《Silver Dragon Syndicate》


 Silver Dragon Syndicate - Prologue

    **Author''s Note: I was going to introduce a little background story for the main starting group but that would have made the prologue too long. So chapters 1 and 2 will kind of be the introduction chapters to give some info on the characters and a glimpse at their personalities.**


    It was a time when Virtual Reality, VR for short, was a common technology used in households everywhere. Since it was mostly a form of entertainment, there were many VR games out there from various different genres. A company called Torgate was bringing out a new technology to compete in the VR field. They claimed that not only will reality have an effect on the VR, but the VR might also have an effect on reality. They called this technology Full Immersion VR, FIVR for short.


    FIVR worked differently from VR in that things you do inside the VR world can have an effect on reality too. Not to mention that unlike typical VR games, with FIVR, a person would be able to feel everything as well as see it. It allowed the use of all 5 senses inside the game as if the person was living there. The company claimed that the reality level of their game was 95%. The release date of the game was still a few months away but there were already over a billion copies sold.


    **********


    "Hello everyone, thank you for tuning into VRTV news. My name is Lenore Mckenzie and I will be your host today. Today, we bring you an interview with the CEO of Torgate enterprises. On to you Marina."


    "Thank you Lenny. Hi everyone. This is Mariana Rush of VRTV here with Ritsu Shinosaki, the CEO of Torgate. We''re here to talk about the upcoming game that''s kicking up a storm on the net these days."


    The camera switches focus to an East-Asian lady who is dressed in a business suit. It is hard to tell her age from her appearance but she looks to be in her mid-40s. She waves at the camera and says, "Hello. I am Ritsu Shinosaki and I hope that everyone will greatly enjoy Celestial Realms."


    Marina: "Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today Mrs. Shinosaki. I hope you can answer some questions we have today. I want to start by asking what makes FIVR so different from regular VR."


    Ritsu: "That''s a good question. I want to tell you but then I would need to kill you."


    Marina turns a bit pale as it was said with a very serious face. A couple of seconds pass before Ritsu winks and starts laughing. After calming down, she adds, "Joking aside, the difference between FIVR and VR is that VR mostly uses the visual cues to let a person see things from a different view. With FIVR, the person will be able to use all 5 or 6 senses to almost fully experience things."


    Marina: "You said almost fully. Why not fully?"


    Ritsu: " Well...if it was fully, then if you were to die in the game, you really would be dead. I don''t think anyone wants that. Which is also why we''ve capped the feeling of pain at 50%. Of course users can set it at lower level as the minimum is 20%. So if you get hit, it will hurt but only in the game. But if you were to exercise inside the game and your muscles feel pain from the growth in strength, you will feel that in reality as well. This is because FIVR will electrically stimulate the muscles in the body to develop the muscles used in the game. This was done to make it so that people who play as Warriors will not have a disadvantage against those who play as Mages."


    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Seems the information was a bit much for Marina (and the rest of the crew) to take as a strong silence settled in. A few minutes later, Ritsu broke the spell with a small cough. Still a bit dazed, Marina asked, "So you mean that athletes can train inside an FIVR environment and actually see results?"


    Ritsu: "Yes, that''s correct. Assuming they survive getting attacked by monsters and such anyway. There are limitations as there''s only so much available in the starting areas. So if athletes want to continue to improve, they would need to be able to fight off dangerous creatures as well."


    Marina: "Moving on, what can you tell us about the game Celestial Realms? I heard that there are different classes and races in the game. Can you tell us about that as well?"


    Ritsu: "I won''t say too much about the world as that would spoil things a bit too much. But I will say that like the real world, the world inside Celestial Realms also changes. As for the classes and races...well, there are the typical starting races of Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs for now. Everyone starts as a Trainee until they decide to change to a different class. Most class change takes place fairly early at level 10. Typical classes include Warrior, Mage, Thief, and Cleric. There are others out there though. Classes like Paladin or Assassin, players will have to find on their own. As for any other information, I will not spoil and give away."


    Marina: "You said, ''for now,'' when you were talking about race. Does that mean there are other races for players as well?"


    Ritsu winks and just says, "That''s a company secret. I will say this much though, the biggest limits to your character inside the game are ones each player sets for themselves."


    Marina: "Looks like there is a lot for people to discover in Celestial Realms. I''m getting excited to see how things will be. Thank you for your time Mrs. Shinosaki. And that''s all we have for you about the upcoming game, Celestial Realms. Good luck everyone. Back to you Lenore."


    Lenore: "Thank you Marina. I''m not sure about others here in the studio, but I''m looking forward to this game now. I think I''ll make a Human to play around with. See you next time on VRTV news!"


    **Author''s note: Feel free to give feedback and criticism regarding any mistakes I make.

 Chapter 1 - Before the beginning

    **Author''s Note: Please note that this story will involve changes in the point of view of the character on a regular basis. It will still maintain a narrative type of writing for the most part but that might change in the future. As for this chapter in particular, it might be a little on the boring side as it''s only giving a glimpse of the background of those that can be considered as the core/starting cast of the story. I''m also trying my best not to reveal too much about the characters themselves. Now that that bit is out of the way, enjoy~ **


    Kaori had just finished watching the interview with the CEO of Torgate on VRTV and was excited. She really liked the idea of there being very little limitations of how the character can grow. She did have some ideas she wanted to try out and started to sketch and write up a blueprint of her own character. She knew from the research she did that the game limited you to only one class for balance purposes but it didn''t say anything about the profession classes. In fact, there was very little information about professions and how they worked altogether. ''So if the biggest limits to characters are what we set...does that mean I can learn more than one of the production professions? I''ll have to look into that when the game starts,'' she thinks as she continues to plan her character out.


    While she was working on the blueprint for her character, she received a notification that sister, Yuri, had come online. She was really close to her sister in terms of bonds but they were currently living in different cities. Kaori had graduated from the University of Tokyo as an architect. Due to both her high grades and level of persistence, she had already landed a job in an architectural company at the young age of 26. This is the reason that Kaori was living in Tokyo, Japan while Yuri was still living in Nagano, Japan with their parents. That didn''t really have an effect on the bonds the two sisters shared though. So, she didn''t hesitate to open a line to her sister to talk.


    Kaori: "Yuuuuu-chan! You''re finally on! I thought I was going to become an old lady before I can talk to you again!"


    Yuri: "I already told you about the upcoming competition just yesterday Onee-chan. Don''t tell me you forgot already?"


    "Of course not...sort of. I was just excited...and distracted...," Kaori replied. And she really hadn''t forgotten about the Bushido competition her sister always entered. She was just a bit (very) excited about Celestial Realms. Coming from a family of Bushido practitioners, she herself knew how to use most swords. She was not as good as her sister though when it came to using the Bushido style. But what she lacked in finesse, she made up with brute strength. So styles that emphasized the use of power was her strong points. She herself had also entered some tournaments but this was before finding the styles that were more suited to her. And both her sister and their parents never let her forget tournament dates.


    Kaori: "See, I just found out about a game called Celestial Realms that''s coming out soon. It''s so much better than the stuff they have now. Training in the game is like training in real life too. So if you improve in the game, the same follows when you''re not in the game. So this means we can have a lot of sparring sessions even if we''re both not at the dojo. So, have you heard anything about it there yet Yu-chan?"


    **********


    Yuri had been training most of the day for an upcoming competition. She had just come out of the shower and had gone online to check her emails when her sister had pounced. Or at least she would have gotten pounced on if they hadn''t been living in different cities. Yuri knew she was doted on by her sister and tried her best not to become spoiled by it. The same mentality of not wanting to be spoiled is what made her train diligently even while having a talent for Bushido. She was the younger sibling by 4 years but had earned the right to be the heir to the family dojo. This worked out well as Yuri loved Bushido while Kaori was more of a free spirit. So while the elder sister had gone off to become an architect, the younger one kept training and was winning tournaments repeatedly.


    The amount of training Yuri would do on a regular day would easily shock most people in the world today. The amount of training she would do also made her estranged from others around her age for most of her life. As such, she had very few friends. This also meant that gossip and news about the world was not a large concern. So when her sister asked her if she knew about Celestial Realms, she could only reply, "Celestial Realms? No, I didn''t even know what it was until now. I thought it was a movie that some of the kids in the dojo was talking about."


    Kaori: "No, no, no! It''s a game that has a fantasy setting and has stuff like monsters and magic and stuff but other than that, a lot of it is a mystery right now. It''s coming out in 2 months. I already ordered a capsule for you too so you don''t need to bug dad about it."


    Yuri: "Oh, 2 months is good. That won''t interfere with the competition. Can you tell me anything else about it onee-chan?"


    Kaori: "Well, I don''t know too much about it either.  I know what the starting races are and which cities are the starter ones but that''s it so far. I think we should start in Zillis though since it''s a city more about trade and doesn''t have restrictions on what race the person is. I''m planning to be a half-elf if the game lets me, so it''s the perfect city to start in for me. It also has a wide variety of profession facilities for me to play around with."


    Yuri: "Ok, I''ll start there. I think I''ll be a half-elf too if they let me. If not, I guess I''ll just go as a human. But before we do anything else, you must promise to spar me at least once onee-chan! You haven''t visited in over 3 months already and probably won''t be coming back here yet."


    Kaori: "Deal! I haven''t been slacking off and have found something that will let me beat you now and can''t wait to try it either. Good luck in the tournament and I''ll see you in the game~"


    **********


    Johann was scouring the net for information on Celestial Realms. He had always been an avid gamer and was really excited about the game. While there wasn''t a lot of information out there on it, he had managed to find bits and pieces. There was also a lot of information obtained from the interview with the CEO of Torgate. He already knew that he was going to start as an Elf and work towards one of the Magic classes based on the information he had found. He was the type of person to be in the back and toss out spells where it would do the more damage to his enemies.


    Outside of his life as a gamer, he was a teacher. He teaches English at a small school in Gothenburg, Sweden. His classes were popular because not only was amusing for the students, since he would conform the lessons to reflect their interests, but also due to him being able to speak the language fluently. He was one of the few professors born in Sweden that was able to speak both languages without much of an accent. This was mostly due to a friend he had made over the internet when he was younger. He would chat with his Canadian friend, Kumar, quite often. They usually talk a lot as they were both gamers and were usually playing the same games.


    Sometimes though, especially lately, the chats usually involved him listening to Kumar whine. Like right now.


    "I''m so boooored," the voice of his friend said over the net.


    Johann: "Another game that couldn''t keep your interest eh?"


    Kumar: "Yea. I''ve lost count of how many that''s been now. They always make it so lame and strongest players are always the ones with big guilds or clans. And these are always filled with so many idiots. All they do is zerg rush* things and never have an actual strategy. Can you believe their tanks don''t know how to use proper skills to hold the monster on them? And their fricking Mages keep getting hit by area attacks that they should even be close to. Of course part of that is from them not knowing how to control their own damage output so they don''t pull hate. So many idiots!"


    Johann: "Ok Z, normally I''d ask for more details on your latest escapades, but I''m trying to find more info about Celestial Realms. And don''t you dare tell me you haven''t heard about it."


    Kumar: "I heard about it...but I didn''t really look into it. I mean...I know it''s going to be a VRMMORPG and the setting is fantasy but I stopped there. I was trying out the last failure of a game at the time. Is it any good?"


    Johann: "If what I''m reading is right, I think this is going to be a game you''re going to get addicted to. Very little info about it but I think there''ll be a lot of places to explore to start off with. A lot of content also seems to be locked as even among the starting races, they indicated that the ones available at the start were only a few and there were more that can be unlocked. A limit of a player is for the most part, set by the player themselves it seems. The more I read, the more excited I am."


    **********


    Kumar had been uninstalling another VRMMORPG that couldn''t keep him interested for longer than a month when he had started complaining to his friend, Johann. He knew he was complaining and also knew that his friend knew it and was thankful for his friend''s patience. He had been doing it out of habit and was therefore surprised when he heard how excited Johann sounded when he was explaining about Celestial Realms. He also became excited as he heard more about it.


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    He had been looking for a game to get addicted to for a long time. Ever since the older games that had managed to have a magic touch died out, most of them ended up copying some of the older ones and never really improved. So whenever he played one game, it felt no different from any other game that he had played. This led to him being bored for quite a while. He was 32 now and it''s been over 15 years since a game he felt was really good had been released. And now he was out on a personal quest to find a game that can keep him playing for more than just a month or two.


    After so many failures though, his expectations had died out though. So even though he had heard about Celestial Realms, he didn''t feel as excited and hadn''t looked into it as much as he used to. Even now, while he feels excited at what he''s hearing, a part of him still doubts that it''ll be the type of game he''s been yearning for.


    "I wonder if the game will let me have a pet dragon?" he mused while chatting.


    Johann: "Possibly. Their CEO did say that the biggest limitations are the ones we set ourselves. So if you can think of a way to tame a dragon, I don''t see why you wouldn''t be able to have a pet dragon."


    Kumar: "What about being an Elven Warrior? Elves have always been physically weak in games and made horrible melee fighters."


    Johann: "Based on the information I''ve found, you can be an Elven tank too if you really wanted to. I''m starting as an elf by the way."


    Kumar: "You''re going to be a magic user though right? Do we all start in the same place?"


    Johann: "You know me too well. I can never feel satisfied unless I can unleash magical mayhem. As for the starting place, you can pick from 5 different cities. You get to pick from Lavelle, Lingshan, Zillis, Miraka, or Akir. We should start off in Zillis I think. Best place to pick up some production skills."


    Kumar: "Sounds great. Now I can''t wait and the next few months are going to feel so slow. Oh well, might as well pre-order it now."


    **********


    Songmin was a typical middle school kid that gets bullied on a normal basis. Unlike typical kids that would run away and hide in their rooms when they get bullied, he would always take it all with a smile on his face. This was because of a secret that told him that even if he let himself get bullied, he was doing it for the right reasons. This secret was his ability to understand the feelings and emotions of the world around him. He was what can be called an Empath. This ability worked even on animals and trees. He was able to feel the thankfulness of the dog he had saved by taking its place. So even if he was being bullied, he was happy that he was able to protect someone else.


    He wasn''t really a rich kid but he wasn''t really poor either. He lived in Busan, Korea with his parents. His ability let him know that his parents cared a lot about him and he always tried his best not to worry them. So he never told them about the bullying he received and would always make his explanations on the bruises as vague as possible. If they asked, he would just say that he was hurt trying to help an animal. And though they did worry, they didn''t press him for details as he never gave more of an explanation. His mother suspected since he would bring animals home some time to patch them up but she didn''t say much either as she saw how happy he was to help. His father though, was worried since Songmin never brought other kids home and thought he had no friends.


    His father was really worried about the lack of friends for his son and asked around at work for advice. Some of them had similar experiences and could relate to his current situation and told him to try getting him into Virtual Reality games. They told him that it had worked well for their children. So Songmin''s father did a little research on what good VR games were out there and came upon a lot of news about Celestial Realms. Seeing that it was so popular, he figured it would allow his son to play with many other people and make it easier to make friends. So he pre-ordered it.


    His mother did not worry as much as she knew of his abilities. She also knew that he had several paths in life he can take. In her eyes, he was her little Grand Chef. He had originally started helping his mother with the cooking so he can use some of the ingredients to feed the animals he helped but ended up becoming the main chef in the kitchen as he learned more. Since the food always tasted great, his mother didn''t mind letting him take over in the cooking. She also knew what her husband had planned for her son and didn''t tell him that either. She wanted him to have human friends as well and in the future, also settle down with a nice wife. So Songmins'' days continued with his usual routine of going to school and helping his mother with the cooking without knowing anything about Celestial Realms.


    **********


    Maria lived in Frankfurt, Germany and worked as a songwriter. She was very good at it too and any singer who sang the songs she wrote, would be near the top of the charts when their single was out. Her ability to sing was just as good as her ability to write songs and she loved it just as much. This always had her friends ask why she didn''t become a professional singer herself.  Her answer was that she didn''t want to wear make-up and when she had tried to become a singer, they refused to let her sing unless she had make-up on. So she had refused with the reason that she didn''t want to doll herself up to look attractive to others and prefers to please people with her songs instead. So she made a living writing songs.


    That didn''t mean that she still didn''t want to sing for people though. But she didn''t really have a proper stage. She had tried to be a bard or singer in VR games but there were always too many restrictions in them that prevented her from singing her own songs. The system of VR games always made it so that the players could only sing whatever music they found inside the game, most of which were written by game producers and not songwriters. So the songs in the game was always fairly dull and were only used for the boosts they provided.


    That was when she saw the interview about Celestial Realms. ''I wonder if I can write and sing my own songs in this game. If the only limitation for myself is set by myself...that could mean it''s possible I can write and sing my own stuff. I need to look into it,'' she thought.


    As she looked up information, she decided that she didn''t want to rely on appearance in order to appeal as a singer in the game. So she picked to be an Orc inside the game. Orcs were considered as ugly after all. Some would consider her as a masochist since Orcs were expected to have the lowest Charisma and a class like a Bard would need high Charisma to be successful. But once Maria''s mind was made up, that was how things were going to be. ''I also won''t have idiots hitting on me as an Orc,'' she mused as she placed an order.


    *********


    Rose. That was the nickname people had given her at the orphanage. Beautiful but with thorns. Her parents had died long ago and she had become one of the orphans of Naples, Italy. The city had been devastated from a recent economic collapse. But this was beneficial for Rose. As she grew up, she learned how to tell the true value of goods in order to make a living for herself. She gained this ability due to having an eye for critical details and also a photographic memory. Both of these abilities were a blessing and a curse though. Not being able to forget what she had seen brought many a sleepless night since she had seen how her parents had died. Brutally murdered after they had managed to hide her safely. She didn''t trust people much though and as such, she told no one the details of her abilities.


    She was still young but she managed to make a living with the use of her abilities. She had forged documents and moved out of the orphanage as soon as she had made enough money. So no one knew that she lived on her own as she always kept to herself. She started her re-selling business by picking up scraps of discarded things that still had value and selling them to grow her wealth from there. She also tried not to make a lot of money to prevent people from getting suspicious. But she still wanted to get away from living like this somehow. That was when she had heard about Celestial Realms. She didn''t see the interview or find information about it through a gaming website or ad but among some of the websites she used to sell her wares anonymously. There was a lot of interest about Celestial Realms on the website.


    What caught her interest was there was already a market forming even before the game was released. People were asking people to help them level even without all that much information out regarding the game. The offers were fairly low though so no one really got a reply. But there was enough interest for her to know that getting the game would be worth it. She knew that as long as the majority of the economy was run by players, she will be able to use her skills to turn a profit. So she placed an order for it with money from her savings.


    **AN: Well...here''s chapter 1. I hope I didn''t reveal too much about the characters...then again, I guess they''ll be changing and growing as things go by.

 Chapter 2 - Welcome to Celestial Realms

    **Author''s note: Please treat each "section" as a miniature story of its own. This will hopefully be the only chapter I write with this many different points of view.


    Kumar finishes the setup of the FIVR capsule as soon he can after it arrived. He didn''t do any major research on it but he did enough to know that no one knew much about this game. It was also not possible for leaks as it seems that Torgate kept the programming division separate from their PR people and the CEO definitely wasn''t someone that was going to give its secrets out any time soon. So it was pretty much a whole new world for him to explore. He gets settled in and turns it on, going into the game. He opens his eyes and see nothing but blank space in front of him.


    "Welcome to Celestial Realms. Please select your starting race," a voice said inside the ears.


    "Elf please."


    "The scan has detected your gender as male. Is there any modifications you wish to make to your character?" A model of himself as an Elf appears after he had selected his race. Although Elves typically tend to have fair flowing hair, the avatar in front of him reflected a hairstyle similar to his own as it had been in reality. Which was fairly short and appeared to have a life of its own regardless of how hard he tried to comb it. Even in reality, he gave up on trying to keep it neat looking as it needed way too much styling gel among other things. And just like in reality, the colour of the hair was black with shades of gray here and there. The eyes were also black (or dark brown depending on who you ask) and the body size was the same as his in reality. It stood at about 178 cm (5''10" for American readers) and while it wasn''t athletic, it did have a hint of muscle showing. The only difference was in the skin tone, which was the usual fair tone of a typical Elf.


    "Change the hair colour to white please and the eye colour to emerald green. Also please make the skin tone as dark as possible for an Elf."


    The changes took place immediately. He liked what he saw. The skin tone wasn''t enough to make him look like a Dark Elf but it was probably not an available race. Or at least, not yet if the hidden meaning in the interview he had seen was true.


    He nods in approval and says, "Yes, just like that. Thank you."


    "Please input your name," said the voice in his ears again.


    "Zareth."


    "Please select your starting city."


    "Zillis please."


    "Thank you for playing Celestial Realms. Please enjoy your time here."


    And with that, the scene in front of him changed and opened out to show stone houses in front of him. He can see a large wall made of stone rising up high behind the houses and was obviously in place for defensive purposes. He looked to the right and noticed more houses as well as a tavern further ahead. Turning his head to the left, he noticed yet more houses but he also noticed a fairly large gate that looked like it led out. He did read up enough about the game to know that people couldn''t leave their starting city for an in-game week, which was almost 2 full days in real time, so the gate was useless to him at this point.


    Looking behind him, he noticed a fountain there. Further down, he saw a road leading to a statue of some kind in the distance. He also noticed other people logging into the game and popping into existence. He saw some of them flex their fingers and look a little disoriented. It was easy to tell that this was their first VR experience. He kept looking around some more and noticed that unlike all the people that were popping up dressed in robes, there were others who wore different clothing.


    "Okay...he told me to meet him in front of the library. No idea where that is so time to follow a rule of thumb in a game when lost. Ask for directions," he said aloud.


    He went up to a lady that looked to be around her early 40s and said, "Hello. My name is Zareth and I am sure you have noticed by now that I am rather new to the city. I was told by a friend of mine to meet him in front of the library. Sadly, I have not been in this wonderful city long enough to find the way on my own. Would such a pretty and kind young lady like yourself be able to assist this poor traveller by showing the way to the library please?"


    A blush was seen on her cheeks at the obvious flattery coming from the lips of the young Elf but she could not resist the display of humility he had shown her. She smiled in approval and replied, "My what a polite young lad you are. Quite a sweet tongue as well it would seem. As for the library, I believe I can be of help indeed. If you simply follow the path behind the fountain and head to the west, you will arrive at the statue of the Goddess. That would be our town centre. From there, if you head north, you will see the building that has some steps leading up to its entrance. The building itself looks fairly bland and similar to a house that was built a bit raised but that would be the library."


    "Oh, thank you very much pretty lady! Thank you very much," says Zareth before bowing to her and running off towards the town centre.


    When he reached the town centre, he saw the statue of the Goddess the lady had mentioned. His plan had been to simply run past it to get to the library but upon seeing the statue, he simply had to stop and stare. It was simply beautiful on a breathtaking level. Seeing how intricately carved the gentle smile on the face of the statue was made him feel glad to have entered this world. As he looked at the eyes of the statue, he felt it radiate a kindness that can only be described as a mother looking upon her children. The hair of the Goddess was made to look as if it were a were a cascade flowing down to a bit below the waist. The clothing worn by the Goddess were simple robes similar to what he was wearing now he noticed but somehow, on the statue, it felt like it was a divine robe. "Beautiful," he couldn''t help whispering out.


    A box suddenly popped up near the left side of his field of vision with some words in it.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>For truly admiring the beauty of a statue representing the Goddess, you have pleased her.


    You have unlocked the Aesthetics stat.


    Aesthetics +10</td></tr></tbody></table>


    "Aesthetics huh. I''ll have to ask Johann more about it when I see him," he whispers to himself. He bows to the statue as if thanking it before heading north towards where he was told the library was.


    **********


    Johann couldn''t wait for the capsule to arrive. So much so that even before it was delivered to him, he was pacing outside waiting for it. The technicians that delivered it and was there to help set up couldn''t help but smile as they understood the excitement he was feeling. They were also eager to play the game and was looking forward to the end of their deliveries for the day. He dived in right away as soon as everything was set up.


    "Welcome to Celestial Realms. Please select your starting race," a voice said inside the ears.


    "Elf," came a simple reply.


    "The scan has detected your gender as male. Is there any modifications you wish to make to your character?" came the next question as his avatar appeared in front of him.


    "Change hairstyle to a ponytail. Increase the hair length to reach the waist. Change hair colour to silver white. Skin tone slightly more fair. Set colour of eyes to light hazel. Raise nose tip slightly. Increase length of ears slightly. Change height to 195 centimetres (6''5")," came the instructions as if it was an expected question. He knew what he wanted.


    Satisfied with the changes that was made, "continue," Johann said.


    "Please input your name."


    "Skywind."


    "Please select your starting city."


    "Thank you for playing Celestial Realms. Please enjoy your time here."


    The avatar disappears into thin air and the scene before him opens up to show him standing in front of a fountain. He looked around and noticed houses to each of the sides and a castle rising up past the fountain. The castle itself was fairly large even though it had no guard towers on the sides. What it did have was an even larger wall behind it that made the castle seem small in comparison.


    He spotted four guards near the castle entrance, all standing on guard and watching for possible trouble from all the figures popping out around the fountain. Two of them were wearing heavy full plate armour and held a tower shield in their left hand and off to the side while a long sword can be seen hanging at their waist with the right hand on top of the pommel. The other two guards were dressed in chain mail and were holding a halberd each. It didn''t look like they were going to let just anyone inside. Not that he had a reason to go there yet. He needed to find the library though so he asked one of them. Instead of replying, they simply pointed behind him at a building. The building looked like a regular house but elevated and with stairs leading to its entrance. He nodded his thanks just as silently and headed towards the library.


    He decided to sit on one of the steps while waiting for Kumar to get here. He noticed the building across had a sign that showed an axe and sword crossing in front of a shield. ''That''s probably the Barracks. And if I know Kumar, he probably named his character Zareth. It''ll be easy to meet up with him in between my research since he''ll probably spend some time training there.'' he mused while waiting.


    As he was looking around at people passing by while thinking, he noticed a half-elf pass by heading towards the statue. ''That might have been a better choice for Zareth if he still wanted to look somewhat like an Elf and not sacrifice his strength by being a full blooded Elf. Too late now though probably.'' he thought. He looked up at the statue and noticed an Elf with an unusually dark skin tone that was half way to being a Dark Elf bow to the statue and head towards his way. A smile appeared on his face as he knew it can only be his friend coming this way.


    He greeted Zareth as he came closer with a wave. "Yo, paying your respects to the Goddess are you?" he asked.


    Zareth: "Considering that she had given me a new stat and gave 10 points worth of it, yea, figured it was a good idea to say thanks. Any clue what use it has in this game? The others are kind of obvious as they''re the same from other games. Well...other than the ever mysterious Luck."


    Skywind: "Aesthetics eh. My guess is it''s used with the production skills. For example, when you make something like a sculpture or add a design to the pommel of your sword, maybe it will give bonuses. To be honest, there was very little information out there about this game. Didn''t really expect a stat like Aesthetics to exist really. Speaking of which, I better check my stats. I''m pretty sure Elves get a boost to Intelligence but not sure what else. Open Status Window."


    <table><tbody><tr><td colspan=''2''>Name: Skywind</td><td colspan=''2''>Gender: Male</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''2''>Race: Elf</td><td colspan=''2''>Class: Novice</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Title: None</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Fame: 0</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Health</td><td width="25%">80</td><td width="25%">Health regen</td><td width="25%">0.08/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Mana</td><td width="25%">120</td><td width="25%">Mana regen</td><td width="25%">0.12/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Stamina</td><td width="25%">80</td><td width="25%">Stamina regen</td><td width="25%">0.8/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Strength</td><td width="25%">8</td><td width="25%">Dexterity</td><td width="25%">10</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Agility</td><td width="25%">11</td><td width="25%">Vitality</td><td width="25%">8</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Intelligence</td><td width="25%">12</td><td width="25%">Wisdom</td><td width="25%">10</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Luck</td><td width="25%">10</td><td width="25%">Charisma</td><td width="25%">11</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Equipment:


    Plain Robes</td></tr></tbody></table>


    He noticed that Zareth had done the same and checked his status.


    He wasn''t really surprised to hear Zareth say, "Looks like Elves sacrifice Strength and Vitality to gain a boost to Intelligence and a bit to Agility and Charisma. I might have my work cut out for me but it doesn''t seem too big a hurdle."


    "Are you really sure you want to be a Warrior class while being an Elf? I noticed a Half-elf earlier so you could have easily went with that or Human instead. I went with Elf mostly for the boost in Intelligence."


    "Meh, don''t sweat it. I don''t regret trying to be a Warrior as an Elf even one bit. Plus, you said that a stat like strength can be raised by working out properly right? I might have to put a bit more effort than the other races but that''s ok. I get the feeling that I''ll enjoy the game more like this anyway."


    "That''s true...so I guess you''re going to head to the training centre? It''s just across the street in those Barracks over there so maybe I''ll stop by and check how you''re doing every now and then."


    "That''s the plan. I''m still not sure what weapon I want to use so I''ll have to try them out.  I''ll see you later Sky."


    With that, they parted ways for the time being. He had a lot of work to do to learn how magic works in this world. Luckily, stress relief was just across the street.


    **********


    The delivery company had the technicians unload and install the capsule. Since she didn''t know much about electronics, she felt it was better to let them set it up and tip them nicely for the service. She was going to grab her purse when one of the workers came up to her with a sheet of paper and a pen in his hand.


    "Please Miss Maria, would you be able to autograph this piece of paper for me? I always loved the songs you wrote regardless of which singer or band had picked one up to sing. The lyrics always went so well with the melody and never failed to put me in a good mood. So please, if it''s not too much trouble, would you be able to autograph this?"


    That surprised her a bit as most people these days rarely checked who wrote the music and always would just cheer for the singer or band. They were already helping her a lot by setting the capsule up so she smiled and took the pen and paper to autograph it.


    "Oh, thank you so much! You have just made my day. Thank you," the worker said while looking as if he had just won the lottery. Being appreciated for your hard work regardless of your appearance really did feel pleasant. She could even hear them saying things like, "And you guys didn''t believe me when I told you it was her." and "Lets hang it up in the truck as a lucky charm!" followed up by, "No way, it''s mine!"


    She had to hold back from laughing at the silliness. Mostly because she really wanted to try and start the game that promised to be so exciting. The world in front of her faded into black after she turned the device on. "Welcome to Celestial Realms. Please select your starting race," she heard.


    "I want to be an Orc."


    "The scan has detected your gender as female. Is there any modifications you wish to make to your character?" A model of a female Orc appeared in front of her eyes. The skin of the Orc was a bit darker than forest green and the face looked pretty fierce in a snarl that showed some sharp teeth in the mouth. Although it did look rather fierce, she couldn''t help but find the black ponytail sticking out behind to be cute.


    "Oh nice, that looks almost like how I want it. Add a scar just below the left eye and make it taller."


    The model had a scar added below the left eye to give it a bit more of a menacing look. The size went up from her height of 165 cm to 175 cm.


    "Make it taller." Maria said. The model grew another 10 cm and was now standing fairly tall for a female Orc at 185.


    "Max recommended height for female Orc reached. Increasing further will have a negative effect on growth. Do you wish to continue?" she heard the voice say.


    "No, that''s fine now. Continue."


    "Please input your name."


    ''Ugh, I''m horrible at naming things,'' she thought. She decided to use her own name and said, "Maria."


    "Please select your Starting city."


    Maria let out a sigh as the name was accepted. She was thinking that such a common name was likely to be taken. "What are the choices for the starting city?" She asked.


    "You may choose from Lavelle, Lingshan, Zillis, Miraka, or Akir as your starting location."


    "Can you give me more details about each city?"


    "Lavelle is the city of Humans and is ruled by a Monarch. Lingshan, the city of Elves is led by their Council of Elders. The city of Zillis is a city where people elect a leader that is also nominated by them. Miraka is the city of Orcs and has no real leader. Akir, the Dwarven city, is led by a Chieftain that is usually decided based on skill and strength."


    "I''ll go with Zillis I think. Doesn''t seem like I''ll get much of a chance of becoming a singer at the starting Orc city."


    "Thank you for playing Celestial Realms. Please enjoy your time here."


    Her vision opens out to show a fountain in front of a stone paved path that seemed to be circling around the city. There were some houses beyond the path and behind that was a huge wall that reminded her of the city of Troy. She looked around and noticed players joining the game, some for the very first time she noted. She also noticed the path behind her leading towards a statue that she couldn''t really make out from this distance. Not really knowing what to do, she had just been standing around looking when she noticed an Elf with a dark complexion talking to one of the residents. ''Poor guy, he must have wanted to be a Dark Elf.'' she thought. After the Elf bowed and ran off, she finally noticed the resident he had been talking to. A sparkle of life entered her eyes as she stared.


    Before realizing what she was doing, she had already moved up to the resident and was asking, "Miss, please oh please tell me where you picked up such a beautiful set of clothes. They look so much better than these dull robes."


    Maria didn''t know it but the resident had just received her second surprise of the day and both were in such a short period of time. If this had been any city other than Zillis, the woman would have been scared of an Orc talking to her and had called for the guards but in Zillis, this was not an uncommon thing. She also felt the Orc woman was genuinely curious about her cloths. So she answered truthfully and said, "I actually made these myself. Were you interested in learning how to make clothing by any chance?"


    Maria was so excited about knowing that it''s possible to make such beautiful clothing that she was ignoring some boxes that had popped up in the top left corner of her vision. It was an amusing sight for the resident to see an Orc woman nodding her head vigorously as she replied, "Yes please! I would love to learn how they are made. Please teach me master."


    "Ah, unfortunately, I made these only using the basic skills I picked up from my friend at the Tailor shop. She is actually a master at the craft and is the one you should be talking to as she is also licensed to teach others. If you head west past the statue of the Goddess, you will arrive at the production district. Just ask for Laura at the Tailor shop there and let her know that Victoria sent you. She''ll teach you the proper way to make clothes."


    Maria wondered what the wrong way to make clothes were for but a moment before thanking Victoria and running towards the production district. On the way, she stopped by the statue to look at it, somewhat mesmerized by its beauty. "Wow...this is also very beautiful. Beautiful clothes and great works of art." she remarked while adoring the statue.


    "You''re right. I wonder how they came up with the design and how much time was put into making this statue," said a voice beside her. She looked to her left and jumped in surprise to see a beautiful Half-elven woman nearby. She had been so caught up by the statue''s charm that she hadn''t noticed anyone beside her at all. The woman wasn''t as tall as she was and seemed to be about 162 cm (5''4") and had blonde hair set into twin ponytails. She even had a beautiful set of deep blue eyes to match and looked like a model. ''I wonder if I can convince her to become my model later,'' Maria wondered while staring.


    "Oh! Sorry! That was very rude of me to comment like that without introducing myself properly. My name is Karen. Nice to meet you. I was waiting for my sister here and also couldn''t help but admire the statue," the woman named Karen said.


    "Oh, no. It''s ok. I''m sorry if I scared you by staring like that. I had just been caught up in admiring the statue and didn''t really see you there. That''s why I got surprised. My name is Maria by the way and I had been on my way to the Tailor shop to learn how to make some of the beautiful clothes I''ve seen. But you''re right that the statue truly is very beautiful. It must have been made by a master sculptor."


    As it looked as if Karen was about to say more, another voice said, "Big sister, this game really does look and feel so real."


    They both turned to see another Half-elf girl that had long black hair going straight down past her waist with some bangs in the front just above her eyebrows. She was shorter than Karen and seemed to be about 156 cm (5''1") but the surprising part was the flawless skin that made her look so beautiful even while she had a serious expression on her face. Maria was speechless.


    Karen on the other hand, pounced and huggled the girl while yelling, "YU-CHAN!" It took the other girl a minute to force her sister off of her.


    "Huh...that''s your sister?" Maria asked looking at Karen.


    The girl bowed to Maria politely and said, "My name here is Julianne. Nice to meet you. I apologize for my sister''s behaviour."


    Maria: "Ah, my name is Maria. Nice to meet you too."


    Maria quickly grabbed Karen, who looked to be pouting, and pulled her a bit away from Julianne and whispers, "Hey, hey, don''t you think your sister would look great in different clothes? I have a beautiful dress in mind that she can wear. Do you think you can get her to model in it?"


    It took a few seconds before what Maria was saying sank in for Karen. As understanding was gained, a glint appeared in her eyes as she nodded while turning to look at Julianne.


    "You''re right, a nice dress would really look a lot better than those plain robes. You said you were on your way to learn how to make them right? I don''t really have any money on me but I was going to pick up Blacksmithing or something so I can make my own weapons and armour. Maybe I can offer my services in exchange?" Karen whispers back.


    Maria says aloud, "Oh, we''ll talk about those details later. I really want to see how it''ll look though. Did you want to meet me back here tomorrow for a progress report maybe?"


    "I have a better idea. How about we add each other as a friend and when you''re finished, you can just send a message? I might want to commission some things as well later." Karen says.


    "Oh, that''s a good idea," Maria replies and notices another box pop up.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>You have received a request to be registered as a friend by a player named Karen. Accept?</td></tr></tbody></table>


    She accepts and uses the time to read the other boxes she had ignored earlier now.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>For truly admiring a beautiful hand-made dress, you have unlocked the Aesthetics stat.


    Aesthetics +5</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>For admiring a beautiful work of art, the Goddess has granted a boost to your Aesthetics stat.


    Aesthetics +10</td></tr></tbody></table>


    "Huh, I forgot to check my status. Open Status Window." Maria says out loud.


    <table><tbody><tr><td colspan=''2''>Name: Maria</td><td colspan=''2''>Gender: Female</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''2''>Race: Orc</td><td colspan=''2''>Class: Novice</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Title: None</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Fame: 0</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Health</td><td width="25%">120</td><td width="25%">Health regen</td><td width="25%">0.24/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Mana</td><td width="25%">80</td><td width="25%">Mana regen</td><td width="25%">0.04/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Stamina</td><td width="25%">120</td><td width="25%">Stamina regen</td><td width="25%">1.2/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Strength</td><td width="25%">12</td><td width="25%">Dexterity</td><td width="25%">11</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Agility</td><td width="25%">11</td><td width="25%">Vitality</td><td width="25%">12</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Intelligence</td><td width="25%">8</td><td width="25%">Wisdom</td><td width="25%">8</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Luck</td><td width="25%">10</td><td width="25%">Charisma</td><td width="25%">8</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Aesthetics</td><td width="25%">15</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Equipment:


    Plain Robes</td></tr></tbody></table>


    She closes the boxes and turns back to the two Half-elves before saying, "Ok, I''m more motivated now. I''ll be ready with everything the next time we meet. See you again." She waves at them and continues on towards the production district to find Laura.


    As she arrived in the production district, Maria noticed a lot of different buildings. The building to her right looked like a forge and must be where the Blacksmith guild was. The building on her left, across from the forge was a building that had a bit of an odd smell to it. ''Must be the Alchemist,'' she though. The building beside the Alchemy store seemed to be a leatherworking guild considering the smell of leather coming from it. Past that was what looked to be the tailor''s guild. Across from the tailor guild was a building that looked to be the carpenter''s guild. In between the forge and the carpenter''s guild was a closed of building, the purpose of which wasn''t clear.


    Maria went towards tailor''s guild without any hesitation.


    **********


    Kaori had decided to take a week off from work around the same time the FIVR capsule arrived. She had already planned to try and spend as much time as she can with her sister in the game during that week off. Thankfully, she had plenty of paid vacation time left since she had rarely taken a day off before. She hopped into the game as soon as the setup was finished.


    "Welcome to Celestial Realms. Please select your starting race," a voice said inside the ears.


    "Is it possible to be a Half-elf?" Kaori asked.


    "Half-elf race is allowed. Residents in Lavelle or Lingshan will be prejudiced against you. Is that acceptable?"


    "Yes, that''s fine. Wasn''t going to start there any way."


    "The scan has detected your gender as female. Is there any modifications you wish to make to your character?"


    A model of her character popped up in her field of vision. The model had black hair flowing halfway down the back to reflect her. The eyes were different than her own but it retained its dark brown colouring. The height matched hers as well at 162 cm. It had slightly pointed ears and a fair complexion.


    "Can you show me how it looks with blonde hair?" Kaori asked.


    The colour of the hair was changed to blonde.


    "What about a ponytail?"


    The hairstyle was changed to a pony tail.


    "Not quite right...hmm...try twin ponytails please."


    The hairstyle was changed to twin ponytails coming out.


    "Perfect!" Kaori exclaimed.


    "Please input your name."


    "I''ll go with Kaori."


    "The name Kaori is not available. Please input another name."


    "Hmm...how about Karen? Hope that''s not taken too."


    "Please select your starting city."


    ''Guess Karen was ok,'' she thought. "Zillis."


    "Thank you for playing Celestial Realms. Please enjoy your time here."


    When the vision became clear before Karen''s eyes, she saw a castle in front of her. She saw a large wall behind the castle and noticed it was circling around the city. She looked around and saw other players popping out around the fountain behind her. She also noticed four guards in front of her, protecting the castle entrance. ''I wonder where I am...I better ask.'' she thought.


    Karen walked up to the guards and while maintaining a distance, asked, "Excuse me sirs, but where am I?"


    The two guards that were holding spears looked at each other and then at her again. The one on the right said, "You are in the city of Zillis. This is the castle district, located in the north fountain area."


    "Oh! Thank you. I need to meet my sister in the city. Do you have any recommendations on where would be a good place for people to meet?"


    "You should head south to the statue of the Goddess. Most people must pass through that area to get to the other districts."


    "Sorry to bother but just one more question. Where is the training centre located in this city?"


    "That would be in the Barracks. You will pass by it on your way to the statue. Fairly obvious but just in case, it is located across from the library."


    Karen bowed politely in thanks and headed south towards the statue she saw in the distance. She noted the building with the sign that depicted an axe and a sword crossing in front of a shield as probably being the Barracks. She noticed an elf take a seat on the stairs in front of what looked to be the library.


    She had arrived at the town centre and was  walking around the statue to wait at the front when she noticed an Elf with a dark skin tone touch the statue. She noticed that he had whispered something before stepping back and bowing to it. She thought it was odd behaviour but didn''t stop him to ask as he ran past her. As she approached the front of the statue, she understood the reaction she had seen the Elf display. As she was admiring it, she heard a feminine voice nearby say, "Wow...this is also very beautiful. Beautiful clothes and great works of art."


    Understanding what they meant, she replied, "You''re right. I wonder how they came up with the design and how much time was put into making this statue."


    She looked at the boxes that popped up in her field of vision.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>For taking the time to appreciate a great work of art depicting the Goddess, you have unlocked the Aesthetics stat.


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.Aesthetics +10</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>For having a rough grasp of the time and effort that went into the making of this masterpiece, you have learned the Craftsmanship skill.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Craftsmanship increased to Beginner rank 1</td></tr></tbody></table>


    ''Aesthetics and Craftsmanship? Interesting. I think that they will help me out when I make my own equipment. Maybe even more if I decide to build my own house,'' she thought. A few seconds later, she realized there was no reply and turned to look at the person she had responded to. She saw a female Orc with a black ponytail and a scar beneath an eye staring at her. The Orc was fairly tall looking to be 185 cm. She was a little surprised that such a pleasant sounding voice belonged to an Orc instead of an Elf. Then it hit her that she had not even introduced herself before commenting.


    "Oh! Sorry! That was very rude of me to comment like that without introducing myself properly. My name is Karen. Nice to meet you. I was waiting for my sister here and also couldn''t help but admire the statue," the woman named Karen said.


    "Oh, no. It''s ok. I''m sorry if I scared you by staring like that. I had just been caught up in admiring the statue and didn''t really see you there. That''s why I got surprised. My name is Maria by the way and I had been on my way to the Tailor shop to learn how to make some of the beautiful clothes I''ve seen. But you''re right that the statue truly is very beautiful. It must have been made by a master sculptor."


    She was going to ask about the clothes when she heard a familiar voice say, "Onee-chan, this game really does look and feel so real." (**AN: Some people will notice it said Big Sister earlier. This is done on purpose to reflect that people of the same language are hearing things in their own language. This will also only be shown when/if the PoV is from that of the sisters and will be kept to a minimal to prevent confusion.**)


    They both turned to see another Half-elf girl that had long black hair going straight down past her waist with some bangs in the front just above her eyebrows. ''Ah! She kept her appearance almost the same,'' Karen thought as she saw her sister walking up. "YU-CHAN!" she shouted as feeling of joy rose in her chest at seeing her sister again in so long that she couldn''t resist pouncing her and drawing her into a huggle.


    She was feeling so happy that she only vaguely heard Maria say something. It didn''t stop her sister from pushing her away to create some space though. She saw her sister bow to Maria and say, "My name here is Julianne. Nice to meet you. I apologize for my sister''s behaviour." Karen pouted at having been indirectly reprimanded by her younger sister.


    "Ah, my name is Maria. Nice to meet you too," Maria replied.


    While she was still pouting, she was suddenly grabbed by Maria and dragged away a bit from her sister. Maria excitedly whispers in her ear, "Hey, hey, don''t you think your sister would look great in different clothes? I have a beautiful dress in mind that she can wear. Do you think you can get her to model in it?"


    Her mind was still in surprise mode and it took a while for what was being said to sink in. She looked at her sister and noticed that she was wearing Plain Robes like everyone else and began to understand what Maria was going on about. A glint appeared in her eye as she thought, ''Oh ho, to dress Yuri up in something beautiful...oh, I can''t help but get excited.''


    "You''re right, a nice dress would really look a lot better than those plain robes. You said you were on your way to learn how to make them right? I don''t really have any money on me but I was going to pick up Blacksmithing or something so I can make my own weapons and armour. Maybe I can offer my services in exchange?" Karen whispers back.


    Maria says aloud, "Oh, we''ll talk about those details later. I really want to see how it''ll look though. Did you want to meet me back here tomorrow for a progress report maybe?"


    "I have a better idea. How about we add each other as a friend and when you''re finished, you can just send a message? I might want to commission some things as well later." Karen says as she sends a friend request to Maria. ''Maybe I''ll get her to make me something too later,'' she thought.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Your friend request has been accepted by Player, Maria.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    She notices that Maria was checking her stats and made a mental note to check hers after they reach the Barracks and before starting the sparring sessions she was sure her sister had in mind.


    "Ok, I''m more motivated now. I''ll be ready with everything the next time we meet. See you again." Maria says as she waves at them before heading down the western patch.


    "Ok! We should head to the training centre if we want to spar." Karen says after Maria had left. She grabs her sister by the hand and drags her up north towards the Barracks.


    **********


    Yuri''s parents had been surprised when the technicians came with the FIVR capsule to set it up. She realized that she had forgotten about it and told them that it was from Kaori and explained what it was about. Her father thought it was interesting and asked her to let him know if it was something that could be used for training purposes. She wasn''t really sure how it would be since she had never tried any virtual reality game before. But she had promised her sister. So she decided to try it out. It was set up inside her bedroom as that was one of the few places that had room for it.


    "Welcome to Celestial Realms. Please select your starting race," a voice said inside the ears shortly after turning the game on.


    "I think it was Half-elf," she replied thinking about what her sister had said.


    "The scan has detected your gender as female. Is there any modifications you wish to make to your character?" said the voice as a rendition of how she would look as a Half-elf appeared in front of her.


    Since Yuri never really cared much about appearances, she simply said, "it''s fine."


    "Please input your name."


    "Yuri."


    "The name Yuri is not available. Please input another name."


    Yuri was surprised to find her name taken already. It took her about a minute before she said, "Juli."


    "The name Juli is not available. Please input another name. Name recommendation: Julianne."


    "Julianne it is."


    "Please select your starting city."


    "Zillis, thank you."


    "Thank you for playing Celestial Realms. Please enjoy your time here."


    Julianne was a bit disoriented when the scenery changed in front of her eyes. She looked around in awe as everything look so alive around her. She even felt small things like a slight breeze and had spotted animals wandering or playing about. She then started to move her arms up and down while flexing her fingers and also tried jumping up and down to try things out. She then jumped forward and backward while swinging her hands up and down in a position that suggested she was swinging a two-handed weapon. She didn''t notice any of the stares she received while doing this though. What she did notice was a window that popped up in the upper left corner of her vision as she got used to moving her body.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Agility increases by 1.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    She dismisses it and looks around again. In front of her, she notices some buildings that look like a carpenter''s shop and tailor''s shop past a water fountain. She notices other buildings that look like places where various things would be made. Even further down, she spots a statue in the distance. As she continues to look around her, she notices a gate leading out and heads towards it. As she tries to go out, the guards stop her and tell her, "Sorry Madam. You don''t seem quite ready to leave the city yet." A window also pops up in front of her.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>New players are not allowed to venture outside until a week of in-game time has passed.


    Time remaining: 7 days</td></tr></tbody></table>


    She was originally planning to meet her sister outside but now that she found out that they won''t let new players out for a week, she had to find somewhere else. She looked around a bit more and noticed the large walls around the gate head south and start curving as if encircling the city. ''So the city is protected by walls on all sides...it might be better to wait wait in the middle of the town since that would usually have the most traffic,'' she thought. With that thought, she heads past the fountain and heads toward the statue she had seen.


    Upon arriving at the statue, she notices her sister, who had a different hair style and colour, talking to some Orc lady. She simply says, "Onee-chan, this game really does look and feel so real."


    A moment later, she gets pounced on by her sister who quickly moves to huggling her. While she was also happy to see her sister, the huggling felt a bit overboard. Either way, she allowed her sister to indulge herself a bit before pushing her off. While she didn''t quite hear what the Orc lady had said, she still felt the need to introduce herself and apologize on her sister''s behalf.


    So she bowed politely to the Orc lady and said, "My name here is Julianne. Nice to meet you. I apologize for my sister''s behaviour."


    "Ah, my name is Maria. Nice to meet you too," the Orc Lady said before pulling her sister away a bit. They were clearly whispering something about her and it was rather obvious but Julianne didn''t worry too much. She knew that her sister would stop anything bad from happening. So she decided to look around instead. She found the statue in the middle to be quite beautiful and felt it was fitting to be in the town centre.


    She felt a chill go down her back as she was looking about and then turned and looked in the direction where her sister was talking to Maria. She noticed an odd glint in the eyes of her sister and started to wonder what they were talking about. The bits of the conversation they said aloud didn''t tell her anything at all. If it was important, she will just have to find out later from her sister. While she knew her sister wasn''t very traditional like most women around her age, but she did know that her sister cared about her a lot. That was enough to just wait things out. Her body was starting to get restless though.


    Her sister grabs her hand as Maria heads off in the direction of the production district and says, "Ok! We should head to the training centre if we want to spar." Julianne stops resisting when she hears the word spar.


    "Onee-chan, you don''t have to work later today do you?" Julianne asks on the way.


    "Nope. I took some days off to try this out. Plus it''s a bit of a lull time with us at this time of year. I hope you didn''t have anything planned for this week."


    "I was going to keep training but if it''s like you said and I can train here, I''ll pretty much be here I guess. Papa wanted to know how effective it was to train here as well. I get the feeling that he wants to try it too but he knows mama will get upset unless he can give a good reason before buying it."


    "So we''re the guinea pigs for this. I think they should both try it too. Mama can learn a lot through this game too."


    "I''ll let them know after a week and see what they say." Julianne says as they arrive at the Barracks. "So the training centre is in here?"


    "Yup. Let''s go!"


    Once inside, they were in a room with 3 more doors, two of them with guards in front. Karen points to the unguarded door while looking at one of the guards and asks, "Training centre is that way?"


    The guard nods in response just as the unguarded door opens with some people coming out. "Wow...such a huge weapon selection here. We have to come back here after checking the rest of the city out. Too bad that there aren''t any quests here though," one of people coming out says to his partner as they head out. Karen and Julianne head inside to find several people training by swinging or stabbing with the weapons. There was another room with glass windows that showed an archery range. And off in a separate part of the room they were in, was a large boxed off area where some people were sparring. There were others that were still looking at the weapons and trying to decide what to use. They saw a person that was almost covered fully in armour except the head and looked to be much older that was looking around at everything.


    They headed towards the man and her sister said, "Hello sir, my name is Karen. Are you by any chance the instructor here? And would you know if there are any requirements for us to start training here?"


    The man nods in greeting and replies, "A good day to you fair ladies. My name is Sir Isaac de Tortalone. I am indeed the instructor here and as for requirements for training, there aren''t any. If you need advice or help, you can come to me to ask but otherwise, you are free to do as you will."


    They both bowed to Instructor Isaac and headed towards the weapon rack. "Are you going to go for the dual-wield style Juli?" Karen asks.


    Julianne nods and selects two Short Swords that were about similar in size to a Kodachi but double edged like typical western swords. "They don''t have any Katanas here though." She remarks.


    "Yea, I noticed. It''s a good thing I looked up on how they''re made so I can make them later. Maybe make a nice Tachi or Nodachi as well if I can." Karen says while picking out a Long Sword and grabbing a Kite shield. "Ok...I''m done. And looks like you''re good as well. Lets go wait by the sparring ring for our turn."


    They head to the boxed-off area and waited for the two people sparring now to finish. Luckily, there weren''t too many others waiting to spar.


    **********


    With help from his father, Songmin set the capsule to play Celestial Realms up. He was told to relax, make a lot of friends, and enjoy the game. He was reminded that he didn''t need to rush and to play it at his own pace. He thanked his father before climbing into the capsule.


    "Welcome to Celestial Realms. Please select your starting race," a voice said inside the ears.


    Songmin wasn''t sure what race to pick. So he decided to keep it the same as his and said, "Human."


    "The scan has detected your gender as male. Is there any modifications you wish to make to your character?" as a full sized version of himself appeared in front of him. He knew he wasn''t all that tall for his age as his height of 147 cm was shown in front of him. Not that he cared much. He had short black hair and dark brown eyes. He didn''t exercise a lot but from all the bullying he received, he did develop enough muscles to make him look similar to an athlete.


    He decided that he wanted to change the colour of his hair as well as his eyes. "Change my hair to dirt brown and I would like my eyes to be hazel."


    "Continue," he said, satisfied with the changes that took place.


    "Please input your name."


    Songmin thought a bit as he wasn''t sure what name to pick. He didn''t want his own name. He said aloud, "Tobi?"


    "Please select your starting city."


    "Random please. Any city is ok I guess."


    "Thank you for playing Celestial Realms. Please enjoy your time here."


    Tobi looked around him in wonder. He could feel so much of the world around him. There was so much to take in all at once that he felt slightly overwhelmed. He takes a deep breath and then closes his eyes while using only his senses to feel the life around him. He can feel life energy coming from the trees that grew among the houses as well as energy coming from the people and animals around him. He opens his eyes and notices that a window had popped up in the top left corner of his vision.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Your ability to sense the life energy around you has unlocked the following skills:


    Nature Affinity


    Sense Life


    Empathy</td></tr></tbody></table>


    Not really sure of what the window means, Tobi closes it. As he starts to look around, he sees something like a green blur and notices that it''s an Orc lady that seems to be in some kind of rush when his gaze follows the blur. He notices that some people look confused while others have a look of amusement on their faces. He also hears people saying commands out loud to check their status, skills, or their inventory. He wondered if anyone started with any skills or gained them as they did things like he had but decided not to dwell on it.


    As he continued to look around him, he notices some eyes looking out from an alleyway behind what looked to be a tavern. He focused a bit and sensed some animals there looking out at the crowd. He felt them exuding a sense of wonder. As he went closer to get a better look, he notices two dogs and a cat looking out at all the people popping out. They look rather malnourished to Tobi''s eyes. As Tobi approached them, they tensed up as the two dogs let out a low growling sound. He stopped and said aloud, "Open inventory."


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Bread Rolls  15


    Canteen 1L of water</td></tr></tbody></table>


    He took out three of the bread rolls and placed them in front of him. He then took a few steps back and sat down on the ground. The animals sniffed the air from afar cautiously while looking at Tobi. They noticed the food and slowly approaches it while continuing to look at him. The cat and one of the dogs each ate one of the bread rolls he had placed while the other dog kept watch, occasionally sniffing the air. After the two finished eating, they switched to keep watch while the one that had been keeping watch ate the other bread roll.


    ''They work well together and display a good sense of teamwork. I really wonder what they''ve been through to be able to set aside their differences to work together like that. What an amazing bond they have between each other.''


    They quickly retreated back into the alleyway after they finished eating. The dogs stepped forward a bit and sniffed in his direction once more before running off. He had a feeling that they were marking his scent in some way as the action was familiar to other dogs he had seen in reality.


    He got up after they had disappeared into the alleyway and decided to explore the town a bit. As he passed by the front of the tavern, he smelled the scent of cooked food. His curiosity took over and he went inside slowly to take a look to see what was being made. He looked around once he was inside and noticed that there were quite a lot of people sitting around at tables everywhere. They all looked rather tired and hungry as if they had arrived he after a long journey. He spotted one of them talking to a man who was standing behind a desk. He seemed to be the owner of this tavern.


    Tobi noticed that no one had spared him much more than a glance and that the owner was busy talking to the traveller to notice him. He peeked inside the kitchen and saw a lady that seemed to be in her early 40s running about. He notices that she''s the only one there and realizes that it''s only one person that has to do all the cooking here. He decided to head to the owner and see if they needed any help as the lady reminded him a bit of his own mother before he started helping. As he approached the owner, he heard a bit of the conversation between him and the traveller.


    "What''s taking so long owner? We''re all very hungry from our journey and this is the first time we''ve had to wait for so long to get our food," the traveller was saying.


    "I''m truly sorry sir but as I told your friends, this is the first time we have had so many people come in at once in the past year. We only have one person in the kitchen and she''s also the person in charge of cleaning. We''re doing our best but it''s hard to make so much food so quickly if this many people come in at once. We''ve only had a handful of customers in here a few times this entire year."


    Tobi noticed that the travellers were starting to get impatient and felt they might become violent if nothing is done. So he decides to head towards the kitchen while saying loudly, "Samchon, I''m here. There are so many people here today. I''m going to go help imo in the kitchen ok?"


    Inside the kitchen, in a more normal voice, he says, "Help has arrived imo. Let me know what you want me to do to help you out and I''ll do it. I''m always helping eomeoni at home too."


    Neither the owner or his wife understood what was going on but they did know that they needed help. So they both pretended as if he was their nephew as he started helping in the kitchen.


    "There you go sir, my nephew has come at last to help. Your food will be here shortly," says the owner to the traveller. The traveller goes back to his sit with his companions and continues to wait.


    Inside the kitchen, even with two people there now, it was still pretty busy. Tobi was also slightly changing the recipes here and there by adding ingredients that would help relieve weariness and removing ingredients that would increase it. Even though the lady had noticed this, she quickly caught on to what he was doing and started doing the same. One by one, the food slowly started heading out to the tables starting with some simple salad dishes that Tobi had made first to help keep the travellers busy with at least eating something while the main dishes were cooking. Around half an hour later, all the main dishes had been served to all the travellers and Tobi was left alone in the kitchen to make dessert while the owner and his wife looked on at the travellers eating. Everything, including desserts, was finished off by the travellers another half hour later with smiles all around.


    The travellers each apologized for their earlier behaviour as they paid generously more than the price of the meals and gave compliments on how this had been the best meal they''ve had in their travels so far. The owner and his wife kept apologizing for not being ready in return and thanking them for their generosity while wishing them well. Tobi looked at the window that had popped up earlier while he was still rushing around in the kitchen.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>You have learned the cooking skill. Due to existing knowledge and the skill displayed while cooking, your cooking skill has been increased to Beginner rank 7.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    He notices the owner and his wife looking his way with questions written all over their faces as to who he was as he closes the window. He quickly bows and says, "I''m sorry for rushing in like that and not introducing myself. I noticed that it was very busy and that help was needed and just jumped in to help without properly asking. I''m really sorry."


    "Um..ah, please don''t misunderstand young one. We''re mostly wondering who you are and why you decided to help without even asking for anything in return," the owner replies.


    Tobi scratched behind his ears lightly in embarrassment and says, "Ah, sorry. My name is Tobi. As for why I just went to help...well...seeing imo working so hard on her own reminded me of my eomeoni at home when I was smaller. And I just felt that it wouldn''t be a good idea if she pushed herself too hard and I didn''t want her getting hurt like my eomeoni had."


    The owner and his wife exchange looks and both nod at the same time. The owner then asks, "Well Tobi, would it be possible to receive your help for the rest of this week? We will pay you for your services and you will also have a place to sleep at stay if you don''t already have one. What do you say?"


    Tobi nodded his head as he realizes that this will help him quite a bit later. "Please treat me kindly," he says while flashing them a bright smile.


    **********


    Rose had cleared her bedroom up by throwing away unnecessary pieces of furniture out after the box with the capsule had arrived. She had thrown away her bed too, opting to sleep on the floor or in the capsule instead if needed. It was only after that did she had the delivery crew set it up. She waited until the delivery truck had left before locking the doors and windows properly and starting the capsule up.


    "Welcome to Celestial Realms. Please select your starting race," a voice said inside the ears.


    "Human." Rose replied right away. There was not much point in wasting time maximizing for killing efficiency. She was going to use the markets to make her fortune anyways.


    "The scan has detected your gender as female. Is there any modifications you wish to make to your character?" An avatar of herself appeared in front of her eyes. It stood at a height of 142 cm and had light brown hair that was tied in a pony tail that reached a bit below her neck. Her brown eyes stared right back at her as she looked.


    Since she didn''t care about how it looked, she said, "As is. Continue."


    "Please input your name."


    "Rose."


    "Please select your starting city."


    "Which of the starting cities has a varied economy?"


    "That would be the city of Zillis."


    "Zillis then."


    "Thank you for playing Celestial Realms. Please enjoy your time here."


    The world opened up around her to reveal a fountain in front. She raised her arms and flexed the fingers to see how it felt. The feeling was all there indeed. She cautiously took a step forward and noticed that it felt exactly like walking in real life. She took a few more moments getting a feel for her body here before looking at her surroundings.


    Looking around, she saw some houses on each side that had signs hanging near the door. One had a sword, one had a shield, and there was even one that had something like grass pictured on it indicating it was a shop that sold herbs. ''Seems like each house specializes in certain types of goods,'' she thought while looking around.


    Past the fountain, she spotted some stalls selling more perishable goods such as fruits and vegetables. It also seemed to be the location for merchants from other places to sell their goods. She continued to look around and noticed players checking their status and skills and so forth. She decided to do the same thing, "open status window."


    <table><tbody><tr><td colspan=''2''>Name: Rose</td><td colspan=''2''>Gender: Female</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''2''>Race: Human</td><td colspan=''2''>Class: Novice</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Title: None</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Fame: 0</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Health</td><td width="25%">100</td><td width="25%">Health regen</td><td width="25%">0.1/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Mana</td><td width="25%">100</td><td width="25%">Mana regen</td><td width="25%">0.1/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Stamina</td><td width="25%">100</td><td width="25%">Stamina regen</td><td width="25%">1.0/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Strength</td><td width="25%">10</td><td width="25%">Dexterity</td><td width="25%">10</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Agility</td><td width="25%">10</td><td width="25%">Vitality</td><td width="25%">10</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Intelligence</td><td width="25%">10</td><td width="25%">Wisdom</td><td width="25%">10</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Luck</td><td width="25%">10</td><td width="25%">Charisma</td><td width="25%">10</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Equipment:


    Plain Robes</td></tr></tbody></table>


    ''I guess this is the average starting stats for most humans. Nothing special. Guess I''ll check my inventory next. Open inventory,'' she thinks and a window opens up.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Bread Rolls  15


    Canteen 1L of water</td></tr></tbody></table>


    ''Not too much. My guess is it''s enough to last for five days. I can get water from the fountains but I''m going to need to make money if I want to eat. Or do anything in this game I guess. I better check the things around for their prices. I''ll start with the stalls since they probably have the cheapest stuff.''


    She browsed through the stalls while making mental notes on the prices offered by each stall. They were mostly selling only fruits and vegetables it looked like. She did notice some empty stalls though. She asked a merchant that was selling some vegetables next to an empty one, "Excuse me miss, but why are some of the stalls empty?"


    "Ah, that''s because those are stalls weren''t taken by anyone. We haven''t had any new merchants opening shops in a while really. Plenty of rumours as to why going around, little lass, but nothing that clearly says why."


    "Can anyone use those stalls?"


    "Nay lass, you need to get permission from the city to use em. Being a licensed Merchant helps too of course."


    "I see. Thank you miss."


    Rose decided to head towards the indoor shops next to check their wares. She notices a pair of guards in the distance heading closer and looking to be on patrol. She stops to check their gear to see what their quality is. One of the guards seems to have a spear that looks like it''ll break easily if hit in certain spots. The other had one that was better but not by all that much. ''Either this kingdom isn''t all that rich or they don''t care too much about the city militia.''


    She continues toward the weapon shop and overhears part of their conversation on the way.


    "I''m telling you Marvin, you need to get a new spear. Yours will break the next time you accidentally hit a training dummy with it. Look at mine, it''s new from the Barracks."


    "Yea, yea. You know I can''t do that so easily. The commander is still pissed off at me. There''s no way is he going to issue me a new one."


    "So the next time you get sent for an extermination run, you''re going to stand there and look at your broken spear while a wolf is attacking you?"


    "No. I might have to buy my own."


    Rose quickly memorizes how the guard looks. ''I feel an opportunity,'' Rose thinks as she picks up her pace and heads over to the weapon store.


    **AN: Finally...took some time but here''s the next chapter.

 Chapter 3 - Business senses tingling

    Author''s Note: Chapters will be shorter as I''ve decided to split the events that happen to each character up a bit. Point of View can still change depending on the situation though.


    Rose was now in a rush after sensing an opportunity to make some money. She had to determine the quality of the equipment being sold in the shops and if possible, find out how much they were being sold for. If she played things right, it might be possible to find some work and learn how things worked in this world.


    As she was running towards the weapon shop, she noticed her appearance on the window of the apothecary. She stopped and looked at her reflection in the glass window. ''Something feels off about how I look,'' she thought. Her instincts were telling her that the plan she had in mind wouldn''t work as she was. She looked too clean.


    As her mind unravelled the details of the plan that had come to her when she sensed the money making opportunity, she noticed that the alleyways between the shops were not as clean as the streets. She wasted no time and ducked in after checking to make sure no one was paying any attention to her. She dropped to the floor and started rolling around to cover herself with dirt and make herself appear dirty and dishevelled.


    She stepped back out and examined herself again in the apothecary window and nodded at how she looked now. She looked a bit like the homeless beggars that she had remembered seeing in reality now.


    With the preparations all in order, she continued towards the weapon shop. She went up to the door of the weapon shop before slowly opening it. She tried her best to give an impression that she was weak and was having trouble opening the door so allow anyone inside to lower their guard. Being an adventurer, she had enough strength to open the door normally but that would only make it difficult to achieve her current goal.


    ********************


    The merchant inside the weapon shop was having a slow day as usual. Even though he knew that it was the ordained day where people from another world would come to their world, he wasn''t all that excited. It would be quite a while before any of them would stop by his shop to buy any of the weapons. They were all similar to a child that would barely know how to swing a stick properly without injuring themselves. He accepted it as reality and continued to clean and polish a crate of weapons that had gotten dusty.


    It was at this time that he noticed the door open slowly. When he looked towards the door, he noticed a little girl struggling to open the door to enter his shop. Considering how much she was struggling just to open the door, he didn''t feel threatened in any way by the child. But he still kept an eye on her as he was curious as to why a child would come to his shop.


    He noticed as she went from weapon to weapon while carefully examining them. Sometimes, he would see her shake her head slightly, usually at weapons that he knew was made only well enough to pass as usable, and nodding her head at others. He didn''t become a merchant he is while being an idiot. He immediately knew that the child was able to tell the different in quality of each of the equipment she was looking at.


    ''Amazing, '' he thought. ''This child, who barely looked to be 12 years old, seems to have the ability to identify equipment well enough to tell their level of quality. Now I truly wonder why she came here.''


    He smiled politely and said, "Greetings little miss. I''m glad that you like what you see but is there anything I can help you with?"


    She let out a yelp as turned around with a look of surprise on her face. She looked rather nervous as she said, "Ah, uncle, I did not mean to disturb you. I was just looking at your weapons."


    "Oh? Is that so? And why would you be looking at my weapons for little lady?" he asked her.


    "Oh, because I want to become a merchant like my father. He taught me many things." she replied.


    "Oh ho? And where is your father now?" he asked again. He was always suspicious of things that didn''t make sense to him. Like why a child that looked like she had been living in the orphanage for a while, was here looking at his weapons.


    Her face changed to reflect sadness in her eyes. She even started to make sniffling sounds as she said, "He...he was killed."


    Shocked at her reply but still a bit suspicious, but in a kinder voice now, he asked, "He was killed? Can you tell me the details little one?"


    *************************


    When she noticed the change in the voice of the merchant, Rose knew that her plan was working. She ignored most of the boxes that had kept popping up ever since she had started examining the weapons in the story. She didn''t want to reveal that she was an adventurer to him if possible and couldn''t afford any distractions.


    "Ah, zio, mio padre, *sniff* was killed by bandits. *sniff*Both my parents hid me away *sniff* when the bandits attacked my village." Rose answered his questions as she started to let the tears flow. She was remembering what had happened to her own parents in reality when the tears simply came out. She was crying now and even she herself was unable to stop.


    The merchant put the weapon he was cleaning and approached her. He went down on one knee and hugged the girl while saying, "there, there. It''s ok. You''re safe now."


    She cried for a few minutes before she was finally able to control her crying. She had felt the worry the merchant felt towards her and was a bit shocked at how real they felt. She was so shocked that she had ended up crying longer than she had intended.


    After she had calmed down, she regained her senses and decided to continue the plan. Although at this point, it had pulled a part of her reality into it. She changed parts of it to fit this world though as she explained to the merchant that her family had been killed in a raid and how she had been found by guards who had arrived too late. She told him that her father had been a weapons dealer but she didn''t specify what kind of weapons he had sold. She told him that she had come here because she had wanted to become a merchant like her father had been.


    The merchant nodded in understanding after she had told him everything. He then asked, "So bambina, how much did you learn from your padre?"


    She pretended to think for a bit before examining one of the Halberds that was nearby. She then said, "I know enough to know that this weapon is a pretty good one. From what I know, it should be worth about 2 silver. How much are you selling it for zio?"


    There was a flash of surprise on the face of the merchant as he remarked, "Hooo, so you can not only tell the difference in quality but you can tell their value as well? That is quite amazing. As for what I am selling it for, I sell them for 4 to 6 silver each."


    A smile went on Rose''s face as she heard the price. She then asked, "Zio, if I can help you sell many of them, can I work here?"


    The merchant became interested as it looked like the winds of fortune were blowing his way. He seemed to have understood from the smile on her face that she had an idea that would allow him to make a small fortune today. He pointed at the crate filled with polearms and said, "Bambina, if you can sell all of these weapons for more than 4 silver each by the end of this week, you can keep the difference as payment. Not only that but I''ll even write a recommendation to allow you to take the Merchant''s license test taking place later this week. I''m called Maury by the way."


    Rose noticed a window pop up in front of her view this time. She pretended to think as she read the contents.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Quest Received: Weapon Shop Assistant


    Intrigued by your request, the Weapon Shop owner Maury, has agreed to your request to hire you should you sell many of his polearms. He has also offered additional rewards if you are able to sell them all before the end of the week.


    Reward: Varies


    Accept?</td></tr></tbody></table>


    She then nods her head and says, "Ok! Rose will try her best! Zio, when will you be closing the shop today?"


    "Well, the time right now is still not even noon yet. The shop will stay open until the sun has set in the evening."


    Rose nodded again and went to the crate of polearms to examine them as well as check the boxes that had popped up.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Examining many weapons with a keen eye has allowed you to understand their quality as well as their value. Appraisal Skill has been unlocked.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Appraisal has reached Beginner rank 2.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Being able to talk your way into getting what you want has unlocked the Negotiation skill. Negotiation skill has been unlocked.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    There were also various boxes showing details of the weapons that she had looked at that she dismissed. She also noticed that she had gained a point to her Charisma stat. She thought to look at the details of the two skills and windows popped up with their details.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Appraisal (passive):


    A skill that allows the person to tell the quality level as well as value of objects. Higher ranks will reveal more details about objects.


    Current level is Beginner rank 2.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Negotiation (active):


    A skill that allows a person to use speech to achieve their desired results. Charisma +2


    Current level is Beginner rank 1.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    She then took a better look at the crate of polearms. She noticed that there were a total of 20 polearms with about  of them being of good quality while the others were of normal quality. An idea popped into her mind as she slowly organized the polearms to only show 5 at a time with 4 of them being normal quality and one being good quality. The rest, she hid away in the back of the shop. Maury looked on with interest clearly written on his face.


    Satisfied with the presentation of the weapons, she went outside and looked around. She spotted some Spearmen on patrol and headed towards them. "Signore!" she called out to them.


    The two Spearmen stopped and looked at the girl that was calling to them. A flash of grimace passed on one of their faces as they asked her what she wanted.


    "Ah, signore. Did you know that the weapon shop is having a sale on their polearms today? I can tell just by looking that the weapons you have are of poor quality and low in durability from so much use. Why not take advantage of the discount you can get and get a better one?"


    The guard that had treated her normally said, "Oh? A sale you say? It must be a special event. Never heard of this sale event but you say there is a discount on polearms because of it? I have been meaning to replace my current one...ok, I''ll take a look. Come on Drake, lets see what this sale is all about."


    Rose realized that this world didn''t have anything like a sales event based on what the guard had said. Looks like she might be able to make use of it nicely to turn a fair profit. She quietly led them inside the weapon shop and to the polearms she had left on display. The weapon shop owner greeted them politely and observed while polishing some weapons.


    She pointed to the normal quality ones and said, "These are of normal quality but my zio takes good care of them so their durability is still intact. This other one is actually very well made and is of good quality. It receives a small boost to its damage potential and is also more durable than those of normal quality. The normal quality ones are usually sold for 6 silvers each but for today, it has been discounted to only 5 silver. The good quality ones usually go for 9 silver though as the extra durability can mean the difference between life and death in tough battles but has been discounted to 7 silver."


    The guard looked rather pensive as he said, "So the good quality is stronger overall huh...but I wonder if I should..."


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "May I see your hands signore?" she asked.


    "My hands? What for ragazzina?" the guard asked, confusion showing clearly on his face.


    "Well signore, I can tell that you are having trouble deciding which to get. Seeing your hands will give me a good idea of your skill level with the polearm and will make it easier for me to recommend which would be the better buy for you." Rose replied.


    "Oh," he remarks and shows his hands to her. Rose noticed that although he had started forming some calluses just below his fingers, they didn''t look all that hardened.


    "Hmph, this is just a ploy to make you sell you the good quality one I bet," the other guard remarked in disapproval.


    Rose had a feeling he might but decided to give her honest opinion regardless while ignoring him. "I don''t think that would be too good of an idea to use a good quality one. If my guess is right, you are still fairly new to using a polearm. It would be better to buy a normal quality one for now and continue to practice with the poor quality one you already have until it breaks. That will allow you to use the normal quality ones we have much better and allow you to become more skilled. I think it is better to be more proficient before using a good quality weapon. Using a weapon improperly will only make it lose durability quicker and won''t make much of a difference in saving your life."


    The guard with the disapproved look had his look change to that of surprise at such a detailed analysis. He stretches his hand out and asks, "You can tell that he''s new just by looking at his hand? Look at mine and tell me how long I have been a guard for."


    Rose looks at his hand and is surprised at how hard the calluses on his hands look. She looks up and asks, "Signore, you look rather young and as such, I cannot say how long you have been a guard for. But it seems that you have been using a polearm for a long time. The impression I get from your hands is that they have been using the polearm for more than 10 years. Am I wrong?"


    He shakes his head and replies, "No, you''re right. While I''m new to the guards in this city, my family are all Spearmen. As such, I have been learning to use the Spear since I was young. I think I will take your advice and buy the good quality one ragazzina. It seems you are more than meets the eye."


    The remark causes Rose to blush in embarrassment as she realized why he had been looking down on her. She had actually forgotten that her clothes were still rather dirty and that she looked more like a street urchin or beggar than someone that works at a weapon shop. Rose noticed two boxes pop up informing her of gaining another point of Charisma as well as a rank up for Negotiation.


    The other guard also decided to take her advice and buy a normal quality polearm. As they were headed out, the one called Drake calls out, "Thank you for the recommendations ragazzina. I''ll let the other guards know about the sale event and send them over."


    After they left, Maury looked at her and tosses a silver piece her way as he says, "I really want to know what this sale event he was talking about is. But I think you might need to head to the bathhouse and maybe buy some better clothes. You look like a beggar in your adventurer clothes."


    A gasp of surprise comes from Rose as she asks, "You knew?"


    "That you''re an adventurer? Yes. Not enough despair and hopelessness in your eyes to be an urchin from around here. Also haven''t heard of any villages being destroyed by bandits in the surrounding area for the past 50 years or so. I think that it was true that your parents were indeed killed but I also know that you are not from our world. Either way, get going quickly to the bathhouse. I think you might get more customers later today." he responds with a chuckle.


    Another blush started to rise to her face but she bowed in thanks and ran off to find the bathhouse. She didn''t hesitate to ask the residents for directions and found it easily enough. Using the bathhouse turned out to be free. Towels were free but it would be a copper for soap though. And before she could take a bath, she realized that she would need different clothes to change into that she had forgotten to buy in the rush.


    She didn''t have too much time to pick out something that looked nice. So she went to the nearest clothing merchant and picked up a cheap dress worth 40 coppers. The dress was a one piece with short sleeves and going half down to her shins. Its colouring was a faded black with green trims at the end of the sleeves and the neck line. Nothing fancy and offered little to no defence but she wasn''t planning to fight any way. Folding it neatly and making sure not to get any dirt on it, she went back to the bathhouse.


    She took only a quick bath as she wanted to get back to the store and only cleaned the dirt that had gotten on her before drying herself and putting the new dress on. Wasting no time, she went back to the weapon shop. She heard a sigh escape from Maury as he saw her enter the shop. Looking at her, he could only remark, "A bambina will still be a bambina regardless of how smart they seem I guess."


    Rose looked at him a bit confused as he called to her. But she complied anyway not sure what he wanted. As she reached him, he turned her around and took out a comb to start combing her hair.


    "Really...you can sell weapons so easily but you still can''t comb your hair properly?" Maury kept complaining as he combed her hair. He had just finished as two more guards had entered the store.


    "Welcome. Are you here for the sale?" Rose greeted them with a polite bow.


    "That and Captain Drake told us to show you our hands to get a recommendation as well," replies one of the guards.


    "Of course signore. This way please."


    The day went by fairly quickly as many of the guards kept coming in. The two that had given her the idea to try this had also stopped by to replace their weapons. The weapons that Maury had been expecting to take a week to sell had been sold in a day. Some other weapons had also been sold to some travellers that had stopped by and seen Rose giving recommendations and had asked in curiousity.


    At the end of the day, not only had she sold enough weapons to make a profit of 30 silver just for herself. And even more so for Maury as she had not offered any discounts for any weapons other than polearms. She had also gained another 9 points to her charisma and Negotiation skill had reached Beginner rank 4. She noticed some new boxes indicating some gain to her fame. She decided to check her status window.


    <table><tbody><tr><td colspan=''2''>Name: Rose</td><td colspan=''2''>Gender: Female</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''2''>Race: Human</td><td colspan=''2''>Class: Novice</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Title: None</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Fame: 5</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Health</td><td width="25%">100</td><td width="25%">Health regen</td><td width="25%">0.1/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Mana</td><td width="25%">100</td><td width="25%">Mana regen</td><td width="25%">0.1/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Stamina</td><td width="25%">100</td><td width="25%">Stamina regen</td><td width="25%">1.0/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Strength</td><td width="25%">10</td><td width="25%">Dexterity</td><td width="25%">10</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Agility</td><td width="25%">10</td><td width="25%">Vitality</td><td width="25%">10</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Intelligence</td><td width="25%">10</td><td width="25%">Wisdom</td><td width="25%">10</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Luck</td><td width="25%">10</td><td width="25%">Charisma</td><td width="25%">21</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Equipment:


    Plain Dress (black)</td></tr></tbody></table>


    "Now," Maury said aloud, "will you tell me what the meaning behind the word ''sale'' is?"


    "Oh, a sale means that products that are on sale are going for a cheaper price than they would on a normal day. So since you told me that you usually sell the polearms for 4 to 6 silver, I decided to make the higher number the regular price. And then used a lower number to indicate that it''s being sold cheaper than normal. With a little bit of advertisement, people will just flock to us." she replies with a grin on her face.


    "Advertisement? Another new word for me today."


    "Yes, it''s a way to let people know that there are discounted items being sold today. My way of advertisement today was to go to the guards and tell them of the sales event. That''s direct advertisement. Other ways to advertise is by putting a special sign outside that says what products are being offered at a discount. If any rare goods are available, those can also be advertised without really giving a discount on them. You can also have friends tell other friends and let them know of any sales or rare goods either and that''s an advertisement form called ''word of mouth.'' As far as I know, those are the only ways to advertise here. It''s also not too good an idea to put too many things on sale or have too many sales event. Maybe once a week or once a month or so. Doing it too often will make the feeling that it''s a special thing go away."


    "Bambina, it seems that I have underestimated you. You''re more of a merchant than anyone I have ever met. I think from today on, I will have to call you ''Little Merchant'' instead." he laughed as he praised her abilities. Rose could only blush in response.


    He then takes out a sealed envelope and hands it to her, along with 32 silver pieces. "A merchant that goes back on their word should not be considered a merchant."


    Rose bowed in thanks as some boxes popped up.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Quest Completed: Weapon Shop Assistant


    Rewards gained:


    32 silver pieces


    Letter of Recommendation from Weapon Shop merchant, Maury</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>You have received the title, "Little Merchant."</td></tr></tbody></table>


    When she requested more details on the title, another box popped up.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Title: Little Merchant


    People are more likely to listen to your recommendations when buying products from you.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    "The licensing test will be at the end of this week. Until then, you are free to work here as you please. But don''t let it stop you from exploring other options. Not only are you an adventurer, but you''re still young." Maury told her.


    "Thank you zio. I will be back tomorrow then." Rose replied with a bright smile on her face. She bowed once more and headed out to look for an inn. She found the inn near the entrance to the city easily enough. The innkeeper was a homely looking lady that looked to be in her late 40s. The cost for it was also fairly cheap at 50 coppers for a night and 20 coppers if they needed room for a mount. The innkeeper was a little surprised when she gave her a silver piece and looked at her before saying, "Ah, you must be the Little Merchant that my son was talking about. He''s a part of the guard and was showing me how accurate the recommendations from the girl at the weapon shop was about his training. Anyway, we can talk more tomorrow ragazzina. As for now, you look tired so I will just say, welcome to our little inn, ragazzina."


    She thanked the innkeeper politely and pocketed the 50 copper change she received. She had to admit that even though this was a game, she did feel rather tired from having spoken to so many people today. She needed to plan out a way to get a hold of her own goods to sell tomorrow though. But that''s for tomorrow and today, she was very tired. She made sure the door and the single window in the room was securely closed before lying down on the bed to sleep.


    **End note: Please feel free to point out mistakes. Also let me know whether I should continue to use a different language for relations such as brother, sister, etc.


    Side note: I''m starting to understand better about how some people say that the story went in that direction without them wanting to. I was originally planning for only around 2000 words but it ended up more than double. Enjoy.

 Chapter 4 - A Pole to Pick

    **AN: I''m not sure if I''m happy with this title...but nothing else came to mind...


    Another point is that while I am fairly confident in my spelling and grammar, I am no where near perfect. So feel free to point out any flaws you find.


    Zareth walks into the Barracks and notices three doors in front of him. He notices the two doors on the sides are guarded and simply nods to the two guards and walks through the middle door. Inside, he notices a rather wide space with several dummies on the south-west corner, lined up in two rows of 5. There were only a couple of people training on the dummies and both looked to be Guards-in-training. They were both using a classic Sword and Shield combination.


    In the south-east corner was an empty space. North of where he was standing, past a man that was armoured from the neck down was a door leading to what looked to be an archery range. Before that and a bit to the west, was an area that had markings that indicated a ring of some kind. It was probably the busiest place here today with a total of 5 people. There was a rack just on his left-hand side with various weapons for people to try. There were also some weapon racks with more commonly used weapons, such as wooden swords and shields, straight ahead in front of him as well.


    He bowed politely to the armoured man and walks over to the rack straight ahead and picks up one of the swords. He steps back a bit and swings a few times to test how it feels. He grabs another sword and walks over to the empty space before swinging them each separately a few times. Takes a few deep breaths and starts swinging them together for a bit and stops.


    "No...this feels fun but I don''t feel comfortable with them enough to use them fully. It just doesn''t feel quite right," He says, "I think I''ll try a few more."


    He places the swords back on the rack he grabbed it from and then moves over to the rack that was near the door he came from. He noticed some axes of both one-handed and two-handed variety as well as some heavier and much larger wooden swords. He took each and went over to the empty space to try them out. Each time, he would return to the weapon rack while shaking his head while saying, "Nope...this isn''t it either."


    He looked around and noticed that there were no other weapons outside of some bows with practice arrows. He looks at those for a bit and then shakes his head again while saying, "Yea, right. No point in those when I can''t even hit the broad side of a mansion with em. Guess I''ll just ask the head honcho..."


    He walks over to the armoured man and says, "Teacher, I was looking around and noticed that there are no wooden polearms or spears. Is there a reason for that?"


    The man looks at him and says, "You can just call me Sir Isaac, lad. The reason that there are no polearms is because  we have had to use them all to train our guards. Half of this kingdom''s army is made up of Spearmen that are trained in the use of polearms. Why did you want to try a polearm? A sword and shield is the most stable combination."


    "Ah, my name is Zareth. I tried using a sword and shield too, but it didn''t really feel right in my hands for me. Is there no way for me to try a polearm at all here sir?"


    "Hm...unfortunately we really don''t have any spares. Even Thomas, the kingdom''s carpenter, has trouble making enough for all the trainees to practice with. You would pretty much have to try your hand at making your own if you want a polearm. The only other thing I can think of that you can try in the meantime would be to use a Bo staff. If you''re ok with trying one, I can get it for you but I''ve found that most people tend to look down on it. Probably due to most staves being used by Mages or Clerics."


    "A Bo staff...I suppose I can treat it as a spear with a blunt tip. Yes, I''ll try the staff." he said while nodding his head in approval.


    The man nods and takes out a wooden Bo staff from a pouch at his waist and hands it over. The Bo staff was made of the same wood as the other wooden weapons, which appeared to be a type of Oak. It''s size was fairly standard at 180 cm and was a bit taller than him. It wasn''t the perfect size he would have wanted but it would work for now.


    "Thank you Sir Isaac." Zareth says as he bows slightly and returns to the open space.


    He starts by throwing a few thrusts out in front. Throws another thrust that angles up a bit but before finishing the thrust, he pulls down to make it strike down quickly. He then steps in and throws out a full thrust before returning back to his starting position. Looks down at the Bo and remarks, "Yea...this can work."


    He changes his settings quickly to hide any notifications that pop up other than messages from his friends. "Oh...right...I forgot to add Sky as a friend...I guess I''ll have to do it when I see him again."


    He starts again by throwing a single thrust before stepping in with a full thrust. He repeats the same thrust, step-in and thrust combination about 9 more times. He then steps in with a thrust and then steps back while letting one hand go and using the other to sweep the staff to the right while turning around to turn it into a horizontal strike. He quickly thrusts the staff back while loosening his grip and then grabs the staff with both hands before sweeping it down and upward for a vertical strike before returning to his starting position.


    He thinks back to his time in another game, Legends online, where he had used a spear as well. He played the game at his own pace which usually meant that he was usually soloing on his own. He would occasionally party with Sky or join other parties but it was rather rare. And even though his pace was usually leisurely, he ended up in situations surrounded by monsters more than a few times.


    He decided to try imagining some of the monsters he had fought there and entered into a trance. He would go from thrusts into strikes and back into thrusts fluidly while inside the trance. There would even be jumping thrusts thrown in here and there. One of the moves he did was a backflip while twirling the staff with one hand before landing and stepping in to a thrust. The staff in his hands didn''t stop for almost two hours.


    ********************


    Sir Isaac de Tortalone had been an instructor for almost 20 years. He had served in the army for 20 years prior to becoming an instructor. Although he looked to be in his early 40s, he was actually approaching his 54th year in life. He was fairly proficient in many of the weapons that were here even though his best was the sword and shield combination. He was also experienced enough with his time in the army to be able to train the guards in the use of polearms.


    He had seen many warriors in his lifetime so far. Some were as strong as 10 regular soldiers while others were sturdy enough to remain standing under many blows for half an hour. He knew that the adventurers that were foretold to come were stronger than regular people but so far, he had not seen anything all that impressive. There were a few who showed promise but the level of skill they displayed was not all that different than a recruit.


    And just like the people of this world, some of the adventurers were polite and friendly while others treated him as if he was only there to serve them. He simply treated them as they treated him. The ones that were polite, he would introduce himself and help as much as he can and those that were rude, he would just point to the weapon rack and leave them to their own devices.


    All of the adventurers that had come in so far, had headed towards the sparring arena right after choosing a weapon. He felt that it was rather cocky to do so as most of them seemed unable to swing a sword properly and would have gained more from practising on the training dummies first. But since these adventurers had been rude, he did not offer them any advice.


    So when one of the adventurers had come up to him asking about the lack of polearms politely, he answered truthfully. He had offered his Bo staff to other adventurers and they had all refused with a look of disdain in their eyes. He was a bit saddened by this, as the Bo staff could be considered as the base of a polearm but many seemed to forget that. Thus, he was caught slightly off guard when the man, that had introduced himself as Zareth, accepted it with no hesitation.


    Truth be told, although he was taken aback from his acceptance of the staff, he was not expecting much from the young man. He figured that he was not all that different from the adventurers that had shown some promise. And when he saw him practice the basic thrusts, he simply nodded in approval. While the form of the thrusts was correct, it was nothing spectacular. He was distracted when a pair of young ladies had politely introduced themselves to him and asked about the requirements to use the training centre. He again answered truthfully and watched them choose their weapons.


    He was not really surprised when one of them picked a short sword in each hand as others had done before her but he did silently approve when the other girl chose a sword and a shield. He saw them heading towards the sparring area to train and stopped paying attention as he felt they were displaying a similar impatiences like the other adventurers. As they had been one of the polite ones, he had been about to stop them from going over to the sparring area but as he saw the way their equipment was being held, he kept his silence.


    It was when he turned his head back to check on Zareth that he received his first surprise of the day. A veteran like himself was easily able to tell what was going on. Zareth was imagining himself to be in a situation where he was fighting many opponents at once. It was done so well that any veteran would be able to tell where the attacks were coming from as Zareth moved to dodge or block them. He could only imagine what kind of experience the young man had gone through to pick up the skills he was displaying. The level of skill being displayed was levels above any that he had seen in his lifetime. Sir Isaac watched Zareth practice for about an hour while thinking that at least one of the adventurers had some skill, when he heard some gasps of surprise coming from the sparring arena.


    When he looked, he noticed that it was the pair of ladies that had introduced themselves before heading over to the sparring area that were sparring each other now. He noticed that each strike from the smaller girl, wielding twin blades, were very fluid. Each of the blades in her hand, seemed to have a mind of its own as each swing flowed one after the other repeatedly hammering away at her opponent. This was the second time today that he was surprised. The attacks had even kept hitting from seemingly random angles with little to no break in between.


    But the third and biggest surprise came from the other girl who was blocking or parrying each swing from the other girl perfectly. At only a glance, it would seem as it the girl could do nothing but block the attacks and many would be quick to think that she would fall eventually under the onslaught. But those who are veterans of the sword and shield were able to see more. Not only were each block or parry moving to block each attack from the opponent perfectly, her arms were also moving in a manner to diffuse the power of the attacks coming in. She would extend her arms almost fully out to block the attack and just as the attack landed, she would pull her arm back while bending her knees slightly to absorb the blows while reducing their power. His intuition had told him that the two knew at least a bit about using swords but the level of expertise being displayed was much more than he had expected.


    As if that had not been enough, the girl with the two swords started moving around her opponent as well while swinging the blades. The attacks before had all been only a frontal attack but it seems to have been only a warm up. Now the overall tempo of the match had been raised to another level. All those watching, including Isaac himself, could only stare in shock as not only the attacks but also the blocking kept getting faster. The level of skill being displayed, was one that had taken him over half his life to achieve. One was a Swordsman of great agility and the other, like an impenetrable fortress. Both had smiles on their faces as they kept going at each other in a high speed battle.


    Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    ''It seems that more than one of the adventurers that came here show a surprising level of skill. Some seem to have honed the skills through many battles while others seem to have refined it through years of practice. It would be good for our world if there are more out there with such skills,'' Isaac thought to himself.


    Isaac kept switching his gaze between the Spearman that was taking on nearly impossible odds in his image training and the spar between the Swordsman and the Knight. That was the only way he can describe them. The weapons they had each picked moved naturally as if they had been using them their whole lives.


    The spar finally came to an end after almost an hour when one of the wooden blades broke. The Knight spotted the opening and moved quickly by launching a bash attack with her shield, sending the Swordsman flying out of the ring. And when Isaac turned his gaze towards the Spearman again, he noticed that the image training had ended and the man was headed his way.


    *******************


    Zareth made his way back to Sir Isaac to return the staff. He then bows to him and says, "Thank you for lending me the staff sir. I guess I''ll probably have to make my own spear though since it seems to be the weapon I feel more suited for."


    Isaac looks at him with a blank look before bursting out laughing. "Lad, I saw you practice with my own eyes and I still have trouble believing how suited you are to it. How about this, you agree to make 20 polearms for the kingdom and I''ll ask Thomas to teach you as much as he knows about carpentry and get his help in making your own spear?"


    Zareth quickly activated the notifications again just in time to get the quest.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Quest received: An order of polearms


    You have been asked to make 20 polearms to help supply the army of Zilis by Sir Isaac. Your reward is a dedicated teacher that will teach you carpentry as well as help to make your own weapon.


    Accept?</td></tr></tbody></table>


    Zareth nods his head, "I will gladly help. I can probably use the practice too. But Sir Isaac, to make good polearms, should not I be learning Blacksmithing too?"


    "Well lad, it would certainly help you out if you do learn it. But I''ll be honest with you. Most people are unable to devote the time and effort to learn more than one of the trades. Not to mention that for you, who seem to be skilled with a Spear in particular, carpentry would be a better route as most of the more powerful spears, are made purely through rare lumbers. If you do decide to make a metal spearhead, you would be much better off to find another person who is versed in Blacksmithing to make it for best results."


    "Thank you for your help Sir Isaac. I will be back again tomorrow to practice."


    "No you won''t lad. I''ll see you the day after if anything. You should probably rest tomorrow instead. But I guess you''ll see for yourself what I mean. Now off with you. You''ll find Thomas in the production district. Head west from the Goddess'' statue to find it. His shop will be obvious."


    Zareth bows quickly and heads off to the production district. On his way to the statue, he checks the log of notifications that had piled up. He noticed that he had gotten some gains to both Agility and Dexterity. He gained about 5 Agility but it was his Dexterity gain of a whopping 13 that surprised him a bit. He had just let the feel of having something similar to a spear, take him back to his memories in a previous VRMMORPG he had played. It hadn''t felt as good as it had here but it was where he first used a polearm. He had been obsessed with swords before that and hadn''t expected much when he picked up the spear in that game. Things changed quickly after he had started using it though. He decided to check his status again.


    <table><tbody><tr><td colspan=''2''>Name: Zareth</td><td colspan=''2''>Gender: Male</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''2''>Race: Elf</td><td colspan=''2''>Class: Novice</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Title: None</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Fame: 0</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Health</td><td width="25%">80</td><td width="25%">Health regen</td><td width="25%">0.08/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Mana</td><td width="25%">120</td><td width="25%">Mana regen</td><td width="25%">0.12/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Stamina</td><td width="25%">80</td><td width="25%">Stamina regen</td><td width="25%">0.8/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Strength</td><td width="25%">8</td><td width="25%">Dexterity</td><td width="25%">23</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Agility</td><td width="25%">16</td><td width="25%">Vitality</td><td width="25%">8</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Intelligence</td><td width="25%">12</td><td width="25%">Wisdom</td><td width="25%">10</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Luck</td><td width="25%">10</td><td width="25%">Charisma</td><td width="25%">11</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Equipment:


    Plain Robes</td></tr></tbody></table>


    Looking at more of the notifications, he noticed that he had picked up some skills too. It seems that he had gained Martial Staff Mastery as a passive and Double Thrust and Piercing Thrust as active techniques. He could only laugh to himself at how easily he had learned the core techniques of the fighting style he had developed before. He decided to check the details of the skills at a late time and continued on towards the production district.


    He bows to the Goddess statue again as he passes by on his way to meet with the carpenter. The wood shop wasn''t all that hard for him to find in the production district. It was pretty much filled with the smell of cut lumber near it. He wipes the smirk forming on his face before entering inside.


    Inside, other than the smell of freshly cut wood, he saw piles of logs lying on one side of the room near another door in the back and cut lumber stacked on the other side of the room. The door in the back was closed. There were also several tables in the room, conveniently placed close to the pile of logs, where the logs could be cut and turned into lumber.  On the other side and closer to the lumber, were work benches and tables for making finer products, such as various carvings. He noticed some people doing motions that seemed fairly automated. They were all wearing the same plain robes that he was wearing so it was fairly clear that they were fellow players that had taken up carpentry. He nodded politely to anyone that looked at him as he looked around for Thomas.


    He noticed someone in different clothes at one of the work benches. Zareth wasn''t able to judge the man''s height as he was not standing straight up but he did appear to be middle-aged. He was wearing a beige shirt with some blue pants. On top of those clothes, was a work apron that had various cutting, shaping, and sharpening tools. He also seemed to be working on something that that looked to be a polearm. Zareth decided to move to the side and quietly watch him work. Not only was he curious on how it was made, but he also did not want to interrupt him before he finishes.


    Looking on, Zareth noticed that the head had already been attached to the pole of the weapon. It looked to be a Halberd that was being made. As he watched, he noticed Thomas carefully sanding down pieces of the wood that looked slightly rough. He would sand it and then run his fingers back and forth over the area to double check how smooth it was before moving on to another spot. Once he was satisfied, he started to put on a layer of varnish to give it a glossy look. The wood he had been using was fairly dark and appeared to be of common Oak variety to Zareth. Or at least it reminded him of the Oak Spear he had used near the beginning of the previous VRMMORPG he had played.


    Thomas looked up after finishing the layer of varnish and looks his way before saying, "Thanks for waiting. You seem like an adventurer although quite a bit more polite than the other riff-raff that came here." Thomas tosses a glance back at the others that were grinding their skills.


    "Ah, no worries. I was also interested in how you were making the Halberd anyway. I was actually recommended by Sir Isaac to come and ask you to teach me the ways of carpentry."


    "Isaac sent you? Now that''s a first. That old geezer wouldn''t recommend someone over to me unless that person was exceptional with a polearm. I''m guessing you managed to use that staff of his well enough to satisfy him."


    Zareth was impressed with the level of realism this game had as he noticed an endearing look pass through Thomas'' eyes when he was talking about Isaac. Zareth nodded and told him that he had spent a few hours training with the staff Isaac had lent him.


    "He told me that I should ask you to teach me carpentry and to also help you out with making some of weapons going to the army. I''m not too sure how well I''ll do but I will try my best to make sure they''re of good quality."


    "Is that so. And what''s the catch?"


    "Well...he said that you might be able to help me make my own weapon as well. I plan to be a user of the Spear and I was told that the best way to get a hold of a Spear was to make it myself."


    "Is that all. Helping you make your own should be easy enough. Knowing him, he probably told you to make a certain amount of the weapons too."


    Zareth nodded and said, "Yes, he told me to make 20 of them."


    Thomas barks out a loud laugh, scaring some of the grinders. He then says, "Well then...the sooner I teach you, the sooner you can start making those weapons. Now...come a bit closer."


    As Zareth went closer, Thomas pulled his head closer and started speaking in a lower voice, "I know you''re an adventurer, it''s easy enough to tell. And from what I''ve seen, there would be two ways for you to make the weapons. The quick and easy way would be to let the Goddess guide your hands as the others are doing. The other way is to make it yourself without any guidance. Which would you prefer?"


    Zareth asks in the same quiet voice, "I''m going to take a wild guess that there''s a difference between the two methods?"


    Thomas barks out another laugh as he says loudly, "Looks like Isaac sent a smart one to me. But yes, there''s a difference."


    Thomas lowers his voice again before saying, "The first, would allow you to make them quickly but they''d be stuff you can find in stores. The second, would allow you to control the level of quality the product will turn out to be. If you''re going to keep your word about making them of good quality, you''ll have to use the second way. So what will it be?"


    Zareth grins as he replies, "The second of course. Quality will always be better than quantity in my book. I''m Zareth. Please take good care of me, Sir Thomas."


    Thomas nods in approval and says, "Just Thomas will do. I hate formalities. You''re going to have a lot of work to do to get things right. And don''t expect me to go easy on you either. Lets start with cutting the logs into lumber properly."


    Thomas puts the Halberd he had been working on to dry and takes Zareth over to the logs and begins teaching him the basics.

 Chapter 5 - Rest, Relaxation, and Leather Perfume

    Karen had been waiting patiently to spar with her little sister for over a year. One of the few things she had missed after moving to Tokyo had been playing around with Yuri. As for their sparring sessions at the dojo, it would usually end up becoming surrounded by the other students due to it being quite intense. The students would claim that they wanted to learn by watching but their facial expressions revealed how exciting watching the spar between the two sisters were to them. Unfortunately, this also meant that the space available for moving around would be more restricted as they didn''t want any harm to befall the students. This prevented either her or her sister from being able to go all out and fight more freely and instead, they would have to hold back a lot of their ability. So Karen had actually been wanting an all-out spar for even more than a year.


    And now, here at the training centre inside Celestial Realms, they did not need to worry as much about injuring others. Not only was the space to spar in much bigger than at their dojo, the people here were strangers too. Some of whom were looking at them with either disgusting or odd glints in their eyes. There was no real need to hold back on their account and if some of them ended up getting hurt by being too close, it wouldn''t bother her much. ''But still...probably a good idea to warn them anyway, just in case.'' Karen sighed.


    So when it came to their turn, after stepping into the sparring area, she looked about and said, "Sorry to be a bother ladies and gents but if can move back a bit, you''ll be less likely to receive injuries from our spar. Just a warning that we will not be held responsible for any damages incurred to you should you decide to come any closer."


    Some of them looked at her with skepticism in their eyes at the warning but they moved back slightly anyway. It didn''t matter too much to Karen as she had already given the warning. There was no longer a need to hold back anymore. Today, would be the all-out spar she had been dreaming about for so long.


    She moved closer to the centre of the sparring area and did some light stretches to loosen her muscles. She noticed that Juli was doing the same and once ready, they nodded to each other. She gripped the shield in her left hand lightly before getting into a position by putting her left foot forward and extending her shield arm out. She lowered her centre of gravity a bit by slightly bending her knees and gazed at her opponent.


    They stared at each other for a whole minute before Juli took a step in, leading with her right foot and moving the blade in her right hand in time with her foot to hit the target just as her right foot touches the floor. Karen watched the sword come down and moved the shield to her right slightly to let the attack hit it in an angle and deflect the damage by smacking the blade to the side . She also knew from her sisters habits that this wasn''t the real attack and quickly moved the shield to the top left to deflect the real attack coming in for her head.


    "Come on Yu-chan, that was so predictable. You should know by now that basic attacks won''t work on me," she taunted.


    "I''m still warming up," came the reply from Juli as she retreated a bit.


    Karen noticed her taking a few deep breaths and knew a flurry was coming up. She took a small step forward to reduce the amount of damage that can be dealt and swung the sword in her right hand in a full circle to get it ready to move it about. As soon as she finished her step, the flurry of attacks came from Juli. She no longer tried to deflect the attacks with the shield but would instead pull her arm back a bit as soon as the blade touched the shield to absorb the blows. With her sword, she would parry in a way that would make the opponents blade slide down the blade of her sword before deflecting it away from her before it reached the hilt. It didn''t do much to stop the flurry of attacks coming in but it reduced the damage taken by almost 90%.


    This went on for about half an hour with no opening at all. It was a good thing she had turned off all notifications before the spar started or she might be getting bombarded with various windows popping up by now. She kept blocking and parrying each attack that kept coming in without moving from the spot she was at. When it finally stopped she looked at her sister and with a grin, asked, "Finished warming up yet?"


    Juli just smiled and nodded her head in response while lowering her stance slightly. "Ok everyone, that warning about moving back earlier would be a good thing to follow now. The fireworks are about to start," Karen said out loud.


    "What? It''s just starting? That was already so intense!" she heard someone remark.


    "Don''t hold back on me now Yu-chan." Karen said to her sister in a bit quieter voice.


    Just as she finished saying it, she lost sight of where Juli was. She was about to look around when she felt a slight movement of wind to her left. She quickly turned and blocked an attack, barely absorbing it before deflecting it back. Juli used the deflection of the attack to jump back and vanish again.


    ''Wow, to think she had been holding back this much in our usual spars before. I guess I should stop holding back too. And I think I''m going to have to make an opening instead of waiting for one.'' Karen thought.


    She changed her stance slightly by moving her right foot back and in a bit. She also redistributed her weight to put more on her back foot as well. This would allow her to turn quickly to block or parry any incoming attacks and also allow her to react by rushing in if there was an opening. Unfortunately, she knew that her current opponent would not give any openings and instead, kept looking for a way to create one. The faster pace also increased her own awareness of her surroundings to another level as she was able to feel the changes in the air around her to detect where the next attack was coming from. There was not much point to trying to find Juli with her eyes so instead, she closed her eyes and kept trying to sense her location. It took about 10 minutes but by focusing on the changes in the air around her, she was able to pinpoint not only the direction the attacks were going to come from but also which blade it was.


    An idea popped into her head. Each time a swing from the left blade was coming, instead of blocking with her shield, she would block it with her sword. Each block also aimed to block it at the same spot it was blocked the first time. It took about half an hour more before she felt some splinters come flying off from the left blade. Considering that Juli''s movements had not changed, Karen knew that her plan was not discovered. And as the left blade was swung at her again, Karen crouched down slightly while swinging her sword out and causing the weakened blade to break.


    Juli looked at the blade in surprise and gave Karen the opening she had been waiting for. Karen quickly jumped forward from her stance and moved into the space that was made by the broken left blade and delivered a bash using the shield right into Juli''s chest. The momentum from the movement forward along with timing on Karen''s part put a lot of force into the shield bash causing Juli, who had also been thrown off balance from lack of a full second blade, to go flying out of the sparring area and into the wall behind her. Karen also let out a surprised gasp, indicating that she had not expected this outcome either, and ran to her sister to help her up.


    *******************************


    Juli sat up after having fallen down from hitting the wall and while in a bit of a daze, allowed her sister to help her up to her feet. ''What happened?'' she wondered as she got up. She shook her head to clear her head and just said, "You win, onee-chan."


    This caused a smile to appear on her older sisters face. "Good to see you''re ok too Yu-chan. I never knew you could move so fast," said her sister.


    "Yea, but I think I still have a lot to improve on too. Where did I make the mistake?" she asked.


    "If I had to pick out your biggest fault, it would be your lack of awareness to the things around you. You were so focused on attacking, that you disregarded everything else. This allowed me to create an opening by targeting a specific point of your blade to weaken and break it. Inside the sparring ring, the focus on attack can be forgiven. But if we''re fighting monsters outside the city walls, you might easily find yourself with a claw in you if you''re that careless. Not too sure how we''ll be training that...but I guess it wouldn''t hurt to ask the instructor."


    Juli could only nod her head at the detailed analysis given. She went to pick up the broken pieces of the blade, thinking she would need to apologize to the instructor for the damaged weapon. As she stood up from picking the pieces up, a sudden round of applause was heard from all the spectators. She looked up to see a standing ovation from all the people that had seen the spar. Any odd looks that were given their way earlier had been replaced with a look of respect. She bowed politely to them as she had been taught and made her way to Sir Isaac, who was also clapping his hands.


    "My apologies for the weapon sir. It was my fault for not paying attention to its condition during the battle." Juli lowered her head deeply as she apologized to Sir Isaac.


    "Lass, raise your head. They''re wooden weapons because they''re easy and cheap to replace when they get damaged. And considering the skills the two of you have displayed tells me that you both will be great assets to our nation. As such, a broken training sword is cheap in comparison. But I wonder if you can indulge this old man and tell me how long have the two of you been practicing the ways of the sword?" came the reply, which caught Juli slightly off guard.


    "We''ve been training since we were able to hold something that would resemble a sword in our hands if I had to guess a time," Karen answered. "Hard to remember how long ago that was exactly, but the two of us have rarely gone a day without holding a blade in our hands. But on another note, I was wondering, are there any methods to allow one to train their awareness Sir Isaac? I want to improve my perception of my surroundings and I know my sister needs it as well."


    "Unfortunately lass, the only way to improve that is through experience. You can gain some experience from sparring multiple people at a time but that is still not as good to train the perception as battling against foes in the wilderness. In the wild, you never know when or where an attack will come from and the need for survival will make the body adapt at a quicker pace than any other method I can think of. There was a lad here that displayed a deep level of perception based on the image training I saw him doing, but I get the impression he earned it in the places far more dangerous than the wilderness near cities. But reaching the same level of image training he was doing will need a lot of first hand battle experience."


    "Oh...that''s too bad. Maybe I''ll try to convince some of the other adventurers tomorrow then to help out and see if that helps I guess. Something better than nothing." Karen replied, looking a bit downcast.


    "I don''t know if the two of you will be in a condition to spar again tomorrow or not but what are your plans for now? I think it might be a good idea to look around the city and relax a bit to let your body heal from the spar."


    "I was thinking of going to the smithy to learn the skills of the trade. I want to be able to make some specific type of blades for us that I''m not sure can be found in this city. Not to mention that it might be cheaper to make my own armor as well in the long run. Blacksmithing seems like a natural choice."


    While they were talking, Juli was reading some of the pop-ups that appeared. She noticed that she had about 12 windows saying that Agility had improved while about 5 of them were about an improvement to Dexterity.  There was also a smaller increase to Vitality but it was only 1 point. She also noticed some windows that said that she had gained some skills.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Your display of skills in the spar have unlocked the following skills:


    Sword Mastery


    Dual-wield


    Wind Walk</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Sword Mastery has reached Beginner rank 7.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Dual-wield has reached Beginner rank 3.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Wind Walk has reached Beginner rank 1.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    There was also another window that she didn''t think would have carried over. It seems to have unlocked a trait for her.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Your display of wielding a weapon in each hand has unlocked the following trait:


    Ambidexterity</td></tr></tbody></table>


    Of course she had no idea what these meant but she tried her best not to be too distracted by them and just closed them for now. She did quietly say, "Open Status Window."


    <table><tbody><tr><td colspan=''2''>Name: Julianne</td><td colspan=''2''>Gender: Female</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''2''>Race: Half-Elf</td><td colspan=''2''>Class: Novice</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Title: None</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Fame: 0</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Health</td><td width="25%">82</td><td width="25%">Health regen</td><td width="25%">0.1/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Mana</td><td width="25%">110</td><td width="25%">Mana regen</td><td width="25%">0.11/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Stamina</td><td width="25%">100</td><td width="25%">Stamina regen</td><td width="25%">1.0/s</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Strength</td><td width="25%">9</td><td width="25%">Dexterity</td><td width="25%">15</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Agility</td><td width="25%">25</td><td width="25%">Vitality</td><td width="25%">10</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Intelligence</td><td width="25%">11</td><td width="25%">Wisdom</td><td width="25%">10</td></tr><tr><td width="25%">Luck</td><td width="25%">10</td><td width="25%">Charisma</td><td width="25%">10</td></tr><tr><td colspan=''4''>Equipment:


    Plain Robes</td></tr></tbody></table>


    "I think it is definitely a good idea to take up Blacksmithing as I did notice that both of you only used one side of the sword when attacking. Do you use a Katana or a Falchion perhaps?" Juli heard Sir Isaac saying.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "Ah, we were trained in the Katana. The impression I received is that they will either be hard to find or fairly expensive in this region. Which is why I had planned to make my own instead." Karen replied.


    "Either way, you might want to take it a bit easy and let your fatigue from the spar recover instead of learning Blacksmithing today. You would want to be at full capacity for a strenuous task that would be required from smithing. Even more so if you plan to make a quality Katana. Come see me tomorrow morning and I will write an introduction letter for you to give to our resident head Blacksmith, Jonas. As for today, here is a silver for each of you for showing me a wonderful bout. Get something to eat at the tavern in the western square. Best place to be after a good spar." He said as he handed out a silver to the two of them.


    She just put it into her inventory while planning to give it to her sister later since she didn''t know how money worked in these games. She did bow and give her thanks to Sir Isaac as she heard her sister reply, "Thank you Sir Isaac. I think I''ll take your advice and rest for the day."


    They both left the Barracks after returning the equipment that were in one piece. They left the broken piece with Sir Isaac. Upon reaching outside, a thought occurred to Juli as she said, "Onee-chan, you said you were going to use Blacksmithing to make armor too? Wouldn''t armor made of metal be heavy?"


    Karen nods and says, "Yes, they''re amongst the best to wear for defense though. What''s up?"


    "Well, I''m not sure if I want to wear heavy armor as it would kind of impede my movement. Wouldn''t it be better to wear lighter gear for my style of fighting?"


    "Hm...yes...so I guess maybe one of us would need to get tailoring or something too. Then again, I thin we might be able to get Maria to make things out of cloth as she seemed to have been planning to be a tailor anyway. Well...we''ll think of something later I guess. For now, lets go eat. I''m actually feeling hungry."


    Juli nods and follows her sister as they go towards the Goddess statue in the central square. As they get near the statue, Juli notices some people that look to be travelers heading to the south. She noticed that although they were moving fairly easily, they made little to no sound when walking. When she looked towards their feet, she noticed something like boots but that didn''t look like metal. She tugged on the sleeve of her sister and pointed while asking, "Onee-chan, how do you think those boots are made? It would be nice to be able to make something like that to move in I think. It wouldn''t be as heavy as metal boots but looks like they would be better than something made of cloth."


    "Leathercrafting eh...that''s not a bad idea. You would be able to make some lighter armor too if you wanted something a bit sturdier than cloth but not as heavy as plate. And knowing you, I can see you making some cute shoes and gloves out of leather. We should stop by after some food to see if we can find someone to teach it to you. It shouldn''t put as much stress on our body like working with metal would. But for now...food!" says her sister as she grabs her hand and drags her off towards the west.


    **********************************


    They found the tavern easily enough after reaching the west fountain. Upon entering, they noticed some travelers similar to the ones they saw heading south at the Goddess statue sitting around and eating happily. They greeted the owner politely and asked for a seat for two. They were taken to a nearby table where they sat down to wait for their meal.


    "I''ll take whatever the chef recommends." Karen said. Juli simply nodded to indicate the same.


    "Tobi, two of your recommendations," the owner shouted inside.


    They saw a boy, in a robe similar to theirs, pop out of the kitchen and look around. As he noticed the two ladies that the owner was standing near, he asked, "Eastern or western?"


    Karen was a bit surprised at how young the boy looked and was at a bit of a loss for words. But Juli just answered, "Eastern for me."


    "Oh, sorry. I''ll take something western. Thank you." Karen said after snapping out of her trance.


    The boy simply nodded and went back in. Karen looks at the owner and asks, "He''s the chef?"


    The owner nods and replies, "Yes, he''s been the main chef for the past few hours actually. My wife and I were surprised as well but in the short time he''s been here, he has helped us quite a bit. Not only is he quick but his dishes are delicious enough to receive non-stop compliments from the travelers too. I asked if he was a Master in Cooking but he said that he was only a Beginner rank 7. Apparently learned how to cook from his mother."


    "Interesting...so young but already on his way to being a great chef. Looking forward to his dishes then."


    The owner heads back to his post behind the desk. "Onee-chan, the sparring gave me some skills and stats. Did you get anything?" said the voice sitting across from her.


    "You know, I had completely forgotten about that. I should check now."


    She turned her notifications back on and noticed several stat gains. She had gained about 8 to Vitality and 6 to Dexterity. She has also surprisingly gained 2 points in Agility, possibly from that last burst. She had also unlocked Shield Mastery and gotten it at Beginner rank 4, which was kind of a given. But she had also gained a skill called Awareness and it was at Beginner rank 2. She touched the skill and it opened up a window with more details.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Awareness: This skill allows you to get a feel for your surroundings by using your senses fully. Lower levels will allow you to get a feel for your surroundings using the flow of the wind. At higher levels, it will allow you to get a feel for other things around you as well, such as the presence of life.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    She was a bit sad that she did not get any Sword Mastery but she seemed to have gained a technique for her Shield usage. She touched it for more information.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Shield Bash - Beginner rank 1: A skill where the shield is used to bash the opponent. If the target is light enough, can allow a knock back effect. Damage done using this skill is based on skill level and the Strength stat.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    "I got a raise of 8 to my Vitality, 6 to Dexterity, and 2 to Agility. I gained Shield Mastery, Shield Bash, and the Awareness skill from the looks of it. What did you get?" She asked her sister.


    "For me, my Agility went up by 12, Dexterity by 5, and Vitality by 1. I got Sword Mastery, Dual Wielding, and Wind Walk skill. It said that I unlocked the ambidexterity trait too," Juli said.


    "Odd...neither of us gained any Strength. I wonder why." As she was contemplating the lack of any strength gains, a lady, that could only be the owner''s wife, brought out their food.


    One of the dishes she had brought out was some a Fried Rice dish. It was placed in front of Juli and it seemed to have some bits of meat as well as a fair bit of mixed vegetables in it. It definitely smelled delicious. And her dish was actually Vermicelli with sauce on top of it. There was no garnish but she wasn''t about to complain as she actually loved pasta and couldn''t wait to try it out. The lady said, "The dishes are 5 coppers each and you can settle it with my husband at the desk. Enjoy your meal."


    Neither waited all that long to dive into their food showing how hungry they really had been. The food in front of them had vanished in a matter of minutes. Both sisters had a rather dreamy look to them as they leaned back in their chairs and let out a sigh.


    "Wow...5 coppers for this feels really cheap for some reason," Karen said.


    Juli nodded her head but one of the travelers that had been sitting nearby piped up and said to them, "Isn''t it? I''ve had my fair share of good meals in my travels and this one feels like it''s from a luxurious restaurant only meant for nobles. I wouldn''t be surprised if people would pay a silver for these dishes."


    Both sisters nodded their head vigorously as Karen said, "I wouldn''t be surprised either. If I didn''t have so little on me, I probably would have paid a silver for it today."


    All the travelers still in the tavern nodded their heads in agreement. "Three cheers for Young Master Tobi!" one of them cried out as the travelers raised their glasses to the toast. Karen couldn''t help but laugh and raised her glass of water as well.


    As the noise died down, Karen said to her sister, "As much as I would love to stay and eat more, I''m full. And I think that it would be a good idea for you to learn some leatherworking too before everything closes up. So should we head to the shop?"


    "Ok," came the short reply as they both rose from the table. They paid the 10 coppers for their meal and thanked the owner and asked for directions to the tanning shop before heading out. They passed by the Goddess statue again as they headed towards the production district. They spotted the tanning shop a fair distance away and made their way towards it. As they got closer, a strong smell of leather being tanned hit them and made them stop for a bit. While it didn''t smell as putrid as she had heard it used to, it was still not all that appealing a smell.


    "Ugh. I wonder if we can bottle this smell up and use it to ward off monsters or something. It stinks bad enough that it''ll probably keep a lot of them away." Karen said.


    "Bad...but need to learn how to do it," came the response from her sister. Karen nodded and they both pressed on to enter the shop.


    Inside the shop, there were some hides lying in a couple of big baskets in one of the corners that looked as if it hadn''t been worked on. There were also a few racks that had some rawhide that looked ready to be tanned and a few racks where there was leather being dried. The odd thing about the inside of the shop, was that the smell that they smelled outside wasn''t here. She spotted a few finished boots on one of the racks in the back of the store too. The man that had been working on a set of boots had stopped and was looking at them with the unsaid question asking them what they wanted.


    "Ah, my sister here had wanted to learn Leathercrafting. We learned that this is the place to learn how to make it all from scratch." Karen said.


    "Your sister...but not you?" he asks.


    "No, I''ll be trying my hand with Blacksmithing tomorrow. Sir Isaac suggest that I should do it then instead of today. But my sister wanted to be able to make equipment that was lighter than metal but more sturdy than cloth. So yea...Leathercrafting was the first thing that came to my mind that fit."


    He looked at Juli and then said, "You do realize that you might end up smelling as bad as how it smelled outside right? Still want to learn?"


    Juli nodded her head in response. Then she bowed and said, "Please teach me to make fine leather goods."


    Karen on the other hand said, "About that smell...I noticed that it''s only outside the shop and not in here. Why is that?"


    He raised an eyebrow and asked, "Why do you want to know?"


    Before she could respond, Juli said, "She wants to bottle it to use as monster repellent."


    He looked at the two of them with a deadpan look for a whole minute. Then he burst out laughing. The two sisters looked at  each other, clearly confused by the reaction. Seeing the confused look though, he calmed down and started explaining:


    "Sorry. But the smell outside is actually a fake smell to keep people that think of Leathercrafting as a cheap way to turn the things they kill into money. While I don''t really mind if the finished goods are sold for money, I don''t want people killing off thousands of animals just to turn their hides into leather to sell. So with help from a friend of mine, we concocted the ''perfume'' as we call it, to try and dissuade people. The reason I was laughing was because the few that had come in here, didn''t notice that at all but then the two of you who did, had indirectly came upon the secret to it."


    "Ah...so...um...would you sell one of those bottles of Leather Perfume?" Karen asks.


    "I would but it wouldn''t really repel any monsters. If anything, it''ll make them more aggressive towards you instead. So I would recommend against it. As for teaching my craft...why not. It will take time for make fine quality goods though but if you''re willing to learn, I will teach."


    Juli nods her head as Karen sighs and says, "Oh well...was worth asking at least. I guess I''ll go arrange a room for us at the inn while you learn the tricks of trade Yu-chan. I''ll come back here after."


    "Ok, I will see you later then onee-chan."


    They go their separate ways for now with Juli learning how to remove the hair from unworked hides to make rawhide and then how to turn rawhides into leather. Karen went back to the Goddess statue and asked the guards for directions to an inn before heading over to it to book their room.


    *AN: phew...done another chapter. Apologies for the time I take to write...my attention span tends to wander a bit...such as wandering off to play games. This is also what kept me from starting to write a lot sooner.


    On another note, I would like to hear what classes the people you''ve seen are going to be. I will say this that they will not start out with any hidden classes (well...except one of them but the job is not usually hidden in many games that its in). Hopefully I''ll get the next chapter done within three weeks.

 Chapter 6 - Books, more books, and finally some magic

    **AN: Ok...this chapter turned out a bit bigger than I thought it would. But I like how it turned out. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.


    As soon as Skywind entered the library, he felt a cool breeze in the air. It was very gentle so as not to disturb a reader but relaxing enough to make people feel comfortable while reading. ''Magic for air conditioning...interesting. I wonder how it works.'' He thought as he looked about with a slightly amused and thoughtful look on his face.


    As for the library itself, there were large shelves that stood almost three times his height all kept in neat rows in one half of the interior. All the shelves were stacked with books. Past the shelves were some doors that appeared to be locked as no one was trying to go inside. The other side of the library was more open and had three rows of tables and chairs for people that were looking for specific things. Some chairs though were different than others, in that they looked more comfortable than the majority of the chairs. Most of them also did not have any tables accompanying them. Some of these comfortable chairs were placed near open windows while others were scattered here and there in various spots.


    And near the entrance that he had just came in, there was a small desk with a young man sitting behind it. He had a book in front of him and had a finger placed at what must be the spot he had stopped reading at and was looking at his direction while waiting for him to approach. Skywind went up to greet him instead of taking up more time than needed.


    "Good morning and my apologies. My first time seeing this library and was not really what I had expected. If you can tell me how things work, I will try to be out of your way." Skywind said to the young man.


    "Eh, I''m used to it. Don''t worry too much. As for the library system, fairly simple. The only books that leave from here are ones you''ve bought and nothing else. If you need help finding a particular book and you know the name of it, just stand near the shelf that has it and say the name of the book and it will come to you. The sections are divided by topics such as Magic, History, Fiction, Non-fiction, and Generic Knowledge. The books themselves are in alphabetical order and if they have multiple volumes, in the order from earlier to latest and going from left to right. Any questions?"


    "None yet but if I have any, I will be bothering you again. Thank you."


    Skywind looked around the library and noticed that there were quite a few people in robes similar to his here. There were also people wearing different clothing, which he knew were residents of this world. Without sparing more than a glance, Skywind went towards was the fiction section. ''Might as well start with something light before getting to the serious reading.'' he thought as he looked at the books that were in the fiction shelf. He took out 3 books with the title, "Little Magus," "Magician," and "Dragon''s Companion." He took them to the table and opened up "Magician" first and started reading.


    It didn''t take him all that long to finish it as he had purposely chosen books that did not have too much content to them. He had finished all three of the books in 2 hours. Although they were rather small, he did learn some interesting things from the Dragon''s Companion that he wanted to try out at some point. Part of him was excited but it would have to wait till he can go outside the city with Zareth. He had not gained any stats like he had thought would happen though. Looking around him at the faces that seemed somewhat disappointed made him realize that not gaining any stats like this was rather normal. He had some other ideas to try though to test on that matter.


    He took the books back and returned them manually before moving on to the next section of books. He decided to check the History section to see what he could learn about this country and this world they were in. There were much fewer books in this section than in the Fiction area and as such, it didn''t take long to find some books he was looking for. The first book he decided to read called, "The Formation of the Zilis Kingdom." He also noticed a book with the name, "History of Magic," which he grabbed as well and went back to the table to read.


    According to the book, the Kingdom of Zilis had actually formed about a 2500 years ago and is actually the youngest of the five known countries in Celestial Realms. The country came together out of a need for people of different races to trade without fear of discrimination. What started off as a small trading post, grew into a small city in around 300 years. At that point, people had started settling down and mixing with each other. This allowed them to learn of the other cultures and had brought an awareness that the other countries did not want their citizens to have. As such, the 4 other countries had started marshaling their forces to destroy the small city before it could get any bigger.


    Unfortunately, or fortunately for Zilis, some of the guards that knew why their country was gathering its troops, sent a warning to their friends and family that had settled down in Zilis. The citizens, having been of a peaceful nature that had focused on their respective crafts instead of the art of war, did not know what to do. At this time, their savior was a young man, who would end up becoming the first King of Zilis. He was one of the many people that had been born there and grew up among people of different cultures. He did not want to lose his friends because people from other countries didn''t like each other. Not to mention that he himself was a mix of Human and Orc.


    He came up with an idea to make the use of the various experts that had gathered in his city and asked them to build a large and sturdy wall. His idea was to fortify each part of the wall with magic and enchantments to protect both from physical attacks as well as magical attacks. And because it was done with each part as the wall was being built, the wall had become impenetrable to all forms of known attacks. The wall also ended up much bigger than originally planned due to the craftsmen wanting to try things out that they were not able to try back in their original countries. And that was just the first part of his plan.


    The second part of his plan was to have many people trained in the basic use of the bow and arrow. Skywind understood what he had in mind as he was reading. The idea was that as long as there were many people shooting, at least one of them will hit the target. Just in case, he had some trained Spearmen hidden in parts of the wall and had some holes outside that they can look through. Anyone that managed to make it close enough to try and scale the wall, would be stabbed by the Spearmen that had been lying in wait.


    It seems that it ever reached that point where the Spearmen were needed though. This was because as soon as one of the countries had come to attack the city, they would see the giant wall and try to bombard it with siege weapons or magic instead of even think of trying to scale it. And when those failed, they could do nothing but go back or suffer casualties from the many archers that would shoot from high on up. It was not hard for the archers to hit them even if they were fairly far back. Especially when they had the help of enchanters that would enchant the arrows with the wind property to allow it to fly far even if there was wind resistance. ''I wonder how it would work if other weapons were enchanted in a similar manner...another thing to experiment with later. Good thing that Zareth is bit of a crafting nut and is likely to pick something up. Definitely more things to experiment,'' he thought with a smile on his face.


    Also according to the book, the training of people in the basic use of the bow and arrow, which had originally been done in case they were attacked again, ended up becoming one of their tradition. ''Interesting...not sure when this book was written, but if the tradition held to this day, then this means that most of the citizens here, at least know basic Archery. A bit of a scary thought in some ways.'' Skywind could not help sighing in admiration and fear at the thought of how well defended this peaceful looking city was.


    It seems that the Spearmen ended up becoming the patrols to protect the inside of the city from possible trouble makers after the city had become established as a separate country and opened its gates for those wishing to trade. They were given a public trial and if someone in the city knew them, the trouble maker was simply banished from the city. But if there was no one to speak for their identify, they would be taken away and killed. The rest of the book explained that the King would actually be chosen by merit more than lineage and that it was actually possible for a commoner to become a King if they showed merit. It even listed the names of some commoners that had become King too. There was little to no mention of dates so it was hard to tell exactly how old this city was and Skywind made a mental note to ask the young man at the front desk later.


    He called up the in-game clock and noticed that an hour had passed from him reading about the history of this country. There was also a window that had popped up after he had finished the book.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>The Goddess has noticed your uncanny ability at reading at a faster pace than normal and has unlocked the Reading skill.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Reading skill has improved to Intermediate rank 1</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>For reaching Intermediate rank in Reading, your Intelligence was raised by 5.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Reading sub-skills have been unlocked. Gained Speed Reading and Reading Comprehension.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    ''Hm...so my ability to speed read in reality is actually at what is considered the intermediate level in here huh. I wonder if improving that skill will allow me to read faster in reality too. Something to keep in mind...lets see a description of what these skills do.'' Skywind thought and pressed the window for the two skills.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Speed Reading: This skill allows you to read a book at a faster pace. Skill level is tied to the Reading main skill. Higher skill level will allow you to read at a face pace. Current reading speed: 3x</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>Reading Comprehension: This skill allows you to understand what you read. Skill level is tied to the Reading main skill. Higher skill level will allow you to understand at a quicker pace. Current comprehension level 3x</td></tr></tbody></table>


    ''So it would normally take people around 3 hours to read this book. Thank goodness that I read a lot while growing up. On to the next book anyhow.''


    He put the "The Formation of the Zilis Kingdom" aside and pulled over the "History of Magic" book in front of him. As he read through it, he came to understand that although the source of the magic seems to have been the Goddess, its continued existence was not under her control. They seemed similar to have become a form of existence on their own. And in order to use magic, a Mage would have to form a connection to the existence before being able to cast anything.


    It also indicated that although there existed certain set ways in which a Mage can form a connection to the entities but that it was also possible to form connections through other means. It listed some some of the usual ways that a Mage would typically make connection but it did not go into detail about anything more than shaping the magic in each of the elements. Whether they would do anything or not, it made no mention of. This made Skywind curious about trying it.


    It went on to describe the elements and magical energies that existed in this world that was known. According to the book, the basic magic spells, relied on the 4 elements of Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth. They were considered as the lowest form of magic and was usually taught to beginner mages to practice with. The elemental spells had their ranking from Bagic to Advanced to Master within themselves but were still classified as simply, Magic.


    Above that, resided Light, Dark, Arcane, Holy, Unholy and Nature. While most people thought of Light as Holy and Dark as Unholy, the book emphasized that they were different branches of magic. Nature, Holy, and Unholy were actually classified as Mystic while Arcane, Light, and Dark were considered to be Ancient. Mystic class spells were usually used by Priests or Paladins and whether they used Holy or Unholy type, depended on their religious faith. There was very little information regarding Nature magic in the book. Ancient class magics, were said to exist but people able to use them apparently did not. What Light or Dark magic was capable of doing, was not known it seemed. Arcane magic however, did have practitioners in parts of the world. They were few and far between and were known to do things such as changing the gravity of an area or using beams of pure energy to destroy things but details were, for the most part, unknown.


    At the top, were the magic that was classified as Primordial magic. These were divided between Matter and Void magic. It was written that only the Divine were capable of using this class of magic. Some mages theorized that all magic that exists can be classified as either Matter or Void though. Spells that removed things from existence for example, would fall under Void while spells that created, were considered as Matter.


    ''Basics first...I should learn some kind of meditation technique before even touching the elements. It will allow me to have a better foundation to work with and allow me to train in magic more efficiently. Maybe the one I used in my previous game would work...but I guess I shouldn''t try it here in the open. I better ask if there''s any place that I can practice.''


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    He returned "The Formation of the Zilis Kingdom" to its rightful shelf before going up to the young man. He waited patiently again for him to hold his place in the book he was reading before asking him if there was any place he would be able to quietly try things out at. The young man looked up to see who it was, nodded his head and pointed to one of the doors past the shelves. The door the young man pointed at, opened as the magic lock was triggered. Skywind thanked him and went inside, the door closing behind him on its own. He looked back and wondered if it was possible for anyone to open or close it and decided to try a theory that had popped into his mind later.


    For now, he looked around the room and noticed that it was fairly bare. There was a single table with a chair and there was enough light to read but that was it for decorations or furniture. What caught his eye was that in the middle of the room was a pentagram indented into the floor with enough room to have someone sit inside comfortably.


    ''Heh. Looks like it''s fairly common to practice magic inside these rooms. I might as well get started too,'' he thought as he placed the book on the table and went to sit inside the pentagram. He sat in a lotus position and started to take deep and calm breaths while slowly emptying his mind. His eyes closed as he continued to do this. It took him less than a minute to enter into a trance where he was only breathing and nothing else. Nothing seemed to be happening but never the less, he continued repeating the deep and calm breaths.


    Around 10 minutes later, he felt some small groups of energies starting to cluster around him. Or at least it felt like energy to him. He imagined his body to be a conduit for these energy clusters and imagined them going in and out and through him. As he did so, he felt them doing exactly that. There was no actual sensation when they went through him but he still felt their presence flowing around. He held out his right hand out, palm facing up, and slowly straightened his fingers while the thumb was folder on the side as if he was receiving something precious. He focused and willed the energy clusters to gather above his right hand. The clusters moved quickly and started to gather above his hand. As he opened his eyes to look, he noticed a blue ball of pure energy floating above his right hand. He imagined them dispersing and let the ball of energy dissipate.


    ''It worked. Now I know what the energy of this world feels like. I should be able to take the next step and have them converted into the various elements that exists in this world.'' He thought as he looked at the windows that had popped up.


    <table><tbody><tr><td>For entering a state of calm, you have gained the Meditation skill.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>You were able to enter a meditative trance very quickly and thus, your Meditation skill has been increased to Advanced rank 1.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>For reaching Advanced rank of Meditation skill, your Wisdom has increased by 20.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>You were able to successfully control the flow of mana around you. You have gained the Mana Control skill.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>You were able to easily focus the mana to form an object with it. Mana Control has increased to Intermediate rank 2.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    <table><tbody><tr><td>For reaching Intermediate rank of Mana Control, your Intelligence was increased by 5.</td></tr></tbody></table>


    He saw the notification and face palmed. He could already see what Zareth is going to call him when he finds out. ''He''s going to call me a Monk. I just KNOW he''s going to call me a Monk.'' he sighed as he closed the windows.


    ''Oh well...I should go see how he''s doing anyway. He might still be at the Barracks. Might as well get it out of the way and see what his plans are for later.'' He sighed again as he got up and stretched his muscles. ''Still a fairly nice gain I suppose. And good thing I learned how to meditate a long time ago and had practiced a lot.''


    Skywind pushed the door normally and it opened. After going out, he turned around and tried to open the door but it didn''t budge. He focused on gathering some mana on the other side of the door and using it to push the door from the other side. The door opened as if it had not been locked at all. He nodded his head as his idea worked and went over to return the "History of Magic" book to its rightful spot. As Skywind was on his way out, he stopped at the front desk as he had noticed the young man looking at him with a smile on his face.


    "Not even a whole day and one of you travelers have managed to open the door. I''m impressed. It took me over a year before I was able to do it. The master will be interested in meeting you. My name is Gade. I will introduce you to my master, Sephius, tomorrow. I think you will be interested in meeting him as well," he said to Skywind.


    Skywind nodded as his intuition told him that Gade was right. Sephius must be a Magician of some kind. The second best way to learn about using magic was also one of the safer ways. Learning from someone that knows how to use it already. "I am Skywind. I will be here tomorrow as well. And I think I will definitely be interested in meeting your master. Thank you," he replies and heads out.


    After exiting the library, he went straight into the Barracks. He spotted the 3 doors with only one not being guarded clearly indicating that people can go in there. He went in and looked around and saw some people sparring and some excitedly talking about a spar they had just seen but did not see any sign of his friend Zareth.


    ''I knew I was forgetting something earlier...lets see if the Instructor over there will have remembered him.'' Skywind thought as he headed towards Sir Isaac.


    "Good day sir, my name is Skywind. I was wondering if you could help me." Skywind asks.


    "The weapon rack is over there if you want to train with a weapon. Feel free to grab one that you feel comfortable with."


    "Ah, no, I am actually looking for a friend of mine. His name is Zareth. He should have come here earlier to try the weapons out. He might have been using two swords or maybe a pole arm."


    "Oh, Zareth. The prodigy of the Spear. A friend of his are you? I never had the chance to ask him but would you know where he learned to use the spear as I saw him using?"


    Skywind was a bit surprised that the instructor knew him by name and actually referred to Zareth as a prodigy. "Ah, yes. He learned it in another realm that we had traveled to. I am glad he decided to go with the Spear. I have not met anyone that was able to use it better than he so far but that would not be saying much as I have not been to many places. Would you know where he went by any chance?"


    "I know of some that are better than him but they would be considered Masters and are much older in age. As for where he is, he should be at the Carpenter shop. We had no spears for him to practice with so he decided to make his own."


    Skywind burst out laughing as he said, "That definitely sounds like him alright. If he can''t find it for an affordable price, he will just make his own. If he wasn''t off wandering around with a spear in hand, he was always making something or other."


    "Sounds like he will be a good match for Thomas. Especially if he enjoys making things on his own. I have seen too many lazy people use the assistance of the Goddess to speed things along. A waste if you ask me as the products are always inferior. Your friend should be capable of producing fine products though if his passion for making something is even close to him using the spear."


    "I would say that his passion to make surpasses his passion with the spear. I guess I will head to the Carpentry shop to find him. Thank you sir. Ah, if you can direct me to the Carpenter shop..."


    With that, Skywind went to the production area, following the directions he received from Sir Isaac. He found it easily enough. The smell of wood was a fairly obvious clue too. Going inside, he saw Zareth sanding away at a pole. Skywind noticed the odd looks that other travelers were giving towards Zareth but of course, since he was doing something he enjoyed, Zareth didn''t notice any of it. Then again, he didn''t seem to notice much else either from the looks of it.


    Skywind looked to one of the other travelers and asks, "What''s up? Is there something wrong with that guy there?"


    One of them nearby with blonde hair that was fairly short and shaped to look similar to Guile from Street Fighter replied, "Yea...the guy is crazy. He''s not using system assist to make the spear. And he''s been in that trance for a while now. Even has a creepy smile every now and then when he looks at a finished piece. The NPC seems to like him though. Still pretty weird if you ask me."


    "Ah, yea, that makes sense. Have you ever heard of a crafting nut? That''s him pretty much." Skywind replies.


    "Go figure. I guess you know him. I feel for you man," came the reply from the Guile look-a-like.


    "Yea, he''s a friend of mine. He''s definitely a lunatic when it comes to crafting but he''s still one of the most reliable warriors I''ve played with too. I guess I better wake him from the trance if I want to be able to talk to him. Good luck to you guys."


    "Same to you man. I think you might need it more than us."


    Skywind had a feeling they needed it more but he didn''t say much. He instead went closer to Zareth and yelled, "Hey Z! You missed a spot!"


    Zareth replied quickly, "What? Where? Show me!"


    Looking around to see what he had missed, he noticed Skywind standing there. Then realization hit him that he had gotten carried away with crafting...again. He let out a sigh and says, "Hey Sky...what''s up?"


    "Oh, you''re out of the trance eh. I figured you would''ve been a bit stubborn and went with Leatherworking or Smithing but looks like the Goddess decided you''d be a better Carpenter. Reports tell me that you''re enjoying it. You decided to go with the spear for the weapon?"


    "Yea, I tried out a Bo staff that Sir Isaac lent me and it really felt right. They didn''t have any so figured I''d make my own. Plus, I''m learning a lot. Oh! I gained about 13 to my dexterity and 5 to my agility. It was weird but I didn''t get any boost to strength even though the Bo wasn''t that light. Any ideas why?"


    "No strength but dexterity and agility? I think the boost to those might have to do with you already being familiar with a pole arm weapon. Stuff you can do in real life will have an effect in this game as well I noticed. As for strength...hmm...I wonder if it works on similar principles of when you do weight training? Like you would gain a boost to your strength the day after when you''re muscles are in the recovery phase."


    "Hm...yea that would make sense. I guess we''ll know tomorrow then. How about you? Guessing you got a nice boost to your intelligence?"


    "Eh...more like...I got a big boost of 20 to my wisdom...and 10 to my intelligence."


    "You''re going Monk? Didn''t you want to be a mage?"


    Skywind face palmed. "I knew you were going to say it...I just knew it."


    Zareth laughs as he says, "You know I''m joking. But on a serious note, how did that happen? I thought reading would give you a good boost to intelligence."


    "That''s what I had thought too but reading did give me some intelligence. It was for reaching Intermediate rank though. Looks like my habit of reading a lot of books came in handy for that one.  The boost to wisdom was actually from learning Meditation. Apparently my ability to Meditate is on the advanced level. That alone gave me that whopping 20 wisdom. The other 5 intelligence was from getting Intermediate in Mana Control."


    "Damn...you are a fricking natural Mage. But you didn''t just come here to tell me that right? Have an idea in mind?"


    "Yea, I wanted to try imbuing the stuff you make with various elements to see what they do. I read about arrows being able to travel a long distance even in a headwind if they''re enchanted with the wind element. Wanted to see what the others would do and how it would work in melee range."


    "I wouldn''t mind that but I will pretty much be busy filling out the order I promised to help with. I''ll tell you more details after I finish, maybe tomorrow. Sir Isaac told me I shouldn''t train tomorrow and if your theory is right, than I probably wouldn''t be able to swing anything anyway. I''ll head over to the library to find you tomorrow after I finish up here."


    "Alright, I''m going to get back to reading some more and continue to make a note of other ideas if they pop into my mind. I''ll see you tomorrow then. I hope you''ll tell me why you''re making your weapons manually and without system assist too tomorrow."


    "Will do. I still haven''t even made my first piece yet and need to make 20. So I''ll be a little busy. See you tomorrow."


    Skywind left Zareth to continue crafting and popped a piece of a bread roll into his mouth before chewing on it. It tasted horrible but it was food. The water was at least good. He went back to the library and picked out some books to read from the magic section so he can get a better idea of how they work. ''So many things to test...so little time,'' he kept thinking every now and then as he continued to read throughout the day.