Author’s Corner: Behold, we finally have cover art! It may not be at all original, and just something I found from a quick google session, but it does not appear to be copy-written, and that’s the important thing!

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It took me a little bit to crawl out of the snake’s mouth, since I had started going in the wrong direction. Thankfully, after a few feet I noticed that I shouldn’t have been that deep in its throat. When I emerged, I felt it was a miracle Celeste hadn’t been damaged in that exchange. Though, when I called for her to make sure she was alright, she appeared in a holographic nurse uniform.

“So Falenel, what seems to be the problem today? Yes, yes… I can see that you are suffering from a chronic lack of common sense.” She nodded to herself as she was going over a holographic clipboard, supposedly my patient’s chart.

I sighed, regretting having been worried about the AI. “Nice to see you’re okay too, Celeste.” I leaned down and picked up the dead snake with great difficult, and stuffed the body into my inventory. Next, I sat there and waited for my mana to recover, while ignoring the furious barks from the wolves below that now obviously knew of my presence.

I was a bit sad that my knife had broken in that fight, snapping under the pressure after having successfully killed the snake. Now I was just left with my bow and… twenty eight arrows. Those were not going to last me very long, were they? I guess the next thing I should cultivate would be Fire Affinity, followed by Plant Affinity so that I can fully take care of myself in the wild. But for that I’ll need Water Affinity as well… Gah, so troublesome

Once my mana was recovered, I began gliding back to the grove in the same manner I had taken to get here, gathering a few small branches along the way to start the fire. I’ve never really had snake before, but it shouldn’t be too bad, right? I wasn’t poisoned when it tried to eat me, so it shouldn’t be venomous I think?

After I arrived back in the grove, I got the snake body back out and started to chop it up… Wait, I lost my knife… how the heck am I supposed to chop this thing up!? Frustrated, I logged off and had a bowl of cereal for my morning(evening) meal. Strangely, the Seed was actually much larger when I logged off this time, and I noticed I still had the wings from Aspect of the Bird. It seemed the device really did resize itself to match the occupant. Once I was back in NeoLife, I decided on a new new plan. First, I needed to practice flying until I could go for at least ten minutes at a time.

Thankfully, that was a fairly easy task, since I had been practicing with my wings more often. After a couple hours, I could already reach my goal with little difficulty, as long as I helped my flight with Wind Manipulation. And with that taken care of, it was finally time to get a bird’s eye view of the place! Though, I was starting to get hungry again… cereal is never really filling.

Off to the side, I notice Yin and Yang flying off for a brief moment, then returning with an apple and a strange brown fruit that looked vaguely like an orange.

…

What did I go through that hunt for then!? I lowered my head in depression, but nonetheless thanked the two birds and took the fruits. I first ate the apple, as I at least knew what it was, while inspecting the brown orange with my mana. By this point, I’ve at least gotten good enough to identify if there is a poisonous substance inside of something. Strangely, I found that there was no such thing, even a bit of a warm medicinal feeling.

Since the apple was enough to tide me over for now, I put the weird fruit in my inventory. “Okay, Celeste, time to head back to town. Need that map again.”

“Going to meet any new snake friends while you’re out?” The holographic navigator snickered from my wrist.

“Very funny.” I shook my head, then fully raised all four of my wings, slamming them downwards to launch me into the air. I only needed a very slight adjustment from my Wind Manipulation to keep me going in the right direction, but soon I was flying up over the tops of the trees. What I saw surprised me a little, to be honest. The forest we were in was not as massive as I had imagined, and the starting village was actually near the edge of it. It’s just, the grove where I had been training was at the dead center of the forest.

Off in the distance, I could see other, similar forests all of roughly the same size. On the horizon, I saw metal structures rising towards the sky, signs of a more advanced settlement. Of course, I wasn’t so eager to immediately make my way in that direction, as I could make out black specks soaring through the skies closer to that city. From the distance, and the fact that I still managed to notice them, those specks had to at least be the size of fighter jets. Airborne monsters that big were far too much for me to handle.

“Celeste, add the area around here to the map.” I said as I gave a slow spin, capturing the scenery around me, before finally diving in the direction of the town. Since I was flying well above the treetops, I did not have to worry about any monsters such as snakes, and my path was a straight shot. I ended up ducking into the trees just before reaching the village, then gliding down to the ground to put my shirt back on after dismissing my wings.

You may be wondering, why am I going back to the village now? Shouldn’t I be training more to master the rest of my magic? Well, I don’t really like continuous training montages, but more importantly… I’ve still got that snake in my inventory! If I can’t eat it, I might as well get something out of the thing!

Once I had landed in the town, I walked over towards Harlan’s store. If anyone knew where to sell animal corpses, it’d be him. “Yo, Harlan, you in?”

“Just a second! Be right out!” I heard his voice coming from the back of the store, having apparently been on break due to a lack of customers. Once he came out, he gave me a curious look. “Hmm, you were in here the other day, right? For your first companion, if I recall. Did you manage to break it already?”

Rather than letting me answer, Celeste appeared as a hologram above my wrist and scolded him. “Hmpf! Like I could be broken so easily!”

Shaking my head, I looked at the salesman. “I’m interested in selling an animal body, and wanted to know where I could do so.”

Raising a curious brow, Harlan seemed at least interested. “Well, that would depend on the animal.”

“It was a snake, about… a foot thick, maybe eight meters long? Mostly green, with occasional spots of yellow.”

“Ah, that sounds like a Great Boa. Rather surprised that you would be able to kill one, their scales are hard as steel.”

I winced slightly, remembering how I had originally intended to cut into it with my dagger. “Well… Let’s just say I found a soft spot. So, can you help me sell it? The corpse is entirely intact, and no it’s not poisoned.”

He chuckled a bit as I added that last note in. “Well, there’s not a bounty on them at the moment, since they rarely come out from the upper tree branches. However, like I said, their scales are incredibly hard. That alone makes them a valuable crafting material for armors. Their meat is also rather popular. I’d say you could sell the whole thing for… fifteen silver?”

I swear, when he said that price, my foot slipped and I landed on the floor. Fifteen silver? I was going to consider myself lucky for five! “U-uhm… do you think I’d be able to make a trade? Get some of the armor made for myself?”

He thought about it, then nodded. “Even making a full set of armor wouldn’t use more than half of the scales. If you do that, and trade it to me, I can give you eight silver for the body, and have the armor commissioned for you.”

Finally, I can get some real armor. And it’s even snake scale armor, so it wouldn’t violate the ‘standard’ theme for druids. I wonder if they have any armor restrictions here like in some games? I decided that was something I’d have to ask Jarl later. “Deal. Uh… do you have somewhere that I could take the snake out?” I didn’t want to take it out here and wreck his shelves.

As if suddenly realizing the issue, he nodded quickly and led me to a large open room in the back, where I deposited the snake. “Thanks, and is it possible for the armor to be enchanted to change whenever I transform? I’m a druid, and my body shape isn’t always the same…”

Harlan looked to me at that and nodded. “Certainly, certainly. An adjustment enchantment is rather basic, and can be included in the armor easily.” He then looked back to the snake and smiled slightly. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Well… I could do with a new dagger. My last one broke when I killed this thing.”

The businessman nodded once again. “Very well, I can help you with that, right this way.” He grinned broadly, leading me back to the front of the store. Showing me one of the items on his shelf, he picked up a small dagger. Though, this one looked a bit more high tech than the last one. All along the blade were several tiny teeth-like protrusions, and along the length of the blade was a black display. “This is a basic Chain Dagger. Honestly, most everyone gets one of these shortly after they receive their class. Just put a little bit of mana into it, and…” As he speaks, the teeth of the dagger began moving back and forth wildly, giving it the appearance of a small chainsaw.

“I’m scared to ask… how much is it?”

He chuckled, seeing my rather obvious hesitation. “Oh, don’t worry. You can afford it. Three silver for the dagger, and it’s yours. That’d take your earnings from the snake down to five silvers.”

I was almost relieved that I was now earning as much as I had originally expected, even if I was also receiving a full suit of snake mail armor and a dagger as a gift. I immediately agreed to the exchange, and he handed me five silver coins, as well as the dagger he had shown me. I could probably see about getting a better bow… but I’m afraid it’d cost too much.

After leaving Harlan’s store with the promise to be back the following day to pick up the armor, I bumped into Jacobs. Unlike before, he was now equipped with a rather elegant looking mage’s robe, and his staff had a black gemstone at the tip. “Oh, hey there Falenel. Haven’t seen you around lately.” He then cast a glance somewhere up above me, where I assume a certain pair of birds were flying in circles.

“Sorry, was practicing my class skills. Just came back this time to sell stuff and order some new gear.” I looked at his robe, then down to my own tattered starter outfit. I need to visit a tailor…

“Oh? Well, I’ve gotten started on Enchanting, so let me know when you have the gear and I’ll see what I can do for it.”

Hearing that, I looked up quickly, and pulled out my two weapons for him to look at. “Can you do anything for these?” I asked with a bit of hope in my voice.

He chuckled, looking over the weapons. “I can’t work with the Chain Dagger, since it’s already fully enchanted by design. If it was made purely with tech, I’d be able to do something. As for the bow… the materials used are too basic for most enchantments. Best I could do would be to put a durability enchantment on it.”

I sighed dejectedly when I learned that my new dagger wouldn’t get an upgrade, but nodded slightly at the offer for the bow. “Thanks.” He put his finger above the bow, and began tracing runic patterns along the wood, which glowed as his finger passed over it. I felt a rather considerable amount of mana being poured into the wood before he stopped.

“There, that should be good to make it last a while, though I’d suggest upgrading soon. I’ll be in town a couple more days, but then I’m heading off to the capital.”

I was a bit confused at how quickly and easily the enchantment took place. Now magic dust, no special words, just drawing a few patterns with magic? I felt ripped off with my alchemy now. Glancing at his level in my contact list, I saw that he had just hit 16. Since he was being sent off to the city, I decided to set that as my own goal before leaving as well. “Thanks again. You pick up any other magic yet, or still focusing on Gravity?”

He smirked slightly, nodding his head. “I’m aiming to be a Stellar Mage. So far I have Gravity and Void Magic, but in the capital I heard that there was someone capable of teaching the other magic types I needed. Oh, and I found out how to teach someone a school of magic. It’s not as hard as we thought.”

I tilted my head curiously, waiting for him to continue. “Anyone can teach a school of magic after they train it to Novice rank. Only a few people have already gotten that far, but once you do, all you have to do is attune yourself to the school of magic, and let someone else copy it. It won’t automatically teach them the spell, but it’s an easier learning method than books.”

I nodded slightly, thinking it over. “Guess until you hit that rank, your magic isn’t well trained enough to provide a decent copy or something. Since you learned a second school of magic, don’t suppose you know how much they charge to learn?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Mine was a class related thing, so I didn’t pay for it. But I did try to. However, the Mage’s Guild requires a fee of ten silver to learn a new school of magic, and the tower here is an affiliate of the Mage’s Guild.”

I suddenly thought of my previous fifteen silver from killing the snake, and how it had dwindled to five. Six if you count the silver I already had. “Well, I’ll see about learning one when I can. I still haven’t finished mastering all of my class abilities yet.” I gave a somewhat regretful glance upwards to the two circling birds, who happily dove down to perch on my shoulders.

After that, the two of us parted ways, and I moved to the inn to buy a room for the day. I could at least train one affinity while in this town waiting for my armor. Curious, I took a glance at my character info and skills, since I hadn’t done so in a while except to assign points.

NameFalenelRaceHalf-Elf(Woodland)TitlesVengeful HeartFame0Level 110%ClassDruidSub-ClassNoneDeityMalthanHealth120/120Health Regen0.2Mana380/380Mana Regen0.4Strength12Wisdom63Agility20Intelligence38Dexterity19Charisma9Vitality12Luck14Points Remaining0Earth 5%Fire 1%Wind 6%Water 2%Lightning 0%Light 1%Dark 1%Plant 3%Luck 2%Madness 2%

SkillsMana Manipulation - Basic Level 1: 12%Nature Magic - Basic Level 1: 3%Wind Magic - Beginner Level 6: 41.5%Archery - Beginner Level 5: 9%Dagger Mastery - Beginner Level 3: 1%Wild Luck - Beginner Level 6: 12.2%Sketching - Basic Level 6: 50%Herbology - Beginner Level 3: 21%Gathering - Beginner Level 6: 6%Alchemy - Beginner Level 5: 23.2%Mana Signatures - Beginner Level 7: 32%Cooking - Basic Level 3: 53%Flight - Beginner Level 6: 11%