"Since I'm leaving tomorrow, there is one last thing I want to cover with you before then, Natures." Medea began as she paced back and forth in front of Nero. The twins were off to the side in a hammock together with Jorry doing... something. Nero figured he was better off not knowing. "I explained a bit about Natures a while ago on a call but what do you remember?"

"They are unique to players," He began recounting what he knew. "After a while of playing they reach the Natal level and can improve from there. If players do not reach the next level by level 100, they are automatically upgraded. There is no limit to what a Nature can be, nor to the skills, they can generate. By performing actions more in line with their Nature, such as role-playing, its level increases faster. After the Natal level comes Applied, Realization and then the Mortal level."

"Good, I didn't want to go over the basics again. What I wanted to talk to you about is the next levels of Natures, specifically the Applied level. Most player's Nature will only reach Applied once they get to level 100, this is probably going to be different for you. Because you have spent so long playing without significantly improving your level, your Nature should improve before level 100. The lowest level player to reach Applied, at least that I know of, was level 46 and that was only after spending over a year of playtime in the game. Based on what I know, you should reach Applied at the latest by level 80."

"I reached it at level 64" Chimed in Claudia from the side.

"Thank you for that interruption." Medea shot back sarcastically.

"No problem." Claudia either didn't notice or chose to ignore the heavy sarcasm in the teacher's voice as she replied cheerfully.

"Anyway, the important thing today is the skills you will get when you reach the Applied level in your Nature. These are generally much more powerful or useful than you first skills while at the same time complementing them and you are guaranteed to get at least two of them, though some have gotten more. But, on top of those skills, you will get a demerit. Call it a penalty, a debuff, a handicap or whatever you want, but once a player reaches the Applied level in their Nature, they get a major drawback. This can be crippling and some players, despite spending so long improving to reach that level, reset their character with a new Nature."

"What kind of penalty?"

"It is unique per Nature, but it always incites players to keep specializing in their Nature. For example, I mentioned how my Nature, Sage, gives me boosts to increasing the Knowledge stat right? My penalty is that my Knowledge stat does not sort itself. When other players get high levels of Knowledge, the popups start to sort themselves into the most relevant or the most advantageous, it stops showing things that have been proven to be false. My Knowledge stat does not do that. Remeber, just because it was written down doesn't mean it is correct. If a writer accidentally writes the wrong element when talking about a monster, that will appear in the popups generated by the Knowledge stat. Normally that false information would disappear after the player verifies it or more reliable information is found, but my demerit prevents that, and I have to sort through all the information myself. It gets worse the higher the Knowledge stat as more popups appear, I had to get really good at speed reading."

"What about you two, what did you girls get as demerits?" Nero shouted over to the twins. Octavia was holding Jorry by the tail and Claudia was waiving a treat above him, forcing him to pull himself up by muscle alone.

"I can only use items I create," Octavia answered. "Even if I find an excellent weapon or useful contraption, I can't use it unless I build it myself."

"I can only gain experience from things that have 'spirits.'" Claudia also responded without taking her eyes off the struggling snake. "Unless they have souls infused in them golem and automata do not provide an experience for me. Also, most monsters haven't developed enough of an ego to count as having a completely formed 'spirit' so I get much less experience from them. Good boy Jorry." The snake had managed to lunge for the treat in her hand and catch it. Nero felt that Jorry's smug look of satisfaction on his face as he ate was entirely inappropriate for what was essentially a pet performing a trick.

"They seem to be not that bad," Nero said.

"It depends on if players feel that they fit their playstyle. A popular Nature, Swordsman, can only get experience when using a sword. If players just want to use a sword, then that is fine, but if they're going to branch out and use another weapon or a few magic spells, then they would have to use a different Nature to do so, which means creating a new character to do so. It is always fair and never wholly stops progress but, as I said, these debuffs encourage specialization. It isn't completely dependent on the description of a Nature either if players with the exact same Nature play differently then every skill and demerit will be tailored to their own experiences."

"If they conform to the player, then why are they such a big deal?"

"You still aren't certain you want to continue with 'The Beast' Nature, right?" Nero nodded in agreement. "Once you reach the Applied level and know what your demerit is, that will be the best time to decide whether to keep playing as Nero or create a new character. You should think about whether your playstyle before then is what you will enjoy in the long run or if you will want to change later."

"Alright, are there any other demerits at the more advanced Nature levels?"

"Not that I am aware of, then again, I'm only at the Realization level and not too many players are at the Mortal level." Medea ignored the shouts of "I am" coming from both Octavia and Claudia and continued. "But so far there doesn't seem to be. There is no known level cap, some NPCs have been confirmed to be over level 600, so if it continues in the same vein as it has gone so far, then there should be way more levels of Nature that we aren't aware of and some of them might have demerits as well. Any other questions?"

"I do have one, but it is a bit off subject. You know assimilation? Well, I used it to get Jorry's tongue and sense of taste." Nero extended his serpentine tongue to demonstrate it. "So far it has worked pretty well, as in my sense of taste is much more defined but despite having used it for over a month I am still nowhere near able to use it to the same degree as Jorry. Is it because it requires a skill that I don't have because I'm not a snake or because of something else?"

"While I can't say for sure since I have not heard about that exact skill before," Medea began, tapping a finger to her chin in thought. "I think you stumbled on to one of the hidden mechanics of Gods' Nature." Noticing Nero's questioning look and the twins suddenly paying attention, Medea went on.

"You know how nobody knows anything about the creator of Gods' Nature right?" Not exactly true for this particular group of players but they were the exception. "Well, because there was no advertising campaign and the official website is pretty barren, players have had to discover everything for themselves. Some things are widely known, like the Nature system's levels and the fact that players can change races by joining factions. Other things are much less known, kept a secret either because people want to keep their advantage or nobody has posted about it online. One of these things is the sensation mechanic."

"You mean the thing that dulls the pain you feel?"

"Exactly, I want you to go to your settings and change it from five percent to a hundred. It shouldn't be a problem since you can bring it back down after we're done." Not seeing any reason to deny her, Nero did as instructed. He moved the slider from its lowest position at 5% all the way to its max at 100% and saved the changes as he left the menu. As soon as he did, he was overwhelmed by sensation.

"Gah!" Nero shouted out in shock and pain. It was like he just left a dark cave into the blistering sunlight, only it was applied to all his senses and especially his sense of taste.

Everything was so much clearer, the colors sharper and the light from the afternoon sun was much harsher. He could feel its heat on his skin much more clearly, but that warmth was robbed not even seconds later by a breeze much colder than he remembered. The ground dug into his bottom harder than before, and his muscles felt a lot sorer from their recent exercise than he remembered. The sound of the city around the park, once muffled, now came through in a much clearer fashion.

Finally, his sense of taste and smell were amplified to an extreme degree. Before he could taste the dirt on the air, grass follicles on the breeze, the tang of sweat on his body, and the leather of the girls' armor, now those tastes and smells were compounded by so much more. Nero could taste/smell the sewer from a grate from the other side of the part, the bricks of nearby buildings, a musky smell from an open window that hinted at the pair of people wrapped in each other's arms inside. Even his companions' smell had changed. Medea smelled/tasted like dry parchment and chemicals. Octavia had a metallic and smoky taste with a hint of oil that spoke longs hours spent at a forge or around machines. All Nero could taste from Claudia was blood, so much blood that it threated to clog his senses to other things.

It took a few moments for Nero to regain his bearings from the shock and, as soon as he did, he immediately changed the setting back to 5%.

"What the hell was that?!" He demanded of his friend as he desperately tried to calm his breathing from the shock.

"I had no idea you would be so affected," Medea said, eyes wide open in shock. "Your assimilation of Jorry's sense of taste is way too overpowered. Most players do not know it, but when their sensation setting is at 5%, they only have access to a tenth of their normal senses. They aren't blind or deaf, but everything is dimmed, like its coming through a dark glass wall. People do not notice because that is all they are used to while playing Gods' Nature. It is only at 50% that players get access to their natural sense modalities, but they have to put up with feeling half the pain they would in real life. At 100% your senses are twice as sharp, but you have to put up with all the pain you would feel. There are tonnes of skills that can increase any of the five senses, but I have never seen a reaction like yours. I guess that when you assimilated Jorry's sense of taste, you didn't just get the same ability to taste as your snake, but it was applied proportionally to you. Theoretically, if Jorry could sense things that are a hundred times its body length away then you could do the same, only your body is much more significant."

"Why would anybody want to do that? That was way too much information!" Nero had calmed down a bit, but he still remembered the jolt of his brain as it tried to process all that it was absorbing.

"As I mentioned, everything is heightened as you increase your sensation setting. Food is more delicious or more disgusting, things smell much better or much worse. You feel more pain and more pleasure. It is a trade-off that most don't know they have available to them because very few people want to experiment with pain. I personally play with it set at 30%, not using my full senses is annoying, but I also don't have much pain tolerance."

"Huh, I didn't know about that." Octavia murmured as she stared around her as if seeing the world for the first time. She had tried changing the setting to 100% as well, and it had turned out much better for her than for her brother. "This is pretty awesome."

"It is, but its a trade-off," Medea answered. "I've noticed that the more you dive into Gods' Nature and treat it like real life, the more benefits you get, whether it is increasing your Nature faster or getting more sensations out of it. I'm sure there are other things too that I don't know about."

"So you don't know about any other hidden mechanics?" Claudia asked.

"None that I can think of off the top of my head, but now that we have met up and registered as friends we can message each other whenever we want." In Gods' Nature, it was only possible to register other's as friends when you were standing in front of them, this was a way to prevent people from getting mixed up if they have the same name, and to stop other people from harassing famous players with friend requests. There were benefits to doing being friends. Of course, being able to tell when your friends were online and being able to message them without going through the network tab was nice. The real attraction was that friends were able to see the general area and location of each other and in a game as massive as this one, that was paramount to being able to meet each other.

"Alright," Nero said, standing up and wiping the dirt from himself. "Since you are leaving tomorrow, let's fight!"

"""HUH!?""" Were the responses from the three women. Their surprise was to be expected for many reasons. One of the reasons was that Augustus had never been competitive in his life, preferring to solve problems through argument and manipulation, so it wasn't likely that he had suddenly become bloodthirsty. The other was the more likely one, the level disparity between the pair was massive, over a hundred, so even if Medea stood there doing nothing Nero wouldn't be able to damage her at all without her HP regen healing it right away.

"What?" Asked Nero, his head tilted to look at their shocked reactions.

"Are you insane!?" Shouted Octavia and Claudia in concert.

"Technically yes," calmly answered their brother, not the least perturbed by their question. "I fail to see what being a sociopath has to do with this situation."

"I think they want to know why you want to fight me." Said Medea patiently to him. "You do know that you have no chance of winning right?"

"Of course," Nero answered immediately as if it was apparent.

"He's a masochist!" Shouted Claudia, her eyes wide as she thumped her fist into her palm in realization.

"I'm not!" Nero shouted back in anger. "While there is nothing wrong with masochism, that has nothing to do with this situation. I just want to try fighting a mage, all my opponents have been physical opponents so far and haven't used magic." He said calming himself down and added as an afterthought; "Besides, I'm more of a sadist anyway."

"I don't think my fighting style is something most mages use," Medea couldn't help but point out while ignoring Claudia who had pulled a notepad from somewhere and was writing something down with a mutter of 'sadist.'

"I guessed as much, but I still want to try facing magic, so I'm not too surprised when I leave the city."

"Alright," the teacher agreed readily once she knew his reasoning. Nero was the type of person who liked to be prepared, and this wasn't too much of a hassle.

"Medea!" Octavia said in shock.

"What?"

"He will die!"

"No he won't," the sage waived off her concern. "I have plenty of ways to beat him without doing any damage. Besides, its better he learns now rather than be surprised out in the wild."

"Grrr, fine. But if you kill him, I'm killing you."

"I thought you guys were getting along?" Nero asked.

""So?"" Both Claudia and Octavia asked at the same time.

"Whatever," Nero said, not even bothering to try to understand their relationships. "It's fine if I die, I'll just respawn anyway, and the holy ground isn't too far away." That got him some odd looks from the girls but they shook it off, and Medea waved him forward.

"Come at me whenever you're ready."

Nero didn't hesitate to take his friend up on her offer and dashed right at her. He had decided to leave Jorry out of this as this wasn't a real fight. Evidently, his quick move had surprised Medea, her eyes widened briefly in surprise, but just as quickly she responded.

What followed wasn't a fight, it was a dismantling.

The pair weren't far apart, but these few feet might as well have been a mile for all the good that did Nero. Medea brought her hand up in front of herself, wiggled her fingers a bit, and it was done. It started with a shift in the ground, the location where his right foot was placed shifted forward, bringing his foot with it and stretching his leg much more than he wanted. When he tried to balance himself with his left foot, the ground rose up to meet it, destabilizing him even further. Then there were two small pops of compressed air near his ears that caused his vision to swim and a larger one in front of his solar plexus. Destabilized, disorientated, and dizzy, Nero went down with that blow.

"..Ow." He said as he lay pitifully on the ground. "I was ready to lose, but I thought I would at least do a bit better than that."

"To be fair," Medea looked down at him to make sure she hadn't caused too much damage to anything but his pride. "With my knowledge stat, I pretty much know what you are going to do before you do. I probably also have higher dexterity and strength than you even if I don't focus on them, so you were moving relatively slowly to me. If you were larger, not human shaped, or had more magical resistance, it would have been much more difficult, but I know enough about humanoids to know how to upset their balance."

"Still, that was impressive, five spells in an instant without a chant," Octavia said as she walked to the pair. Claudia also accompanied her, though she started poking Nero instead of saying anything.

"Stop that," he said, wiping her hands away as he stood up. "And she did use a chant, arias don't have to be words, they can be motions too. Every finger she wiggled was tied to a spell, she hypnotized herself along the lines of; 'if I wiggle this finger this way, this will happen.' Right?"

"Exactly," the teacher nodded in approval. "I'm not at the point yet where I can create multiple spells without some form of a supplement to my belief, even if they are low powered. You can only chant one spell at a time, so this is the best way to do it with small effects like this. You can also string spells together in a sentence or song, but those were not really good for a quick fight like this."

"I see, so that is the advantage of knowing about the belief system, the ability to manipulate magic easily."

"That's one of the advantages," Medea answered Claudia's question. "It takes a while to get the hang of it, but once you do, you become much more flexible when it comes to what you can do with magic."

"How did you train to that point?"

Nero tuned out the girls' discussion, he had already gotten the lecture on belief and its uses. Instead, he picked up Jorry who had slithered over.

"We've got a long way to go, huh?" He asked rhetorically as he rubbed his sore chest. Compressed air hurt after all.

****

"I'll miss you," Medea said as she pulled Nero into a tight hug. It was the afternoon she was set to leave, and he and the twins had come to see her off.

"I'll miss you too," he returned the hug.

"If you're ever in the vicinity of Valiskali, look us up. We'll take you with us to level, somebody with your skills will be very useful." Octavia said from the side, unlike her brother the girls saw each other every day at school.

"I will, by then I should be high enough level to match you two. I suppose this is goodbye then," Medea said as she pulled out of the hug and turned to board the carriage she had rented that would take her to the frontier before she would continue along by herself. Before she got into the carriage though, she turned to Nero one last time. "Gods' Nature is a beautiful game, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do."

And with that, she settled into the carriage as it set off.

"Bye," Nero said as he waved farewell. He tried to decipher any hidden meaning from her last words, but if they did exist, he didn't understand them. Was she trying to tell him to keep playing? It wasn't like he really had a choice in the matter, it was either this or lay helpless in a hospital bed.

Well whatever, if she needs to tell him anything she could message him at any time. It would probably be a while before they could meet up again but it wasn't like they couldn't communicate every day if they wanted to. Of course, Nero was ignorant that it would be years before they could meet again in the game.

****

"Why, I'd like nothing better than to achieve some bold adventure, worthy of our trip."

Aristophanes