《Digital Demons》 Chapter 1: Puddles and Packages Prologe Everyone has a dream. For most kids Samantha¡¯s age it was to get into a college in the capitol or to get out of the slums or even just to pass the fast upcoming final. But Sam (as she liked to be called) was different. All she wanted was to get away. Away from her dad. Away from her mom. Away from the ridiculous Global Peace Corps propaganda that they spouted. Away from all the stupid ideas that she knew just weren¡¯t right and just away from what she considered to be the worst possible place to grow up. But there was no escape from the fortified walls of Sector T311 district, a 200,000 acre slum in the North American district. So Sam had been forced to look for other ways to get away. And one day, whilst walking in an alleyway (which in Sector T311 were often safer than the main roads) cluttered with black market vendors, she got handed the solution. Chapter 1: Puddles and Packages I¡¯m walking along the road against the constant, albeit limited, bustle of consumers, lingering to avoid getting to my destination¡­ home. It wasn¡¯t that my parents were mean or anything. They were just too gullible, believing all the crap that the GPC (Global Peace Corps) propaganda devision told them. I had tried to go along with it for a little while and accept the common ideology, but I just couldn¡¯t deal with the ¡°fact¡± that me being in a slum was a good thing and my place in the world. After a couple years I stopped pretending altogether and started avoiding my parents whenever I cou-¡°splash¡± My sector issue boots and pants soaked up to the knees, I angrily turn to the offending wooden wheelbarrow that had veered into a puddle directly to my left and then a sewer grate which had smashed one of the wheels to splinters and cracked the frame. Interesting. It had wheels as opposed to the electromagnets that most vehicles used today. ¡°oh sorrysorrysorry¡± said a small portly man dressed in tan pants and a white shirt who was rushing to me. ¡°Someone bumped into me and I fell, pushing the cart as I went.¡± ¡°Whatever¡± I mutter, already trying to wring out the soaked cotton-polyester blend of my pants. ¡°no no really¡± he insists ¡°I can¡¯t offer you much, but I know that it¡¯ll be a month until you can wash those. How about you take the box in the wheelbarrow. That is a valuable piece of equipment, never mind, just take it. I can¡¯t carry it without the cart anyway.¡± I look up questioningly and immediately see that his left arm is in a sling. How didn¡¯t I notice before? Oh no, he said something. Get your head back in the conversation. ¡°what did you say?¡± ¡°I said it¡¯s free and just take it¡± There was a note of panic in his voice now, he had probably taken my look of skepticism like I didn¡¯t know whether it was a good idea to take it, but I wasn¡¯t stupid. If it was free then I could make a profit by selling it or I could use it, though I can¡¯t imagine what he could have that I would rather have than a few credits. He had said it was valuable before hadn¡¯t he. Based on his tone he wanted to get rid of it and if that was his wish than who am I to deny him. Back when I was younger my father had told me an expression that his father before him had told him. What was it? Don¡¯t look a gift horse, whatever that was, in the mouth. I turn to the spot where the man had been standing to accept, but the only sight that greeted me was the damp cobble on the ally and the haggling of 2 woman at the stall across the street. Dang, I had wanted to ask him more about what it was that he had given me. Well, I guess it¡¯s mine now. I walk over to the broken wheelbarrow leaning on its side and the brown cardboard box that lay within. The box itself didn¡¯t seem too odd. It was a standard 2-1-1 that was found everywhere and used to transport everything from food to firearms for the wall guards. The only interesting thing about it was that it had none of the identifying tags that official ones did. I pick it up and as I''m doing so wonder if I¡¯m doing the right thing. Sure I could sell it and make some money which is always helpful, but, come to think of it the strange man did seem to want to get rid of it pretty badly. I could just put it down and- no. If this was worth something then maybe I could get closer to my goal of escape. I start walking with the package in my arms. Back when I had just given up on trying to please my parents I had gone to my hideout and come up with a plan to get outside the gates. Bribe some of the guards. Of course after looking that up on a jailbroken computer (bought from a dubious seller in an alleyway similar to the one I was walking along) that could search the underworld web, my dreams of waltzing out of sector T311 that night were shattered. It would cost between 2 and 4 thousand credits to get out. Still I had saved about 50% of the allowance that my parents were obliged to give me for about 6 weeks until I had given up on it, totaling just over 300 credits in savings. Depending on the value of this¡­ whatever, I could maybe even double that ¡­ Peering around the corner of a stall a portly man named Kyle let out a sigh of relief, glad that he had finally managed to get rid of the package. His loyalty to his boss hadn¡¯t let him just leave something of that value in a dumpster somewhere, but the temptation to use it would have gotten the better of him if he had kept it. And though it was supposedly safe you never can tell for sure. ~~~ After a couple more minutes of walking with the box under my arm, I duck into the alley that leads to a rarely used, underground parking garage and the storage closet within it: My hideout. I found it 4 years ago when I was just 12. I was bored and decided to go exploring and had found the keys in the lock. Privacy. True privacy, is hard to come by and I had known this then as well, so I never told anyone about it. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I had furnished it sparsely with a desk, a chair, a lamp, the aforementioned computer and even a sleeping bag, although it was too cold in the winter to sleep there and right now it wouldn¡¯t be very pleasant at all. Well, time to open this up and see what all the fuss is about. The lid cracks open and inside there is a small metal box about 5 in by 5 in by 8 in, 2 big thick cables that look like protected Fiber Optics, a collapsible antenna that looks like it might be able to connect to the satellites reserved for the rich sectors, and a huge, full face helmet with no visor that must be 3 inches thick at its broadest point. None of the Items have labels that I can see. Time to plod over to the computer and search¡­ and search¡­ and search. Ok, that¡¯s it, I¡¯m not going to find an answer there. How about a more direct, hands on approach. I get out of the chair and walk over to the parts which are still in the box. I give it a look over once more and getting the same result (which is completely and utterly baffled) I pick up the bundle of cables. Here¡¯s something. There is another, smaller cable nestled right in between these other ones. I must have missed it before because the big ones were blocking it from view. I¡¯ve seen this type before too. A teacher used it at school once to power a machine that processes food. Whatever the other things in there are, they must draw a lot of power. Not enough to draw attention if someone was careful though. For instance, to mask the constant power draw of charging my computer, I cut the power cable on one of the lights in a corner near me and charged my computer at the outlet in the closet. One of the only interesting things (in my opinion) I have ever managed to get out of my basic electrical science text book, that we are reading in science class this year, (oh the joys of being 16) is that the suits that monitor electricity use can only detect the power draw of a certain floor. So as long as it stays within a certain range they won¡¯t know anything is up. This means that all you have to do to get power to something you need is take power away from something else. Wow, got really side tracked there. Anyway, I¡¯m going to plug it in. Just the cord I mean not everything. Not yet anyway. Ok¡­ A power cable that is attached to nothing. This is clearly not going to help me. I need to get a little more serious. Lets see what does this attach to. The box thingy has an outlet for this on the bottom, along with two more that look like they probably go to the big ones that I think are fiber optic. Okayyyy plug it in and - I duck down and cover my head - ¡­nothing. Well that¡¯s not technically true, but I don¡¯t think a very quiet humming that I only heard because I wasn¡¯t moving is really a thing worth mentioning. Ok, only one thing to do now¡­ plug in one of the other things. The antenna seems a little dangerous, I don¡¯t know what or even If it will transmit if I plug it in so the helmet it is. ¡°Wow you would think that fiber optics would be lighter.¡± I mutter to myself as I lug one of the cables over to the box and plug it in. Ok that¡¯s done, now what to do about the helmet. I drag it over to the cord and start examining the helmet. It seems like it doesn¡¯t have any openings for a cord to go into¡­ but here on the 3 inch thick part at the back of the area a neck would go is a tiny little seam. If I can just push my fingernail into it and use that as a lever then - voila! the hatch opens and reveals a socket that is just the right size for my cord. Fit it in the slot and¡­ Nothing is happening. Again. I growl in frustration. You would think that it would at do something. A little beep maybe, or a LED would blink. Anything except this endless nothing. Wait a minute not everything is plugged in yet. There is the giant antenna that I was worried about earlier. I am still a little apprehensive about using it, but my curiosity has gotten the best of me. Besides, If I want to sell this I am going to need to know what it is. Now why can¡¯t I open this up. After almost 10 minutes of fruitlessly tugging on the jointsof the antenna I finally figured out that you need to push in a tiny little pin in order to actually extend it and get it set up. Ok, now its judgement day (or second if you want to get technical). I plug in one end of the fiber optic cable to the metal box and carefully walk the other end to the antenna as though it could break at any second. Sliding the metal end of the line into the slot on the underside of the tripod that is holding it up (it was a lot easier to find the cover the second time) I give an involuntary gasp as something finally does happen. A small lighted sign that until now was invisible glows into existence on the front of the visor and starts flashing the words READY FOR USE. Excitement and curiosity wage a full on war against the caution that comes with living in a poor sector where you could be mugged for 10 credits. Guess which one won? I slowly walk over to the helmet and gently place it on my head. There are no screens as I would have expected just silicone pads that conform to my head. ¡°Scan ready¡± says a cold and metalic voice suddenly. ¡°What? Hello?¡± I say twisting my head this way and that as though I could see the person who is talking through all the metal silicone and whatever else is in this helmet. I bring my hands up and try to remove it, only to find that the silicone pads that were keeping my head comfortable by conforming to it were also preventing me from removing the helmet. ¡°Scan initializing¡± the cold voice says. ¡°WAIT!¡± I scream banging at the machine that is keeping me confined ¡°STOP! I DON¡¯T WANT TO CONTINUE.¡± A strange sensation comes over my head and my cries, while they would seem just as loud as before to anyone else in the room, start becoming muffled and far away. I stop screaming and banging, but it isn¡¯t for lack of trying, I simply can¡¯t anymore. ¡°Scan 1 complete: motor and language skills¡± says the voice ¡°Now initializing scan 2: Active thought. Then everything goes black. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A rating - good or bad whatever you honestly think - is much appreciated Chapter 2: Answers and AI Chapter 2: Answers and AI ¡°Hello¡±¡­¡±Helloooo¡± ¡°What?¡± I ask in a voice that sounds amazingly strong considering the way that my head feels. ¡°I said hello¡± A cheerful, feminine voice says. ¡°he-hello, I guess. Who are you?¡± I¡¯m slowly sitting up now and blinking. For some reason it is extremely bright. ¡°I am Introductory AI 12, but for the sake of simplicity you can call me Alice¡± The voice says again in the exact same cheerful tone. ¡°AI? What is tha¡± I suddenly trail off as ¡°Alice¡± comes into view. She is a stereotypically perfect receptionist holding a clipboard, but that is not what made me stop talking, that would be the background¡­ or lack of one. There is nothing there. Nothing at all. Just an endless field of white in the sky that is resting on a white floor that is very slightly reflective. ¡°WHERE AM I?¡± I shout in a slightly panicky voice. I start to hyperventilate and jerk my head around wildly looking for anything, anything at all besides the endless white. I pull my knees to my chest and begin to cry.Alice looks slightly nonplused for a moment but soon recovers and comes to my side. ¡°Hey, hey¡± she says softly curling up next to me, hugging me and patting my head in a comforting way. ¡°It will be all right.¡± I continue to sob for an unknowable amount of time and Alice stays with me patting my head and comforting me. When I finally pull it together and stop crying I gently push Alice away, give one last sniffle and tell her ¡°I¡¯m ok now. Thank you¡± ¡°Oh it¡¯s nothing¡± she says. ¡°When we were going through the testing phase they taught us how to deal with panic attacks, but you are the first person that I have instructed with who has gone through one¡± ¡°Well still, thank you. Now, what were you saying before I went to pieces.¡± ¡°Ok, for starters I am an AI¡± She paused as if expecting me to know what that is, took a look at my blank expression and continued ¡°AI stands for artificial intelligence which is-¡° ¡°I understand what AI is¡± I interrupte her. ¡°It¡¯s like a computer that can learn and do more than just follow the exact steps it is programed to do.¡± ¡°Exactly. So basically a true AI would be sentient, but the code that runs me for example is too complex to be just a program but just barely not complex enough to be sentient. We have a scale for this that no one has really bothered to name that goes from one to ten with one being a pure program with 0 intuition and 10 being a fully sentient being. I am between an 8 and a 9. As far as I know there is only one program that I know of rated a 10 other than players and that is the program that runs Templa.¡± ¡°Ok, I think I get it. You are an AI which is almost sentient based on this unnamed scale. There is only one known AI that is actually sentient. I do have one question though. You said something about the sentient AI running Templa. What is that?¡± ¡°Right. I was just getting to that part.¡± Alice explains. ¡°Templa is the name of the virtual reality world that you will be living in.¡± ¡°Wait. Living in!?¡± ¡°Yes. Once you have been scanned there is no going back. In order to get a scan with enough detail to completely copy your brain the machine uses very high power lasers. These, unfortunately destroy the scanned brain. Once you get here you¡¯re stuck here.¡± These last two sentences were delivered as if she was afraid that I might have another break down and start crying again. The stunned look on my face probably made her think I was in shock and would snap at any moment. In reality nothing could have been further from the truth. I was elated. Overjoyed. Euphoric. No more would I be forced to endure the hardships of sector T311. I had been give the opportunity of a million lifetimes. A second chance. Alice was most likely starting to panic as I still had the same shocked expression on my face as 10 seconds ago. So, in an effort to console me (not that I really needed consoling) she gave me another piece of information. ¡°It-it¡¯s not all bad¡­ If you die you will just respawn sooo technical you are immortal¡± Alice never saw it coming I was moving so fast. In the blink of an eye I have my arms wrapped around her and am screaming in her ear. ¡°THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.¡± Still panting and grinning like a maniac I am too eager to start my new life to wait until I calm down so I say ¡°Ok, give me the basics, how do I play the game?¡± Surprised by my enthusiasm, Alice none the less proceeds with what I assume is the regular tutorial. She waves her hand and a very slightly transparent blank square, the color of cardboard, appears in the center of my vision. I jerk my head back, so surprised that I fall, but I come up with my happy mood only very slightly dented. Relieved that i¡¯m still smiling, Alice starts to explain. ¡°Ok, this is just a blank ¡®window¡¯. Don¡¯t worry about it because you won¡¯t have it in the game. You are going to have a bunch of these windows in your field of view however. As you probably see, this can be very annoying-¡° She was right, I was craning my neck turning my head one way and trying to see past the window by turning my eyes in the other direction. This was working ok but I definitely couldn¡¯t live like this for the rest of forever. ¡°So we created a solution.¡± she continued after watching me squirm for a little bit. ¡°There is a feature that allows you to set the windows transparency and make them almost unnoticeable or completely opaque just by thinking about it. I¡¯ll activate that now¡± she waved her hand again ¡°Okay. Now just focus on how transparent you want the window to be.¡± ¡°Ok I got this¡± I mutter to myself. I tried to focus part of my brain on making the annoying window in front of my face fade away¡­ And it worked. ¡°That¡¯s surprising.¡± I thought to myself ¡°Usually focus isn¡¯t something that I posses at all, let alone enough to make that window disappear.¡± ¡°I bet you¡¯re wondering how you were able to focuse enough to make the window disappear, aren¡¯t you?¡± Alice asked, cheerfully. ¡°How did you know that?¡¯ I wonder ¡°You can¡¯t read my thought¡¯s can you?!¡± ¡°No, I can¡¯t do that.¡± my introductory AI chuckles ¡°but almost everyone is wondering the same thing in this situation. To answer your unasked question, you are now a program. As I said before, your brain was destroyed by the scanning process but what the scan gave us is a full, exact copy of your brain and we translated that into code. This means that the hormonal impulses that controlled you are gone, allowing you to focus fully on what you want to. Unless of course you are interrupted by something. For instance, You could do highly complicated math without distractions right now but if I punched you that would most definitely interrupt your focus. The same thing goes for your memory. This is easier to just show you. What was the 13th word I said to you?¡± ¡°I was listing with all of the rapt attention that she had just described so when Alice asks me the question I am unprepared. However, some part of my brain answered automatically because it knew the answer ¡°The¡± I say in a surprised voice ¡°or ''sake'' if you don¡¯t count the numbers.¡± How did I know that? ¡°It¡¯s like with the focus, you have digital memory now.¡± She responds. ¡°but back on track, Here are the windows you will actually be working with in Templa. A number of windows pop up in front of my face. ¡°At the bottom of your view you should see a semi transparent window that is really long, but doesn¡¯t go up very far, am I correct.¡± If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°Yes¡± I say ¡°Ok, that is used for 2 things. #1 is that you will see a bar on the top of that window that looks like an empty glass tube. Right now that is empty because you don¡¯t have any experience. Once you do, you should see it filling up with green light. I¡¯ll fill it up for you right now.¡± Just as she said, the tube started filling up at a slow rate which got faster and faster until it had completely filled at which point a cheerful gong sounded and a message appeared right in front of my face. I jerked my head back in surprise and, to my utter embarrassment, fell over. After getting up and ignoring Alice¡¯s laughter (finding that funny, I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if she hit 10 status soon) I read the message that thankfully hadn¡¯t faded. ¡°You have reached level one!!!¡± It proclaimed and in smaller letters below it it said ¡°See log for unlocked abilities. As soon as I read it a small number 1 appeared in the center of that bar which now that I look at it has changed back into it¡¯s former emptiness. ¡°congrats!¡± says Alice stifling another chuckle at my expense. ¡°Now, if you remember, which you should¡± another chuckle ¡°I said that there were 2 functions of that bar and I have only showed you one.¡° This was true. The rest of the bar was taken up with 10 empty squares with rounded edges. They looked like indentations in the cream colored paper that made up the windows¡­ Dang it. It would seem that even my new computer enhanced brain was easily side tracked. ¡°Now open your home screen please.¡± ¡°Sorry Alice.¡± I say with a sheepish grin ¡°got on a mental side track. Can you repeat everything after ¡®I have only showed you one¡¯?¡± Rolling her eyes at me in a friendly way (seriously, she might already be a 10 on the scale) Alice compiled and started again ¡°As I was saying, I have only showed you one, but we aren¡¯t quite ready to move on to the others yet so I am going to ask you to direct your attention to another window.¡± At the top left hand corner of your view you should see a small button that looks like a house. This is how you access your home screen. Please select that now by thinking very hard about it. I do and immediately a large window fills up almost my entire field of view save for a tiny border through which I could see Alice¡¯s expectant face. This time I didn¡¯t fall down, just stumbled a bit. Through my tiny sliver of view I could see Alice raising her eyebrows as if impressed. ¡°Now in the future you will have a bunch of options here but for now it should just have 2 buttons that say setup and log correct.¡± ¡°yea¡± ¡°OK. Good. Now select the Log button the same way you opened the home screen.¡± That was a bit of a challenge, but I managed on what was probably my 3rd or 4th try. ¡°OK I got it¡± ¡°Great, now the log is pretty self explanatory so I¡¯ll give you the short version. It records what you do and can give you more information about achievements and things like that. For now just read the 2 tabs that are available to you and tell me when you are done.¡± Tabs I assume are the 2 little things that are at the top of the window that I can select with my mind. When I do so, the window changes to display different text. Lets see what the Actions tab says. ¡°Our, adventurer ______ (name not selected) started out her journey in the ¡®Hub¡¯ section where introductory AI Alice helped to explain the new world that she was living in. That¡¯s it. Not a lot but I suppose it does sum up my ¡°adventure¡± so far. Now what does the tab marked Achievements have in store for us. Achievements Reached level 1 Unlocked class and profession choices Attention do you want achievement benefits to be displayed with the achievement when you receive it Yes/No. Yes please. Getting here was a bit of a pain. ¡°OK Alice, I¡¯m done.¡± ¡°Great. You¡¯ve read the part about class and profession. Right?¡± ¡°Un-hu¡± ¡°OK now comes the fun part. In Templa you are able to have a specific class, which allows you to use specific items and leveling branches. Now you are ready to choose. Have fun.¡± And a new window appeared in front of my face. This one had a long scrolling list of what appeared to be roles that I could play in my new life. Choose your class! Wizard: Long range attacker:This class uses wands and staffs to deal long range damage and can us AoE spells that attack large groups ofenemies. Priest: Group healer and buffer:You play an important role in any raid, keeping your allies alive and giving them special skills. You are much more likely to get selected for raidsbecause not many people choose this class. Knight: Tank:You have tremendous strength and wear heavy armor. Able to take large amounts of hits and draw the agro of the mobs onto yourself, you are looked up to by all. There are many, many, many more characters like ninja, monk, swordsman, and paladin, but none of them are really catching my eye¡­ wait¡­ I read the very last description and a clear choice is made. Ghost: Assassin, Spy or Solo player that can use almost any weapon. (Note: this is an advanced character which while potentially having greater ability, also requires serious dedication and skill; recommended for advanced and committed players only):You are a versatile attacker who specializes in the difficult to learn trades of stealth and secrecy. While it may not be glamorous, striking an opponent from the shadows and disappearing before anyone notices can make you one of the most dangerous players in the game. I have to get this. Even if it didn¡¯t have the extra penalty(which I will rub in everyones face when I become great) because this class is perfectly suited to me. In the slums there are 2 ways to survive. #1: Become a thug and a bully and be able to handle anyone who comes at you and #2: Become invisible and clever enough to hide or run from anyone you can¡¯t handle (most people). I am of the later category and I was lucky enough to be very good at it. At least to the point of only having only a few ¡°unfriendly encounters¡± every year. ¡°Right. I better stop having a mental dialog and select it¡± Come to think of it, I should probably stop muttering to myself as well. The instant I select it, the widow does a cool effect and spirals all the letters from the page turn into a big dot and spits them out again anew. I would roll my eyes at how sword and sorcery it is, but sword and sorcery is my new life and frankly it looks awesome. All I can do is prepare for the next onslaught of choices that will determine my life. Oh joy. ¡­ Alice watched as yet another human stared blankly into space, focusing on windows that only she could see. Same as the 2,749 other sentients that Alice had instructed. This one seemed different though. Aside from the fact that she had absolutely no knowledge of what she was getting into (everyone else had done their homework beforehand and need almost no help) just the simple time they had spent together had increased her emotional awareness by a significant amount. Alice made a note to inform the developers of this. Who knows, the chances were slim, but if the increase was dramatic enough then Alice might be selected to run the next game. ¡­ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Author''s note: I have to apologize for the class list. It used to be in a tablebut it didn''t translate very well into Royal road. A rating -good or bad whatever you honestly think - is much appreciated Chapter 3: Races and Rebirth Chapter 3: Races and Rebirth The swirling has finally stopped and reversed, spitting out a new list of choices, which is good because my eyes are starting to burn. This list¡¯s options all hold much more interest for me than the previous one (just to clarify, that means that I like more of the choices than just one). At the top in large bold text are the words: Choose your race and below that is a large scrolling list of pictures and descriptions holding the most fantastic creatures, some of which I have heard of, most of which I have not. Choose your race! Human: Racial benefits include: 10% increased reputation gain with locals (aka computer controlled characters). Alliance: Either It is unknown how the human race arrived in templa it is only known that they have existed since the dawn of time. Due to there long existence most people will hold them in higher regard. High Elf: Racial benefits include: 10% increased damage dealt to all dark forces. Alliance: Light The high elves are mortal enemies with their dark counterparts and have perfected methods to destroy them, giving them an advantage when facing all dark opponents. Dark Elf: Racial benefits include: 10% increased damage dealt to all dark forces. Alliance: Dark The dark elves are mortal enemies with their high counterparts and have perfected methods to destroy them, giving them an advantage when facing all opponents on the side of light. Dwarf: Racial benefits include:[/font] [/font][/size][/font][/size] 5% increase to all mining abilities. 5% increase in all metalworking abilities. Alliance: Either The dwarves are a mountain dwelling race that are naturally attracted to all metals and gems which has made them excellent miners and metalworkers Demon: Racial benefits include: Ability to fly using wings(note flying is nearly impossible with regular armor made of metal. Until you have gained reputation with a party they will naturally be distrustful of you due to a dubious reputation: -25 reputation with all new groups and -10% reputation gain. The demon race emerged from a place called the crevice deep in the dark lands approximately 2000 years ago and have since made it their duty to wipe out all traces of the angel race for unknown reasons. Anyone who discovers the reason can claim a reward from either the Dark lord or the Emperor. Angel; Racial benefits include: Ability to fly using wings(note flying is nearly impossible with regular armor made of metal. Until you have gained reputation with a party they will naturally be distrustful of you due to your tendency to bring fights with demons to the people you are with: -25 reputation with all new groups and -10% reputation gain. The angel race emerged from the cloudless mountain deep in the lands of light approximately 2000 years ago and have since made it their duty to wipe out all traces of the Demon race for unknown reasons. Anyone who discovers the reason can claim a reward from either the Dark lord or the Emperor. Attention! all races beyond this point are challenge races. They have no advantages and heavy disadvantages Yeah as ¡°great¡± as that last message sounds, I think I might take an advantage. I¡¯ve already chosen a dubious class and this sounds like it would just be asking for trouble. But what to choose from the 6 ¡°regular races¡± that are here. Of all of them I think dwarf would probably be the best because depending on fighting for income doesn¡¯t sound super wise. Then again, I don¡¯t need those bonuses to become anything and I¡¯m willing to work hard enough to get around that. Well, that and the fact that I really want to fly. Ok I can¡¯t resist it, and the choice between Angel or Demon isn¡¯t hard for me. Lets just say that I am not really a good person. I do what I do to survive and better my situation and if someone else gets in my way I have no problem pushing them no matter who they are. I think the angels might frown on that particular approach to life. Now if i can just focus enough to select it and¡­ got it. Now swirly thing again (seriously, kudos to who or what ever designed this. It looks really cool) Another message but this time accompanied with a picture. Choose your Starting location (available locations marked by an x) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sorry. I actually do have an image (https://twitter.com/jarth0n/media) , but it won''t load in royal road and the X isn''t on it so, just to tell you, it is in the middle of the islandon the bottom left. Also why can''t you upload images? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Looks like there¡¯s only one for me. No sense in putting it off. I mentally push the X and everything disappears in a brilliant flash of light. Seriously, really, really, bright I¡¯m almost blind here people. When I finally blink away the intense afterimage on my retina the most incredible sight meets my eyes. I¡¯m standing on a ledge halfway up a mountain of volcanic rock that may well be a volcano. Below me is a small village with stacking towers that curve up and have cool gargoyles on the edges. The houses are black and made of a polished version of the volcanic stone that I am standing on with red trimming on the shingles and in between the stones that make up the village. The style is vaguely reminiscent of ancient pictures I once saw in a history book on the East Asian district. Beyond that is a vast plain with strange red trees, a reddish brown grass here and there and herds of animals too far in the distance to make out. The plain is only broken by huge lava fields; rocks floating among them and volcanoes both big and small that erupt surprisingly regularly throwing huge spurts of magma high into the air. Even the sky is tinged red with a regular yellow sun that seems too bright. I hold my hand up to try and get a better view of some people in the village and nearly have a heart attack. I was so busy looking at the incredible landscape that I didn¡¯t even think to look at myself. When I chose the demon class it really turned me into a demon! My skin is red, (who could have guessed) quite thick and looks vaguely scaly. My fingernails are black and razor sharp, my hair has changed from it¡¯s usual brunette to a deep black that seems to reflect light about as well as obsidian and 2 horns are poking through the black masses. Oh, and they didn¡¯t stop there, 2 deadly looking wings that could''ve belonged to a dragon are poking into the tight fitting, red cloth I wear. The wings are reminiscent of a bats, with a membrane holding together tough leather like skin between them. Last of all I appear to have a demon like tail that fits out of the especially designed shorts I have on made of the same material as the shirt. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. In short, I look badass. Aside from the aforementioned shirt and shorts, the only things that I posses are a scaly belt, a black cloak with the hood drawn back, an obsidian dagger attached to a sheath in the belt and a pair of thick sandals protecting my feet from the sharp rocks beneath my feet. ¡°Hello, young traveler.¡± Inhaling sharply and jumping just a little I turn and see the first demon, besides myself, that I have yet encountered. He is an old looking dude with lines of silver running through his short black hair. Hunched over and using a gnarled red cane, this demon is clad in armor made of scales about the size of my fist. ¡°Silent eh, usually I get more than a gasp.¡± ¡°I come from a place where showing weakness could get a knife in your back.¡± I answer back, mentally kicking myself for the slight tremor in my voice. ¡°Perfect. You¡¯ll fit in then. The last few people that have come through Rather sacrificed themselves to the gods to become a different being (I assume that¡¯s what reseting your character looks like to the local¡¯s). Tried to order us around and would¡¯t do any work. I hope you are different, otherwise you might be left to die. We don¡¯t have a very high liking for champions such as yourself.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m no slacker.¡± And I really am not looking forward to being left to die.¡± ¡°Right then let¡¯s get on with it. What should we call you?¡± A new window appears in front of my face and much to my satisfaction I manage not to flinch. Enter Name Below Hm, this could be tricky. I could go with sam I suppose, but I¡¯ll leave that as a last resort. I was given a new life and I have no desire to save this thread that connects me to my past. But what to do instead? I look around for inspiration, but Volcanic rock, lava and strange red trees don¡¯t seem to fit. Well how about something I own. Let¡¯s see, cloak, shirt, pants, sandals, belt and a knife. Struck by a sudden inspiration from the last item on the list I mentally enter 5 characters into the box. Dismissing the box I turn to the old demon who is still patiently waiting, doing nothing but staring at me with black eyes and swaying slightly. ¡°Call me Blade¡±¡­. yea yea, I know it¡¯s a little cheesy, but it sorta goes with my deadly look. ¡°Very well, Blade¡± he says possibly chuckling a little under his breath. ¡°My name is Zim and after retiring from a life of battle I decided to settle down and help the new champions (I think that this is what players are referred to as) become accustomed to this world. It is I who will set you on the path to fame or infamy, but only you can walk to the end of that path.¡± He makes a strange gesture with his gnarled stick and suddenly my view is obscured by a torrent of new messages. You have learned essence sight from Zim. This ability will give you the ability to asses almost anything you focus on and find information on the object or person. Quality and amount of information will increase as your skill level does. This ability won¡¯t work on items obscured by an essence shadow of an equal or higher level than your level of essence sight. ¡°There, now you will be able to see what you can and can¡¯t take on. To start with, try using it on me. As with most skills you will simply need to think ¡®essence sight¡¯ while focusing on something.¡± When I finally do manage to make something happen a window appears next to his head reading: Zim I focus strongly on Zim. It takes me a couple of tries but when I finally do manage to make something happen a window appears next to his head reading: Zim, level 105, Paladin. Another thing happens too. I see a line of semi transparent text saying Zim with a red bar below that and a blue one below that. Both bars are full. Before I can properly wonder about these two bars, a new window appears directly in my vision. You have learned the passive ability essence field. You will now be able to see names as well as health and mana levels of NPC¡¯s and champions. This skill has no levels. ¡°excellent job, you also learned essence field which is a valuable skill. It looks like you have the basics down. With that he waves that odd little cane of his and yet another window shows up in front of my face. Free stat points: 0 Strength: 1 Agility:1 Dexterity: 1 Endurance: 1 Heath: 10 (1 point= +10) Mana: 10 (1 point =+10) Regeneration: 1 Wisdom: 1 So apparently I can earn points and increase my abilities. Strength and Agility seem pretty self explanatory as do Endurance and Health. My best guess is that Regeneration is how fast I gain health, but as for the rest I have no Idea. I would bet that Zim knows. His job seems to be to introduce ¡°champions¡± as they are called into their new world. He would be pretty useless if he couldn¡¯t answer simple questions like that. ¡°Hey Zim, what can you tell me about Dex-ter-it-ty, Wis-dom and Mana? ¡± I stumble over the complicated words. Gah, with some of these new word its like trying to say everything with a concussion. Zim looks at me with an expression that is trying to say ¡°Oh boy I got my work cut out for me¡± and explains the finer detail with annoyed reluctance. Despite his downtrodden demeanor I think that answering these so clearly ignorant questions may be something he truly enjoys. But probably not because he just rolled his eyes at me and is glaring so I should probably get off cloud 9 and start listening again. ¡­ It had been a long day of answering questions, but Zim had enjoyed it. Blade didn¡¯t expect anything unreasonably of him, seemed hardworking and had a good head on her shoulders. He thought she would most likely make it in the demon lands and that was a skill that not many people had these days. Sure, lots of people tried, enticed by stores of high level demons who were some of the most powerful players in the game or attracted by the challenge of the most difficult start in the game (No pain, no gain.Right?), but few were strong willed enough to succeed. Not, blade though, she wouldn¡¯t quit. She was on a path to fame. Although Zim suspected that infamy might be more her style. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A rating -good or bad whatever you honestly think - is much appreciated. Chapter 4: Instincts and Instruction Chapter 4: Instincts and Instruction It turns out that Dexterity is basically how hand eye coordinated you are and mostly has to do with weapons in Templa although it also has an effect on other skills like lock picking. I think that I¡¯ll level this a lot along with agility and a little strength (not as much strength because I¡¯m not as interested in stand up fights as I am in hitting my enemies in their backs, hence my class) because fighting is extremely important in this game and with my class who knows when I¡¯ll need to be able to pick a lock. Mana determines how much magic I¡¯ll be able to use. Oh yea, I GET TO DO FREAKING MAGIC? How great is this game? I probably won¡¯t level this up as much but I won¡¯t leave it out ether. Who could resist being able to do MAGIC? This ties in with Wisdom which is how fast I regain Mana, much like regeneration is how fast you gain health (this was confirmed by Zim). Another thing that Zim explained to me is the way that you level up these stats is by using them. For instance if I spend some time carrying rocks up and down a mountainside I would improvestrength, If I go for a run I might gain agility or If I use a bunch of spells my mana or wisdom might level up. One thing that I¡¯m not happy about Is that I ended up sleeping outside on the pointy lava rocks. That was the most uncomfortable night I have ever spent (and my sheet used to be made of wool until we bought a better one). At least it¡¯s over. And now I get to have my first real day in Templa, and the first new day of my life. Zim has yet to come out of his house -A well hidden door that is impeded into the mountain (which used to be a volcano but is now dormant)- so I have decided to climb the mountain into which Zim disappeared, hopefully gain a few levels in some of my stats and most importantly, try to learn to fly. I get a good handhold on a small crack about 2 and a half feet above my head and place a foot on a rock that is resting on the ledge that I am standing on. Heaving with all my might I manage to get my other hand to a hold that is about 3 feet above the one my right hand is resting on (quite painfully due to the rough rock I might add). The hand hold is also directly adjacent to the start of a crevice that goes up a good 30 feet to a spot just out of reach of the next small ledge where I could rest. Pulling myself up to the ledge takes all my energy and I stand with my hands on my knees, crouched over and panting. I almost slipped a couple of times when I was quite high above my starting point and on the last one when I was pulling myself the last little bit I actually fell and just barely managed to catch onto the same crack that facilitated my assent. That was by far the scariest experience of my life and the only good things that I can pull out of me getting up here is getting maybe 1/3 the way to the top of the mountain and gaining 2 points in strength and 3 in agility (2 of the agility points were for catching myself all those times, especially that last fall) I don¡¯t know how much of a difference It is going to make while I am climbing the rest of the way, but it better give me some advantage. I think I might have to rest here for some time and I need to give some serious thought to how I might make some form of glove to protect my hands which are bright red, cut in several places, and probably going to blister. ~~~ After resting for what I would estimate to be 30 minutes I have finally mustered up the will power to continue up the mountain. While I was waiting for my batteries to recharge so to speak, I also managed to make hand wraps out of cloth that I cut from my cloak with the knife I have. When I was done, an interesting message appeared in front of my face. You have created: simple hand wraps. Made of mere strips of cloth wrapped around the hands these hand wraps will offer some slight protection against sharp rocks when climbing but will do little else and have almost no value. Quality poor. It seems like items can be created from raw materials here much like in the real world and when they have been made the maker receives a ¡°recipe to make that same object which they can retrieve at any time. The simple hand wraps message, when I was finished reading it, moved into an icon on the edge of my vision that was labeled crafting recipes. When I focus on that icon it opens a window with all of my learned recipes A.K.A. my one recipe. Anyway, this next section looks even more dangerous than the last because it is lacking a crack like the one that I used to get up to this point. What It does have is an abundance of sharp looking surfaces on which I can grab. Experimentally I grab onto one of these rocks and it presses into my the hand wrap and the raw skin beneath it but thankfully neither breaks. Reaching my other hand onto another of the pointy spikes I heave my body to a position where my foot can reach up to a small outcropping the width of 2 of my fingers. Using that as leverage I can pull the hand I had originally used to test the rock, my left, onto an outcropping even higher onto the mountain face while simultaneously lifting my right foot (which was previously on the ground) onto a jutting piece of rock that is about 1 foot higher than the platform that my left foot is on. Then, by carefully moving my hands and feet up the steep cliff always keeping 2 limbs on the rock at the very minimum, I manage to pull myself up another 15 - 20 feet. Unfortunately it would seem that whoever (or more likely whatever) built and designed this cliff decided to make it a challenge for whatever champion decides to climb it. As I am pulling my heavy body up the last few feet small pebbles begin to tumble down. Spurred on by gravity even these tiny rocks can cause quite the impact, a lesson which I learn first hand when one of them hits the elbow of my outstretched arm causing it to buckle. ¡°AHH!¡± I cry out partially from the pain in my arm and partly from the fear caused when my arm buckled leaving all of the weight of my body to be held up by my remaining arm and threatening to send me tumbling down with the stones. I do have the common sense to look up however and what I see makes me forget all about the pain in my arm. Several huge stones, as tall as me and at least 4 feet wide at their thickest points, are careening down the mountain after their minuscule brethren with the first headed directly for me. I only have maybe 5 seconds until it reaches me which is no time at all to try and safely get out of the way. My logical brain is working in overdrive allowing me to notice all of this in the fast depleting time that I have left, but it isn''t what is causing my body to become coiled up like a spring, prepared to do whatever is necessary for survival. No, what¡¯s doing that is instincts ingrained into my body from millions of years of time where the strongest and fastest survive and the slow and weak do not. I am but a passenger in my own body as it leaps from the rock face with every ounce of possible strength at a sight angle aiming for a small overhang a few feet from me that at this moment looks as if it is miles away. The second after I jump I Know that I¡¯m not going to make it. The overhang is to far away and even my adrenaline pumped muscles weren¡¯t enough to get me to it. As the boulder rushes past me, close enough to feel air that was moved from it¡¯s passage, I automatically reach out in one final, futile gesture to reach the overhang and save myself knowing that it won¡¯t be enough. I close my eyes in preparation for my impeding death on the sharp rocks below and feel instincts even older than the ones that propelled me from the rock make two things snap out from their resting place on my back and a sharp jerk as it slows my decent¡­ In shock from the change in my movement I flutter my eyes open just in time to see my hand, wrapped in cloth, grasping a bulbous rock, jutting out from a cliff face and feel my chest slam into stone so suddenly I lose all my breath and try to double over. When I¡¯ve finally regained control of myself I find another handhold and 2 spots for my sandaled feet. Its only then that I notice the 2 scaly black dragonlike protrusions stretching out 10 feet, tip to tip, from my back. I know what saved me. My wings did. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ~~~ After 10 minutes just reveling in the fact that I flew to save myself from certain death I have finally managed to pull myself together and continue climbing. Thankfully I don¡¯t see any more boulders hurtling down on my head. As I heave with my arms and pull myself another foot up the mountain face towards the ever growing zenith (look it up) I am finding myself becoming even more thankful for the weird set of circumstances that led to my new life. But even as I do, I can¡¯t help but wonder why the strange man would have given it to me. Surely he must have known what it would do forhim. Or maybe that¡¯s it. Would I myself have uploaded my conciseness to a computer if I had known that I would never have been able to return and that the process would involve melting my brain with lasers. Probably not rig- Suddenly my retrospective train of thought is interrupted by the blinding brilliance of the sun shining directly in my face as it comes above the top of the mountain. I eagerly push myself up until I¡¯m standing on top of the highest point for miles. Looking back I can see the tiny village with the buildings looking no bigger than a pebble literally shining in the morning sun. If I direct my gaze further downward I can look down on the flat zone halfway, no more like three quarters of the way up the mountain where Zim¡¯s house is. I see how far I have come and throw my fists into the air. In this moment I am Queen of the world and I have conquered the impossible. Of course this is when an annoyingly familiar voice cracks out like a whip making me jump and almost tumble back down the extremely steep mountainside. ¡°If your done admiring yourself we should really get on with your training.¡± Zim says in his own perfected voice of sarcasm that he uses all to often. ¡°Dude stop doing that!¡± I say exasperated and embarrassed ¡°I could have fallen.¡± ¡°you could have¡­ but you didn¡¯t. If you had you would have died and lost most of the respect that you have from me.¡± he¡¯s smirking now ¡°I would have expected that you had learned by now. There is no such thing as codling with demons. We do things the hard way and if you don¡¯t get it right the first time then there are consequences. Nature, much like us, is unforgiving and the consequence is often death.¡± I wait somewhat patiently until he is done with his little lecture before bursting out ¡°Yea, Yea, I don¡¯t expect codling. I was just surprised. Deal with it. Do I really have your respect?¡± ¡°No¡± he answers with a perfectly strait face. Gah. I can never tell when he¡¯s joking. ¡°How did you get up here. It took me¡­¡± I look at the shadow cast by a nearby rock. ¡°about 3 hours. And I started at 8 ish. Do you have some sort of teleportation ability.¡± This last sentence was sarcastic. ¡°I do actually have a teleportation ability but I just took the path. It¡¯s a good 20 to 30 minute hike.¡± He pointed at a small downside section at the opposite end of the mountain top. Speaking of which, until now I haven¡¯t really gotten a good look at the mountain. It is somewhat oval shaped with the longer distance being about 40 feet and the shorter being maybe 30 feet. The terrain is relatively flat (which is kinda of surprising given that it used to be a volcano, but if it was dormant long enough, I suppose erosion could have created this feature) and tilted a few degrees down away from the cliff top that I climbed up. The ground is the same sharp rock that makes up the rest of the mountain and a few scattered rocks mark the otherwise barren landscape none of which are more than 2 feet tall. The view is spectacular in all directions with the opposite side of the aforementioned village on the plain being a series of mountains similar to the one I am standing on but not quite as high. Suddenly struck by a thought I turn back to Zim with a questioning and somewhat dangerous look and ask ¡°Did you perhaps push a large boulder down the side of this mountain with the intent of knocking me off it to fall to my death.¡± ¡°I had no intention of killing you, I merely wanted to see how you would react. That was quite the impressive jump by the way and you appear to be a natural flyer.¡± My vision has taken a slight red tinge and I turn towards Zim menacingly. ¡°You pushed a boulder off a cliff towards me.¡± I take a step forward and find that my fists are clenched and one of them is holding the knife from my belt. I swing my hand forward (not the one holding the knife mind you, I didn¡¯t really want to kill him, just get even for the boulder)-and suddenly find my face pressed against cold volcanic stone and a staff on my neck. The same staff that swiped my legs out from under me so fast I barely saw it. ¡°First rule of the Demon lands, Never fight someone you can¡¯t beat.¡± ¡°Well how would I know that I couldn¡¯t beat you. You¡¯re like a hundred and three.¡± ¡°That brings me to the second rule of the demon lands. Think before you act. You used your essence sight ability on me and saw that I was level 105. Just in case you are too dense to do the math thats 103 above your level AKA 1. This also ties in nicely with the third rule of the demon lands: Judge someone based on their abilities, past adventures and to a slightly lesser extent their level. NEVER based on their age or appearance. You will learn quickly that it is all too easy to fake such things and basing any decisions on those factors will get you killed very quickly. Do you understand?¡± My neck is beginning to feel like a punching bag must after being wailed on by a heavyweight champion so I can barely croak out ¡°Yes, yes I understand¡± ¡°Good. You learn quickly.¡± He says, letting me up. Now, lets give your enemies at least a tiny threat to worry about next time. When you came at me your knife was clenched in a fist so tight it was shaking. Relax your hand more. Yes, like that. Now as a ghost class¡± (I guess Zim has some good essence sight himself.) ¡°your most important ally is stealth¡± He once again waves his gnarled staff and a new system message appears. You have gained ability Stealth from Zim. This ability allows you to sneak near enemies without them seeing or otherwise sense you. This is a general ability and there are multiple specialized abilities that are modifications of this ability such as jungle stealth which will help you sneak while in a jungle. The effects of this ability can be negated by an adversary with the perception ability. Hmm that is an interesting ability. It fits quite well with what I hope to become in this world too. I haven¡¯t gotten the chance to go fight anything yet save for a boulder and this ability will probably help. It looks like Zim has read my mind and is smiling an evil little smile . Out of a pocket on the cloak that Zim is wearing he has pulled a large and vicious looking rat which looks to be almost as long as my foot even without it¡¯s sizable tail and about 4 inches tall at is fattest point. Beady red eyes and sharp front teeth right below the whiskers complete the image. I am not looking forward to fighting that thing. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As always a rating is very much appreciated! Chapter 5: Fights and Fiefdoms Chapter 5: Fights and Fiefdoms ¡°I have always thought that hands on experience is the best way to prepare and learn for the future. Don¡¯t you agree?¡± Asks Zim with the a malicious grin sitting on his face. ¡°Ohh I don¡¯t know about tha-¡° I try to protest ¡°GO!¡± Shouts Zim releasing the giant rat. I want to argue against him and demand that he explain how I use my stealth ability, but at the moment I have much larger problems. The Massive rat is nearly halfway to my position and I have only just managed to pull my wits together. Now think, how am I going to fight this thing, how strong is it and most importantly how am I going to stay alive through the following battle? I haven¡¯t had any experience in the past with fighting rats in this world so I don¡¯t think I can answer that one and the last question was really kind of rhetorical, but I might have a idea of at least how to start responding to the middle (or second) one. With the rat having only 10 feet at maximum to reach me I¡¯ll have to act fast. I focus as hard as I can (which is really quite hard) and manage to pull up the most basic of information on the dreaded rat with my essence sight ability and am now starting to run away from the beast so I¡¯ll have time to read it. It probably won¡¯¡¯t take long as I can only see one 3 word sentence. Level 2 rat. This is not good news as the rat is of a higher level, but (curse my inexperience at this game) I don¡¯t know how much of an impact that is going to make. I don¡¯t think I would have much of a chance of escaping the rat, which is gaining on me slowly but surely, even if I knew how to use my stealth ability so as I see it my only option is to stand and fight. I turn and have my attention drawn to a foot long ball of fur and claws shooting towards my stomach. I don¡¯t have time to do anything more sophisticated so a punch from my left hand sends the rat sprawling. A red bar has appeared above the rat¡¯s head and I lost about an eighth of its total upon hitting the ground. The rat looks like it is straining to get up and it¡¯s tail is twitching rapidly. I¡¯ll have to act fast if I don¡¯t want to loose some health of my own. I leap towards the fallen animal holding my knife in front of me and reinforcing my right hand with my left to ensure that the rat¡¯s hide will not hinder my blade. I twist my face into a grimace and yell at the top of my lungs. As my knife first comes into contact with the creature it resists puncture and a shudder rolls through my arm to my shoulder. Thankfully, it only last for a few heartbeats before I feel my blade slide through the body and hit the stone beneath. I see the health bar above the dying creatures head quickly turn all gray and the rat¡¯s body slowly fades to nothingness leaving only 3 items that look like a pelt, meat and a tail which are hovering, bouncing and slowly spinning above the ground. I can barely manage to sit down as the adrenaline leaves my system and my breath slowly stabilizes. Zim¡¯s voice behind me interrupts my calming period. ¡°You should pick up that pelt and meat. The tail too. You¡¯ll get a few coppers for the pelt in the village, you can cook the meat and I will buy that tail off you for 2 copper. Think of it as my apology for kicking that rock at you. Oh, and it¡¯s the only apology that you¡¯re going to get so be grateful.¡± I snap out of my daze and snatch up the spinning items. 3 Items placed in inventory! A system message proudly announces. Following where it disappears to, I am able to access an almost blank window with only a 5 by 4 grid of squares and a piece of text on the top that reads: Inventory. There is also a figure picture of me with several slots next to it that have my knife, cloak, shirt, belt, etc¡­ Only the top 3 slots of the grid are filled, with the aforementioned pelt, meat and tail. If I focus on any of these items the name appears under it. This also applies to my ¡°simple stone knife¡± and ¡°simple cloth cloak¡±. This is a very interesting menu, but I should revisit it later. I also need to give Zim my rat tail and receive my 2 ¡°copper¡± which I think is money ¡°in game¡±. Now if it¡¯s just like everything else in game I just have to focus on it and I can make it appear in my hand to give it to Zim. On a side note I wonder if I¡¯ll have to use some of my inventory slots for the money. That also begs the question of how I¡¯m going to manage later in my progression with only 20 slots. I would guess that there is a way to increase that #. Probably by buying a bag or something. Ahhhhh, getting side tracked. I really, really, really need to work on that. I have probably been standing here for like 5 minutes blankly staring at window while Zim gets more and more annoyed. Ok, focus on the object. Success! It disappears from my inventory and assumedly goes to my hand. Exit the window. Also a success and toss the rat tail, which appeared in my hand as expected at a thoroughly bored looking Zim. He catches it and over dramatically sighs ¡°Are you done yet or would you prefer to read all the books in the great library?¡± ¡°Sorry. I was looking through my inventory. Did you know that-¡° ¡°Yes. If you managed to learn it, even in that unbearably long period of time, then I know. Here are your 2 copper.¡± He tosses me 2 coins of a reddish orange color towards me and I reach out to grab them, but before I can they disappear in front of my eyes. At the same time a section of text pulses blue and gets bigger and smaller rapidly. I direct my gaze at the text and read/look. It isn¡¯t actually text it would seem, but 5 numbers and 5 symbols. One of the symbols is the same reddish orange color that the coins were and looks remarkably similar. It is a plain circle with an cut out square in the middle and a slightly raised rim around the outside and the square. The same basic design holds true for the other 4 symbols as well, but they are silvery, whitish yellow, greenish and blue. Next to both the silver and what I assume is gold are grayed out zeros. The same holds true for the green and blue coins, but I don¡¯t even want to guess at what those are. Next to the ¡°copper¡±, on the other hand, is a blue number 2. It looks like I won¡¯t have to store my money in my inventory. I still take a look at my inventory to check of course, but found only the meat and pelt along with all my other accessories. As per the usual, my train of thought is rudely interrupted with more of Zim¡¯s decisions. ¡°Ok, I have decided that you are ready to bravely start in this new world. I will be taking you to the village where you will find advice and quests. What you do from there is up to you.¡± Then everything blurs into a white mesh. ¡­ When we appear I nearly bite my tongue from the shock. I am beginning to get so used to the barren wilderness and suddenly I have been thrust back into a bustling city. A very large building with tiered roofs stands right in front of me and I appear to be standing in a large city square. The square is lined with smaller buildings that look like shops and in the center of the square is a large fountain. The water is very odd looking in a place like this. It is the first blue that I have seen while in this new world and nothing here is even remotely like it, but moving on. ¡°People¡± or demons rather are hurrying to and fro carrying large burdens or yelling loudly into the clouds. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. ¡°Fire bugs, get your fire bugs here. Best price in the city. Use a firebug to light your way. Fire bugs-¡° ¡°Does anyone want to buy a basilisk scale. I really need to get rid of it so I¡¯m offering half the usual price.¡± ¡°Get the best positions for all your raids and long journeys. Comes with flask. These portions are top notch. Made by master Dagmuth himself¡± I personally am drawn towards a tent propped up inside the square with nice looking knives, shields and all sorts of other deadly weapons. My feet start carrying me forward almost unconsciously and I may be drooling. Hmm, I wonder when I got such a thirst for sharp pointy things of war. I haven''t taken 3 steps before a coarse hand grabs the hood of my cloak and yanks back sharply. ¡°2 measly copper won¡¯t buy you anything in that shop. In fact 2 copper won¡¯t buy you anything almost anywhere.That is why our first stop is going to be a place where you can sell that rat pelt and rat hide. You won¡¯t get much for it but it¡¯ll be a start. Also, just so you know, 10 coppers makes a silver and 10 silvers makes a gold. And finally, when we are done with that I am going to take you to a few places where you can make some money. I don¡¯t usually do that, but you impressed me today.¡± With that, Zim took me by the arm with his calloused hand and started dragging me through the streets. This town is quite impressive too. It looks pretty well laid out with all the streets going predictably east to west or north to south. We are passing several pubs and lots of shops, plus something that looks like a military training center and barracks. I make a mental note to stop by later and see if the people there will train me. Zim sees me eyeing the structure -which has a jogging track, several areas with straw scarecrows (dummies for training maybe?) large racks of weapons, 5 neatly lined up buildings that remind me of half sunken tubes and a larger square building- and gives me an odd expression that, while conveying interest, gives away nothing as to whether he thinks that it is a good place or not. We finally come to a stop in front of a relatively spacious shop that has a sign hanging in front of the door with a picture of a bear pelt on it. He stops just before the door. ¡°There will be a lot of shops that will say they offer you the best deals for pelts and meats, but you should always go here first. The owner will never cheat you on the price and if you hang around here you might learn a thing or two.¡± This last part was said with a meaningful expression. Yea I get the message. This place can give me some new skills or something like that and it would be in my best interests to keep coming here. I nod as Zim opens the door, accompanied by the tinkle of a bell placed on the inside. Inside is a dust filled shop with a counter in the back and several racks with pelts and clothes hanging on them. Behind the counter is a man in his late forties by the looks of it, running a needle through a piece of leather so fast it blurs. As the door closes and the bell jingles once again he finally looks up. A big smile appears on his face and he rushes out from behind the counter revealing that he is wearing fine leather with some copper buttons and a light fur coat which is a strange striped orange and red. As he is coming up Zim also smiles, albeit in a bit more gruff manner and they pat each others backs. ¡°Hello Roth¡± says Zim in a happy voice ¡°Hey Zim, how are you? You don¡¯t come down to town nearly enough¡± ¡°Yes, that is probably true. I just don¡¯t like to spend the mana if I don¡¯t have a good reason.¡± Finally noticing the ¡°good reason¡± Roth finally turns to me. ¡°Oh, hi. Sorry I ignored you. Terrible of me. I¡¯m Roth and I run the local tannery. What can I do for you, friend of Zim.¡± ¡°Call me Blade. I have a pelt off a rat that this one¡± I jerk a thumb in Zim¡¯s general direction ¡°set on me. I also have some meat if you''re interested.¡± ¡°Yes, yes of course. I can¡¯t believe that he did that to you too. It¡¯s completely unreasonable, Right? I died 4 times and the bastard made me respawn right up at the mountain top and the gigantic beast would kill me again. After a while I managed to wear down it¡¯s health and got a good punch in with a rock.¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t use your knife? Why is that?¡± ¡°I guess zim hasn¡¯t told you about deaths yet. Well when you die its a complete reset for your character and you respawn at level one, in whatever noob location you set your spawn point at. You lose all your stuff too, so as a tip from an old player: Leave a decent set of armor along with some food and a weapon at where ever you choose to set a respawn point or it¡¯ll be even harder to get back to the level you started at. You don''t loose any of your money if you put it in a bank. Little costly, but a good trade if you ask me. How many times did you die before you were able to murder that bastard?¡± At this point Zim interjects with a slightly smug tone to his voice. ¡°She did it first try without even dying once. And to top that off she CLIMBED the cliff face to get up. Didn¡¯t need me to take her up the trail.¡± ¡°Which was a sucky decision in the end. I almost died when he kicked a freaking bolder at me and I had to jump for another handhold. I wouldn¡¯t have made it either except for the fact that my instincts pushed out my wings and I managed to glide a little farther.¡± ¡°What! The first time! How did you do it. And flying! FLYING! You have to tell me all about it. I¡¯ll-I¡¯ll double, no triple your pay on the rat pelt. Give you the skills to cook the meat too. Though on a side note, unless you have your cooking skills really, and I mean really high, cooked rat meat is only to be used in extreme life or death emergency.¡± He shakes his head and gags slightly. It would seem that Roth has encountered rat meat in the past. I will definitely take his advice into consideration. Rat meat sounds really disgusting. While I have been having this little mental scrutiny session Roth and Zim both look at me expectantly. ¡°uh OK. It started in the early morning when I got up from my ¡®sleep¡¯ off those god forsaken, pointy rocks. I waited for like an hour for Zim, but he wasn¡¯t showing so I decided to climb the cliffs. Just as something to do. You understand¡­. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Once again, I really do appreciate a rating or comment be it good or bad. It can only help me improve. Thanks! Chapter 6: Coins and Combat Chapter 6: Coins and Combat Everything is so soft. Nothing pointy or sharp or even scratchy. Ohh, but I have a splitting headache. Ahh I guess I should get up. I think I was up too late last night telling Roth my story. Then¡­ Hmm I think he took us to some guest rooms. No wait he only took me. Zim teleported to his house. He put me to bed at what must have been well after midnight. What time is it now? Got to get up and see the sun. My back is screaming as I stretch and finally sit up. I am still in my same old clothing and cloak. My knife is missing, wait no, here it is on the bedside table. Nice bed by the way. Just a single, but it has a massive wooden headboard and is really soft. The room is pretty plain though. Just stone floor and wood walls. There is a chest though, at the foot of my bed. I think that warrants a look. Maybe it warrants at take too. Once a street rat always a street rat. I open the chest and immediately a new window pops up in front of my face. It looks just like my inventory save for a few things. For one, the writing on top of the window says: Medium Chest. For another there is no place for clothing, armor or anything else like that. Finally, there is a total of 10 by 15 slots. It is pretty simple to calculate, but just in case your feeling lazy that is one hundred and fifty slots. Unfortunately, none of it is filled. I make my way out the doorway, which is lacking a door and instead has a thick black pelt hanging on a rod above it. Makes sense I guess, with this guy buying and selling skins. When I push the ¡°curtain¡± aside I find a stone hallway which I am at the end of with several other rooms leading off. They also have curtains. At the end of the hall there is a rating and then empty space. I would guess that I am in the second floor of this shop. It looks like my new friend Roth also runs an inn. I should see how much he charges and if I¡¯ll be able to afford it because that was one amazing night of sleep. I walk to the railing which is part of some stairs that turn left from where I was looking and go down to the main floor of the shop on the same wall where the counter is. I don¡¯t see Roth so I push open the door to the outside and get a good look at the sun which is just coming up over a mountain in the very far distance. It looks pretty early. Heading back inside I look around the shop area. My cloths are rather simplistic and I would more than appreciate an upgrade. A nice cloak catches my eye made of a scaly black material. I concentrate and use essence sight on the object. Cloak of the Night thief: A fine cloak made by a craftsman in Direburn the Demon capital, this cloak was designed for the pickpockets of the city, but was confiscated when the maker tried to sell to a known criminal. The arresting knight, being an extremely high level paladin, had no need for the cloak and gave it to his friend Roth. This cloak has the power to make the user blend with shadows and meld with darkness. It gives +6 to the stealth power of the user during the night and gives half that bonus during the day. It has the added benefit of hiding the wearers face and gives an essence shield of 4. Wow! What an item. It seems like a dream to me and would greatly help my class abilities. I pick up the cloak and examine the price tag. My soaring heart takes a nose dive strait into a cliff. I knew that it would be expensive, but dang¡­ 4 GOLD. ¡°It¡¯s expensive, but in the end I think you''ll find that it is worth it.¡± I turn slowly to the voice. I think I am getting better at not looking surprised. Roth is standing there still in his fine clothes. ¡°Well yea, but 4 whole gold. Isn¡¯t that asking a bit much.¡± ¡°You might be surprised at how much people will pay to get their hands on the anonymity that cloak can provide, with it hiding the users face and essence. Unfortunately no one who has enough cash to buy it lives in a small village like this.¡± ¡°Is there any way that I could convince you to drive the price down. Every little bit helps.¡± ¡°Are you mad. I¡¯m a business man. If I gave a discount to every demon to walk in the doors then I¡¯d be broke. I am sorry, but that simply wont be possible. If you wan¡¯t the cloak then you¡¯ll have pay for it in full.¡± I hung my head, Ohh well. I do really want that though cloak and I think that I¡¯ll put aside a good chunk of whatever income I make towards buying it. Hey that reminds me of something. I lift my head up again and turn my gaze back onto Roth. ¡°Do you know how you could call Zim down here? He said that he would show me some places where I could earn some money.¡± He nods. ¡°Zim told me about that after you went to bed. He paid me for you to stay here for one week. If you want to stay more, it¡¯s 1 silver per night with no meals. He has to try and train another champion back up on his mountain, so he asked me to fulfill that responsibility for him.¡± ¡°Which you required payment for of course.¡± I grin ¡°Well¡± he says, grinning back ¡°a man does have to make a living.¡± He starts moving toward the door and motions with one hand for me to follow him. As we amble down the street he glances at me and starts talking. ¡°The first place that you should look for money is fighting mobs. They all drop some sort of loot which, if you can¡¯t use for your own purposes, can usually be sold. For example, could you pull out your map for me?¡± ¡°map?¡± ¡°Just think the word and it¡¯ll appear in your hand. You can buy additional areas for a price from the topography guild and if you want to travel the world then you should get the skill of the same name so you can fill it in on your own.¡± ¡°I do want to see the world. Never got to see much of the one I come from.¡± Roth suddenly stops walking and pulls my face close to his. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t recommend talking about where we come from¡± he says is in a low whisper. ¡°I¡¯m ok with it, but most people come here to escape wherever they came from¡­ They don¡¯t like to be reminded of it. He abruptly stands up and starts walking as if nothing had happened. He once again motions for me to follow and speaks normally again. ¡°so as I was saying. Let me mark that monster location on your map. I¡¯ll buy most of what you get and if I don¡¯t want it then I¡¯ll point you in the direction of someone who does¡± ¡­ I walk through the last two buildings on the outskirts of the city and find myself faced with a large field with bleached white yellow grass and black rocks. I can see at least ten other champions fighting with various grotesque monsters most of which look like purple and yellow spotted frogs about waist high and with large tusks. Not liking my chances head on with one of those beasts without the slightest idea of how to attack one I decide to sit on a nearby rock and watch some more experienced players. I sit down and look at some other players, but they are really far away and hard to see. My problem is soon answered as a new player with long white hair that looks ridiculous on his demon body comes through the buildings and immediately charges into the field. He barley slows down before slashing his sword -(I think that I remember it from the shop Zim prevented me from mindlessly rushing towards.) - onto a grazing¡­ uh¡­ what are those things. I use my essence sight on a closer one. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. level 3 Poisonous high jumper. This beast has deadly tusks that are coated in a poison which will lower your health slowly over time. Attention. Your essence sight ability has increased by one. New level: 2. You will now be able to use essence sight with greater proficiency which will lead to more information on the target. Hmm, That¡¯s a nice little bonus. I don¡¯t think that it will yield too much extra information, but hey, you never know right? I should probably refocus on the running guy. He has the beasts health about halfway down while his is only about a quarter gone. He¡¯s just mindlessly slashing at the creature though. Not really giving any thought to defense. It is obvious that it isn¡¯t his first time fighting one of these poisonous high jumpers. As his opponent makes a giant leap into the air he rushes forward to avoid being squashed and lands a devastating overhand blow to a point about a quarter way up the creatures back where the spine is visible. This brings the Jumpers life down to about one third and makes it mad with pain. The fight last for maybe another 2 minutes before the blond haired player finally puts the High jumper down. The body fades to mist and the champion reaches down for something that I can¡¯t see in the grass. The fight wasn¡¯t very interesting after a little bit and only the bare minimum of experience was displayed. I plan on doing much better. I think that I have gotten my plan of attack decided too. I¡¯m going to use this as a chance to test my skills as a ghost and hopefully sneak up on one of the poisonous high jumpers. I will then hit the critical point that the blond used earlier and hopefully cause it to rear up exposing it¡¯s legs. I¡¯ll then slash what amounts to the Achilles tendon which will make it unable to jump and slow its movement speed. Then I¡¯ll resort to staying behind it and hitting it as many times as possible with my dagger. I activate my sneak ability by thinking very hard and almost automatically slip into a low crouch among the grass. Gipping my trusty knife in my hand I slowly and smoothly move towards the nearest frog thing which is only 30 steps away. It doesn¡¯t seem to notice me and as I circle around to the back of it I notice my hand and freak out a little. It¡¯s see through! I wave it in front of my face and stand up which is a major mistake. The poisonous high jumper lifts it¡¯s head and slowly turns towards me having sensed me somehow. Realizing my mistake I quickly drop my head into the grass and curl into a ball making my cloaked body even harder to detect. I hear snorting sounds and finally the sound of it moving and disgusting chewing sounds. I peak my head up, careful to move very slowly and tensed to fall back into the fetal position should my adversary still be looking this way. He isn¡¯t and is back to chewing with his spine nicely presenting itself. Still creeping extremely slowly I move forward and suddenly strike as hard and fast as I can at the spine. My dagger rips through hide, flesh and then, with a nice shudder, bone. My dagger may be crude, A 4 inch piece of sharp stone attached to a stick covered in a rough wrap, but few new players could argue its effectiveness. A transparent message flashes in front of my vision, informing me that I have dealt a surprise attack and have dealt twenty five percent more damage. Just as predicted, the creatures life goes down nearly a third and it roars bucking onto it¡¯s strong back legs¡­ one of which receives a Knife to the Achilles tendon. That should keep it from following me to closely. Or not it would seem. It turns on me surprisingly quickly, though still at a reduced speed and one of it¡¯s tusks slices into my hip. I feel a searing pain and a message appears in front of my vision I can¡¯t spare even the half second necessary to read it while I shoot my wings out and heave them forward violently throwing a super strong wind into my opponents face and shoving me backwards. Equal and opposite force I guess. Wonder who came up with that idea originally? A new message replaces the old one which morphs into a small yellow drop of liquid on the corner of my vision that flashes every once and a while. I assume that¡¯s the poison from the Poisonous High Jumper, because every time the yellow drop flashes, a white hot pulse of searing pain shoots out from my hip wound. I do stop to read the next message because the beast seems to be stunned. Maybe the message can tell me why. You have discovered a hidden skill: Wing push. This is a hidden skill which cannot be taught and is unique to the demon and angle races. This skill, involving both wings, will send a blast of air at an opponent possibly stunning it and pushing both the user and target back. The chance of stunning and the distance pushed back will increase with skill level. Nice that should be really helpful in my climb to the top of Templa¡¯s champion list. I should get ready to fight again though as I don¡¯t know how long the stun will last. I could probably wing push it again, but I feel pretty drained from just than one blast. The Poisonous High Jumper is shaking its head and appears to be trying to right itself. It finally uses one of the smaller ¡°t-rex¡± arms to heave itself onto its legs. Seeing me it immediately adopts and aggressive stance and is prepared to defend itself this time. Interestingly enough it appears wary. I had thought that these programed entities would be mindless, but it would seem that the High jumpers have some intelligence. I don¡¯t know, maybe that it is being cautious of an enemy that it had no knowledge of by accident. Either way, it is waiting to make its move until after I make mine. I¡¯m pretty sure that in order to have any chance of sneaking and the Poisonous High Jumper loosing interest I would have to have the skill at a much much higher level than 1. Therefor I do the only thing I can really think of that will deal damage¡­ I charge. With a scream of bloodlust I run towards the monster and prepare for battle. The Jumper obliges and, staying true to it¡¯s name, leaps high into the air and prepares to squash me flat. In a flash of inspiration I tuck into a ball and roll away, before springing to my feet and using the momentum from my legs stab directly into the side of the Jumper. Instead of slashing it shoves me away with a forearm dealing 1 damage and leaving me at 6 health when combined with the poison. I stumble back and then duck as a sharp tusk whisks over my head. Stabbing up I get in a nice slice to the face. Before scrambling away. From there I run around it slashing and sometimes taking damage when a stray limb or tusk catches me, but giving more than twice as good as I get. When I¡¯m at 3 life (the poison was very simple and didn¡¯t penetrate very well so over all it only gave me 4 points of damage) one lucky slice through the ribs gets a high damage and the High Jumper finally dies. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~` I know that I''ve said it a million times, but a rating - good or bad whatever you honestly think - is much apreciated Chapter 7: Levels and Loot Chapter 7: Levels and Loot A new system message flashes in front of my eyes. You have leveled up! Your current level is 2. You have received 5 stat points that you can use to upgrade any of your stats without doing any activities that are related to that stat. That seems great. My first level up, aside from the one that got me to level one but I don¡¯t think that that really counts. I also really love the stat points. I think it¡¯s good to be able to level up your stats without doing crazy stunts like climbing up mountains. I think that I should definitely put some points into health. Only having ten seems like it¡¯s cutting it a bit close if I lose over half of my health points with every fight. I also really want to put some of the points into agility as it was my main weapon in the fight with the poisonous high jumper. Not only did it allow me to move quickly enough to doge some of the beasts attacks it also improved my reaction times beyond what they usually are which was a major component in the fight. Lastly I would like to put a small amount of points -probably just one seeing as I only have five- into dexterity. Being able to better use my weapon would be a super big advantage. I noticed that despite wining the fight my eye hand coordination was somewhat lacking. Over time I will get better at using the knife simply by fighting with it, but I will progress a lot faster if I can actually use my hands. As for the other stats I don¡¯t think I need to add anything to them. The mana and wisdom stats are of absolutely no use to me right now, because I can¡¯t use any magic. I don¡¯t need the strength stat either because while it might help in a fight it won¡¯t be of too much use. The hides of Poisonous High Jumpers are really weak so I don¡¯t need any strength to help me break their natural defenses. As it stands, I¡¯ll add 1 to dexterity, 2 to heath which will add ten points and 2 to agility. I open the window that has my stats. Free stat points: 5 Strength: 2 Agility: 4 Dexterity: 2 Endurance: 2 Heath: 10 (1 point= +10) Mana: 10 (1 point =+10) Regeneration: 1 Wisdom: 1 Wait what. Why did some of these increase? I guess they happened during the fight and I didn¡¯t notice or maybe they didn¡¯t appear while I was fighting. That¡¯s probably it because I shudder to think of the consequences of a message appearing in front of my eyes during a battle. Getting distracted like that will almost certainly get you killed. The creator AI must have some sympathy for us. Any way. I put my five points into their respective slots which makes my stats appear as so Free stat points: 0 Strength: 2 Agility:6 Dexterity: 3 Endurance: 2 Heath: 30 (1 point= +10) Mana: 10 (1 point =+10) Regeneration: 1 Wisdom: 1 looking very nice, at least compared to what I had before. To someone who has been playing for any sizable amount of time would probably scoff in my face at seeing this but it is definitely an improvement. I wonder what I got from the Poisonous High Jumper. Roth said I could make some money by killing things and selling their various possessions or body parts so it must give me something. I do hope that I don¡¯t have to skin or gut it though. That seems disgusting and I doubt many players would be willing to do it so something must happen. I close the window and glance at the place where my slain foe was killed and immediately jerk my head back towards a complete lack of body. Instead what I find is a ball of bluish mist that while being only about half a foot long is similarly shaped to the Poisonous High Jumper. As much as mist can be anyway. It doesn''t seem threatening, but what do I know. I kinda want to touch it, but I never want rushing in blindly to be my go to style. Lets think about this logically. The Poisonous High Jumper doesn¡¯t warrant stealing. Anyone who is able to steal it and leave some type of strange magic in its place is probably not going to go to so much effort for a level 3 monster. This looks like pretty sophisticated magic, not that I could really tell having never witnessed any magic before, but I am pretty sure on that one. I thinkkk¡­ Wait a second, I could probably just use essence sight on it right? Wow! I must be the most ignorant player in the game. I need to adjust my thinking to the new world. Most of the old rules don¡¯t apply here and I bet that some decent magic would make it so that none of the past rules apply. Anyway, I need to get on with it and use essence sight. You have used essence sight on loot mist. Loot mist drops from all mobs who have died and dropped loot. (loot is any items that a monster AKA mob leaves behind when it goes to the afterlife. Alternatively can be used to describe taking items from a body or structure.). ohhhhh. I have been thinking about this all wrong. My body isn¡¯t missing. THIS IS THE BODY!!!!! I reach down and try to touch the mist with caution. As soon as my fingers get close the blue intensifies in the area I am about to touch and it starts swirling rapidly around that point. When my fingers finally do reach the mist a new window blinks into existence in front of my face. Displayed at the very top of this window is Level 3 Poisonous High Jumper loot mist. At the very bottom is: Take/Take All. Above that is a 10 by 20 gird of item squares, much like the ones in my inventory, of which only 4 are filled. In the second and third slots are 2 pieces of raw high jumper meat. It looks absolutely disgusting with a vaguely yellowish tinge to its otherwise dark read flesh. In another, the first this time, is a purple and yellow pelt that looks kind of ragged and might just have a few knife holes in it. Well I¡¯m sure that a proficient taylor would be able to make something out of it. In the fourth and last filled slot is a thing that looks like a slimy bag made of Poisonous High Jumper skin. I focus on it and pull up the information. Poison sack of a Poisonous High Jumper. This contents of this sack can be use in many different ways by craftsmen to improve or make weapons and armor or can be used to a lesser effect for dealing poison damage to some enemies by throwing the poison onto a target. This poison effect will not work on any enemies with a poison resistance or on Poisonous High Jumpers. That last bit only makes sense. If they weren¡¯t immune to their own poison then they would be constantly killing themselves. Hold on, what¡¯s this? Around the interior border of the window is a vague white light that fades quickly as it moves towards the center. I close the window and now that I am looking I can see the same white borders around all of the items there. Interesting. I wonder if this denotes how valuable an item is. Well, doesn¡¯t really matter. I¡¯d better be off to sell what I can to Roth and figure out who to sell the rest to. ¡­ I walk into Roth¡¯s shop and call out to him ¡°I¡¯m back and I have goods to sell. Where are you¡± He comes down from the stairs and looks at me irritably. ¡°There is no need to shout. I¡¯m not deaf you know.¡± ¡°Sorry, Just excited. I killed a Poisonous High Jumper today¡± I look at him expectantly for a response. ¡°Okay¡± he says betraying a slight interest¡°what did you get?¡± ¡°I got a pelt, 2 pieces of meat and a poison sack, but I think I¡¯ll probably keep the sack unless it sells for a lot.¡± He perks up slightly ¡°the pelt, is it large?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. I mean the Poisonous High Jumper was pretty big. Here take it and tell me how much it¡¯s worth.¡± The hide appears in my hand and I toss it to him. Hmm. I think the system is monitoring this conversation. The pelt appeared in my hand without even a though. I¡¯m not going to complain though, it was really quite convenient. ¡°Roth looks mildly excited and is examining the purple and yellow spotted material from end to end on both sides. ¡°very nice. I can fetch a good price for this if I make it into some armor, it has poison resistance you see. A few rips and tears here and there, but it can¡¯t be helped. This is very nice. I think that a silver and a half wouldn¡¯t go amiss. Does that seem alright to you.¡± ¡°hmm I was hoping to get a bit more¡± I say with a sly grin. ¡°what do you want?¡± ¡°I was thinking 3 silver¡± ¡°3 SILVER! Thats daylight robbery I¡¯ll only get a profit of 4 silver including the cost of materials and such. Your price cuts into that.¡± ¡°Ha¡± I say enjoying myself ¡°your a bold faced lier. Those Poisonous High Jumpers are no easy creatures to bring down and I¡¯m betting that there the only ones in the area that will give poison resistance on clothes. Even partial immunity to the kind of damage I got from a glancing hit must be worth quite a bit more than the kind of numbers you¡¯re talking about. Or are your ¡®materials and such¡¯ made from solid gold.¡± Roth gives me a slow grin. ¡°you¡¯re no idiot, Blade. I¡¯ll give you that. So maybe I¡¯m making a profit a tiny bit closer to a gold. You¡¯ll get 2 silver and be happy for it.¡± ¡°sound good¡± Both of us are on the verge of laughing for no apparent reason. He tosses me 2 silver and my balance goes up making a nice clinking sound in the process. BeforeI can even thank him a message flashes into being in my vision. You have gained the skill: Bartering. This skill will increase your ability to get better prices both for purchases and sales. In order to increase this skill it is necessary to get above standard prices from people. Current skill level: 1. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. That¡¯s a nice bonus for having a bit of fun. I don¡¯t expect that I¡¯ll make everything I use myself so I will probably engage in trades quite often. Being able to lower prices for the things I buy and get more money for things I sell may well end up being the difference between life and death. ¡°I would also like to know where I could sell this meat. Do you have any friends who might be interested?¡± I ask ¡°Well that depends actually. Could I see the merchandise?¡± ¡°Why would it matter?¡± I ask suspiciously. ¡°Because sometimes the meat is poisoned. It takes an essence sense ability of level five or above to detect it though. If you try to sell poisoned meat to someone they will think that you¡¯re trying to rip them off no matter what the real reason is. You build a reputation like that with a shop owner, not only will they give you bad prices and refuse to hand you any survivable quests, they¡¯ll gossip with other shop owners so everyone starts doing it. Same thing happens if you get caught trying to pull anything else. In short, always check your merchandise or ask the person your selling to, to do it beforehand and if you absolutely have to do something like that don¡¯t get caught. ¡°good to know¡± I say with a nod. Tossing him the meat I also add ¡°before I forget do you know how much a poison sack from a Poisonous High Jumper is worth¡± He is staring at the first piece of meat intently and his answer is absent minded sounding ¡°No I don¡¯t, but if you really want to check you could ask at one of the potion shops around town. Be carful to check 2 sources and tell the second one what the first said, that way your more likely not to get ripped off.¡± He puts the first piece of yellow tinged meat back onto the counter and picks up the second one putting it up to the light. ¡°Thanks, I appreciate all the advice you¡¯re giving. What¡¯s the verdict on my meat?¡± ¡°This one is bad, but the first one I looked at is fine. For raw Poisonous High Jumper meat anyway. I recommend you sell both. Even though you would probably have to pay someone at a butcher shop to to take the bad stuff, a decent potion maker might be able to make a poison potion that can be thrown at enemies so you could sell to them.¡± ¡°Thank¡¯s Roth. Would you mind marking those spots on a map for me.¡± ¡°Sure, no problem.¡± I think ¡°map¡± very hard and a plain scroll appears in my hand. I unfurl it and am faced with a huge blank map of the 2 continents and the major islands (including the Demon Island) appears in my hand. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sorry about the lack of map. I do have a picture, but can''t upload it. I''ll try to fix this at a later date. Wouldn''t hold my breath though. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Moving my fingers in a reverse pinching motion (with the center of the ¡°reverse pinch¡± being demon island located at the bottom left),like I used do with the tablets at school ,I am able to see a small patch of land that isn¡¯t the same pale brown color as the rest of the area. Zooming in on this more I eventually magnify it to the point at which I am able to make out individual streets of the village and surrounding area. Roth explained to me during out talk about maps that everyone is given the map to their starting village automatically which is why I am able to see this without purchasing or drawing my own maps. I toss the map to Roth and he deftly catches it with his left hand barely taking a glance at it while rummaging around in the counter. He must have a really high dexterity stat after all this time. I guess thats why he was able to do it. He finally finds what he was looking for and stands up holding a massive quill. This thing is the size of my face and twice as long. Dipping it into a small bottle of ink that I hadn¡¯t noticed already sitting on the counter he bends over and starts marking up my map with locations of the shops that he mentioned earlier. I start walking around the shop looking at different odds and ends. I stop when I notice a fine leather belt with high quality sheaths for knives that would definitely be an improvement over the plain belt I have now. It comes in at just 7 copper too. Definitely putting that on the shopping list. Although I¡¯ll refrain from doing anything just yet. I can¡¯t count on getting a steady income from monster hunting so having some spare cash as a cushion for food, water and shelter is a good idea. When Roth finally finishes and places the massive quill back in its place under the counter, he tosses my map back to me and ushers me out of the store. I reopen the map and turn right heading back towards the main square. About halfway to the center of town I find a the closest marked place on the map. It¡¯s a nice looking restaurant with an amazing smell, decent outside seating space and a rather chubby chef in the inside area wearing a white uniform. He looks jolly and appears to be quite polite when taking the orders of a couple, but the minute he leaves their table he starts shouting loud enough to be heard out on the street, ordering the other waiters and servers about as though they were solders. I carefully pick my way through the mostly filled tables and end slip through the door. Making my way towards the chef I, bump into a few tables, but get only dirty looks in return. When I finally reach the chef he glances at me and then continues shouting at the young waiter who is cringing and blushing under the hail of insults and orders. After about 30 seconds with no end in sight I tap the shoulder of the chef and he turns angrily to me. The relieved waiter sends me a look that clearly states: Thanks, but don¡¯t expect anything in return because I¡¯m not going back to that. What is it that you want little girl. He says rather condescendingly with a dismissing wave turning to look for the waiter who clearly had offended him in some way. I am a little ticked off right now, but taking a deep breath I am able to calm down enough to speak in a calm and civilized manner. ¡°I¡¯m looking to sell some meat that I recently acquired.¡± ¡°I¡¯m in no need of meat, we get a regular shipment from another town.¡± ¡°really¡± I say calmly, but with my hands clenched into fists ¡°I thought that Poisonous High Jumper meat was somewhat rare.¡± He turns to me in incredulous surprise. ¡°Poisonous High Jumper meat? You really expect me to believe such nonsense? You have not a stitch of decent armor, your knife is better suited to scraping mud off boots than fighting and you probably were given life by the gods less than a day or two ago. I don¡¯t believe, for a second, that you could have defeated a poisonous high jumper so I suggest that you leave my shop promptly as I don¡¯t take well to liars.¡± The last part was said menacingly accompanied by a knife that appears in the chefs hand seemingly from nowhere. ¡°I am in a rather unique position¡± I say with the same calm cold anger ¡°I have the ghost class which allowed me to sneak up on the beast.¡± He scoffs ¡°ha. You think that I would be fooled with such simple tales as this. You could certainly have snuck up on the beast with stealth, but with a level one as I am certain you have, you would never be able to slip away while in combat.¡± It is getting harder and harder to control my anger and all of my muscles are beginning to clench, but suddenly I relax everything and a slow smile spreads across my face. He is confident. Confidence can be a weakness. ¡°really. So sure?¡± I ask. He looks slightly unnerved by my sudden change of emotion, but not enough to back down. ¡°Yes, I will stand by it. There is no way that you could have the skills to take down a Poisonous High Jumper.¡± ¡°How about a wager then. If there¡¯s no way I could have taken one down?¡± ¡°Sure¡± he says with a derisive laugh ¡°2 copper?¡± ¡°I was thinking more along the lines of 2 sliver¡± I counter ¡°You have 2 silver? If you can show me that you can pay up then I¡¯ll be happy to take your money.¡± I think hard and the money appears in my hand. I use the reflective surface of one of the coins to angle a ray of sun into his eye (Just because he¡¯s a business opportunity doesn''t excuse him from being a jerk to me before). He jerks his head back from the sudden glare then eyes the coins. ¡°I haven¡¯t the faintest idea how you could have possible gotten that much money so quickly, but as a new champion you will be able to get on just fine without it, all of the other champions do after all. Well then, lets see your ¡®proof¡¯ so I can debunk it and we can both get on with our lives.¡± I focus on my inventory and when it comes up I will my two pieces of High Jumper meat into my hands. Unfortunately this game has rather accurate feelings and the feeling of slimy raw meat squelching in your palms isn¡¯t exactly a great one. Oh, shoot now my coins are going to be all slimy too. Wait a minute, I can¡¯t feel them any more. And looking at the money counter it looks like they¡¯ve showed up back here. Huh, well thank you whatever programer (or program) that wrote the code to do that. The chefs eyes widen and his face becomes startled with a hint of amazement. Unfortunately it only lasts for a fraction of a second before a confident mask replaces it, but he can¡¯t hide it completely so his face doesn¡¯t look isn¡¯t nearly as self assured as it did before. ¡°Th-this proves nothing¡± he counters ¡°y-you could have a friend with more experience and gear who might have given it to you. Yeah, yeah that must be it. of course you couldn¡¯t kill a high jumper you were just given the meat. You were probably given the money you showed me earlier too.¡± As he says this last part he visibly relaxes, shoulders unclenching and face becoming less tight. His fake confidence face from before also comes to be more real. I crunch my lips together in displeasure. ¡°I earned this meat with my own blood, through a hard fought battle with a dangerous beast. If you won¡¯t take my word for it then what can I do to prove that I¡¯m not a lier. Name your test¡± ¡°very well¡± he says with a smile that looks as dangerous as the knife that had appeared in his hand earlier¡°If you can replicate the feat of killing a Poisonous High Jumper with one of my apprentices there to confirm it then you will win the bet. I¡¯ll even throw in a lifetime 10% discount off all items in my restaurant. That¡¯s how sure I am that you won¡¯t be able to do it.¡± I grip harder than is strictly necessary as we shake hands to confirm the bet and to my amazement a shining chord of blue light wraps around both of our arms, entwining where they meet. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say it might not be a good idea to not pay up now (I know that that was a double negative and I really don¡¯t care). Chapter 8: Bets and Battles Chapter 8: Bets and battles As I walk outside, barely keeping myself from stomping like a little girl, I keep my eyes down only bringing up my gaze briefly to asses the young apprentice who was forced away from his work as a waiter and told by the chef to go follow me. I was already halfway across the restaurant by that point so I didn¡¯t hear what the chef said to him, but I assume he knows the terms of the bet as he hasn¡¯t asked any questions. He looks nice enough with hazel eyes and reddish blond hair. A rather average face that is neither gaunt nor chubby with a sizable portion of freckles smattered across the bridge of his nose. He seems a little gangly and has 2 or 3 inches on my height (which while not record breaking is above average). He is dressed in all white with a tall hat (just like the head chef) despite being a waiter and I would put him at 17 or 18 based on his looks and slight clumsiness. Well, back to the fields I guess. I pull out my map because although I have been to the hunting grounds before i¡¯m not very confident in my ability to remember where it is. Ah, this way then. I turn left and head towards the edge of the city once more. The young apprentice who has been staring of into space with a blank, smiling expression gives a jolt as I start moving.(Should I really call him young considering that he is probably very close to my age? Whatever.) I turn back and motion for him to hurry up. ¡°come on I don¡¯t have all day¡± After passing a few streets he hesitantly turns to me with a small smile and says ¡°my name is Keith. What¡¯s yours?¡± I glance at him with an eyebrow raised before shaking my head and turning back to the street and answering with a monotoned voice ¡°Blade¡± He frowns slightly at my less than friendly response (what can I say, I don¡¯t particularly like most people and as a side effect of growing up in a slum sector I naturally assume that most people who talk to me are just trying to take advantage of me), but then shrugs it off and puts on another smile. He seems like one of those perpetually cheerful people that never stop smiling for more than a few seconds. Unngh. For a pessimist (what else would you call me?) like me this is going to get on my nerves really fast. We are have another 5ish blocks to go and he doesn¡¯t seem to have gotten the message that I prefer silence to pretty much anything he has to say. ¡°how has your day been going?¡± he asks in a conversational way ¡°fine, or at least it will be until I get that discount from your boss. Then it will probably get upgraded to good¡± I state with the same toneless and flat voice from my last answer. This guy is currently on the low side of my annoyance meter, but is getting dangerously close to the ticked off portion. I think that meeting stressed me out more than I realized. Don¡¯t get me wrong I¡¯m not a nice person, however I usually don¡¯t let people annoy me this much this quickly. I let out a deep breath through my mouth and then inhale through my nose before I stop walking and turn to face the surprised Keith who looks like he was about to make another attempt at communicating with me (judging by the open mouth and full lungs). ¡°Sorry about earlier¡± I say with an apologetic tone and a downcast gaze ¡°I¡¯m just a little stressed out about everything that¡¯s happening. Your boss wasn¡¯t far off when he said that I couldn¡¯t have been in this world for more than a few days.¡± I can see his smile getting bigger as he looked at me ¡°No problem, it¡¯s cool of you to apologize. Not many people here in the Demon Lands have the guts to admit that they screwed up. And I totally understand the ¡®overwhelmed by all the crazy stuff thing¡¯ I¡¯ve been here for a few weeks now and I still can¡¯t deal with all the new stuff I see every day. Hmmm. They must really have gone the extra mile here when they made the AI¡¯s for all of the locals because I couldn¡¯t tell a real person or at least someone who used to be a real person (remember, to enter the game you have to get ¡°digitized¡±) apart from them. Maybe this guy isn¡¯t so bad after all either. I start walking again, but this time with Keith next to me instead of slightly behind. ¡°Thanks for understanding¡± I say ¡°got any advise for the new champion?¡± ¡°Well all I can say is don¡¯t be an idiot and buy everything that looks cool. Save what money you have. You may have been a millionaire back in the ¡®real world¡¯, but this game doesn¡¯t care who you were, everyone starts of with nothing and you can¡¯t just make money on demand, if you want to make cash then you have to work for it.¡± I may have been too soon in judging this guy. Despite his optimism (*shudder*) he is surprisingly down to earth (or templa as the case may be) on issues like money. He doesn¡¯t fit the mental profile I had of people from the rich sectors so I guess the game changes people. I certainly hope everyone else can be as nice as Keith, but lets get real, he¡¯s probably the exception (Ah bless my pessimistic heart). I don¡¯t say anything else and Keith doesn¡¯t either so we walk in silence, but this time the silence is much more relaxed. Make no mistake, I still wouldn¡¯t trust him with anything of mine and we are definitely not friends, but we are on the path to friendship and he doesn¡¯t make me want to stab him every time he speaks now. That, ladies and gentlemen, is improvement. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Ah we are finally here. Hello again rock. (I am referring to the rock I sat on, on my last visit to the hunting grounds. See chapter six if you don¡¯t remember) Hello again field of weird yellow - white grass (again see chapter 6 if you don¡¯t remember). I glance at Keith, who nods and gestures me forward with a sweeping gesture, indicating the whole field, and the ever-present smile. ¡°Kill a Poisonous High Jumper, any Poisonous High Jumper¡± he says with a chuckle. ¡°I have no idea how your planning on accomplishing it at your level, but I believe in you *thumbs up* ¡± (Just endure the optimism Blade you can do it) Surveying the field I see two other players on it about 50 feet from each other both of whom look like they are better geared than me, but not by much. One of has a sword instead of the default knife and the other has a chainmail chest plate along with a dagger much like my own but covered in a mysterious and dangerous looking green slime that I would guess is poison (apparently the first upgrade to get is a weapon) and both of them are combating Poisonous High Jumpers. Neither of them are doing well. Sword man (yes that is what I¡¯m calling him), on the left, doesn¡¯t seem to have understood that a massive sword is massively heavy and didn¡¯t put the required points into strength and agility (It would be dexterity too, but his slashes are so slow that it doesn¡¯t really matter if he can aim or not) As I watch sword man blocks one of the tusks by driving it into the ground with an overhead smash, but gets pierced by the other one as the Poisonous High Jumper shakes its head the other way. The wound is directly through sword man¡¯s spine about two thirds of the way down his back. He yells out in pain before his body, to my amazement, poofs into mist which condenses into a smaller version of him about half a foot tall. Apparently this is how all creatures die (remember my first kill after getting down from the mountain?). While all this was happening I can only assume that the final yell sword man gave out attracted the attention of chainmail dude, because he keeps looking at the blue mist with what seems like longing. It¡¯s actually really bad for him because he keeps getting distracted from his fight and actually trips, falling backwards, after a particularly long look at the mist. That fall might have been the turning point of this fight. Before, he might have won. The Poisonous High Jumper has scratches and gouges all over it (although the poison on his dagger doesn¡¯t seem to be working), but when Chainmail dude falls the beast does it¡¯s jumping move and lands directly on top of him. Bye bye chainmail dude. This seems like quite the opportunity. I don¡¯t know if dead players can drop equipment, but if they can then this could be a very lucrative opertunety I may be able to get my hands on that dagger which would be amazing and if I can get any tother pieces of equipment then I can sell them to buy my own. I shouldn¡¯t get too excited though. Maybe they dropped nothing. Well, only one way to find out. I activate stealth and wave a transparent hand at Keith. ¡°I¡¯m going to go loot the dead guys. Then I¡¯ll kill a Poisonous High Jumper, ok?¡± He nods and with a slightly longing and regretful tone of voice, says ¡°Sounds good. Man this is quite lucky for you. Getting loot from two dead players without having to kill them is a chance that may never come again for you. I wish I could go out their and get the loot myself, but I¡¯m not a combat class just a support one. Oh well, its not the end of the world¡± (aaaaand the optimism is back) I wonder what a support class is. I¡¯ll have to ask later, but right now there¡¯s killing and looting to do (wow that sounded bloodthirsty). I slowly creep over towards the closer mist, from chainmail dude. Unfortunately the Poisonous High Jumper that squished him has only taken a few steps away from the ¡°body¡± so I¡¯ll have to get within 3 feet of a gigantic spotted frog with tusks and poison. Great. I really wish I had that stealth cloak in Roth¡¯s shop right now. I¡¯m maybe 10 feet away from the mist and nothing has gone wrong yet. I keep having to resist the urge to sprint for it and then run away with my low stats I¡¯m not confident in being able to stay ahead of it. Not worth the risk. Of course, knowing that doesn¡¯t make it any less difficult to endure the composition to do so. I¡¯m only five feet away from the mist now (which, because I circled around a bit, means I¡¯m eight feet away from the deadly tusks of a giant animal. yay.) and I drop down even lower from a crouch to my stomach and begin army crawling the rest of the way. Good thing Poisonous High Jumper¡¯s aren¡¯t very observant creatures. Stretching out my hand in a very slow manner my fingertips are a mere six inches from my goal. I¡¯m soooooo close. I bring my arm for a back into it¡¯s army crawl position when I hear a sudden ribbit and feel a drop of something, burning on my neck¡­ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sorry for the shortchapter guys. I have a big trip coming up in a few days and have to plan/pack. I''ll hopefullybe able to write to you from the plane (which I will be on for what seems likeforever) so I''ll try to make it up to you next time. On another note, the results from the poll say that apparently you guys are just lazy. That''s fine I am too, but could you please just give a rating. It takes like five seconds, all you have to do is select how good it is and click submit. If you want to (pretty please ) here is a link:http://royalroadl.com/fiction/6880 Chapter 9: Knives and Kills Chapter 9: Knives and Kills The instant I feel the all to familiar blistering sensation (from the cut I got in first fight with a Poisonous High Jumper) on my neck my mind goes into overdrive, making complex decisions in microseconds. From what I have seen the only place that the poison drop could have originated from is the tusks. That means that if I try to stand up I¡¯ll impale myself on one of them and the only other thing that I can think of that would get me out of harms way quickly enough is rolling. From my army crawling position I can¡¯t roll backwards fast enough to avoid dying so no to that as well. If I roll go to either side I¡¯ll still be like a foot from the tusks and will easily be dispatched. That only leaves doing a summersault under it. Is the Poisonous High Jumper¡¯s belly far enough of the ground for me to even do that? Oh well, guess I¡¯ll find out. I tuck my chin into my chest and use my hands to propel myself forward while simultaneously bringing my knees into my chest. As I¡¯m rolling my feet pass over my head and early scrape a slimy underbelly (keep in mind that I¡¯m tucked into a tiny ball and I¡¯m not exactly a huge girl so the belly isn¡¯t that far off the ground). As my head leaves the ground I¡¯m able to to catch a glimpse of a tusk piercing the ground maybe 2 inches away from my eyes. A second later I feel the air that it pushed away brush by my face. After what seems like an eternity, but has really been only a few seconds (clich¨¦ I know, but what can I do?) my feet touch the ground and I finish my roll. Unfortunately, while I have rolled out of the way, I have not rolled far enough to escape the High Jumper and I am still underneath it¡¯s (unsurprisingly considering that it¡¯s a giant toad) smelly mass. Well this might not be ideal, but I might as well make the best of a bad situation. I take my knife out of my belt and in the same motion thrust it upward, piercing the High Jumper. It rears it¡¯s head and in doing so actually makes the cut wider. I help it along the way by twisting the knife it a somewhat cruel manner. I really hope that that never happens to me. Looks very painful. Uh oh. The Poisonous High Jumper¡¯s rearing may have shaved a few (maybe more than a few) points of it¡¯s health, but coming down it might just end up being the death of me. I don¡¯t know what it is with me today, but rolling keeps going through my mind. I leap out from under the slimy creature and an oceans worth of thoughts rushes though me before I even leave the ground. Back in the city that I lived in there were some suicidal idiots who called themselves the Parkourists. I wasn¡¯t stupid enough to do some of the crazy things that they did, but in my younger years I hung out with them. To rebellious little me, they seemed like a shining beacon of hope in a lifeless and grey world. It wasn¡¯t so much the things they did that that attracted me to them either. It was the way that they rebelled against the UWG (United World Government) in their own way that drew me to them. Ahhh, but I¡¯m getting off track. Anyway the movement I was currently going through was one of the simplest and safest that they did and one of the few that I learned. It was called a dive roll and it involved the following. First you leap off the ground with your arms outstretched in a dive like you might do in water. When your hands were just about to touch the ground you tuck into a ball and roll with your right shoulder going down first so you didn¡¯t hurt your spine. Finally you stood up out of the the roll without your hands touching the ground. After preforming this maneuver (rather impressively considering that I haven¡¯t done it in years and I managed to keep my knife in a combat position throughout the process) I quickly turn and face the Poisonous High Jumper. It¡¯s life seems to be down by twenty five percent. I suppose that I didn¡¯t get as much damage this time because I didn¡¯t get the bonus for a surprise attack. My health, on the other hand, has only gone down by 5 percent which may seem like quite a bit, but you have to remember I only have 20 health points all together which means that the poison drop only took off one. I must not have actually gotten poisoned from it either which is very good news. It will also probably help me in the future to remember that poison must actually enter the bloodstream to give a status effect. I really should do some training or something to avoid getting side tracked though because while I was thinking this and not at my ultra high thinking speed the high Jumper backed up and it has now begun to charge at me. I immediately throw myself to the side as far as I can and I guess that those two points in strength and the 6 in agility must have helped me because I would have thought that the leap I performed was impossible (for me at least). My head landed nearly 10 feet from where I my feet left the ground. It wasn¡¯t record breaking or anything but it was impressive. I can¡¯t wait for the higher levels. It looks like I might become nothing short of superhuman. The Poisonous High Jumper roars past me before coming to a stop. It turns and I can see a mad look in it¡¯s eyes. It does it¡¯s jumping move and I rush forward in my usual way to avoid such an attack. Oh I am having a sudden burst of inspiration. Were the rules of this world slightly different then one might see a lightbulb aper able my head. Just microsecond¡¯s before the Poisonous High Jumper lands I use my skill Wing Push to throw myself backwards. I preform a midair twist, stopping myself when I get to halfway with my still outstretched pair of wings. My dagger is outstretched and I slam it home with all my energy at the same moment I crash into the Poisonous High Jumper. Thudding to the ground after my improvised attack, I can see my knife still stuck in a heavily bleeding wound on the beasts side. It¡¯s already critically small heath bar flickering lower every second. In one last attempt to remove me from the world the Poisonous High Jumper tries to fall over on me but in what is possibly the closest call I have ever had it disappears into mist only about a foot from my face. My bloody knife falls to the ground, sticking in blade first, having no more flesh to support itself. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Phew, that was way to close. If I had done one thing wrong that entire time then I would have been done for. Looking at my heath though I¡¯m still at 27 points. That is worlds away from what I had last time where I good gust of wind could have done me in. Thinking back on the fight I think the only times I actually took damage was when the drop of poison fell on my neck and when I slammed myself against the flank of the Poisonous High Jumper. Not too shabby. Now on to the loot (insert *evil mental giggle* here). I touch the mist that the Poisonous High Jumper dropped first. I got the same things as last time (a pelt, two pieces of High Jumper meat and a poison sack). Since I haven¡¯t actually sold any of the items I got during my last kill, with the exception of the pelt, that adds up with them and the total condense of my inventory looks like this: In the first slot I have 4 pieces of Poisonous High Jumper meat. In the second I have 2 poison sacks and finally in the third I have one piece of hide. This looks like a lot of money to me! And now for the big stuff. Hesitantly, almost as if I¡¯m afraid of what I might see, I reach over and touch the mist that I originally came over here for: Chainmail dude¡¯s stuff. There appears to be both good and bad news. I¡¯ll start with the bad. Unfortunately it would appear that players don¡¯t drop all of the stuff that they had with them when they die, but (and now for the good news) they do drop some of it. My eyes probably twinkle with greed as I look down to find not only a full 3 silver and 7 copper but that beautiful green tinged knife that I was looking at earlier. The grin on my face could have been used to power this entire world through pure happiness. I finally got my first upgrade! It probably isn¡¯t much, but this represents and important step on my road to the top. I glance back at Keith and give him a: well check it out I¡¯m not a dead woman face (because everyone knows what that expression looks like). His eyes are like saucers, but the grin on his face is only surpassed by my own. He gives me a thumbs up. I practically bounce over to Keith before giving a closer inspection to the knife that is now my pride and joy. Poisoned Knife: this knife is of low quality, but won¡¯t break if you breathe on it. In order to make up for the low damage that this knife would usually do the blade has been poisoned with Acid Root. This yellow root causes severe damage when eaten, often killing those who do so by burning them up from the inside. The juice put on this blade is less potent, but those who are on the receiving end of this knife probably won¡¯t care. Awesome! Perhaps I should start killing players along with monsters. It probably won¡¯t be easy, but the rewards seem to be quite good. I¡¯ll wait until I have more info on loot drops from players though. You never know, its possible that I could have just gotten lucky. The chance to check might come faster than I thought though. In my excitement about everything that happened I forgot that the other dude who died (I believe I named him sword man) still has a loot mist behind me. ¡°That was awesome!¡± Keith shouts jolting me back into reality from whatever space that I go to think this. I shrug, trying to seem nonchalant, but I think the huge smile on my face may be giving me away. ¡°Do you think that will win me the bet I have with your boss?¡± He nods energetically ¡°I¡¯ll vouch for you. I may not have seen much in my short time here, but I have seen some cool stuff and what I just saw there blows everything else away.¡± He starts to turn back towards town while saying ¡°come on, lets go get you your well deserved 2 silver.¡± I clap my hand down on his shoulder and yank him back. ¡°What¡± do you mean. We aren¡¯t done here. Or did you forget about that other player that died just over yonder. There is no way that I¡¯m letting a chance to get more loot like the kind I just got slip away from me.¡± He looks incredulous but in an enthusiastic kind of way. He opens his mouth to say something but can¡¯t seem to find any words and he merely closes it and nods. Today is a good day! Chapter 10: Knowledge and Party Crashers Chapter 10: Knowledge and Party Crashers I once again activate stealth and briefly give a thumbs up to Keith with my barely visible hand. He squints and tilts his head back and forth before eventually seeming to get it and gives me a one in return. I turn away and run towards the second high jumper. I¡¯m not going to be surprised by an attack this time. My biggest skill is my stealth and at my level of skill that advantage goes right out the window as soon as the first blow falls. I¡¯m not letting that advantage slip out of my fingers. Besides, this is good practice for the future. My class isn¡¯t designed for direct fighting and in the future I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be able to beat anything. That means I¡¯m going to have to rely on my stealth and whatever other tricks I can come up with. I stop running now because I¡¯m coming up on the Poisonous High Jumper. As slowly (within reason of course. It wouldn¡¯t be very efficient if I arrived tomorrow) and as quietly as I can I start to move towards the mist and the Poisonous High Jumper which is slowly grazing away from it. Perhaps this time I can avoid a fight. It was fun and all, but there is no need to take unnecessary risks if I don¡¯t have too. The loot inside the player drops is better and requires less work anyway. I begin to walk forward again, but suddenly come to a stop. What was it that alerted the last Poisonous High Jumper to my presence? I think hard, but nothing comes to me so instead I observe my environment. The rocks just stand still because they¡¯re rocks (what else would they be doing?), the scrubby grass doesn¡¯t do much of anything either, just waving and rippling in the light breeze and the sun glares dow- wait a second¡­the grass is rippling! I must have been a complete idiot to have missed this before. The essence of stealth is becoming one with the environment. I was just creeping forward in a strait line, disturbing the grass when I was sneaking before. Instead I should leave no trace of my passage without agitating or changing anything. In order to get used to the idea I stay standing still and just watch the grass for a time. I can see how each stalk moves individually and as a part of the whole. Now that I¡¯ve gained some understanding I start moving too. I try as hard as I can to become one with the grass, and succeed to a degree but it still feels forced. Perhaps I¡¯m trying too hard. Yes that¡¯s It. I stop forcing it and immediately see visible improvement. Just going with the flow seems to produce the best results. I spare a glance at my hand and do a double take when I can¡¯t find the outline that previously marked it¡¯s location. It definitely worked. Using my recent enlightenment in stealth I weave my way towards the mist. Every part of my body seems to have become one with the grass. My arms ripple back and forth at my sides, my torso leans one way then the next and my feet step carefully, each step planted firmly yet softly. I try to imagine what this would look like had I not been essentially invisible. Oddly enough I don¡¯t actually think I would look like I was having a seizure. Instead I would look like I was doing some exotic dance to music only I can hear. I would still be branded as a crazy person to be sure, but it doesn¡¯t look all bad. I¡¯m within touching range of the loot now and I look around one last time, making sure that the Poisonous High Jumper still hasn¡¯t noticed me. My new stealth method appears to have worked because it is over twenty feet away and not looking at me or doing anything threatening. Now I have an interesting problem. While I am still able to move while I am using the loot window I won¡¯t be able to see. All of my stealth movements are based directly on what I see the grass doing. No longer seeing that could lead to problems with my stealth failing which could lead to problems like me not seeing a gigantic, poka-dotted frog thing charging me. I think my best option is to take all of the items in the loot window as quickly as possible before immediately coming back out of the window and re-entering stealth. Not that I really come out now that I think about it. I just won¡¯t be as stealthy if that make¡¯s sense. Nervously I reach out and try to continuously think ¡°take all¡± before pushing my hand the last little bit towards the blue human shaped mist. I wait for the window to pop up¡­ but nothing happens. Thank you programers. I suppose it makes sense that the window wouldn¡¯t come up now or during other times like battle because otherwise you could get majorly distracted and end up getting killed just because your hand accidentally brushed some loot drop lying around. Giving a sarcastic salute to the Poisonous High Jumper which has still not noticed me, I turn and race back towards Keith. I find him and he is sitting down with his back against a rock, using a small, portable mortar and pedestal to grind up some kind of grass that has more color than the regular variety (not enough that I would ever notice it though). Creeping up until I¡¯m right behind him I deactivate stealth and stop moving with the grass before suddenly speaking ¡°What-cha doing?¡± He jolts up and jumps about a foot in the air (How he is managing to do this while sitting down is a mystery worthy of legend). Taking deep breaths to calm himself he turns around with an absolutely comical expression. ¡°wha-what the heck, Blade. You just don¡¯t do that to a guy. I¡¯m glad heart attacks aren¡¯t a think here otherwise you¡¯d be a PKer (player killer).¡± I chuckle ¡°well they aren¡¯t a thing and it was hilarious so it was totally worth it¡± He only shakes his head in return before speaking up again ¡°I stopped watching after maybe five or ten minutes of absolutely nothing happening. Your stealth level may be low, but to me you might as well be a ghost. Anyway, did you get the loot, because I didn¡¯t hear any fighting?¡± ¡°Yes, to answer your question I did get the loot. I had something of an enlightenment regarding stealth and was able to sneak past our lovely little friend that was guarding it. It¡¯s funny that you should call me a ghost by the way because it¡¯s actually the name of my class.¡± You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. ¡°Ghost class huh. I¡¯ve never heard of that, but I didn¡¯t really look to hard when looking for mine. I¡¯m a craftsman. I have essentially no combat ability, but I get bonuses to all crafting professions, like potion making.¡± He gestures to the mortar and pedestal. ¡°So is that why you were saying you were a support class earlier?¡± I ask. ¡°Yes. I¡¯m not good at combat or anything like that, but I am very useful to any group. As long as I have lots of professions I can ensure that the party I am with never runs out of potions and doesn¡¯t have to turn back if their armor or weapons are close to breaking. I also can cook fresh food with ingredients in the area which tastes much better than the regular rations and gives better bonuses. Actually that is why I¡¯m working under Depper. That¡¯s the Chef you were talking to. He¡¯s the best chef in the city and I am currently his apprentice so I can become a cook.¡± I nod, but also frown ¡°That does seem like a useful person to have with you on your adventures. I sure as heck cant do any of that stuff. I definitely will want to find a craftsman for my own group, but I don¡¯t have any idea where to start¡± (insert a ¡°great, more stuff that I¡¯m going to have do later sigh¡± here) Interestingly enough (To me obviously. Anyone else probably would have seen this coming from a mile away.) Keith¡¯s face becomes red and he looks away. In a small voice he mumbles ¡°If you¡¯re willing to have me, I¡¯d do it.¡± I do a double take and stare at Keith. My face is the personification of surprise. I¡¯m not super knowledgeable on the subject, but just taking a guess I don¡¯t think that their are that many people who would choose to be a craftsman. Everybody wants to play the hero and save the day by defeating the monster. Myself included. It takes a special kind of person to be the guy behind the scenes. Keith could probably get a job with lots of experienced groups that would gain him great benefits. So why would he possibly want to partner up with a green (as in noob) level 2 like me? Keith looks super embarrassed right now. Oh joy and now the awkward silence has fallen oh crap now I feel bad for him. Ugh¡­things like this are why I don¡¯t like dealing with people. I¡¯m not sure what it is but things always get awkward whenever I get into a conversation with anyone. And the worst part is that I have no idea how to fix it. He looks so downcast though. I guess I have to try. ¡°That sounds fine to me, but may I ask why? I¡¯m sure there are better players and groups out there that would be happy to take you. So why me?¡± He looks at me with a small, knowing smile ¡°There are probably more experienced players out there who have been playing for longer, but none of them would be able to take out a poisonous high jumper at level 2 when they were only a few days into the game. Those people might be better now, but unless I miss my guess, you are going to blow them out of the water¡± I raise my eyebrows and open my mouth. What do I say to that? I guess I¡¯ll just take a page from Keith¡¯s book and nod. ¡°th¡­thanks¡± Our conversation done, we turn towards the gates of the city. To my surprise, there appears to be a small force of players hanging out around it, all looking intently in our direction. That¡¯s kind of weird, if we were in the real world (if you can really make distinctions like that) I would automatically assume they were bandits, thieves, muggers, murderers, rapists, etc, but what do I know about customs in Templa. So instead of drawing my knife and activating stealth, I instead nudge Keith with my elbow. Getting no response I turn to look at him. His face (and his whole body really) is frozen in a mask of fear. With a touch of panic in my voice and a hand on my new knife I speak in his ear ¡°what, what is it?¡± His response turns my blood to ice, his voice a horse whisper and his eyes never straying from group in front of us ¡°they¡¯re PKers. They kill people for their items and money.¡± Immediately my senses go into overdrive. Instincts, honed by years of living in a dangerous slum kick in. First off I put myself in front of Keith as his utter lack of combat skill makes him completely useless (in this situation. Obviously not all the time). Now, consider the situation. If we had any chance of getting away I would immediately book it, but I know the type of people who will do this. They may be dumber than a bag of rocks, but they do posses enough sense to only attack other people if they have a huge advantage. In this case both in numbers and levels. That means that at least one of them is guaranteed to be able to outrun me (and I doubt that Keith has been dumping his points into agility).Therefore the best option I can think of is to have my crafting friend run for another entrance into the city while I stay and distract this group for as long as I can. I might be killed, but I¡¯m only level two so it won¡¯t be a huge loss. Well that seems at least moderately workable. I spin around and give Keith a good shove simultaneously shouting ¡°GO!¡± before spinning around and hoping that he gets the message. The demons seem slightly taken aback at my sudden outburst, but they recover quickly. The biggest of them (who I would guess is the leader) shouts out ¡°let the runner go. It¡¯s the loot drops from those dead players that we want¡± They let out grunts of agreement before rushing me. In the split second before the first of them reaches me I use essence sight on the leader who is just standing their with a smug grin on his face. I only manage to see one piece of the text that appeared before his goons surrounded me and pain wracked my body, especially my exposed wings which I couldn¡¯t defend. In a haze of red only one thought consumes my mind before it is swallowed by the darkness of death. You will regret this Raymond Darkhand. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I would reallyappreciate any opinions orsuggestionson adventures that Blade could undertake. I only have the overall plan outlined so any input will most likely be included. PS. A special thanks goes out to Deskover who has been here since thebeginning and read every chapter. Chapter 11: Tests and Trials Chapter 11: Tests and Trials As soon as the darkness comes it fades away. I fall to my knees on the same ledge that I appeared on during my first moments here in this world. Everything that I worked for is gone. Taken by that smirking bastard Raymond. He will die a thousand deaths for what he has done. There are many things that I have to do before I¡¯m ready to obliterate him and any others who kill people for profit, but it will happen. I will never truly relax until it does. There are many questions in my mind, but I am too lost in my new mentality to try and answer them. Perhaps that¡¯s a good thing. I don¡¯t really want to be contemplating the fact that I died and was reborn. Now what should be my first step on my path? I can¡¯t sit (I don¡¯t care that I¡¯m kneeling) here and do nothing. I¡¯ve started to think to much and there is a dark place where I will go if I let the thoughts fester. A dark place that reminds me to much of death. I¡¯m beginning to hyperventilate. I have to find something to occupy me. I glance back at the cliff face I climbed before. No I¡¯ve already done that. I need something new and dangerous. Something that relies more on instinct than actual thought. Instinct¡­ perhaps I¡¯m on to something. I already lost everything anyway. Without another thought I leap to my feet and sprint forward disobeying my common sense and leaping off the precipice that separates stone from empty air. I stay suspended for a cliche second before beginning my plummet back to earth. It takes a surprisingly short about of time for me to fall close enough to the ground that I can make out the jagged rocks at the bottom, waiting for me to impale myself on their razor sharp edges. I also spy a few white stick like things that appear to be bones. It would seem that not everyone avoids the rock that Zim sends down. With a split second remaining before my second death I let my body take over and my wings shoot out to either side while my hands go limp to my sides and my head turns forward. My fall becomes a dive which I pull up out of with not 3 feet to spare. Adrenalin rushes through my limbs and with a powerful beat from my wings I am suddenly flying. I am flying! The feeling is incredible and I¡¯ve never experienced anything that can even approximate what it is. Yes, it¡¯s the wind rushing past you face and the sun glinting of your back, but it¡¯s also so much more than that. While I do love gliding, lets be real. It¡¯s not actual flying. So with a powerful stroke from my wings I begin my climb. Over and over and over I beat the black scaly and beautiful appendages on my back until I¡¯m above the mountain top. It is here that I land and retract my wings only to wince at how weak and sore they have become. I guess I went a little overboard. Sitting down to rest my vision is suddenly assaulted by multiple windows. All of which are very exciting. Due to your incredible effort over a long period of time endurance has increased by 3, strength has increased by 2 and regeneration has increased by 2. Due to awakening the dormant power of flight that the ancestral demons had before obtaining level 50 you have been granted the tittle: Natural Flier. Due to your impressive skill when airborne you have unlocked the hidden skill Flight. This is a passive skill that determines the skill with which you fly as well as the time you are able to fly. It will increase the more you fly. I look over the windows with a grin that only grows bigger the farther I look. I really am awesome aren¡¯t I. Well maybe not compared to other Champions right now, but I seriously doubt that many of them were able to fly while they were level two¡­ right I guess that I¡¯m back to one now. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. That brings me off of the adrenalin high I was riding and back into the real world (or fake one I guess). I need to asses the damage. I bring up my status window and let out a small groan. Free stat points: 0 Strength: 3 Agility:1 Dexterity: 1 Endurance: 4 Heath: 10 (1 point= +10) Mana: 10 (1 point =+10) Regeneration: 3 Wisdom: 1 I knew from my dinner with Roth and Zim that I would be starting from zero again (the extra stats are from my flight), but it¡¯s one thing to be told about it and another entirely to actually see that all of your hard work has disappeared because of a few stupid PKers. On the upside though this is nowhere near as bad as it could have been. Better to learn to fear death when you don¡¯t have much to lose than when you¡¯ve spent month¡¯s building up to where you are. There is one other thing that I¡¯d like to check. If I bring up my list of skills are those still here? Luckily when I look at the menu I find a large list. Skills Essence Sight. This ability will give you the ability to asses almost anything you focus on and find information on the object or person. Quality and amount of information will increase as your skill level does. This ability won¡¯t work on items obscured by an essence shadow of an equal or higher level than your level of essence sight. Essence field. You will now be able to see names as well as health and mana levels of NPC¡¯s, champions and monsters. This skill has no levels. Wing push. This is a hidden skill which cannot be taught and is unique to the demon and angle races. This skill, involving both wings, will send a blast of air at an opponent possibly stunning it and pushing both the user and target back. The chance of stunning and the distance pushed back will increase with skill level. Stealth. This ability allows you to sneak near enemies without them seeing or otherwise sense you. This is a general ability and there are multiple specialized abilities that are modifications of this ability such as jungle stealth which will help you sneak while in a jungle. The effects of this ability can be negated by an adversary with the perception ability. Flight. This is a passive skill that determines the grass with which you fly as well as the length of time that you are able to fly. It will increase the more you push yourself when flying. Cooking. This skill will allow you to use ingredients that you find or purchase to create delicious meals. At a high enough level with high enough level ingredients the food can give bonuses to stats which at even higher levels can be permanent. Interesting. I¡¯m glad I don¡¯t have to relearn any skills. It means that If I ever die again I will have the one up on new champions that are my level. I had forgotten about that cooking skill. Roth taught it to me when I told him the story about how I climbed the cliff and defeated the rat. I probably won¡¯t use it very often what with Keith coming with me, but who knows what kinds of crazy situations I¡¯ll get into where this will come in handy. Better to have and not need than need and not have after all. I suddenly see the ground (what little I can see of it around the window) turn dark with a shadow. I immediately close the window and turn around, my neck craning to get a glimpse of whatever threat may be appearing. Sometime between closing my window and standing up the plane startingknife appeared in my hand. What I see makes my bladefall from my grasp and myself fall to my knees from the pressure exerted by the creature before me. A lizard, at least one hundred feet in length from tail to snout and the same from wing to win, stares down at me with slitted, purple eyes. Dragon. It gives a powerful beat from it¡¯s massive wings and settles down onto the rock. It¡¯s scales are pitch black and as it leans it¡¯s head down, as if to get a better look at me, I see that they have a strange multi-colored sheen on them like a raven does. I¡¯m completely frozen as a voice that could have come from a god booms out from the mountain top without the Dragon ever opening it¡¯s mouth. ¡°You are wise to be on you knees, little one. Even if it wasn¡¯t entirely your choice. Zim taught you a good lesson when he said to never start a fight that you can¡¯t win. I assure you that facing me would lead to nothing apart from your death.¡± Swallowing the boulder sized lump in my throat I manage to coax out a few words from my suddenly dry throat ¡°Thank you for your praise. If I may ask, what have I done to be in your presence?¡± While I may have hated to do it in my past life, I know how to speak respectfully to people with power, and the side of me that would usually protest is nowhere to be seen. The Dragon chuckles. ¡°You needn¡¯t worry. I¡¯m not here to punish you. In fact I am actually here to test you. Though perhaps it would be more apt to say I¡¯m seeing if you deserve to be tested. You see I am facing a problem. My children, along with those of the other most powerful beasts in the world, are soon to be hatched and they will need to experience the world. I will not coddle them by protecting them myself for they would never be strong if I did that, but neither will I send them out on their own. You see my dilemma?¡± I attempt to respond, but my voice fails me and I am only able to give a nod. ¡°Good, I will continue then. I had thought upon this issue for quite some and I believe that today I have finally found a solution. My children will hatch in no more than 3 months and until that time a series of trials and tests will take place, with prizes awarded to the people who perform best. The people who I see as being the most fit to protect and nurture my kids after being observed in these trials will receive one as a companion. You are being given a chance to participate in these trials because I believe that you can become someone great in this world. You show potential. Should you accept this opportunity then I will transport you to the first test. I feel obliged to tell you that this could very well prove fatal¡­ but given your current condition I don¡¯t think that you will find an issue with that. One more thing. Only the top one percent of demons that have the greatest potential are being given the chance to participate in this. Jealousy is a powerful thing and should anyone discover that you are being offered this they may hunt you out of spite. I advise you to keep it hidden. Do you accept? With those last words a window appears in front of me. You have been offered the chance to participate in The Trials of Volos. Do you accept? Y / N ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Comment''s are very much aprecated regardless of what they say and there is nothing that I like more in the world than when someone spends the 5 seconds that it takes to give this book a rateing (Actualy that''s not quite true, I like it even more when someone actualy writes out segestions, but I digress). I''ll try to get the next chapter up quickly, but I can''t make any promises. Thanks for reading! =D Chapter 12: Lights and Caves Chapter 12: Lights and Caves I chose yes. Like there was even a question. They are offering me the chance at getting a pet dragon and if I understood the speech that Volos (which I am relatively sure is the name of the Dragon going by the name ¡°The Trials of Volos¡±) gave there is the potential to gain other rewards as well. Who could possibly turn down that, especially if they are like me and have nothing to lose. Total no brainer. As soon as I clicked yes (I don¡¯t care if you think that mental saying yes doesn¡¯t count as clicking, you¡¯re wrong) I was surrounded by a familiar swirling pattern that vanished quickly, leaving me in a brightly lit cave that I can somehow tell is deep underground. The cave has no entrance or exit and it is illuminated by a clear crystal with multicolored specs floating in it that seems to be filled with a luminescent liquid and is hovering 4 feet above the top of a table. The table is simple as tables go, a thick square plank about 3 feet long on either side, connected to 4 sturdy legs. It¡¯s not a beautiful piece of furniture, but it is quite functional and seems to be well made. It¡¯s dark wood has a faint ted tinge and a simplistic yet entrancing dragon is carved in a circular pattern across it¡¯s top. Two chairs of similar make are situated next to the table. The cave is not very large and there are no good hiding spots so after a quick inspection I am confident that there is nothing else of interest inside save for a few streaks of color on the walls that may have have contained ore of some sort. Seeing as I am without a pickax this doesn¡¯t affect me. Not having anything else to do, I take a seat in one of the chairs. Pop! The moment that I do a sudden noise echoes in the small space and a Demon wearing formal looking black robes and holding a book and quill (which is full of a red ink that reminds me a little too much of blood) appears in the seat in front of me. ¡°Congratulations Miss Blade you completed a thorough examination of this room and it¡¯s contents in three minutes and fourteen seconds, I especially liked the fact that you found the ore on the wall. You scored above average and placed in the 7st percentile on this test.¡± Periodically throughout this speech the demon would look down at his book, but when I try to sneak a peak the words look like they are written in gibberish. ¡°That was the test¡± I ask in surprise. ¡°Yes this was part of it, but there is still more to come. This part was designed to test your awareness of surroundings and reaction to appearing in an unfamiliar environment. If you had just appeared and sat down right away then you would have scored badly. The same would have happened if you were excessively cautious and paranoid. You did well by staying somewhere in the middle.¡± ¡°If I did so well then why was I only ranked in the 71st percentile?¡± Sigh, that part came out with a snort that I would have preferred to keep to myself, but live and learn I guess. ¡°Well for one thing you failed to notice the trap spells that were placed on both of these chairs. These particular ones didn¡¯t do anything, but they could be easily modified to keep you from getting up or simply to kill you.¡± I jump off my chair about a millisecond after he finishes speaking and begin to give my previously innocuous chair a rigorous inspection.¡± ¡°Look on top of the posts that jut up above the backrest.¡± What do you know? A series of carvings in the wood that I had completely missed and would have probably thought were accidental if I had seen, are actually a complex series of runes that are intwined in ways I can¡¯t even begin to understand. ¡°Ok, so I missed one thing, that still shouldn¡¯t put me behind thirty percent of all of the other people who did this.¡± ¡°That would be correct. If that was the extent of your mistakes then you would be ranked much higher. However, that is not the case.¡± ¡°So what else did I do wrong?¡± I ask with mild exasperation. ¡°Would you like me to go over your performance in more detail?¡± At my nod he continues ¡°You actually did very well on the awareness portion of the test, and with the exception of a few minor things the trap was all that you missed. You scored slightly above average on the reaction portion as well, but the big mistake that you made there was not drawing your weapon or even being prepared to draw it. You were aware that this test could potentially prove fatal, so it would have been prudent of you keep that in mind as you were transported here. That was the thing that brought you down the most. Finally your time actually had very little effect on your score. It was better than most, but not amazing or exceptional. Before I finish I would like to point out that you didn¡¯t do badly. Far from it. Considering your level and how recently you came to our world you did admirably.¡± ¡°But not well enough to gain any extra rewards I assume¡± I counter with a somewhat disappointed quality to my voice. ¡°Unfortunately no, your current score is not enough to earn anything aside from the experience you will receive if you complete the challenge. Only competitors who were in the top ten percent will receive anything extra and only the top one percent will get significant rewards. I don¡¯t want to get your hopes up too much, but I remind you that the challenge is not complete yet and so you still have a chance, however small, to be in that top ten percent.¡± That didn¡¯t comfort me much. I only scored this well on the first round because I am naturally paranoid and don¡¯t like to waste time. I don¡¯t expect a miracle to happen that will have me magically crushing the second round, but that speech did help a little. It hardened my resolve. My resolve to get stronger. My resolve to close the gap between me and everybody else. My resolve to obtain everything that I could possibly need, be it skills, stats, levels or experience so that when the next trial comes around I won¡¯t just crush it, I¡¯ll annihilate it. ¡°Alright, are we done here?¡± I ask ¡°Yes. Unless you have any other questions our business is concluded.¡± ¡°Well thank you for all your help.¡± ¡°Of course Miss Blade. Place your palm on the dragon carving when you are prepared for the next round.¡± POP! And without another word he disappeared. Crap, I should have gotten his name. It probably pays to know people in the employ of dragons. Oh well. I will if I see him again. I prepare to put my hand down on the carving of the dragon on the table (because what else could he mean) but I stop my fingers 2 inches from the wood. There is one thing in this cave that I should collect if it is possible. Taking my hand away and replacing it with my foot I stand on the table and reach out to take to light liquid filled crystal that has illuminated the room until now.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Surprisingly it is cool to the touch and doesn¡¯t resist my grasp at all. Wherever I put it it simply stays, hovering. I put it in my inventory and prepare to clime down when a window appears in front of my face, almost making me fall. Would you like to take ownership of Luminous Essence Crystal? Warning, If you accept this item will be soul bound. It will not take up inventory space and you will never loose it even after death, but you will be unable to give it to anyone else unless you get it unbound which can be quite costly and requires a magic user of at least 50 to do. Y / N You can bet your last copper I will! I don¡¯t have anyone I want to give this too and if I take it I will never need another light source. Ever. This is probably the most valuable thing I¡¯ve ever laid eyes on (with the possible exception of Zim¡¯s staff. No idea how much that¡¯s worth) and it¡¯s completely free. I mentally take a baseball bat and use it to smash the ¡°Y¡± button before climbing down carefully with a huge grin on my face. Looking around the room one last time to be absolutely positive that there are no other huge freebies just lying (or hovering) around the room I take a deep breath and firmly place my palm on the table in the center of the dragon carving. After a second my hand starts to feel tingly and the dragon begins to glow with an eerie black-red light before flashing so brightly that I¡¯m complete blind for a second. When I¡¯m finally able to blink the last of the afterimage out of my retina I open my eyes just in time to see a shiny glint flying towards me fast enough that it would tear through my head and come out the other side. As quickly as I can, I raise my dagger to deflect and turn my body to the left while leaning back to try and dodge. The world and me with it, once again, seems to move in slow motion as adrenaline pumps through my veins. I can hear my heart beating, ever so slowly, more clearly than I ever have before. Thump¡­ 20 feet away. Thump¡­ 15 feet. I¡¯m going to make it. Thump¡­ 10 feet. I¡¯m probably going to make it. Thump.. 5 feet. Crap. I¡¯m not going to make it Thump¡­ 0 feet¡­ I made it! I fall back on my butt as the glint of metal, which I can now see is some kind of throwing knife embeds itself in the rock wall behind me, my blood coating the blade. I¡¯m lucky I dodged. My knife is far from strong enough to stop that kind of force as evidenced by the half inch deep gouge that is cut in it near the base. I reach my hand up to the feel the cut on my cheek. If it was a quarter inch higher or I was a thousandth of a second slower I¡¯d be missing an eye. To my amazement I can already feel the blood congealing and forming a scab. I suppose my increased regeneration is the cause of that and I am truly thankful for it. As time begins to return to it¡¯s normal flow I receive a window, which I immediately minimize. The first thing that greeted me here, wherever here is, was a knife and I doubt that it was the last of my problems. I appear to be in the clear for now, but I learned from the first trial, so I scrutinize my surroundings carefully before blinding myself with a window. I¡¯m in a long tunnel which is at least 10 feet tall and 5 feet wide that has a natural feel, but is too strait and regular to not have been made by someone. It terminates in a dead end with some kind of a device on the wall that is too far away for me to make out. There is light coming from patches of moss along the walls and celling, but it isn¡¯t bright enough to see everything in detail so I summon my newly soul bound Luminous Essence Crystal. As soon as it appears I feel a cold rush like ice water flowing through my arteries that originates in the hand that is holding the Luminous Essence Crystal and goes directly into my brain. When it gets there I suddenly know more information about my new favorite toy. Not a lot of information mind you, I just now know that I could command this floating ball with my mind out to a certain point (10 feet from my person) and it will follow my commands (If I chose to leave it 10 feet from my body then it would stay where I left it until I called it back with my mind at which point it would appear in my hand) and that I can turn it on and off. No one can take it from me either. Their hands would pass right though it if they had any intention of taking it from me. That was probably the weirdest thing that has happened to me today (which is saying something considering that I died and came back to life), but I¡¯ll have plenty of time to figure out what happened after I complete this test, so I just mentally command the Crystal to constantly hover above my head. I can now see that, starting about four feet in front of me, the floor is tiled, but there are no obvious threats so I reopen the status window from before. You have gained the skill Time Slow. When you are in a situation where your normal body cannot react fast enough to a threat your mind will speed itself up making everything else seem to slow down. This takes a great toll on your mind so it will use up mana and you will not be able to use this repeatedly in a short period of time or sustain it for long periods of time without experiencing side effects. Increasing the level of this skill will decrease the amount of mana expended for each second of Time Slow and reduces the side effects when using this skill repeatedly or for a long time. That seems like it will be incredibly useful down the road and perhaps very soon, but time was of the essence in the last test and it may very well be of the essence here as well. I can¡¯t dilly dally. I walk forward cautiously and only that fact allows me to survive. The instant I put my foot down on one of the tiles another knife shoots out of a shadow on the right wall and slams into the left. This is going to be very, very difficult. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thank you so so much for all the support. I really apreciate it. We now have 1000 veiws on the first chapter which is absolutly phenominal and we are currently in the 1148th spotin terms of rankings. Best thing ever! On a side note I don''t think I''ll be able to do a chapter every day very often (this one took me 4 strait hours of intensive writing), but if you guys continue to support me so well I will try. Below is a list of Blade''s stats and skills that I will try to post every chapter. I would really apreciate it if you told me about anything that I screwed up on. Free stat points: 0 Strength: 3 Agility:1 Dexterity: 1 Endurance: 4 Heath: 10 (1 point= +10) Mana: 10 (1 point =+10) Regeneration: 3 Wisdom: 1 Skills Essence Sight. This ability will give you the ability to asses almost anything you focus on and find information on the object or person. Quality and amount of information will increase as your skill level does. This ability won¡¯t work on items obscured by an essence shadow of an equal or higher level than your level of essence sight. Essence field. You will now be able to see names as well as health and mana levels of NPC¡¯s, champions and monsters. This skill has no levels. Wing push. This is a hidden skill which cannot be taught and is unique to the demon and angle races. This skill, involving both wings, will send a blast of air at an opponent possibly stunning it and pushing both the user and target back. The chance of stunning and the distance pushed back will increase with skill level. Stealth. This ability allows you to sneak near enemies without them seeing or otherwise sense you. This is a general ability and there are multiple specialized abilities that are modifications of this ability such as jungle stealth which will help you sneak while in a jungle. The effects of this ability can be negated by an adversary with the perception ability. Cooking. This skill will allow you to use ingredients that you find or purchase to create delicious meals. At a high enough level with high enough level ingredients the food can give bonuses to stats which at even higher levels can be permanent. Time Slow. When you are in a situation where your normal body cannot react fast enough to a threat your mind will speed itself up making everything else seem to slow down. This takes a great toll on your mind so it will use up mana and you will not be able to use this repeatedly in a short period of time or sustain it for long periods of time without experiencing side effects. Increasing the level of this skill will decrease the amount of mana expended for each second of Time Slow and reduces the side effects when using this skill repeatedly or for a long time. Flight. This is a passive skill that determines the skill with which you fly as well as the time you are able to fly. It will increase the more you fly. Bartering. This skill will increase your ability to get better prices both for purchases and sales. In order to increase this skill it is necessary to get above standard prices from people. Current skill level: 1. Chapter 13: Puzzles and Ingenuity As always a review would be the best thing that you could ever possibly do. Thank''s so much. =D ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chapter 13: Puzzles and Ingenuity Let¡¯s look at my options here. I could run across super quickly and hopefully I¡¯ll be fast enough or lucky enough to beat all of the throwing knives that come my way (assuming that throwing knives are the only traps here). Pros: It¡¯s fast. If my last test is any indication then this will be timed and the slower I am the worse my score will be. Cons: The odds of me surviving are pretty low. Those knives are really fast and I¡¯m not confident about my ability to get past them fast enough, plus I have no way of knowing that a knife won¡¯t come from behind or in front of me. I could move cautiously across the floor like I was doing before. I did doge the first thing that came at me. Pros: It is safer than running, and assuming I survived I would get across in a decent timeframe. Cons: I don¡¯t feel lucky enough to bet that every trap will be far enough in front of me to not splatter my brains across a wall (lovely image, don''t you think). I could just take the hits while walking across in a slow and deliberate fashion¡­ who am I kidding? I could use something that could trigger the traps without me having to be near them and throw it. Pros: It has a significantly higher chance of me surviving than any of the other options that I have considered so far and it would still get me across in an ok time. Cons: I have a very limited inventory and I didn¡¯t see any rocks lying around so I would probably run out or have to risk retrieving items after they were thrown (which would defeat the purpose of me not having to be near any live traps. What if my hand goes an inch too far?). I could try and figure out how to disarm traps while I¡¯m here and then use whatever skill I discover to make my way across the floor. Pros: It would get me a useful new skill and I would be safe than if I ran. Cons: It will take a very long time and I haven¡¯t the faintest idea on how to disarm a trap. Even if I leaned the skill it would probably take a really long time to disarm each individual tile and my time score would be even slower. At the moment I think I¡¯ll probably go with the cautious walking. I¡¯d much rather throw stuff from a distance, but I don¡¯t have enough stuff. I¡¯ll just inch my way over to the tile I stepped on last time and¡­ wait a second. I think that I have a way to trigger the traps from a distance. This is perfect. Oh how I love you my precious Crystal. I can just use the mental control of my Luminous Essence Crystal to move it around and push down the tiles. I can be up to ten feet away after all. This glorious little miracle is the gift that keeps on giving. In the same place in my mind that I gave the Crystal the command to stay over my head I tell it to go over to the traps and trigger them. It doesn¡¯t move. The only thing that I get is a quiet feedback sound in my mind that makes me slightly wince. I don¡¯t think that it can understand what I¡¯m asking it to do. After all, ¡°go over to the traps and trigger them¡± is a pretty complex command if you think about it. It requires you to know what traps and trigger is as well as be able to detect the trap and know how to activate it. Lets try something else. ¡°move forward¡± (keep in mind that I¡¯m not thinking the words themselves, I¡¯m thinking about the action itself). Good. Now we¡¯re getting somewhere. Using this method of thinking about what action I want the Luminous Essence Crystal to perform I¡¯m able to get it over so that it is hovering above the tile next to the one I stepped on (which I can identify because it is now slightly depressed into the ground). Bracing myself I give a fast command (I¡¯m hoping that it is like ripping off a bandaid) of down. F¡¯tang. A fresh throwing knife is embedded into the stone wall (although this one came from the left side as opposed to the right. I let out a sigh of relief. It worked. I move my Crystal over to the next one and it goes down once again. What? Nothing happened. Why did nothing happen? I raise up the ball and slam it back down to see if I just didn¡¯t have enough force and still nothing happens. Maybe if I do it even harder? Maybe this time it will work. Maybe this time. Maybe this time. Maybe this time¡­ I¡¯m being an idiot. Of course all the tiles won¡¯t be trapped. It would be ridiculous. Probably there is a pattern to the ones that are trapped and the ones that aren¡¯t that I could figure out if I didn¡¯t have a better way to do it. I guess it¡¯s on to the next one. ¡­ I bring the Luminous Essence Crystal up and over what feels like a million times before I can finally walk all the way up to the strange puzzle at the end. It is a bunch of square tiles in a square shape that is missing it¡¯s bottom right piece. The tiles that are adjacent to the empty space can be slid into the empty space which makes the spot they were originally in the empty space, yada yada yada. If my guess is correct then when I finally get all of the tiles to their correct places (They all have parts of a picture on them so the correct place is probably where the picture is whole) then my challenge will be over. I try a few different methods that lead me nowhere before deciding to figure out what the upper left most piece of the puzzle is and get it into position. Then move the one to the left of that into position as well and continue from there. It works (although not without a few hiccups) and as soon as I slide the last tile into place all of my muscles visibly relax. I should be able to chill for a little bit now. ¡°SKREECH!!!!!¡± Or not. Sigh. A ridiculously loud NOISE comes from behind the puzzle and all of its tiles fall out and crash into the floor. The wall on which the puzzle was resting (which I could have sworn was firmly attached to the other walls a minute ago) starts to slide open like a supermarket door with a horrible grinding noise. Light starts to seep in through the rapidly growing crack so I store my Luminous Essence Crystal in my inventory and put an eye up to the gap like a little kid spying on his parents. This doesn¡¯t look good. Inside is a large round cavern which must be 75 feet in diameter and 30 feet in height with extensive seating ringing the edge. Hundreds of demons are sitting right there in the stands cheering like they¡¯re at one of those illegal fighting matches that I know nothing about *whistles suspiciously*. That leaves a 50 foot circle with high walls surrounding it that my door is opening into. The worst part is the door on the other side that is opening as well.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Not knowing what else to do I activate stealth and bring out my starter knife. The door is finally open enough to slip inside the colosseum and I think I have to go for it. It will give me time to assess my situation and potentially be better prepared than my opponent. My stealth form is halfway out of the door when a booming voice announces ¡°ALL TRAPS HAVE BEEN DISABLED TO ALLOW BOTH COMPETITORS TO GET INTO THE COLOSSEUM. AS A REWARD TO BLADE FOR COMPLETING THE PUZZLE BEFORE KRAST SHE WILL RECIVE A BUFF TO HER COMBAT STRENGTH WHILE HE WILL RECIVE A DEBUFF. LET THE FIGHT BEGIN!¡± I can actually feel energy rushing into my limbs and mind washing away the mild mental strain I got from controlling my Crystal for so long. At the same time I get a message that says You have received a 10% buff to all stats for the duration of this fight. That seems very helpful. Even if it only gives me one to each stat (rounding down for the stats that have slightly more than 10) that is still equivalent to just under 2 levels and at higher levels it would be even more. Assuming that my opponent - Krast was it? - got a negative 10% as well then that doubles the effect. I just hope that it is enough to even the scales from whatever level he is at to my level one. I guess we will find out. While I was thinking about this I slunk around the edge of the colosseum, as the announcer called it, to arrive just to the left of Krast¡¯s door. For some reason he has yet to emerge, but when he does I will hopefully get a good strike on his back. Speak of the devil (Who probably exists here now that I think about it). A cautious face belonging to an absolutely huge demon has poked itself out and examined its surroundings (Luckily not very thoroughly otherwise I would probably be in a lot of trouble). He seems confused at the distinct lack of demon in the arena and steps a few feet out of his puzzle hallway to try and get a better view. That was all I needed. I lunge forward as time slows around me and, using a reverse grip on my knife, slice clean through his right achilles tendon (I¡¯m begging to sense a pattern here) . He cries out in pain and actually drops his sword to the ground so he can clutch at it which I find to be quite hilarious. He¡¯s a champion now, he should be able to handle a little pain without doing something so incredibly stupid as drop his weapon. I only allow myself a mild chuckle though before running forward and stabbing my knife deep in his lower spine. It takes off a full 50 percent of his health adding to the 10 percent from before. I am very satisfied. OOOFF. Or I would have been if he hadn¡¯t just spun around and backhanded me into the wall like I weighed ten pounds. Oh crap my knife is still in his back! I look down at my now empty hand and realize the even worse news. My stealth is gone. And Krast is looking directly at me with a face full of pain and rage. He reaches down to grab his great sword which looks like it could cleave me in half with ease. I have to do something or I¡¯m dead meat, but I¡¯m boxed in by his long reach with that sword and the curving wall of the coliseum. The only way that I could get around him and potentially retrieve my sword is by going up and I the only way that I have started to fly is by falling. I need to get up. I can¡¯t just push off from the wall¡­ but that does give me an idea. I take a deep breath in and in the split second before Krast starts his swing I use the skill wing push. I don¡¯t do it at my opponent however. It is directed strait at the ground. With a might heave I¡¯m suddenly 10 feet above his head and gliding forward. The brief glimpse of his face that I get before I¡¯m behind him was absolutely priceless. (Well that¡¯s not true I would probably sell the memory for about 4 silver, but still.) Doing a combat roll onto the ground as a landing I spin around and run for Krast. His severed achilles tendon makes his turning speed just a tiny bit too slow and his body is only halfway done with facing me by the time I get there. I send a kick into the blade of my knife, still sticking out from his back which causes it to spin and rip out of his back along with some flesh bringing his health down to 20 percent. I wouldn¡¯t have been able to do it without the time slow, but I¡¯m able to reach forward and catch the knife as it falls. The cost for getting my weapon back however is a powerful sword blow to my ribs that brings my health down by 50 percent. I clench my teeth to avoid letting out a scream as I watch a long line get torn just inches from my throat. With what little strength I can muster in the midst of all that pain I bring up my hand which is still holing the knife and his blow actually makes him cut himself on my blade and let go of his weapon which goes flying away. Seeing that he is now without a sword the massive demon drops to his knees with his hands (maybe a hand and a half) up. ¡°I surrender, I surrender, please don¡¯t reset me I surrender¡± I touch the stinging wound (now starting to close) on my chest and laugh mirthlessly. ¡°You surrender. Ha. There¡¯s no room for weaklings that surrender in the demon lands¡± Then without another word I ram my dagger into his throat. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ First off I''d like toapologizeto any of you that though that that was unnesisarly harsh, but I think that while Blade is a good person at heart she is in no way kind. I look forwards to seeing your reactions though. Hopefully I will relese at least one chapter tomorow so you have even more to look forwars to. Anyway here is the stats and skills list for Blade and I know that some of you will be unsatisfied that she didn''t get any bonuses from this whole ordeal. Let me assure you that she did, but because she hasn''t dealt with all of the windows that will come up for her win I thought that it would be spoileish to show them here. I will update it next chapter with all of the gains. I also thought it would be a good idea to include her current level. Free stat points: 0 Strength: 3 Agility:1 Dexterity: 1 Endurance: 4 Heath: 10 (1 point= +10) Mana: 10 (1 point =+10) Regeneration: 3 Wisdom: 1 Skills Essence Sight. This ability will give you the ability to asses almost anything you focus on and find information on the object or person. Quality and amount of information will increase as your skill level does. This ability won¡¯t work on items obscured by an essence shadow of an equal or higher level than your level of essence sight. Essence field. You will now be able to see names as well as health and mana levels of NPC¡¯s, champions and monsters. This skill has no levels. Wing push. This is a hidden skill which cannot be taught and is unique to the demon and angle races. This skill, involving both wings, will send a blast of air at an opponent possibly stunning it and pushing both the user and target back. The chance of stunning and the distance pushed back will increase with skill level. Stealth. This ability allows you to sneak near enemies without them seeing or otherwise sense you. This is a general ability and there are multiple specialized abilities that are modifications of this ability such as jungle stealth which will help you sneak while in a jungle. The effects of this ability can be negated by an adversary with the perception ability. Cooking. This skill will allow you to use ingredients that you find or purchase to create delicious meals. At a high enough level with high enough level ingredients the food can give bonuses to stats which at even higher levels can be permanent. Time Slow. When you are in a situation where your normal body cannot react fast enough to a threat your mind will speed itself up making everything else seem to slow down. This takes a great toll on your mind so it will use up mana and you will not be able to use this repeatedly in a short period of time or sustain it for long periods of time without experiencing side effects. Increasing the level of this skill will decrease the amount of mana expended for each second of Time Slow and reduces the side effects when using this skill repeatedly or for a long time. Flight. This is a passive skill that determines the skill with which you fly as well as the time you are able to fly. It will increase the more you fly. Bartering. This skill will increase your ability to get better prices both for purchases and sales. In order to increase this skill it is necessary to get above standard prices from people. Current skill level: 1. Chapter 14: Rewards and Returning Chapter 14: Rewards and Returning There are a whole slew of messages that require my attention, but I¡¯ll wait until I¡¯m back on top of the starting mountain to deal with them. In the mean time the announcer voice is back. ¡°WHAT AN INCREDIBLE FIGHT! LETS HEAR IT FOR BLAADDDEEEE!¡± The crowd goes wild, cheering and whistling and chanting my name. This is weird. I don¡¯t know what to do in this situation. Think. What do all of the fighters at the fighting matches do when they win. Right, they scream super loud and raise their fists. I¡¯m not sure that my voice has the volume for the shout so I¡¯ll just do the hand thing. I put my hands (one of which is still clutching a bloody knife) into the air and slowly turn around in a circle. The cheering gets even louder so I must be doing something right. ¡°NOW FOR YOUR REWARD! WHAT WEAPON WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECIVE?¡± ¡°Reward? I guess I¡¯ll take a knife. Nothing too fancy please.¡± ¡°VERY WELL! AFTER YOU RECIVE YOUR KNIFE YOU WILL BE TRANSPORTED BACK TO THE PLACE THAT YOU WERE AT BEFORE YOU ACCEPTED THE CHALLENGE. IN THREE DAYS YOU WILL BE SUMMONED TO ANOTHER CHALLENGE REGARDLESS OF YOUR SITUATION AT THE TIME. IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU BE PREPARED FOR THIS AND BE IN A SAFE LOCATION AT THE TIME OF YOUR TRANSPORT. DO YOU WISH TO RECIVE A COUNTDOWN TIMER SO YOU WILL KNOW EXACTLY WHEN THE NEXT CHALLENGE WILL START?¡± ¡°Yes, I would.¡± At the same time that a count down timer appears in nm upper right vision (to the left of the money counters) a shining beam of light suddenly appears from the ceiling pointing strait down towards the center of the Colosseum. The floor where it shines melts away and a new column of shimmering white rock rises in its place, not stoping until it is at my approximate waist height. On it is a knife, the blade of which is completely black. Like obsidian, coated in tar, then shot out into deep space and sent into a black hole black. It doesn¡¯t suck in any of the light around it, but there is a sharp separation between it and everything else. The handle is a highly contrasted with the blade, being a dull white that looks like it could be bone with a simple leather wrapping for grip. It is absolutely beautiful. I walk over to it slowly. I can¡¯t believe that this is mine. It is mine¡­ right? It better be. If they don¡¯t want me to have it then they¡¯re going to have to pry it from my cold dead fingers because, as much as I would hate to die again, that dagger is worth more to me than even that. What am I saying? Of course it¡¯s mine. Who else would it be for? Ow, my leg. Oh I¡¯m here. God, I have got to stop inner monologuing and start paying more attention to my surroundings. With a trembling hand I take the dagger and inspect it. Dagger of Volos. This dagger is made of one of the strongest materials known to demon kind, dragon scales. It will never break and can be soul bound to it¡¯s user. This dagger has also been made so that it could be infused with the blood of a dragon. If enough dragon blood could be provided then this dagger would become a scalding item. It would get more powerful as it¡¯s owner did so that it would never loose it¡¯s use. Until then, it is still an extremely sharp and durable blade. It also has the added affect of having an enchanted grip. It will never leave the hand of it¡¯s owner except if they wish it. Due to meeting special parameters additional information has been provided. Because you are currently participating in the The Trials of Volos and have obtained a potential scaling item you should know that dragon¡¯s blood can be obtained by completing further challenges. If you should fail in the future then you will still get to keep the dagger and could potentially get blood on your own, but no champion has reached the level of being able to fight a dragon, so good luck with that. Would you like to take ownership of the Dagger of Volos? Warning, If you accept this item will be soul bound. It will not take up inventory space and you will never loose it even after death, but you will be unable to give it to anyone else unless you get it unbound which can be quite costly and requires a magic user of at least level 50 to do. Y / NA case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. YES! YES! OF COURSE I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE OWNERSHIP! THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER! Ok, ok, deep breaths, I don¡¯t want to pass out with all of the people watching. That would make me look very stupid¡­ BUT OH MY GOD YEESSSSS! The dagger sends out a pulse of dark smoke that seems to coalesce around me, twisting and writhing. The cheering that had continued in the colosseum, despite me being oblivious, stops. You could have heard the dead (though thankfully Krast¡¯s mist corpse stays silent). Speaking of, I completely forgot to loot the body. That just goes to prove how incredibly stressful this entire experience has been. Managing to repress my inherent urge to loot every living thing in sight (and the vast majority of nonliving things as well) is very difficult to do. Well no sense in letting all of those precious items and money go to waste. In the two or so seconds that this inner dialog has taken, the dark smoke has finished seeping into my red skin¡­ and the crowd has started up again. I stroll over to the mist shape and touch my hand in it, but instead of an inventory, a message pops up Due to the rules of this moderated fight, the looting function has been removed. This is done to prevent competitors from gaining any unfair advantages. If someone got a lucky drop then they would be getting an advantage that no one else was able to obtain. All other advantages are available for everyone to get if they meet the prop. If you have a problem with this then you may submit a complaint with a system administrator. Well¡­ that sucks. I¡¯m not too sad, because I got the dagger, but it does suck. I won¡¯t submit a complaint though. The admins are being fair, even if it is a bit annoying. ¡°PLACE YOUR HAND ON THE PEDESTAL THAT YOUR KNIFE WAS ON IN ORDER TO RETURN TO THE PLACE THAT YOU WERE IN BEFORE AGREEING TO PARTICIPATE IN THE TRIALS OF VOLOS. ALSO, WHILE YOU MAY LOOK AROUND THIS ARENA AS MUCH AS YOU WOULD LIKE, THERE ARE NO ITEMS SUCH AS THE ORB THAT YOU TOOK FROM THE FIRST TASK. SEARCHING FOR SUCH ITEMS WOULD BE POINTLESS.¡± He is probably telling me the truth that there are no more freebies¡­probably¡­. but their is always the chance that that was done just to throw me off. No harm in taking a look. After all, the announcer did say that I could stay for as long as I like. So I begin to do an in depth examination of every nook and cranny of the colosseum including both of the trapped hallways. I can say with confidence that the walls are just walls, no secret door¡¯s or hiding spots. They are also made of some sort of extremely hard material so I can¡¯t slice them, even with my beautiful, brand new knife (which I¡¯m is lucky unbreakable given how hard I was trying to stab the wall). The trap hallways are both exactly the same, right down to the last scratch on the wall. The only exception to this is the deep gouges and burnt spots on mine that were caused by setting of the trap. It appears that Krast tried to disarm them in a more traditional way. I am unable to get into the stands because whenever I try and fly up and into them a strong gust of wind comes from nowhere and pushes me away. The same thing happens when I try to climb up with the skill I learned on the mountain. The dirt floor is just a dirt floor and the pedestal in the center, while impressive looking with the light shining down on it, is just sparkly, unyielding rock. It has the same circular dragon pattern as the table from before chiseled into it. Unfortunately it seems that the announcer wasn¡¯t trying to throw me off. With nothing else to see or do I place my hand on the pedestal and quickly close my eyes, recalling my last experience with teleportation. The light still leaks through my closed eyelids, but it is much more manageable. When the light finally fades (finally meaning like one second after it started) I open my eyes to find myself on my knees on top of the starter mountain. The sky is dark and looking up I find that lack of pollution and probably some inventive thinking by a game designer has made the stars truly incredible to behold. I¡¯m not sure how long I was in those challenges for, but I hope that Roth isn¡¯t worrying. I better head back to his place and get some sleep. If I¡¯m to be ready for the next trial then I better train up and I probably won¡¯t be able to put my body through that training if I¡¯m dead tired. With that in mind I stand up, start jogging toward the edge of this oddly flat topped mountain and leap off it for the second time. My wings spread with barely a thought and I once again marvel at how amazing this is. The wind, blowing back my hair and caressing my face is incredible. The amazing view, beautiful and at the same time terrifying, is something that I hope I can one day be. The stars, glowing so brightly and swirling in incredible patterns with streaks of color, look better than the most amazing painting that you have ever seen in any gallery. Nothing else in either of my two lives compares to this. I can feel a slowly growing tiredness in my wings and back, but I push it away. There are better things to do right now than feel pain. If only I could push it away forever. Sigh. One more reason to get stronger. No. Not one more reason. The reason. What better use for power than to be able to appreciate the beauty in life and not have to worry about anything. Gaining power in order to gain more power is pointless. This will be my goal. To be able to fly forever, and never have to come down for anything or anyone. Ow. Unfortunately a groan of protest from my wings brings me down from wonderland and back into reality, reminding me that I if I don¡¯t come down willingly then gravity will start being more forceful. For my wings being that tired I must have been working them for a while. How long was my brain on cloud nine for? Time to dive, I suppose. And so I dive. Down towards the starting city I rush through the air and I actually see that a few others aside from myself are flying as well. They look very impressive, with shiny armor and swords. Someone even had a gnarly staff that could only be used for magic. They don¡¯t even spare a look in my direction so I just try and avoid them as best I can before coming down in the main square. Thump! Note to self, don¡¯t dive straight down then attempt to land. You are going faster than you think. My rather unflattering landing gets me some strange looks from a few late night shopkeepers, but they thankfully all mind their own business after I glare at them. It is getting late. There is no moon in the sky with which I can estimate the actual time, but my best guess is around midnight. I better get to Roth¡¯s shop quickly if I want to get any shuteye at all. I set off at a light jog while pulling out my map to make sure that I¡¯m headed in the right direction (not that that is really required. Perfect recall comes in handy for these types of things). When I finally arrive I tiptoe off to my room while sneak is active and, as far as I can tell, nobody is at all the wiser. Chapter 15: Stats and Stupidity Chapter 15: Stats and Stupidity Yaaaaawn. That was a very nice rest. I was up for too long last night and I really needed a chance for my body to relax and refuel. Now that I¡¯m refueled, I guess it¡¯s time to get to work. I roll out of my bed and stumble around for a few seconds before finding my balance and regaining my senses. I walk out into the hallway through the large pelt and continue until I am in the main shop area. After a brief look around to make sure that no new items have appeared that I might want to buy. It all looks the same as it did the last time I browsed, so I move on and am almost out the door when a voice calls me back, startling me. ¡°You¡¯ll want to deal with all of the alerts, before you head out the door.¡± I turn to find Roth, a smirk on his face. With a somewhat haughty tone in my voice I answer ¡°Oh. Why is that. And why would you assume that I have any windows to read in the first place.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t get the the stat bonuses or anything else from those messages until you read them, so if you want to take on anything more powerful than a Poisonous High Jumper you should probably take the time. As for how I knew, the whole Demon Lands is talking about the Trials of Volos. It is the biggest event to happen in a hundred years! You suddenly disappearing could only mean one thing. All of the other species got their own challenges too. The humans got the Trials of Phirmus. That¡¯s a phoenix, by the way. It¡¯s kids will probably give some help with resurrecting. Maybe they will let you set a spawn point anywhere you like or something. It¡¯s also got quite the spell casting ability. Fire oriented, of corse. It¡¯s main weakness is in that it isn¡¯t very physically strong. The Angels, well, those goody two shoes got Helegrand. Luckily for us, it is a pegasus so its children will have basically no combat ability. Unfortunately, they are among the fastest things in existence and have incredible healing ability. We better hope that the people in the Radiant Lands with the most potential don¡¯t care about the war all that much. Anyway, the Dwarves are doing the Trials of Gorrunder. It is a massive golem that can supposedly forge the stars themselves. His children won¡¯t be that strong immediately of corse. None of the kids will be. All the same, whoever completes the Trials of Gorrunder will very quickly become one of the best smiths in the world. And that¡¯s not to mention the fact that, while it is slow, it has enough strength to break a mountain in half and it¡¯s skin is harder than dimond. The High Elves are challenging the Trials of Radim. It is some sort of miniature sun. Unfortunately I don¡¯t know too much about that, because the High elves are being kind of tight lipped about it. I think they are trying to surprise the Dark Elves. Speaking of the Dark Elves. Shadith, a being made entirely from shadow and darkness challenged them. It has a small arsenal of darkness spells, but it¡¯s main strength is in that it is the ultimate stealth being. There isn¡¯t a person in the world that would be able to detect it if it didn¡¯t want to be seen. The other sentient races are interesting. Almost no champions choose them because they have less advantages than the six main ones. Sometimes people call them challenge races. They all received challenges, but the creatures aren¡¯t as powerful as the six. I suppose it might be the universes way of making things fair. After all, the average kobold has a much greater chance of getting one of it¡¯s beast¡¯s children than the average Demon. I¡¯ll stop rambling now and let you deal with all of the alerts that you must have. Oh and before you ask I know you didn¡¯t already look at the window¡¯s because Zim followed you last night and told me that you didn¡¯t.¡± Wow¡­ that is a lot to take in and I guarantee that I would have forgotten all of it the second after it was spoken if not for the perfect memory thing. I¡¯ll have to think it over again later to make sure there isn¡¯t any info in their that can provide me with some sort of advantage. I doubt it because I will probably never get within a hundred miles of any of those children, but hey, you never know. Well, time to look at all of those messages.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Due to showing proper caution and adept observation skills when placed in an unfamiliar environment your wisdom has increased by 2. Due to making the wise decision to take the only item of value in a desolate environment your wisdom has increased by 1. Due to having an exceptionally quick reaction to an oncoming projectile and being able to doge (and attempt to block) it your agility has increased by 1 and your dexterity has increased by 2. Due to finding a clever way to disarm the traps that were placed in front of you and being able to quickly solve a difficult puzzle your mana has increased by 1 point (the equivalent of 10 actual points of mana) and your wisdom has increased by 1. Due to correctly positioning yourself in a way that you were able to catch the enemy unawares and performing an accurate strike your agility has increased by 1 and your dexterity has increased by two. Due to taking a powerful backhand and nasty sword strike and living to tell the tale your health has increased by 2 points (the equivalent of 10 actual points of heath). Due to pushing your body to use it¡¯s strength to the utmost for as long as it could your strength has increased by 1 and your endurance has increased by 1. You have leveled up! Your current level is 2. You have received 5 stat points that you can use to upgrade any of your stats without doing any activities that are related to that stat. Yes!!! This gets me back everything I had before and more. Watch out Raymond Darkhand, I¡¯m coming up quick. Still though, I didn¡¯t even last 5 seconds in that battle, so perhaps I should curb that excitement. Even with the extra points, I won¡¯t be able to stand at that level. Progress is progress, but it¡¯s not enough yet. Training time then. Let¡¯s see, where would be a good spo- wait a second! I haven''t distributed my points yet. Every little bit counts. But how to distribute them. Let¡¯s see¡­ first I should consider the things that I use most. That would be agility and dexterity, but it might be good to learn how to train those for the future and if I dump all of my points there then I won¡¯t have much of a reason to do that. Still it¡¯s probably a good idea to put at least a 1 point into each. Yeah that sounds good, one point isn¡¯t enough to make training pointless or make me unbalanced for that mater, but with the points I got on my adventure it should be more than enough to keep me alive. Concentrate¡­ and done. That should do it. Now what to do with the other 3. Hmmm. Ohh theres an idea. One more time and¡­ perfect. Endurance should be perfect. I¡¯m not sure how easy it would be for others to make the decision to put more than half of the points they earned from a level into one stat that doesn¡¯t really help their combat ability (long fights don¡¯t generally favor ghosts), but this way I¡¯ll be able to fly harder and longer travel for longer when I¡¯m on my adventures and most importantly keep training my stats beyond what I would have been able to do before. I think of it as an investment. I give up some now so that I¡¯ll get more later. That takes care of my stats, so back to my previous quandary. Where to go for training? I guess I could do the Poisonous High Jumper fields, but that doesn¡¯t seem like the best idea. I¡¯ll get combat experience later, but for now it¡¯s more important to stay safe and get stronger for the next challenge. Huh. I guess I haven¡¯t really been to anywhere that would suit my needs. Sigh. The fallacies of being a newbie¡­ That¡¯s it! I¡¯m a complete beginner so what I need is someone experienced. And luckily I¡¯m staying in the shop of a man who has lived in this city for at least long enough to know his way around. Perfect! ¡°Hey Roth?¡± I call out. ¡°Yeah¡± ¡°If I wanted to go train my stats, the normal way by working out and stuff, where would be a good place to go?¡± Roth gives out a short laugh then responds ¡°You really are unique aren¡¯t you. Your looking for the training hall. Part of the reason that no one kills Poisonous High Jumpers is that everyone who comes here has already planed out what there going to do until they are level five or so. In almost every single case that plan is to go to the training hall, grind their stats and fulfill non-combat quests (stuff like: deliver this letter to my friend) that the hall gives out until they level a few times, and train with the mock weapons their until they can actually swing their sword without being more of a danger to themselves than the enemy. This isn¡¯t just for the demon lands either. Most champions have never been in a fight in their lives before they get here and so they need to learn in a safe environment before doing anything real.¡± Roth pauses and takes a drink from a cup of water on the counter before continuing ¡°Going back to why no one kills Poisonous High Jumpers, once the new Champions are level five and ready to take on the world they go and deal with level five or six monsters with a group of others in a party of friends that they made in the training hall, because it¡¯s relatively safe and gives decent experience. What they don¡¯t do is go deal with the level two or three Poisonous High Jumpers because even though they are easier to kill, they get less experience. Like a quarter as much. If you kill any given monster that is the same level as you then you get an amount of experience that is between two maximum and minimum values. However, if you level up and continue to fight these same monsters then the XP you get will be between values that are half what they were before. The reverse is true when you fight monsters above your level. To put it simply, for every level below yours the XP is halved, for every level above yours it is doubled.¡± That was an information overload (or it would have been if not for my incredible mental abilities), but it can all be boiled down to a relatively simple sentence. ¡°I¡¯m a total idiot!¡± I almost growl at Roth, face-palming myself ¡°I went into a life or death fight with absolutely no preparation when I could have been training on a straw dummy and gaining experience in a completely safe way. GAH!¡± Rothalmost chokes on his water that he was drinking from again from laughing at me. Bastard. ¡°It¡¯s ok. It¡¯s ok¡± He responds, still trying to choke down his laughter. ¡°That¡¯s how things are normally done, but that doesn¡¯t mean its the best way. From what I can tell, your ¡®idiocy¡¯ got you a pretty good lifetime deal at Depper¡¯s and a bit of cash on top. Besides you can just start now and have no real issues.¡± As much as I want to continue slamming my head into the wall, Roth is right. Plus I¡¯m already down by two health points, I should probably stop before I get some debuff. On to the training hall I suppose¡­ idiot! Chapter 16: Training Halls and Tranquility Chapter 16: Training Halls and Tranquility This map is very convenient. I think it¡¯s a soul bound item as well. The zoom and drag features are especially nice. Once Roth marked the spot of the training hall on my map I was able to find my way along just fine (though I went back to the main road when I saw a cloaked figure give money to someone. That seems like it¡¯s above my head.) It looks like I¡¯m almost there. It¡¯s just one street north of the main square and large enough to take up half the block. Aside from that it isn¡¯t any different from the other buildings on the street (black stone construction, red trim on the tiles and gargoyles made of the same stone as the rest of the building spreading their wings on the corners) The archway is a set of double doors in a dark wood framed in the same red as the roof tiles. Lets open it up. Wow this isn¡¯t what I expected (though I¡¯m not really sure what I did expect). The first thing that I think when you open the door is opened is ¡°massive¡±. The entire first floor is just one gigantic room. It is surprisingly well lit having magical crystals that give light (much like the one that I own) along the walls as a huge, square skylight in the ceiling that must be 50 feet across. It goes through the second floor and I can see a balcony with rows and rows of full bookshelves after it. There are a few people sitting in chairs up there, but they seem to be able to completely ignore the grunts, ringing of metal on metal, smacks of bodies hitting mats and yells of pain coming from below. Speaking of below, the walls to my left and right as well as the one through which I just came are lined with weapon racks holding various axes, swords, bows and arrows, spears, shields, knives, poleaxes, halberds, spiky balls on chains, nunchucks, ninja stars, throwing knives and darts as well as tons of other weapons that I can¡¯t name or imagine how to use. The weapons are all real and - judging by the yells of people sparing - very sharp. The floor is separated into five main sections. There is a huge circle in the center and lines along all of the cardinal directions that separate the rest. The south west area (keep in mind that having just entered the hall I am looking north) is filled with all sorts of training dummies. They are mostly straw with a few more durable looking ones off the the side made of metal or wood. Some just stand in place while others have constantly moving joints that make you avoid their arms. Not all are human either. Large monsters that I have no name for also make up their ranks. People of all builds using all sorts of weapons are wailing away at the dummies, practicing skills and learning to be comfortable with their weapons. The north west corner has lots of weights and what looks like magical devices that people are using to improve your strength. Some are rolling boulders around while others are doing more recognizable exercises such as pushups. The north east corner¡¯s purpose is more difficult to comprehend, but I think it is an area to train agility. It has a pathway that loops around it¡¯s outer edge which people are running around, but the far more interesting things are inside that. There are several different areas that are all connected which make up an obstacle corse. It has places where one must sprint along six inch wide poles that are driven into the ground with the distance in between them increasing every step you take. There are areas where you must run across an area whilst avoiding swinging logs. Areas that have large pits below them which you must move across using only your arms and the rings above you. I can tell that I am going to enjoy my agility training. The south east area only has one thing in it, sparing areas, but there is a wide variety of different styles. Some are big, some are small, some are flat, some have hills, some are well lit, some are dark some are filled with obstacles, some have nothing but ground, there is even one that spews up fire in random locations to burn the combatants. This area seems to be the place to go if you want to practice the techniques and skills you gained from the dummies and see how effective they really are. After all, there is a big difference between slashing at an immobile man of straw and fighting someone who is going to fight you back. There are a bunch of men and women standing near the weapons on the wall that are all dressed in the same black robe (with various armor and weapons over it) and they all have the same patch on their left arm: a scroll with a sword on it. These people seem to be instructors for champions to fight against if they don¡¯t have a friend to battle. They also seem to be giving advice to the trainees, correcting their stance or showing them where to stab for maximum effect. It doesn¡¯t look like any of them are trying particularly hard and I don¡¯t see any of them loosing their fights. The last zone is in the very center of the hall and is a huge circle. The people inside of it are the best of the champions in the whole hall from what I can tell. They are all fighting with more finesse and less errors than the people in the sparing area. This seems to be the last place area of the hall to train in before setting out on your adventure. I¡¯m not totally sure what the training in this are is exactly, but what I do know is that it involves group combat. All of the participants are grouped into teams of four to six and then are fighting the other groups. I don¡¯t think that I¡¯ll make any special effort to learn about it right now because I don¡¯t have a group, but perhaps I¡¯ll create on here. I do already have Keith, even if he would be next to useless in a fight¡­ Ha, who am I kidding, the odds of me finding even one other person who can put up with me and doesn¡¯t make me want to stab him or her are about as good as me winning a fight against one of those instructors, let alone the two I would need to make a group of four. I should stop daydreaming and get training.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Now, what to do first? I would like to go upstairs and check out some of the books up there because I think it¡¯s my best bet to learn a little magic (a dream which I have not given up on and never will because MAGIC!) however, reading books takes time and there is no guarantee that I would even find a book on it in the first place. I will most definitely go up to that library eventually, but for now I should focus on enhancing what I already have. That means agility training (yes!) if I want to stick with my plan of grinding stats first and combat abilities second. I have no objections to that so on to the north east section it is. I¡¯m walking there along one of the pathways that separates all of the sections. It¡¯s about one hundred yards to the agility section, so why don''t I get started on my training now. No reason to wait. With that I start off at a run, not quite sprinting, but closer to it than to jogging. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. This is quite relaxing actually. Yes there is the beginnings of a cramp in my side (stupid endurance) and my breath is going in and out faster with each breath I take, but there is also a tranquil calm that comes with it. It is as if my mind is in a separate place from my body. A place where I can forget about all of the issues that I have and just focus on each step. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Breath in. Breath out. Breath in. Breath out. Breath in¡­ ¡°GAH!¡± The sudden appearance of a window causes me to loose my rhythm and trip over my own foot in the most undignified way that I can imagine. Things start to slow down as my hands and face near the dark cobblestones below (Time Slow is officially the best skill ever). I tuck my chin to my chest and turn it into a roll as much as I can. It¡¯s successful and I quickly look around to see who noticed. Phew. My yell gained me a few looks, but either they assume that the roll was part of my training or falls are more common here than I think. Wow, I didn¡¯t even notice, deep in my trance as I was, but I¡¯m already on the circular track around the agility area and judging by the deep burn in my legs and how bad my cramp is, I¡¯ve been here for a while. Let¡¯s see what despicable message broke me out of my running trance. Ok, as I¡¯ve been running along I gained two messages saying: Due to running at a rapid speed for an extended period of time your agility has increased by one. (just to clarify, the fact that have received two messages that say that means that my agility has actually increased by two.) And one message saying: Due to being out of breath for a long time and ignoring the pain to push on your endurance has increased by one. But none of those three messages were the one that broke my trance. They were all waiting until I could click on them just like the ones I had received during The Trials of Volos. There was however another message. You have gained the skill Meditation. By putting your mind into a state of tranquility and calm and pushing all external thoughts out of your mind you can enhance your brain¡¯s ability to process information and create better plans or analyze information with greater proficiency. Meditating while sitting in a meditative position will double mana recovery and increase health recovery by 50 percent. Higher levels of Meditation will make the mana and health recovery even greater and allow for even better mental processing. (The first time that a champion meditates they are awoken after one hour due to a previous incident. When using Meditation in the future, please note that Templa is not responsible for any deaths caused by the overuse of Meditation.) That is a pretty great skill if not for the mana recovery than for the thinking and health regeneration bonuses. That warning at the bottom does worry me slightly though. I was completely lost in my state of mind. If the system hadn¡¯t woken me up I can very realistically see myself running until I drop from completely exhausting myself or from becoming so dehydrated and starved that I drop dead. Speaking of, have I eaten since I got here? I think the only time that I did was during that one night when Zim brought me to Roth¡¯s shop. Even then I didn¡¯t feel like I needed to eat or drink and I don¡¯t need to now. What the heck is going on game? When Templa was first released a large number of champion deaths occurred from starvation and/or dehydration. This was investigated by the governing AI and it was concluded that because low level players were unable to make large sums of money they either had to use all their money to buy food and forsake equipment upgrades that would allow them to make more money or starve. To fix this issue, the governing AI removed hunger and thirst from players until they had reached level 10. Huh? I didn¡¯t really expect an answer when I asked that question, but thank you game. I wonder if I can do this for other things I don¡¯t know. Probably nothing that would give me an advantage over other players like knowing what their skills are and stuff, but for other things I¡¯m sure it could be of use. Something to keep in mind anyway. Now, lets get to the part of agility training I¡¯m most looking forward to. The obstacle corse. Chapter 17: Columns and Crashes Chapter 17: Columns and Crashes I make my way around the track (at a walking pace this time) and arrive at a wooden archway which has a sign hanging from chains at its top. Printed on it in a large font is ¡°Stage 0/5¡±. It doesn¡¯t get any lower then that so I guess this is the start. Walking through the entrance I am immediately walking on a pathway which leads to a single square column, about five feet wide and long, with a ladder built from impressions in the stone. It¡¯s about ten feet tall and once I climb it I am able to see that the only thing on top of it is a pair of posts, beyond which are several smaller columns starting about 4 feet apart. Seems simple enough. I want to get as much out of this as possible so I back up to the edge of this first column and run as fast as I can before leaping to the next. Putting only one foot down and not stoping even for a second I push off for the next column and then the next. This is relatively easy, but the ten foot drop, gradually increasing distance between each jump and the shrinking area on which to land add a touch of danger to the mix. Perfect. I continue jumping and jumping, now having to push myself to make it to the next jump, there is no end in sight and the burn in my legs and lungs (which had mostly gone away by the time I¡¯d finished walking to the start. Game physics for the win!) is starting to come back. It¡¯s getting difficult to position myself for the landing as well since the columns are starting to zigzag more and more, becoming increasingly random. There is an especially long jump coming up ahead. I put all my energy into leaping to the next platform, not thinking about anything beyond getting there. I make it, but I¡¯m looking around for the next place to jump to and there is nothing there. Unable to stop my forward momentum I topple forwards and finally catch a glimpse of the missing column 90 degrees to my right. With all of my frantic searching, not even once did I consider that the path might suddenly change direction. Up until now, all of the turns had been gradual and I had lost all awareness of everything that wasn¡¯t directly in front of me and a stone pole. BAM! All of the wind is knocked out of me and I struggle to take even the smallest of breaths. For those of you who haven¡¯t experienced it, getting the wind knocked out of you is the scariest and worst ephemeral injury (when I say ephemeral I mean something that you can naturally heal from in a week or less. A lightly sprained ankle is ephemeral. A broken leg is most definitely not). The reason that it is so bad is because it makes you believe, 100 percent, that you are going to suffocate. That you are going to die in one of the worst ways that you can imagine and there is nothing you can do about it. I¡¯ve had the wind knocked out of me more than half a dozen times and I can say with confidence that it never get¡¯s any easier. After the first few minutes of lying on my back and wheezing in and out, I get over enough of the fear to try and meditate to speed up the healing process. As soon as I do I¡¯m brought out of it by the pain and fear, but I try again. And again. And again until I¡¯m finally able to prevent myself from snapping out of it. As everything fades away I can, at last, think clearly without the fear clouding my mind. The first thing that I¡¯m able to recognize is that the meditation won¡¯t help me heal. My perfect recall in all of it¡¯s gloriousness means that I can remember the description of the skill word for word and it specifically says: ¡°Meditating while sitting in a meditative position will double mana recovery and increase health recovery by 50 percent.¡± Just in case you missed it, the key words there are ¡°while siting in a meditative position¡±. I¡¯m not sure what a meditative position is in Templa (though I would guess it is similar if not the same as it was in the real world), but I¡¯m almost positive that laying on your back while splayed out in a spread eagle position doesn¡¯t count. Still, even if it won¡¯t help my health (which is at 21 out of 30 by the way) regenerate, it is invaluable for it¡¯s mental clarity. The second thing that I notice while in meditation is that there are two icons at the top of my vision to the left of the currency counters. Some people with an impressive memory (or any champions of templa) may remember that this happened once before when the Poisonous High Jumper lived up to it¡¯s name by poisoning me. This time one of them is a terrified emoji face which seems to represent my crippling terror and the other is a yin-yang (which I know about because our PE teacher in school, may he burn in the fire pits of the demon lands, was really into Taoism (pronounce the T as a D) did nothing, but tell us about it). If I had to guess I would say that that represents my meditative mental state which is canceling out the fear.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The fear and lack of oxygen slowly fades (I can¡¯t feel it, but I¡¯m aware of my body and what¡¯s going on with it. After five or so more minutes I deactivate meditation and slowly push myself to my feet. That fall hurt way more than I can deal with if I¡¯m going to be flying and parkouring my way around Templa. Now that I¡¯m up, I start to slowly walk back towards the start of part one of the agility course. Since this will be a very slow trip until my health recovers enough to pick up the pace I start to think of how to deal with both the changing course and my falling problem. The course change isn¡¯t hard to fix. After all, now that I know it¡¯s a possibility it almost certainly won¡¯t surprise me again, but that highlighted a bigger problem that I have. I get stuck in rhythms. The guard who¡¯s actively changing up his pattern will be much more alert and hard to sneak past than the guard who is just doing his rounds. Therfore, in order to not get surprised like that again, I have to actively change up what I¡¯m doing all the time. That will keep me alert. Now obviously saying that I will constantly be alert and never fall into a pattern is much easier than actually doing it, but the first step to solving any problem is to recognize the issue and come up with a plan to deal with it. It will probably take years to master that, but if that¡¯s the first step and every journey starts with a¡­ Oh forget it, you know what I mean. There is no time like the present to implement this new philosophy of mine so I check my health and ¡ªseeing that it¡¯s at 26 out of 30¡ª start to jog while running through the poles instead of next to them. That forces me to keep my attention on the real world (or virtual one if you want to get technical) even while I¡¯m keeping up this weird inner monologue. On to my falling problem. Given that my future will most likely involve lots of falling either from running out of energy while falling or tripping off a cliff in one of my adventures or getting slapped into the air by one of the monsters or one of a hundred thousand other reasons so I can¡¯t just ignore this issue without it rearing it¡¯s ugly head at an inopportune time. Now I¡¯m assuming that in any one of these hundred thousand examples if I could have prevented the fall I would have. Therefore I won¡¯t focus on ways to prevent falls (though that is something I should look into). That means that I have to figure out a way to fall better. Fall better? There has to be a skill for that (since our AI gods have pretty much made a skill for everything), but how does one learn it¡­ Oh no. No, no, no, this is going to be awful. How do you get better at something? You practice. If you want to learn to use a knife then you stab stuff a bunch. If you want to learn how to fly faster and more gracefully then you spread your wings and do it. And if you want to learn to fall without killing yourself¡­ you fall. Crap. I may do a lot of painful stuff, but I am definitely not masochistic enough to enjoy reliving the past five minutes over and over again (has it been five? I¡¯m not really sure, but you get the point). ¡°Oh look there¡¯s the starting column again¡± I say out loud to the pillars and dirt around me as I dodge past the last few posts in my way. I take a deep breath at the ladder and try to think of one good reason not to climb up it just to come crashing back down. Quite a few come to mind (chiefly the pain and bodily harm that will befall me), but after another deep breath I start to climb anyway. At the end of the day I¡¯ll be stronger for this. Once I¡¯m at the top I check to make sure my health has fully recovered and I guess 29 out of 30 is close enough. Teeth gritted I step off of the platform and for a stomach dropping moment I¡¯m weightless. Then the ground hits my feet and my legs nearly crumble beneath me. I¡¯m barely able to stay standing (if you can call this awkward squat standing), but barely is just enough. That actually wasn¡¯t that bad. I didn¡¯t get the wind knocked out of me which is a definite improvement. Still, not bad isn¡¯t good. I need a way to soften the impact even more than bending my legs. Rolling has worked for me so far and I don¡¯t see any reason that it would fail now. I climb back up the ladder after checking my health (which is still at 29, so it either regenerated when I wasn¡¯t looking or I¡¯m a natural lemming) and jump off of the column again, this time even going a little bit up. I clench my stomach to prevent it from flying up into my throat and when I hit the ground I immediately roll whilst turning a bit so it doesn¡¯t kill my spine. The jolt when I landed was still substantial, but it was enormously reduced by the roll. This is not nearly as bad as I had imagined. Quickly climbing up the ladder once again I turn to jump once again and¡­AHHH. My foot snagged or I was too quick, the actual reason isn¡¯t clear to me, but my attempted jump has sent me tumbling off the edge in a way I never intended. I want to curl up into a ball and do my best to brace for impact, but that¡¯s not the smart move. My time slow has kicked in so I have time to watch the ground coming towards me at a surprisingly quick rate for how slowly the world is moving. Just like when a giant boulder was hurtling down at me, as I clamp down my jaw to prevent a scream, ancient instincts begin to tug at the more modern parts of my mind. Unable to resist them, I spread my wings just enough to catch the air and increase the rate at which I¡¯m spinning turning my previous one and a half rotations into a solid two. As my boots hit the ground I copy my roll from before and though it¡¯s far from perfect, when I finally stop and stagger to my feet my health has only gone down by five points and I have a few new windows to open. You have gained the skill Acrobatics. By jumping, falling, rolling and generally showing good acrobatic ability you have gained greater proficiency when performing any parkour like activities such as those listed above. This skill also increases your movement speed whilst moving in a difficult environment. By running along a series of columns with increasingly large gaps in-between them you have increased your agility by 2 and your strength by 1. By surviving two nasty falls without croaking your health has increased by 1 and your regeneration has increased by 1. Chapter 18: Burns and Breaks Chapter 18: Burns and Breaks A few deep breaths bring down my adrenalin levels enough for my hands to stop shaking. Phew. That certainly got my heart rate up. And even better, it got me the skill I needed (No more falling! Yay!) so that I can try the ossicle course again (Probably more falling. Boo!) I climb the stone ladder on the starting block for what is hopefully the last time and ready myself for what I''m about to do. A slow breath out... I got this. My feet begin to rocket me forward. Step, step step, step. Faster and faster as I leap from column to column. It was even easier than before. My newfound focus and skill certainly helped in that regard. And the extra agility points I had gotten from my falling adventures didn''t hurt either. There''s the turn that tripped me up before. Ugh. It is a miracle that I didn''t see this before. If I had looked away from the next column for just a fraction of a second I would have spied it. Whoever put this here was cleaver. The change in direction gets harder and harder to see as you get closer to it (unless you want to look away from the pillars you are about to step on). If you were focused just on the next column or two you never would have noticed until it was to late. Once you do know however it is just as easy to jump to as all of the previous platforms. Maybe even easier because the gap is a foot or two shorter. Regardless, I keep jumping on and on. Step, step, step, step, step... I''m beginning to think that I''ll be able to complete this course after all... ...Really? No change? No surprise? Huh. The virtual gods must be changing shifts or on a break or something. Murphy''s law never failed to disrupt me before. Step, step, step, step, step and leap! My feet thud down and I take a few steps to slow down. I did it. I did it! I finished the first part, finally landing on a platform the same size as the starting one (which is a nice change from the one foot by one foot columns I had been jumping on towards the end) with a sign on it with "Stage 1/5" on it. With a grin splitting my face I tap the blinking exclamation mark on the side of my vision and bring up my rewards. For completing the first of five portions in the Training hall''s agility course you receive 1 point to agility. One point?! I ran on tiny columns for thirty plus minutes and suffered a nasty fall for one measly point?! Are you joking?! My left hand forms a first while my right goes to my knife. I close my eyes and briefly clench my hands until the knuckles turn white before letting out a breath I didn''t know I was holding with a huff. There. Anger worked out. Most of it anyway. I''ll do the next portion, but if I don''t gain more this time, then I''m better off training my agility out in the plains and mountains. Now, what does part two of this course offer me? I glance up to assess the next ossicles and wow is there a steep learning curve here. One second you''re just happily running on columns and the next you have to cross logs which are laid out horizontally (and are spinning because why not), swing on ropes, do monkey bar looking things and climb a climbing wall. Oh and did I forget to mention the swinging blades and blasts of fire that you have to dodge. Yep. And that''s just what I can see. The climbing wall blocks my view of anything that may be beyond it. I am all for learning quickly, but stage one to stage two seems like too big of a jump. Alright, alright, I can do this. I just have to psych myself up and do it. It''s simple. Just sprint across the log as soon as the swinging axe has just crossed it to give myself enough time to get across. Simple. As long as I remember to put my feet slightly to the left to counteract the spinning I''ll be fine. Once I''m at the end I''ll jump off and grab the rope. Simple. Once I have a strong grip on it (or sightly before if I need it) I''ll activate time slow and figure out how to proceed from their. Yep it''s going to be totally simple.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Once again my hands start shaking from all the adrenalin coursing through my bloodstream. If I wait too long to do it then I won''t so...here...we...go! My legs start moving, gaining speed with each pump. Accelerating my body faster and faster. My foot comes down on the spinning log just as the axe rushes across it. Perfect. I feel myself about to slip as the rotation of the log pushes my leg to the right and off it, but my other boot is already touching the log and taking my weight. So much for not activating time slow until I grabbed the rope. It only takes two more steps to get across the log which is good because my steps grow increasing unstable the longer I''m on it. The swinging blade proved to be less of an issue than I thought it would be. It takes a full two seconds to complete it''s deadly path. More than enough time for me to slip by. As my feet finally leave the log hopefully for good, my wings stay tucked to my back. This course was designed for people under level five and, unless they wanted to make it completely impossible for the trainees to complete, it won''t require any flight. Huh. For most people, having wings must seem like a liability instead of a benefit. Man am I glad I''m not most people. My outstretched hands finally grasp the hanging rope and I clamp down with all the strength I can to stop myself from slipping off. Now wait until I''m at the peak of my swing and... release! Arching my back to get my legs under me I finally land on a platform which appears to be a safe place on the course where I can plan what to do next. Or not, apparently. Why do I ever say anything is safe? The platform is now sinking, ensuring that the longer I wait the more difficult it will be to jump to the monkey bars above. I have maybe ten seconds before the sinking will make me to low to jump up and that would be cutting it really close. Sigh. No rest for the weary. I take about three seconds to breath and get ready before squatting down and exploding upwards. Grab the bar with both hands... perfect. Now to swing across. It would normally be a piece of cake (even my impoverished grade school had a pair of monkey bars), but the periodic blasts of fire along it''s length add an extra challenge. Breath in, breath out and let''s do this. My time slow, along with the bright orange glow that precedes each fire blast should be enough to get me over to the end. I just have to swing, swing and swing and swing and wait and swing and wait and oh crap. I grit my teeth as a blast of fire in front of me prevents my escape and an orange glow behind and where I am warn of danger. Gahhh! The pain of being turned into barbecue is insane, but I somehow manage to hang on by one hand. OW OW OW that burns! And I only had two more rungs to go... Come on Blade, you can still make it. With blackened fingers and a clenched jaw I finally get to the end and drop (read collapse) onto the ledge bellow the climbing wall. Luckily the floor stays where it is this time. Sparing a glance at my health I can see it hovering at 4 out of 40. That almost wiped me out. I force myself into a sitting position and curl my legs in before activating meditation. I''m glad to see that it works the first time and I let out an involuntary sigh as the pain fades away into the background. It is very clear that neither my class nor my current hit points is suited to taking hits so I will happily stay off the front lines. Glad I have that resolved in my mind. Now, I''m going to have to stay in meditation for a little less than ten minutes (I have a regeneration of four and that is how many points I regenerate per minute) so I may as well put that time to good use. The next obstacle I have to overcome is the climbing wall (which is really just a regular rock wall). That shouldn''t be too hard given that I have some experience with climbing. I never took off the poorly made hand-wraps that I made either so I have that covered. Seems like a piece of cake. Now there is also the question of whether or not I want to keep trying the course after this, but I think I''ll wait until I see what the rewards for completing it''s second part are. There is something to be said for doing it all in one go, but at the same time I can always come back and there is a lot more to the training hall than just this. Finally, the last thing to mull over is if I decide I don''t want to keep doing the course, what should I do next. The training dummies are meh to me because I think the sparring area would give me better gains so unless I have a specific attack to practice I''ll skip it. The strength area does seem kind of interesting and I won''t say no to being able to hit harder, but it isn''t one of my main stats so it''s not a huge issue if I miss it. The big group tournament thing in the center is out of the question because I don''t have a group and, based on what I saw, that is something of a necessity. Having ruled out those three, it comes down to either the sparing area or the library. A tough choice, but between the two I have to go with the library first. It''ll be nice to have a chance to relax and it''s my best shot at learning magic. The thought of shooting fireballs out of my hand or bending spoons with my mind still makes me giddy. Alright, time to get to it. My health is stable at 40 out of 40 so I¡¯m good to go. There are also a notification on the side of my vision which popped up as soon as my health recovered fully, but I can just deal with that when I finish stage two. ¡°Now what do we have here¡± I mutter to myself as I look up at the black, stone wall. It¡¯s very similar to the mountainside which I climbed on my first day. Astonishingly so actually. Same volcanic looking pointy rock, same type of ledges¡­ it even has a big crack running down it¡¯s length. If I had to guess, the person (or AI) that designed this was preparing us for something. Are monsters or treasures found on mountainsides? Maybe? Something to keep in mind anyway. And with that I leap up to try and start as high as I can and begin my climb. Left hand to that hold there, right foot up a foot or two, now the right hand. This is incredibly simple with my new stats and while I can feel the strain, my endurance will more than bring me to the top. It probably doesn¡¯t hurt that this wall is way shorter than a mountain either. Wow. I pull myself past the last overhang and onto the top of the wall. That wasn¡¯t bad at all. And based on the sign directly in front of me with ¡°Stage 2/5¡± on it. That was all I had to do. There¡¯s even a nice ladder carved into the stone on one side so I can get down; not that I¡¯ll be needing it. With a little hop off the side I¡¯m in free fall. I spread my wings and glide to the side of the agility course (whilst being as discrete as I can) and then settle rather ungracefully onto one of the tracks surrounding the five areas. Up to the library I suppose. I settle into a decent pace and jog towards the back of the Hall. While I¡¯m doing that let¡¯s check out my gains. For completing the second of five portions in the Training hall''s agility course you receive 2 points to agility. For taking on fire and pushing through the pain your health has increased by 1. Chapter 19: Collections and Compendiums Chapter 19: Collections and Compendiums Now that I¡¯ve sorted out all of the stat gains it¡¯s time for the real fun to start. To the library! Yep, while no one will ever guess it, I love books. A current demon, future greatest assassin ever (hopefully) and previous slum girl is a sucker for a good novel. You have to understand that my life was pretty much constant awfulness and books were my ticket to another world. My escape hatch as it were. I haven''t felt any urges to find some new books since I¡¯ve been in templa (what use is a ticket to another world when you¡¯re already there?), but that doesn¡¯t mean I won¡¯t appreciate the chance. The fact that magic may be available doesn¡¯t hurt either. I finally stop jogging as I approach the stairs in the back of the training hall. Step by step I make my way up whilst marveling at the drastic change from the ground floor. Whereas below there was hard stone floors, instruments of pain lining the walls and the constant sound of metal on metal, I now find soft lighting illuminating dark paneled walling and a deep red carpet. Somehow it has become completely quiet as well. As I finally come to the top of the stairs I can see rows upon rows of bookshelves with reading areas every few feet. ¡°How can I help you dear?¡± I hear to my left. Snapping my neck to the side I can see an elderly demon with white hair dressed in a black robe who might actually be older than Zim standing patiently about three feet from me. How did he sneak up on me that well? I¡¯m supposed to be a ghost, but I should probably be taking lessons from him. Remembering Zim¡¯s warning about never judging people based on their age I use essence sight on him. 108 *whistle*. Jeez he could probably level this whole building on his own. Showing slightly more deference (and vigilance) I finally answer his question. ¡°Could you point me to some books on magic¡± A slight smile appears on his face ¡°Interesting. I suppose Zim was right about your uniqueness. The books on magic are on the other side of the library, but before you go you should know that it will not be easy for you to learn magic. Your class doesn¡¯t usually gain an aptitude for the arcane until at least level 10.¡± There are a number of questions rattling around in my brain (which makes sense considering that I didn¡¯t understand like 90% of what he said), but for some reason the first one to come to my lips is ¡°You know Zim?¡± His smile only grows more pronounced ¡°Why of course, we were in the same adventuring party after all. That was a long time ago, but we still try and keep in touch. Especially when someone interesting comes along. I¡¯m Malthus by the way.¡± Huh. Well that explains his level at least. ¡°I¡¯m Blade¡± (Arn¡¯t I just a master of conversation) ¡°What were you saying about not being able to learn magic?¡± ¡°Well it¡¯s not that you can¡¯t, but it will be extremely difficult. Every class picks up on magic at some point. Warrior¡¯s wreathing their swords in flame, thieves attracting gold like a magnet, etcetera¡­ but it there is a certain point when they unlock their mana pools and can experiment with it freely. Before then it¡¯s like trying to get water by wringing out a towel as opposed to using a bucket. If you trained for a week, then perhaps you could learn to light a campfire. Of course mages, clerics and other classes like that unlock their mana pools at level one, but I¡¯m afraid that ghosts aren¡¯t quite the same.¡± Well crap. Malthus must notice the depressed look on my face (not that it would be hard) because he places his hand on my shoulder and with a consoling tone says ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be too sad young one. While you may not have magic yet, it¡¯s not like you never will. Magic is something for the future and if Zim is correct you have things that you need to be focusing on right now. Some trials perhaps. Oh and on that note, helping you prepare for the trials is something that I can certainly help you with.¡± I usually hate it when people interrupt my grieving, but he is right. I¡¯ll be able to use magic later and until then I have stuff to do. ¡°You can help with the trials? Do you know what the next one will be?¡± ¡°Unfortunately that is something that not even the head librarian in Direburn, one of the most knowledgable people in the world, could tell you. Only Volos himself and his closest followers know what is coming. Nothing in all of templa could make them tell you. Don¡¯t be discouraged however, just because I don¡¯t know what¡¯s coming doesn¡¯t mean I can¡¯t help you prepare. Follow me.¡± And with that he turns and walks off at a rather swift pace towards the north western corner of the library. I haven¡¯t the faintest idea what I¡¯m still doing in this library when I could be grinding my stats, but he seems to have a destination in mind and I don¡¯t really want to annoy him. I hurriedly jog to catch up to him. He glances back at me and nods slightly. As we begin to approach the far wall Malthus finally stops and begins to run his finger over the different titles, speaking to me as he does so. ¡°We are now in the skills section of the library. Everything less than ten feet or so from this corner is on, about or concerns skills. If even half of the rumors about your activities are true, then you should have a good number of them yes?¡± With that he stops his search and looks at me expectantly. ¡°I don¡¯t know. Maybe?¡± Malthus¡¯ eyes are hard to make out in this light, but I¡¯m pretty sure they roll right about now. ¡°Let me rephrase. How many skills do you have?¡±The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°¡­Eleven¡± One of his eyebrows arches up a little, but otherwise he seems unchanged. ¡°And what level are they?¡± ¡°Level one¡± ¡°Right. Now surely you have used at least one of your skills extensively, so answer me this. Why hasn¡¯t even one of them leveled up yet?¡± That feels like a trick question. What I want to say is that they just take more use to level up, but if it was that simple then he wouldn¡¯t have asked me in the first place. I¡¯m not coming up with a different answer to his question though, so let¡¯s just shrug and have him tell us. I give him a shrug, but he just looks at me with an expectant expression, clearly wanting more. Of course. Very well Malthus I¡¯ll play your little game, but don¡¯t expect me to like it! ¡°Does it just take more practice than I currently have?¡± I say in the most unsure voice I can muster up. I swear the corner of his lip twitches into a smirk, but it disappears before I can be sure. ¡°Well you¡¯re not wrong¡± (How much you want to be I¡¯m not right either?) ¡°But your not totally correct either.¡± (What did I tell you) ¡°If you simply used your skills enough then they would eventually level up, however that isn¡¯t the best way to do it. When a swordsmen wants to improve his skill does he just fight opponents until he gets better. No, of course not. That would work, yes, but it is far more efficient if he practices new techniques on a dummy and tries to see where he could do better or looks for a master to teach him. In order to rapidly advance your skill level you need to focus on improving that skill specifically. If you want to improve your level of sneak for example then you need to actively look for ways that you could be more stealthy. Find shadows to hide in in a forest and try to make it second nature to flow into them, for example.¡± He gives a conspiratorial wink whilst continuing to search among the books for something. At last his finger seems to alight on something which satisfies him and he breaks out into a wide smile. ¡°Here it is¡± He says pulling from the shelves a thick volume with a coarse leather jacket that is emblazoned with golden letters. ¡°The Compendium of Skills by Rykmen Blot?¡± I say in a tone so thick with incredulity it¡¯s probably dripping onto the floor. ¡°Yes indeed¡± Responds Malthus, either missing (which I doubt is possible) or completely ignoring the inflection in my voice. ¡°This is one of the most complete record of skills ever made. It will let you learn about all sorts of useful abilities as well as how to get them if the information is known. Not only that, but for most of the common skills, this will have some information on ways to improve them.¡± ¡°Thanks¡± I reply ¡°Where would be a good place to read some of this?¡± ¡°There is a reading area three shelves down from here to your left.¡± He says whilst pointing south. ¡°I¡¯ll leave you to it then.¡± He moves to walk away, but I do have one more question of him. ¡°Hey Malthus?¡± He stops mid stride and turns his head back towards me. ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°Why do you have all these books about skills when the one you just gave me seems like it would work all on it¡¯s own? I don¡¯t think you¡¯re one of those people with a million different copies of what amounts to the same information so most of the should be unique. How complicated can skills possibly be that you would have hundreds of books on them?¡± Malthus lets out a little laugh ¡°That¡¯s certainly an interesting mind you have there. Most people just take the book I give them and go read it, but not you.¡± He seems done, but then looks at my face (which is conveying just how annoying deflecting a question can be) and shakes his smiling head ruefully. ¡°Answers and knowledge are never given in the demon lands. They are always earned. Sometimes it you earn it by slaying a fearsome yeti in the bitter cold mountains and finding a lost grimoire in it¡¯s stash and other times the price is making knowledgeable friends. Sometimes it¡¯s as easy as finding the right book.¡± He gives me another of those winks before resuming his stroll away. ¡°I know that you¡¯ll be itching to figure it out, but you may want to read that compendium I gave you first. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush after all and this¡­¡± His hands splay out to indicate the shelves around us, never halting in his stride ¡°¡­is a pretty big bush. Still, I see nothing wrong with you looking around afterword. The library is open to all.¡± With his last words seeming to echo, Malthus disappears from sight. Sound advice it would seem. Even in this world the elderly are wise. The ones I¡¯ve met at least. Anyway. Lets see find a seat then see if the Compendium of Skills will live up to it¡¯s reputation. I follow Malthus¡¯ directions (three shelves down and to my left in a southward direction) and find a comfortable looking area with a curved red velvet couch curling around a table made from the same dark wood as everything else. There¡¯s a light stone hanging above the table (My inner thief says take it, but my inner coward remembers Malthus¡¯ level) which illuminates the area quite nicely. I take a seat on plush velvet and settle in before cracking open the thick leather cover. It opens up strait to the table of contents and wow am I going to be here for a while. It¡¯s written in roughly size 7 font and has pages the same thickness as a bible so unless I can somehow narrow this down I¡¯ll be reading this for a week. Let¡¯s see, I can break this into two basic sections: The skills I already have and the skills I want. I know what I have, so that only leaves one question. What do I want to learn? Level: 2 Free stat points: 0 Strength: 4 Agility: 10 Dexterity: 6 Endurance: 8 Heath: 50 (1 point= +10) Mana: 20 (1 point =+10) Regeneration: 4 Wisdom: 5 Skills Essence Sight. This ability will give you the ability to asses almost anything you focus on and find information on the object or person. Quality and amount of information will increase as your skill level does. This ability won¡¯t work on items obscured by an essence shadow of an equal or higher level than your level of essence sight. Current skill level: 1 Essence field. You will now be able to see names as well as health and mana levels of NPC¡¯s, champions and monsters. This skill has no levels. Current skill level: 1 Wing push. This is a hidden skill which cannot be taught and is unique to the demon and angle races. This skill, involving both wings, will send a blast of air at an opponent possibly stunning it and pushing both the user and target back. The chance of stunning and the distance pushed back will increase with skill level. Current skill level: 1 Stealth. This ability allows you to sneak near enemies without them seeing or otherwise sense you. This is a general ability and there are multiple specialized abilities that are modifications of this ability such as jungle stealth which will help you sneak while in a jungle. The effects of this ability can be negated by an adversary with the perception ability. Current skill level: 1 Cooking. This skill will allow you to use ingredients that you find or purchase to create delicious meals. At a high enough level with high enough level ingredients the food can give bonuses to stats which at even higher levels can be permanent. Current skill level: 1 Time Slow. When you are in a situation where your normal body cannot react fast enough to a threat your mind will speed itself up making everything else seem to slow down. This takes a great toll on your mind so it will use up mana and you will not be able to use this repeatedly in a short period of time or sustain it for long periods of time without experiencing side effects. Increasing the level of this skill will decrease the amount of mana expended for each second of Time Slow and reduces the side effects when using this skill repeatedly or for a long time. Current skill level: 1 Flight. This is a passive skill that determines the skill with which you fly as well as the time you are able to fly. It will increase the more you fly. Current skill level: 1 Bartering. This skill will increase your ability to get better prices both for purchases and sales. In order to increase this skill it is necessary to get above standard prices from people. Current skill level: 1 Meditation. By putting your mind into a state of tranquility and calm and pushing all external thoughts out of your mind you can enhance your brain¡¯s ability to process information and create better plans or analyze information with greater proficiency. Meditating while sitting in a meditative position will double mana recovery and increase health recovery by 50 percent. Higher levels of Meditation will make the mana and health recovery even greater and allow for even better mental processing. Current skill level: 1 Acrobatics. By jumping, falling, rolling and generally showing good acrobatic ability you have gained greater proficiency when performing any parkour like activities such as those listed above. This skill also increases your movement speed whilst moving in a difficult environment. Current skill level: 1 Chapter 20: Skills and Secrets Chapter 20: Skills and Secrets ¡°Ahhh¡± I sigh, sitting back and cracking my back to work out the kinks. That was a tough few hours. I¡¯m not sure exactly how long I¡¯ve been here, pouring over the tiny letters that make up The Compendium of Skills. I have to say, Rykmen Blot certainly did his homework. There have to be thousands of skills listed in here and all of them have pretty detailed information. The downside to all of that is, of course, the fact that there are thousands of skills I don¡¯t care about and probably never will care about, each of which have a paragraph (that is a minimum, there were some which the author was particularly ¡°excited¡± about which took up whole pages). That makes this an absolute nightmare because I learned quickly that the name of the skill can be deceptive (Is their any name more vague than ¡°Set¡±?) and so I had to at least skim over every single entry to see if it would be useful to me. I have to hand it to the developing AI. If this is just the common skills then there must be tens if not hundreds of thousands of skills. Lots of diversity. That does make me want to experiment in the future to try and find some rare (and hopefully powerful) skills, but this book has given me plenty to work towards for now. The list of what I want to get is pretty long and there were a lot of other great entries, but spending eternity just learning skills isn¡¯t on my agenda. With that in mind I flip through the book to all the pages I¡¯ve dogeared (I know, I know, but there weren¡¯t any bookmarks around). Up first is ¡°6th sense¡±. This skill will supposedly give me a 6th sense (who could have guessed?) that will give me a feeling of danger if there is something/someone dangerous about or if I am being watched. It wasn''t the best explained of all the entries, but at later levels I think I will be able to differentiate between different dangers somehow. This seemed exceptionally useful and the only thing I have to do to get it is catch people watching me. The actual number of times I need to do it is unclear, but it seems like the harder it was to catch them the fewer it will be. Being able to sense danger and when I¡¯m being watched sounds invaluable for secret meetings, navigating trap filled dungeons (or trap filled houses as the case may be) and just general life in templa. Next, I want to learn ¡°Lock picking¡±. This skill seems pretty self explanatory and it isn¡¯t that hard to see what use an assassin could have for such an ability. It is supposedly is relatively difficult to learn and most of the regular players would probably struggle very hard. Luckily, due to my¡­ unique¡­ origin I may already know my way around a pick and a tension wrench. Judge me or don¡¯t, but it will be undeniably useful. In addition, I am looking to pick up the skill ¡°Slight of Hand¡±. This can be used in a variety of ways, but the main one that comes to mind is pick pocketing (Assassination might not always pay the bills and thievery is underrated). I don''t have quite as much experience with this as look picking (people aren¡¯t my strong suit in case you haven¡¯t noticed), but I won¡¯t exactly be starting from scratch by any stretch of the imagination. Oh and I forgot to say how to acquire Lock Picking, but it should be pretty easy to figure out. Pick a lock. Same goes for slight of hand, you just have to pick a pocket or do a magic show or anything else that requires slight of hand. Besides that, ¡°Eye for Weakness¡± seems like it could be handy. It will allow me to look at an enemy, be it demon, monster or something else, and see week points. The throat of most humanoids is a good example. It turns out that in Templa where you strike is very important. A large health pool will certainly save your life, but if someone cuts off your head then you die, period. It¡¯s part of why weapons have no damage stats. In case you didn¡¯t realize, this was one of those skills that got Rykmen Blot really excited and he wrote about it for a page and a half. A page and a half! Anyway, I¡¯m already on my way to receiving this since I focused on hitting the spine and achilles tendon of that Poisonous High Jumper and the achilles (love that spot) of the warrior dude in the trials. I will also want to try and get ¡°Dampen¡± which would help mask any sounds I make (Unless I purposefully try and make noise, it doesn¡¯t prevent that). It will be very helpful in conjunction with stealth and probably allow me to do my job much better. At later levels the sound will be masked more, but after that it gets even better because I will be able to quiet other people as well. That means that I could do silent kills to avoid a dying guard alerting everyone else in the building. (That is just as an example. I¡¯m sure there will be many more uses for silencing others. Its a ways off though so I¡¯ll figure them out when I actually have this ability.) In order to learn this, all I have to do is try and focus on moving and just generally being silent. The book specifically recommended that I try and practice whilst using stealth. Supposedly it is quite a bit harder when you can¡¯t see your feet all that well and difficulty will cause you to learn the skill more quickly.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. There were a few more skills that I want to get eventually, but I only have a limited training time and the book didn¡¯t know how you were meant to get these specific skills. The prime example of this is ¡°Intangibility¡±. The book was very vague on the details of this skill, but supposedly it allows the user to pass through solid objects like a ghost. That was the actual words they used so you can understand my interest. Can you imagine what an incredible advantage this would be? It could allow you to escape prison with ease (which will almost certainly be necessary for me at some point). It could allow you to survive a deathly strike (also probably going to be necessary). It could allow you to infiltrate any house, access any mark, evade any pursuer (Though all these things depend on there not being a way to counter this. I have no doubt that such methods exist, but I would be surprised if they were common). This skill could be my greatest trump card. My ace. Unfortunately Rykmen Blot wasn¡¯t aware of any way to acquire this skill, nor did he ever see its system given description. He didn¡¯t know how it was leveled up or if it was race or class specific. He only witnessed it from a distance a few times and never saw the face of its users. His best guess was that it used mana (Whyyyyyyyy?), but he didn¡¯t know that for sure either. The only information that he was able to get when he used analyze (an advanced skill similar to essence sight that gives information on skills or spells) was it¡¯s name. Intangibility intrigued me and drew me towards it inexplicably. I really, really want this skill. I will look for it and do everything I can think of to acquire it, but that is something for another time. For now, I should try to find out why there are so many books about skills. I stand up from my chair slowly, stretching as I do so. Phew, glad that¡¯s over with. With my body gradually approaching normalcy I look around at the shelves surrounding me. Nothing jumps out at me so I start to walk around looking for anything that¡¯s out of place. Running my finger along the volumes I find many interesting entries (like ¡°A Rogue¡¯s Guide to Dangerous Alchemy¡±), but nothing really strange until one book on the second shelf from the top with an interesting coloring. The jacket material looks like leather, very similar to that of The Compendium of Skills, but it is died to an extremely dark color as though they had soaked it in tar or blood then left it to dry for a few years. I can''t remember if I¡¯ve seen any others like it in the library, but I don''t think so and a quick glance to the left and right confirms that none are nearby. It could just be a random weird book, but this is a game and the gaming community doesn¡¯t really do coincidences. With that in mind I reach up and try to pluck it from it¡¯s shelf only for the top to tip forward while the bottom stays put. Narrowing my eyes, I look around for Malthus before quickly scaling the bookshelf to take a closer look. Ha, I knew it! Leading from the back of the book is a thin, dark string that stretches back then curves down where I loose sight of it. It would be impossible to see from the ground. The base itself seems to be on some hidden hinge to prevent it from going anywhere. I am about to jump down, but just before I do I spot what may be a title on the front, hidden under a layer of dust. Awkwardly holding myself in place with one shaking hand, I use the other to brush clean the dark leather. When the words finally become legible there is only a simple sentence in red ink. ¡°The Dark Room: Volume 2¡±. Huh. That doesn¡¯t mean anything to me, but it certainly tells me a lot (if that makes any sense at all). It tells me that there is at least one more volume out there and probably more. It also means that there is definitely something to this and that finding all the books will probably lead me to a room. Presumably a dark one. Perfect. I quickly hop down and watch carefully in case the book starts to go back, but the string stays pulled even as I walk away. With that settled (hopefully) I begin to carefully scan the shelves for dark books making sure to be as thorough as I can. There! I finally spot one after coming back to an area where I was reading the compendium earlier. This one is one the bottom shelf and is surrounded by two significantly larger books which makes it much harder to find. This specific book is volume 1 (which was confirmed much more easily since it was on the ground and I didn¡¯t have to use any climbing skills to figure it out). Unless I miss my guess volume 3 will be the final one. I¡¯ve been looking around for an hour and a half or three if you count the time I spent looking when I didn¡¯t know what I was looking for and I don¡¯t think the AI is so cruel as to keep me doing this for much longer. Plus, mysterious things always come in three¡¯s. I continue the search, but the finally one is elusive. I am almost considering giving up¡­ but no, I''ve invested too much time into searching so I have to continue. If I was a mysterious trick book that lead to a secret room where would I be? With the daylight that was streaming in the center skylight slowly fading I finaly catch a glimpse of the last volume, It was shielded by another novel which was proper up against the other books instead of being properly shelved. I seriously doubt it was an accident (whoever thought of that is a true sadist), but I found it regardless. Taking a deep breath and holding my knife in the other hand, I pull on the last string and ready myself for anything that might happen. Chapter 21: Orbs and Obscurity Chapter 21: Orbs and Obscurity The last book (it better be) locks into place with a very satisfying thunk, finally put into the correct position, I hear a click¡­ and then again¡­ and again, and again, and again, click, click, click click clickclickclick. Eyes wary I back away and bring my knife up and brace myself for the inevitable explosion¡­ ¡­But it never happens. Instead a burst of compressed air blasts me in the face, powerful enough that it would have knocked me back a bit had I not been braced. I open my eyes to find that a section of bookshelf, books and all, has swung open to reveal a dark room. Squinting does nothing to aid me so I pass through the wall and enter, using my hands to keep me from hitting anything. Its a good thing I did too since I barely manage a step into the room before my fingertips brush a wall. I may have been overly optimistic when calling this a room. Randomly choosing a direction, I turn right and keep an arm on both sides to guide me forward. The path continues for about 3 feet before terminating in another wall. Spinning around (slowly to avoid slamming my arm into a wall) and letting out a soft sigh I continue on to the left. Sigh! I need to get a night vision skill, if not for the combat advantage in low light environments then for the ease of life when I am in stumbling around in a pitch black hallway of some sort. I have continued at a rather slow pace along this corridor for at least 20 feet and nothing appears to have changed. On top of that I have no idea how much father I am supposed to go. Night vision would be so, so, so good right now. Wait a second. Why would I need night vision when I have an eternal light source on me that I can never possibly loose. I am such and idiot! After face-palming myself multiple times over my own stupidity (perfect recall doesn¡¯t help if you aren¡¯t actively trying to access the memories) I mentally reach into my inventory and pull out my Luminous Essence Cristal that I stol¡­ acquired from the Trials of Volos. With the hallway now lit I can see that it is far from normal. While it shares the dimensions of a regular hallway, this particular one is made out of a substance that I have never seen before. It has a similar patter (if it can even be called that) to marble with the streaks running through it, but instead of white with gray, the stone is black with streaks of red. It looks quite imposing, even more so because there are no seams or cracks where blocks were joined. It is as though there was once a huge block of this stone that someone carved a passageway into rather than building it out of anything. Suitably impressed with the walls, I focus my attention forward to try and see where this leads. What I see doesn¡¯t give me much of an idea as to what purpose this room holds, but the dark red doors with black handles (because of course that¡¯s their color) does at least reassure me that the passageway isn¡¯t endless. Walking slowly to the door and keeping a watchful eye out for any traps, I grasp my knife and prepare to use it at a moments notice. My hand grasps the knob, turns it and then swings the door open. When no darts, fire, axes, monsters or other surprises come leaping out I float the Luminous Essence Cristal forward and peer into the room. What greets me is a medium sized (about 10 feet wide and tall) square room made of the same material as the hallway. It is completely empty (though I know better than to trust my eyes when it comes to that) save for a glowing mist in the exact center. It is extremely similar to the loot mist that appeared when I killed the Poisonous High Jumper, but instead of being shaped like a frog it is in the form of a perfect circle. I poke my head through the door and glance left and right to confirm that the corners don¡¯t have anything in them and then start walking towards the mist. It¡¯s interesting that this exists, but not particularly surprising. This is a game, after all, and games give rewards to people who complete puzzles. The only question I have now is what said reward will be. Stats? Money? Equipment? That last one would make a lot of sense since that¡¯s what I received from the loot mists before, but there are some issues. What equipment for example. Is it predetermined? If so then wouldn¡¯t some classes benefit more than others? Does it depend on the class? But then what if it gives me something that I already have a better one of (like a dagger)? What if I already have a full set of high level equipment. Would I get better stuff? I don¡¯t really know, but I¡¯ve probably already followed this line of thinking too far and the answer is right in front of me. Clearing my thoughts I reach out a hand (the left one that isn¡¯t holding a knife) and tap the mist sphere.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Congratulations! You have gained one of the 6 Level Spheres of the Training Hall. You have been granted one level. (You have found the Sphere in the library section. Acquiring other spheres will involve different activities.) You have leveled up! You have 5 free stat points. Well that was unexpected, but I am totally fine with that. As in, TOTALY fine with that. That is really awesome! I had been expecting pretty much anything except that actually. I had assumed that killing stuff was the only way to acquire experience, but that line of reasoning is totally flawed. How would craftsmen be able to earn XP if that were true. There must be a thousand ways to get to the next level, and while killing monsters is certainly a good one I should not forget that I have other options. Level three is new territory for me so congratulations Blade. Now all I have to do is decide where I want to distribute these points and then go down and try out the sparing area. Hopefully I can get some much needed experience from some of the fights (Properly using a knife actually requires a good amount of skill and mastering knife fighting is ridiculously difficult. I know how to swing one around without stabbing myself and I have a ok level of control, but my total combat experience amounts to stabbing a few unarmed punks that were trying to mug me and getting into fights with other untrained street rats like myself. Far from enough to go as far as I want to go.) I think it would be good to do two types of fights, at some point I should do a few fights with the other players. I seriously doubt that most of them will pose a threat to me, but it will be good to have an idea of how powerful I am compared to people of my level. I should also definitely spar with the instructors. While the other players might not be too much of a challenge the instructors most certainly will (challenge is the best way to advance no?) and they will also be able to give me tips on how to fight more effectively and efficiently. Back to the present then. What to do with these starts? Mana and Wisdom aren¡¯t going to be useful for me for a while (and I''m pretty sure they won¡¯t ever be the main parts of my build) so those are out. More endurance certainly won¡¯t hurt, but I think that 8 will be fine, at least for this level up. It¡¯s my second highest stat and thats more than enough. Ghosts are as pretty much close to the opposite of tanks as a melee class can get (this is hyperbole, I know thats probably not really true) so 50 health is fine for now. Dexterity is where I really want to invest this time since it¡¯s lagging behind. Now I don¡¯t want to invest more than three points in any one stat after a level-up (unless I leveled more than once) because I while I may not want to be a jack of all trades, I don¡¯t want to go full min-max either. That means that I¡¯ll put three points in Dexterity, bringing it up to 9. Now on the topic of the other two free points, I think I will use them to shore up my weak points and that means using them in my two lowest stats: Strength and Regeneration. It can¡¯t hurt. With my choices made I mentally click a few times to assign the points and then turn towards the exit, looking around me carefully for any secrets. It doesn''t look like there are any and I think a full level is worth far too much to leave any other freebies lying around. Now that that¡¯s all sorted out lets go down to the sparing area and learn how to kill people more effectively. I walk back through the hallway and out the door when I suddenly hear a low thud. Immediately spinning around, I bring my knife out to bear¡­ ¡­ But there¡¯s no one here. Just a bookcase full of books and a complete lack of any secret passageway. Well that makes some sense at least. Wouldn''t be good if people could just stumble upon an open door and get there rewards. There has to be some sort of system to reset everything. Done staring, I put my knife back in my belt and keep walking, absentmindedly scanning the shelves for anything interesting. Ooh¡­ that might be worth checking out. A particular book on the middle shelf catches my eye titled ¡°Monsters; a complete guide (levels 1 - 50)¡±. They say ¡°know thine enemy¡± don''t they. Monsters are enemies and it definitely won¡¯t hurt me to know more about them. I''ll definitely have to pick that up when I¡¯m finished here. I make a mental note to come back here and then continue towards the exit. ¡°So you found out why there are so many books did you? Very impressive, not many people do and even less do it so quickly.¡± ¡°GAH!¡± I spin around to confront the sudden voice before recognizing it and controlling myself. ¡°Malthus! What are you doing sneaking up on people like that?!¡± "Can''t grant an old man his fun?¡± He chuckles briefly. ¡°I just wanted to check up on you before you left the library. It¡¯s not often someone with so much promise passes through.¡± ¡°Screw you¡± I say, still mad, but getting over the shock ¡°Oh and to answer your earlier question yes I did find out why. Still though, isn¡¯t that a lot of effort just to hide three books?¡± ¡°Perhaps. But it¡¯s less than you might think when books can be replicated magically. Scribes still do write some stuff down, but for regular books like this a high level scribe merely has to wave his or her hand.¡± ¡°Makes sense I suppose. Well I¡¯ll see you later then. I¡¯m going to head to the sparing area.¡± Malthus lets out another infuriating chuckle before replying ¡°Really Blade? That may be rather difficult with no instructors and next to no players in here. It¡¯s 9:30. The Training Hall is always open, but it¡¯s only staffed in the day. Instructors have lives too you know. ¡°Oh¡­ umm¡­ I didn¡¯t really think of that¡± I say puzzled. ¡°I¡­guess¡­I¡¯ll¡­train¡­more?¡± Malthus just shakes his head ¡°Go to bed Blade. You don¡¯t have any sleep resisting abilities so unless you want some pretty debilitating debuffs you¡¯re just going to have to get some rest.¡± I sigh deeply, but recognize the sleepiness that is beginning to hit me. ¡°Ok.¡± I say ¡°See you tomorrow Malthus¡± before starting to head out of the Training Hall and back to Roth''s shop.