Hendrix moved towards an ancient looking service door, “You ready? You’re currently operating on more or less your human senses and proportions, which should’ve smoothed over the process somewhat. However, once you leave this room the physical tutorial will start, and you’ll begin seeing through myconid eyes. Eve will make adjustments when necessary, however, the first time should still be disorientating.”

I nodded, giving one last glance at the list of spells I picked.

Tier 0

Balm Spores, Sneezing Spores, Light Spores and Acid Spit.

Tier 1

Mushroom Meal, Poison Spores

“Let’s go.”

He nodded and creaked open the door.

There was a moment of dizziness as my vision lowered by a dozen or so centimetres, the first thing I noticed was a sudden decrease in feeling. Like there was a film over my skin, muting everything I felt. The second was that everything seemed to be in black and white. “Light,” Hendrix muttered in front of me. A soft glowing orb lit up the area. “Darkvision is useful, however, you can’t discern colour at all with it,” he explained. “You alright?”

I nodded, it was not as bad I thought it would be, my body felt slower, more numb, but not weak. More of a slow and building strength if anything. My eyes were taking in what was outside. It was an abandoned mall, the same one I was in hours earlier with Matt.

I raised a hand, palm upwards. I only had four fingers now, they were large and looked like someone roughly carved them out of a plank of wood. Flexing them, I found them slow, but not stiff.

There was something else, two pools of warmth within me. One located inside my head somewhere and the other in my chest. “Grow Sporage, Light Spores.” A small amount of that warmth flowed from my head and underneath my skin, before coalescing into a glowing mushroom on my open palm.

I softly nudged it with my other hand, it was soft, squishy. Bringing it up for closer inspection, I realised that there was a white, fabric-like blanket at the base of the mushroom, just barely digging into my skin.

“I can feel two… energies inside me, one of them is mana. I assume the other is aura?” I asked as I dissipated the shroom.

Hendrix nodded, “Yep, though you probably won’t use it since the class you have is mana based, unless you multiclass or something,” he commented offhandedly, “C’mon, I have to get you through this tutorial.”

I nodded, following behind him, “What’s the difference between mana and aura?” I asked.

He scratched his cap, “There’s functionally no difference. A user of aura can throw out fireballs just as easily as the next wizard. A mana user can strength enhance as well as the next Aura user. The main difference is where the energy comes from. Mana is passively gathered from the world around you,” he gestured around him. “Whereas aura comes from your soul.” He said, tapping his chest.

“Which means?”

“Which means that for most people, running out of aura would exhaust their soul. It usually doesn’t do much since most people would subconsciously hold back that last drop needed to keep them alive. Though you don’t need to worry about the differences. As a magic cap myconid you’re functionally dead the moment you run out mana so the two are basically the same for you.”

“Oh joy,” I replied in a completely deadpan voice.

Hendrix made a noise that sounded like something a tree would make if trees could have violent asthma attacks. Which made me realise something.

“Why am I breathing, no. Why am I breathing just like normal?” I asked. My breath felt deeper and occurred more infrequently compared to human breathing, but other than that it felt almost the same.

“Oh, that? The explanation that Eve gave me was something on the lines of convergent evolution, which is when two completely unrelated species evolve similar stuff because that form is the best for the environment they’re in. It’s because of that that even if you don’t have blood in your veins, there is another substitute distributing oxygen throughout your entire body. Any living thing that regularly moves would need a specialised system for taking in and distributing oxygen, breathing is just the tried and proven way to do it.”

Hendrix dismissively shook his hand, “It’s because of that that you can eat like normal and don’t need to vomit acid on stuff and drink up the goo as most fungi do. Of course, you could still do it, it helps immensely with digestion. Breaks down the fibrous stuff like grass and bark really easily. If you’re ever in a pinch, then feel free to use Acid Spit to make some unpleasant stuff go down easier,” his cap perked up, “which reminds me, you can eat pretty much anything that is remotely edible. Due to your fungal body, you can straight up ignore most weak poisons and can stomach anything organic. Even rotting food.”

“Yeah…” I hesitantly replied, “I hope it won’t ever come to the point where I have to drink up my own vomit or eat rotten food. It was the main reason I took Mushroom Meal, after all, why feature a spell that made food, if food wasn’t going to be important…” I realised something crucial and reflexively slapped my face. “Shit, is it cannibalism if I eat mushrooms?”

Hendrix made that noise that sounded like a tree dying in great pain, which I’m beginning to suspect was him laughing. “No! Why would you think that?” He replied in between what I’m assuming are giggles, since he actually sounded like a goat taking its final breaths as someone carved out its heart, “Myconids are about as closely related to mushrooms as humans are to rats. In that, the main similarity is that they’re both from the same kingdom.”

“So… it’s fine?” I hesitantly asked.

“Of course it’s fine!” he ‘laughed’, “You’re not even an actual myconid on the inside either.”

“Is it too late to change that spell into something else?”

“Yes,” Hendrix turned around and answered, was that amusement I saw in his eyes? Reading myconid faces somehow became pretty easy for me but I couldn’t be sure. “We’re here by the way,” he added.

I looked around, we had reached a corner before I realised, the faded signs and clothing racks indicated that it was a clothing store.

“Let’s get you geared up,” Hendrix said as he hobbled inside.

I followed him in, realising now that clothing was mentioned that I was wearing some kind of rough, brown shirt and trousers. Hendrix was digging around in a box or something. I walked behind him, towards a set of standing armour. It looked tailor-fit to my size, but no helmet. I tapped my cap, feeling a finger sink into the soft material, I would have problems finding headwear that fit me with this thing on my head.

“Don’t bother,” Hendrix said, apparently finding whatever he was looking for. “Crude iron repels mana, if you want metal armour then find something better.”

I turned around, “Are those rare?”

“Very,” he gruffly replied, “Now are you a dagger or staff person?” he said, raising sheathed dagger and a wooden staff.

“Can I have both?” I innocently asked.

“Ehh sure, why not,” he replied, as he tossed me the staff and sheathed dagger.

“What?” I asked surprised, “Does, that mean I can have everything here?” I gestured around the store.

“If you can carry it sure, this stuff only exists to give you a choice on starting items anyways.”

Oh, oh.

With a spring in my step, I prepared to grab everything that wasn't bolted down. During which I discovered that I didn’t actually have an inventory system, everything I wanted had to be carried. That was fine, I had several backpacks that I could use. First I donned some leathery armour, then I grabbed two belts, one on my waist, which I stuck the dagger onto. The other was like a sash and had several small buttoned pockets which I filled with glowing red and blue potions, they were definitely health and mana pots, unfortunately, there were only two of each. I guess there was a limit to how much I could have.

Remembering what Hendrix said about drinking acidic goo. I grabbed a sack and a backpack and filled both completely with dried rations. I reluctantly put away the third bag as I saw Hendrix giving me weird looks.

“Here,” he said, handing me a metallic box, “If you’re going camping then you might as well have a tinderbox, and a bedroll. Have some rope as well just in case,” he added, dumping a rolled up piece of fabric and a pile of rope onto me.

“I’m not going camping…” I replied, my voice muffled under piles of material.

He looked at me surprised, “Then why are you packing so much food?” Oh, screw you, Hendrix! It was your damn fault for making me this paranoid about food in the first place!

Biting back scathing sarcasm, I smiled, “I’m just really worried about food since you mentioned it.”

He didn’t look convinced, “Oh well, still, take the tinderbox. A fire is always useful, no matter the situation. Oh! And a mess kit if you’re worried that much about food,” he said as he handed me metallic-looking lunchbox. Which, I had to reluctantly empty some rations from my backpack to make space for.

Hmm… what else could I loot, I found another dagger, which I placed next to my other one, and a coin pouch that had ten gold coins inside. I tied it next to the herbalism kit.

I put everything on. The sack I managed to tie onto the side of my backpack.

Hendrix looked me over, “Well you look ready for an adventure.”

“Wouldn’t the metal lunchbox interfere with my spells?” I asked.

“Only if you’re casting spells from your back,” he replied, gesturing to the bag I stored the kit in. “If you’re holding it then just drop it or cast from your other hand.”

Hendrix clasped his hands, “Now, onto the fun parts. The fighting tutorial.”

I nodded in acknowledgement and he continued, “Past this point, there will be some mobs for you to fight. You should be able to figure out how the fighting works, hit things and don’t get hit back.”

I nodded before hesitantly asking, “Are the mobs real? As in they’re from the fully simulated world?”

Hendrix shook his head, “Nope, every non-player you encounter in Gaia is an AI like me, most of us know of our roles and try our best to fulfil them. We were mostly made as an afterthought since Indiri -the world which Eve created- was so new player hostile that it wasn’t even funny.”

I paused, “Is Indiri some kind of terrifying death world or something?” I asked.

“Oh no,” he replied, “Just unbalanced. Since the world was allowed to organically develop, there aren’t a lot of locations that are ‘level specific’ or ‘beginner-friendly,’ add in all the fantasy and magical parameters that were set, anywhere outside of a city became dangerous due to the wildlife or natural environment, all the testers below a certain level died after leaving the cities.”

“... That sounds like a death world.”

“Hmm, probably not that extreme, it was just impossible for the simulated players to do anything unless their levels were beefed up a bit in Gaia first,” he mused. “Well best get going, seeing a starter mess up their first fight is always fun,” he said as he skipped out of the store.

I pretended not to hear that last bit as I caught up to him.