''d been wearing more securely, he summoned a belt around his waist with a sheathed dagger, and a small fillet knife, the handle of which he bit between his teeth. In a very slight gesture, barely noticeable, he also twisted a cheap-looking, rusty ring worn on his left pinky finger. The daughter of the greeting family raised her finger to point out his strange preparatory actions, but it was too late, Henry already springing forward and airborne. Step 1: Shirt "Hey!" shouted the wagon-driver, turning to follow the girl''s gesture and finding himself blinded by his own shirt pulled over his head. As the rest of Henry''s plan played out, the family froze up, staring in shock and horror and delight. Chapter 7 - Killing a Guy A street in The Slums, a young man standing on top of a wagon in a zebra-mask pulling the shirt of another young man over his head. Step 1: Shirt With the shirt pulled down to his nose, the driver couldn¡¯t see a thing. ¡°Hey!¡± Step 2: Confirm Henry, studying the driver''s back, found a dense network of deep scars, matching the description of the Primordial Path of Nerin cultists. ¡°What are you¡ª¡° The driver screamed, his question interrupted by a fillet knife piercing his throat. The donkey, hearing the commotion behind it, startled and was about to trot off but stopped itself to avoid trampling the family ahead. Step 3: Check AP, response, HP, and family. Henry, having confirmed that this driver was a cannibal, progressed an instant later to the next step. Ducking down, he checked four things. For stabbing the driver, he hadn¡¯t been afflicted with the Assailant''s Penalty. This penalty, signified by your username flashing in crimson above your head, was assigned to players for breaking the law and made you drop extra items upon death. Henry''d tested for this by stabbing the driver with a fairly-harmless fillet knife in case he''d been wrong. No penalty had appeared, however. Saana''s game system had evaluated his attack as a justified act of self-defence. Response-wise, the driver''s immediate reaction to being stabbed wasn¡¯t to unsummon his shirt and replace it with armour. Instead, dropping his riding crop, he was raising his hands to tear the fillet knife out of his throat. This suggested a lack of combat training. One of the first lessons was to suppress this instinct, allowing Saana''s healing system to eject the lodged object when the wound mended. A health bar appeared above the driver''s head, shedding 1% of its volume. This figure was low but enough to indicate he had no extra HP from a Martial class. As a last-second addition, Henry also checked on the family. They looked frightened but not in the way people do when you''re attacking someone they care about. They shouldn''t put up an immediate defence of the driver. Step 4: Kill As the driver was grabbing the fillet knife in his throat, Henry, who had bent down to the level of the kid''s waist, unsheathed the dagger from his belt, reached around the right side of the driver¡¯s body, and drove the dagger¡¯s point into the left side of his abdomen, before cranking it hard back towards himself. As the blade parted the tender skin of the belly, like the spreading petals of a rose greeting the dawn, a bouquet of severed intestines and yellow fat erupted and blossomed out of the gaping wound, and the air was sprayed with the foul wet organ-musk stored within each person''s body. The driver, his guts eviscerated, spasmed and moaned in horror. Henry, immediately after slicing the stomach, yanked out the dagger, gave one stab in the direction of the liver, piercing the organ, then a second at the driver¡¯s stomach, the steel of his weapon sinking in against the resistance of the soft flesh. ¡°STOP!" shrieked the driver. "PLEASE!¡± After stabbing the stomach, Henry went back to the driver''s abdomen and eviscerated his intestines again, the previous wound having been rapidly repaired by Saana''s unique health system. Rather than representing one''s physical constitution, HP was a magical energy that mended any wounds sustained. More severe wounds required more health to heal, but, as long as one had sufficient HP remaining, even a lopped-off head could be regrown, the mending process taking exactly 0.5 seconds. To kill a person, therefore, you had to first deplete their health bar. Only after that did the body become like a real-world human''s, mortal and desecrateable. The way Henry had been stabbing the driver was designed to maximise damage by hitting three vulnerable zones as they were mended. With the particular organs being hit, each attack cycle removed about a quarter of the driver¡¯s health. A player of the same level would have lost about 60% of their health in the same cycle, NPCs having larger health pools to compensate for their permanent deaths. Continuing to stab away, Henry headed off any reaction from the shocked family. ¡°Self-defence," he explained. "This guy was plotting to kill me." The driver, having removed the fillet knife and shirt, looked down in shock at his stomach being pierced rhythmically, a red waterfall pouring down his belly onto his pants. By his waist, the zebra-masked Offworlder was calmly alternating between staring at him and the family. ¡°Check the Assailant''s Penalty," said Henry. ¡°HE''S LYING!¡± The driver swung a punch at the creepy face. Henry shifted his head to deflect the blow, but the knuckles still connected with his temple, creating a loud crunch and whipping his head back. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. The parents, feeling sympathetic to the driver, started to cast healing spells. ¡°FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!¡± The driver threw fist after fist, too panicked to realise that he was holding a knife in his hand ¡ª not that this would have mattered, the damage this distracting object could do being minimal. Henry ignored the beating to his head, tightening his grip with his free arm around the driver¡¯s waist and continuing to stab with the other. The punches didn''t hurt enough to disorientate him or interrupt the flow of his attacks, Henry having reduced his pain receptivity to 14% of the full sensation. He, like most veteran duellists, never turned it completely off because pain signals produced a quicker reaction than other sensory cues, and sometimes the few extra tens of milliseconds would decide a bout''s outcome. The slight advantage was especially important for Henry. His main weakness during his duelling career had been mediocre physical reflexes that''d made it hard to cross daggers with the world''s fastest muscle freaks. It''d been due to this distinctive trait that he''d earned his first nickname in Saana, the bitter fans of his defeated rivals calling him ''The Cripple''. With the pain settings tuned down, players were like terminators, able to stab happily away without flinching unless you made their limbs inoperable by breaking them. The driver''s panic grew when he realised that Henry wasn''t going to release him, his punches glancing and missing. The parents about to help were stopped by their son. ¡°There''s no name above his head," the boy pointed out, confirming Henry''s claim. The driver desperately summoned his armour and weapons, but this decision had come far too late. By the time the motes of light started flowing out of his Spatial Bracelet, Henry was already finishing the last cycle, and the armour that might have saved him would still take three seconds more to solidify and come into effect. ¡°Cheers, bud,¡± said Henry to the kid as he delivered a final stab to the driver¡¯s stomach. The parents had not actually been a risk at this point either, as they had reacted too slow to finish their spellcasting. Moreover, even if they did get them off, most spells in Saana were projectiles that affected the first person hit, so Henry could have pivoted and absorbed the spells himself. Nevertheless, he''d maintained communication with the family to further delay interference. With the driver¡¯s health hitting zero, the last stomach wound failed to repair, the open hole seeming to inhale with the rapid pumping of the hyperventilating diaphragm before vomiting out a bright red stream. Henry, following up quickly, unbalanced the guy by kicking out his legs with his own and using his body weight to pull the driver down. As the driver fell back, Henry caught him by the back like a tango dancer cradling their partner in a dip and he used his dagger to carve a deep incision from one side of the kid''s neck to the other, severing all the arteries and veins carrying blood to his brain. The driver''s body, sinking to the bottom of this dipping motion, was then released. Henry allowed the kid to slip from his grip and tumble off the wagon, this last measure intended to avoid a retaliatory stab from a spear that''d finished being summoned into the driver''s grip. The driver sailed into the air before crashing into the dirt of the street with a thud. His spear dislodged from his fingers as his body tumbled in a cloud of red dust. The daughter of the watching family started to cry. The father winced. The mother gasped. ¡°Sick!" The son yelled, feeling like he was watching a clip from a PVP highlight reel, the stabbing and body disposal smoother than if they''d been pre-orchestrated. "Zebra-head, are you a pro?!" Henry, ignoring the question, checked the driver''s donkey to make sure it wasn¡¯t going to bolt. Perhaps because it had been made to watch other ambushes, the creature''d remained stationary, even if its muscles were taut with nerves. Satisfied, he jumped off the wagon, a column of light entering his hands, and sprinted over to where the driver was lying. A pro...was he, The Cripple, a professional in disguise? At fighting, at ''duelling'', hardly. Objectively speaking, his physical abilities weren''t completely useless, the insulting nickname being slightly exaggerated. His natural mechanical talent was probably in the top 10% of the player base, and, combined with his experience, he could pull off feats that would impress an amateur like this simple murder. However, with the game not having grown to 200 million players, top 10% still put 20 million above him. Compared to the actual pros at the top of the top, he''d be like a one-armed baby trying to outbox Muhammad Ali. For him to have stood once against them at all had been a miracle, never to be repeated. Not that he minded any of this ¡ª everyone had their strengths and weaknesses, their areas of expertise and ignorance. You might call him a pro at other things. When the mother noticed the two-handed axe appear in Henry''s hands, she covered her kids¡¯ eyes. This was really a pointless action, the game having tiered censorship based on age. From 12 to 8, people and creatures resembled anime characters; 7 and below, children''s building blocks. Henry himself, at 17, still couldn''t see nudity, which was somewhat comical given the ability to graphically butcher a person. He''d once watched a pregnant subordinate get her stomach opened up and her fetus ripped out and jackhammered in its little chest by a knife, and the only thing censored had been the dying woman''s nipples - tiny pixelated islands of purity floating in the horrific meat. Henry approached the driver lying face up in the dirt. The kid appeared to be unconscious already, the blood required to oxygenate his brain spilling out into a red pool around his sliced-up throat. His face had slackened slightly, but still retained traces of a tense conviction to resist passing out in the final moments. His neck was scrawny, undernourished and underdeveloped, and the animal-hide armour summoned too late did not cover it. Henry raised the axe he''d summoned to the sky and brought it down with all his might. Amidst the watching family, all except the son winced when they heard the next sound. Thwack. Henry, staring down at the mess, sighed. His axe had split the kid''s throat open but been stopped by the cervical vertebrae. He pried the weapon out, having to plant his foot on the kid''s head as the cartilage of the windpipe stuck to the chopping-edge and caused Henry''s initial tugging action to lift the dying kid''s head by the neck in a last stubborn act of resistance against the downward pull of death. Henry took another shot. Thwack. He sighed again, the second blow also failing. He was still quite rusty... While his character had been riding the boat here, he''d been brushing up on his old combat skills with his guildmates in his company''s semi-virtual gymnasium. Unfortunately, the technology was too primitive to practise decapitation. Thwa-clunk. At last, the axe striking through to the blood-soaked dust beneath, the driver¡¯s neck separated cleanly. Both the head and the body instantly disintegrated into a swarm of floating lights.
Human (level 0) killed. Because you have not unlocked a Martial class, no EXP is awarded.
Chapter 8 - Free Donkey
Human (level 0) killed. Because you have not unlocked a Martial class, no EXP is awarded.
Henry stood victorious, axe in hand, another enemy defeated. Distasteful as it may have turned out, decapitating the driver had been an act of mercy. Left alone, the driver would have lain on the ground for minutes until his brain died from a lack of oxygen. Also, Henry hadn''t wanted the Miracleworker or Shaman in the observing family to change their minds and heal the driver. The only good cannibal was a dead one. The swarming lights into which the driver''s body had erupted, his soul, lingered for a moment. They hovered around Henry like a hive of resentful bees around a bear who had stolen their honey but whose hide was too thick for their stingers to penetrate. Henry shrugged at them. ¡°You''ve only got yourself to blame, dude. No matter what you¡¯re missing in life, there are plenty of ways to fill the void without joining a cult of murderous cannibals. In the next Cycle, consider taking up fishing or a team sport instead.¡± In Saana''s cosmology, the souls of NPCs went through an eternal cycle of death and rebirth. However, most would not retain their memories. The Soul-lights, infuriated by Henry''s flippant regard, tried to swarm closer to him, but a magnetic force in the sky seemed to be pulling against them, growing stronger by the moment. No matter how hard they fought against it, they were soon dragged off into Suchi''s cloudless blue heavens and the stars beyond. On the ground, all that remained of the driver was his Spatial Bracelet, his armour, and his spear. Henry turned to the family. From shirt-lift to head-chop, barely 20 seconds had passed, and they had yet to fully grasp what they were witnessing. In such cases, when people were in an ambiguous state that could turn hostile, he''d found it best to lead their emotions by setting a confident, calm example. ¡°Hahaha!" He laughed casually. "I guess we should find out what prizes we won today!¡± The parents paled. The son clenched his fist in excitement, his body trembling. This was how a man should act! Bathe in the blood of enemies! Laugh in the face of death! Greedily reap the spoils of war! The daughter was still crying. Henry tapped the driver''s Spatial Bracelet with the butt of his axe and, despite the bracelet looking in perfect condition, it shattered into dust. Motes of lights appeared, forming into a pile of items. Due to a collector''s compulsion, Henry searched among the belongings for documents. The driver had dropped a diary, a copy of The Primordial Path of Nerin¡¯s religious manifesto, and a map marking an ambush point about a kilometre and a half away. Unlucky. Since there was an audience, Henry stored the documents in his inventory to be absorbed later. ¡°The rest of possessions aren¡¯t worth much, but you guys are more than welcome to help yourself.¡± ¡°We¡¯re...fine as we are, thank you.¡± The father, clenching his jaw and telling himself to just play along, picked up his crying daughter. ¡°The kids have a birthday party to attend. We shouldn¡¯t be late.¡± The father quickly led his family past the macabre scene, shaking his head. He regretted not listening to the children''s grandmother and waiting till the kids were older to buy them VR Units. The boy, passing by, tried to stop and ply Henry with questions. ¡°Add me, Mr Pro, my name is¡ª¡° ¡°Don¡¯t.¡± His mother covered her son¡¯s mouth and dragged him along. Step 5: Steal donkey With the family leaving, it was time for Henry to reap the real reward, for which he''d decided to kill this cannibal NPC. By the wagon, the donkey had been nervously eyeing him after he''d murdered its master. The creature, despite its terror, had not moved, its hooves locked firmly in place. ¡°It¡¯s alright now, boy,¡± Henry spoke in a soothing tone. ¡°Szamar, was it?" He recalled what the driver had called it. "Here, Szamar, want something to eat?¡± Summoning an apple, he tossed it gently towards the creature, not himself yet closing the distance. One glance at the apple made the donkey¡¯s muscles tense up further. The apple looked like it had been splashed with strawberry syrup. Henry glanced down. His hands and sleeves were a red mess, and a few splatters from the axe blows were dirtying his colourful West African attire. He must have been a gory sight. "Whoops. Well, that explains why the parents had felt creeped out." As for himself, how was he feeling? he wondered, pausing to reflect. His hands, although stained and messy, were as steady as usual. His heart was beating a bit faster than what would be expected given the physical effort. Thinking back, a few of his stabs had been clumsy. He seemed to be somewhat nervous, but this level remained within the realms of expectation for anyone executing a difficult task after a long time out of practice. That was a good sign, Henry supposed. After handling administrative duties for so long, he had held a mild fear that an unexpected development of sentimentality or softness might impair his duelling performance. This didn''t seem to be the case. For points of future improvement, he needed to work on his precision under stress. He really should have also waited for the family to pass - the nerves had given him tunnel vision. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Another, cleaner apple appeared directly in front of the donkey, Henry summoning straight out of his inventory. The animal looked at the gift suspiciously, its amber donkey eyes swivelling back and forth between the apple and the one who¡¯d killed its master. Henry gave the donkey some space and returned to the driver''s belongings and wiped what he could off on an undershirt. Since the levelling process would require killing far more stuff, it would be wasteful to change completely and dirty a second set of clothing. His zebra mask would have to go, however, having been smashed up by the punches. Henry considered replacing it with a lion mask, but, thinking of the donkey, he chose one of a monkey to seem less intimidating. Away from him, the donkey tore off some of the peel and nibbled cautiously. The offering seeming to be unpoisoned, it took a second, greedier bite. Noticing this, Henry summoned a few more apples along with a bucket, which he filled using a Waterworker ability to summon rain. As a tiny cloud rained into the bucket, Henry stealthily tipped in a vial of purple liquid. The donkey, not noticing or not caring, trotted over and dove muzzle-first into the refreshing waters. The day was hot, and its former master had not been so generous. ¡°Good, Szamar,¡± Henry coaxed. ¡°Drink up well, buddy. You¡¯re going to need all the Stamina you can get.¡± The donkey lapped up the water, and it felt an unexpected but not unpleasant surge of vitality coursing through its muscles. While it drank, Henry mapped a course from his current location to the newbie training area by connecting Villages that were inactive during these hours, avoiding the congested areas where their passage would be slowed. He then hitched himself up onto the front seat of the wagon and armed himself with the riding crop the driver had dropped. The Newbie Spawning Area, an open plaza between the western edge of The Slums and a forested strip growing along the banks of Suchi''s main and only river. A figure in a monkey-mask rode into the plaza on a sweat-soaked donkey. Nearing The Newbie Spawning Area, the streets had grown too packed for the wagon, forcing Henry to abandon it. The donkey, he decided to keep, finding it much to his taste. It looked like a walking trashcan, a shabby, wonky-eyed specimen with a patchy coat, yellowed teeth, legs so stumpy a rider''s feet almost touched the ground, and a general aura of impoverished gloom. In The Slums, this shabbiness would be very useful for not attracting mount thieves, and, later, without improving its appearance, Henry could feed the creature power-up foods to raise its stats. The Spawning Area in most regions was a marvellous place. New players could be seen everywhere frozen in awe at their surroundings and the game''s realism, with their hearts trembling with anticipation to dive into this majestic, limitless world. But in Suchi... As Henry and his new mount rode into the crowded plaza, a dozen heads turned his way, eyeing him like farmers studying cattle at an auction. The first to rush over was an Arcanist wearing an armband with a turquoise mongoose insignia. ¡°Friend in the monkey mask! What Martial class are you planning to roll?! The 912th Village has opened up a slot in our raid group for three main healers!¡± ¡°I¡¯m already signed up for one," Henry rejected the offer. ¡°No problem, friend!¡± Hearing the refusal, the recruiter, along with the others charging over, had no time to feel disappointed. A second later, a pillar of light shot down from the sky and crashed into a spot a few metres away. ¡°New friend! What Martial class are you planning to roll?! The 912th Village has opened up a slot in our raid group for three main healers!¡± The poor noob who¡¯d just spawned jumped in fright. ¡°Wh-what?¡± A recruiter wearing a bandana with a yellow cow logo squeezed the noob''s bicep. ¡°Ignore him, my dude! With the size of the muscles on you, you must be a Crusader or a Fighter! Luckily, the Lightning Cow Village needs a tank for its 6-man arena team!¡± ¡°I-I¡¯m not¡ª¡± A recruiter with a dainty purple handkerchief tied around her throat took the noob in an affectionate armlock. ¡°Our friend is clearly interested in higher pursuits! Come now, the Silent Rose Village is accepting all Civilians!¡± All around the plaza, another noob was spawning every seven or eight seconds, only to be mobbed by these recruiter thugs. Watching the scene, Henry''s heart hurt. Those who started in Suchi truly never had a chance. Never would they get to experience a normal, competently-structured, internationally-relevant gaming experience, misled as they were into these stupid gangs. On the other side of the plaza, a crowd had formed around a row of seated NPCs with a banner above them reading, New Offworlder Inquiries. Offworlder was the name given to players by NPCs, who viewed them as immortal aliens spawning into their universe. Henry, trying to make his way through the crowd, had to turn down several more recruiters. After his sixth refusal, he realised that the issue was his lack of Village insignia. Bringing out a previous outfit, he ripped a strip of cloth from the bottom and wrapped it around his upper arm. Using an inkpot and a quill, tools of his Scholar class, he drew on the improvised armband a monkey¡¯s head, matching his mask. Taking four strides with his new disguise, he was stopped by yet another recruiter thug. ¡°You¡¯re a member of The Shadow Monkey Village?¡± asked the recruiter, his gaze filled with admiration. ¡°Nope. I drew this several seconds ago to cover my identity. See, the ink is still wet.¡± ¡°If you say so...¡± the recruiter winked. ¡°Can I have your autograph?¡± The recruiter continued to insist and wink, so Henry gave up and resummoned his writing utensils, using them to scribble a random name on the madman''s shirt. After signing the excited fan''s back, he modified the monkey logo, giving it a pair of horns and buckteeth. Checking the reports in his Mental Library, he found that this appeared to not correspond to any real Village. Reaching the crowd in front of the noob inquiry area, he was faced with a sweaty, noisy, disorganised mess. The social technology of queueing had yet to be introduced to The Slums. Instead, here, where strength was order, recruiter thugs were shoving and knocking to get to the front, while the bewildered noobs locked in their arms looked at each other, wondering what they¡¯d signed themselves up for. On the edge of the rabble beside Henry, a middle-aged noob with a beard, who¡¯d likely escaped the recruiters¡¯ eyes due to being older, was watching helplessly; all his efforts thus far to rush in had resulted in him being knocked back out, and he was wondering whether to give up and join a Village. "It''s not worth the struggle," Henry advised the geezer. "Delete your character and pick a different Starting Zone." The middle-aged noob, however, touched in the brain like all players who chose to spawn in Suchi, returned a defeated glance. Giving up, the man walked up to a beefy Bowman who''d already captured two noobs, one locked in each arm, and submitted himself to The Empire. "Hopeless," Henry muttered. "Hopeless morons..." Shaking his head, he dismounted from the donkey, which, mysteriously, bolted forward, knocking several players over and parting the crowd. ¡°Hey!¡± one swore. "Watch it!" ¡°Sorry, sorry,¡± Henry apologised, chasing after the animal, his hand continuing to pinch its rump. ¡°Stubborn beast''s got a mind of his own!¡± With the donkey splitting the crowd, he soon arrived in front of a female NPC administrator of the Sandpeople caste seated at an admin''s table under a sun umbrella. The donkey, mysteriously, calmed down. Behind them, a few disgruntled players were picking themselves up, rubbing their sore spots. "My bad," said Henry. "But, since we¡¯re already here, excuse me, ma''am, do you have a list of trainers?¡± The administrator took one look at the monkey-headed Offworlder covered in bloodstains, another at the shabby donkey on the verge of collapse. ¡°Sure thing, sugar.¡± She summoned a book and, flipping to a page marked by a feather, placed it on the table before him. Her finger squished the top of a list of trainers with notes for their session times, class specialities, admission fees, and so on. ¡°If you find one to your liking, I¡¯ll give you their attendance token. Slots are limited.¡± Henry flipped through a couple pages, searching for a trainer that''d suit his needs. He then closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath of Suchi''s sour, misery-scented air. The administrator noticed his negative reaction. ¡°Something a matter, hun?¡± Henry sighed. This zone...could it not even allow him to do the noob tutorial without incident? Chapter 9 - Inadvertently Solving a National Crisis to Access a Noob Tutorial ¡°Something a matter, hun?¡± ¡°Yeah," Henry replied, his voice flat and despondent, "I don''t see any Earthfriend trainers.¡± ¡°Oh, that...¡± The woman''s expression darkened as she summoned a page. Henry caught the forming notice out of the air and read. ''To all prospective Earthfriends, Training is temporarily postponed, as all members of The Society of Suchi Earthfriends have succumbed to a mysterious curse. As for now, there is no ETA for when trainers will be able to return to their regularly scheduled services. We encourage all willing Offworlders to meet us at the Suchi Earthfriend Habitat to assist in finding the cure. Signed, Jazmin Nagy, Society Archfriend.''
Quest Title: The Sickness of The Soil Description: Hark, Scholar of The Speaking Heart, Son of The Three! A curse lays waste to the Earthfriends of this ailing realm. Your Many-Ears detect a note in their malady of more ominous machinations. Investigate. Bring to them to The Starscribe''s reprieve.
Henry groaned. "How unlucky..." Usually, he ignored the quests the game spammed his overlevelled character. Alas, this issue couldn''t be dismissed so easily. Of the game''s 12 base Classes, the one he''d picked for the duelling tournament happened have been an Earthfriend. His first Class choice for the wager would''ve been a Cutthroat, what he''d played during his days as The Cripple. The only problem was that the Cutthroat martial art he''d practised couldn''t be replicated in a noob tournament. Back then, he''d created his own style after a vagabond adventure studying under an eclectic mix of experts. It''d been called The Strategy of The Resourceful Komodo. Komodo dragons, before they went extinct, had had a fascinating way of hunting their prey. To defeat their prey, the much larger and much stronger water buffalo, they would bite the beast, then back off and wait for weeks while the wound festered from a toxic milieu of bacteria harboured in the komodo''s mouth. Following this ethos, Henry would dart in and out of fights, shooting his more mechanically-gifted opponents with poison darts, then retreating while his poisons ravaged their health bar. In addition to poisons, he also exploited a medley of overpowered Legendary items - hence, ''Resourceful''. The final ''Strategy'' component of the title alluded to Twenty Tools, an in-game martial art based around intricate multi-weapon juggling techniques that served as the keystone of Henry''s own martial art, connecting his poisons and Legendary items together. Unfortunately, The Strategy wouldn''t work in Henry''s recruitment tournament because Tier-0 Cutthroats didn''t have poison-dart abilities and gear standardisation ruled out the use of Legendaries. Thus, Henry, while brainstorming how to win the wager, had looked elsewhere. After careful consideration, he''d settled on the Earthfriend Class, druidic shapeshifters who used a mixture of forest, bestial, elemental, and cosmic magic. They had a hippy, vegan aesthetic that irritated him to no end. From a duelling standpoint, though, Earthfriends had the varied, complex kind of skillset that suited his talents. While most classes had 5 skills at tier-0, Earthfriends had 13. Mixing these with their animal transformations, one could produce thousands of strategic possibilities. This flexibility should allow him to partially replicate his old style and, coupled with Henry cheating by anonymously documenting the capability and playstyle of all the tournament competitors, he could tailor-make counters to his opponents as he had in the past. Tentatively, he''d given this new Earthfriend style the rather snazzy name of The Strategy of The Informed Swiss Army Knife. But none of that grand plan would be possible if he couldn''t unlock the Class because all its trainers were decommissioned by some magical illness. Reading the notice on the curse, Henry immediately thought back on how the three private trainers he''d arranged earlier had been decommissioned by the same curse. His mind also turned upon the other odd events packed into this morning, the weapon-smuggling merchant, the corrupt official, the cannibals. Something smelled funky, and it wasn''t just the unwashed noobs huddling behind him, shouting at him to move along. Even in this awfully-designed game, this level of coincidence inconvenience was abnormal. His carefully-plotted plans hindered, his chosen Class barred from access, was Saana itself conspiring against him? Was it trying to stop history''s greatest duellist from placing top 10 in an amateur tournament? Possibly... The administrator, not seeing him respond and guessing he was disappointed, tried to offer some consolation. ¡°Shamans are pretty similar." Henry''s face contorted in disgust. Shamans...they were almost as horrible as Earthfriends. Only turbo-noobs and writers of plebian swill would pick that Class. ¡°Let''s not even talk about Shamans," said Henry with a profound prejudice. "Do you know how the Earthfriends picked up the curse, specifically?¡± The administrator shook her head. ¡°Not a clue." Another NPC registering players one-table down piped up. ¡°The Society¡¯s dungeon team were exploring a tomb to the north. From them, it¡¯s spread to the others.¡± You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Henry questioned them further, noting how quickly the curse had been transmitted and the symptoms of lethargy and fever. Thanking the two for the information, he then dragged the donkey away while concocting a solution in his Mental Library. He didn''t give one grain of shit about these hippies, who probably got sick due to poor hygiene, and he could have revised his plans and switched Classes. However, it just offended him that such a trivial nuisance would dare to step in the way of his duelling plans. A curse in a Starting Zone...what an absolute joke. His class specialised in researching bizarre phenomena, discovering their causes, inventing fixes. With the tools available to a Tier-5 Scholar, a Tier-0 Starting Zone quest presented no more challenge to him than a child''s multiplication table. The single price was his time - which was, admittedly, quite precious, no one in this zone being able to afford his hourly consulting fee. Solving this quest should be straightforward enough. Henry would gather a bit more information on the curse along with samples for testing, he''d formulate a treatment using his knowledge in Alchemy, and, in all his charity, he''d have the cure manufactured and distributed without even demanding a single copper, the expenses trivial for someone as filthy rich as himself. The majority of this labour wouldn''t need to be performed directly by himself, all but forty minutes or so being delegatable to assistants he would hire. Thus, to maximise time-efficiency, while others did the bulk of grunt work, he could simultaneously complete the tutorial with a non-Earthfriend trainer. For the first five levels, all players were technically a generic Adventurer class before they picked a specialisation, and it shouldn''t be a problem for him to switch after the Earthfriends were healthy and back in training shape. Easy. His plans had barely been disrupted. At the corner of the plaza, an old NPC was selling savoury pancakes. Amongst the crowd, his attire stood out, with dozens of colourful bead-necklaces and a patchwork blanket for a robe. Dreadlocks hanging down to his waist were interlaced with shells that chimed when his head shifted. Henry approached the man and asked him a question in an in-game language. ¡°Aadan?¡± The pancake seller cracked a smile, a surge of pleasure at hearing his native tongue spoken so far from Volefa. ¡°Haa.¡± ¡°Iskuday, iskuday!¡± Henry clasped the seller''s hands in a warm greeting. ¡°Jiran haddii...¡± He continued to chatter in this foreign language for a bit. Officially, his role in his guild had been a linguist. Having ''wasted'' so many hours in the game reading imported novels as Tomes of Rapid Language Absorption, his character had come to comprehend all of the major tongues and a couple hundred minor ones. The skill helped when asking NPCs for favours. Following a quick exchange of friendly words, Henry''s tone took on a sour edge and he began tugging his blood-stained clothes away from himself in annoyance as though a malevolent barber had dumped the itchy remnants of a haircut down his collar. When he came to a sudden pause, the seller squinted at him for a moment. Then, with a casual shrug, the man stripped, trading his clothes for a pouch of jingling coins. Next, to establish a base of operations, Henry rode west from the newbie spawnpoint towards the tutorial area. With the donkey pumping its stumpy legs at a surprisingly speedy gallop, The Slums soon disappeared behind him. The run-down shacks gave way to an open area of yellow grass interspersed with acacias too undernourished and small for any practical use. Ahead, the land sloped down towards Suchi''s single river. The river''s eastern bank was approached by a gradient of lightly-wooded forest thickening into jungle; since the region lacked the rainfall to support this much foliage, artificial irrigation sustained the habitat, which housed the monsters farmed in the tutorial. The western bank was similarly forested but, in stark contrast to The Slums, dotted with clay structures; that side qualified as an autonomous exclave for Central City, where players and NPCs were permitted to construct permanent buildings, every dwelling in The Slums needing to be flammable by law. To the north, poking the tip of its tongue between the forested riverbank and The Slums, was the miles of savannah nothingness, the yawning sea of dry grass. He followed a dirt road dividing the forest and the plains, connecting the sub-sections of the tutorial area. Eventually, a suitable spot appeared, an isolated tree growing about a hundred metres on the savannah side. He hitched the donkey by the side of the road, unafraid of any passers-by stealing the decrepit-looking beast. Henry then stealthed over to the solitary tree. Hiding behind its trunk, he waited for a group of trainees in the middle of the tutorial to pass along the road. Once they were out of sight, he squatted and, removing a glove from his hand, placed his palm flat on the bloodred dirt, whose sunbaked heat was scalding to the touch. He closed his eyes. His hand suddenly began to glow, and a swarm of tiny translucent motes engulfed his fingers like a colony of ants emerging to protect their nest. A close examination of these glittering motes would reveal them to be shaped like hatchets and pickaxes, tools for shaping the land. Their shape represented the magic of Landworkers, another of the game''s Civilian Classes, with spells for terrain manipulation, land exploration, and natural resource collection. Henry, in addition to being a Tier-5 Scholar, was also a Tier-4 Landworker. Saana''s multi-classing system was somewhat convoluted. For players like himself, who''d selected for his primary profession a Civilian Class, he could level the others as secondary professions until they were one Tier lower. Thus, as a Tier 5-2 or level 110 Scholar, Henry was additionally a Tier 4-2 Peopleworker, a Tier 4-1 Farmer, a Tier 4-2 Woodworker, etc. All in all, he''d levelled all of the game''s other 15 Civilian classes to either Tier 4-1 or Tier 4-2, since having these allowed him to create more believable false identities, and sometimes the skills proved useful, like now. But even with these levels, he wouldn''t compare to someone who''d properly trained in those other Classes. Levels could be gained as long as one had the money to afford materials to burn, but all Civilian classes had aspects that were dependent on raw player skill. A Metalworker who could design more beautiful weapons would ''please the gods'' and their swords would be granted extra stats for the same material tier. Likewise, a less experienced Scholar, without Henry''s insider knowledge, might have spent five times the Universal Productivity to identify that the driver had been a cultist. Saana''s Civilian classes were as deep and skill-based as its Martial classes; mastering any one would take longer than a lifetime. This current Landworker technique was used by sappers to build underground bunkers during battle. During Henry''s battle against this random noob curse, this covert space would serve as a drop-off point for materials later. As the axe-shaped motes were transmitted between the earth and the skin of his palm, his vision slowly filled with a 3-dimensional image of the ground radiating under his hand, from the red-clay topsoil infiltrated by the network of the tree''s roots, to the harder sediments beneath. In one thought, he carved into the replicated image the layout of an underground chamber. The next second, a torrent of motes flooded down his arm into the soil, conveying the design to the earth, which began to groan in pain like an overfed stomach. Keeping his palm pressed to the ground, Henry, with the serene boredom of one who''d done this too many times to count, shuffled back four steps, right in time to avoid his head being torn off by a blood-red geyser, the soil belching out several tons of clay and stone. The geyser, ripping towards the sky, changed its trajectory suddenly in sync with a flick of Henry''s free-hand, twisting like a dragon. It swooped in the direction of the road, over the head of the spooked donkey on the other side, and into the forest, where it discarded its contents in an explosion of dust. As soon as the geyser''s tail finished flying out of the newly formed hole in the ground, Henry sighed and leapt straight into the darkness. Chapter 10 - The Ring of a Thousand Souls A dimly-lit underground chamber. Henry, landing, got straight to business. He extended his arm to summon an object in the centre of the floor space. A veteran player watching his action might have been surprised that the motes of light forming the object were streaming not out of his Spatial Bracelet but from a rusty iron ring on his left pinky finger. Three seconds later, a metallic, telephone-box-sized device stood before him.
Flaming Sun Patented Personal Portable Transmogrificator Model #12 Level Restriction: 0 Condition: 41% Weight: 52 kg ¡®Feeling self-conscious about your appearance but too embarrassed to visit the face-butcher in person? Never fear, now you can experience the wonders of Cosmetic Alchemy from the privacy and comfort of your own home or anywhere else.''
This Transmogrificator had been developed through a joint effort between The Company and their sub-guild Flaming Sun. The development team were still churning out newer models, each lighter and easier to mass produce than the last. Nonetheless, he kept this old one out of a sentimental attachment; they had endured many tribulations together, Henry using the device multiple times a day, including this morning when he''d disguised himself as an NPC. Henry summoned several translucent Energy Storage Stones and began fixing them into slots positioned around the Transmogrificator''s exterior. Looking closely at these stones, one could see a viscous, glowing fluid suspended inside of which were sparkling motes of light, similar to the Landworker ones from earlier but of different shapes and hues. Some stones contained motes whose colour vacillated from indigo to azure, and all the shades between. In others, the motes were shaped like conical flasks. In others still, the motes were mixed with drops of blood. In others still, the motes exuded a golden aura of nobility and sanctity. These variations corresponded to the energies of other Classes - respectively, Arcaneworkers, Alchemists, Bloodmancers, and Miracleworkers. These visual cues were sometimes useful to note for combat, helping to identify the type of spells enemies were casting. Ignoring a constant mild-electric shock, he opened the front panel of the Transmogrificator and stepped inside. The transformation process was quite graphic. While the user was held in a state of undeath, noxious fumes and tendril-mounted scalpels stripped the body through the various layers of hair and flesh, dissolving the bones, then rebuilding them into the chosen appearance. Henry stepped into the machine with his default avatar copied directly from his real seventeen-year-old appearance. A short while later, he remerged as a wrinkled geriatric, one-foot shorter, his back hunched by the weight of his advanced years. The only resemblance between the two was a tired expression, which seemed more suited to this old man disguise. To get his neurons used to the changed body proportions, Henry performed a quick routine of stretches and callisthenics, rotating his creaky, arthritic shoulders. With his appearance transformed, now it was time to transform his identity. Henry reached for the rusty iron ring on his left pinky finger. This was the same Legendary he''d used to spoof being an NPC during the boatride. Despite being such a powerful item, the tooltip for it was very low-key.
Rusty Ring (Legendary) Level Restriction: 0 Condition: 1% Material: Unknown Weight: 12 g ¡¯An old rusty ring. It seems to have been worn on many fingers.¡¯
The guild, when first acquiring this ring from a 500-man dungeon raid, had been confused as to how it could be classified as Legendary. In exchange for their uniqueness and massive acquisition costs, Legendary items usually had game-breaking stats or effects, well beyond their material tier. For example, the Legendary Crown of Valsutha allowed a Bloodmancer to command twenty times their usual number of skeletons. The rusty ring, though, had had no such apparent effect. It had passed from hand to hand among his guildmates, as each, in turn, had tried to figure out what made it special. In the end, it was only luck that had allowed him to unlock its secret, luck and obsessive research. Henry, a Scholar, pouring through the annals of history, eventually figured it out. Grabbing the ring, he span it a quarter turn.
The Rusty Ring responds to your call.
A creepy chill crept out from the ring. It passed down his finger to his wrist, up his arm, to his spine at the base of his neck, upwards further, penetrating into his brain, to the top of his skull, then back down a bit, to end at a point in the exact middle-point between his ears. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. While the ring was active, a continuous stream of this creepy sensation would flow between his pinky and the middle of his brain.
Menu for the Armament of The Syncretist Eligibility Criteria: Scholar with Universal Comprehension. Equipped pieces (1/13): The Ring of a Thousand Souls Options: Soul Transformation
It turned out that the abilities of this cheat ring, ''The Ring of a Thousand Souls¡¯, was activated with a rare skill, Universal Comprehension. This he''d obtained after reading enough books to learn 200 in-game languages and completing a Legendary quest chain. It allowed him to comprehend any language in the game, whether his character understood it or not. Thus, this ring could be viewed as a classic example of the cheater¡¯s cumulative advantage ¡ª possessing one cheat made finding more cheats easier. Henry selected Soul Transformation, bringing up yet another menu.
5/6 Soul Slots in Use
Name Classification Age Sex Place of Origin Primary Class (tier, level) Inventory Space
crusadingintheshadows Player 24 M Aion Laisije - Kingdom of Ejapipilu Peopleworker (0-4, 20) 30/45
Henry Flower (Default) Player 17 M Togavi - Eastern Togavi Scholar (5-2, 110) 150/195
Bao Maja NPC 44 M Chayoka Island - Maja Tribe Landworker (0-4, 20) 24/45
Citikena Velu NPC 83 M Heimland - Republic of Gu Peopleworker (0-4, 20) 12/45
Azahar Eebu-Anak Kahan NPC 61 M Rangbit - Hutan City Merchant (0-4, 20) 8/60
Options: Swap Soul | Alter Soul | Destroy Soul | Create Soul
The game called them Souls, but, in practice, they were just Player or NPC IDs. Some of the IDs on this list were notorious. The most was ''Crusadingintheshadows'', a.k.a. The Tyrant. This Henry had used while acting as the guild leader of The Attention East Saana Trading Company or ''The Company''. Officially, the ID was considered to have quit Saana six months earlier, when Henry''d transitioned from an expansion to a reformation stage of his guild''s development. Unofficially, most players mistakenly assumed The Tyrant was his friend, beaver-headed Alex, the two of them having misled the public. As far as Henry was concerned, it was all exhausting stuff that he¡¯d rather not think about, worries for his past, unretired self. Selecting the menu''s Create Soul option, he generated a new NPC ID for this old man avatar, assigning it a homeland, age, history, and other biographical miscellanies. For undercover work, this function had proved invaluable. The only obvious thing that distinguished NPCs and players, aside from cultural mannerisms and clothing preferences, was the latter having a soft halo that shone from their skin. When spoofing NPC IDs with the ring, this indicator vanished, enabling one to blend in with the native inhabitants that existed only in the background for most gamers.
Are you sure you want to swap souls from Henry Flower to Oba Iskander?
Henry Flower - this was his default ID, which he would have to use for the 1v1 tournament because he couldn''t wear the ring in standardised gear. In the eyes of most, this poorly-named character was a random, low-ranking Scholar of the Flaming Sun guild. 97% of his visible playtime had been spent sitting in a little in-game bookstore, doing nothing. Occasionally, he''d be summoned out to raids to translate ancient texts, but the average player wouldn''t care about such dull tasks. A handful of people were aware this Henry Flower ID belonged to him; after the defection of a former acquaintance in a war six months earlier, the leaders of his enemy guilds had been informed. By using this ID in the tournament therefore, Henry would eventually be detected and a bunch of spies would be sent to shadow him. Before they turned up, however, he''d prefer to have a couple days unharassed, so he was still trying to act low-key for now. The time would also, maybe, perhaps, allow him to test building a monster army without the idea being stolen. He confirmed his choice, and the creepy stream connecting his brain and his finger flashed painfully hot for a tenth of a second.
Soul-transformation complete.
And that was it: he was an NPC. Even if the change wasn''t dramatic, it was still significant. The ability to change IDs was a supreme cheat if one knew how to exploit it. For example, when a player committed a crime, their user ID would flash above their head. Until they paid a penalty or died, killing the criminal would make them drop extra items, the amount reflecting the severity of their infractions. For Henry, though, he could create throwaway IDs to murder as many people as he wanted. More subtly, Saana also evaluated each ID as a totally separate individual. That had repercussions for some of the quest mechanics. The run-in with the weapon-smuggling Merchant earlier was one quirky example of this, the game giving him a task to steal armaments from himself. Finished with the transformation, Henry spent a moment staring at the ring sending a creepy sensation to his brain. This strange object had a deeper backstory. It was merely one component in¡ªbut no. There was no point focusing on such things anymore. He''d retired. Forcefully, he twisted the item, severing the sensation and causing the ring to return to its usual, looser size, to a rusted, worthless-looking trinket. Covering it with a glove, he retrieved his Transmogrificator, climbed out of the bunker, and disguised the entranceway. And now to speed-run a newbie curse quest! Chapter 11 - Toppling The Walls Suchi''s Earthfriend Habitat, a collection of hill-dwellings covered in spring-green grass, supported by a tiny tree in the centre exerting an aura of ancient jungles long cut-down. Under the supervision of haggard Elder Earthfriends, players and NPCs of all kinds of Classes were rushing around the area with poultices and potions. A group of friends, on the outskirts of The Habitat, were returning from The Slums carrying herb-laden baskets. With the crisis, the group had been stuck at level 5, unable to be initiated into their desired class. Nevertheless, their spirits were high, this game-event having made them feel like they were heroes starring in an epic quest - what a thrilling start to their online adventures! ¡°What''s that?¡± A female member of the group ran over to a rectangular object protruding from a tuft of grass. ¡°What is it, Sniper?¡± asked another. Sniped picked up a book, inspecting the tooltip. ¡°It''s a book for a spell called ''Mend-i Ble-mi-shon'', restricted to someone level 90 or higher." "What''s ''Mend-i Ble-mi-shon''?" "Is level 90 high?¡± None of the friends knew the answers. They were turbonoobs. ¡°Well, what should we do with it?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s take it back to The Habitat. Maybe an Elder dropped it?¡± As they were about to leave, however, an old NPC passed them by staring at the ground, his body so feeble he could barely support the many bead-necklaces weighing down his shoulders. ¡°Hiya!¡± greeted one of the players. ¡°Hello!" Another waved. The old gentleman, however, was too distracted in his search to hear their greetings. Sniper had an epiphany. ¡°Excuse me, Elder, is this what you lost?¡± The NPC, startled out of his concentration, turned to her, stared at the Spelltome in her hands, then immediately fainted, his body collapsing to the ground with a thud. The friends ran over in a panic. ¡°Elder?!¡± ¡°What do we do?¡± ¡°Quick, call for help!¡± A few seconds later, while one of them was holding the unconscious NPC in their lap, his eyes slowly struggled to peel open. Noticing the commotion around him, he put all his strength into building a reassuring smile that would hide his frailty. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, young ones," he croaked. "This old man just has a bad case of narcolepsy, for¡ªAH! I see you¡¯ve found my book.¡± ¡°Here you go, Elder.¡± Sniper placed it in his grasp, closing his fingers around it and patting them softly. Another player lifted the Elder to his feet. ¡°Your narcolepsy, Elder, is it the same as the other Elders''? Is there anything we can do to help you?¡± The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The old man paused to study the group, to ensure that these were the heroes he could entrust his life to. One couldn''t give a quest to just any random Offworlder. ¡°It is a sensitive issue," he said, "and this old man has to be wary in case the one who cursed him discovers his whereabouts. First, I must test you with a few questions." ¡°Ask away!" ¡°Yes, Elder, ask away!¡± The old man nodded. ¡°Firstly, are any of you meat eaters?¡± In real-life, the friends were, but as Earthfriend roleplayers, they pretended to be disgusted. ¡°Excellent." The old man nodded again in approval, while secretly despising these noobs, roleplayers being in Henry''s top 10 hatred demographics. "Second question: are you what they call ''Villagers''?" The group nodded in unison. Internally, the ''Elder'' winced, these noobs having never had a chance. "Great. As a final question, when are you planning on reconnecting with the cosmos?¡± None of them understood this phrase. The Elder coughed. ¡°I believe you Offworlders call it ¡®the logging off¡¯.¡± ¡°Ah, it¡¯s our first night playing. We¡¯re doing a 48-hour marathon.¡± The Elder nodded again, slowly, his palm stroking his wrinkled jowls in contemplation. He nodded a last time, with resolve. "Then...then perhaps you heroes can help this old man. First, I should introduce myself. I¡¯m Dr Iskander, a researcher from Volefa...umm...a place to the east. In search of a cure for my narcolepsy, I have roamed the lands..." The old man proceeded to give a mind-numbingly-long NPC dialogue, the type that in pre-virtual RPGs time-thrifty players would skip through. "...to avoid being discovered by Him, I need to minimise the number of people aware of my presence... "...curious qualities of this curse, reminiscent of the Oogun Nightmare plague of 6240... "...take these Communication Stones. Due to my narcolepsy, I won¡¯t be able to respond at all times, so I''ll contact you myself whenever I''m awake...¡± The gullible noobs, while listening to the Elder¡¯s proposal, began to tremble with excitement, their hearts racing at thought of this epic quest escalating further, of the awesome bounty of Slum Points they would be awarded. Back at the Newbie Spawning Area. After the time it takes to boil two pots of potatoes one after another, a donkey could be seen charging again through the crowd in front of the admins handling inquiries. "Watch it, you bozo!" "What the frick, bro?" ¡°Sorry, sorry! Stubborn beast''s got a mind of his own!¡± apologised Henry, pinching the donkey''s bottom, his lips behind his monkey-mask curled into a millimetre of delight from their usual flatness. Was this not the sweet pleasure of retirement, the joy of shrugging off a burden and dumping it onto the shoulders of the younger generation? Such a simple cure quest didn''t even require his direct oversight. Right now, his new minions, selected based on high trustworthiness and a low risk of revealing his identity, were racing around the region, chatting with the afflicted and gathering research materials. While they sweated and fretted, Henry would be breezing through the tutorial. His only further contribution would be a couple minutes later on when, bringing together all the puzzle pieces for the curse, he instantly solved it with his giga-genius giga-giga-brain. Easy. This was another retirement pro-tip. As the classic Sanskrit saying went, ''For felling a giant oak, it is indeed better to have in hand a chainsaw than an axe, but better still than a chainsaw is a novel and a cup of tea.'' Don''t do most of the labour yourself. ''Delegate'', manipulate others into squandering the finite hours of their life on your behalf. Henry was pulled out of his self-aggrandising delusions by a question. "What can I help you with this time, sugar?" asked the administrator, recognising him and the donkey from before. "Changed your mind on becoming a Shaman?" "Gods no." Henry winced in repulsion. "I didn''t see it noted earlier, but which of the trainers hire themselves out for private mentoring? I only need one for about half an hour, for the tutorial." Half an hour, with the nuisances cleared away, that''s all it should take for him to blitz through. The administrator''s expression darkened again. "Bless your heart, sugar. Don''t you know? The Union banned private mentoring months ago." Henry puckered his mouth as if he''d sipped an oversalted soup. "...but why?" The administrator gave him a hard stare, a fanatical glint igniting in her eyes. "The walls of the private education system must be toppled. Knowledge should not be a privilege limited to the children of those with money." Henry, the smugness draining from his face, raised his tired gaze to the cloudless heavens laughing down upon him and this hyena-turd zone. "...but why?" Chapter 12 - Expert Lessons from a Foul-Mouthed Monk Suchi''s Tutorial Grounds, a forested region bathed in the red glow of the setting sun. A rider in a monkey mask and his donkey were passing along a row of training stations, where players aspiring to various Classes were undergoing their first instruction in Saana''s combat. Henry supposed most players in his situation, with half a decade having passed since doing the tutorial in Saana II, would be struck by a sense of nostalgia. All around him, the latest batch of kids were beginning their own stories, their first days in the fantastical romance of adventure. The air resounded with the grunts of their exerted muscles and the sharp clatter of their clashing practise sticks. His nostrils filled with mingling odours of new beginnings, of grass unearthed by excitable feet and freshly-carved wood, of metal and leather, of sweat and blood. Peering into one station, he saw a Bowman trainer pointing out vulnerability points on an anatomical diagram. In another, a Crusader was guiding two players entwined like pretzels in how to distribute a wounded comrade''s weight across the shoulders. If one focused on just this, ignoring the unpleasantries like the Village recruiters stalking about aggressively harassing trainees, it made for a joyful scene. With a bored look, Henry searched for his new trainer. After the administrator''d informed him that private mentors had been banned, he''d attempted to bribe her. That would have fixed the problem in the past, everyone in Suchi being corrupt. However, the woman and her colleagues took great offence, the lot of them being members of a teacher''s union and zealous loyalists to The ''Empire'' and ''King'' Ramiro. In the end, Henry, considering the inescapable delay for solving the curse anyway, relented and chose a public option, selecting the shortest level 0-5 session on the list, which should take about two hours in-game. Stopping at a ¡®Training Station J¡¯, he hopped off the donkey and tied it to a fence post. Forty or so students had arrived before him, waiting for the lesson to begin. About half of the group consisted of shirtless meatheads surrounding a single, frightened girl. One of the meatheads swept another meathead up into a princess hold. ¡°Hey, Polina, check this out!¡± ¡°Bro, let me down!¡± "Polina! Polina! Watch this!¡± The carrier meathead grunted as he thrust the other meathead into the air above his head like a powerlifter. The girl looked away from a five-meathead pyramid to give a thumbs up. She''d been to trying to maintain a poker face. All she¡¯d done was ask these guys five minutes ago if this was Station J, and now they were putting on a circus act. Henry, watching the scene, cringed, not only at the blatant Suchi-style idiocy but also because these meatheads each had New Zealand accents. Based on the time of day, and the fact that their voices were somewhat high-pitched, Henry guessed that they were highschoolers on holiday in real-life. Although he himself didn''t alter his default avatar, most players beautified their characters, bulking out their biceps, realigning their wonky eyes. These meatheads seemed to have over-done their muscles in order to pick up chicks - typical teenage nonsense. In general, even around his more level-headed countrymen, he had to be cautious. Most were extreme social gamers, who¡¯d use the loosest connection to add you to their Friends List. God forbid they found out you were from the same country or same city; within half an hour, you¡¯d be getting pressured into spending a miserable weekend at their real-life beach house. Disgusting. Luckily, a history of dodging spies had conditioned Henry to speak in fake accents. For the tutorial, he would play an American, from San Francisco. Seated on an upturned crate, also watching the meatheads, was a bald NPC with an unreadable, taciturn expression. The man was a Tier 3-2 Fighter, his Class identifiable at a glance from shiny, milky-purple flecks suffusing his skin, the colour matching a Tier 3-2 metal, Arimole. Henry judged the guy to be an immigrant from Aion Laisije, a northern region renowned for its never-ending wars. Like most of his people, he was quite short, about five-feet tall, and hairless from head to toes. Ex-military. He approached this figure and showed him his lesson admission token. ¡°What Class?¡± the trainer asked. ¡°Earthfriend." The bald trainer raised a meticulously-drawn eyebrow. Sizing up this Offworlder back¡ªthe shirt stained with someone''s blood, the lifeless gaze¡ªhe couldn''t picture him taking up the gentle, nature-loving role of an Earthfriend. A Cutthroat seemed more appropriate; maybe a Bloodmancer. The trainer clicked his tongue with indifference, none of that being his business. ¡°If you change your mind, I have to warn you, that raucous lot over there," he tilted his chin in the direction of the meatheads, "they all signed up as Fighters. All of them. Competition for apprentice slots will be fierce.¡± This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. The listing for the lesson had mentioned that five trainees would be selected for further training. ¡°That¡¯s fine." Henry looked with disgust at the meatheads, who, by choosing identical Classes, were ruining their ability to group together in the future. "Did warn them," said the trainer. Henry shrugged. "If they''d been smart, they wouldn''t have picked Suchi in the first place." "You''re here." "Sometimes, you don''t pick where you end up." The trainer nodded. Next to the bald trainer, a blanket had been laid out with a variety of weapons and armour. The listing had also noted that trainees would be provided with a weapon of their choice, a helmet, and simple torso armour. In exchange, they were to hand over the corpses of any monsters killed during the session. Henry gestured towards a shortbow. ¡°While we¡¯re waiting, I¡¯d like to practice. Got any spare arrows? I¡¯ll pay triple.¡± ¡°Spellcasting practise?¡± asked the trainer. "Mhm." Aiming spells, aiming arrows, the fundamentals were similar. Plus, the incident with the wagon-driver had made him cognisant of his accuracy problems. In addition to the usual 20 arrows, Henry bought another 180. The extras were to avoid running back and forth picking them up; item summoning/unsummoning only had a range of 10 metres. After picking up the shortbow and testing its string, finding it satisfactory, Henry made his way over to a row of archery targets and positioned himself 40 metres downrange. He glanced briefly at a hole in the centre of a bullseye, spaced his feet about shoulder-width apart, and aligned his body to be parallel with the target. Along with the arrow about to be shot, he kept four reserves in the unused fingers of his drawing hand. Quivers were rare in Saana - arrows could be replenished by summoning more from one''s inventory. As he nocked the first arrow, his muscles seemed to recall the movement, and a nagging voice from his memories rang in his ears. ''You fucking half-brained ostrich!'' Henry turned sharply, half-expecting to see a rock flying at his face. That action had some history. Back when he¡¯d been lured into the Digital Justice Club, Alex had snuck in a rule for all club members that, if they wanted to receive the school''s extracurricular credit, they needed to write weekly reports while performing a ¡®quest'' from a random list. This list included tasks like crafting a Legendary axe or infiltrating certain famous guilds - ''small stuff''. At the time, Henry had been reading Vagabond, an old manga given to him by his weeb friend Abigail. The story had been about the Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, who''d roamed around Japan challenging martial arts experts to prove himself the strongest in the world, to prove himself ¡®Unrivalled Beneath The Heavens¡¯. In light of this, Henry had chosen the quest ''Become a Duelling God'', failing to grasp how time-consuming such a task would be, since he''d never played the game. Ultimately, after learning much humility through defeat, Henry, refusing to lose his school credit, had sought a way to compensate for his weaknesses by hunting down cheat items, cheat abilities, and cheat instructors. For a couple of weeks back then, he''d undergone special training from a foul-mouthed monk who lived in a secluded village built in the canopy of a rainforest. The monk, founder of the Twenty Tools Sect, had been a multi-weapon specialist. After completing a lengthy qualification quest, Henry had been made to demonstrate the techniques taught to him by other instructors during his journey. Most of them, the monk was fine with, but, when Henry had been demonstrating his bow technique, the monk had exploded in rage. "You fucking half-brained ostrich! Why are you staring so fucking hard at the target?!" The question had perplexed Henry, who''d answered that it was common sense to keep your eye on the target. The monk had disagreed. "For a child, perhaps. Are you still a child? When you are eating dinner, all by your-big-boy-self, do you still need to watch each fucking grain of rice entering your little bitch mouth to prevent a mess?" He''d raised three fingers. "Three glances. Once when you''re deciding where to fuck the cunt against you, once before you commit and release your fucking, and once to check that it was the right hole you fucked." Henry had tried aiming again, looking at his bow, his fingers, when a rock smashed into his cheek. "You fucking piss-soaked toddler! Did I say to watch your fucking chopsticks instead! Listen, the adults around the table are talking; attend the conversation!" And so Henry had learned how to shoot while being pelted by stones and various other objects. But, today, there would be no flying rocks. The current version of Saana was set at least 17,000 years after the previous one in which the monk had lived and ceased to live. Not only was that dude gone, so too was the rainforest, which had turned into a volcanic zone. Nevertheless, the monk¡¯s principles lived on through some of Henry''s duelling idiosyncracies. He ordered Sanaa''s system to queue a song from a playlist. His ears filled with music. The track opened with the faint plucking of a Japanese koto. Three bars later, a minimalistic snare drum and sub-bass entered the mix, along with a sultry voice singing, ''One...two...''
Playing Hokkaido Winters by Intoxicated Giraffe 22
''Three...four...five...'' There were no other lyrics, just counting. For a small fee, players could access music created in-game by the Performer Civilian class. Henry had commissioned a few pieces for his training to moderate his tempo. Of course, in actual duels, he wouldn''t do this, the rhythm of fights being too chaotic. Concentrating, Henry plunged his muscles deeper into the past, searching for the fragments of time-eroded knowledge once stored in their fibres. As he dove into his bodily memories, the tiredness of late was purged from his eyes, which bulged from their sockets, and his heart raced and leapt over a hundred beats per minute. His vision contracted into a circle, focused on the target ahead. "Whoops." He stopped with a laugh. "Too far..." Exhaling twice, he dropped his heartrate, his vision growing back to normal. He then placed an arrow on the outer side of the bow and pushed it forward between his gripping fingers. A moment later, his head and eyes were swivelling along to the music, their movements quick and jerky as the turnings of a cockroach. In one pulse slipped between the rapid twisting, the first arrow went flying. The bald trainer had been observing from the side. He shuddered at the bizarre technique. Chapter 13 - An Excellent Prize! Henry placed an arrow on the outer side of the bow and pushed it forward between his gripping fingers. A moment later, his head and eyes were swivelling along to the music, their movements quick and jerky as the turnings of a cockroach. Each twist of his vision noted down the threats in his surroundings. The nearest player was a blue-haired teen reading a novel by the player-author Silver Wolf. The trainer was watching. His donkey was trying to chew through the rope he''d tied to a post. Henry drew the string with his back muscles, bringing it to an anchor point where his hand touched his jaw. As the singer from the track in his ears announced another number, he unpinched his fingers and released. Immediately, he nocked another arrow. A player also watching since he¡¯d picked up the bow was tracking the arrow trajectory. The meatheads were meatheading around. When Henry glanced up to check the shot, the arrow flew past the target, bouncing off the wire of a fence 15 metres behind. ''You fucking myopic mole-rat!'' he heard the old monk scream in his ears. ''Do it again!'' Well, it was hard to aim while shaking your head and he hadn''t warmed up yet. The player watching smirked. The trainer shuddered. Henry¡¯s next arrow was slightly more accurate, hitting the target¡¯s wooden leg. After that, the next four shots all hit somewhere on the actual target, so Henry began to steadily increase the tempo of the music, and with it, the pace of his firing and threat checks. Around shot 8, the meatheads started wrestling. His 12th shot was a bullseye. 14, a four-man group arrived. 18, the bald trainer stopped watching to speak with the newcomers. By 20, Henry was up to 10 shots per minute, the maximum firing rate for long-distance spells. From here, he would focus on accuracy. 21, the player watching him went over to grab a bow himself. 22 to 26 were all were within three rings of the bullseye. 28, the trainer glanced over mid-conversation and was surprised by the rapid improvement. 34, another lesson-group of trainees, having finished the first part of their instruction, passed by on their way to the monster killing grounds. 39, the other player, armed with his bow, stood about 15 metres away. 41, a meathead received a painful suplex. 43, the last of the passing group disappeared. 44, the other archer¡¯s arrow struck the third ring, pleasing him. 49, the other archer¡¯s second arrow hit the seventh ring, disappointing him. Shots 40 through 50 had all been within two rings of the bullseye. ¡®You fucking navel-gazing beaver! Stand still much fucking longer and the fucking arse-cunt against you will turn you into a fucking porcupine!¡¯ With the warm-up finished, Henry upped the challenge. Tiny balance-scale-shaped motes started to swim out of his pupils into his irises. In his vision, nine neon-coloured discs the size of manhole covers were scattered around the ground, ranging from 20 to 60 metres from the targets. Each disc had a different hue, along with a random number between one and five.
used. Less than 1 Universal Productivity consumed. 72,588 remaining.
Sprinting to a red disc with a number 2, he drew a curious glance from the other archer. Sliding onto the disc, he fired two arrows at a target which was also glowing red, sinking the first arrow within five rings of the centre, the second within three. Next, he ran to an orange disc with a 1 and fired off a single arrow at an orange-highlighted target. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. In this way, he completed a circuit. After finishing the 9th disc, he replaced the neon discs with a new set and began again. Outwardly, his movements appeared strange, as the markings were visible only to him. This ability wasn¡¯t a Scholar skill but instead from another Civilian class, the Peopleworker class, as was indicated by the miniature balance scales in his eyes rather than quills and ink. As the name would suggest, Peopleworkers covered multiple roles relating to people, from diplomacy to managing kingdoms, to judging disputes of law, to organising troops on battlefields. The neon markings helped with that last domain. Visible to allies in a group or army, they could be used by a commander to draw their plans on the hills and creeks of the terrain, highlighting enemy traps, sketching routes for lines of attack. During Henry''s third circuit, the other archer slowed down his firing rate after narrowly missing him. ¡°Just ignore me," said Henry. ¡°Are you sure?¡± "Yep." Henry felt the extra threat had been adding much-needed pressure. In fact... ''You fucking mollycoddled kitten! Get off my fucking teet and scram!'' Henry suddenly recalled his last day training at the sect, when he''d been saying farewell to the old monk, the two of them separating due to a difference in philosophy. As he''d been leaving, his footsteps a little heavy with the sorrows of departure, he''d felt a pressure on his back, before his body went hurtling off the suspension bridge he''d been walking on. Falling, he''d looked up to see the old monk leaning over the edge, staring back at him. In each of the monk''s hands was a stone, which he flicked, making them rocket Henry''s way. Henry had managed to twist out of the path of one, block the other with his forearm, while, using his other forearm, he caught an arrow aimed at his ear by one of the monk''s apprentices hanging by a rope. A moment before Henry''s body had crashed into the ground, he''d caught a glimpse of the monk giving him a small nod of approval. ¡°Actually," said Henry to the archer, "do me a favour, every third or fourth shot, send one my way. Don¡¯t worry about the Assailant¡¯s Penalty; with my permission, it won¡¯t apply.¡± Before the archer could consider refusing the request, Henry stuffed a stack of arrows in their hands. He then ran over to the bald trainer¡¯s armament and grabbed a buckler shield, which he strapped to his bow arm. A short while later. A horse-rider with a shirt emblazoned with a lion logo was on his way to the monster killing grounds. Today, he¡¯d been relegated to recruiting for his Village. ¡°Oh?¡± he said, stopping suddenly. In the archery range of one training station, several shirtless, muscular players were jumping around, while other shirtless dudes were throwing stones at them. Watching their game, the recruiter noticed something even more eye-catching in the middle of them. Amongst the rowdy lot, a smaller, monkey-headed figure was bobbing and weaving from the stone-missiles while shooting arrows at targets. Despite the pressure, the chaotic interference of the surrounding musclefreaks, every one of this figure''s shots was gliding smoothly through the air and hitting a target. The recruiter¡ªglancing at the targets, punctured by arrows scattered in a wide, random distribution¡ªhad a passing thought their arrangement might have been intentional, the archer firing them with precise imprecision. That, however, would have been impossible. "OH!" The recruiter''s astonishment doubled. Without a Martial Class, this monkey-head would not yet have the help of the game system improving his accuracy. This dude had been aiming manually. What an excellent prize! The recruiter thrust a gracious finger into the mass of shirtless dudes. ¡°You, dodging with the bow, I''m officially inviting you to The Village of The Golden Lion¡¯s second 6-man arena squad! No audition. You''re in.¡± Henry, between two arrow shots, groaned with disdain. What was the point of this nonsense scenario? He''d stood at the very summit, not once but twice. He''d duelled the best of the best of best of the best. He''d gone beyond humanity, duelling Cosmic Gods and Time Dragons and Abyssal Sleepers. Then the second time, well... But to imagine his aspirations would ever be to join one of these ultra-noob Village squads rotting away in this dog-vomit hellhole, how insulting. ¡°I''m not interested.¡± He replied, deflecting a stone with his buckler. ¡°Already got a Village." The recruiter had noticed the armband on the player¡¯s arm, but the logo was unrecognisable. A Village he didn''t know was a Village that didn''t matter. The recruiter puffed out his chest to emphasise the logo. ¡°Which Village exactly?¡± ¡°Not saying,¡± Henry, ducking an arrow, refused to answer as he had an unsettling premonition of the shirtless meatheads who''d turned up and started copying his dodging practice following him later on. "Secret." He dove through a dude''s ripped legs, firing a shot mid-roll. The recruiter squinted in suspicion. A secret...why would he need to keep it secret? He studied the insignia and the player¡¯s mask, and a name came to mind - Shadow Monkey Village. Had he stumbled upon a plot by those sneaky rivals of theirs? Had they hired a pro to reroll and carry their team? The recruiter puffed his chest out further. ¡°I don¡¯t know how much they¡¯re paying you, but The Golden Lion will match your salary and increase it by 30%! We¡¯ll also provide a dedicated team to boost your Personal Slum Points!¡± ¡°Nope.¡± Henry fired off three more shots. "Still not interested, and I''m never going to be interested.¡± Smacking two stones aside, he was about to insult this recruiter thug, but a softer approach occurred to him. ¡°I''m here to play with friends." "Friends?¡± The recruiter smirked. "What''s friendship before THE Golden Lion Village? For the past three months, we''ve not once fallen out of the top 20 of the Slum Points Village Leaderboard!" The recruiter was about to whip out a promotional brochure, but, at that moment, the bald trainer ran over waving a sword. ¡°Get out of here, you stinking recruiter! Get!¡± The recruiter¡¯s horse reared in fright. ¡°Whoa, whoa, settle down, girl. Listen, baldie, I¡¯m trying¡ª¡± ¡°The Union rules are clear! No harassing our students during lessons! Get! Scram!" The recruiter, forced to ride off, called back, ¡°Monkey-head, if you change your mind, stop by The Golden Lion Village anytime!¡± Not too long after that baffling incident, a friend of the bald trainer arrived with a wagon loaded with skewered rabbits, a giant cauldron, and a blanket-covered pile smelling of soil and herbs. The bald trainer blew a horn. "Enough with the game of hopscotch, get over here! We begin.¡± Chapter 14 - Recruiting The Adventures First Friend The bald trainer blew a horn. "Enough with the game of hopscotch, get over here! We begin.¡± Henry, dodging one last rock, joined the others gathering. In total, with some students having arrived during his warm-up, the group had grown to sixty pupils. The trainer folded his hairless arms over his chest. ¡°Apari, Instructor Apari, it doesn''t matter what you call me; we won''t be knowing each other for long. In this brief course, we''ll be speeding through the basics, the assumption being that you all either know the rest already or will develop your skills later on with other teachers. To start, since some of you Offworlders will still need to habituate to your new bodies, we''ll do a warm up. Find a partner, grab a pole from the barrel over there, and start whacking each other. If your Universal Protection runs low, my friend here has graciously roasted up a batch of rabbit to replenish it. Any questions?¡± Universal Protection was what the NPCs called health points. A student raised her hand. ¡°Will we be learning any fighting techniques?" ¡°For now," replied the Instructor, "make do with the age-old technique of hitting harder than you get hit. I''ll roam about giving more specific pointers. No further questions. Pair up! Quick!¡± Henry, listening in the back of the group, turned to the archer he''d first asked to shoot at him. ¡°You and me, buddy?" ¡°Ah...¡± The archer gave a hesitant response. To him, after that arrow stunt, Henry seemed psychotically intense. Luckily for the archer, his salvation came running over in the form of one of the shirtless muscle freaks, separating from his group of meathead buddies mobbing their solitary female captive and competing to partner with her. ¡°Hey, monkey-bro," said the meathead, approaching Henry with a friendly wave, "I¡¯m the odd-one-out in my group! What do you say to us going a few rounds, bro v bro?¡± Henry gave the meathead a frown. This was indeed an odd-one. Earlier, while Henry''d been minding his own business training his accuracy, this guy had jumped beside him, laughing about "how fun it looked". Within minutes, the other meatheads had followed. Beyond his rude behaviour, the kid had also beautified his character to an absurd degree trying to pick up ladies online. With a granite jaw, a hulking v-shaped, abs-having torso, and jet-black hair as luscious and healthy as the mane of a lion in its prime, his avatar was impossibly handsome. The guy had meticulously crafted his character like an airbrushed model from a men¡¯s fitness magazine cover. Combined with his boyish voice, the effect was jarring. The overly-attractive meathead offered Henry a handshake. ¡°My username¡¯s Danontherightwing, but you can call me Dan.¡± Henry gave the huge, muscular hand a repulsed look. "Sorry, but I''ve already found a¡ª" Gesturing to the archer, he stopped as the guy abruptly broke into a panicked sprint. "What the hell?" Henry, confused, watched as the archer ran from him like a child fleeing a molester''s van, dashing for the nearest lone player and begging them to group. The other unpaired players were avoiding Henry¡¯s glance and quickly getting together with each other. None of them wanted to spar with him. After a long day at the job or in class, they were here to relax and unwind in a fun fantasy escapade, not get their faces smashed in by an undercover expert. Henry, scanning the backs of their turned heads, read their fear, their laziness. "Disgusting noobs," he mumbled. "This is why you''ll never get anywhere. Useless¡ª" Remembering his recently-adopted philosophy of retirement, he corrected himself. "But that''s not a problem. It''s OK to stay right where you are. Go ahead, then, children. This grandpa approves of your mediocrity." Dan smiled. ¡°Guess I¡¯m your last choice, bro!¡± Henry shook his head, having humbly received his lesson from the youth. ¡°You''ve warmed up. I''ve warmed up. That''s enough. Now, we fight the toughest battle of them all: doing absolutely nothing." He had many reports to read from those commissioned this morning to update him on The Slums. Dan didn''t understand. "Bro, should I grab a stick for you?" Henry, seeing this meathead''s insistence, had a sudden paranoid sense that this kid was another piece in the odd puzzle of this morning''s strange inconveniences, another malevolent attack to disrupt his plans. Henry wouldn''t fall for this one. "I will give you a million gold right now if you and your meathead friends agree to leave, wait two hours, then return for a different tutorial group." ¡°Hahaha." Dan flashed his handsome teeth, perfectly white and uncrowded in the copious space of his massive jaw. "I''m not joking." "I believe you, bro. But what''s money before friendship?" Henry squinted with hatred at this kid''s stubborn, disgusting sociability. "I''m not your friend, motherfucker. I don''t even know you." "Not yet!" Dan laughed handsomely. "Bro, let''s spar! I¡¯m confident I can go toe to toe. Throw your hardest at me. I''m pretty tough!" He flexed his muscles. "I''ve been doing a lot of weightlifting lately." Henry continued to squint. This was the vilest type of a person, a giga-noob too stupid to know when they should give up, too ignorant to perceive the vast meaning of a million gold, the towering mountain of skill separating them. Henry was deeply suspicious to have found someone this profoundly foolish, even if, logically, he shouldn''t be because this was a starting area for newbies who''d only been logged on for a couple minutes. ¡°Fine...¡± Henry reluctantly agreed to beat the snot from this arrogant meathead''s well-formed nose. This impertinent child insisted on sparring him? Very well. Henry would give him his first taste of Saana''s combat, his first sumptuous mouthful of blood and broken teeth. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Henry slipped through the crowd surrounding the wooden poles and searched for one of the right size. The noobs around him were simply grabbing the biggest, heaviest ones possible. This was a mistake. Saana Combat Pro-tip #1: In a virtual game, where weapons weren''t merely pixels on a screen but something you had to physically swing, it was essential to balance between weight, reach, manoeuvrability, and many other dimensions. Veterans always had their equipment custom-made to their personal build, preferences, and contexts. The ideal spear, for example, could change significantly depending on whether one was fighting in a duel, a small group skirmish, a pitched battle, or a monster hunt. At its core, Saana''s combat system, exemplifying both halves of ''virtual reality'', was a blend of real-life fighting and magical abilities. When the game had first been released twelve years ago the duelling scene had been dominated by people with prior fighting experience, martial artists, combat sport athletes, military vets from the AI Revolution. Henry, starting off, had enrolled in fencing and jiu-jitsu classes along with practising the in-game arts. Henry grabbed a pole about one-and-a-half times the length of the overly-handsome meathead¡¯s forearm and tossed it behind him. Dan, catching the weapon, compared it with the ones being grabbed by the others. ¡°Bro, isn¡¯t this a bit short?¡± ¡°Depends. Do you have training?¡± ¡°Nah, training stops during the summer. The ground''s too dry. Scrapes the knees.¡± Henry squinted in confusion. ¡°OK...well...anyway, that¡¯s the perfect length for you. Roleplay a neanderthal and swing it like a club.¡± Dan accepted the advice unquestioningly. ¡°What about you, bro?¡± Henry, reaching behind his back, pulled out and presented the two deadliest weapons in the universe. ¡°I¡¯ll use my fists." Dan nodded unquestioningly. ¡°Bro, where are you from? I¡¯m from New Zealand.¡± ¡°San Francisco," Henry lied. ¡°America? Cool! Bro, how old are you?¡± ¡°43.¡± The monkey-mask hid Henry''s face, making it impossible to tell. ¡°Really?" Dan stared at the skin of his arms. "You don¡¯t seem that old.¡± ¡°I moisturise diligently.¡± "Oh, that¡¯s smart. Hey, I¡¯m only 16. I guess that makes you my Big Bro. Can I call you Big Bro?¡± Henry squinted. ¡°Don¡¯t ever use that nickname again. My name¡¯s Bob. I''m Bob from San Francisco.¡± Big Bro...this was far too similar to what someone else used to call him. Henry couldn''t stand it. Dan''s perfectly-aligned, identically-sized eyes bulged. ¡°Big Bro, quick! Before it¡¯s too late!¡± Henry watched flabbergasted as the meathead sprinted to a spot beside the girl his group had collectively been trying to woo. The other meatheads had the same idea, three pairs already massed around her, the lot of them vying to give her pointers. The annoying thing to Henry, amongst the many annoying things, was they didn''t need to fight over one chick. In this, the year 2050, Saana wasn''t plagued by the abysmal gender-ratio problem of old school MMOs. You could sleaze to your heart''s content. Henry, walking over to the hopeless lot, saw the meathead who''d scored the poor girl as a partner grinning at the others like a lunatic. ¡°Hold up, Russian Sis." The meathead squeezed beside her and tried to reposition her hands on the wooden pole. "Let me help correct your form.¡± Another meathead spoke up in contention. ¡°Bro, what are you trying to teach our Polina?¡± He came forward and moved the girl''s hands so close together that they were touching. ¡°See, you¡¯ve gotta get more stability.¡± ¡°Bro! That¡¯s way too much stability. You need some flexibility. Here, let me try...¡± Henry sidled up next to the overly-handsome meathead, spying on the others giving their terrible advice from a distance. ¡°Dan," Henry whispered. ¡°Yeah, Big Bro?¡± Dan looked on in dejection, jealous of his bros'' confidence. ¡°I¡¯m about to attack you. Is that OK? Do I have formal permission?¡± ¡°Go ahead.¡± Dan, continuing to observe his mates, wanted to try compete, too, but¡ª"Ah!" Dan screamed as a sharp heat shot into his brain. Curling over in agony, he fell to the ground, blood pouring from his broken nose. With a stunned look, his eyes spouting tears, he gazed up in horror at the one who''d punched him in the face, the monkey-headed figure looming over him. "B...Big...Bro?" Henry was squinting in disgust. This handsome noob, could he be one of those Virtual-Realist masochist scum who aimed for an ''authentic, high-fidelity digital experience''? ¡°It shouldn''t be hurting anymore," said Henry coldly. "Your nose is fixed." Dan felt his nose with his hands, finding that indeed it had been fixed, and that the pain had vanished. "Huh? Sick! Big Bro, did you heal me?" "No, that''s Saana''s, this videogame''s, automated self-heal function. Tied with your HP." Henry pointed at the noob''s healthbar now floating above his head. "Before we spar, can you at least turn down your pain settings? I don''t want to get banned." ¡°How do I do turn the pain settings down, Big Bro?¡± This question made Henry squint even harder. Pain levels were adjusted during character creation, as the developers wouldn''t want to get sued for unwittingly torturing someone. Had this noob skipped the character creation? If that were the case, then... Henry studied the meathead''s overly handsome avatar more closely. "Whatever." He shrugged. "You just have to think about turning it down and the system will do it for you. A confirmation box should pop up. Try changing it to 6% of the maximum intensity - zero pain feedback feels uncanny, like you''ve got a neuropathic disease." Dan stared into the distance for a few seconds, then pinched himself. Feeling much more pressure than pain, he tried punching himself in the arm. Again, almost nothing. ¡°Whoa!" he shouted in amazement. "There''s no pain. Big Bro, doesn''t this mean we''re practically invincible? We can fight anything!" "Unfortunately..." Henry nodded, while summoning his bow, with which he shot four arrows to mark the corners of a box large enough to enclose several other sparring pairs as well. ¡°Dan, here¡¯s how this is going to work. Stay within the box marked by those arrows. Those are the borders of the battlefield. For your benefit, we''ll have two alternating phases, 15 seconds each. Phase A, I attack. Phase B, I evade. You can attack during either.¡± ¡°Huh?¡± Dan couldn''t follow, Big Bro talking too rapidly. Henry clapped. ¡°Phase A.¡± Before the meathead could think of getting off the ground, Henry grabbed the kid''s leg. Instinctively, his opponent tried to wrestle free, but Henry''s grip was too strong. Henry punched him in the face, breaking his nose again, and then, laying the kid out, stomped on his neck, snapping the cervical vertebrae as he got to work. Dan, his ears ringing with the sound of crunching bone, his body folding and twisting like a pretzel in tumble-dryer, stared frozen at the spinning world, his vision clogging up as his eyeballs were smeared with dirt and blood. Wasn¡¯t the pacing too quick? Wasn¡¯t he being beaten up too hard? ¡°You delusional ant!" Henry screamed, pinning the kid''s chest to the ground with his knee. "Did you think this was a kungfu novel where the strength of everyone in the starting zone is calibrated to be near your own?" Henry punched him three times in the mouth, the smashed teeth lodging in his knuckles. "Audacious! For not knowing the heavens from the earth, you will be rewarded with a feast - a feast of shoes!¡± Henry, jumping up while raising the kid''s lower body by his muscular legs, began stomping on his head. The first kick caused the dry surrounding soil to crack, and the rest buried the kid''s skull deeper and deeper down into the groaning earth. Henry, finding this kid immune to his million-gold bribing strategy, had switched to a different tactic for ridding himself of this noob''s unwanted presence. He didn''t care what logic said. This eye-catchingly-handsome dude turning up at the tutorial with his freakish meathead Kiwi buddies was too odd to be a mere coincidence. It certainly spelt something ominous. He should cut the guy off before he evolved too far beyond a minor, forgettable character into part of the permanent cast. Thus, inspired by his previous trainers, Henry''d decided to beat up this kid as brutally as possible, to bully and scare him away. Although beating the crap out of the meathead before he turned his pain sensations off would have been preferable, the game system, being able to detect Henry''s thought process, would have banned him for torturing a minor. Saana Combat Pro-tip #2, final tip: In a world without rigid laws, violence sometimes does solve problems, and often quite efficiently. Good game. Alas, this scheme of Henry''s, like the rest of his schemes on this strange morning, backfired marvellously. "What the hell..." he muttered, stepping back cautiously from the meathead he''d been beating up. Chapter 15 - The Corrupted Youth "What the hell..." Henry muttered, stepping back cautiously from the meathead he''d been beating up. At the start of Phase B, he gave the guy a break to meditate upon his beating and anticipate the next. At this moment of respite, the meathead should have remained motionless, lying in a broken mess on the ground, panting in shock. Instead, the weirdo immediately sprang to his feet, his muscular body rearing to continue the fight. Dan, rising crimson-covered but intact from the earth into which he''d been trodden, was himself surprised at his own reaction. Where, the boy wondered, had this courage come from? Why was his blood pulsating so joyfully? But wasn¡¯t this perfect? Dan''s rugby coach was always stressing how his biggest weakness on the field was his meekness, his aversion to getting physical, his refusal to strive out from the line on his own and risk a bit of danger. Yet, in this world, there was no pain, he could be fearless. Wasn''t this an opportunity to temper his resolve, to build the strength to break free from his mental shackles? On Dan''s bloody, dirt-caked face shone a grin of euphoria and focus. This was it! He had been transported right into the big game during crunch hour, a boiling potato was in his hand, it was a 5 to 8 situation, there were no nearby friendlies to offload to, and, if he didn¡¯t loophole the frigid owl before the buzzer blew, the season would be flushed down the toilet! (AN: I don¡¯t understand Handsome Dan''s thoughts either. By 2050, the language of sports had evolved to be incomprehensible to the modern mind). By the time Dan was upright, he couldn¡¯t see Big Bro anywhere, Big Bro already evading as he''d promised in Phase B. Nevertheless, not feeling discouraged, he scanned the field. Between two of his fighting teammates, he spotted a flash of colourful clothing and a monkey¡¯s ear. ¡°Found you, Big Bro!¡± Dan roared as he charged headlong into the fray. Big Bro tried to keep the distance by circling around Dan''s teammates, keeping them between the two of them. To counteract this, Dan, using a special rugby technique, gave a semi-Gaussian mushroom feint to suggest he was heading left while, in actual fact, he was heading right. The masterful manoeuvre paid off, allowing him to close to within four strides of Big Bro. "AHHHHHH!" Dan, spooking his teammates, screamed like a neanderthal hopped up on amphetamines. Breaking through his physical and mental limits, he raised his wooden pole high above his head in preparation for a killing blow. ¡°Time''s up." Henry clapped. "Phase A." "Ah!" Dan suddenly saw the world spinning again, the ground falling from above to meet him, his eardrums splintering with another shout. ¡°You overconfident preschooler!¡± Henry stomped the noob''s jaw, the bone giving a satisfactory crunch as it separated from the skull. ¡°Did you think I would fall for your playground charade?!¡± He kicked the kid''s mouth, sprinkling the ground with two premolars and a canine. As before, he gave Dan a relentless 15-second pummelling while insulting the kid. Saana Combat Pro-tip #3: Saana wasn''t a shounen anime. No amount of teenage optimism or bravery could overcome the unforgiving reality of violence. Everyone who''d reached the top of the bloody mountain had aged their bodies by subjecting themselves to years of tireless combat training. You had to be mature, you had to be smart, you had to be disciplined. A fight had no room for children. Once the enemy embraced you in the grapple, neither your nakama''s words of encouragement nor your mother''s scratching fingers would pry them away before their dagger had finished blending your organs. Another pair of meatheads sparring nearby had stopped their fight to study their handsome friend''s abuse at the hand of this monkey-headed stranger. So far, they¡¯d themselves been in a sort of gentleman¡¯s agreement where they smacked each others¡¯ sticks, their imagination confined to the limits of their modern, violence-averse upbringing. Now, however, their eyes were awakened to a new, more brutal possibility. Both meatheads having the same thought at the same time, they attempted to tackle each other, their skulls clattering as they collided. The sparring lesson continued, Henry demolishing the kid over and over again. No matter how much he bullied the overly-handsome meathead, the kid would get back up and continue to fight with more passion, like a generic anime protagonist whose only character trait was a stubborn Will or a masochist. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. But if the kid wanted a beating, Henry wouldn''t deny him. Trouncing this handsome child was making for excellent stress relief from the inconveniences of the morning. Whenever Henry''s foot stomped firmly upon the meat of this noob''s head, it was almost like he was stomping on the head of all the idiots of Suchi. At a more elevated, spiritual level, it was like stomping upon the head of Suchi itself, this irredeemable hellhole spawning such morons. Dan, in the middle of one round, bent his arm too far back for a swing. Henry rushed in faster than the strike, hugging the kid''s body and tripping him. ¡°You confused casual!¡± He headbutted the kid''s handsome nose, breaking it yet again. "This isn¡¯t a golf game! Keep winding your swings up too far, and the only holes being sunk will be the ones in your face!¡± Saana Combat Pro-tip #4: This was a habit noobs had to unlearn, imitating the wide, visually-dramatic movements of hand-to-hand combat in popular media. Real fights were rarely so flashy. Constraining attacks was a type of martial economy, one bound to the rules of velocity and acceleration, of time and distances, of force and momentum, of stimulus and response. All the muscular strength one invested into a heavy swing would be dissipated if the opponent read its telegraphy and knew they could stab your stomach quicker. Gradually, however, as Henry continued pummelling noob up, he found his rationale for doing so evolving, transcending to a less selfish motive. With each successive beating, the meathead showed small signs of improvement, and this effect started to instil Henry with a strange feeling, as though he were being possessed by something. ¡°You one-slice toaster!¡± Henry, taking down the kid in another round, punched him in his soft throat. ¡°Where¡¯s your adaptability? You said you play rugby, but why is it that when I go for your legs, it doesn¡¯t occur to you to try fend me off with your free-arm!" Saana Combat Pro-tip #5: Beginners over-focused on their weapon, viewing it as the sole conduit for attack and defence. In hand-to-hand combat, it was better to regard the weapon as one extended limb, one part of the entire body engaged in mortal struggle. The legs controlled distances and force, the head and torso were open to attacks, a free-arm was available for grabbing or emergency blocking, etc. This more holistic mindset especially applied in a duel, where no teammates could cover for the use-limits inherent to each weapon. The world''s greatest spear-expert could have all their genius negated in a second by their enemy using a shield to slip past the weapon''s point; afterwards, until the spearman could disengage, they would be left to resort to whatever else their body could offer. For a newbie, to bring the other limbs into play, it was often useful to start them off by having them ignore weapons entirely and teach them to wrestle instead. Wrestling was a great skill in general. Even the top duels of today still regularly devolved to that primitive type of fighting, just two apes rolling in the arena sand while prodding each other with knives. "You''re not going to use this limb?" Seizing the kid''s arm, Henry cranked it back, a sweet snap singing from the shoulder socket. "Fine, I will take it from you!" Wasn''t this higher feeling possessing Henry the noble spirit of teaching? On this day, had he been initiated into the allures of that great cause that had inspired so many great men, from Socrates to Confucius? To correct the errant ways of the youth, to gift them the proper tools with which they could forge a dazzling future, what greater motivator could there be than this? Perhaps this was the natural progression of the retired man entering life''s grey-decades. At the end of his career, we should transition from bright-eyed students to wrinkled teachers. In another round, Dan celebrated at successfully landing a direct hit with his stick to his new teacher''s face, only to scream a moment later when Henry, allowing the blow to crash against his mask, ignored it, grabbed him and tripped him again. ¡°You mathematically-inept neonate!¡± Henry stomped the kid''s handsome teeth once more. ¡°If stomping your head this many times doesn¡¯t stop you, would I be stopped by a single pathetic tap from your rattle? You can''t stop a charging elephant with a pistol. Next round, swing with force, swing faster, swing with purpose!¡± Saana Combat Pro-tip #6: Newbies had to discard the simplistic binary perspective of attacks, in which hits spelt success and misses failure. Really, attacks had continuous and qualitative aspects, depending on many variables like the force of the blow and the precise site of impact. A headshot to the side of the brow might glance off harmlessly, but, had it been redirected a couple centimetres closer towards the centre, the very same attack might''ve rattled the gelatinous bag of brainmeat inside the skull and knocked the opponent out cold. One would also struggle to find much resemblance between a headshot to the skull from a sabre versus a spear versus a mace. In Saana''s combat, attacks covered a wide range of significances, some being trivial, others ending a life. "I''ll show you an incapacitating headshot!" Henry rolled the meathead face-up. Dan stared up in silent awe, his eyes shimmering with terror and respect. After a thorough pulverisation of his body and soul, he''d submitted entirely, a student offering up his eternal allegiance. Henry, hiding a disgusted snarl behind his mask, jabbed those admiring eyeballs and tugged at both. As the pair¡ªthe extraocular muscles and optic nerves offering the subtlest of pullback of resistance before snapping¡ªwere dislodged from their sockets, a wave of feeling rippled through Henry''s body, his limbs flooded with another surge of corporeal memory. But, no, Henry realised, as if awakening suddenly from a fever dream where ideas merge without coherent logic. He wasn''t transforming into a teacher. If that''d ever been the goal, there''d been much more effective methods than this. As the warm-up neared its end, Instructor Apari, who''d been patrolling giving tips of his own, was shaking his bald head. Earlier, he''d considered separating those two, but, when he¡¯d approached, he¡¯d been stopped by the expression on the one being brutalised¡¯s face. It was a strange grin, one that seemed almost euphoric. Still, maybe he should have interfered. Now, all around the pair, the other shirtless Offworlders had been corrupted, the brutes wrestling in the dirt, smashing and biting and shouting and choking and kneeing. The scene had become violent and ugly, but Instructor Apari had to admit, it would prove more effective than the fangless tango of most Offworlders when they first arrived. He raised his horn to his lips and blew. At once, the music of flesh and bone came to a pause. ¡°Alright, you savage lot, calm down!" Instructor Apari shouted. "Grab a real weapon; get fitted into your armour. In the next part of the lesson, you''ll be fighting your first drove of fearsome beasts!" Chapter 16 - The Song of Suchi The Newbie Monster Killing Grounds. The Sanctuary of The Floppy-Eared Rabbits. Although the sun had set, the game¡¯s three moons reflected enough light to make the world roughly as bright as a day during a thunderstorm. Here, the dimmed light shone upon one of the few green areas in Suchi. In contrast to the dry plains that dominated this region''s landscape, this Rabbit Sanctuary, along with the rest of the Monster-Killing Grounds, had a flourishing forest ecosystem. Firefly swarms were parted by swooping birds. Willow trees wet their locks in a criss-cross of streams diverted from the Suchi River which nourished the grounds. It might''ve made for an idyllic scene if not for the players sprinting around murdering rabbits. To enter, trainees had to cross a series of streams via long bridges made of earth. At the entranceway to one, a group of children with their parents in one tutorial group had paused and gathered around a player in his 80s, wisened by the decades of life, virtual and real. On the old man''s wrist, there was a bracelet made of fangs procured from the lions that roamed the savanna. Propped beside him was a war-bow taller than a grown person, the wood of its limbs tinged the vibrant green of malachite and its string taught with the memories of countless arrows fired into countless beasts. On his forehead was tied a bandana with the markings of one of Suchi''s Villages. This veteran Bowman stood before the rabbit grounds and turned to the class with pride. ¡°Children, what you see before you is but one gem that we plucked from the soils of Suchi. Before we go any further, settle down, please, and listen to the song of our people." The students gathered around him, seating themselves on the grass and empty beer crates. "Some accuse this barren land of being a miser," began the veteran. "Others, like myself, thank it daily for being so generous. ¡°From day one, this division of opinion was present right at that moment we logged on to the servers and found ourselves standing in The Slums, looking jealously upon the barred gates of Central City." He spoke those last words with an unrepressed hatred. "Adventurers in other parts of this game were received with the treatment of heroes. Here, not so much. All quests were refused to us, all doors slammed in our faces, all pleas for a morsel to eat denied. "In comparison to the stingy residents, the surrounding lands were even less welcoming. To the west was a stream, more of a trickle. Each day, its waters would be dyed red with blood as we contested for a few mouthfuls of drink." One of the children interrupted, pointing out that what lay to the west was a river, the Suchi river that irrigated this Rabbit Sanctuary. ¡°Don¡¯t be smart, Finnegan,¡± replied the veteran. ¡°I''ll get to that in time. To the south, we had the sea, whose salty waters seemed to taunt us as we suffered in the relentless heat - much hotter than what you¡¯re experiencing now. It was dryer then, Finnegan. Everywhere else, there was nothing, none of the fertile bounty you''re observing now. There were no berry bushes for food, no trees for the construction of houses or the making of bows. ¡°Some adventurers seeking to escape the emptiness ranged further in-land, or around the coasts. Those who were not torn asunder by vicious packs of Lions, Grey Hyenas, Goblybeasts, or the Gutdevourers that stalk the night, these brave men returned with stories of cities and towns much the same, each with their own closed-gates. Everywhere we went, we were rejected. ¡°On the local community forum, a post appeared." The veteran coughed, before putting on a dweeby nerd void. "¡®Suchi is pure trash. It is a sadistic theatre for the Dev¡¯s amusement. Delete your character immediately and pick somewhere else!¡¯" He coughed again. "This, many agreed, was the logical, obvious choice. And so our numbers dwindled. ¡°But of course, not all us chose the logical, obvious choice. Some of us were challenge-seekers, others lateral-thinkers, who saw the great opportunities that others could not. Some, like myself, were both. We all agreed, however, that this land would not so easily eject us from her womb.¡± One of the children¡¯s mothers frowned at the metaphor. This old guy, a grandfather of one kid, had been speaking a bit too crassly since they''d logged on for this playdate. Weren¡¯t old people supposed to be kind and gentle? She felt like they were being led by a psychotic mugger. The Suchi veteran raised a fist of resolve, his fang-bracelet rattling. "We would not allow the barren womb of Suchi to kill and devour us, her unloved, malnourished stillborns! If she would not give us her milk, then we would eat from the sea. If she would not provide trees for boats and rods, then we would hunt for materials and make them ourselves. If she would not provide any animals that we were capable of getting safely within twenty metres of, then we would attack from a distance. If she still would not provide trees for bows, then we would throw rocks. If she would not provide rocks, then we would make rocks by soaking clumps of clay with sea-water and baking them in the sun. If, after a long day of pellet-making, she did not provide residents who were willing to welcome us into the safety of their walls, then we would join the rejected residents of The Slums and build¡ª¡° A little girl tugged the old man''s sleeve. ¡°Grandpa, you¡¯re ranting again.¡± ¡°Sorry, dear," the veteran apologised, a burning glimmer calming in his maddening gaze. "The point is, kids, that we struggled. ¡°One such struggler, a mythical figure whose name is now etched in the annals of Suchi, TejbirChopra25, one of the most glorious cold-blooded murderers to arise from South Asia...¡± Another parent did a double-take, unsure whether he''d correctly heard this old guy praise a murder. The veteran thrust a finger north. "That beautiful murderer weaved his way through the maze of beasts to venture hundreds of miles north to a mountain range. There he discovered a slumbering demon. It was as tall as twenty Rongbitan Red Whales stacked on top of each other. It had antlers the size of a Heimlandian Bluewood. A normal adventurer would have snuck away from this fierce devil, but TejbirChopra25 wasn¡¯t a normal adventurer¡ªhe was a man of Suchi! He thrust the fang of a baby lion into that sleeping demon¡¯s eyeball, and when out of rage the beast oneshot him, he posted a call to arms on the local forum." The veteran coughed, before putting on an offensively-bad Indian accent. ¡°''Men of Suchi,¡¯ ¨C children, this was not a sexist comment. The female players didn¡¯t like living in huts. They were gone." The old man shook his head mournfully. ¡°Yes, the gorgeous women, they were all gone...¡± Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. His granddaughter tugged his sleeve again. ¡°Right!" The veteran snapped out of those sad memories. "Where was I? Yes, that little Indian man posted something." He coughed, to put the accent back on. "''Men of Suchi! A demon sleeps in our midst! We must defeat him!¡¯ "And as we did in those days, and have always done since, all the men of Suchi responded in kind. ''Where? Show me the bastard who needs his throat sliced!¡¯ ''I¡¯m sharpening my lion fang!¡¯ ''Me too, I¡¯m sharpening my lion fang!¡¯ ''I¡¯m going to stab that big cunt in the neck.¡¯ A thousand such bold cries of support rang across the forums. Kids, you''ve got to know that the men of Suchi are always ready to face a challenge. Unlike lesser men, we¡¯ve never been encumbered by attachment to material possessions or this fickle thing we call life." The old man began to randomly yell. "We marched! We fought! We bled! We died! Under-levelled and ill-equipped as we were, each of our attacks bounced harmlessly off the demon''s mighty hide! But what we lacked in strength we made up for with tenacity and raw numbers! The demon¡¯s health regen? The men of Suchi are plucked from all corners of the world, and that demon wasn¡¯t Out of Combat for a moment during that multi-week assault! The health of our armour? What armour! Weapons? A standard baby lion has four canines! And the rare-spawn Many-Toothed Baby Lion...well...¡± With a proud grin, he raised his bracelet, twelve juvenile fangs shimmering in the moonlight. ¡°In the end, the demon, giving a roar that made the earth shake, collapsed into his final rest. Afterwards, while we were partying in the mountains, relishing a succulent feast of the demon''s remains, not wasting any of his organs¡ªwe roasted his twelve livers, we stir-fried all thousand feet of his intestines, we brewed wine with the sweet juices of his eyeballs¡ª¡± ¡°Grandpa...¡± ¡°Suddenly the crack of thunder sounded above us, and the sky opened up! Yes, children, in the mountains of this parched land, it began to rain! And it continued to rain. It turns out that demon, ol¡¯ Farg of the Drought Curse, was partly responsible for the sorry state of the land - who could have known? Back at Suchi City, the tiny trickle to the west started to swell with the waters fed to it from those mountains, allowing it to regain its former glory as..." The old man was going to say roaring river, but he didn¡¯t want to set a bad example for the kids by lying; Suchi was still dry and uninhabitable. ¡°...river. The Suchi River! Nourished by the holy waters of The Suchi River, the nearby lands were cleansed of their sickness, and this forest by the river bank arose, given a bit of extra moisture from our blood, sweat, and tears. The greenish foliage around you is proof, a monument to the spirit of rebellion! It shows what can be accomplished when a man refuses to take the logical, obvious choice! When he rebels against his thankless fate! When he struggles! ¡°Since then, we men, and also women," he added for his granddaughter, whom he was hoping would continue the gang tradition, "have continued to rebel and struggle. In response to our stubbornness, this stubborn land has prospered. The perfumed citizens of the Central City have opened up their gates in false hope of stealing our talents. Our little Slum on the outskirts, which we''ve continued to work on, has blossomed into what it is today, The Slum Empire of Suchi. Of The People! Those magnificent Achievement Pillars to the east, these fairly-tall trees defying them to west, each was raised to defy the sky by a person of Suchi, one who has also refused to take the simpler path! ¡°Before we go further now and feed ourselves on the riches sown through rebellion and struggle, I¡¯ll say a final word about this land: it may not provide much, but what it does provide more than makes up for what it doesn¡¯t. If you are made of the stubborn stuff needed to be a person of Suchi, this land will give you all you need.¡± Neglecting to list anything tangible that the land actually provides, the old man finished his speech and cast his gaze on the forest before him, on the youths running around smashing cute rabbits with clubs and skewering them with spears. In the depths of his eyes could be seen a fond remembrance for his own bloody beginnings in this harsh, unrelenting hellscape. Another tutorial group entering the Rabbit Sanctuary had paused to listen, looking like a gang of bandits about to ransack their first caravan. Their clothes were smeared and tattered. Each of them gripped their spears, swords, bows, axes, clubs, and hammers tight with the anticipation of putting these tools of death to their first use. Amongst these bandits was Henry, as imposing as the rest, a steel kettle hat atop his monkey mask, a leather cuirass over his robes. In the depths of his eyes, as he''d listened to this degenerate geriatric Villager''s ramblings, could be seen a different glimmer, one of exhaustion. ¡°''Challenge seekers and lateral-thinkers'',¡± Henry muttered to himself, ¡°more like masochists and fucking idiots.¡± Only a senile idiot could describe the tragically awful beginning of this garbage region so affectionately. Any veteran player like Henry would know the real story. The reality, as revealed by the developers in a late apology to the 92% of Suchi starters who''d deleted their characters, was that the drought demon and the hostility of the locals were part of the region¡¯s unique opening event. The NPCs trainers assumed, at first, that the players were working with the monster. A quest chain resolving the issue would have opened up only after enough players had earned the trainers'' trust by enduring the unfair treatment for roughly 8 real-life hours. That''s how it should have gone, but before the required time could elapse, a bunch of frustrated Suchi hooligans had organised themselves into mobs and begun killing all the trainers out of revenge. By the time the replacement NPCs arrived a few real-life days later, the few insane remainees had fixed in their minds that this region was about independent survival. The murder mobs had become permanent gangs operating parallel to the official game system. From then on, as could be seen earlier at the spawn point, all new players starting in Suchi were harassed by thugs looking to bolster their gang numbers. In this way, the opening of the Suchi region, designed to take less than a day, dragged on for about two months. Two years later, these obstinate gangs were still refusing to work with the locals of the Central City who''d rejected them on opening day, they were still hanging out in The Slums, they were still brainwashing new players¡ªthey were still doing everything the hard way. It had to be emphasised that Henry''s guild was in the business of socio-economic development. He knew for a fact that the local gang culture had resulted in the average level of Suchi being 11 levels behind the rest of the world. Taking into account that the average level in Saana wasn''t very high, only around 70, the players of Suchi were missing out on a huge chunk of the game''s primary content. But, whatever, none of Suchi''s lore mattered. Any sensible person would take all those worthless factoids and purge them from their brain. Don''t waste your precious neurons storing irrelevant information. Henry''s sole mission and focus in this place was the duelling tournament. Right now, while speed-running this brief tutorial, that meant he only needed to worry about killing rabbits and earning experience points. Chapter 17 - Rabbit Collection Suchi''s Rabbit Sanctuary. Henry, moving forward with his group, inspected the challenge ahead of him. The Rabbit Sanctuary had been split into four equal-sized partitions by streams, each partition housing Floppy-Eared Rabbits at different stages of maturity. In one, the grass was rustling with the timid movements of hidden newborns. In one, kid rabbits, looking, in the moonlight, like animated snowballs, were leaping through the grass after their friends. In one, teen rabbits, the tips of their ears dragging on the ground, were chasing each other...for different reasons. And in the last, where his group was heading, the adult rabbits were being butchered by a horde of screaming players. ¡°Big bro, what¡¯s that?¡± asked Handsome Dan. The handsome meathead from before had continued tagging along, refusing to gracefully exit the story even after his narrative purpose in Henry''s saga had been served. ''That'' was a station near where their bridge connected to their destined partition. A bunch of Villagers were getting hammered passing a wine bottle around a bonfire. Behind this drunken lot, a wooden board titled ''6-Rabbit Speedtrial Leaderboard'' showed a list of usernames, along with times, Village affiliations, and Slum Point awards. A queue of noobs were testing their skill competing for the high score. Henry gave the noob an annoyed glance. ¡°That there is a honeypot for idiots and masochists." ¡°Big Bro, let''s try for the top!¡± Dan was getting excited - there was nothing like the friendly fire of competition to heat up this tutorial. Henry immediately shut that idea down. "No. I''m not competing to kill bunny rabbits." "Why not?" "That''s comically far beneath my talents." Henry''d hunted frostgiants in other dimensions of ice; he''d fished for leviathans swimming through planetary mantle. Getting worked up over bunnies would be absurd. "Big Bro, do you think I can get number one?" "Not a chance." ¡°Why not?¡± Henry pointed to the rabbits being slaughtered and gave a quick explanation. The grass here had long since been cleared and the easy-to-access rabbits of the first batch taken. The rabbits that were left were emerging from soil mounds popping up randomly around the zone, a couple every second. This rate might seem fast but there were more than a thousand players competing for them, the facilities over-crowded. To make matters worse, the prime spots closest to the Speedtrial station had been cordoned off by Village recruiter thugs for exclusive use by their speedrunners, who ran about in luxury stabbing one rabbit after another. There were about twenty such cordoned areas. In the limited remaining space, the unaffiliated players, or players from less significant Villages, were competing with each other like starved apocalypse survivors. They roamed about on high alert, weapons always at the ready, and any mound that popped up would be pelted in seconds with a rain of arrows, spears, and desperately-thrown axes. Thus, for your average slob, there was no chance unless they joined a Village. As for why the Villagers were allowed to hog the space, The Sanctuary actually belonged to The Slum Empire, who''d created it artificially with their Farmer, Arcaneworker, and the Landworker Civilian classes. In most zones, the noob tutorial Floppy-Eared Rabbits grounds was a relaxing area managed by neutral NPCs, but, since the gangs had killed all the first trainers, the equivalent had never developed here. "...And even if you and your meathead teammates could occupy the closest cordon, to match the very fastest times there, you''re going to require external boosts to your movement, like a drugged-up mount or a chain of Fighters using the ability. You, my handsome non-friend, don''t have those resources. Q.E.D., that''s a honeypot for the mentally deficient and enjoyers of pointless pain." Dan nodded, giving the illusion that he''d understood the lecture. "Sweet! I guess it''s going to be a challenge. I like a challenge!" Henry sighed. Some people could not be helped... The class arriving, the bald trainer leapt off the back of the wagon, where he''d been sorting herbs, and ordered the students to stop. ¡°The task is simple." He gestured towards the rabbits. "Each of you are to collect six of those floppy-eared critters. Solo, grouping, stealing, I won''t ask any questions however you choose to do it. Once everyone''s got theirs, we''ll meet up again and perform the ritual to unlock your Martial Bodies." Henry, along with the others, received a quest notification.
New quest available - Rabbit Collection.
Quest Title: Rabbit Collection. Description: For the first part of today''s lesson, Instructor Apari wants you to kill and gather 6 Floppy-Eared Rabbits. Rewards: Your Martial body will be unlocked and you will receive the 1 additional level in the basic Adventurer Class. The instructor will give you a method for absorbing EXP from monsters. Conditions: For a kill to count, you must be the first to deal the monster damage.
A trainee had noticed the hecticness of The Sanctuary. ¡°Excuse me, Instructor Apari, how are we going to¡ª" Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. ¡°This is the basic class," the trainer leapt back on the wagon. "No frills, no help. Go." At his order, his friend driving the wagon continued on, the vehicle rolling to park under the shade of a nearby tree. Trotting happily alongside the horse pulling the wagon was Henry''s shabby donkey, in bright spirits because it hadn''t figured out that it''d only been entrusted in the care of the bald trainer''s friend for the duration of the lesson. The trainees, abandoned, dispersed. Some went to the drunken Villagers to sign up for the competition. Others, like the question asker, seeing no way to compete alone in the crowded pens, approached the recruiters by their cordoned areas to inquire if they could join a Village this late - surprise, surprise, they could. Henry, refusing to fall for the trap, strolled into the unaffiliated area. It was congested with players running into each other and arguing over the scarce bunnies. Near the entranceway, several classes were cheering for a fifteen-man brawl between two groups whose arguments had escalated. Passing by the scene in search of a quieter spot, Henry checked a Bestiary entry about the Floppy-Eared Rabbits in his Mental Library. They were considered Semi-Monsters, with zero health points but a single low-damage ability, , which had a 10-second cooldown. Apparently, they burrowed into the earth when their habitat was cleared, and they only resurfaced when driven mad by hunger pains. He gave a second scan of the rabbits emerging around him from their burrows. On closer inspection, their forms were thin and emaciated beneath the fluffy coat, the creatures looking quite sickly. Well, it was hard to expect humane animal husbandry practises from a government run by gangsters. ¡°Wow," said Dan, strolling alongside Henry. "Seems like it¡¯s going to be mighty hard for us to win the top score!" Henry stopped, adopting the posture of a sage. ¡°Dan, my prot¨¦g¨¦, I¡¯ve taught you all I can. Now, we must separate.¡± He raised a hand gracefully to hush the meathead''s response. ¡°When too many of us chase the same goal, there is a risk of getting in each other''s way, and, in the end, we all lose. Go now, my child. Go your own way." Having imparted his student his last morsel of wisdom, Henry, as all teachers must eventually, sprinted away, climbing up a hill and vanishing beyond its crest. He''d thrown this platitude out simply to rid himself of this minor character. What he didn''t know, however, as he jogged away, was that the meathead would extract a very different meaning from it, one that would eventually bite Henry back in the bottom. Handsome Dan, ditched, alternated handsome glances between Big Bro''s sagely departing figure and his shirtless teammates mobbing Russian Sis, promising to get help her get her six rabbits. Something was being dredged up by Big Bro''s words. This was...this was like one of those critical rugby moments when he was running down the line, thinking he was facing an over-stocked supermarket shelf, only to notice at the last second a gap in the milk section that''d been there all along. Alas, whatever epiphany Handsome Dan was about to experience was stalled by a teammate slapping him on the back and interrupting his thoughts. ¡°Oi, Dan Bro, come join us!¡± Henry, bow in hand, stood atop an isolated mound, the bunny hills rolling in all directions around him like the choppy waves of a green sea. Silently, he analysed the emergence pattern of the Floppy-Eared Rabbits, using a song to estimate the timing. After a new mound became visible, a rabbits¡¯ head would break through the centre of the peak between 600 and 800 milliseconds later. 450 to 550 milliseconds after that, its full body would have wriggled free. For another 600 milliseconds, it would be static as it shook the dirt from its white coat. The timing window was very forgiving, as one would probably expect for the game''s easiest to kill monster. The real challenge came from the other players. But, as he analysed the situation, he realised this was not an issue for him. The projectiles they shot were only hitting about 1 in 8 rabbits, while the rest of the rabbits were being killed by melee players who arrived later. The latter, Henry could ignore. As long as his arrow was the first to damage a rabbit, the monster would be tagged as belonging to him for ten minutes. During that time, no one else could transfer the corpse to their Spatial Bracelet and, if they tried to run away with it, they would incur a Thief¡¯s Penalty. Notching an arrow and drawing the bow in preparation, Henry used the ability to draw a circular perimeter 27 metres from himself. Based on the flight speed of his arrow and his reaction time, any mound that sprouted beyond that line, he could shoot as soon as he noticed it; before that line, he would have to delay his shot to avoid hitting dirt. The rumblings of the first mound appeared at about 3 metres beyond the perimeter. He shot. As soon as the arrow was released, he had the gut feeling built up by many past arrows that its aim had been true, so he began unsummoning his bow and sprinting over. Half a second later, his arrow pierced the Floppy-Eared Rabbit¡¯s side, knocking it to the ground. Moments after that, several arrows landed around it, one puncturing the animal''s twitching leg. A player about to throw a spear skidded to a stop and swore. Another charging player, with a handaxe, complimented Henry sprinting over on the shot. ¡°Thanks." Henry, reaching the rabbit, scooped it up by its hind legs. The animal was attempting to twist around and bite him. Its eyes glowed crimson red, indicating a Bloodlust state, where monsters would discard their sense of self-preservation and attack in a mindless, semi-predictable pattern. Since Floppy-Eared Rabbits didn¡¯t have health points, neither of the arrow wounds had healed. Henry wrapped one hand around the rabbit''s head, his fingers under its chin, his thumb around the back of its skull. He angled the rabbit¡¯s head back towards its spine, while pushing one arm down and pulling with the other holding its legs. Cr-cr-crick. The rabbit went still, the tension of life expelled from its tiny form.
You have collected 1 of 6 Rabbits for Rabbit Collection.
Unlike with the driver he''d killed this morning, the body of the rabbit didn''t dissipate. Animal and monster corpses would remain so that one could butcher them for resources; left alone, they would decompose or be eaten by scavengers. Henry guessed that humanoids received special treatment in the game to make killing them feel less traumatising. "Strange," Henry remarked, studying the rabbit''s limp corpse dangling from his hands. Killing the thing, he was struck by a curious sense of deja vu. He''d done this tutorial five years earlier, in the previous game instalment. Logically, his sense of familiarity should have arisen from that. However, to him, with all that''d passed since, those five years were so distant now that they felt almost like they belonged to a similar but separate person, like an identical twin he''d separated from one day and never seen again, Henry voyaging across an ocean to another continent with no plans to ever return home. His deja vu seemed much fresher than that past life, to emerge from his more recent self. Searching inside himself, he couldn''t find the origin of the feeling, his interior too cluttered. "Do you hunt IRL?" asked the axe-wielder who''d complimented him earlier. Henry shook his head. "But I did work in a restaurant. Butchered a lot of animals." That wasn''t a lie. He had indeed done that once upon a time. "Wanna group?" Henry snapped out of it. "Nope." Storing the rabbit in his inventory, he resummoned his bow and scanned the field again. A breath later, his arrow was loosed. A couple dozen metres away, a blurry white shape loping through the moonlit hills with a band chasing after it squeaked and fell. Elsewhere. Two figures were standing around in a space beyond physical description, watching a bird''s eye view of a field of savages tearing apart white rabbits. "He''s remembering." "Is...is that going to be a problem?" "If anything, it''d make it easier." "Ooh! Let''s give another clue, then! What would be best, Impy? A drunken rabbit?" "Save the shenanigans. Easier doesn''t imply that it''s difficult right now. He''ll reach the end." "Are you sure? This buddy seems to be growing annoyed with the constant delays." "He''ll reach the end." Chapter 18 - Fallen Soldiers The Rabbit Sanctuary. Gathering the rest of the rabbits didn''t take Henry long. Since his fellow trainees would be hunting for another fifteen or twenty minutes, Henry searched for a secluded spot to check up on the progress of his helpers trying to solve the ongoing Earthfriend curse. In one part of The Sanctuary was a cluster of linden trees with dense foliage. Jogging to the base of them, he checked that no one was around. With the coast clear, he jumped to grab the lowest hanging branch and pulled himself up. A few more jumps later, he''d reached a branch that was invisible from the outside. With the dense leaf coverage dampening the battle-cries of the other trainees, the spot was peacefully quiet. One could hear the buzz of bees gathering nectar from a hive in the branches and birds chirruping love songs. Henry activated his ID-spoofing ring to switch to the fake NPC identity and changed outfits in case a player happened upon him later. He pulled out a thin, elliptical Communication Stone with which he''d been staying in contact with his minions. These items were used by NPCs to talk remotely with players. Players, amongst themselves, could communicate directly through a private messaging system; however, to prevent this cure being traced back to him, Henry was pretending not to be a player. Humming to warm-up his old man voice, he squeezed the stone firmly into the flesh of his palm, and it vibrated, ready to transmit his response. "Dhaka_Sniper_1351, are you there?" he asked. "Hello?¡± the stone replied, transmitting a noisy background of several other voices, tinkling glasses, and objects being ground in pestles. ¡°Hello, young one. It¡¯s me, Dr Iskander, I¡¯ve just woken up. How are the interviews going?¡± ¡°Hiya! Doc, they were going well until...¡± As Henry listened to the update, finding it all boring and irrelevant to his duelling tournament mission, he decided to practice his movement skills simultaneously. He threw on random spots around the tree and placed the Communication Stone in a pocket, the helper''s voice muffled but audible through the fabric. There was a branch on roughly the same level as his current one. He tried to reach it using just the power of his legs, but he underestimated the distance. Falling slightly short, he was forced to grab the branch at the last second, the sudden motion scraping his palms. Halfway through the pulling himself up, the branch digging into his stomach, he paused and reached into his pocket to give the Communication Stone a squeeze. "So you haven¡¯t found him? Hmm...that¡¯s indeed a shame. I suppose there''s nothing we can do but move on to the next person down the list...¡± A quarter-hour of branch-hopping and cure-making later, he poked his head out of the leaves to check on the other trainees'' progress. What he saw made him sigh internally. Another problem... Three trainees in his same group were squabbling with a group of six others wielding machetes. The machete-wielders had green bandanas tied around their lower faces and button-up shirts that were only fixed at the top button. Above their heads, their usernames were flashing salmon red, the paleness of the red indicating that the crime they''d committed had been a minor one. A small crowd had gathered, hoping the argument would escalate into a fight. One of Henry''s fellow trainees seemed bent on that happening, stepping forward and raising his overly-handsome fist. ¡°Bro, you better give his rabbit back!" A machete-wielding trainee holding a dead rabbit responded in mock confusion. ¡°Eh, this lil fluffy? Ese, donchu know? The second it stepped past that line there, it became property of The Village of Sure?os.¡± If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. "Bro, I don''t see your name..." Listening to the dispute, Henry gathered that a fellow trainee had tagged a rabbit that the other guy was going for. Annoyed, the machete-wielder had taken the rabbit and refused to hand it over. Technically, this was illegal in the game rules. Practically, Villagers would ignore criminal penalties, since whatever law enforcement there was in the Slums was sparse and easy to bribe. Also, though Henry was unsure about this, he was guessing the machete-wielders had a weird, secondary motive for stealing the rabbit. He sighed disdainfully. "Roleplayer scum..." But he didn''t care about any of that. His concern was that his fellow trainees dying and prolonging this tutorial further. Recalling the overly-handsome meathead¡¯s username, he sent an anonymous message. -Anonymous: Dan, back down. I can lure another rabbit in about fifteen seconds. Down in the fields, Handsome Dan span around in confusion. ¡°Big Bro, are you invisible?¡± -Anonymous: Stop spinning. No, I¡¯m sending you a message mentally. All players can do this with each other. Pretend you¡¯re responding to me with your thoughts. -Danontherightwing: Like this? Testing, 1, 2, 3. -Anonymous: That''s it. -Danontherightwing: Sick. -Anonymous: Anyway, give up already. If you''re desperate for that particular rabbit, try offering them a small bribe and they might hand it over. I think those dudes are gangster roleplayers, so they''re obliged by their dumb, caricatured understanding of real gang members to start petty conflicts. Despite being dressed up and trying to speak like Latino gangsters from the ancient 2010s, the group had thick Swedish accents. Saana''s player-base was wide and, as Suchi attested, not everyone chose to play it in the conventional or correct way. Many people here were morons - in fact, the majority. -Danontherightwing: I can¡¯t do that, Big Bro. -Anonymous: Don''t worry about the price. As long as they agree, I''ll come out and pay. I''m filthy rich. -Danontherightwing: That won''t do! -Anonymous: Why not? We''re spreading the wealth, helping the economy. -Danontherightwing: Big Bro, what about the principle?! You can''t let people get away with stealing! That''s illegal! Henry, perched in his branch, grimaced in repugnance. Principles...what about the principle of not wasting his time or energy? -Anonymous: Dan, you seem to have gotten the wrong impression of me. I''m not a principled person. Most people would sort me into the villain category. Like, before, when I beat the crap out of you, that was for fun. Only dimwit LARPers and abused people unable to exorcise the demons of their past think gratuitous violence has a role in an effective teaching curriculum. Go on. Ask their price. -Danontherightwing: Big Bro! Henry, giving up on that, tried persuading the overly-handsome meathead to at least call up his meathead friends, but the turbonoob didn''t even have their usernames, making mental communication with them impossible. Nevertheless, the kid insisted on fighting three to six. That would definitely get him killed. And that would definitely extend the length of this dragging tutorial. -Anonymous: Sigh. Fine, I¡¯ll fix the problem. All you need to do is pick up the rabbit when that guy drops it. Also, if you tell anyone it¡¯s me... Henry tried to think from the perspective of an idiot, to envision their demented priorities, warped values, and irrational fears. -Anonymous: ...I won''t be your pal anymore. Down on the field, Dan became confused and a bit alarmed. The Village thugs confronting him were also confused, wondering why the handsome lunk was staring into space - maybe his internet had disconnected. One of the gangster roleplayers stepped back and crossed his arms like he was posing for an old school hip-hop album cover. "Yo, homes, is this puta loco?" One gangster roleplayer, not knowing either, scratching his hair, kept helmetless to show his slick cholo cut, released a sudden scream as a sharp force hit the back of his skull. Another, turning at his friend''s cry, keeled over as an arrow punched into his stomach. "Yo, it''s a driveby!" Another gangster leapt behind a rabbit mound. "Find cover, homies! Find cover!" Unlike his fellow roleplayers, the gang leader maintained his composure, sidestepping an arrow and discarding the rabbit in his hand, which Dan then promptly retrieved as instructed. ¡°Homies," the gang leader yelled, "track back the direction of the fool who thinks he can fuck with the Village of Sure?os!¡± In the moonlight, it was hard to find their assailant, but, eventually, they spotted him, an archer peeking out of a tree in a kabuki mask and yukata. The leader raised his machete. ¡°Yo, get that ninja fool!¡± The gangster-roleplayers charged, dodging a hail of arrows, pretending they were bullets. So distracted were the frontrunners that they didn''t notice a homie in the back falling to the ground, never to get up again. "I''m shot, homies," the wounded homie cried from the ground, lighting up a cigarette with a match, "get that fool for me!" Taking a final puff, he roleplayed a death grunt. RIP to OG Big Smoke The Toke-a-Loc. As the others reached the base of the linden tree, they saw the kabuki-masked figure standing on a branch about 15 metres up. ¡°Truce?" The masked figure asked, his voice rising at the end nervously. Seeing his fear, the gangster-roleplayers grinned at each other, right in time for an arrow to puncture the top of one of their heads, the point gouging into the meat of their motor cortex. As the struck gangster fell, their limbs spasming out of control, another arrow penetrated their heart, putting their character out of commission. RIP to Lil Bouncy Mac. ¡°Oskar, Magnus, we must run!¡± yelled one of the gangster-roleplayers, breaking character. The leader, grabbing the fleeing homie by the collar, pulled him back. Maintaining his cool, he could see the kabuki guy struggling to lift himself up onto a higher branch. Their prey was cornered. "Only time Sure?os back up is in a hearse, ese." The leader sneered. ¡°Hjalmar¡ªI mean, homes, take a chill pill and get climbing. We need to bag this ninja racoon fool!¡± Chapter 19 - Dead Gods A rustling linden tree, a cloud of sparkling lights emerging from the leaves to float off in the direction of the nearest reincarnation spot. An excited crowd were rushing over, drawn by the grunts and screams of an intense battle. Before they could close the distance, though, the commotion seemed to end. A series of metallic clashes marked the gradual falling of a machete bouncing off branches, followed by silence. ¡°What?" one of them cried. "It¡¯s over already?¡± ¡°Look!¡± There was a heavy thump, a figure landing at the tree''s base. It was the leader of the gang. Ignoring a broken ankle, which repaired on its own, the leader walked away from the fight in humiliation. As he passed through the crowd, someone grabbed his sleeve. ¡°Friend, what happened?¡± The leader knocked away their arm and continued on. He didn¡¯t want to talk about it. When he¡¯d thrown away his weapon and begged for mercy, the ninja guy had stopped and said, ¡°sure,¡± as casually as if he were being offered a free mint. To be so relaxed after doing that to his friends, it sent shivers down the spine. What a monster. He went over to the first homie to be knocked down, lying forgotten in the grass, and helped him to his feet. "Get up Big Smoke." ¡°We get that fool? Where are the others?¡± The leader shook his head. "Didn¡¯t stand a chance, homes. We''ll have to wait to meet them on the flipside.¡± "RIP." "RIP." With slumped shoulders, the two headed straight for the nearest bridge exiting The Sanctuary in the direction of the respawn location. The crowd, not willing to let it end there, ran over to the linden tree to search for the masked figure. All they found, however, was a random noob staring up in awe and the items dropped by the fallen homies dangling from branches like Christmas ornaments. Minutes later. Near a bubbling cauldron smelling of grass, butter, and used gym socks, the trainees of Henry''s tutorial group were gathering, each lugging their half a dozen rabbits. ¡°What time did you get, bro?¡± asked one meathead. ¡°Bro, who cares about that. Did you see the fight? Some expert 1v6¡¯d a bunch of gangsters.¡± "A clip¡¯s been uploaded to the forum," said another trainee. Saana''s official forum was accessible in-game. Many players hung out there while travelling or waiting for their companions to log on. The trainee raised their hand and projected a video onto the ground, the clip visible to the other players but not their NPC trainer or his friend. The footage had been captured by a bold player trailing behind the machete-wielding gangster roleplayers. It showed the group''s arrow-filled approach, the one gangster being killed while distracted, and the others climbing to avenge him. As the surviving gangsters closed in on their prey, the guy in the kabuki outfit began to struggle and nervously fumble. Up close, there wasn''t much an outnumbered archer could do. It seemed he was going to get caught and killed, but, then, suddenly, the scaredy-cat act used to lure the thugs in was dropped. ''El Diablo!'' A gangster about to grab the kabuki guy fell, his descent coming to a jerky stop as a noose tied around his neck broke it. Meanwhile, on the other end of that rope, the kabuki guy came swinging down and kicked the second closest gangster off his branch, before filling him mid-fall with arrows. By the time the second gangster roleplayer hit the ground and his body shattered into lights, the kabuki guy was already holding a third gangster from behind along with a stolen machete. As this captured sap got his neck sawed through like a victim in a cartel beheading video, the kabuki guy stared impassively down at the leader of the group, who, blanching at the graphic execution of his homie, conceded. Beside the projection scrolled a wall of user comments. -Shinigami! -ZZZZZ. Delete this fake garbage. -Why''s it fake? -Ask yourself, would a pro really be hanging out in the level 1 monster zone? Absurd! -Serves these thugs right. I¡¯m sick of them ruining my immersion. -The Burnt Toast Village extends its hand to this hidden expert! -Shinigami-sensei, please accept this noob as your underling. Amongst the trainees watching the clip, Handsome Dan was trembling with excitement. He couldn''t believe Big Bro was becoming famous! Noticing a monkey-head popping up from behind a teammate''s shoulder, Dan almost shouted out, ''there, the expert bro in the clip is standing behind you!'', but he held himself back when Big Bro gestured for him to remain quiet and reminded him of the previous threat. As for Henry, his face behind his mask was scrunched and pinched like he''d taken two sips of expired milk. The first sour sip was from the random noob filming him and turning this trivial Starting Zone skirmish into a much bigger deal than it should have been. At this rate, Henry might not even be able to finish the tutorial without blowing his cover. How irritating. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. This was his punishment for betraying his convictions and trying to help, for breaking Wu-Wei''s sacred tenet of Non-Doing. Like an ancient Chinese emperor, his well-meaning efforts had backfired due to the chain of unintended consequences in a system too complex for any individual to fully grasp. Henry should have learned from history. The best way to relieve your fellow man of suffering is to totally ignore him; even if that doesn''t cure the problem for him, it will cure it for you. The second sour sip molesting Henry''s tongue was because, back in the day, when he''d fought infinitely more impressive duels, he''d never once received such a positive reception. Everyone then had dismissed him as a no-good cheater, as a hacker, as a talentless hack reliant on his Legendary items for a crutch. Therein lay the tragedy of greatness. When you climb too high, the plebs below can no longer make out the trail by which you reached the summit and they assume you just got dropped off by a helicopter. They can''t even fathom that owning a helicopter is, also, a talent. Making a note to destroy the Japanese outfit, Henry logged onto the forums to upvote the comments calling the clip fake and downvote the rest. Well, better they think he was a cheating hack for a while longer... Following that, he went to the bald trainer stirring the cauldron to purchase a sword in case someone noticed him reusing the bow. Not long afterwards, the tutorial progressing, Instructor Apari blew his horn to draw the students'' attention. ¡°For your first prize, I¡¯m going to unlock your Martial bodies.¡± At the trainer¡¯s direction, everyone gathered kneeled in the grass as though they were about to be knighted. ¡°Close your eyes," he continued. "My friend will be coming around to anoint each of you. Tolerate the pain.¡± The trainer''s friend, lugging around a cauldron, went from trainee to trainee, dabbing a viscous, tar-like liquid onto their foreheads. The concoction was so hot that, upon making contact with their skin, it seared through the layers of flesh and fat to expose the bone of the skull beneath. Those who hadn''t lowered their pain settings far enough screamed. One sneaky trainee snuck a peek at the instructor, who, after stripping naked, had doused himself in the same liquid, and who was now performing a dance that summoned a mass of glowing balls. ¡°It won¡¯t work if they¡¯re open,¡± warned Instructor Apari, not showing a sign of pause. ¡°Miss this and you¡¯ll have to find another class.¡± ¡°Sorry.¡± When all the trainees had been anointed, a sharp, percussive clap was heard. Clap. And the air hummed with a low-pitched drone. ¡°Now," intoned the instructor, "repeat after me: Amagwu ukwku, ngozi ya inye im.¡± ¡°Amagwu ukwku, ngozi ya inye im," the trainees mumbled in an out-of-sync fashion, most missing the phrase¡¯s tonal pattern. To Henry, an automated subtitle appeared, reading ¡®Great Amagwu, gift unto me your blessing.¡¯ This ritual was performed in an extinct language spoken in the Aion Laisije region about eight thousand years ago. Henry¡¯d learned it doing another quest. As he repeated the phrase himself, he felt the heat of the ointment on his forehead transferring to his brain, and his senses grew dull as if he were entering a drunken haze. The view of the veins on his eyelids blurred. A thick window was drawn between him and the screams of the players still running about the field. Simultaneously, the drone loudened, intensified. Instructor Apari had gathered enough energy to make himself as painfully bright as the sun. Meanwhile, his friend, positioned between the bald trainer and the class, was acting as a conduit; he held one arm towards the former, the other towards the latter, and he shook violently as ropes of blinding light passed through him and entered the trainees'' foreheads. The instructor bellowed a full-lunged scream of war. ¡°Ma ya ebeahu ndu!¡± (¡®You are there!¡¯) Henry, along with the rest of the class, found himself to transported to a distant scene. His body was bound to a pillar ontop of a stone pyramid, a landscape of untamed jungle stretching around him towards a sky that, unlike Suchi''s was dappled with sailing white boats of cloud. These sights, the humid, fecund scents of the tropical jungle air, the warmth of the sun, the coarse texture of the rope binding him - all these senses felt as real as if he''d been standing here in person. At the pyramid''s base, in a freshly-cut clearing chopped down for the structure, thousands of armoured figures were standing with their arms linked in a chain. Each person seemed wildly different in appearance, in weaponry, in race, except they were united by one common thread: an aura they exuded, one of unimaginable power. A similar scene appeared before all players who underwent the ritual to unlock their Martial bodies. For most, it was a mystery, but Henry knew the history. 7600 years ago, The Epoch of Heroes, when every minor province would produce a few Gods, came to an abrupt end. A sentient monster, known as The Redeemer, orchestrated the assassination of most of the human Gods in a single day, along with the destruction of the secret technique they had been using to transmit their powers to their acolytes. After such a loss, monsters swallowed the world and humanity were driven to hide in the planet''s remote corners. Thus, began The Age of Beasts. During this period, the Gods who''d managed to survive the assassination sought to strengthen and rebuild humanity by formulating a new method of power transmission. In the end, they would succeed and, with their new army, they eventually reconquered the world - but not before suffering huge numbers of casualties. After a millennium of global warfare, The Redeemer, cornered, his commanders beaten, his territories lost, committed suicide. Thus, began the present age, The Epoch of Civilisation. What Henry was experiencing now was the method those Gods had developed. Each figure standing around the base of the pyramid was a deity taking their turn to impart their energy into a dummy that would transmit their powers across the ages. Most of them had long since either died or ascended to become Cosmic beings. ¡°Amagwu-no,¡± said a figure at the pyramid''s base standing on a podium, calling up the next God to take their turn. A flash of sparks blasted the stone in front of Henry. From out the small explosion emerged a beautiful woman in her 40s with seductive grey eyes. Where her hair and eyebrows should have been were strands of crackling lightning. The exact God that would come forward for each initiate undergoing the ritual would differ depending on the trainer, this lady, Amagwu of The Lightning Sword, being the bald trainer''s matriarchal ancestress. From Henry¡¯s recollection, she''d been a Tier-11 Aionian Lowgod who fell at the naval Battle of Himatsu, 7244 years before the game''s present calendar date. The dead lightning Goddess extended her hands to his face and cupped his cheeks like a mother sending her son off to war, her palms rough but warm. "He won''t be easy." She said, smiling the complicated smile of one who''s lost all hope but chooses to fight anyway. "Good luck, kid!" Suddenly, a painful jolt ran through every fibre of Henry''s body, his teeth clamping, his muscles seizing. ¡°Return and open your eyes,¡± Instructor Apari''s voice boomed, summoning him back to the present. Henry, along with the other trainees, remained frozen for a second as sparks of lightning travelled out of them and into the ground. The bald trainer, the energy surrounding him having disappeared, looked like he''d fallen into a mud pit. His friend was panting and sweating.
Congratulations! You have unlocked your Martial Body, allowing you to learn combat-related abilities and gain levels by killing monsters. Presently, you are a Level 1 Adventurer. Further Classes will become available as you progress in your journey. Note: Due to you having a Civilian Primary class, Scholar (Tier 5-2), the maximum level of any Martial class you choose is restricted to one full-tier below, 4-2.
Having picked a Scholar first, Henry''s direct combat capabilities would always be limited. But what did that matter? He''d only come to Suchi to win an amateur recruitment tournament, not fight Gods or anything this time around. Instructor Apari whipped out a sword and saluted the sky, screaming in the tongue of his dead ancestress. ¡°Henceforth, you are children of the storm! Your home will be the battlefield! Your food the souls of your enemies! Grow fat and die with honour!¡± The bald man then sheathed his sword, returning to his former placid composure. To Henry, from the abrupt shift in manner, it was evident that the Goddess''s descendant had not understood the ancient words himself, having only memorised for the ritual their sounds cleansed of meaning by the passage of time. ¡°Alright," Instructor Apari continued, "next you''re going to learn how to absorb souls and reinforce your Martial bodies.¡± Chapter 20 - Accidentally Uncovering A Plot to Destroy The World Before Reaching Level 2 A field, the trainees kneeling in the grass, each hugging their weapons while surrounded by a hexagon with a dead rabbit at each point. ¡°Close your eyes again," continued Instructor Apari. "Place one hand on the beast before you.¡± Henry, his bow tucked hidden under his shirt, lay his palm on a rabbit with a hole in its abdomen, the fur sticky and red. Instructor Apari clapped two blocks of wood, restarting the droning in the student''s ears. "Repeat: Incheta im inye im.¡± ¡°Incheta im inye im," the class repeated in a chorus. (Gift unto me my memories.) Henry felt his senses dull once more, the voice of the trainer heard through the murky veil telling him to recall the creature''s demise, before a numbing tingle crawled up the nerves of his arm from the rabbit to his head. Clap. He was returned to the moment he''d snapped this rabbit¡¯s spine, the creature wriggling in his hands, the trainees running around him. With the assistance of the game system, the memory possessed no less clarity than the real experience. The voice of the trainer erupted in the sky like distant thunder. ¡°We will repeat this memory four times. Each repetition, you will focus on a different sense. First, vision.¡± Henry, concentrating, studied the rabbit''s head wriggling to free itself from his grasp, and its hind legs kicking, and the shaft of the arrow swinging from its stomach, and the red eyes, and the fur marred with the dirt it hadn¡¯t had the time to shake off, and the muscles flexing taught as he bent the creature beyond its natural range of motion, killing it. ¡°Second, sound.¡± Clap. In an instant, the scene skipped back a few seconds earlier, the rabbit wriggling again in Henry''s hands. Listening, he heard the rabbit making no squeaks of distress under its Bloodlust state, and the players'' stampeding feet in the backdrop, and the twang of bows and clatter of missed spears, and his own breath steady, and the crick of the vertebrae. ¡°Third, smell.¡± Clap. He smelt the musty fur, and the sweat of other players, and the unearthed soil of the mound and the roots of churned-up grass, and the iron of blood mixing with the distinctive sweet lightness of lagomorph viscera, and his own human stench alike yet foreign to the bending creature. ¡°Fourth, touch.¡± Clap. He felt the sweat- and dirt-smeared fur wriggling under his bare palms, and the tension of its emaciated muscles with the bone palpable beneath, and the weight of its hanging body, and the breeze causing his shirt to beat against his chest, and the speeding pulse of its chin under his thumb, and the futile resistance of its bending fibres. "Repeat after me: Incheta gya inye im.¡± ''Gift unto me your memories,'' Henry thought in reply. Clap. His perspective shifted once more. His surroundings were black, a wall of earth enclosing his wriggling body on all sides. His hands - no, his feet, were scraping at dirt, desperate to escape this burrow and find a meal to alleviate the gnawing pain in his stomach. He''d become the rabbit. His foot broke through the top of the soil, covering him in a wave of grass-sweet air that pushed him onwards. Emerging, he was about to, instinctually, shake the dirt from his coat, when his stomach was filled with a different kind of pain. He fell, the force of the arrow knocking him off his feet. As he lay on the ground, the pain radiating out through his body like urine soaking pants, his vision, as though someone had slipped glasses onto his eyes, turned red. Boom! A thump echoed in his skull, like the footstep of a sea giant lumbering along a continental shelf, Henry''s ear pressed to the soil and feeling its titanic reverberations. This noise, while reaching him from a distance, was not being sounded by the trainer guiding the vision. Several more thumps followed. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! The thumps seemed to stir from his heart an ugly feeling, an intense, murderous hatred far beyond anything he''d experienced before. Throughout this''s rabbit memory, Henry retained his consciousness, paired with the creatures but detached. Something in these booms inducing the rabbit into a Bloodlust state reminded him of a mysterious in-game language he¡¯d learned in an earlier quest that could condense and communicate a chapter worth of information within what sounded like a simple click. Out of curiosity, he activated his ability he''d unlocked for learning so many languages and tried to ''translate'' the noise. Boom! (¡®FOR THE VILIFIED ONE, SACRIFICE THE TWO-LEGGED SCUM! MOISTEN THE EARTH WITH THEIR BLOOD! MAIM! MURDER! FEED HIM THEIR CHILDREN''S CORPSES! BREED IN THEIR OPEN TORSOS! BLEED THEIR...¡¯) At once, Henry''s screen flooded with an enormous wall of subtitle text, along with several notifications.
Congratulations! New Language Book created. The Tongue of The Simchowdrati (0.018% complete).
used. 72,555 Universal Productivity consumed. 0 Remaining.
You have run out of Universal Productivity. cancelled.
New quest available -The Mystery of The Vilified One (Legendary)
Quest Title: The Mystery of The Vilified One (Legendary). If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Description: Investigating the Bloodlust state, you have discovered an ominous power controlling the monsters of Saana that seems to relate to an entity called ''The Vilified One''. Out of concern for the well-being of humankind, you feel compelled to dig deeper into the origins of these disturbing messages. Rewards: Unknown. Conditions: Unknown. Note: As a Legendary quest, this quest will test you to your utmost limits. Whatever the outcome, the world of Saana will never be the same.
Sigh, Henry thought. Sigh... How silly of him, falling for curiosity, the number one killer of cats and retirees. If he had a human body right now, his face would have looked like he''d just voluntarily taken a third sip of expired milk. This had to be a personal record for him. He had only been here for two real-life hours and already he''d accidentally triggered another Legendary quest. Legendary quests...those global-scale, multi-month-long annoyances...receiving too many of them was an occupational hazard of being the most powerful player in the game and owning far too many cheats. As for this specific Legendary quest, based on the preposterously high cost of translating the message and Henry''s historical knowledge, he estimated it to be a Tier-12 or Tier-13 quest. In other words, it wasn''t intended to be completed until several years from now, when the players were all Gods flying around shooting lasers from their eyes and using dragon thigh-bones as clubs. A Legendary quest - would this be what Henry needed to defeat to finish this basic noob tutorial? Would he have to first contend with a herculean struggle of mind and body, battling with the most mysterious, most dangerous entities Saana had to offer? Not at all. Legendary quests were never mandatory, and Henry ignored them constantly. With one thought, the notification vanished, banished to gather mould alongside the others never-attempted in his quest logs. Sitting below that notification was another notification for a different Legendary quest pertaining to the new language. With genius, finesse, and bravery, Henry dismissed that one as well. What was it about him quitting Saana that this stupid game system didn''t seem to understand? These were no longer causes of concern for him, Henry The Doer of Naught. The only trouble this minor mishap would give him was the translation cost, the total exhaustion of today''s Universal Productivity pool, preventing him using anymore Civilian abilities until tomorrow, forcing him to go into any further challenges informationally-blind and thwarting his attempts to cure the pesky Earthfriend curse stopping him from levelling his chosen Class. Except that wouldn''t be a trouble at all, because he happened to be carrying a random Legendary that gave him extra Universal Productivity. lol - (laughing out loud). Henry¡ªfree of any interest in that stupid quest, responsibility, care, or consequence¡ªreturned happily to the memory of the level 1 Floppy-Eared Rabbit. He felt himself flying backwards into the sky. With his widened rabbit field-of-vision, despite being upended, he could see his human self lifting his rabbit self up. Moved by the hatred of the booming message, he tried to wriggle and bite his own fingers, but it was no use, for the grip was too firm. His throat stretched, his head bent back, and, then, there was absolutely nothing. ¡°Return!" Clap. Around Henry, the other trainees, having not killed their rabbits as humanely, were in a much worse state than himself, who''d already gotten over the whole irrelevant Legendary quest distraction. One of the wretched shirtless meatheads was as pale as a ghost, the poor brute kneeling before a mace and a mushy meat-fur paste. Henry looked down at his own dead rabbit to see a trail of lights marching out of its forehead and up his arm clutching it. As these were being transferred to him, they joined each other in swimming in an invisible layer around his skin. Comparing the lights, one could see that some had the sprightliness of a rabbit loping through the fields, while others moved with the sluggishness that sets in after a gluttonous dinner, each storing a different memory of the creature before its expiration.
You have absorbed the lifeforce of a Floppy-Eared Rabbit (1). 50 XP gained. 243 XP remaining until level up.
¡°Now," continued the trainer, "turn one point clockwise to the next beast.¡± Several trainees groaned. Henry, swivelling, faced a rabbit that had been cleaved in half by another player''s sword shortly after he''d tagged it. ¡°Eyes closed.¡± Clap. ¡°Incheta im inye im.¡± After absorbing the sixth and final rabbit, Henry and others were covered in a dazzling play of lights exhibiting the myriad moods of the furballs'' brief lives.
You have absorbed the lifeforce of a Floppy-Eared Rabbit (1). 50 XP gained. You are now levelling up!
To mark the level up process, the lights began to fuse together to create larger lights, which in turn fused again to create even larger ones. Eventually, all of their mass had accumulated into five marble-sized balls, one floating on the tip of each finger of his left hand.
Congratulations! You are now a Level 2 Adventurer!
Hooray! Henry, Level 0 only minutes earlier, had already ascended to the towering peak of Level 2. With this slow-to-start tutorial finally up and going, the rest should fly by in a breeze. Along with the above message, a stat screen had appeared for him.
The State of Your Martial Body: Strength 10 Vitality 10 Technique 10 Magic Command 10 Magic Affinity 10 You have 5 Stat points available for distribution.
The bald trainer answered the confusion on many of the trainees'' pale faces. ¡°Your hallowed Martial Body is composed of five sacred Aspects¡ª¡± A meathead raised a hand. ¡°Bald Bro, what''s an Aspect?¡± ¡°...I¡¯m explaining that right now. The Aspect of Strength makes any physical abilities do more damage and allows you to wear more armour. Vitality¡ª" "Bald Bro, what''s a ''physical ability''?" "...You''re going to learn one after the next part of the lesson, just wait and you''ll see. As I was saying, Vitality makes your body tougher and increases your Stamina, which is expended when using physical abilities or performing manoeuvres. The Aspect of Technique, later, when I teach you the ability¡ªI will tell you what that means later¡ªwill allow you to manoeuvre faster and enhance your perception; it¡¯ll also reduce the amount of Stamina your physical abilities consume. As for Magic Command and Magic Affinity Aspects, these are only relevant if you become a Spellcaster. The former lets your spells hit or heal harder, while the latter lets you cast more of them.¡± The trainer oversimplified Saana''s stat-system, but it was probably better than making the amateur pacing mistake of overwhelming and confusing the noobs with too many random details that they couldn''t yet attach to anything solid. ¡°Moving on," he continued, "the method for reinforcing each Aspect is straightforward. For Strength, make one of your fingertips touch a bicep." He stopped, frowning as the meatheads immediately slapped their arms five times, going all-in on Strength. "For Vitality, your chest; Technique, the palm of your other hand; Magic Command, your mouth; and Magic Affinity, your ears.¡± ¡°What stats should we distribute them to?¡± asked a non-meathead trainee. ¡°That will depend on your Class and your fighting style. My recommendation for now is to put two points in Strength, two in Vitality, and one in Tech. Those will help you immediately, and, for any future Spellcasters, you¡¯re still going to reinforce those Aspects to some degree.¡± ¡°What happens if we do distribute them incorrectly?¡± ¡°Visit an Oracle and pay a fee to have them redone.¡± Henry, while the bald trainer fielded a few more noob questions, distributed his stats equally across all five, the default for Earthfriends. His choice at this point was mostly irrelevant. In the coming days, he would be paying to redistribute his stats over and over again. For research purposes, he planned on learning a number of combat styles used by different high-placing Earthfriends in his guild¡¯s past tournaments, and part of that would require imitating their stat builds. Following that, after he''d merged their techniques into his own new style, The Strategy of Informed Swiss-Army Knife, he would experiment further to produce the optimal stat distribution for himself. ¡°If that''s all,¡± continued Instructor Apari, ¡°before we move onto the next Killing Grounds, I¡¯ll need to teach you how to transfer items to your Spatial Bracelets. The next beasts will be too large to carry. So then, grab a single blade of grass, and...¡± Since Henry''d already unlocked item-to-inventory manipulation when becoming a Scholar, he stood up and walked away from the group. Finding an empty spot, he summoned the buckler and the sword he¡¯d purchased from the trainer, Villager recruiters still buzzing around the area in search of a bow-shooting ninja. Refamiliarising himself with the new weapon, a Roman-style gladius, he began sprinting and rolling about, swinging and stabbing at the silent shapes of shadows. As when he''d practised before with the bow, with each shove, each stroke, his muscles sweated out a different set of memories from that time when he''d made this simpler activity has calling. Chapter 21 - The Boiled Spud The Killing Grounds. The Horny Boar Field, where a horde of players were fighting horse-sized boars with unicorn horns protruding from their foreheads. A group were arriving with a bald trainer giving them advice about how to kill their next prey. Passing them by was a convoy of boar-laden wagons that stretched all the way back to The Slums. Amongst the trainees, Henry was studying the atrociously-titled boars being slain, his head bobbing in sync with music. These ''Horny Boars'' had three abilities: a basic charge, a vertical leap that stunned anyone near the crash point, and a desperation attack where they shot their horn like a bullet. Simple stuff. Yet again, most of the complication stemmed from The Slum Empire''s recruiter thugs. Here, too, the prime hunting location had been cordoned off, an area the size of twenty football fields dense with trees. The recruiters in these spots babysat queues of waiting noobs that''d agreed to sign with their Villages and guided them through a failproof strategy for taking down the massive boars. Positioning themselves in front of the trees, the trainees would entice the boars into charging, dodge at the last second so the monsters would stun themselves on the trees to their rear, and then stab away with spears. The rest of the Horny Boar Fields, spanning about four square-kilometres in total, was, technically, available for any unaffiliated newbies. In practice, however, the boars in this free area were impossible to kill for a solo player. The beasts protected themselves by staying in herds and strategically knocking over any trees that grew too large. An average noob, the previous bunny-slaying exercising not having prepared them in the slightest, would be forced to concede if they''d been holding out and sign with a Village. As with The Rabbit Sanctuary, this area punishing the unaffiliated was by a conscious design. The Slum Empire''s leadership had become quite aggressive with their recruitment tactics. They wanted to snipe new players before they could qualify to leave The Slums and enter Central City and join the richer organisations inside. But Henry, not a noob, would have no difficulties either way. So...whatever. ¡°Big Bro, do you think I can beat the high score?¡± Dan, still around, pointed handsomely to another Speedtrial station. ¡°Nope.¡± ¡°Why not?¡± Tired of explaining, Henry replied with another vague platitude. ¡°Before asking outwards, ask inwards. In life, often the greatest lessons are those we teach ourselves." "Whoa..."Handsome Dan fell silent, as he wrestled with the gravity of this wisdom. The bald trainer stopped the class and assigned them a quest to retrieve 12 boars. After completion, he would use the carcasses to unlock , Saana''s first and most basic physical attack ability. For many of the participants in The Company''s duelling tournament, would be their main physical attack, as some of the Spellcasting Classes didn''t get another. One meathead noticed a pack of Grey Wolves from the next tutorial section lurking at the perimeter of the Board Fields, eyeing the fat creatures hungrily but not attacking. ¡°Bald Bro, what''s stopping the wolves?" Instructor Apari responded with a clueless shrug ¡°I''ve travelled the world over and seen the same unusual sight in all countries. Whenever enough of these weaker monsters gather, a safety zone forms around them. Higher beasts attempting to intrude vanish, taken who knows where.¡± ¡°Why¡¯s that?¡± ¡°Not sure, honestly. There are many rumours to explain the phenomenon: invisible predators, all-powerful beast kings, Planar anomalies. The world has many mysteries.¡± In the back of the group, Henry sneered. Wasn¡¯t the answer obvious? The lazy developers didn¡¯t want noobs getting torn apart by monsters beyond their level, so they ham-fistedly installed a segregation mechanic in low-level zones. The collection quest received, Henry decided to leave while everyone was asking the trainer for tips. He grabbed the donkey from the trainer''s friend, the shabby mount trying to bite off his fingers in annoyance. Riding it, he sped off into the open fields roamed by the boar herds. Making use of the territory covering such a large area, he would search for a secluded spot. Figuring he would finish ten-times quicker than the rest of the Class, he''d come up with an idea to transform this boring, joke-of-a task into a useful practice opportunity. After the time it takes for a fifteen-minute power nap. In the open fields, a boar was charging a handsome figure also doing the tutorial. Even though he was dressed in the same shabby noob gear as the players around him, he stood out like a Hollywood actor with bleached, filed teeth on a British period drama. The attacking Horny Boar lowered its head. Handsome Dan, using the action as a signal, pounced to his left and thrust out his sword to his right. His arm shook, as the blade penetrated the meat behind the passing boar¡¯s ribs and opened up a wide gash in its side. During previous attacks, Dan had watched his gashes almost instantly heal. This time, however, as the boar backed up and prepared for another charge, the wound sealed only halfway, a slice of pink left on its side like a friendly smile affirming his success. This marked the conclusion of ¡®the chipping phase¡¯, as the Bald Bro had called it. Now came the killing blow. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The Bald Bro recommended they finish the monsters off slowly, taking out their legs first and carefully avoiding the horn shot. However, earlier, when Dan¡¯d seen Big Bro riding off, Big Bro had slain a boar that got in his way with a single masterful stab to the heart, quick as a boxer''s jab, precise as an embroidery needle. Dan, unafraid of the challenge, would do the same. The boar facing him down grunted. Beads of glowing energy were sucked from its surroundings into its legs, and, with heightened speed, its massive bulk flew towards him, bearing down upon Dan like a Whale Forward flat-decking a Scrum Quartet. Dan, standing dwarfed before the charging wall, held his position, his sword clasped tightly between his fingers. It was crunch time on the game-field! The goose was about to swallow the buzzer, and he was halfway to the goal zone with a boiled spud still in its jacket, one peeler between him and the line! "Now!" he shouted. At the last moment, mirroring Big Bro''s strike, Dan stepped to the side, ducked down, and shoved the blade forward at a spot above the boar¡¯s right leg. Unfortunately, Handsome Dan had neglected to note that Henry had been holding his sword in a single hand and had released it immediately afterwards. Missing this crucial step, the handsome brute was bulldozed over and swallowed under the boar''s legs, his arm being dislodged from its socket and his cranium receiving a hoof-shaped dent. Nevertheless, Handsome Dan, due to his unique psychological constitution, wasn''t concerned with this pummelling. In fact, he enjoyed it. In a pile of his own broken limbs, he watched through blurred vision as the boar, carrying on, lost its balance and crashed into the ground, its momentum making it slide a bit further in the dirt. Grinning, he raised a thumb to no one in particular. Victory! Picking himself up, he went over to the fallen boar and absorbed his experience from it, an action he could do alone now after having undergone Bald Bro''s ritual. After transferring the corpse into his inventory, he saw that his health pool was dangerously low, so he decided to return to a campsite his rugby teammates had set up. They''d set up beside a growing mountain of boar corpses. When Dan arrived, the bros were clambering to feed the chunks they''d cooked to Russian Sis. A group from another class was watching in amusement, having fused with theirs in order to hunt the boars in a pack. It was a pleasant scene, with lots of laughter and shouting. Dan, slipping in without a word, took a free seat on a log beside the cooking fire. From his inventory, he summoned a skewer of healing meat that Bald Bro had given him. Remembering his manners, he offered to share with a girl next to him from the other group. "Not a chance!" she replied, slapping him in the face and moving to the other side of the fire. Dan, scratching his head in confusion, being unable to dig out from his hair a sensible explanation for that reaction, gave a shrug and chowed down, his healthbar replenishing a bit with each chunk of meat he swallowed. ¡°Dan Bro, why''d you leave us?" asked a teammate, taking the free seat beside him. Dan smiled. ¡°Guess.¡± He wondered himself why he¡¯d wandered off alone while his teammates had been working together. Hanging out with them, he did enjoy, but he¡¯d also discovered something different...a new excitement that could only manifest when he was free of the group''s protection. Was this why Big Bro insisted on fighting by himself, to increase the thrill? WHOMP! The peace was interrupted by a heavy thud. The group collectively glanced at the source of the noise on top of a nearby hill, down the slopes of which came a tide of red dust that seconds later swept over them, thick enough to extinguish their fire. As the dust settled, they were able to gradually make out a giant boulder-sized object that''d landed on the hill. But it wasn''t a boulder, they soon realised. It was a gargantuan boar - a boss battle! Dan, while the others were coughing, instinctively jumped in front of Russian Sis, pulling out his sword. "Don¡¯t worry, Russian Sis! I''ll protect you!" The Russian girl behind him rolled her eyes as she was mobbed by the other meatheads imitating the pointless heroism of the first. To her, these freaks trying to hit on her had gone beyond ridiculous. She didn''t need handholding or protection in a videogame where fighting big monsters was the main point. This Dan kid had especially grossed her out. Visually, a muscled male lead in a romance movie had come to her aid. However, with his avatar being altered to such an exaggerated degree, she couldn''t help picturing his potential real-life appearance. Being ''protected'' by some pale, dweeby nerd...how vile. Dan, oblivious to these thoughts, was filled with excitement at facing his first epic boss battle. But, as the dust cleared further, he noticed that the giant boar wasn¡¯t moving. In fact, it was flat down on its belly, just like the boars he''d killed, their stumpy legs giving out under their weight. Others had noticed this, too. Not just at their campsite, but all around the Boar Fields, Players, trainers, and recruiter thugs immediately began to swarm towards to dead giant laid out as a prize to be claimed on top of the hill. Dan, not wanting to be beaten, sprinted along with those racing to be first, his legs pumping as he outpaced several others and sped up the hill''s slope. Getting close, he beheld the magnificent scale of the beast, its body as long as his school bus and as tall as a rugby crossbar. It was a magnificent specimen. Arriving in its shadow, he felt overwhelmed by the nobility and grandeur the powerful beast must have possessed in life. While those who''d reached the giant beast before him were crawling over its carcass and reaching under it in search of loot, Dan slowly circled it in admiration. Two peculiarities stuck out to him. Its back hairs were singed, and, over the spot where its heart was located, there was a single, deep stab wound. Big Bro? Dan wondered, the wound reminding him of how the boar earlier had been finished off. Indeed, scanning the area, he spotted a monkey-headed figure and a spooked donkey trying discretely to descend against the crowd of players racing up to observe the beast. ¡°Big Bro!¡± he yelled, running over. ¡°How''d you snag this huge fella?!¡± Henry, caught red-handed, checked around himself, finding thankfully that no one else in the ever-growing throng had noticed. He messaged the meathead to shut up. -Anonymous. Shh. I¡¯m not the one that killed it. I was relaxing with a quaint novel when the falling body almost obliterated me. -Danontherightwing: Haha! Big Bro, that work''s got your signature all over it! Henry groaned, wondering what this kid''s problem was. -Anonymous: Fine. I did it. Don''t tell anyone about this either. Threat''s the same as before: no more friendship. Dan blinked in confusion. -Danontherightwing: Big Bro, I don¡¯t get why you¡¯re trying to be so secretive. First with the rabbit thieves; now, this. -Anonymous: Deep down, I''m a very shy guy. Crippling social anxiety. The limelight makes me a nervous wreck. Dan laughed. Could a shy guy have beaten him up so viciously? Impossible. -Danontherightwing: C¡¯mon, Big Bro... Henry, changing strategies, looked around himself again, this time with exaggerated suspicion. -Anonymous: Listen, Dan, no one can know this. In truth, I¡¯m on a top-secret quest to save the world. Dan stared at Big Bro blankly. ... ... -Danontherightwing: Sick! Can I join? Being a turbonoob, Dan had no frame of reference with which to judge the claim. For all he knew, world-saving missions and giant monsters were daily occurrences, even in the Starting Zone. -Anonymous: No. It¡¯s a one-player quest. That''s how the game works, sometimes. If you try to share your one-player quest, it fails, which, in this case, would mean the destruction of the entire planet. -Danontherightwing: Damn. Hey, Big Bro, how''d you¡¯d fight this huge guy? I want to battle one too. Henry, wincing, scratched his head, his expression darkening as his mood was further soured by the stupid question and the even more stupid answer. How had he ended up fighting this giant boar? Well, there he''d been, history''s greatest retiree, just minding his own business, maximising the use of his spare time in this noob tutorial to squeeze in extra training for the upcoming noob tournament... Chapter 22 - Transported Through a Wormhole to a Boss Battle Earlier, The Horny Boar Fields, the world''s greatest retiree just minding his own business. After finding an isolated spot, Henry''d decided to practise against the boars using a trick of PVE players to increase the difficulty of the monsters they fought. The mechanics of the trick were somewhat convoluted. Whenever he faced a Horny Boar, he equipped a high-level, Tier 5-2 Spelltome for a second. Spelltomes were an off-hand weapon available to some of the Spellcaster Classes - Miracleworkers, Shamans, Bloodmancers, and Arcanists. These items gave users a bit more flexibility, granting the wielder one extra spell that they might not possess due to their sub-Class. For example, Shaman at higher levels could specialise in different elements, and Ice Shaman at Tier-4 unlocked a unique spell, , a short-range freezing blast; other Shamans could only use the same ability when wielding a corresponding Spelltome. Although Henry fit neither the Class nor Martial Level requirements, he could use Spelltomes due to the perk of his Scholar Class, every player who chose a Civilian job for their Primary Class having something to counteract the combat disadvantage of their Martial Class being restricted one-tier lower - e.g. Landworkers got boosted stats, Alchemists enhanced poisons. These perks only partially negated the disadvantage, just enough that casual adventure groups might consider bringing along one Civilian Primary member. So, back to the boars, whenever he equipped one of these tomes while fighting them, this had the effect of turning the monster¡¯s eyes from crimson red to a pinkish rose. Along with the visual change, the beasts underwent a stark behavioural shift, gaining intelligence and discarding the usual predictability of their attack patterns. For example, the smarter boars would cancel misaimed charges and attempt to gore him with their tusks, or they might shoot their horn well before their HP reached zero. This state of greater intelligence, known as Sentient Bloodlust, was a balance measure activated whenever players were too high level for an area or used overly-high equipment ¨C hence, him using a high-level Spellbook. Sentient Bloodlust disincentivised players from taking gear acquired in one zone and sweeping through all the others. Its downsides were much more prominent in dungeon raids, where groups relied heavily on the predictability of bosses - a gear advantage became irrelevant when a 200-metre tall stone golem gained the smarts to ignore your tanks, walk over to your backline, pick up your healers and throw them off a cliff. Anyway, that''s what Henry''d been doing, using his Spelltomes to make these tutorial boars more intelligent to give him an extra challenge. With the Horny Boars putting up a friskier fight, he''d been able to feel himself recovering some of his old melee weapon handling skills, along with a bit of situational awareness. Where things had turned into pudding was when one of the Horny Boars, which he''d been hanging on the back of stabbing, used its charge ability to rush over a short cliff. As the creature landed with a splat and Henry lost a third of his HP, he found himself standing in the middle of a 50-boar herd. The herd itself didn''t pose a problem. With their unwieldy body size, they couldn''t utilise their numbers'' advantage, so it was more like fighting a group of 3 monsters in a tiny room with shifting walls made of razers, 17 times in a row without break - tiring but not difficult. The issue came when he was about to deal the deathblow to the last one. The Horny Boar released a desperate squeal, before, poof, it vanished into thin air. Henry, sensing he''d triggered another nuisance game event, tried to flee. Moments later, though, he heard a familiar click, followed by a pressure in his temples and a sound of rushing wind. Click - (''No use in runnin'' now, ye wee torture-lovin'' bastard. Get over here!'') Suddenly, Henry found himself spinning around in a tube of colours, sounds, and smells fluctuating in a chaotic, psychedelic fusion. His body underwent strange changes, stretching to a thousand times the length, then shrinking to a dot. His consciousness was given a similar beating, tossed around his shunted around his contorting physiology; one second, he was a nail in his middle toe; another, he was an armpit. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. A wormhole, Henry concluded in annoyance. Wasn''t this going beyond the aesthetic scope of a fantasy RPG? Yet again, Saana demonstrated its terrible game design. The wormhole spat him out in an oddly-decorated throne room. A stone chamber¡ª40-metres wide and long, 20-metres tall, the dimensions of a moderate-sized group boss battle¡ªit had carpets and wall hangings were all sewn from wolf furs, and the furniture appeared to be crafted from bones of the same animal. His donkey, transported along with him, was hiding in one corner, its head peeping out from behind a rotting pile of wolf carcasses. At the head of the room, lying atop a throne of wolf skulls, was a boar as large as a mammoth. A circular array of horns protruded from its head like a kingly crown, and, dressed in regal fashion to match, it''d adorned itself in a tattered wolf-skin robe. The giant boar stared at Henry popping into its throneroom cautiously, its rose-pink eyes examining his features¡ªhis attire, his weapon, his Spelltome¡ªwith a perceptivity and calculation far beyond that natural to its species. Under its robe, like a bratty child escaping a beating behind his older sibling, was tucked a regular-sized boar, the one that Henry had been about to kill earlier, throwing him a reproachful look and oinking to the larger boar to inform it of Henry slaughtering its herd. Henry grunted at the smaller boar with annoyance. "You guys didn''t seem to think the odds were unfair when it''d been fifty against one." As for the oversized king boar, Henry supposed it related to what the bald trainer had been talking about earlier, a beast king that enforced the segregation mechanic for tutorial monsters - the wolves that vanished seemed to get teleported here and turned into decorations. He didn''t know anything more about this boss monster beyond that. In his position, why would he have ever paid attention to the lore about level 2 monsters? The giant boar clicked its tongue, transmitting Henry another message. "Isn¡¯t this a crackin¡¯ surprise? Old King Torc thought he''d struck it lucky with another of ye handy-handed folk to furnish his room, but you are a much more precious prize." Henry, pretending not to understand, put on a front of nervousness as he scanned the room. The walls seemed to lack any doors for entering or exiting. The floor was the same. Dangling from the ceiling were chandeliers made of wolf bones, but they didn''t lead to any vents - one chandelier seemed to have stacked neatly on top of it a bunch of crafting equipment and a leather-bound diary, a fact Henry quietly made note of. There was no apparent entrance to this throneroom, this space appearing to exist in some kind of magical, liminal realm disconnected from the rest of Saana. Henry, checking the game clock, made the peculiar observation that it''d completely frozen. Oh, he realised. This was another Legendary quest. The giant boar clicked again. "Pretend all ye want, ye wee sprat. King Torc knows ye can hear. Long ago, The Great Black One prophesied yer coming. ''A monkey with a bloodied sword, who stinks of ink and mounds of gold, with a thousand ears and crafty tongue, will slay Torc¡¯s kin for nighttime fun.'' You are definitely he." Henry, hearing the words ''Black¡¯ and ¡®Prophesied¡¯, combined with the language being spoken and the odd coincidences this morning, had an epiphany. Yes, this was definitely a Legendary quest. Henry pondered for a moment, then sneered internally, refusing to fall for the trap. The Great Black One...The Vilified One...why did he never draw the attention of supernatural powers with less sinister names? Just once he''d like to be taken hostage instead by The Great Supporter of Reasonable Vacation Days and Sick Leave. How irritating... Shedding his nervous demeanour, he clicked his tongue and replied via the same secret language. "OK, whatever, I''m here, the prophecy is fulfilled. I''ve got better things to do, so what do I need to do before you open a wormhole and send me back? Am I being punished? Do you want me to sew a wolf-leather lampshade?" The whole throne room had the tacky wolf-crafted furnishings theme. In addition to the earlier described items, there were wolf-leg framed mirrors and wolf-eyeball lightbulbs, and on and on and on. Henry suspected that, by the game''s lore, unlucky crafters were probably summoned here as punishment for using overly high-level items in the starting zone to slaughter noob monsters, a sort of perversion of the segregation mechanic that made higher-level monsters disappear. Hence, he''d triggered this by using his Spelltome. "I''d rather not waste time sewing," Henry continued. "Has your species advanced to currencies yet? I''m happy to pay. Gold or platinum. Let''s haggle." The boar king snorted in amusement. "A smart one, ye are! Aye, in the past, King Torc would take ye up on that sewing offer. This day, though, between us, there can be no peaceful conclusion. According to the prophesy, if King Torc manages to murder ye¡ªsquish ye like a bug, fix ye on a tusk¡ªthen he''ll be released from this dingy prison..." Henry, listening to the lengthy villain speech, shook his head. Stupid game... Chapter 23 - The Black Affliction A throne room, a giant boar waxing villainous to a tired-looking human. The Horny Boar King, King Torc, after listening to various methods by which it would destroy Henry, paused to stare off forlornly into space, a hot energy simmering in his beady boar gaze from the times before his cruel imprisonment. "My tuskless friend, do ye know what waiting alone for thousands of years with only wolves for company does to a boar? No more, I say! After I gore ye through yer stomach, King Torc will trot the fields and mudholes flaunting his thick hide in the sunlight. From here on, King Torc will roam Saana, no longer impaired with the pickiness of his youth about whether this sow has too little fat on her bones or this one has too small a tail. From here on, King Torc will, indiscriminately, sow his oats..." Henry, ignoring the over-sized boar''s increasingly excited ramblings, had closed one eye, brainstorming his options in his Mental Library, while using the other eye to assess his surroundings, taking in the dimensions of the boss-room, the usable objects. He then moved his consciousness into his Spatial Bracelet. Closing his free eye, he imagined a small version of himself journeying from inside his brain, down his spinal cord, following the fibres of his peripheral neurons to his wrist. Upon arriving at that point, he was sucked into a bright, glowing whiteness that extended in all directions. Even the floor on which he was magically floating was white. Scattered around this white space were some of the tools that he''d prepared to deal with such complications. There were vials of potions and herbs, ropes, tents, saws, axes, an array of weapons¡ªdaggers, swords, shields, spears¡ªpiles of dried meat, lanterns, waterskins, a backpack, a sleeping roll. A shining floating assortment beside these would catch the veteran eye first, consisting of forty assorted pendants, relics, and rings; each of these jewellery pieces was one of kind, forged from unique stones, metals, and bones, and crafted with diverse but immaculate workmanship representing the finest material achievements of various cultures, some living, most extinct. These Legendary trinkets, Henry didn''t give a glance. The whole lot were actually too high-level for him to use - he intentionally carried them as dummy artefacts because they''d be lost if he died before the Legendaries he did care about, Saana prioritising loot drops by highest value. He''d chosen these jewellery Legendaries because they were light and consumed minimal inventory space. With a thought, his body inside his Spatial Bracelet was suddenly transported over to a floating wall of multicoloured Spelltomes. Each tome had a different cover painting, each emitting a magical aura. One book with a bowl of fruit was shrouded in a golden, sacred aura. Another with a portrait of a child holding hands with his grandfather seemed somehow to exude the unfathomable aura of time itself. Numbering over a hundred unique spells in total, this wall was much more useful to him than those artefacts. In of itself, Henry''s Spelltome perk wasn''t a cheat, but it did become cheat-like when combined with his filthy richness. Using his wealth, he''d purchased a copy of every non-Legendary Spelltome in the game. This wide selection had helped him escape countless sticky situations in the past. In fact, he''d already exploited several Tomes this morning - after meeting the corrupt official, he used a fire spell to incinerate his documents and hide his traces; before digging the bunker earlier, he''d stealthed to the location using an invisibility spell. That cannibal wagondriver could have been one-shot with a high-level spell, but Henry''d wanted to be discrete, anyone who saw his Spelltomes being able to pin him to his guild. Examining these books, picturing the layout of the boss room and the anticipated abilities of the giant boar, he wove together several plans. Outside with his body, only a few seconds having passed, he changed his equipment, his clothes disintegrating and flowing into his inventory to be replaced by others. On his chest materialised a set of bandolier-like straps. In place of bullet cartridges, the straps were loaded with vials, random consumables, and six different Spelltomes in a combination Henry''d just improvised. The Spelltome set-up had been copied from a defunct Scholar martial art, whose practitioners had invented this arrangement in place of the conventional method of holding one Tome. The technique had the benefit of freeing up a hand and granting the Scholar quick access to multiple spells. On the downside, the Tomes were technically not equipped, causing them to all drop on death and allowing the enemy to easily tear them off and steal them. Also, most people couldn''t afford six Spelltomes. Henry, filthy rich, didn''t have to worry about any of those limitations. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Around his throat appeared a necklace of seashells that''d been smoothed and decoloured by decades in the ocean. When he tapped three of the shells in quick succession, the necklace constricted around his neck, activating. This Legendary pendant had been obtained from the Godking Nimblewit, who''d fought by controlling a swarm of flying weapons. It allowed the user to sustain multiple channelled spells, which could normally only be cast one at a time. His leggings were replaced with a pair of woollen viking-pants tied up by a cord of frayed rope. The rope, plundered from the tomb of an ancient architect, was the Legendary he''d been using to give him extra Universal Productivity after exhausting his pool translating that demonic message. As for the woollen pants, which he activated by rolling their left leg to his knee, their purpose would remain a secret for now. Henry, not having a Legendary helmet or hat on him¡ªyet¡ªkept his monkey-mask. Even against this boar, he didn''t feel comfortable fighting without some disguise. As a final effort to broker peace with the beast-king, he clicked to transmit a multi-page-long negotiation message. Henry pointed out in clear terms that the over-sized monster dying was the only logical conclusion to this battle, and that they both had more to gain by him being sent back peacefully. King Torc didn''t reply immediately. Falling silent, the beast seemed to consider the offer seriously, as one does when confronted with a straightforward sketch of one''s own demise. Henry nevertheless walked to a spot in the middle of the room under a chandelier and prepared for the inevitable refusal. This videogame had never let him off with the easy option. Now would be no exception. As expected, a negative reply soon clicked in his ears. King Torc, seeing his bleak future written in full in Henry''s plans, wanted to concede but he simply couldn''t bring himself to do it. "Why should King Torc bow before the threat upon his life? To die would be hardly different from this eternity of imprisonment...this eternity of celibacy. An isolation this long teaches a boar that loneliness and death are merely two shades of the same black affliction, the cruel severance of the connection between one boar and his fellow boars that imparts a life with meanin'' beyond the biological imperatives of eat, shit, sleep. Could ye still be called a king without a kingdom? Could ye be a Horny Boar without a Horny Sow? Nae. It is only by livin'' with, by keepin'' the precious company of others, that ye truly live. The boar alone is already dead." "It''s not the same," Henry disagreed. "Loneliness is hardly the most miserable affliction, and, even if it were, a miserable life at least always contains some possibility of change, some bright Maybe waiting in the dark ahead. Death has none of that. It''s nothing." King Torc snorted. "What do ye know of death, human? Yer just a piglet." Henry took a moment to answer, recalling much that defied any paltry attempt to be condensed into words. "I know...everything." The boar king found the boast amusing. "Well, King Torc knows that at least death has none of this misery." "Life is supposed to have misery!" Henry snapped back, his voice flaring slightly with a personal hatred for any romanticism of these morbid matters. "Life isn''t just peace; it''s also war, the beautiful struggle. Life is fighting with the knowledge that you will one day lose, and learning to love the divinity in that hopeless fight. Life is the one-in-a-trillion privilege to stand in momentary defiance against the law of nothingness. Life is rushing to piece yourself together from the scraps of the universe before it reclaims them and saying proudly, ''these were mine for a while, this was me, fuck you''. The other side doesn''t need anyone''s helping hand. It''s already dismantling us." "Aye," answered King Torc with finality, "such is life, too. King Torc, then, will choose the beautiful struggle. The Great Black One''s prophecy has been uttered. Prepare yerself, human." The beast-king''s choice was made. Shedding the lethargy of his solitary imprisonment, he rose to his feet, his trotters creaking beneath the weight of his six-ton bulk. Lifting his snout to flaunt his royal horns, he unleashed a war squeal that shook the throne room, the strength of his cry dislodging dust and debris from the ceiling. Violent waves of energy were absorbed from the air into his legs in preparation for a mighty charge, one imbued with a desperate will to survive...to love. He chose the life of a Horny Boar King; he chose war. King Torc trumpeted valiantly. "Only one leaves alive!" His feet propelled him forward in a sudden charge, each step as loud as a sonic boom and causing the room to tremble. Henry, standing dwarfed before the mountain speeding down upon him, sighed and tapped one of the Spelltomes on his chest. ¡°NAKTH!¡± He shouted a spell syllable, his hand curling into a strange shape and catching a cluster of tiny stars that''d materialised before him. Woosh! A flood of magical energy condensing from his surroundings, a burning door swung open in the space before him, revealing a hellish interior of magma and fire. At once, a force sucked his body inside, and the spot where he''d had been standing was engulfed in a pillar of flames. Chapter 24 - Spellcasting 101 A throneroom shaking as a mammoth-sized board charged down a teenage human. "Only one leaves alive!" The fight between King Torc and Henry having begun, the smaller boar that''d been hiding by the sovereign bolted for shelter behind a pile of dead wolves, where it knocked shoulders with a donkey frozen in confusion and terror. "NAKTH!" The pillar of flames devouring Henry''s body climbed upwards, a streak of orange and red drawn from the ground towards the ceiling. Only a fraction of a second after initiating, the tip of the pillar reformed into a door. Swinging open, the door spat out a figure in a monkey mask. Henry, emerging, was propelled a little higher still by the spell''s residual momentum. At the crest of his trajectory, just when his flying body begin to submit to gravity''s downward call, he stepped onto one of the boss-room''s wolf-bone chandeliers. His landing calculated and gentle, the chandelier received his weight without objection, swinging so little that it didn''t even throw off a set of crafting supplies previously resting on it. This first spell, , was a short-distance movement ability learned by Shamans at Tier-5. King Torc, skidding to a stop, stared up in vexation. "Ye wee bastard, get down right now!" "Nope," Henry replied, safe on his new perch. Observing the items on this chandelier earlier, he¡¯d deduced that a previous hostage, perhaps the one who''d built these tacky decorations, had taken refuge up here, the items dropping after the poor sap starved to death. This suggested that the over-sized boar couldn''t reach this height. Summoning his bow, he fired a shot to test the boar''s defences. As the arrow hit the monster''s hide, a health bar phased into view above its head, but there was no discernible decrease. King Torc guffawed at the puny pinch. "Pathetic!" Henry, however, had been paying more attention to how exactly the arrow''d struck. Despite the negligible total damage, its points had successfully pierced the beast''s hide before being ejected by self-healing. This indicated that, although the boar''s health pool was massive, its Vitality stat was low, Vitality increasing health indirectly by reinforcing the toughness of the body. In other words, the boss was designed to be killed slain by Level 2 players, using their primitive weapons and attacks. From the total health pool, Henry estimated the boar to be balanced for a 500-man raid group. Henry''s Tier-5 Spelltomes, for Level 110 players, inflicted astronomically more damage than anything a Level 2 player could output. This boss fight¡ªas to be expected for a quest in the starting tutorial¡ªwould be absolutely trivial for him. Beginning with the procedure of dismantlement, Henry used his Spatial Bracelet to absorb the crafting items from the chandelier to clear space. Simultaneously, he summoned four Spelltomes¡ªin addition to the six strapped to his chest¡ªand laid them around his feet, along with a spear and several spools of rope. One of the summoned Spelltomes, with a cover-painting of a floating sword, exuded a coloured aura that shifted in a complex, unpredictable pattern between varying shades of indigo - this was Arcane energy.
Compact Spelltome of Weapon Enlivening STR: 1 | VIT: 1| TECH: 1 | mCOM: 155 | mAFF: 75 Effect: +1 to Level Level Restriction: 110 (5-2) Condition: 100% Material: Earkencin Weight: 282 g Restrictions: Arcanist ''To conserve weight, the Scholar who crafted this Spelltome has sacrificed some of its bonus stats.''
was a Tier-5 spell for the Conjurist spec of the Arcanist class. It allowed the user to telekinetically control a weapon. Squatting, Henry placed one palm on this tome, and Scholar energy shaped in miniature scrolls, quills, and ink instantly seeped out of his fingertips to meld with the leather binding. Following its absorption into the Spelltome, the Scholar energy was converted into Arcane energy, making the indigo aura increase in intensity and the speed of its colour-shifting.
All books are bound by a common thread. Flicking through so many pages has allowed your fingers to grasp a small piece of it. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. activated. Enliven Weapon (I) unlocked.
To initiate any spell, all a player needed to do was intend it, the game system reading one''s thoughts seamlessly. Instantly, a 3D constellation of five tiny stars appeared hovering thirty centimetres from Henry''s face. Below the constellation floated a translucent syllable, ¡®Kat.¡¯ ¡°Kat,¡± Henry chanted, his tone unhurried and loud enough to be heard clearly by the boar below - rushing or whispering would cause a misfire. "What are ye doing?" shouted King Torc. "Stop that! Get down right this minute and fight me like a boar!" While the beast-king ranted, Henry focused on the air around him, which''d filled with motes of indigo light, summoned into this plane of existence by his call. Simultaneously, his right hand, reaching for the constellation by his face, created a figure that allowed the tips of each finger to align with each mini-star. The handfigure resembled a bird. As soon as this spell gesture was completed, the Arcane energy hanging in the air was vacuumed into his hand. From there, the energy spread to the five points of the constellation, before dispersing further into thousands of thinner lines. When Henry retracted his hand, a three-wattled bellbird formed of shimmering indigo energy had grown out of the constellation. It was created with such intricate detail that one could even see the individual barbs of the bird''s feathers. The bellbird tilted its head. It took in a view of its surroundings, and then, noticing its summoner and the direction of his gaze, it swooped at the spear balancing on the chandelier beside the Spelltomes. Colliding with the weapon, the bird exploded in a puff of indigo feathers, leaving in its death an imprint on the spear''s handle of an elaborate, circular rune. The whole process between spell initiation and the bird''s self-annihilation was very brief, everything passing in about half a second. In Henry¡¯s vision, a new mini-star constellation of a different configuration had appeared in a different location from its predecessor, twenty centimetres out from his chest. This one was subtitled, ¡®Fiel.¡¯ ¡°Fiel,¡± he chanted, reaching for it and curling his hand into the shape of a beast''s jagged fang. This was the system for all of Saana''s spellcasting. Constellations would appear in random locations near where the spell had first been initiated, and the caster would need to connect them using their fingers as conduits for their Classes'' magical energy. If a constellation were left incomplete for 10 seconds, it would disappear, cancelling the spell. This system made spell-casting in combat quite a dynamic process, with casters trying to find or create safe spots, while their enemies attempted to disrupt and move them. But safe on a chandelier, the boar complaining below him, Henry didn''t have to worry about such interference. Unharassed but out of practice, it took him about seventeen seconds to complete the thirty required constellations. After the last spell gesture, the spear lying beside him crackled with fluctuating Arcane energy. A phantom force suffused the weapon, which rose like a buoyant plank separating from a sunken vessel and climbing towards the sunlight. The spear, directed by Henry''s thoughts, flew down at the boar, gliding at a jogger''s leisurely pace. King Torc, expecting a blow as weak as the arrow, didn¡¯t give the floating weapon much thought. When the spear swung by limply and missed, the beast-king snorted in amusement. But the spear, that swing bringing it to a blindspot behind the boar, swivelled around like a weathervane caught between changing winds. With an abrupt burst of speed, the weapon punched¡ªas smooth as a pencil through wet paper¡ªfrom one side of the boar''s massive stomach and out the other. King Torc, a fire tearing through the organs of his belly, released a guttural squeal. Raging, he span to bite the spear and snap it in half, only to find it floating inches out of his snout''s reach, unmoving, taunting him and his mammoth weight that made it impossible for him to jump. But, in fact, Henry had put it there because the weapon''s attack had a 15-second cooldown. King Torc swore at him up on the chandelier. "Ye bastard, where¡¯s your honour? Come down and fight me tusk to tusk, horn to horn! You snivelling, monkey-faced..." Henry, ignoring the taunts, continued his worry-free spellcasting. Directing his Legendary necklace to take control of channelling the spear, he slapped his palm on another of the laid-out tomes, one with a cover of a skeleton holding a bow. For his other hand, casting the spell, all the veins of the arm had burst, releasing a viscous stream of blood. ¡°Tu. Lang. Na. Ra..." Between his spell-chants, he slipped in an annoyed click responding to the boar. "I''ve never been convinced about the concept of honour. I think it can only truly exist between entities of approximately equal standing, honour representing a mutual agreement between two members of the same overarching system to refrain from the harsher, more debilitating tactics that both are terrified of. In most other cases, such equality being an anomaly, ''honour'' is little more than a tool of domination, a self-serving trick of the powerful to limit the weak to fighting on the grounds that they''re already losing on and which, most likely, they will continue losing on. Your whingeing is a great example of this. Tusks, horns, I have neither of these. Your honour is just the advantage of a boar. To satisfy it, I would have to jump down there and waste a whole year whipping your fat-arse with my useless default attack because this poorly-designed game universe threw you at me before I even unlocked a proper one, and, even then, when I still eventually beat you after lowering myself to your level, you''d moan about how I used weapons and how I should have restrained myself further to my blunt teeth and clawless hands. Preposterous. What exactly grants you the right to define the parameters of our conflict? Why can''t I respond in kind and declare that to be honourable is to rise above the primitive brutality of the body and fight like gentleman with magic from afar? That''s the truth of honour. It''s an arbitrary code laid down only by those who emerge victorious from the ur-state of lawless bloodshed." The click language was a very efficient form of communication, the type of thing that could only exist in the year 2050. ¡°...Naek. Ti. PAEH!" While he''d been casting, the blood pouring from Henry''s arm had been channelling towards one of the wolf carcasses piled in the corner of the room. As the spell finished, this carcass exploded into a cloud of splattering rotten giblets. From the gory cloud stepped out a skeleton with a bow. ¨C a Tier-3 spell for the Necromancer spec of the Bloodmancer class. The summoned minion, drawing the string of its weapon and nocking an arrow, lodged a shot directly into King Torc''s distracted eyeball. Unlike the arrow Henry had fired, this one¡ªthe Skeleton Archer''s strength determined by the stats of the Spelltome¡ªpenetrated deep, its tip, shaft, and fletching vanishing into the eye''s white sclera and the beast-king''s skull behind. "Deceptive bastard!" King Torc cried. "King Torc can play these magical tricks, too!" He lifted his head, motes of energy gathering at his throat. Chapter 25 - The King Bows "Deceptive bastard!" King Torc cried. "King Torc can play these magical tricks, too!" The beast-king lifted his head, motes of energy gathering at his throat. A moment later, the room was filled with a squeal as deep and powerful as a fog-horn, and, at once, everything froze, including another arrow mid-flight. King Torc, using a similar spatial magic to that which''d created the wormhole, was the only physical entity that could move. The beast-king, turning away from Henry for now, charged for the Skeleton Archer. Behind the wolf corpse pile that the skeleton was standing on top of, the donkey and the regular-sized boar watched the charge with terror. Henry, frozen in place, was thinking that this squeal stun must have been an evolved form of the normal Horny Boar''s leap-stun, boss-monsters often having advanced versions of the same spells. The stun faded after three seconds, giving enough time for the donkey and the regular-sized boar to dive out of harm''s way. Henry tapped another Spelltome. ¡°BUR!" Just as the boar rammed into the pile of dead wolves, the Skeleton Archer was lifted away by an invisible force. The movement was comically janky, like a toy soldier being picked up by a child''s hand. The skeleton, soaring high as rotting wolves scattered in all directions beneath, landed on the chandelier beside Henry, from which it mindlessly continued shooting arrows at the humiliated beast-king beneath. Pew. Pew. ¨C a Tier-2 Necromancer spell. King Torc tossed its head in rage, flinging off the wolves skewered on its crown of horns. "Brat! Ye think yer safe up there?!" The horn in the centre of its forehead began to glow. "Take this and stuff it up yer and yer skeleton''s bottom!" BOOM! Loud and fast as a cannon shot, a horn blasted off from its head. Towards Henry it sped, a several-dozen-kilogram missile of flying ivory sharpened at the tip. The Skeleton Archer, protecting its master, jumped in the path of the projectile, even though its paltry mass didn''t seem sufficient to negate a fraction of the momentum. Henry, yawning, tapped a Spelltome on his chest. ¡°TARR!" The skeleton about to sacrifice itself was surrounded by a glowing layer of golden energy. ¨C a Tier-3 spell for Miracleworkers who worshipped Hekvantu, the god of protection. The ability granted a shield and weight. As the horn-missile collided with the glowing skeleton, both hovered, neither moving, sparks of gold being thrown out at the point of impact as the game determined whether the power of the horn had been enough to overcome the shield. It hadn''t. After half a second, all momentum from the attack dissipating, the horn and skeleton plummetted. Of course, Henry''d predicted the boar might have had a horn-shot ability like its smaller kin and that it had perhaps refrained from using it against the previous crafter stuck up here due to a lack of perceived threat. King Torc, seeming somewhat derelict with the middle-prong missing from his crown, tried to at least take a small comfort in destroying the skeleton, charging at the falling creature. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. But the beast-king was denied even this pleasure. Before the charge could finish powering up, the skeleton stopped falling, a rope tied around its bony ankle. Henry, being on cooldown, had resorted to a ghetto solution. As the Skeleton Archer, dangling upside down, took another shot, the beast-king''s horn landed with a sad crunch, the enamel surface shattering. King Torc¡ªstruck by the heart-breaking sound, struck in the lip by an arrow, struck in the stomach by a second assault from the spear¡ªsquealed in despair. Meanwhile, an arm-width spinning saw made of sparkling lightning joined the assault, his monkey-headed foe on the chandelier completing another channelled ability. King Torc, discarding his stubborn pride, turned and fled, but the blade continued tracking him around the confined room, and the arrows started hitting his legs, slowing him down and allowing the disc to gain on him. In this moment of desperation, the beast-king spotted the donkey hiding in a corner, spotted a chance for salvation. "Human," he cried, "call off yer attacks, or I¡¯ll gore yer mount!" ¡°Vat. Tu...¡± Henry, once again not interrupting his casting, replied with a dismissive click. "Mate, I picked that shabby thing specifically because it''s disposable. Go right ahead." In the crime-riddled Slums, in this awful game in general, one shouldn''t be too attached to one''s material possessions. "...Min. Nal..." King Torc, seeing no other hope, prayed the human was bluffing and charged at his mount. Alas, as he was about to rocket forward, another spinning blade, one made of Arcane energy, snuck in from a blind spot and attacked a leg, the spinning blade gliding right through the shoulder. He squealed in agony as the rear half of his mass, sliding off the glistening meat of the severed limb, tilted over and smashed into the floor. But the wound took only half a second to heal, a new leg bursting from the amputation site. King Torc didn''t take long to mentally recover either, his thoughts replaced by a searing hostility directing him forward, down the singular, undistracted path of killing. Whatever had given him this feeling, he would obliterate, whether that be the human or the trace of the human present in this donkey trembling before him. Renewing his charge at the mount without any clear plan for what would follow, King Torc tipped over again, the lightning blade arriving and severing his other leg. The two magical saws proceeded to alternate, taking turns at amputating his legs and immobilising him permanently where he''d fallen. When his time-stun had refreshed, he cast it attempted to use the space to lift himself up and escape, but yet another magical saw, hovering above his back, chewed through his spine, severing the nerves inside and causing his legs to splay out limp beneath him. His foe¡ªdespite how hopeless the situation had become already, unwilling to forfeit any advantage¡ªcontinued to escalate, expanding his magical arsenal one spell at a time. ¡°...Tum. BAK!¡± A spear of blackened fire blasted a hole in King Torc''s rump, the blood surrounding the wound igniting. ¡°...Ra. JA!¡± Another fire spear. ¡°...Nga. DA!¡± Another. When the spears stopped, King Torc thought the human might have exhausted his magical energy. But no. ¡°...Blixt. Bult. Slar. Ho. NOM!¡± The back of his skull was zapped by lightning bolt, his mind turning white and his body seizing. "...Ta. NGAM!" Another Skeleton Archer burst from a wolf corpse and flew onto a different chandelier, adding to the first''s arrow harassment. King Torc, defeated, his saga concluding, gave up the last of his resistance. He bowed low, laying down his head, the weight of his horn-crown pressing the ground back upon him, as if the earth were reaching out to embrace his carcass that would rot like the wolves in his throneroom. Closing his eyes, an arrow puncturing one lid, he accepted the call and awaited the corporeal emancipation of death. Henry observed the beast-king''s forfeit in his collapsing body, the fight finished, the danger having passed. Nevertheless, he didn''t stop, life having taught him how often and abruptly a dying enemy would seize upon a last flash of hope. Sometimes, it seemed that they lashed out for no other reason than to guarantee you didn''t forget them. While his hands mechanically moved between Spelltomes and constellations to orchestrate the beast''s dismantlement, his mind used the lull to sort through many fractured thoughts - past enemies, other strange quests he''d finished and hadn''t finished, the uncanny coincidences of this morning, this tutorial rapidly slipping off the rails, his recruitment tournament looming ahead. Although it remained a bit further out of his reach, he knew he''d almost grasped the murky thread connecting everything, the story within these fragmented episodes. It was a tragedy, really. Due to the tournament''s gear standardisation rules, he wouldn''t be able to exploit these Spells in the tournament ahead. Imagine how much less effort it would have been if he could''ve just waltzed into each match, equipped one of these Tier-5 Spelltome, and nuked the little noobs to pieces like the showers of meat erupting from this boar''s pelted back. During the negotiations with Alex, he''d wanted to secretly remove the tournament''s restrictions; alas, the beaver-head had anticipated this move and cut him off. Perhaps that was the story, then, a retirement bogged down with more difficulties than reasonable. How tragic... Chapter 26 - The Prize A boss battle, the fight concluding. Henry, casting away on top of the chandelier, stopped suddenly, his Skeleton Archers following in tow. On the ground below, where the mammoth-sized boar lay prostrate in submission, the magical saws and flying spears halted their butchering. The beast-king''s royal hide, slick with blood and sweat, was marked by unhealing wounds, the monster''s health-pool having finally reached zero. King Torc gave a resigned sigh, welcoming the coup de grace. Henry shook his head. "Nope. As I stated earlier, my sole priority is getting out of here. Open a wormhole out, and I''m happy to let you live. I don''t want your over-sized level 2 porkchops. Waste of inventory space." King Torc didn''t believe the offer. "Mercy? How can ye reconcile this with yer ruthless assault? Save King Torc yer psychological abuse. Finish it." Henry groaned. "Again with the pig-headed honour nonsense. Fights are supposed to be ruthless. It''s not a game." Well, he paused on second thought, technically, this was a videogame. "But, anyway, I''m not interested in any more of this. If you comply, you get to live." By ''more of this'', he referred to whatever convoluted quest he''d inadvertently embarked upon. Given how trivial this fight had been, this encounter was probably only the first part of an extended chain of battles, each escalating in difficulty until the final epic confrontation against ''The Great Black One'' whom this boar had alluded to. Henry, after putting more thought into the matter than he reasonably should have, had decided to reject any further involvement in this nefarious plot. Once upon a time, he''d duelled and slain such monsters. Today, however, he was only here to complete the tutorial. He would not kill this oversized pig and progress to the next challenge; this side-adventure ended right here, placed on indefinite hiatus in the quest-logs of a player who only used Saana to read imported novels. "And, hey, if you live, you won''t even be alone anymore!" Henry gestured towards the regular-sized Horny Boar that''d triggered his arrival in this place, the smaller creature huddling in a corner with the donkey. "It might be a dude, but I''m sure you two can figure something out. Have the next craftsman sew a wolf-fur dress." King Torc, ignoring the crass joke, relented. "Very well, then. King Torc concedes. Ye have my grunt as a king." "First, bring out the goods," Henry ordered - since he had won, there was no harm in checking out the loot. The beast-king picked itself up, trotted over to its wolf-skull throne, and gave it a tap with a side-horn. The blow caused the throne to crumble, exposing a sparkling trove hidden inside, a treasure mound of goods collected by abducted adventurers over the centuries: armour, weapons, gems, crafting tools, unique bags, and other expensive curios. There were literal tons of gear. Henry, taking in the size of the harvest, confirmed that this boar was indeed a 500-man monster. As a precaution, he had his Skeleton Archers collect the loot. They jumped down from the chandeliers and formed a train, selecting the best-looking pieces and bringing them to him for inspection by climbing up a rope he threw down. Most of the pieces were worthless to him, as one might expect from a Level 2 boss. King Torc watched his collection being rummaged through with sadness. "This is also yer prize." The beast-king began to cough as if to dislodge a wolf-thigh from its throat. Its hacking brought up a glob of yellow mucous sludge, inside of which stewed a dark object, an apple made of shadows. Henry gave the ''prize'' one glance. "Nope. You can take that one back." "Ye must accept!" King Torc insisted. "The prophecy¡ª¡¯ "Nope," Henry remained firm. "I¡¯m not falling for such obvious bait." You didn''t have to be religious to recognise the stupidity in accepting weird, forbidden fruit from a talking animal. Whatever this shady apple represented, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. In the end, he chose a few crafting-related items, a Legendary rapier, and four ancient books - not a terrible prize. The looting done, he ordered the boar to open a wormhole back to Suchi. The beast-king squealed in a way that, oddly, seemed to contain no magical power. Nevertheless, at one part of the throne room, the fabric of reality was torn, revealing a rift through which one could see a bird''s eye view of Suchi and The Horny Boar Fields. "One last thing," said Henry. "Use your stun ability." King Torc snorted petulantly, having indeed been considering freezing him in the last moment. The beast-king squealed, and the room froze. A moment later, Henry finally left his perch on the chandelier, jumping down. King Torc, watching him descend, felt his over-sized heart shift between one emotion and another, and its over-sized brain swirled with fragmented images of the fields of home and the juicy worms and the pretty girl boars. Suddenly, he thought about this human''s earlier commentary against honour. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Perhaps he''d been right; perhaps honour wasn''t worth anything. King Torc roared. "The prophecy will not be broken. Only one leaves alive!" Unable to give up, the beast-king launching off, charged at the landing human. Henry sighed. Why couldn''t anyone ever just accept defeat? Why did they insist on throwing away their lives? His Skeleton Archers started shooting at the boar¡¯s legs to debilitate it, but, despite the beast''s trotters being the size of tree-trunks, the archers missed, the eyeless sockets in their skull not helping with their aim. The spears and magical saws also gave pursuit; however, King Torc had accelerated beyond their reach, his charge ability too fast. Henry, with the beast-king between himself and the wormhole, ran straight at the monster. With one hand, he touched a Spelltome on his chest; Henry, having crafted this one himself, had dumped all its Tier-5 item''s stats into physical stats, making his body functionally impervious to the Level 2 monster''s pitiful attacks - this fight had never been close. With his other hand, he clasped the gladius bought from the bald trainer, gripping the humble weapon as he had before while practising against the regular boars and stabbing them in their hearts. He''d exercised enough patience, enough mercy for today. If this beast longed for death, then he would grant it. "This is more like it!" King Torc respected the calm resolve with which the tiny human sprinted at him. "Give me yer best!" The beast-king committed even harder to his charge, the internal tremors of his six-ton bulk ripping open the clotted wounds of his hide and causing them to fountain forth his dying blood. So the two charged headlong at each other, the mammoth-sized monster and the scrawny 17-year-old bringing to bear against their enemy the full craft and weight of their bodies. But as they were about to collide, Henry gave a sigh, expelling the frustration clouding his thoughts. He refused. Wu-Wei. At the last moment, he switched his Spelltome-hand to a different book, and dropped his sword, reaching for a constellation. "RING!" A door of flames from a opened up and swallowed him up. King Torc, having seen this spell before, was not unprepared. Cancelling his charge, the beast-king used an ability he''d not yet had the chance to show due to the human staying at a distance. King Torc opened his mouth as if to bite the forming pillar of flames, and in the back of his throat condensed a secret weapon, a tiny black dot. Alas, the beast-king''s timing had been milliseconds off. He''d lost too much blood, his vision blurring and his mind descending into a delirious haze. Biting too late, he snagged only the tail of the flames. While the tail vanished, the rest of the burning pillar climbed over his head and across his back, the heat singeing the hairs of his hide. Henry, emerging from the flames above the boar, arced in the opposite direction of its charging bulk. He landed a few metres to its rear. There, he caught an spear that''d been lagging behind in pursuit and, assisting the weapon, snapped around to javelin it. The spear, its aim true, struck the boar in a hind leg. The point pierced through the meat and part-way into the hard material of the floor, pinning the beast in place. King Torc, unable to move, unable to turn around, cried out in despair. "Stop, human, come back! Free me! Free me! FREE ME!" "Even if it''s hard, try living for one more day," Henry replied. "You never know, dude. There''s always some light in the future, each tomorrow beginning with a fresh dawn." He was sincere, genuinely hoping the beast would survive for another day. Or at least another hour - just long enough for him to finish the rest of this annoying tutorial. Jogging for the wormhole, Henry jumped into it head-first, leaving this odd episode to rot in his forgotten wake. As the wormhole sucked him in, he had the random feeling that he¡¯d forgotten something. Immediately after the human''s departure, without any sign of entering the throne room, a creature was standing beside King Torc. Its features were impossible to make out. Although shaped like a tall, thin man, its body was composed of ink-black shadows, no light managing to close in near enough to its skin to reveal anything more. Its black head was directed at the portal where The Tyrant had disappeared. Whatever feeling or thoughts it might''ve had, assuming it had any, were hidden, the creature having no visible eyes or mouth. Turning to the boar, the creature extended one of its hands to give a pat, and from its head sounded a click, small, barely noticeable. "You tried your best, Old King," it said. King Torc gave the creature a complex look. "Ye must have known I¡¯d lose. Why did ye leave me hope?" "I didn¡¯t know," answered the creature. "Yer kind knows all." "I didn¡¯t know." An open, child-like sorrow snuck into the beast-king''s voice. "In the next Cycle, what will I be?" "You wouldn¡¯t like the answer." "So ye did know." The creature shook its head helplessly. "Farewell, Old King." "In the next Cycle." "In the next." The shadow creature clicked again, but this time it was not to communicate. Beside it, King Torc''s eyes dimmed, their lust for life fading. The spear then removed itself from the boar''s leg, and the giant body floated a few metres upwards. The weapon came around to the front of the boar, before stabbing into its chest cleanly, piercing a heart that had already stopped beating. The corpse of the boar king floated towards the wormhole. As its snout made contact, the entire beast was sucked in. To an outside observer, the boar would have vanished straight after the click, the sequence of actions having occurred in a hundredth of a second. In the next instant, the shadow creature was beside the small boar hiding behind the rubble of the broken throne. The creature spent a few moments grunting and snorting. When the boar returned a grunt of agreement, the creature clicked again, and the apple of shadows that Henry had rejected shot over. With a cautionary sniff, the boar ate the object, before, suddenly, charging over to a nearby wolf corpse with a famished haste. In another instant, the shadow creature was by the donkey, which was too terrified to move. The creature stuck its hand into its own stomach, and, for the first time, its actions, which had been effortless so far, became strained. Digging deep inside itself, it released click after frustrated click. Eventually, it pulled out another apple of shadows, identical to the one it¡¯d fed the boar. This, it shoved into the donkey''s mouth and down its throat. The shadow creature clicked once again, a new wormhole opened up, and the donkey was gone. And then the creature was gone. Left alone in the throne room, the solitary boar ran from dead wolf to dead wolf, picking up one after another with its mouth and swallowing them whole like a pelican. On close inspection, one could see its legs growing thicker, its hair longer. In a circle around its head, small bumps of a crown were sprouting, each trying to break through the skin. Chapter 27 - Skydiving Away From Your Problems Suchi. Three kilometres in the air, a tiny shadow plummeting through the moonlit sky. One last trick had been played on Henry by the over-sized boar, intent on killing him. The bird¡¯s eye view of Suchi seen through the wormhole portal had been from the actual exit point rather than a stylistic choice on the part of the game-developers to represent the destination. So, currently, Henry was in a free-fall without a parachute, racing towards the earth at 200 kilometres per hour. But the boar''s trick had been pointless. As before, when Henry''d dared to charge at the massive thing, he had the security of a Spelltome reinforcing his melee stats. With a Vitality bonus of 115, the item granted him the resilience of a fully-decked level 48 character, or, in real-world terms, made him about 30 times more durable than an average, squishy human bag of flesh. Slamming into the ground at terminal velocity would be as harmless as a friendly slap to the belly. Henry, over-levelled and over-geared for the challenges of a beginner''s tutorial, didn''t have to fear fall damage, nor any of the other noob threats in this Starting Zone. Danger-free, worry-free, he rejoiced in successfully dodging another annoying quest. Unsummoning his mask, he allowed his cheeks to flap delightfully in the easy breeze. Splaying out his limbs, he played with the wind, adjusting his body''s airflow profile to glide back and forth like an acrobatic hawk. "Oh, this isn''t too bad," he remarked upon the skydiving with pleasant surprise. "I could do more of this." Wasn''t life fun when you let go of your woes? Even Suchi could have its charms. If you just bent your head slightly to avoid the eyesore of The Slums, the land made for a scenic view: the harbour glittering in the light of Saana''s moons, the gentle, white-sand coastline, the expanse of the plains with its galloping herds of wildlife. Now, this was a retirement, blissfully skydiving, blissfully admiring the priceless things like nature from a variety of expensive-to-reach angles. But, while Henry was trying to figure out the mechanics of aerial flipping, his celebration came to an end.
Congratulations! You are the first player to complete King Torc¡¯s Prison (Tier 0 - Level 2 ¨C 500 Players - Global)! As a global achievement, your accomplishment will be announced to the world!
"...what the hell?" he muttered in disbelief. That notification should not have appeared since he''d refrained from killing the boar. Did the stubborn beast bash its skull against the floor after his departure? Maybe it bled out trying too hard to remove the spear? If it killed itself, then was he still technically on this questline? Henry had no clue. In none of his previous adventures had he encountered anything quite like this. Saana''s quests were trash, demanding, convoluted, annoying, but they weren''t usually this...persistent. Normally, he could just ignore them. For now, a hilltop rapidly approaching him, Henry put aside the question and altered the global announcement notification, hiding his name and delaying it for later. Stopping it completely wasn¡¯t an option. In a week real-time, an instance dungeon of the encounter would be produced that players could do repeatedly. The system insisted on announcing such events for the sake of fairness. While repositioning to land, another complication arose, Henry noticing a black, mammoth-sized object falling directly above him. "...the boar?" he muttered again in disbelief. Panicking, the moment his feet hit the ground, he rolled to spread out the force, then rolled again, narrowly avoiding the obliteration of his initial landing point, which exploded as if walloped by a meteor, dust and stone showering everywhere. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Henry, collecting his wits in an instant, grasping a shield-Spelltome on his chest, stood up and cautiously approached the boar through the dust. Sticking out of the monster''s chest, thrust through its rib cage and into its heart, was the same spear Henry''d stabbed into its leg. King Torc''s eyes had lost the rosy-pink glow of Sentience - dead. It couldn''t have impaled itself, Henry knew. By the end, the beast had exhausted too much strength to remove the spear. Someone else had done this. Or something else. Henry''d already, roughly, figured out the big bad guy behind this scheme when the boar had first mentioned a prophecy of them fighting. ''The Great Black One'', based on the name and the click language or ''Heartspeech'' King Torc had spoken, was an Imbahalaala, a spooky, telepathic shadow creature. They were quite powerful, at least Tier-12 by his estimation, Saana''s Tier-11 Lowgods steering clear of them. However, the fact an Imbahalaala would involve itself with him was mysterious. When doing his quest for the ability, he''d spent a while hanging out with them learning their click language, and all the ones he¡¯d encountered were indifferent to human matters. In fact, they were indifferent to everything. They didn¡¯t eat or sleep or socialise. Some would spend centuries standing in one spot acting as bird perches. Even their attacks were an automatic response when they detected violence nearby. Their cognitive functioning appeared to be exceptionally low, beneath that of a tortoise. Thus, the idea of one giving out prophecies was highly unusual. Henry guessed The Great Black One was a unique, smarter variant of an Imbahalaala, much like King Torc had been a more advanced version of the simple boars. From the collage of oddities this morning, one might conclude, given the timing and the language similarities, that The Great Black One was another name for The Vilified One, whose voice had been heard in the booms during the rabbit ritual. However, that second guy had existed in the previous version of Saana, whereas the Imbahalaalas were a new addition. Of course, this didn¡¯t eliminate the possibility of some other connection between them. Henry''s quest logs didn''t provide any further clues. He studied the spear in King Torc''s heart, wondering what the creature had meant by it. ¡°Warning, framing, or...¡± ...confirm¡ª Not allowing himself to get carried away, he transferred the spear back to his inventory, it being a Tier 5-2 weapon whose material could be traced to him. As for King Torc''s body, it wouldn¡¯t fit. Given that this questline seemed to involve matters far beyond the recruitment tournament, he contacted a guild member to send a clean-up crew, dumping the responsibility on them. Just as he was finishing delivering that message, something shoved him from behind, sending him toppling forward, right in the direction of the over-sized boar¡¯s face. An ominous feeling rising like acid from his stomach, Henry fought to regain his balance. However, once upon a time, they''d called him The Cripple because his reaction speed sucked, and, today, it still sucked. Try as he might, he could not correct the fall in time. With his mask removed to enjoy the sky-diving breeze, his naked lips pressed against the dead boar¡¯s snout. In a flash of lights, this morbid kiss incited a herd of glowing soul-motes to charge out of the boar¡¯s corpse into Henry''s mouth, down into the rusty ring on his finger.
The Ring of a Thousand Souls claims King Torc.
Henry sighed in his soul. This, ''coincidentally'', was another feature of the ring. Not only could it create fake souls, it could also ''claim'' real ones, although he''d never figured out how to access them. All the precautions he¡¯d taken...all his self-control...worthless. What an obvious setup... In frustration, he span to face the bastard who''d shoved him. To his surprise, though, he found the donkey he''d forgotten about and a wormhole portal through which it''d been sent back. Henry stared blankly at the portal. Looking at him back through it, framed by the background of King Torc''s throneroom, was a featureless black head, devoid of any apparent expression, any feeling. Impersonal as a mirror, it seemed to reflect Henry''s cold examination of it. The creature clicked, and the portal sealed shut. Henry continued staring for a few seconds. Yeah, that was one of the Imbahalaalas he''d just been thinking about. It showing itself basically confirmed his theory. Then, again, given the species'' abilities, it might''ve intentionally confirmed his theory. Henry, just thinking about the number of possible layers, felt his head begin to hurt. "Stupid meddling shadow demons. And you." He turned to the donkey, wanting to take his frustration out on it. However, the beast looked wretched, like it was stuck in a nightmare. Henry sighed sympathetically. "I guess you¡¯re now involved in my problems. And you didn''t even get the fun skydiving break...how tragic." Below the hill, a mob of noobs were sprinting to check out the crash site. Henry, swapping back to his previous monkey-mask outfit, led the donkey to a bush and hid. Chapter 28 - King of The Hill Back to the present, on the same hill, now crowded with players inspecting the slain boar king. -Anonymous: Listen, Dan, no one can know this. In truth, I¡¯m on a top secret quest to save the world. -Danontherightwing: Sick! Can I join? -Anonymous: No. It¡¯s a one-player quest. That''s how the game works, sometimes. If you try to share your one-player quest, it fails, which, in this case, would mean the destruction of the entire planet. -Danontherightwing: Damn. Hey, Big Bro, how''d you¡¯d fight this huge guy? I want to battle one too. A wincing Henry scratched his head, discovering a twig in the back of his hair. So, yeah, that''s how he¡ªhistory''s greatest retiree, just minding his own business, maximising the use of his spare time in this tutorial to squeeze in extra training for the upcoming noob tournament by beating up Sentient boars¡ªended up accidentally fighting a massive king version and triggering some apocalyptic shadow demon questline. What an awful videogame... -Anonymous: The boar boss won¡¯t respawn for a week. By then, you¡¯ll be too high to want to fight it. The real boar-king would stay dead, but the noobs would be able to re-enact Henry''s battle by fighting a nerfed phantom-version when the dungeon materialised. -Danontherightwing: Oh... -Anonymous: In any case, I need to head off for the next part of the world-saving mission. Laters. Henry, lying to the noob, bid farewell. He had more common sense than to meddle with these dark affairs. No, while everyone was fussing over King Torc''s corpse, Henry would salvage the wasted time by solving the curse holding up his Earthfriend trainers. During the previous chat with his helpers for that quest while hopping around in the branches, he''d had arranged for the research materials to be dropped off at his bunker, which, Henry having planned precisely ahead, he''d dug nearby. The supplies should already have arrived by now. -Anonymous: On second thought, Dan, if you want to do your part to save the world, take care of this donkey for a bit. Henry stopped, giving the shabby mount to the noob. Dan accepted the task with handsome solemnity. "What¡¯s his name, Big Bro?" Henry recalled the dead wagon-driver calling it Szamar. However, he thought it better to just regard the animal as a generic mount. His career had taught him the folly of over-humanising things. But he didn''t want to explain that. "Congratulations," Henry replied, "you get to name it yourself!" "Sick!" Handsome Dan grabbed the donkey by its thin, discoloured cheeks and brought its face close to his own. The innocent expression of his handsome features seemed to soothe the animal. ¡°You have small ears," said Dan. "How about...Small Ears Bro?¡± The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. The donkey, seeming to understand, neighed at this noob''s trash naming skills. ¡°Hmm...what about...Big Teeth Bro?¡± Henry, leaving the pair behind, marched on down the hill, against the flood of players scrambling to gawk at the dead boar. Near the base of the hill, he was stopped momentarily by the bald trainer. The guy, having figured out the situation somehow, tried to pressure him into handing over the corpse, citing a technicality in the lesson agreement whereby the trainees belonged to the instructor. At first, Henry had assumed the dude was joking, but he totally wasn''t. The random attempt at blackmail confused him until he remembered he was in Suchi, where everyone was a degenerate criminal. Henry laughed. ¡°Sure. For the price of delaying the rest of the lesson until I return, it''s yours." "Really?" Instructor Apari was astonished. Henry shrugged. "All you''ll need to do is inform my friend coming to collect it of the change in arrangements. Good luck!¡± Giving a wink, he continued on, exiting the scene. Instructor Apari watched the strange trainee leave, sick to his stomach, a nervous sweat causing his drawn-on eyebrows to run. The trainer hadn''t expected that to work, but, since it had... He climbed up the hill and waited among the crowd inspecting the giant beast, wondering whom the trainee had sent to collect it. Soon, the question was answered. In the distance, approaching from The Slums, galloping horses broke the horizon, clouds of dust in their trail. As the riders reached the base of the hill, they didn¡¯t bother to dismount, their horses trampling anyone who stayed in their path. One Village recruiter who swore at the arriving group for knocking him over was speared, disintegrating into lights. The newcomers were led by a blonde-haired youth with cold grey eyes and a glistening name in bright red floating above his head. The leader hopped off his horse beside the dead beast, cracked his knuckles, and crossed his arms imperiously. ¡°I, Miechowa of Carcinogen Village, am going to steal this. Does anyone have a problem with that?¡± No one in the crowd refuted his claim. Instructor Apari, noticing one of the shirtless trainees from his group moving forward to interject, pulled them back. ¡°It''s not worth it, son. Let¡¯s go." Admitting defeat, the trainer joined his colleagues in wrangling their students and leaving before trouble began. The gang members of Carcinogen meanwhile bunkered down in preparation for the rival Villages that''d arrive soon. Each of them was grinning with excitement, anticipating a bloody king-of-the-hill style battle. They would definitely not survive to the end, but, before they perished, they would at least have fun. As Instructor Apari departed, knocked from the hill in an instant, his nerves continued to grow, his stomach aching with regret. The blood on the trainee''s clothes...the weapon''s handling...the dead gaze...he''d known something was off when they''d first met. To imagine, however, that he''d try pressuring a recruit from Carcinogen, those pitiless murderers. What a fool he''d been... As the regretful trainer descended the hill, he didn¡¯t notice a woman pass by, nor did any of the others fleeing the location. Her appearance was remarkably unpretty. Frumpy and dressed in civilian attire, at first glance, she looked like a peasant NPC, like someone who made her living selling fish at an open-air market. Seeing the kids standing beside the giant boar, she walked up to them and coughed to grab their attention. ¡°Excuse me, Miechowa.¡± Her voice was a bit too quiet. Not wanting to draw too much attention, she tried grabbing the brat''s sleeve. The blondie, out of instinct, immediately unsheathed his sword and slashed. Halfway through the attack, though, he caught a glimpse of the frumpy woman¡¯s face and, in terror, his grip on his weapon loosened, causing it to fly away. The other members of his gang, noticing who he''d attacked, paled. ¡°Sorry!" The blondie lowered his head in apology. "We¡¯ll be leaving right away.¡± The frumpy woman waved in dismissal, never expecting much from these rowdy Villagers. ¡°It''s fine. Don¡¯t ride the horses too hard on the return trip. They look worn-out." The gang, apologising, jumped on their mounts and, this time, rode off politely, avoiding trampling anyone on the way, careful in case some others from The Company were lurking in the crowd. ¡°Wait," called out the frumpy woman. ¡°Yes?¡± the blondie, shoulders bunched, swivelled in his saddle, just in time for a thrown sword to slide into his scabbard The frumpy woman pumped her fist, praising her own aim. ¡°Nice shot." ¡°Nice shot," the blondie agreed stiffly. "Thank you!¡± His gang members clapped. Afterwards, any other groups of armed Villagers arriving to fight over the corpse, upon seeing the lone woman standing by its side, turned and left. Soon enough, an army of labourers in ash-grey uniforms had covered the hilltop, erecting a marquee tent to hide their butchering work. Chapter 29 - The Home Away From Home Real Life. Auckland, New Zealand. The Central Business District. A seventh-floor loft apartment. A bit large for a single occupant, this apartment was nevertheless utilised well. One entering would first observe the wonderous, dense layout of the floorplan, with well-stocked shelves of books, a miniature recording studio with a variety of instruments, an atelier corner used for painting, sculpting, and woodwork, and an entertainment suite with the latest high-tech equipment. But, if one gazed long and hard enough, eventually something would appear a bit off. The apartment had a subtle, uncanny sterility. It reminded the observer of a hotel, of a hospital room, of a prison cell, one of those liminal spaces where a person might reside but not does not truly live. In the middle of the apartment lay a mattress placed straight on the floor carpet, covered with well-worn library books and scribbled-on scraps of paper. Amongst the mess, a young man was stretched supine, an object resembling a motorcycle helmet fixed on his head. Henry, the VR helmet emitting a beep, sat up and slipped the device off. His character in-game was using an automated procedure to absorb the research materials for the Earthfriend curse quest that his minions had gathered. While that process was underway, he thought he''d log off for a few minutes to clear his head. For a moment after exiting the game, he felt dizzy and his senses were muted. Gradually, though, his ears awakened to the buzz of the city, and his nose picked up the remnants of Alex¡¯s cologne, the beaver-head messaging earlier that he was popping by to steal a couple of snacks from the pantry. Henry slowly stood up, careful to maintain his balance against a disorienting vertigo. He walked over to an open window to take a peek outside. His apartment was situated in the middle of the city, giving him a view of urban street - glassy high-rises, groundfloor stores and eateries, a movie theatre. The traffic below flowed as regular as a metronome, depositing straggling workers starting late, dressed and neat for their office jobs. In the building across from him, a group of suits were meeting in a conference room, a young man handing out coffee with respect. The grey-white squawking of a seagull cut across the image, the bird travelling from the harbour to a nearby park in search of bugs. Although the calendar still marked the date as spring in the southern hemisphere, the late November air felt hot and humid, summer continuing its obstinate mission to invade just a bit earlier each year. Absorbing the sensations of this fraction of earth, absorbing the much greater rest that extended invisibly beyond his sight, Henry tried to condense it all inside himself, to squeeze to it, to form a solid mass. With the world of reality in one hand, he weighed it against the oddities of this morning in Saana, both what had already passed and what his paranoia sensed beyond. Unable to decide, he shifted the weights between hands, between the hands of a retiree, a teenager, and several others. What would anyone else his age think? he wondered. They wouldn''t hesitate, most likely. Refusing to be defeated by a tutorial, they''d march on stubbornly. No - they''d probably dive into it with excitement, thrilled by the challenge. A teenager himself, shouldn''t he do the same? In a way, wouldn''t be that proof of his retirement, not to run away, but to act without restraint? Maybe... Two messages had arrived on his e-assistant. The first was from his grandmother, who''d sent several links to online university application forms, along with a melodramatic wall-of-text about how he was breaking her heart. She¡¯d first reacted to the revelation of his job at a gaming company as though he¡¯d told her he was moonlighting as a prostitute. When she¡¯d later discovered how much he¡¯d made, she became even more insistent that he quit, arguing that, because he no longer needed to work, he would have the time to study for a ¡®real job¡¯. His grandmother was of the old guard, that dying generation who still attached a mystical reverence to higher education and salaried white-collar labour. She couldn''t envision the creative possibilities beyond. ¡®Thanks, grandma. I will be sure to check them out!¡¯ he messaged back. In the past, Henry had considered signing up to college as an excuse for quitting the game, but he''d felt that committing four or five years just for that purpose was a bit extreme. He''d put in enough work for his life so far, paid or not. The rest of it, he wanted to spend enjoying in comfort, much like the Technocommunists of Europe. Thinking of those European dandies living 500 years ahead of the rest of the world filled Henry with envy. They had replaced all their economic and political institutions with a benevolent A.I. dictator, which they controlled via direct democratic voting. Now, they spent their days sipping government-supplied GMO wine and frolicking to their hearts'' content. In fact, Saana was created by a handful of Finnish guys, who''d let the supreme A.I. dictator perform 99% of the work. If international immigration hadn''t been prohibited by the treaties that sprung up in the wake of the A.I. revolution, Henry would have packed up his family and flown them there already. Feeling peckish, he went to the kitchen. The fridge door swung open at his approach. On the shelves, aside from two unopened bottles of pills¡ªthe company doctor gave him regular checkups; he didn''t need Cathy''s whacky herbal remedies¡ªthere were only drinks. He hadn''t bought a single cooking ingredient, all his meals being delivered for efficiency''s sake. Speaking of Cathy, the second message had been sent by her. It contained a picture of the inside of a tent with a bunch of sleeping figures dangled over each other, as though they¡¯d passed out in the middle of a game of Twister. She''d also included a prayer for him to grow up untainted by sin and a reminder to take his breakfast supplement. The picture was from out of the game, from a music festival or something, his friends not logging on until evening, when the daily activities and arena-training for their Village began. Henry, lying without compunction, replied to Cathy that he''d already taken her pills and had been surprised to find them so sweet. Some battles were best not fought, best never done - wu-wei. From the fridge, he grabbed a can of Isonade Dinosaur Sweat, with its logo of a sweating T-Rex biting down on an exploding grenade. As he cracked it open and took a big gulp, a refreshing blast of caffeinated carbonation struck the back of his throat, awakening his senses even further. Henry grinned awkwardly at the ridiculous taste explosion. "Yeah, that''s the stuff, baby. Wu-wei. Now, this is what teenagers should be drin¡ª" The smile he''d been attempting to force faded, his expression flattening out. His e-assistant lit up with an urgent call. Sighing, he allowed it through, a voice screaming from his wrist. ¡°DON¡¯T TAKE ANOTHER ONE! THEY¡¯RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SWEET! OH NO, YOU SHOULD BOOK YOURSELF AN APPOINTMENT¡ª¡± ¡°Cathy, chill," he replied, "you¡¯re going to wake the others up. I¡¯m fine.¡± The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°We¡¯re already awake, H.,¡± mumbled Anderson in the background. ¡°HENRY, YOU NEED TO TAK¡ª¡± ¡°Cathy, by ''sweet'', I meant the supplements are ''awesome'' - I''m using our national slang. Sweet as, these pills are. Why, after taking them..." He read the slogan on the can he was drinking, "...I feel strong enough to benchpress a dinosaur.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± There was a half second of silence as Cathy contemplated the strange turn of phrase. ¡°Well, then, how are you this morning? What are you doing? We''ve been...¡± Crisis averted, thought Henry, as he began ignoring Cathy''s ramblings. While she chattered away, he went to grab a bite to eat from his snack cupboard, only to find that it was empty. That was strange. He was sure he¡¯d that he¡¯d had at least sixty snackbars remaining. Had Alex taken the whole stockpile? Henry supposed the beaver-head was quite petty. Henry, still hungry but not having enough time to wait for delivery, decided to steal food from the cafeteria on the ground floor of his building. Not bothering to change out of his sweatpants, throwing on a pair of comfortable old man loafers, he left his apartment. Along the corridor outside, the other doors, instead of leading into apartments similar to Henry''s, were opened to reveal rooms cluttered with stacked chairs, desks, event decorations, and other miscellaneous office supplies placed in storage. This was actually not a residential building. Henry happened to live at his guild''s real-life headquarters - most of Saana''s large organisations hired backend staff to handle the business aspects too tedious for gamers, and his guild had expanded into commerce, merchandise, movies, in-game tourism, etc. He''d moved out of home because the place was too crowded and, his work keeping him up at random hours of the night, he didn''t want to disturb his family. Despite his peculiar living arrangement, none of the employees had figured out his identity yet, most mistaking him for a loser NEET cousin of Alex''s who''d run away from home and slept in a storage closet. Well, technically, Henry used to live here. With his retirement, he would now be moving between hotel rooms while using his filthy riches to travel the globe and enjoy the splendours of a post-labour existence. He was just back at the old place temporarily - until he finished this recruitment tournament. Just another two weeks. Noticing something odd further down the corridor, Henry ended the call with Cathy. For the wager, he''d installed a secretary office down the hall from him. Usually, he never interacted face-to-face with his personal assistants, from whom he''d also kept his real identity hidden. As part of the contractual terms with Alex¡ªthe agreement not to use guild resources¡ªHenry''d given his PAs a holiday. The beaver-head, however, showing some mercy, had allowed Henry to borrow his nanny, a geriatric lady who couldn''t handle virtual tech and knew nothing about Saana. Earlier, she''d informed him about his missing Earthfriend trainers via a handwritten note. Presently, from the office he''d made for his secretary-nanny, was coming a medley of strange noises, of many people. ¡°Mrs Withers!¡± he called out, poking his head in. He suddenly met eyes with eleven housewives in their late 20s. They were seated around a meeting table drinking tea and coffee. In front of a wall projection of Alex cleaving a Miracleworker in two with a zweihander, an entire kindergarten worth of toddlers were gathered, stuffing their chubby faces as they passed around a bowl of snacks - Henry''s stolen snacks. One of the toddlers was sitting far away from the rest. He wore a tiny suit and had a heavily-gelled mullet. When this kid noticed Henry¡¯s arrival, he got up and gave him a stiff, formal bow. This was Little Liu, Alex¡¯s son and the kid Mrs Withers nannied. Little Liu didn''t speak. He was a mute, Henry suspecting he''d picked up a defective brain gene from his retarded father. Henry nodded in greeting at the toddler, then gave him a questioning look. "Dude, what''s with all these brats eating my candy? And where''s your dad?" Little Liu shrugged twice, the shoulders pads of his toddler suit pumping in a comical juxtaposition with the kid''s gloomy expression. A woman in her eighties with bright red lipstick, the nanny, answered. ¡°Mr Lee, Little Liu¡¯s friends are visiting for a playdate." She made a hand barrier to muffle the next sentence. ¡°(The psychologist thinks he¡¯ll start talking if we socialise him with people his age). Mr Wong is setting up the gymnasium for the children to play in.¡± The ¡®gymnasium¡¯ was where the guild members trained when they had exceeded their weekly playtime quota. Spanning from the tenth to twelfth floor, the space had been set up to mimic Saana¡¯s combat system using projectors, computer tracking of health, artificial terrain, and specialised padded-clothing that minimised the damage of blows. Henry usually spent a few hours there a week for exercise. These last few days, though, he''d been training more intensively, especially while his character had been stuck on the boat to Suchi. Henry replied blankly. ¡°Still, he shouldn''t have stolen my snacks. That''s certainly not going to help the kid''s stunted development, teaching him to be a thief - a fat thief." Mrs Withers blinked several times in rapid succession, thinking that Henry was in no position to be lecturing on poor influences. Henry¡ªgroaning at these strangers with the disdain of a retiree having to watch hoodlums walk across his lawn instead of the path five steps away and not being allowed by law to shoot them¡ªfiltered their presence from his brain. Jogging forward, jumping right over the heads of several kids, he reached the snack bowl and snatched up the last candy. A toddler, hovering nearby it, glared at him. Henry eyed the raspberry jelly on the kid¡¯s chin - from a different brand to the Zapper¡¯s Hazel Coco-Nut Bar in the kid''s grip. ¡°You¡¯re already on your second, buddy." He turned to leave, but felt something tugging on his pants. By his side, the mullet-headed toddler, Alex''s spawn, was clinging to his leg and staring up at him with a pitiful expression. ¡°We¡¯ve all got problems, mate," said Henry. When Henry tried to walk away, Little Liu maintained his hold, allowing himself to be dragged along. ¡°Look,¡± said Henry, not pausing his walk, ¡°the outcome of this friendship tutorial doesn''t matter. I didn¡¯t make my first friend until I was eight years old, and I turned out relatively well-adjusted.¡± Little Liu sniffled. Henry unwrapped his snackbar, snapped it in two, and gave half to the kid. Little Liu, taking it and immediately stuffing it in his mouth, began to chew and tear up. ¡°Chin up, Little Liu." Henry, reminded by the friendless child of the lonely boar stubbornly chasing him until it died, paused his departure and, changing to another strategy, patted the kid''s head. ¡°There¡¯s no need to cry...¡± He searched for words of consolation, something that had never been his forte. ¡°Listen, even if the present is bleak and lonesome, never forget that man is a creature whose dominion is time, a creature whose life spans yesterday, today, and tomorrow." Mrs Withers, hearing hints of nice, age-appropriate communication for once, watched in astonishment, her mouth falling ajar. Was, the nanny wondered, Mr Lee finally going to extend a hand of sympathy? Would he finally reveal that male role model she¡¯d always known to be hidden deep inside him? Alas, if one looked closely, he''d been patting the kid more like a puppy than a child. The words that proceeded to spill from his mouth were spoken too quickly for even most adults to follow. ¡°...now," Henry continued with his unclely advice, "it might not be tomorrow exactly, but in two, maybe three years, tops, even if you are still a weird mute, eventually all the kids around you are going to grasp the concept of money, and when they do, a significant proportion of them are going to be willing to overlook your failings because you have rich parents. That''s a life pro-tip right there, Little Liu. Being blessed in one area creates a halo effect that impairs people''s judgement of your weaker aspects and provides a material incentive to ignore those they do notice. Rich, smart, handsome, funny¡ªa strength in any of these can compensate for your glaring faults in others. You, my silent nephew, are more than blessed with the first.¡± Henry grabbed the kid firmly by the shoulder and swept an arm across an imaginary vista. ¡°All along the playground, Little Liu, there¡¯s going to be an endless line of much smarter, much funnier, much cooler kids than this pathetic, pants-shitting lot, every one of them begging for a piece of your time. The Little Liu-ser before us today will be tomorrow the Little Li-oan-Me-Snack-Money-And-I''ll-Play-With-You-My-Best-Friend! When that happens, don¡¯t worry, even if most of the grovellers can¡¯t be trusted¡ªas is true in general for the hidden enemies you will encounter in your arduous journey before your mortal extinguishment¡ªthis uncle will design you a vetting system for identifying the select few that can. Are we cool, then?" To this last question, Little Liu nodded. Being two years old, he lacked the mental capacity to realistically grasp even a twentieth of what had been said, but the uncle''s confident tone made him feel reassured. Henry raised his fists in a gesture of encouragement, two fists clenched with a brawny resolution to fight against the universe, against poorly-designed tutorials, against noobs in recruitment tournaments, against kindergarten ostracism. ¡°Jiayou.¡± Little Liu let go to mirror the action. Henry, before the kid could latch onto his pants again, sprinted away, tossing the rest of the snackbar in his mouth. Mrs Withers, watching him rush out, shook her head in disappointment, while the housewives had a mixture of reactions ranging from confusion to mild offence. One mother squinted between those two states. "Umm...did he just refer to our children as ''this pathetic, pants-shitting lot''?" Chapter 30 - Ancient Vampire Moths In-game, Suchi, the bunker dug earlier. Henry''s character stood inert in the dimly-lit underground space, illuminated by a glowing stone, whose light shone upon a stack of books old and new, random papers, Memory Spheres encircling him, along with three barrels filled with multi-coloured bricks in the bunker''s corner. These supplies had been dropped off by his busy helpers. While he''d been doing the tutorial, they''d scrambled about gathering information on the curse, borrowing copies of any books the Earthfriends had found in the dungeon where it''d originated, along with other materials used while preparing for the expedition. Additionally, the helpers had conducted structured interviews with the afflicted, noting symptoms, life history, etc. The barrels of multi-coloured bricks were unrelated - those were power-up foods for the donkey, Henry wanting to make his shabby mount stronger and faster. His character suddenly began to blink, as he logged back on, the animation of sense and thought possessing his blank features. Henry didn''t move much, however. Since his character had finished absorbing his minion''s collection, he immediately leapt into his Mental Library to complete this noobie curse quest, using his Scholar skills. He''d be happy to have this little thing done with. The tutorial about to grow out of hand, it would be nice to prune one of the irritating branches he could control. Henry started with collating a formal course description of the curse''s symptoms. In addition to fever and fatigue, the afflicted Earthfriends experienced rashes on their shoulder blades and slowed heart rates. Symptoms also differed by tier, with victims above Tier-2 entering a deep coma, while those below stayed awake but shed their fingernails. At a more subtle level, the curse appeared to be progressive in nature, the rash growing more intense with time. From there, because the curse arose from a dungeon, he searched for any mentions of similar afflictions in his database of historical medical documents, which might lead to a cure. To begin, he limited the inquiry to texts relating to the era of the dungeon¡¯s construction. Its era, he recognised from his minions'' descriptions of the dungeon''s architectural style. With pumpkin-shaped columns and murals of an eight-legged lizard, the place had been built by the Delinese people, who''d lived in the upper region of the Suchi river prior to the conquest of the area by the present occupants. More precisely, the architecture corresponded to the style of the Delinese Eftik Dynasty, which had reigned from 3770 to 3591 years Before Present. After chasing a few false leads, he discovered a fitting entry in an encyclopaedia of infectious diseases, composed in 1994 B.P., for a ''disease'' called ''Delinese Narcoalopeciosis''. The encyclopaedia failed to note a cure, but it did reference several extra sources. All these Henry traced back to a travelogue by a wandering Volefan doctor written in 3388 B.P., a copy of which happened already be in his possession. The doctor had learned of the curse from a descendant of the Delinese medicine man caste, who¡¯d sought to preserve the knowledge of it for the sake of future generations. The transferal process had been complicated somewhat by a language barrier. Neither the doctor nor the medicine man could speak each other''s tongue, so they''d relied on the medicine man''s granddaughter as a translator, and she herself didn''t understand the obscure medical lingo. Thus, the recipe for the cure was written in Delinese hieroglyphics, which the medicine man had drawn and which the vagrant doctor had copied directly without comprehension beyond what the granddaughter could give him. But Henry, his character having learned Delinese, could understand the hieroglyphics. Ignoring the doctor''s faulty translation and reading the medicine man''s words directly, he learned that the curse had been created by an enemy empire''s Bloodmancer named Sikarmilki. The curse had been specifically produced to target Earthfriends because the Delinese army had a special retinue of them, on which they were heavily reliant. It was a sort of magical biological-warfare - a practice Bloodmancers still engaged in today and, due to which, along with necromancy and demonic summoning, the Class had been outlawed in most countries, including Suchi. The curse''s cure was a potion, which required 51 ingredients and would take a Tier 3-2 Alchemist about twenty minutes to brew. A detailed recipe had been provided by the medicine man, including indicators of success at each step and methods for procuring ingredients. While Henry was copying the recipe, a hurdle arose in the form of a nonsensical passage: "...how to process the giraffe. After sun-drying, strip off the lateral root hairs and steep them in tea for sixteen seconds..." The word ''giraffe'' continued to be used in place of the name of the herb. Henry guessed the doctor had misdrawn the hieroglyph. Saana''s game system often threw in such errors in historical documents to complicate affairs, to give the researcher a challenge. There would be multiple methods for tackling this same issue, depending on one''s speciality. From a linguistic approach, he could search manually for similar hieroglyphs or dive into the etymological past for obsolete meanings. Alternatively, a seasoned Alchemist might be able to guess the mistaken ingredient based on its function. Henry had a simpler, quicker Method than any of these. He selected one of the pesky lines containing the giraffe error.
Universal Comprehension (Method - Authorial Intent) activated.
On Methods: most Civilian tasks, from sowing seeds to forging swords, had multiple magical techniques or ''Methods'' for accomplishing them. Different Methods varied in terms of processing speed, failure rate, special effects granted to final products, amount of player input, rate of Universal Production consumption, and type of crafting materials required. Methods were the treasure of Civilian classes. While Martial classes hunted for stronger weapons and armour, Civilians hunted down and invented more efficient Methods. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Naturally, for a Tier 5 Scholar of Henry''s position, acquiring the best was no problem, his character blessed with thousands of advanced and secret techniques. As this one secret technique initiated, Henry underwent a sensory shift similar to entering the memories of the rabbit. He found himself in a different place, in a different time, squatting in a run-down shack, the voice of a young woman translating beside him, and a stooped elder before him scribbling in the dirt with a weathered stick. In his own hand was a piece of paper, onto which he was studiously copying, his gaze¡ªout of Henry''s control¡ªflicking between the dirt figures and his imitations. When he glanced at the medicine man''s drawings, a subtitle popped up for Henry, ''How to process the Longstem grass. After sun-drying...¡¯
Universal Comprehension (Method - Authorial Intent) used. 752 Universal Productivity consumed.
The ancient scene, manifesting between one blink, vanished after another. Henry, back in his underground bunker, noted down the correction and continued along with the translation, the error that might''ve stumbled newbies bypassed in seconds. Similar misdrawings arising afterwards were solved as easily. The final step for Henry, after writing the complete recipe, was to modify it so that it could be reproduced in the present day. 3500 years was a long time and not all the ingredients would still be available. In total, he discovered 7 ingredients that came from extinct sources. For substitutes, he dived into Alchemy manuals, ancient and modern, which noted the active components of the ingredients and a bunch of other stuff. He also checked detailed lists of what could be purchased today in Suchi. Here, he arrived at a wall. Exact substitutes were available for 4 lost ingredients, and, for 2, he had refined down a list of likely candidates. But the last ingredient was not so simple. It was the carapace of a beetle that¡¯d lived in a single grove and had only been used in a single recipe, this cure - no other Alchemy manual mentioned it. By studying related insect species or the geographical conditions of the insect''s living environment, it should be possible to find a substitute. However, this would require extensive trial-and-error experimentation across thousands of test batches. Henry was a Tier 4-2 Alchemist, and, with his skills alone, he estimated based on the number of missing variables that he''d need to burn weeks of Universal Productivity to explore all the possibilities. "Wow." He exited his Mental Library, filling the empty bunker with a surprised murmur. "Interesting." It seemed he¡¯d underestimated this curse side-quest a little bit. Given the sizeable workload for fixing the problem, the quest had probably been designed to impact not just the residents of Suchi but the entire Kanaru region of which it was one part, covering about 50 million NPCs. It seemed to be a national-level crisis, on the scale of a volcanic eruption or an invasion from Interplanar demons. At least, this theory would seem to fit with the severity of a later stage of the curse noted in the hieroglyphs. Sometime after entering the coma, the Earthfriends would start experiencing horrifying nightmares. Following that, they would metamorphosise into giant moths and fly around spreading a sleep-inducing neurotoxin. Their knocked-out victims would then be abducted and have their bodies drained of their blood and lymphatic fluids. This final stage had gone unnoticed so far because the first Suchi Earthfriend wasn¡¯t scheduled to transform until¡ªaccording to Henry''s calculations¡ªapproximately six in-game hours from now. Soon after, however, the pristinely clean blue skies above would be marred with vampiric moths, swooping down and gobbling up the terrified citizens. Like the noob tutorial, this minor event was also about to grow much more complicated, the plot not simply thickening but spreading like the brambly gorse that smothered the farms of his homeland. But none of that stuff should be Henry''s problem. Retirement also meant retiring from saving the world from catastrophes - the world of Saana, it should be emphasised, Saana the videogame, where nothing ultimately mattered. Hell, could you really call vampiric moths a significant change from this shithole''s current situation? Why, just this morning, a cannibal had tried gobbling him up. The only way this affected him was that, amongst the swarm of vampiric moths, would be all the Earthfriend trainers necessary for him to unlock the Class he''d wanted for participating in his duelling tournament. But this wasn''t a real issue, either, was it? It might be strategically optimal to use an Earthfriend, but he''d concocted plenty of alternative schemes with different Classes. He could effortlessly switch. At this point, having not even yet acquired the Class, he''d formed no significant attachment to that option. He didn''t even like Earthfriends, their hippy vegan aesthetic disgusting him. He''d put in his best effort, he''d failed for silly reasons, now he should move on. "Change of plans, then," he announced out loud to drive his convictions to Not-Do home to himself. "Now, I''ll become a Beast Tamer and create a dazzling, innovative technique for fighting alongside a loyal animal companion specifically against noobs. Wolf, gorilla, sabre-tooth tiger, eagle - oooooh, which pet will I choose? How mysterious and intriguing is the future. Maybe, I''m holding back on revealing a secret, overpowered pet: a perverted parakeet with the perfect parameters for pecking plebs in the privates...painfully. Or maybe, I''ve found a super-competent monster that can handle 92.3% of the duelling while I chill at the back of the arena reading comic books, smug at the success of my new non-martial-art, The Strategy of The Nepotistic Manager Hire. Boy, I can''t wait to find out what happens!" While spouting this absurd drivel, Henry''d not smiled once. With each word echoing in his own ears, his face had sunk a little further, declining beneath its habitual flatness like the sun descending into the horizon. When he was done, he tilted his head back, his tired gaze seeming to bore through the dirt ceiling of his bunker to the universe beyond. Something, rising from unknown depths, flickered in his eyes, a feeling between hunger and hostility. Its origin would be impossible for even himself to say. Henry was a teenager. Perhaps the source could be found in that fact about him, the impetuosity of youth, the heedless, immature side of young men his age that prickles when brushing against too much opposition and that refuses to submit at any price, including the price of self-annihilation. "Annoying," he said. It was very annoying. He sighed Then, he returned to his Mental Library and conjured up the quickest solution possible. When he found an adequate plan, the dark void of the Mental Library brightened slightly as dozens of stars seemed to appear in the distance. Bringing any of them closer, one would see they were documents - mostly timetables for himself, his minions, and random members of the Slum Empire. He ordered the system to create one more document from a template for forged theses, titling it ''An Incomplete Treatment for the Dread Curse of Sikarmilki'', by Dr Oba Iskander, his spoofed ring identity. As another star flashed into life, books started pouring out from shelves, flying to Henry, and stacking in a circular formation around him, the stack growing so high it passed over his head.
Rapid Composition (Method - Heartspeech Language) activated. Completion Time Parameter set to 0 hours.
Following that, from inside of the resulting well made of books, an almost imperceptible sound was heard. Click. In an instant, the newest star grew a hundred times brighter. Chapter 31 - Tutorial Wolves While a certain someone had been hiding underground doing his best to tidy up the latest bizarre complication, another was developing in the various Boar Killing Grounds around the world of Saana. The Western Continent. Besalaada, Bes. A temperate forest, its canopy blocking most of the sunlight. A Grey Wolf and its pack were battling a group of humans when a blow from a mace sent it tumbling down a ravine. At the base, the wolf picked itself up and tried to climb the slope to rejoin the fight. However, the steepness of the sides made it fall back down, again and again. In time, the red glow of Bloodlust in the wolf''s vision faded and, regaining its senses, it realised that the party of humans had gone. With its calmer mental state, it followed its nose in search of a path back to the clan den. Along the way, it stumbled across a boar digging at a root. The wolf snuck up beside the fat beast and tore out its throat, initiating a fight that didn¡¯t last long. Afterwards, the wolf, sensing the den to be nearby, tried dragging the boar in that direction, but it found the beast too heavy. Covering the boar with leaves, the wolf ran off to recruit help. The Northern Continent. Hembami, Heimland. A field of snow glowing in the moonlight with players ankle-deep fighting boars with thick white hair. Watching the scene of the newbies farming the wolves was an Artist player and his canvas. He had come to capture the untainted exuberance of youthful beginnings. Around him, several floating paintbrushes were poised for action. Beep.
SYSTEM ALERT: It is highly recommended that the player log out and visit their bathroom.
Cringing, the Artist vanished. He logged back in a moment later to a drastically-changed scene. The air sang with anguished screams, and everywhere the pure whiteness of the snow was being stained by the lifeblood of players and boars alike, as they were mauled by a thousand-strong pack of wolves that seemed to be rushing ever closer, like a tsunami making landfall - steady, unstoppable, its march devouring all who could not hope to outrun it. Soon, the Artist realised, the wave would be upon him, too. But, an artist, he did not flee. Staring down the oncoming, howling tide, he made his brushes dance and flicker with sensuous joy. The Official Forums. The first of many new threads. -Freya2042: Umm...hello...my name''s Freya...I just made my first character. I apologise if this is a silly question. Is it...like...normal..at level two...to be torn apart...by a massive pack of wolves? Suchi. The Horny Boar Fields, the howls of wolves clashing with the grunts of men. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Flying around the once peaceful fields of grazing boar herds were claws, jaws, swords and spells. A tide of ravenous Grey Wolves was clashing with a coalition of Village recruiters and tutorial trainers, fighting valiantly to hold back the snarling advance with muscle and metal. Despite continuous losses on both sides, the numbers never ceased to grow, Human reinforcements racing from The Slums, fresh packs emerging from the shadows of the forest to the west. Everywhere man and monster fell together in violent union, crushing whimpering organs, tearing crying throats, smashing growling muzzles, gnawing swearing faces, and the soil quenched its thirst with their crimson libations. Had a war begun between man and beast? Perhaps. Perhaps not. To glance at those sprinting on two-legs headlong into the fray, those conditioned to the animosity of Suchi''s lawless streets, one would recognise in their euphoric grins something of the beast as well. While battle howled its hateful song, two-thousand new players, hit by this random event in the middle of their game tutorial, were observing from an earthen-wall emergency fortress created by a team of Shaman. At first, they''d longed to join in, only being stopped by their trainers. Now, though, watching the fierce struggle of sword and fur, they knew they couldn''t have helped. One noob, the VR experience tricking him into thinking he was in actual danger, thrust a trembling finger in the air. "It''s returned! The Wolf Emperor!" From the forest''s edge sprinted a wolf as large as a house, its fur coloured royal blue, its head decorated by a crown of canines. Its target was another wolf on the verge of defeat. Leaping over a group of players, this giant monster, ''The Wolf Emperor'', landed beside its struggling underling, grabbed it by the scruff, and ripped it away in time to avoid a death blow. Before anyone could respond, the massive beast was already sprinting with its cargo back to the forest. A team tried to intercept the beast''s escape path, but the monster seemed to have calculated the distance. The team reached it right as The Wolf Emperor darted into the safety of the dense tree cover. The players, confident, continued to give chase. Moments later, a member of that same arrogant group ran back out, her movements impeded by the fact of having the jaws of four wolves locked on each limb. While she was struggling to throw them off her, The Wolf Emperor exploded out from behind and closed its teeth around her upper body. As it tried to drag her away, she evaporated into lights. The giant beast, retreating, growled in annoyance. It had not killed the player - she''d smartly suicided her character to avoid capture. Amongst the noobs safe in the fort, an extremely handsome guy watched the scene with jealousy. Dan wished he could be down there, too. The thrill of fighting to escape a giant wolf''s jaws, when would he get to experience this joy? Something bumped him from behind. He turned to the donkey, which''d nudged him with a panicked insistence. Dan gave the donkey''s scruffy mane a helpless pat. "Donkey Bro," he implored, "I told you, bro! I don''t have any food left. You ate it all!" No matter how much rabbit and boar meat Dan had fed this Donkey Bro, he''d never seemed satisfied. Donkey Bro was greedier than a prop after a slogger in the heat. The donkey, as if to indicate this handsome human had been mistaken, shook its head. Flicking its nose, it tried to point towards a group of horsemen arriving at their improvised fortress. Amongst the riders was one person in a monkey mask, sitting on the back of one horse. Dan, misreading the gesture, raised his chin back. "Sup to you, too, Donkey Bro!" The donkey, seeing the monkey-headed figure dismount, quickly hid for safety behind the meathead. Henry, arriving at The Empire''s temporary camp, thanked the riders using a fake southern American accent. "Much appreciated, partners. Best of luck out there." "You, too, friend!" replied one. "Don''t wait too long," warned another. "We''re not going to leave any for you!" Waving, Henry watched as the group of comrades galloped off into the battle against the wolf army and the colossal emperor leading it. The friends, using their mounts to race to the frontline, and then beyond, were swarmed and torn apart in seconds, their bodies bursting into souls to make the slow flight back to a respawn point. Their horses, not so lucky, were devoured alive. Henry, behind his mask, wore a blank, dumbfounded smile. So, yeah, this whole wolf business... He¡¯d been surprised when emerging from his hole to discover the roadway packed with Villagers in battle attire, claiming they were going to defend the country from an invasion of the furry hounds. While hitching a ride, he''d learned a few more details. In the brief time of his absence, an over-sized wolf had spawned into The Grey Wolf Forest, the adjacent Killing Grounds, and, by picking up one of the over-levelled recruiters and exposing them to other wolves, it had amassed an army of sentient wolf minions. With this intelligent horde, it had conquered The Grey Wolf Forest in minutes, eradicating all the unfortunate souls inside, and now it sought to claim The Horny Boar Fields. Could the arrival of this boss monster be related to the bizarre questline derailing Henry''s tutorial? Possibly. Chapter 32 - An Invisible Presence A fortress overlooking a wolf-strewn battlefield. Could the arrival of this boss monster be related to the bizarre questline derailing Henry''s tutorial? Possibly. He guessed the death of King Torc had removed the restriction preventing the wolves from encroaching into the territory, and this Wolf Emperor monster was the next bad guy in the series of boss monsters leading up to The Great Black One. However, even if this invasion were, somewhat, related to himself, he had no need to stop it. The guy he''d caught a ride with had told him that a Slum Empire ''King'' would be arriving with his forces soon to dispose of the mutts. As far as Henry were concerned, if someone else wanted to try relieving this questline from his innocent hands, he was happy to let them take the burden. Of course, his paranoia told him these Empire goons would botch their attempt miserably and the responsibility of slaying this over-sized wolf would ultimately fall back to him after a series of inexplicable ''coincidences''. However, before that moment, he wouldn''t intervene. As a retiree, he should have some faith in these whippersnappers who''d be succeeding him. Let the next generation have its turn at the reins. You never know, they might surpass your expectations and usher in a future far beyond your senile imagination. Nearby, Henry spotted just one such young whippersnapper. The overly-handsome meathead from before had been squinting at him, two fingers raised to each gracile temple, trying to beam a telepathic message. -Anonymous: Dan, my buddy. I had my sound muted. What did you say? Henry had still not given the kid his username or explained the private messaging process fully, nor would he. -Danontherightwing: Big Bro, how''d the mission go? -Anonymous: The information is classified, but... Henry flicked his gaze suspiciously around the fortress, like a spy holding a secret so critical that he couldn''t even risk its theft by paranormal telepaths. -Anonymous: ...it was a stunning success. The world is safe...for now. He was basically finished with the side-quest to cure the Earthfriends of their ancient vampire moth curse. The rest would be handled by his minions, no further input required from himself. Henry could now focus entirely on completing this tutorial. The curse quest could become wildly unhinged like this tutorial quest, but he couldn''t yet see anything but a superficial, temporal connection between the two. The challenge levels were simply too different. Vampire moths threatened this irrelevant, backwater region, with a couple million casualties, maybe. A sentient shadow demon threatened the whole planet, perhaps the galaxy. A bit different. -Danontherightwing: Sweet! But what about these wolves, Big Bro? -Anonymous: No clue. These wolves are totally unrelated to my mission. -Danontherightwing: But, Big Bro, isn''t there a kind of obvious thematic similarity between the huge boar and the huge wolf? -Anonymous: Dan, don''t be racist. Just because they''re both massive monsters, doesn''t mean they''re connected. You''re pretty big. Are you related to them? -Danontherightwing: Oh, sorry, Big Bro. Henry, having entered the fortress while chatting and slipped through the crowd of noobs, reached the meathead in person and pointed at the shabby donkey hiding behind him. "What you call it?" "Donkey Bro," Dan answered. "I tried others, but he didn''t seem to like them." "A gorgeous name for a gorgeous donkey!" Henry summoned a couple of power-up biscuits for the ugly beast to nibble on. "Eat, Donkey Bro, and grow." The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The donkey, carefully taking one in its mouth, immediately spat the snack out, the biscuit bland and nasty in comparison to the wolf meat. Henry would have drawn an ominous conclusion from that rejection had he seen it, but he was already strolling through the crowd to an earthen watchtower, on top of which a Bowman was sniping at the wolves trying to climb over the walls and eat the noobs. Reaching the base, Henry called out to the archer, asking if he could check out the view from up there. ¡°Sure," replied the Bowman. "Your friend, too, if he wants.¡± ¡°My friend?¡± Henry, turning, almost jumped when he found the overly-attractive meathead standing next to him. Dan laughed handsomely. "My mates will take care of Donkey Bro!" Henry sighed. But one should pick and choose their battles, and, in a case of emergency, he could push this meathead to the wolves. The two of them climbed the watchtower via a ladder of handholds, their ascent bringing into clearer view the wolves fighting outside the fortress. At the top, Henry, making himself at home, summoned a wicker chair and an icebox with glasses of cooled cola. ¡°Big Bro, do you have an extra chair?¡± asked Dan. "You only need one chair when you ride solo like me," Henry lied, unwilling to share his spare chair. "But feel free to help yourself to a drink. You, too, guy with a bow.¡± Sipping his cola and enjoying the fizz on his palate, Henry pulled out a pair of binoculars to observe the wolves and players bloodying themselves in the Horny Boar Fields, his mind free from all worries. Of Suchi''s forces, there was nothing to say other than trash - pure, reckless, undisciplined, unwashed, noob thug garbage trash. The wolves were more interesting. For any player familiar with Saana''s battlefields, they showed signs of careful direction. The packs were led by larger, variant wolves through manoeuvres to scout, to retreat, to flank, to distract, to ambush, to split - to even sacrifice. For a player very familiar with Saana''s battlefields, one might pick out, from the bewildering collage of the wolves'' movements, the invisible presence of the commander coordinating them, whose orders rippled out through the ranks, who reacted to unexpected events, who made mistakes, who attempted to rectify mistakes, who learned from mistakes. At a higher level still, one might sense something akin to a personality, to the extent that a personality could exist on a battlefield; the quirks of neurology, experience, and belief were squeezed into certain proclivities: in speed, in complexity, in vision, in risk-taking, in the favouring of a subset of strategies and the ignorance of alternatives - perhaps the refusal. For Henry, whose past adventures had also meandered a little into such matters, the intent behind this skirmish instantly stuck out to him. Unbeknownst to the human organisers of the defence, the wolves weren''t seriously trying to assault this fortress. Rather, while this contingent splashed its bodies pointlessly against the fortress wall, they diverted attention from wolves operating to the sides, quietly dragging off boar bodies into the forest. The purpose of this, Henry assumed, was to eat the boars to strengthen themselves. As the boars were weaker than the wolves, the wolves wouldn¡¯t gain levels, but they would be able to increase the size of their HP pool and evolve into stronger variants. Eating the boars would also be a way to heal when the wolves assaulted the stronger Level 4 monsters in the next Killing Grounds over, which the wolves could gain levels from. The goal from there would be to continue this snowball, to roll through a succession of increasingly stronger foes, reinforcing themselves on the corpses of each they slew. A frantic urgency permeated the execution of this plan, a knowledge both of the danger and the necessity to ignore the danger. As weak, Level 3 creatures, the wolves were trapped in an inherently precarious position, the horde at risk of being snuffed at any moment by the vastly more powerful entities surrounding them. Rest was a fantasy they would have to forfeit for now. Like ants stranded in the path of stampeding mammoths, they had to suppress the biological imperative to dig out a hive to shelter in and, enduring the terrible open, stay mobile, moving onward one step at a time through the ever-shifting gaps between annihilation, onward, onward, onward, onward, onward, onward... Henry, perhaps projecting too much, thought the intricacy that he definitely could detect was far beyond that of a monster. In the Sentient Bloodlust state, monsters did gain human-level intellectual capabilities. However, at first, they were naive, having never been exposed to the same depth of experience or education that make up much of the power of the modern human mind. He concluded the one directing the force, likely the ''Wolf Emperor'' lurking in the forest, had attained its Sentience long ago, similar to the imprisoned boar. It couldn''t have been spawned in Suchi today. Most likely, the monster had been portaled into the area by The Great Black One. It seemed that, where before Henry''d been abducted to his adversary''s realm, this time¡ªbecause he would have refused to follow along¡ªthe enemy had been brought to his. Bumbabababum! A trumpet was blown, announcing a cavalcade of armoured knights riding towards the fortress. Bumbabababum! A herald in the group''s vanguard lowered his instrument and bellowed. ¡°Make way for The King!¡± Henry glanced at the mounted goons and, mumbling, corrected himself. "Well, this guy''s realm..." Chapter 33 - The King of Partying "Make way for the king!" A cavalcade of knights with banners of golden lions trotted by the walled fortress. At their head, atop a muscular stallion, was a 7-foot tall man bedecked in a fullplate suit made of what seemed to be polished dirt ¨C unimpressive-looking but in fact a Tier 4-4 material, Giniiron. His retinue were similarly massive, although not as well equipped or levelled, The Slums unable to afford to send most of their members to the higher zones abroad. The NPC trainers manning the fort bowed at the imposing figure, and the players, passing by to battle the wolves, out on the fields slaughtering and being slaughtered, gave a rowdy cheer. The newbies, not yet steeped enough in the lore of Suchi to recognise the knights, found the sight unimpressive compared with the wolf army. Up on a watchtower, Handsome Dan rubbed his chiselled chin. ¡°Who are they, Big Bro?¡± ¡°Our saviours," Henry answered sarcastically. Who knew what might happen? Maybe these clown thugs would save him from the rest of this troublesome Imbahalaala questline. ¡°Not The Saviour," corrected the Village Bowman beside them, sniping at wolves. "That''s King Leon. King Ramiro wouldn''t come out for an incident this minor." ¡°What does that mean, Archer Bro?¡± The Bowman went on to explain The Slum''s politics to Dan. Henry¡ªwho didn''t care about the Empire beyond the fact they were the part of why he hadn''t finished this tutorial yet, their union preventing him from hiring a personal trainer¡ªstudied the ''King¡¯, who was himself studying the marquee tent atop the hill overlooking the fortress, where the over-sized boar¡¯s body was being processed by The Company''s workers ignoring the wolves. A figure on this level was normally below Henry''s radar. What he knew about the guy came entirely from a profile in the information gathered by the corrupt director this morning. King Leon, former username ¡®Lil E The Authentic Skinny Choppa¡¯, now rerolled as simply ''Leon'', real-life name ¡®Ethan Miller¡¯, from Michigan, USA. He was a Tier 4-4, Level 100 Crusader who¡¯d pledged allegiance to the God Psatus, a melee-orientated deity of the sand and the sea - with Miracleworkers and Crusaders, their choice of patron deity changed some of their spells. In the past, he''d led an insignificant mid-sized gang, a bunch of frat dudes who just played Saana to party and get intoxicated on the game''s myriad of magical drugs. After he''d allied with Ramiro a.k.a. The Saviour early in the latter''s bid to unify The Slums, Leon had been made ''King'' of The ''Kingdom'' of North America. He seemed to be a puppet ruler, Ramiro promoting the guy due to a past that contained no fatal controversies. Below, ¡®King¡¯ Leon made a show of ordering troops to patch imaginary weaknesses in the defences, then his retinue charged out onto the battlefield. Given that a Level 100 entity was about 750 times stronger than a Level 3 one, the fight that followed was very, very one-sided. At the head of his charging knights, King Leon had a four-metre trident of water spinning around him skewering wolves like a fork through ravioli. From his body radiated a golden energy that made the weapons of the riders behind him glow, their thrusts and swings becoming even more destructive, the wolves exploding in puffs of furry gore. Handsome Dan, amazed by this sight, turned to Big Bro to see his reaction, only to find the latter with eyes squinted like he¡¯d stepped into a shoe with a dog poo inside. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± asked Dan. ¡°Nothing,¡± lied Henry, not wanting to draw the attention of the Bowman, a loyal Villager by the sound of his previous explanations to the meathead. What was wrong: the Crusader spell ¡®strengthening¡¯ the ''King''s'' allies, , was heinously stupid to use in this situation. Because AOE effects in Saana did not discriminate between friend and foe, the ''King'' was buffing the wolves as well, who outnumbered the players and therefore benefited more. The ''King''s'' troops still wouldn''t lose, but the disastrous impact could be seen for any poor low-level shmucks whom the ''King'' rode within 15 metres of, who were dying miserable deaths. More absurdly, because everyone in the ''King''s'' retinue could already one-shot wolves, the buff did not help them in any meaningful way - he was simply doing it to appear cool. But no one else aside from Henry seemed to notice this tactical abomination. At the flashy display, the noobs went bonkers. ¡°Woo!¡± ¡°King Leon! King Leon! King Leon!¡± ¡°Long live The King!¡± "I love you, King Leon. Have my babies!" The Wolf Emperor, sensing the turning tide, howled. In unison, its thousands of underlings stopped attacking and dropped the boars they were dragging, and they beat a hasty retreat, fleeing back into the cover of the forest. The smart choice for King Leon here would have been to chase The Wolf Emperor with their faster mounts, destroying a path through the forest and simply ignoring the smaller wolves who could not harm them until they''d chopped off the leader''s head. Instead of that, the ''King'' ordered his retinue to halt. Spinning his horse around, he swept a hard glance over the battlefield, over his subjects drenched and panting with exhaustion amidst the piles of mutilated wolf pieces, their blood-crazed gazes seeking his direction. To these warriors, and to the newbies admiring from the fortress, King Leon raised a triumphant fist. ¡°For now, we have beaten back the armies of the beast! A minor victory, perhaps, but let us celebrate what we can with a feast! In The Slums, we fight hard, but we also PLAY hard!¡± Henry in the watchtower lowered his binoculars and sighed. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Perhaps this was a demented, karmic punishment for never fixing this shithole, death by clown. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a caravan of wagons pulled up to the fortress laden with chests of food and alcohol, enough to feed and inebriate the thousands gathered. The warriors in the fields cheered. Throughout the fortress, the newbies cheered. Beside Henry, the handsome meathead and the Bowman cheered. Henry, to his horror, but not to his surprise, watched with increasing disgust as the carcass-littered battlefield was transformed into a festive scene of drunken revelry, the noobs invited to join the Villagers in celebration. From amongst those that''d been fighting, adventurous Cooks got to processing the wolf-meat for the kids, Performers whipped out instruments to enhance the mood with music, while Village Recruiters got to work charming the unsigned. The progress of himself and all these thousands was now to be stalled...by an impromptu frat party. What an atrocity. The party came; the party went. King Leon¡ªafter a bit of socialising, after a chugging contest¡ªretreated to a command tent, outside of which stood a hooded figure, who gave him a high five. As the two entered, soldiers surrounded the tent''s perimeter. In the time it took to devise a terrible plan, a soldier opened the tent flap and blew a trumpet, the blaring noise bringing the music and celebration to its end. ¡°Gather up and listen to The King¡¯s orders!¡± When The King emerged, he cast a severe gaze on the crowd chowing on their pork ribs and sipping their Wolfblood Soup. ¡°There are troubles ahead, but in the eyes of those here, I see enough bravery and strength to overcome them...¡± The King''s speech outlined that he''d need about four or five hours to gather a force to defeat the monster horde. In the meantime, the low-level players would fulfil the crucial role of preventing The Wolf Emperor from bolstering his numbers. With members of his kingdom organising them, they would attack critical wolf dens that had yet to be converted into Sentience. He emphasised that only the players here could achieve this, for his own troops would trigger the Sentience, falling for The Wolf Emperor''s malevolent plans. By fighting against the beast, these new players joined the mission of The Empire of The People, proving to the watching world that world could not neglect the heroism of all its citizens, rich or poor, towering or small. The newbies, their spirits already lifted by the boozing, were at once enraptured by the grand rhetoric. Never would they have expected to be caught up in such a massive quest so soon. How thrilling! In a discrete spot outside the fortress, where its wall cast a shadow from two of Saana''s three moons, Henry''d been maximising the use of the time wasted by the party to practise a mix of spear, rapier, and spell-casting drills, pulling these tools also out of the cob-webbed recesses of his career. Overhearing the ''king''s'' speech, he threw down a spear in anger, the pole clattering off the dry soil. "Pure drivel," he swore. Triggering Sentience could be a problem, sure, but not when the level gap was this huge ¨C otherwise, Henry wouldn¡¯t have done it himself with the boars. The force Leon had brought along had been more than sufficient to slay the over-sized wolf. Even now, with the monster having retreated to the forest, the ''King'' could just call over a couple thousand more troops. Splitting them into groups of 50, he could have them spread out through the zone. When one group encountered the big furry bastard, they could focus on containing it while the rest of the troops converged to their location. Badabing, badaboom, the problem would be solved, twenty minutes max. The ''King'' possessed enough smarts to realise this. His inefficiency was intentional, a calculated manoeuvre to drum up engagement for the newbies and earn publicity. A few clips could be edited from the event and shopped around to news organisations, in turn promoting The Slum Empire and luring more idiots into the trap. Tactics like this were how The Empire overcame the problem of being based in the slum of a Tier-0 Starting Zone with no access to resources or high-level challenges. They kept their members engaged through a strategy of polishing dirt into diamond, embellishing the local mundane happenings to compensate for their insignificance, building a system of motivation and reward parallel to the rest of the world. It was basically how a cult or a religion worked. Their event planners had become remarkably proficient at such fraud. Henry might''ve admired their craftiness if he weren''t now one of their victims. Interestingly, the one masterminding today''s fraud seemed to be the head honcho of The ''Empire'' himself. Henry''d noticed Ramiro sneaking in while practising, the guy using what appeared to be an unaltered avatar, muscular yet chubby like a pig. The way he''d snuck in had been oddly smooth, but Henry supposed stealth skills were a necessity when trying to survive in The Slums, murderers and cannibals lurking down every alleyway. As ''King'' Leon finished up his speech inside, he handed control of the operation over to an underling, ''Duke'' Liam, a clean-cut Arcanist who stepped forward to much applause. Leon, after a few more heroic words, told the players to "wolf" down their meals and prepare for war. While the noobs began to chatter excitedly about the upcoming missions, he jumped on his stallion with his retinue and galloped back to The Slums, the small matter of these Level 3 Wolves way beneath their interest. Henry spotted a chubby horseman riding off shortly afterwards in a different direction, leaving behind a trail of thick cigar smoke. As their moonlit silhouette passed under the hill with The Company''s marquee tent on top, they lifted an arm towards the site and flipped it off. Henry, able to spy upon this private act of defiance aimed at himself as much as his guild, laughed. "Interesting guy..." Suddenly coming up with ingenious solution to these growing problems, wondering why he hadn''t thought of it earlier, he pulled out a scrap of paper and scribbled down a quick note. A short while later, the beginnings of a phoney monster-hunting operation. In the boar fields, the trainers were gathering their students to prepare to undergo the ritual for learning the ability so they could join the campaign ASAP. Instructor Apari, with his group, jumped when someone brushed past him, slipping their hand into his pocket. ¡°Wha¡ª¡° The passing figure held an index finger to the lips of his monkey mask. ¡°Read it.¡± Instructor Apari nervously pulled out a note. ''Listen, bald trainer, here''s the plan. Once I''ve killed enough wolves to level up, you, me, and your buddy with the wagon are going to ditch everyone else and head over to the next Killing Grounds, where you''re going to help me continue levelling in private. ''In return, I will give you five million (5,000,000) gold coins. Additionally, so that you don''t have to worry about incurring The Union''s wrath, at no extra charge, I will relocate you and your loved ones out of this dehydrated hellhole to ANY location of your choosing. Town, city, farm, forest, snow, lagoon, even a swamp - think of where and you are there. ''Signed, Bob.'' The instructor looked up, the student innocently sitting down with a boar for the ritual. Henry, locking eyes with the teacher, gave a conspiratorial nod. Instructor Apari, smiling, nodded back in agreement with the scheme. Henry, convinced he''d just bought the secret level skip for this tutorial, nodded again to himself - success. Unfortunately, he was about to fall victim to a comic misunderstanding. Henry believed the instructor, after telling him to take up claiming the boar''s corpse from his friend, had met his guildmate, which would have demonstrated the trustworthiness of his word and his capability to pay out the exorbitant bribe. However, because of his impatience, he''d left the site prematurely and never learned that the instructor and the other trainers had first been kicked off by a gang of murderous thugs, whom the bald trainer mistakenly associated Henry with instead. Instructor Apari, continuing to maintain his fake smile, mirrored the second nod, while trying his best to think of how to escape this death trap. Chapter 34 - The First Ability An improvised military camp out of which bands of armed noobs were marching off to battle, leaving in their wake broken bottles and spilt food. Henry''s group were currently undergoing the ritual to learn the ability. Finally, after much convolution and delay, he''d receive his first tangible reward for slaying the oversized king boar! (He discounted the Legendary rapier he''d looted since it bore no relevance to his ultimate mission to win the recruitment tournament, the item being too OP to be permitted. Alex collected the set it was a part of, so Henry''d probably trade it with the dude for a couple real-life properties, maybe a pig farm. Or he might give it for a free, a nice farewell gift. He''d yet to decide.) For the ritual, unlike the previous one, each trainee only needed to use one monster corpse, as they''d already reached Level 3 through absorbing experience on their own. As before, Henry had distributed his stats equally. The ritual started the same way as the one with the rabbits. Their foreheads were anointed with a smelly black concoction, the trainer chanted ancient words, and they found themselves transported into the visions of their prey. This time, though, the vision was not of the monster''s death. Through the boar''s eyes, Henry saw himself jumping off a donkey, his posture relaxed, his gaze tired. With the rage-inducing booms in his boar ears, he snorted and broke into a charge. As he neared himself, he released a hateful squeal. Into his stampeding legs, burning energy rushed, making his muscles swell and their contractions tighter and faster. A burst of speed made the world blur. When the trainer pulled them back to the present, Henry was locked in a physical stasis, unable to control any part of his body except his eyes. Around him, the other trainees were fuming in anger. His own face, he realised, was contorted into the same ugly snarl. "Maintain that feeling!" the Instructor chanted. "Maintain the rage!" He lifted his sword, the blade glowing white. "Empowered by the souls of our foes, we advance! As infants, we mastered our bodies! As teens, we mastered our minds. Now, we master the universe! YAAAH!" Screaming, the trainer span the sword and plunged its point into the soil as if into the chest of a sleeping giant. At once, webs of lightning sprouted at the feet of each trainee. Henry, as the lightning gradually worked its way up towards his head, felt that every part of him was being cleansed. It was a weird sensation, as though each cell of his body had been covered with a thick layer of rust, which the lightning was now blasting away to reveal the perfect, underlying state beneath. The Instructor roared. "!" Henry felt a heat rushing into his thighs. Unable to move his neck, he couldn¡¯t look directly down, but, in front of himself, around knee level, he saw glowing motes condensing from the air. These were being grabbed by tiny forks of lighting and dragged into his legs, where they were absorbed by muscles growing larger by the moment. "Release!" It stopped. The motes vanished. The lightning returned to the earth.
Congratulations! You have learned your first physical ability, .
With the heat in Henry''s legs dissipating, his muscles shrinking, he slowly regained control of his body. Around him, the noobs reading the ability''s tooltip were elated. Henry''s veteran heart stirred with a tiny amount of their happiness. With his first physical ability, his character''s strength and his ability to defend himself had dramatically increased. He could now exploit the bonus Strength stats of his Spelltomes, and his buffed-up would be powerful enough to scramble the brains of an elephant with a punch. Not bad. Instructor Apari pulled his sword out of the ground and saluted the heavens. ¡°Death to all monster-kind! Reclaim the land for Man!" Sheathing his weapon, he returned to his previous composure (or discomposure). " is the parent of all physical abili¡ª" ¡°Alright, boys," a meathead who''d finished skimming the tooltip interrupted the trainer, "let¡¯s catch some pups!¡± Summoning a battleaxe, he marched out, the other meatheads moving to follow behind him. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. "Wait!" yelled Instructor Apari. The meathead gave the trainer a confused look. "Sup, Bald Bro?" "You haven''t learned to control the ability yet." "Oh?" The meathead, after a time not long enough to form even half a decent thought, sprinted at a tree and raised his battle axe. "Empowerment!" His weapon slammed into the trunk, the edge biting out a chunk of wood. He looked from the cut to the trainer. "Did that work?" "No," replied the trainer. The meathead turned back to his teammates. "You heard him, boys! Back into position!" Instructor Apari, continuing the lesson, summoned a hatchet and approached the tree the meathead had attacked. "Observe, after 15 years in the army, and 7 more as a trainer, this is the force I can command with my muscles." He dashed forward, his swing graceful yet powerful. As the hatchet head bit into the tree, it created a dent deeper than the meathead''s - but not by much. The trainees were confused, wondering why where the epicness was they''d observed from the dudes killing wolves. "Sad, isn''t it?" said the instructor. "All that work and my body is almost as weak as a teen''s. However, now, I, and yourselves, can tap into the power of something infinitely higher than us. Observe again." Without the instructor saying anything, the action initiated by his thoughts, motes condensed around the hatchet and funnelled towards it, forming a thin, glowing coating across its edge. When he struck the tree again, its trunk was easily cleaved in half, the separated top falling with a crash. The Instructor paused somberly for a moment, seeing something different in the wound rent in the tree. "Now...we command The Strength of The Universe." Turning, he revelled in the awe of the class, until he saw the student in the monkey-mask, whose dead gaze seemed to be peering into him. Henry¡ªtired, impatient to ditch the class¡ªyawned with boredom. Ultimately, for him, this was still just the noob tutorial in a videogame. After enslaving tornadoes and lunching with Gods, it would take a bit more than one-stroke tree toppling to impress him. Instructor Apari coughed. "The process is almost identical to the manipulation of objects that we practised earlier with your Spatial Bracelets. First..." He started the lesson by having the trainees gather energy into the soles of their feet and practice stomping the ground. A trainee trying to activate the ability twice in quick succession found the follow-up attempt failed. "The Universe caters to many," explained the instructor. "With the ability, you must wait 6 seconds between requests." Another trainee noticed that there was barely a difference between their empowered and unempowered stomps. "The amount of force you can summon into your blows is determined by the Strength Aspect of your martial body, which is low for most of you. If you observe the...shirtless gentlemen, you''ll notice the effect of increasing that Aspect further." With the meatheads having put all their points in Strength, their stomps were creating holes a few centimetres deeper. One of the meatheads, excited at having the classes'' attention, tried to show off by using the ability again. However, the pit created by his stomp was pitifully shallow. The meathead''s eyes darted between the pitiful pit and a previous pit. The Instructor explained. "And here we see the importance of balancing the Aspects of your Martial Bodies. As with your muscles, you cannot draw endlessly from The Universe. You have a limited ''Stamina Pool'', as you Offworlders refer to it. The size of this is a function of the Aspects of Vitality and Technique..." To summarise, Vitality increased one''s Stamina Pool, while Tech reduced the amount of Stamina an ability burned. As far as Stamina usage was concerned, 1 point distributed to either of these stats had the same functional effect. Which stat, Vit or Tech, a player preferred was based on their other bonuses, such as increasing resilience or improving accuracy. As a rule of thumb, whatever amount of Vitality an opponent had, if a player''s Vit and Tech stats were both around the same level (e.g. 20, 20, 20), then that player could summon enough force for a mortal wound¡ªlike driving a longsword into the opponent''s stomach, through their organs, and out their back¡ªapproximately two and a half times. Recharge-wise, the player would gain an extra sword thrust every minute. Extrapolating what those abstract figures meant in a practical scenario, most duellists in Saana were quite conservative with their attack usage. A single, well-aimed attack could have enough power to be lethal, but very few attacks were available to waste. Thus, much of the art of duelling revolved around setting up a lethal blow, through combos with disable abilities or manual grappling. The trainees, after getting a handle of empowering their feet, moved on to other parts of their body, from their knees to their hands. Following that, the trainer had them practice modifying the strength and duration of the ability by throwing sandbags of various weights. Conceptually, could be viewed as granting the user an allotment of force every 6 seconds, the maximum quantity based on their Strength, which they could freely distribute in any way they wanted. It could be used for explosive, high damage bursts, but it could also be stretched out over several seconds for lifting a few extra kilograms beyond the body''s capabilities. At first, players would find moderating the force clumsy, but, with practice, it would become as intuitive as wriggling a finger. Amongst the trainees, Dan, trying to throw a sack, was surprised when he saw Big Bro, his mask lifted slightly, chomping through a stick with glowing teeth. "Woah. You can do that, too?" "Can do pretty much anything with it." Henry, the tip of a finger glowing, flicked a bug on his shoulder, the creature evaporating. was a general-purpose skill whose advantage lay in its versatility. In exchange, it was less efficient in terms of Stamina usage and force-generated per second than the other abilities the players would learn later on. For example, at level 5, when Class specialisation started, most melee Classes would learn a basic physical ability that could produce the same force as an empowered blow, while having half the cooldown (3 seconds) and costing half the stamina. However, the force of these basic abilities could only be channelled into the edge or points of a weapon. Saana''s convoluted skill system usually annoyed Henry, but, with the 1v1 tournament looming, he was thankful for its existence. The complexity gave him a bit of wiggle room to strategise, which had always been more his forte than martial arts. Chapter 35 - The First Mission After Henry and the other trainees learned how to adjust the strength of their , they practised transferring the force into weapons by pairing up and taking turns tossing rocks and hitting them with sticks. Moving the energy to the head of the stick was simple enough; the main challenge was the timing. After activating , there was a 0.2-second delay before the force manifested, and, for the shortest-duration, maximum-power strike, the attack needed to connect with the target within 0.5 seconds or the energy would dissipate. Henry found this part easy. In his guild''s VR gym, the equivalent system required verbal cues to activate, whereas using his thoughts now was faster and smoother. A trainee beside him, though, was having a miserable experience. No matter how hard the kid tried, the rocks he struck kept falling pathetically short. The struggling trainee called for help from the bald trainer. "Instructor Apari, what''s the problem? I''ve invested heavily in Strength, but it''s not going very far." Henry shook his head - this poor lout''s innate motor skills were worse than his. "The Strength provided by the Universe acts in unison with the strength provided by your muscles," explained the instructor. "Unlike in The Sagas, you won''t be able to go around destroying your enemies with a kiss of your lips. To hit hard, you must swing hard." The trainee, hearing this, felt dismayed. At school, he''d opted out of Physical Education classes, so he was a bit uncoordinated. Would his dreams end here, right when he was starting the game? "I just wanted to be a dope-ass knight..." the trainee muttered under his breath. Henry, his own journey beginning with a similar realisation of his limitations, felt some sympathy. "Are you or your parents filthy rich?". "Excuse me?" replied the trainee. "I''m not sure I understood the question." "Filthy rich," Henry clarified. "Hypothetically, could your parents afford to buy you a private jet for your birthday? And if you were to set that jet on fire, would they disown you or would they offer to buy a replacement?" The trainee looked at him like he was mad. Henry shrugged. It had been worth a stab in the dark. With him quitting Saana, it''d be a smart decision to sell off some of his excess Legendary quests, and he had one for a knight-like Fighter class specialisation that would be suitable for someone with trash skills - the player would become a slow-moving, armoured juggernaut that hobbled around the battle swinging a 15-metre long halberd. The only catch was that completing the quest required burning about 64 sextillion hyper-inflated New Zealand dollars worth of materials, enough to buy a mid-range private jet. Obviously, Henry wouldn''t demand the quest''s completion price, just a fifteenth of it. Henry, in a charitable mood, gave the broke noob a free alternative. "If you''re attached to the whole melee-thing, try becoming a Fauna-spec Earthfriend." "What''s that?" "You transform into an animal and smack dudes with your paws. Without opposable thumbs, there''s a pretty high skill floor." That''d been part of Henry''s own motive for picking the Class. Hulk smashing noobs as a gorilla would require less dexterity than weapons - although he would still experiment with Earthfriend styles using weapons mixed with self-healing and shooting celestial light beams. "Oh," the struggling trainee was pleasantly surprised. "That doesn''t sound too bad¡ª" Henry put a palm in their face. "I''m over this conversation. Direct any further inquiries to the game''s official forums." "Big Bro, that''s rude!" said Handsome Dan, who''d been throwing rocks for Henry to hit throughout the exchange. Henry shrugged, replying to the kid through message. -Anonymous: Rude or polite, a concern for such distinctions is a luxury that can come only after we ensure the safety of the world. Quick, throw the rocks faster; I don''t feel prepared enough to face the looming dangers. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. He was only half-joking here. While the over-sized boar had been trivial, he estimated the difficulty of this questline would ramp up exponentially, this over-sized wolf being at least ten times the difficulty. What''s more, the noob tutorial contained one last monster after the wolves, and, if those had a corresponding monster-king boss, that creature should be harder still. He might get dumped straight into fighting The Great Black One - although that seemed somewhat unlikely because, compared to his level 4 character, a level 240+ boss monster would be hundreds of billions of times his strength, if not trillions. After the trainees mastered the stick, the very last part of the lesson had them practising with their weapons of choice. The instructor taught them to change the distribution of the force depending on the type of attack, with a slash, for example, requiring a long, even empowerment coating, while a stab required one concentrated around the tip. They also learned that weapon types had different maximum force limits, with bulkier weapons generally having a higher potential. Overall, it was an informative lesson, and most people involved felt enriched for enduring it. When the trainees had finished the lesson, they were approached by a Beast Tamer from the Empire recruiting classes for a mission against the Grey Wolves. A scout had caught the movements of a pack of three thousand wolves attacking boars 750 metres south of their position. Most of the wolves were non-sentient, except for a few coordinating their movements. The Beast Tamer and his higher-level subordinates planned to eliminate the leaders and use a blockade to trap the rest, which the trainees would then be tasked with cleaning up. For a reward, every Wolf Tail the trainees submitted would earn them one whole Slum Point. Henry, not caring about Slum Points but needing to kill 15 wolves to progress to the tutorial''s next and final stage, saw an opportunity to collect his booty without having to enter the wolfs'' forest territory and confront the boss monster. Yet another level skip falling into his lap, he signalled for the bald trainer to accept, which the man, now bribed onto his side, did. Before they set off with a mob of 250 other noobs, the bald trainer gave them a crash course on the Grey Wolves'' fight mechanics. Individually, the wolves were less challenging than the boars. Their skills were , an attack on a 6-second cooldown; , an AOE damage buff; and , where they hung onto a limb for five seconds while their defence was tripled. Most of the complexity of fighting them arose from their pack nature, the wolves by default operating in groups of five. The trainees would, in turn, have to fight them as groups of six. Usually, monsters would outnumber players, but this was, after all, a tutorial. For tactics, the trainer recommended that five of the members draw the attention of one wolf each by damaging them. During the predictable, non-sentient Bloodlust state, monsters adhered to conventional MMO aggro mechanics. They focused their attacks on whoever had the highest ''Threat'', a number generated by damage-dealt, healing-performed, and special threat-invoking abilities. While the five players separated the wolves, the remaining player would travel amongst them acting as a reserve/executioner. Wolves had a trait called - when one of the members of the pack reached zero HP, the others would ignore what they were doing and try to save the wolf by dogpiling its assailant. This state ended when the endangered wolf died, so the ¡®trick¡¯ was to kill them ASAP. A meathead raised a questioning hand. ¡°Bald Bro, why don''t we have more than one reserve? Wouldn''t that be easier?¡± ¡°No," replied Instructor Apari. "Attacking a pack with more than six will cause them to enter the Sentient Bloodlust state you all saw earlier.¡± Just as using high-level gear would trigger Sentience, so would attacking a monster with too many people. The limit for most monsters was six, the fundamental unit size in Saana. However, this varied from monster to monster; for example, the hardest dungeons had 5000-player limits, while World Bosses, like Farg of the Drought Curse, had none. Pressed for time, the trainer skipped the drills. The wolves were designed to be an introduction to Saana''s group combat, so fighting them wasn''t too complex. ¡°But, remember," warned Instructor Apari, "if you encounter any Sentient wolves out there, you must retreat immediately. Without the Bloodlust Formulaisms, they''ll likely kill you off one by one." He shot a glance at the monkey-masked student, a small hope that the latter would fall victim to this fate. "Arrange yourselves." The class quickly began splitting into teams and chatting excitedly about the mission. An atmosphere of youthful optimism infected their conversation, everyone hungry to test their new ability and participate in the valiant struggle against the wolves. In this fantasy world of magic and monsters, who knew what amazing events might be hiding on the horizon? Perhaps, one of them would become the hero who slew the boss monster. Henry, mistaking the trainer''s glance for conspiratorial approval, the two of them getting in quick before ditching, gave another nod. He then approached the handsome meathead from earlier. ¡°Together, then?" he asked. "Me, you, your buddies?" Dan, picking his handsome nostrils, was surprised. ¡°You don''t want to fight alone, Big Bro?¡± Henry clasped his hands behind his back sage-like. ¡°For all the versatility of the axe, only a fool would use it to bake a cake. Sometimes you must humble yourself and choose the spoon.¡± In truth, he wanted pawns for blocking any Sentient wolves that might show up. The incident with the boars had taught him a hard lesson. He needed to avoid the smart ones; otherwise, they might snitch on him to their leader or get him sucked into another wormhole. "Sick," replied Handsome Dan. "Let''s grab some mates!" Chapter 36 - Meeting The Team Handsome Dan chatting away cheerfully, Henry was brought along and introduced to his meathead friends, the team for the next critical mission against the wolves. One meathead, a man built like a refrigerator, with a Battleaxe slung across his back, extended a muscular hand. ¡°How¡¯s it goin'', mate? Little Dan¡¯s told us all about you. I¡¯m Richard. Captain of the team.¡± Henry returned an uncommitted handshake, using only the tips of his fingers. ¡°Name¡¯s Bob. From San Francisco.¡± ¡°America? Sick.¡± In addition to this Battleaxe Meathead, there was a Spear Meathead, a Bastardsword Meathead, and the Russian girl the friends had taken hostage, equipped with a one-handed spear and a shield. When this last one was being introduced by Dan, she wrinkled her nose at the overly-handsome meathead in disgust. She seemed to be viewing him as a kind of sexual predator, probably on account of his exaggerated appearance. Henry, hanging around this kid, had witnessed dozens of female players responding similarly. Watching these repulsed reactions had been a secret source of amusement for him so far, and it''d been the main reason he hadn¡¯t blocked the meathead yet. Here was the kicker: what none of them knew was that the meathead¡¯s handsome looks were 100% authentic. This realisation had occurred to Henry straight after breaking Dan''s well-sculpted nose. If the kid had skipped tuning his pain settings in the tutorial, he would have also skipped altering his avatar. Unwittingly, these chicks were rejecting a visual god. Through one of Alex''s ridiculous ventures, Henry had crossed paths with a few Hollywood celebrities - all very attractive people. Many of them, though, if stood beside this gullible meathead, would seem like pigs in wigs and make-up. It was a comic tragedy. In real-life, this kid''s handsomeness, his friendly disposition, and his overly-optimistic worldview that made him oblivious to implied insults would cause a million doors to be flung open for him. In a virtual reality game, though, these traits, combined with his boyish voice, made him seem on first impression like a cocky, image-obsessed poser who couldn¡¯t take a hint. As the Russian girl circled around the Spear Meathead to keep him between her and Handsome Dan, Henry''s lips curled in delight. Ah, this was a good feeling. How much lighter thumped his heart knowing that his separation from these noobs was imminent, the trainer and him ditching these kids the moment he bagged his fifteen wolves to continue the tutorial while these noobs were forced to restart from scratch with another trainer. Some might call this action selfish on Henry''s part, but one had to rationally analyse the stakes here. Between potentially summoning a shadow demon that''d destroy the world and sacrificing a couple hours of some noobs'' lives, the moral calculus was unmistakable. Life sometimes demanded tough choices, and this wasn''t one of them, Henry throwing these kids under the bus without a shred of hesitation. With the greetings out of the way, he took control of the team and designed a tactic that would be more efficient than the bald trainer''s. They needed to kill faster than the others, as, based on the Beast Tamer''s figures, the number of wolves was insufficient for all the trainees to reach Level 4. Henry wanted to finish this in one swoop. After developing a plan that even the meatheads could follow, he walked them through it. The steps, he illustrated slowly on a piece of paper, which he made copies of using his Scholar skills for their further study. ¡°Does everyone understand?" he asked. "Any questions? Don''t feel embarrassed.¡± ¡°Nah, Big Bro, that sounds sweet." ¡°Yeah, we should be sweet.¡± "We''ll be sweet as, Big Bro." Henry squinted in annoyance. During the introductions, they¡¯d picked up Dan''s annoying term of address, the handsome meathead explaining that Henry was their senior, being 43 despite the deceptive shine of his skin kept youthful by a rigorous moisturisation routine. Now, for this critical mission of Henry collecting 15 wolves, one last team member remained. While the others joined the larger group preparing to march off, he separated to find his donkey. He wouldn¡¯t forget about the beast again. Now that it¡¯d eaten the power-up food, Henry could finally reap a reward for keeping it. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! The main usage would be for escaping danger and ditching these noobs quicker, but the donkey might also help him in combat. In Saana, in general, the usage of mounts on the battlefield was quite limited. For one, as regular animals, their physiology was distinct from that of monsters. They could increase their Vitality through power-up foods and temporary buffs, but they didn''t gain any other stats. Likewise, they couldn''t learn abilities aside from a that increased their maximum speed by 50%. These differences made mounts easy to kill relative to the cost of raising them. A second factor was magic. AOE spells acted as pseudo-artillery, punishing the large, tight, slow-moving military formations common in antiquity and the medieval period. Thus, most armies fought in smaller, more flexible squadrons, often while using magic to construct fortifications in the middle of battle. Saana''s battles, if they had a real-world analogue, were much closer to the trench warfare of the early 20th century. In such a setting, cavalry were too clunky for direct combat and instead fulfilled auxiliary roles, like transporting the wounded, moving scouts, reserves, and commanders, and specialised mobile spellcaster/archer units. That last purpose, horse archery, was what he planned to use the donkey for now. However, it would depend on whether the beast could pass a few tests. Henry found the shabby animal lapping at an upturned cauldron. ¡°Yoohoo, Donkey Bro!¡± The donkey, pretending it hadn¡¯t heard, stopped drinking and tried walking away. When Henry caught up with it, it peeled back its donkey lips, baring a set of plaque-stained teeth. ¡°I completely understand,¡± Henry sympathised. ¡°But if you don¡¯t have a purpose, you¡¯re going to end up as a stew yourself.¡± As the mass extinctions around the start of the millennium had demonstrated, for humans to care about preserving an animal, it needed to be useful, food, interesting, or cute. One couldn''t survive on the goodwill of nature lovers. You needed to have a tangible benefit for mankind or it would discard you the moment you caused it any inconvenience. "You''re not pretty or interesting, unfortunately," Henry warned the creature. "So, be useful." Light balls funnelled out of his Spatial Bracelet and wrapped around the donkey''s head, face, and back. In response, the animal started acting distraught. He slapped its rump. ¡°Don¡¯t pretend. You were a working donkey; you did this every day." The donkey cut out the act, neighing bitterly. The lights formed into reins and a saddle. These had been among the items Henry''s minions had gathered. Mounting the donkey, he found it didn¡¯t buck or complain. "Good job, Donkey Bro. Sarra, sarra." Henry stroked its knotted mane in reassurance. "Sarra, sarra." The words would be utter nonsense to the ears of anyone living, and the stroking gesture contained an unusual affection, bearing a warmth alien to Henry himself and picked up from the one he''d learned it from. Back in Saana II, he¡¯d been taught horse archery by a tribe of nomads whose mounts were semi-feral and required hours of breaking in each time one saddled them. Although increasingly murky, he still recalled some of those pleasant days whenever he mounted a horse - or a donkey. But, now, was not the time for nostalgia. He had a tutorial to complete. The donkey not protesting at all, Henry gave it a pat. "Keep this up, and I''ll give you a real name." Actually, since meeting this shabby donkey, he''d been very impressed with its calm disposition. The species usually did have a hardier psychological constitution than horses, but most would still have freaked out being around monsters and fighting. Likely, the donkey had been desensitised to violence from watching the cultists kill people and eat them. ¡°Jaras." Henry gave an order in the native language of the Sandpeople, the NPC slumdwellers. The donkey, understanding, broke into a trot. When Henry first picked it up, he¡¯d tested a few voice commands. Its previous owner had taught it the basics: switching between gaits, changing directions, stopping, and returning from afar. These were suitable for now, but, later, assuming the donkey survived long enough, he would have it trained to carry out more complex orders. "Loppy." Ordering the donkey to gallop, Henry whipped out his bow and started shooting at random shrubs and trees. With the wolf invasion, the recruiters should have already forgotten about him shooting up the gangster-roleplayers, and, even if they did identify him, he wouldn''t be here much longer. Racing against the clock, he advanced through the test quickly. He steered the donkey into the thick of the area where newly-arrived noobs were still slaying boars for levels. Passing by one beast about to trample a noob with a broken leg, Henry fired a shot into its eye, the boar, squealing its death, tripping over its front trotters and sliding to a halt. The relieved noob waved at him speeding past. ¡°Thanks!¡± Henry, continuing to fire at random boars, paid attention to the rhythm of the donkey''s gait and breath any signs of distress. However, as they ventured further into the boar area, as they passed the piles of dead wolves littering the ground, the donkey remained steady, reliable. He himself, then, seemed to be the limiting factor today. Having not practised mounted archery in years, his accuracy from the saddle was trash, with him whiffing about an eighth of his shots at static targets. ¡°Megal." The donkey coming to a stop, Henry fired four quick shots, killing three boars that were engaged with noobs and aggroing one that''d been chewing roots. This last boar, feeling the arrow stab into its butt, span around in fury and charged. The donkey, although tensing up at the sight of the rushing beast, maintained its frozen posture. ¡°Left turn. Gallop." The donkey promptly swivelled left and galloped away from the monster charging behind. With danger at its back, it felt tense, but it still maintained its composure, and its reactions were fast. Henry, turning in the saddle, fired off six shots in quick succession. After four arrows striking bone and two proper hits, the boar collapsed. His accuracy against moving targets was even shoddier. However, this should be enough for the job. Henry gave the donkey an approving pat. ¡°Sarra, sarra. Just one more.¡± The donkey brayed, thinking that a much better reward than compliments would be to stop putting it in harm''s way and leave it in peace to sip on more of that delectable Wolfblood soup. ¡°," Henry ordered. A sudden burst of speed should have followed. To his surprise, however, the donkey continued to gallop at its normal pace. ¡°," he repeated. Chapter 37 - Donkey Archery "," Henry repeated to the galloping donkey. But, still, nothing happened. The creature''s non-compliance confused him. The donkey could use the ability for sure - he''d spammed it while moving through The Slums earlier. Maybe the beast had gotten too cocky. ¡°," he ordered more sternly. For the donkey, beads of nervous sweat joined those beading down its fur. For some reason, it found itself unable to fulfil the command that''d once come so naturally. "!" The donkey, hearing frustration infiltrating Henry''s voice, began to panic. How many times had it experienced the painful price of failure? It must succeed! Fixing all its donkey willpower on the task, it recalled its days of dashing down The Slum''s narrow, winding streets, and it tried to return. Suddenly, the donkey felt something shatter in its legs, which began to fill with heat. At once, the donkey, , ripped across the field, moving so fast that the wind being dragged behind it caused the clothes of noobs they passed to flutter. Henry, confused by the hesitancy, used a Merchant spell, , a stream of translucent coins channelling from his legs into the donkey, which sped up further. Due to stacking game buffs, the donkey galloped at a whopping 70.7 kilometres per hour (43.9 mph). Its maximum natural speed was 35 km/h (21.7) and boosted this by 50% to 52.5 km/h (32.6 mph). The final boost from the Merchant''s , which increased the speed of player-controlled vehicles, ships, and mounts, gave a bonus, at the Tier 4-2 Henry''d levelled it to, of 34.6%. Math aside, the critical point was that the donkey could outsprint a Grey Wolf, which topped out at 55 km/h (34.2 mph). Now, Henry could harass the furry monsters from afar without ever putting himself at risk. Better yet, the movement bonus of didn''t trigger Sentience; without this exception, the Merchant class would be unplayable, as they''d generate intelligent beast hordes wherever they travelled. With this last member on the team, it was pretty much good game on the wolf collecting quest. "Easy," said Henry, the donkey zipping through the field at the speed of a pre-self-driving car. "Good work, Donkey Broski." Who would ever suspect that such a short, decrepit animal could become a vehicle for destruction? Th-cuh. Th-cuh. Henry''s bowstring continued pinging away. Everywhere they passed, arrows rained on the boars, making them fall one after another, never to rise again. The two could have made for a domineering sight if the rider wasn''t wearing a monkey mask and the mount wasn''t a stubby-legged donkey. Henry and the suspicious donkey rode back to the others, waiting for the action to begin. Dan amongst the noobs grinned and raised a thumb, looking like a hero in the last frame of an action film. "That was awesome, Big Bro! You, too, Donkey Bro!" The other meatheads were impressed, too. "Yep," Henry replied. He wouldn''t refute them. Admiration was useful for building obedience. "Here," The Battleaxe Meathead handed Henry several potions. Apparently, The Slum Empire had gifted these to groups for their reserve players to use in emergencies. In the plans, this was the position Henry would be fulfilling, sort of. Around them were hundreds of noobs awaiting the order to sally forth, their hearts racing with pre-battle nerves, their spirits high on the challenge ahead. In contrast, a mounted company of high-level Villagers, aware of this wolf stuff being a sham, were gossiping while stuffing their faces with leftovers from the party. The only sober Villager was the Beast Tamer running the operation, who had a pair of binoculars pointed to the plains, his Sabretooth guarding his back. Henry, unable to see much with the diminished night visibility and dust, pulled out his own binoculars. In the distance, about 2800 ravenous wolves were passing through fleeing herds of boars, demolishing them like a shovel dragged over a trail of ants. Prowling among the giant pack were 8 wolves with rose-pink eyes. On the outskirts of the slaughter, several dark figures could be spotted hiding behind uprooted trees or lying flat behind mounds of dirt. These were Cutthroats. From the adjacent Grey Wolf Forest, there were no apparent stirrings, aside from the orderly movement of wolves dragging dead boars into the dark of the understory. The Beast Tamer addressed the group. "We''re beginning. Prepare yourselves." A wave of silence propagated through the hundreds gathered. In the eerie quiet that followed, one could make out the nervous pants of noobs and the squeals of boars carried on the wind. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Henry watched the dark figures bringing out one-handed swords while using their free hands to form shapes that sucked black ropes of shadow from the air. A few seconds later, they turned invisible in sync. Their movements forward left no footsteps in the soil. The packs of Grey Wolves continued devouring the boars, their sensitive canid noses not sniffing a whiff of the coming danger. The Cutthroat stealth ability, , removed all signs of one¡¯s presence beyond a certain range. This detection range was determined by a comparison between the Cutthroat''s Technique stat and that of the target. With the relatively low level and therefore stats of the wolves, they would not detect the Cutthroats until the latter were close enough to plant kisses on their muzzles. Henry focused his view on one of the Sentient wolf-leaders. Its underlings having brought a squealing boar down, the leader was chewing through the layers of fat of the boar''s neck. Suddenly, the wolf and the boar were enveloped in a pitch-black cloud. , a Tier-0 Cutthroat ability. This smoke cloud was one of eight hitting at the same instant - one for each leader. From outside of the clouds, the underlings, unable to smell what was going on inside, were howling in distress. Their calls summoned the attention of their kin, who stopped chasing boars and ran over to help. Nine seconds later, the smoke clouds dispersed. In the spot which Henry''d been observing, a boar and a wolf lay together, blood cascading from both their lifeless throats. Lying across the field, some of the other leaders were missing their heads, some seemed to be napping, their killers having finished them by putting clean holes through their brains before stealthing away. Their leaders dead, the remaining wolves raised their heads to the moons and howled. As the last of the boars escaped the wolves and the dust began to settle, the rest of the trainees could finally make out what was happening. At the same time, they were struck by a chorus of spine-shivering howls expressing unmitigated, unguarded lament. The next moment, twenty-one black figures blinked into existence, having arranged themselves, with about 30 metres between them, in a box that surrounded the grieving pack. Those luckless wolves close to the Cutthroats were lassoed by ropes of shadow, dragged back, and chopped down. Those outside the box suppressed their sorrows and fled for the forest. The most notable reaction, though, came from the wolves inside the box. Their hair was raised, their bodies lowered, and their teeth bared in postures of threat. But as the first of them dashed forward to take revenge on the Cutthroats, they yelped, and all their former will to fight was replaced by abject terror; turning tail, they fled back to the centre of the boxed enclosure, where they could only bark and howl in frustration. All wolves that tried their luck were repelled in the same way. Here, the Grey Wolves were not being held back by an ability. The Cutthroats were exploiting the terror that all monsters had for entities far beyond their level, and which made them avoid them at all cost. This fear could be overcome in the Sentient state, but the wolves would first have to reach the 15-metre range to trigger Bloodlust - which they couldn''t force themselves to do. By exploiting this mechanic, The Empire''s Cutthroats had trapped the wolves for the noobs to slaughter. The Beast Tamer coordinating the trap raised an open hand. "Trainees, hold your positions. Crimson Lions, sally forth!" The Villagers spurred their mounts into action. While the trainees were expecting to charge into the fray like King Leon earlier, what happened, in reality, was that the Villagers stopped after a couple hundred metres. At a point between the trapped wolves and the forest, lining themselves to form a barrier, they whipped out their party foods and continued their gossip. The noobs did a double-take. Meanwhile, Henry and the Beast Tamer were breathing sighs of relief. "Stupendous," said the Beast Tamer to the trainees. "Let''s head out there in a relaxed, orderly fashion, and we''ll move on to the next phase." The group moved forward, all the built-up tension destroyed, the noobs seeming to transform from a ragtag army of savages to a bunch of, mostly, teens in cosplay. Where, the noobs wondered, was the promised struggle of life and death? As they began marching out at the Beast Tamer''s orders, their reactions were mixed. Some nervous trainees were relieved. Some hyped ones, unable to shed their vigour, contemplated charging on their own. Handsome Dan approached Donkey Bro and Henry, tugging on the latter''s knee. "Big Bro, isn''t it disappointing?" Henry shook his head. "Nope. That''s exactly how you want it to go. It''s perfect." "Oh?" "Quick, zero casualties, and no room left for the enemy to respond - later, you''ll appreciate the victories that play out so uneventfully." Noobs always wanted to run in swords-a-slashing regardless of the odds. This recklessness would be curtailed sometime after they befriended an NPC and their poor decision making caused their companions to be deleted from the server. With NPCs being fairly realistic, players grew attached to them and losing them felt somewhat traumatising - not quite a parent dying, but around the level of a beloved family pet. Handsome Dan had pressed the back of his hand against his mouth, his thoughtful features carrying the stern masculinity of a Grecian statue. "I don''t get it." Henry didn''t expect him to. "Wait a couple of weeks. You''ll get it by then. Or you won''t." Awoo! Awoo! Awoo! The forest along whose borders the group were passing suddenly rang with a blood-curdling chorus of thousands of threatening howls. Handsome Dan and the other noobs brandished their weapons. In the darkness of the trees, they could make out hundreds of pairs of floating rose-pink eyes. But soon enough, the howling stopped of its own, none of those inside the shadows'' shelter emerging to attack. The wolves, having determined they couldn''t bypass the gossiping villagers to help their trapped kin, accepted their loss. The glowing eyes blinked out, and the forest''s edge returned to its darkness. The noobs, hit with another anti-climax, lowered their weapons in frustration. Henry, watching the departure of wolves and the invisible presence coordinating them, felt¡ªas strange as it might be to say after the morning of annoyances¡ªas though a part of himself were leaving, too, the part of a person who clashes with such monsters. Perhaps, then, he would be able to finish this tutorial without further incident. "Perfect." In a small gesture, not wanting to commit prematurely, he raised two fingers holding the donkey''s reins and wiggled them in farewell. "Bye." With that skirmish over before it began, the Beast Tamer had the trainees gather on the edge of the trapped wolves, the thousands of boxed-in monsters continuing to howl for help, to snarl at the wicked players. There, the Beast Tamer explained the next step. Teams would spread around the perimeter and coordinate with the Cutthroats, who would use their invisibility whenever the noobs wanted to pull a pack to let some slip through. Before beginning, he asked for a group to volunteer and demonstrate the pulling procedure, preferably a player rerolling their character. Beside Henry, Dan grew excited. ¡°Should we do it, Big Bro?¡± "Sure." Henry was impatient to get this over with. Their group''s tactic leaking wouldn''t cause an issue. The other noobs would merely hamper themselves if they copied, leaving more wolves for him. "Let''s earn our keep, Donkey Bro." Henry whipped out his bow and had the donkey trot to the front of the noobs. He fired five arrows into the distance, away from both themselves and the wolves, each shot landing in the open ground. Dan and the other meatheads, following his prior instructions, positioned themselves alongside the arrows by the order he''d designed. Chapter 38 - The First Five Wolves The Horny Boar Fields, a pack of trapped wolves about to be slaughtered. ¡°What are they doing?¡± asked a noob in the crowd, watching the monkey-masked student on his donkey and the muscular guys arranging themselves. ¡°Showing off,¡± replied another noob, frustrated after missing out on the battle with the wolves in the forest. "Weirdly dressed brats.¡± The Beast Tamer leading the operation, studying the team as perplexed as the rest, stopped the monkey-masked student when he nocked an arrow to fire at the wolves. "Wait," he warned. ¡°You should probably dismount. If you miss, you might pull more than one pack.¡± ¡°Check the arrows.¡± Henry shrugged dismissively, riding off towards the wolves. The Beast Tamer examined the arrows carefully, wondering what he''d meant. They did seem unusually...regular. Following a hunch, he used a commander skill to measure the distance between them and found to his astonishment that they were almost precisely 7.6 metres apart, veering by only a few centimetres. The Beast Tamer frowned. Henry meanwhile pulled up beside a Cutthroat. ¡°Ready." "Don''t you need to plan the shot first?" The Cutthroat pointed to the mass of thousands of gnashing wolves, their positions in constant flux as they came forward to bark or reattempt an escape. One misfired arrow could draw hundreds of them. "Nope," replied Henry. He wasn¡¯t concerned in the slightest. This happened to be one of the areas in the game where he wasn''t physically crippled. Ever since he was a kid, he''d had a knack for processing large quantities of information, from school to videogames. Playing Saana too much had exercised and improved this innate talent, turning him into a bit of a mutant. The freakish ability he''d developed didn''t extend to only solving quests at a somewhat inhuman pace¡ªfor example, he¡¯d spent less than seven minutes in the bunker curing the Earthfriend curse¡ªthey also helped when reading the movements of monsters. While the Cutthroat began casting, Henry drew his bow and rotated the donkey in preparation. The Cutthroat turning transparent, Henry let loose. From out of the pack, a wolf was stepping forward to growl at the donkey-riding monkeyman who¡¯d joined its captors in taunting and humiliating its kin. The arrow landed in the dirt about 15 metres from it. A hater noob in the watching mass cackled. ¡°All that pomp and he¡¯s got worse blimming aim than Louis Braun!¡± No one else laughed. This, however, was not because they''d realised Henry hadn¡¯t missed, his aim impeccable. Rather, Louis Braun was an adored musician who''d been blinded fighting androids during the A.I. Revolution. The joke had been in very poor taste. At the tap of the arrow striking dirt, the wolf¡¯s head snapped towards the sound, the movement abrupt and discontinuous like a robot. Its eyes flashed red, and it howled. Awooo! From behind it, four wolves responded in kind, their heads swivelling mechanically towards the fleeing human. Their peers tried to hold them back, but it was futile. Under the spell of the Bloodlust, they sprinted away to their doom. Henry, the wolves chasing behind, had the donkey gallop towards his teammates. The strategy was straightforward. He''d positioned them in a line parallel to his path of travel, with about half a second of travel time between each of them. As the column of wolves following him passed, each meathead would strike one, aggroing it to themselves. Once they¡¯d engaged the wolves, the meatheads were to focus on dodging and save their for blocking. Meanwhile, Henry would circle the donkey around and pretend to be Legolas. In this way, his group would preserve their HP and not need to heal as often, allowing them to chain pull packs and finish post-haste. As a precaution in the event of a meathead missing their wolf, he¡¯d positioned Handsome Dan at the end. With the few tips Henry''d given the kid while beating him up, he should be able to handle a maximum of three wolves temporarily. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! It was a simple plan, almost impossible to screw up, and, if they hadn''t had an audience, it would have gone without a bump. Henry, riding back to them, squinted. "Oh, what the hell..." Three of the meatheads had stripped out of the armour he''d painstakingly convinced them to wear. Back to their shirtless selves, they were flexing and showboating for the watching crowd. ¡°FOCUS!¡± yelled Henry. "DON''T GET DISTRACTED!" ¡°Me? I¡¯m not distracted at all,¡± laughed the Battleaxe Meathead at the front of the column, giving Henry a wink. Henry felt ill. ¡°DON''T DO IT! FOLLOW THE PLAN!" The Battleaxe Meathead flashed his teeth. ¡°As a player, you gotta adapt to the conditions of the field!¡± "SOMETIMES, SURE! IN THIS CASE, HOWEVER, YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE GAME IS LIMITED, AND IT''S UNLIKELY THAT THE ALTERNATIVE YOU''RE CONSIDERING IS MORE EFFECTIVE! AT LEAST WAIT FOR AFTER YOU''VE PRACTISED THE FIRST PULL! DON''T BE A HERO!" ¡°You gotta grasp opportunity by the balls!¡± "THERE''S NO OPPORTUNITY HERE! YOU''RE KILLING FIVE TUTORIAL MONSTERS! IT''S NOT SPECIAL! STICK TO THE PLAN!" Henry sighed as he rode past, knowing from the meathead''s grin that he''d failed. The meathead raised his battleaxe and roared at the approaching wolves. ¡°Boys, let''s tame us some pups!" his weapon, he swung in a wide arc, the glowing blade chopping one wolf across the face and another through the shoulder. Not to be bested, the Spear Meathead, second in line, jumped forward and stabbed one wolf, kicked another, and hit the last with the butt of his spear. Before one could scream, "you hollow-skulled idiots!", three wolves were upon the cocky spear-wielder. Sighing, Henry commanded the donkey to stop. He fired a shot, drawing the agro of a wolf about to sink its teeth into the Spear Meathead¡¯s exposed belly. The Bastardsword Meathead, The Russian Girl, and Handsome Dan, not wanting to miss out on the action, sprinted forward and started slashing and stabbing and slashing. The noob in the crowd who''d insulted them laughed again. ¡°Hah! Nice fuckin'' strategy, you got there, bozos! Fuckin roided-out mongrels!" This time, the audience joined him in laughing, including the Beast Tamer and the Cutthroat cancelling his invisibility to prevent any more wolves fleeing through the gap. Henry, expressionless, unleashed a rapid volley of arrows, hoping to finish the wolves quickly and minimise the damage. By the time the last wolf fell, Dan cleaving the poor pup in two, the Battleaxe Meathead had lost about 60% of his HP, and the Spear Meathead, 85%. Most of the damage to the latter hadn¡¯t come from the wolves. Instead, the nincompoops behind him had missed half their attacks. Henry wished he''d been able to shoot them, too, although his arrows would probably ricochet from their thick skulls. With so much damage sustained, his team would have to pause for several minutes to eat and replenish their health. As a final sprinkle of poo on the poo stew Henry''d been served, because he''d been courteous enough to not selfishly tag the first wolves by hitting them first, he couldn''t absorb any of them. He was still 0 for 15. The Beast Tamer gave a consoling grunt. ¡°At least you were fast. So, yeah, everybody, that¡¯s how you do it, roughly. Disperse and get to work.¡± As the other trainees, snickering, went their ways, the meatheads sat down and began eating wolf steaks with their bare hands. ¡°Sorry about that, Big Bro." The Battleaxe meathead apologised, tearing off a chunk. ¡°Don''t know what got into me.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± replied Henry in a monotone. That they would fail to meet even his lowest expectations, this was not unexpected. On the bright side, with his team having volunteered first, one such mishap wouldn¡¯t prevent his goals being reached. But, if there was a second mishap, or a third... Henry, riding off alone, returned to a Cutthroat maintaining the perimeter. ¡°Ready." ¡°Your teammates are still healing.¡± ¡°Don''t need them. Do it on my own." As long as the meatheads were nearby to block stray Sentient wolves, he should be OK. The Cutthroat obliged, hoping for an encore to the previous comedy. Henry fired and pulled another solitary pack. He kept the donkey stationary long enough to shoot another arrow. The wolf leading the group yelped as a hole was punched through its nose, into its brain. ¡°Gallop!¡± he shouted. As the donkey raced off, he shot again. Hrik! the same wolf squealed, falling, dead. That was 1 out of 15. Easy. He dragged the wolf pack out into the fields, which had emptied after the flight of the boars. As he passed the meatheads, Handsome Dan sprang to his feet to ¡®help¡¯. "Keep eating," Henry ordered, swivelling in the saddle to put an arrow through a wolf''s upper palate. "I''m fine." He had calculated that it would take the Spear Meathead about two and a half minutes to reach 100% HP. He shot again, the arrow clipping a wolf in the side for negligible damage. With his current aim, roughly the same time would be needed to whittle down this one pack. Thigh hit, throat into torso, dead. 2/15. To preserve Stamina, he alternated between unempowered and empowered attacks, reserving the latter for pushing extra damage when he needed a kill. At higher levels, unempowered attacks were completely ineffective due to the resilience given by Vitality, along with armour. Against these low-level, naked wolves, though, the difference in damage was only about 30%. After the last wolf took a fatal shot to the chest (5/15), he rode back to the meatheads, retrieving the spent arrows and bodies for absorption later. The Battleaxe Meathead, seeming to have forgotten about his blunder, grinned and raised a thumb. "A stunning performance, mate.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve got to teach me shooting, Big Bro.¡± Henry was too annoyed to reply. He wasn''t just unhappy with them but also with himself. If he hadn''t been so out of practice with mounted archery, he could have killed three packs during that interval, finished this tutorial section in a single pull, and ridden off into the horizon. Alas, the 1v1 tournament wouldn¡¯t allow mounts, so he¡¯d neglected to practice the skill. He would eventually suffer for this negligence...right now. Far above them, an arrow was whistling as it traced a high-arc across the night sky. The missile''s flight went unnoticed, from the moment it was released by a hairless hand, to the moment it returned to land, smack dab in the middle of the swirling mass of wolves. No one noticed the dozen extra arrows that followed after, fired for good measure. Chapter 39 - Stray Arrows A field of amateurs fighting packs of wolves, stray arrows falling unnoticed in their midst. What the players did notice was the change in the behaviour of the wolves, whose snarling and howling quieted, as their eyes shifted colour - from amber or blood-red to rosy-pink. Whoever''d fired the stray shots had been too high-level, and their attacks had triggered the monsters'' Sentience, the transformation radiating to the wolves wherever the arrows fell. Within a third of a minute, the sneaky arrows had transformed half the pack. The wolves, awakening from the mental constraints of monster-kind, looked with intelligence and cunning upon the players imprisoning them. Ignoring further attempts to lure them out and isolate them, the wolves tightened up their ranks, they observed the numbers of their enemies and the strongest and the weakest, they calculated, and they planned. Henry, noticing the turning of the wolves from astride his donkey, first scanned the fields for the whereabouts of his trainer. He spotted the bald-headed guy with the other NPC trainers, the lot of them sprinting back to the Empire''s temporary fort. Their ''cowardice'' didn''t surprise Henry. They''d be idiotic to sacrifice themselves protecting players, who were immortal. Excellent, thought Henry, without any sarcasm. If that guy died, he would have to either find another trainer who had the same patron God¡ªunlikely in Suchi¡ªor start the whole bloody tutorial again. As for the wolves, any moment now, Henry knew they would attempt to break for the adjacent forest. Fortunately, when he''d shot his arrows earlier to mark his teammates'' positions, he''d aimed them on the opposite side of the pack from the Wolf Forest, just in case an incident like this arose. Thus, they wouldn''t be running over him, his risk of dying minimal. The big question was whether he should retreat to the camp and await the next trainee assignment, or risk attacking the wolves in their Sentient state. Calculating the risks of both options, he decided on the latter path. Later assignments would take part in the forest most likely, and, there, he¡¯d have no assurance that he wouldn¡¯t encounter Sentient wolves again. Except, using the cover of the trees, they''d be able to ambush him. Plus, there was the over-sized wolf to consider. At least here, in the open, he could kill the wolves from afar with his bow. Perhaps, if they didn''t see their deaths coming, they wouldn''t have the chance to snitch on him to their leader. It was settled, then - ten more wolves to go. He gave his teammates some parting advice. ¡°The wolves won''t come this way, so your best chance of surviving is to stay right where you are. Whatever you do, don¡¯t move into the slaughterfield under any circumstances. It¡¯s a mistake, and the noobs that run in their playing hero are going to get obliterated. Don''t do anything. Just stand here, enjoy the spectacle, and you''ll be fine. Remember, nothing. Do absolutely nothing. Wu-Wei, it''s a wonderful philosophical idea from ancient China, look it up." The meatheads didn''t understand his instructions, not yet realising the wolves would be making a break for it, Henry''s mind skipping too many steps ahead. Leaving them, Henry rode off towards the wolves. He directed the donkey through the dust cloud of a player wrestling a non-Sentient wolf. When he emerged out the other side, he''d changed his attire. His mask and clothes were replaced by a ninja outfit stained with the purplish-blue of fluorite, woven from a Tier 3-2 fabric, impervious to the wolves'' bite. With his low Martial level, he couldn¡¯t benefit from the stats, but the appearance would be useful for deception purposes. In addition to this, he wore the chest-strapped rig of vials, consumables, and Spelltomes from earlier, bringing out a new configuration of six tailored to his plans. The Tomes were partially covered by a coat, although he''d have to momentarily reveal them whenever using them because Saana didn''t allow the activation of hidden gear pieces. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. The last tool he brought out was a scroll covered in glittering calligraphy. This, after ensuring he was more than 15 metres away from the nearest player, he tore in half, causing him and the donkey to be veiled in a layer made of tiny, golden quills.
You have been blessed by a Scroll of Enhancement (110). All stats increase by 51 for the next 10 minutes. You have used Scroll of Enhancement (110). Any extra Scrolls used within the next 10 minutes will be ineffective.
These stats would allow him to one-shot the wolves with his bow, making him much faster. As he approached, a few smart noobs sprinted past him in flight, but most eagerly stood their ground, staring back at the wolves staring at them, the two factions waiting for the peace to snap. Henry slowly trotted around the trap''s perimeter, like a general surveying the battleline. His eyes flicked through the ranks of the monsters, sizing up the fright of their formations, sketching out the escape paths they''d yet to recognise themselves, identifying the weakest who would succumb to his arrows for the sake of his experience gains. On the opposite side of the field, the Villages who''d formed a line to block an invasion from the forest began to arrange themselves in total silence. Tanks and healers moved to the frontlines, ready to run over to protect the trainees, melee combatants produced their longest swords and spears, and mages climbed onto small hills for a greater vantage point for their spells. The arrangement was directed by the Beast Tamer, giving orders in a private voice channel. The very moment the Beast Tamer''s troops began to move, a howl rang out amongst the trapped wolves and, at once, with the snapped release of a tense bowstring, the whole mass of thousands shot forward, sprinting to break from the encirclement, to flee towards the safety of the forest. The Cutthroats forming the trap''s perimeter responded first, teleporting directly into the mass and swinging their swords like scythes through dry wheat, before vanishing beneath mounds of sacrificial wolves tasked with clamping their limbs. The noobs, shouting and laughing with mirth, sprinted in to join the fray. Henry waited a few seconds, seeing the start before it came but not wanting to draw attention. Splitting an charge, he made the heads of two arrows glow, one already notched, the other a spare in his hand. With a twang, the first arrow zipped into the wolf mass. One of the creatures, packed too close behind a comrade, had been delayed in moving forward with the mass. The arrow, enhanced by buffed stats, blew a grapefruit-sized hole through the tardy wolf''s back, and the creature gave a thin, feeble death-yelp, half its lungs shredded by the missile. 6/15. Henry, notching his spare arrow, fired again. While the second arrow flew, he studied the wolves around the slain target gaining Sentience from the first. With bated breath, he prayed to the gods of RNG that he would not hear an anomalous howl or bark singling him out from the other players, nor a click portending the tearing open of another wormhole. Here, one might wonder why he still exercised caution when The Wolf Emperor had already shown itself, the massive beast lurking in the forest; if the boss monster were already here, what would be the purpose of it whisking him away? But Henry felt couldn''t ignore the fact that wolves were pack animals, this section of the tutorial introducing players to group combat dynamics, so maybe, just maybe, there were other Wolf Emperors. Maybe there was an even more over-sized mutt, a Wolf Sovereign, hanging out in a prison somewhere and giggling to itself as it awaited Henry''s prophesied screw up. For now, however, he seemed to be safe. The newly-Sentient wolves ignored him as they fled, not showing a hint of acknowledgement even when the second arrow minced another companion. 7/15. The head of the fleeing pack collided with the first of new players charging in with their weapons, swinging their swords, thrusting their spears. These courageous noobs, outnumbered, underleveled, were bowled over instantly, the mass of wolves submerging them like the rising sea swallowing children''s sandcastles. From under the tide of fur and fang, the screaming noobs flailed their desperate limbs for air, to fling off the wolves gnawing into their bellies and groins; their efforts were not completely in vain, each soon escaping into the open sky as clouds of sparkling soul-lights. ¡°Gallop!¡± yelled Henry, spurring the donkey to give chase and directing it along the wolves perimeter, replacement arrows condensing in his fingers. Some of the newbies pursuing the beasts from behind¡ªseeing their friends get annihilated¡ªstopped, turned, and fled. Most, however, continued bravely onward, smashing their bodies into the straggling monsters at the wolves'' rear. Many of these courageous heroes died in seconds, if not killed by the wolves then by the sudden barrage of arrows and spells, arcs of lightning jumping from wolf to man indiscriminately, the force so powerful that anyone struck evaporated, their glowing souls liberated from a mist of meat. Henry, keeping a safe distance, picked off targets. The next arrow he fired tore off a wolf''s leg, the beast falling whimpering, its companions trampling it. A second arrow clipped a different wolf in the head, its face and skull blooming like a red carnation. 8/15. That same missile, continuing through the dead wolf, struck the first trampled wolf in the chest and gave it a similar mercy. 9/15. Chapter 40 - Veteran Henry¡ªhis donkey galloping alongside the fleeing wolves, the pair darting between wolf corpses and wounded noobs¡ªsaw the head of the pack nearing the forest''s edge. Obstructing their path were Arcanists, who''d just finished casting their spells. Out of each of the mages'' bodies sprouted octopus-like tendrils, thick as rope and crackling with violet-indigo energy. This was , a Tier-3 AOE spell. The snaking tendrils stretched tens of metres towards the wolves and swept through them with no more resistance than a baker''s roller over dough, each wolf struck being flattened out as a paste of bone and organs. When the rear wolves hesitated before the horrific destruction, Henry managed to graze one''s butt, right as an Arcane tendril splattered it. 10/15. Its body destroyed, it turned into lights, a fraction of which funnelled to Henry.
You have absorbed the lifeforce of a Grey Wolf (3). 55 XP gained. 766 XP remaining until level up.
The next arrow, he aimed carefully at a Sentient wolf in a corner of the wolf-tide that''d been discretely howling orders, the pack''s leader. Before it could devise a counter-manoeuvre to the blockade, he planned to drop it, leaving the wolves disorganised and making them easy to pick off. Alas, as he drew his bow, tragedy struck. Twang! His bowstring snapped. Henry, cursing ''fate'' and Suchi''s incompetent craftsmen, watched as the lead wolf howled its orders. About two thousand wolves remained. These immediately split into four groups, one heading south around the blockade, one heading north, one converging on the Beast Tamer orchestrating the defence, and the last scattering to attack noobs. ¡°Crimson Lions, ignore the runners!" The Beast Tamer yelled in the distance. "Save the trainees! Trainees, to me!¡± The noobs who''d felt confident attacking the wolves'' rear fled towards him. Those who''d been too close, though, were soon dragged down and dismembered. The Beast Tamer himself joined the struggle, summoning a bow which he rapidly fired to save the captured trainees; his subordinates did the same, paying no heed to the hundreds of wolves charging at them specifically. Meanwhile, Henry was weighing his many options, from entering the melee with a sword to casting nuke spells. Neither of those options he liked. The wormhole mechanic perhaps triggered up close, and too many players were around him to use his Spelltomes openly. Making a snap decision, he rode the donkey towards the corpse of a bull-sized wolf, one of the Sentient leaders slain by the Cutthroats at the very start of this quest assignment. On the way, he grabbed a spear sticking out of the ground, abandoned by a noob, and pulled a translucent vial from his chest straps, which he threw in front of the dead wolf, the glass shattering.
You have used Dynasty''s Downfall (90). Any extra Combat Potions used within the next 10 minutes will be ineffective.
Dismounting and ordering the donkey to stay put, he squatted behind the wolf, using its giant corpse for cover. Alongside the bow that he placed down, he added the spear, his gladius, and a Spelltome from his inventory with a golden hammer on the cover. Activating the Spelltome, he began to chant. Golden energy channelled into the weapon, causing the two frayed ends of the bowstring to twitch and writhe, before snaking towards one another. Elsewhere on the bow, various nicks and scratches were also mending at a visible pace. ¨C a Tier-3 Miracleworker spell that repaired broken equipment temporarily. While Henry tried to fix his bow, the Beast Tamer''s position was overrun. The Tamer''s pet Sabretooth was trying to intercept the wolves, chomping them with its teeth and shattering them with its paws. However, its efforts did little to reduce their total numbers. Soon, its master was covered in a mountain of growling fur. At the same position, the other wolves were about to close in on the noobs seeking protection with the Tamer''s forces when, all of a sudden, a regal violin melody could be heard, followed by the sounds of other instruments. Horns, oboes, clarinets, violas, timpani, all the pieces of an orchestra joined in for a symphony. The noobs being ripped apart suddenly found that the wolf bites, for all their ferocity, were unable to puncture their skin. Invigorated, the noobs sought to strike back, only to find that their own weapons bounced off the wolves'' fur, which had become harder than concrete. A glowing magenta film was covering wolf and man alike. This protective film was being sustained by a stream of magenta musical notes, flowing out of instruments positioned around the field. They were playing , a Tier-2 Accompanist AOE spell that increased the listener¡¯s Vitality. Although the noobs and wolves couldn¡¯t create enough force to overcome the bonus Vitality, this wasn¡¯t true for everyone. The hill of wolves smothering the Beast Tamer erupted, the monsters flying about like dolls thrown by a tantruming toddler. From their midst burst out an 8-foot tall man-beast with fangs and whiskers, whose glowing claws danced around him, splitting a wolf in half with each swipe. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. The other high-level Villagers under his command joined the slaughter. Back near Henry''s position, beyond the range of the Accompanists'' protective song, two Sentient wolves had been tag-teaming a girl. One dragged her across the ground by the leg to prevent her from getting to her feet; the other chewed through her throat, gradually beheading her. The wolf pair had been ordered to kill as many humans before they died. After dealing with the girl, they searched their surroundings for their next target. There were many options to consider, but all of these were ignored when they saw a maddening sight. One male human was desecrating their leader''s body, using a sword to stab it in the face over and over again. The human, suddenly noticing they''d found him, bulged his eyes in alarm and, dropping his weapon, ducked, hoping to hide behind their leader¡¯s corpse. The pair, incensed, howled and charged. The human, calm on the other side, quickly formed a spell gesture, ensuring the he was still casting didn¡¯t cancel, Henry multi-tasking for efficiency. While casting three more gestures, he listened over the sounds of battle for the padding of the pair''s approaching feet. The noise of one wolf abruptly ceased, replaced by a wet, fizzling sound. Grabbing the spear he''d prepared, Henry it, stood upright¡ªhis feet not moving to maintain the spell¡ªand launched the weapon. Where the wolf in front had been was a liquified puddle, pooling around the shards of the vial he''d shattered earlier. 11/15. An Alchemist watching this would have paused the tape and rewound, wondering whether they''d truly seen this guy use that potion to kill a Level 3 Grey Wolf. Henry had, and he would do it again if it meant victory. Behind the puddle, the disintegrated wolf''s companion had frozen in terror. The second wolf would never unfreeze, a spear smashing through its teeth, boring into its guts, and pinning it dead to the earth. 12/15. Henry, ducking, continued repairing his bow. When he heard a distant howl, he stood up again to peek over the wolf leader''s corpse, catching a glimpse of the wolves that''d been attacking the Beast Tamer beginning to flee. Henry groaned. The Empire goons choose now of all times to be efficient... For perspective, only had a 20-second cast time. The drunken Villagers should not, under any reasonable circumstances, have had the coordination to turn the tide of battle so quickly. By the time he finished repairing the bow, most of the wolves were out of range, joining the fleeing pack. Henry, remounting the donkey and charging at full gallop after them, scanned their dwindling numbers and reanalysed his situation. He scried five paths to nab his last three wolves, all of them mutually exclusive. Once he committed to one, the others would vanish, his destiny fixed. Following a strange intuition, a paranoia growing over this morning of inexplicable mishaps, he forwent his first, simplest option and chose another of moderate difficulty. "Faster!" He steered the galloping donkey after a group of scattered wolves being harassed on their way to the forest by mounted Villagers. As he and the donkey were catching up, two of the Spelltomes in his chest straps were traded out, one by the Spelltome for the invisibility spell, the second by a Tome with a picture of a stretched-out clock on the cover. Drawing his bow, he shot at a wolf being chased by a Fighter. Moments before the Fighter''s mace exploded the wolf, Henry''s arrow clipped the beast''s thigh first, tagging it for him. 13/15. Henry''s next target was an isolated wolf, undetected by anyone, sprinting about 54.3 metres in the distance, near the maximum range of arrows and a difficult shot from the saddle even for a freak like himself. His first shot narrowly missed. The wolf, made aware by the first, dodged the second. A third hit it square in the side. 14/15. While Henry was missing those shots, two more wolves he might have killed were speared down by the mounted Villagers. The tail of the pack was nearing the forest''s edge, the frontrunners already safe, and the closest and last accessible wolf to him was about 181 metres away. To kill this one would be an absurd feat, the path forward inconceivable to most, one of those possible but blind long-shots attempted only by naive youth, zealots convinced of their divine success, and veterans accustomed to battling for monumental stakes. Henry fell into the last category. If he failed here, the cost might be enormous. Who knows when would be able to finish this stupid tutorial? ¡°!¡± The donkey''s legs pumped furiously, zooming them across the plains. Dodging dead wolves that the donkey was too short to jump, they closed the gap by roughly 4 metres per second. 168... 164... They sped into the thick of exploding spells and stray arrows, the two of them glowing as they entered the Accompanists'' soaring symphony, the music filling their ears. Henry slipped the bow down his arm and onto his shoulder, then used his free hands to push himself up, onto his feet. Through his palms, he sensed the donkey¡¯s hesitancy at the unusual manoeuvre. "Forward," Henry commanded with assurance. Standing upright on the saddle, he paused to await the exact moment, his fate entrusted in his shabby mount maintaining its speed and direction. In this breath between the action, his hand began to tremble; perhaps picking up some of the donkey''s trepidation, it offered a small opposition, unwilling to comply. Henry, however, pushed through its reluctance and slapped his palm against the Spelltome strapped over his heart. The spell,