“The steak is good, trust me! You guys aren’t interested?” Aaron asked as the plates of food remained nearly untouched.

“To be honest, we all just loaded up on pizza.” Darith shrugged, drinking the coffee. “Coffee is delicious though.”

“We appreciate it!” Liana smiled.

“At least store it in your inventory, it restores a lot of health and grants 20 health regeneration a minute for an hour.” Belle said, as she hadn’t eaten much either and reached forward to grab the plate. A few moments later, the food vanished into light.

“You can save food for later? That’s awesome.” Elise exclaimed, she reached forward and grabbed the plate, and within seconds figured out how to do it too. It didn’t take long before everyone had stored the meal in their inventory except for Aaron, who quickly finished the last bites.

“Well alright then. I’ll leave a tip and we can get going.” He said as he wiped his mouth with a napkin, then plopped down a sack of coins on the table. The 7 stood up and made their way out of the restaurant back into the noisy plaza.

“There’s a few places you oughta see before you get too lost in this madness. We can take you to a beginner shop, the martial arts academy, the crafters square, the guild hall, the auction house, the Avistion stables or of course the Magic Academy. There’s also a few inn’s that are good to stay at if you plan on living here instead of going back to the real world.” Belle said.

“That’s a lot of places.” Jaese commented.

“People live here?” Gabriel asked.

“Y-yeah, some people hate their real life so much they just move to Avistion, buy a cheap house and get a job in this world. It’s pretty nuts.” Aaron replied.

“I can guess what most of those places are just by their names, but it’s still good to learn about them. Which is the closest?” Darith asked Belle.

“There’s a beginner shop right across the plaza run by the Friendly Fox guild, they’ll sell you all the basic weapons that teach beginner skills.” Belle said while pointing to one of the larger buildings with a sword and shield sign hanging out front.

“That sounds perfect, since these three still haven’t chosen beginner weapons yet.” Darith replied.

“C’mon!” Belle said excitedly, leading them through the crowds. As they entered the shop they heard the jingle of the bell above the door, and the seven of them stepped inside. There were a few people browsing around, and a tall human behind the counter on the far end with big bushy orange hair smiling at them.

“Welcome to Tao Cheng’s Equipment Emporium, I’m Tao Cheng! If you need help with anything, please let me know! All goods are crafted of the highest quality by members of the Friendly Fox guild.” The man said excitedly as they entered.

“Hey Tao!” Belle replied back.

“Ah welcome back Belle and Aaron, I see you brought some friends with you today.”

“Yep, these are the guys that saved us from the Ice.”

“Wow, incredible, I heard the story! You saved a few guild mates of ours as well, quite the heroes. Darith, is it?” He asked, and Darith nodded awkwardly.

“We just received a message from one of our officers, Vanessa. She said we are to treat you as one of our own and to help you out in any way that we can. You must’ve done quite some impressive feats to get that treatment out of Vanessa.” Tao said to Darith, meanwhile the others began glancing around the large shop.

“Oh… you don’t need to go that far, we have some money still…” Darith replied.

“Nonsense. All of the goods here are high quality, but it's all made with simple materials so it’s in high supply. It’s no trouble to give some beginner equipment away.” Tao replied with a smile.

“Since most crafters and gatherers are lower level, they’re stuck to gathering in the safe zone where PvP players like the New World Order can’t attack them. The only materials you find in the safe zone though is copper, linen, simple leather, you know, basic materials. So most people trying to level up their crafting professions are forced to level up using just these materials, even though they stop giving decent experience after a certain point. As a result, you’ll find an abundance of well made basic items.” Belle answered.

“I see. These New World guys really seem to be ruining the game for everyone.” Darith replied.

“It’s not so bad, every once in awhile we get a source of higher level materials like Iron or Silk. You can always buy from that guild too, but the prices are marked up ridiculously high.” Tao answered. “So what weapons did you have in mind?” He asked as he looked at the browsing bunch.

“Do you mind if we test some of them out?” Jaese asked as he eyed a rack of weapons off to the side.

“Of course not, there are some training dummies through the back door.” Tao smiled.

“Thanks.” Jaese replied, then walked away from the group.

“Try to find something you’ll feel comfortable fighting with, it doesn’t matter what it is as long as it feels right.” Darith said, and with that Gabriel and Elise split off as well. “Do you mind if I look too?” He asked.

“Of course, it's pretty common for players to have learned quite a few of the beginner spells, to test out which they like the most.” Tao replied. Darith briefly looked at Liana, and she smiled back with a nod, and the two joined in the hunt.

The shelves were packed with weapons of all imaginable sorts. Off to one side were row upon row of swords of varying sizes, some two handed, some short, some curved. Large shields, round shields, kite shields.

Elise found herself walking towards them and tried picking up one of the larger two handed swords and struggled to get it off the rack. She held it up, tried swinging it, then shook her head and put it back down. Next she tried a short sword, smaller and lighter. She held it in one hand to get a feel for the weight of it, then gave it a few swings in the shop. Quickly glancing to see the others still browsing, she took it with her through the back door where she found a large room with hay on the floor and several wooden figures made to look like humans, stuffed with hay wielding wooden swords and shields covered in dents and scratches.

Elise moved towards one and took a swing, hitting the dummy easily enough, but she had trouble keeping a firm grip on the handle. She stepped back and took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment, then lunged at it, pairing the sword strike with several dance movements she was comfortable with. The first two strikes landed elegantly, but as she moved her hands around and spun, she ended up hitting herself with the sword, inflicting 10 damage on herself.

“Ow, shit!” She shouted out as she dropped the blade, rubbing the side of her stomach where it had cut, but there was no blood, and soon the pain went away. “This is…” She sighed to herself as she picked it up, then made her way back into the shop.

“These swords are too big, I can’t move well with them.” Elise called out to Darith as he browsed some aisles away.

“Why don’t you try daggers?” Darith asked.

“They’re right over there.” Tao pointed at another aisle of shelves. Elise shrugged and put the sword back, then headed down the aisle. On the shelves, she found sets of small knives, blades, kunai, shurikens, needles, and daggers, all of them a copper color and nicely laid out on pieces of cloth. Elise jokingly picked up a few shuriken first and played around with over exaggerated movements as she pretended to be a ninja, throwing in dance steps as well.

“Hey.” Darith said as he turned to watch her, causing her to immediately stop and look embarrassed.

“Hey. This is uh, this is pretty crazy. I’m really supposed to fight monsters with these things?” Elise said nervously as she put the shuriken back down.

“I know it sounds crazy but it can be really fun, going on adventures and getting stronger, don’t you think?” Darith said with a sparkle in his eye. Elise was noticing he seemed like a much more lively person since he’d been in his game character body.

“I guess.” She smiled. “You picked me because I could move really well, like dancing, right? So which of these weapons do you think I should use?”

“Well… daggers are really light and small, easy to swing. They require you to get really close to enemies though, so you have to be nimble with them.” Darith said as he picked up a set of daggers. “They usually don’t do much damage, so it’s good to use two. And you also want a way to hit things from far away.” He held out the daggers for Elise to take as he eyed the other weapons. She took them and looked at them, testing out their weight, it was no different than holding a kitchen knife.

“You could go with a bow or a crossbow, but when you’re moving around fast with daggers you probably want something that's not clunky. Bows take two hands, crossbows need to be reloaded. So thrown weapons are ideal, you just pull them out and throw. Any of these could do the trick.” Darith said as he looked over the kunai, shuriken, needles and throwing knives, as well as darts.

“I don’t know how to throw stuff like that. I’ll end up hitting you by mistake.” Elise joked.

“You can learn it though, this game will probably give you a skill to help. With enough practice I bet you could master using any of these.” Darith said enthusiastically.

“I don’t know… are you sure you made the right choice inviting me? I mean this is really cool and all, but I just like dancing.” Elise replied nervously, looking over the weapons.

“I’m sure…” Darith said as confidently as he could, trying his best to reassure Elise, but in truth he himself was unsure about how it would all turn out. She locked eyes with him and watched his expression for a moment.

“Y’know you are a lot cooler when you’re a little fox boy. You’re not afraid to look me in the eyes anymore. Is it the scar?” Elise smirked as she rubbed her hands over it.

“N-no.” He replied while breaking eye contact. “This is just… you know, what I’m good at. Playing games, learning them and figuring them out, and playing with other people. Those are probably my favorite things to do in the entire world. I feel like this is the sort of place I belong in, you know what I mean? Like the real world is great, it’s where my Mom is and I love her… but…”

“You wish you could live somewhere else?” Elise asked with a serious tone, staring at the daggers in her hands while deep in thought.

“Yeah.. I guess… kind of. That’s why I want to protect this world.”

“I get it.” She said, then walked over to the shelf and grabbed a set of Kunai. “I’ll try these out.” Elise added while taking them along with the daggers towards the backroom, but before she left the aisle she turned to look at Darith once more.

“Hey… thanks for inviting me.” Elise smiled, and he smiled back with a nod. She entered the back room and stood in front of the target dummy again, placing the Kunai on the ground, then gripping the daggers in either hand. She did the same movements as before, this time swinging the daggers around her steps, stabbing at the target dummy. A lot of swings missed, but she could hit the dummy a few times without hitting herself. After roughly 15 swings, she took a step back and hopped in place to psych herself up.

“I can totally do this.” She smiled to herself, then looked down at the Kunai. She put down her daggers and picked one up, then held it in a throwing position, then after carefully aiming, chucked it at the dummy. It flew straight down into the hay. “I totally can’t do that.” She sighed to herself, then retrieved all the weapons and came back out, moving towards the counter.

As Elise placed down the set of copper daggers and the pack of copper kunai, beside her walked up Gabriel and placed on the counter a huge pile of clunking copper weapons.

“Uh, which of those beginner weapons did you want to choose?” Tao asked nervously as Gabriel looked down confidently at the pile.

“All of them.” He replied with a deadpan stare. “You said it’s free, right?” He asked, as Darith walked up to the scene. Tao looked to Darith, then back to Gabriel.

“Y-yes, the problem is more about how you plan to use them all?”

“Little man said I can get stronger with anything if I use it enough, right?” Gabriel turned to Darith.

“That’s true… but are you planning to level all of your weapon masteries?” Darith asked.

“Yeah.” Gabriel said bluntly.

“I-I suppose that’s one way about deciding your affinity, but… how about you start out with just a few?”

“Nah I’ll take ‘em all.” Gabriel replied.

“But this’ll fill up your entire inventory.” Tao said in disbelief.

“We’ll also probably need you as our tank, so you should think about a shield…” Darith commented.

“Ah yeah, right. I forgot. I’ll take one of them shields too. The big one.” He said as he pointed at a copper shield hanging on the shelf across the way.

“Seriously?” Tao replied.

“Well you did say you guys have an abundance of beginner gear.” Belle said, it was clear Belle and Aaron were barely holding back laughter. Tao rolled his eyes then began investigating the pile of weapons.

“One long sword, one maul, one halberd, one spear, a short sword, a mace, a flail, a trident, a longbow, bladed knuckles…” Tao said as he went through the weapons.

“Those I’m already good with.” Gabriel commented.

“A great axe and a kite shield.” Tao sighed to himself. “One moment, I need to ask Vanessa something.” He said as he tapped his fingers in the air for a moment. Then let out another sigh. “She said to make sure you don’t forget to buy armor as well. I don’t know what you did but she really likes you guys.” Tao said as he shrugged. “And daggers and Kunai for you, miss?” Tao asked as he turned to Elise.

“Yes please.” Elise smiled politely.

“Alright. The transaction is complete, they’re all bound to you guys now, you should be able to learn the beginner skills from them. You’ll find armor over there.” He said as he pointed across the shop.

“Thanks.” Gabriel smiled, one by one adding the weapons to his inventory before heading towards the armor racks.

“You guys wouldn’t happen to have any copper guns, would you?” Jaese called from across the shop.

“No we don't have copper guns.” Tao groaned back. A few moments later, Liana walked up behind Darith and placed down a staff and a wand.

“What’d you find?” Darith asked her excitedly.

“This staff teaches basic light magic, and this wand does enhancement magic I think.” Liana smiled.

“Going all out on the support type? Light Magic isn’t completely support magic though.” Belle commented.

“I have to be able to defend myself, I don’t want a repeat of… well, you know.” She said to Darith and he nodded.

“Good thinking. Make sure to pick out armor, I’ll go check on Jaese.” Darith replied, then left to see Jaese in an aisle lined with crossbows and bows. “How’s it going?”

“I know you said I should get a ranged weapon but I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t the slightest idea how to use any of this stuff.” Jaese replied as he picked up a heavy crossbow.

“Learning it you can do after… I think you should pick what feels good first. Crossbows are the closest things to guns I guess. It doesn’t have to be a ranged weapon if you don’t feel comfortable with them.” Darith replied.

“Nah one of these oughta be the way to go, I can’t see myself running up and punching dragons with my miniscule martial arts training. I think this is the one.” He said as he walked over to a hand crossbow and picked it up. “It’s not as heavy as the others. On second thought…” he put it down and then picked up a longbow. “This one looks like it’d hurt more, and shoot further.”

“You could always go with both.” Darith shrugged. “I mean, since we’re getting a free pass on beginner stuff.” He whispered.

“Yeah. Yeah, alright.” Jaese nodded to himself, grabbing a longbow with quiver, then the hand crossbow with a quiver of bolts and heading to the counter.

“Looks like you’ve got a well rounded group.” Belle said to Darith as she watched the last member go up to the counter. “What about you, you are looking to learn some more basic spells too?” She asked.

“Of course, but well, I’m starting to feel bad taking all this stuff.” Darith replied.

“It’s fine.” Tao called out to him, then snapped his fingers. There were several flashes of light around the shop as each of the empty spots on the shelves were refilled with new versions of the weapons Darith’s party had taken. “Like I said, we’ve got tons of inventory. We had one blacksmith in our guild make 300 copper daggers in a day just to get half a level in his blacksmithing skill.” Tao shrugged.

“In that case…” Darith said guiltily, as he walked over to the staff section. A few minutes later he came out with 8 different staves and dropped them on the counter.

“I don’t know what I expected. That’s pretty much all of them, right? Beginner Lightning, Ice, Earth, Wind, Nature, Light, Dark, and Arcane. I’m guessing you’ve already got Fire and Water?” Tao said as he looked over them all.

“Yep.” Darith smiled guiltily.

“What affinity are you aiming for?” Tao asked.

“I’ll be honest, I don’t really get how Affinity’s work.” Darith replied.

“Oh, right. I’ll explain.” Belle jumped in. “Affinity is the equivalent to your job or class in other games. Once you reach level 50 in a mastery you can choose an affinity related to that mastery. So in your case, since you have spell mastery above 50, you’d be eligible to become a Wizard. A wizard is a general spellcaster that can use all types. You could also go more specific and become a Fire Wizard because of your high Firebolt level, that’ll give you significant bonuses to fire spells, but your other magic would suffer. An affinity for something means you’ll be more effective using it, and be able to level it up faster, which is a big deal when you jump into intermediate spells as they go up really slow. ” Belle explained.

“So if a guy went all in on Ice magic and took the Ice Wizard affinity, he’d be really good at Ice magic but suck at everything else.” Darith replied as he remembered Thomas.

“Exactly.” Aaron nodded.

“A Wizard levels up all magic schools with a 30% experience bonus and all spells are 30% more effective, but a Fire Wizard would receive 100% experience towards Fire spells only, and they’d be 100% more effective. So you could choose to be good at all of them, or really really good at one.” Belle replied.

“Being more flexible is good, but a Wizard’s fire spells could never be as strong as a Fire Wizards..” Tao said.

“What about mixing magic with weapons, or other sorts?” Darith asked.

“There’s a lot of combinations, Spell blades are common. There’s a lot of variations to them, but they usually specialize in one type of magic and one type of weapon, to get bonuses to both..” Belle replied.

“You can become a paladin if you reach level 50 in light magic, sword mastery and shield mastery. I like to call them Knight Lights though.” Aaron chuckled to himself.

“Most of the affinities end up combining 1 to 2 types of masteries or spell schools. There are a few exceptions, but not many. The scholars research the more complex affinities, but haven’t found many. Some affinities are hidden in quests or from trainers out in the world, so there's a lot that hasn’t been discovered yet.” Tao shrugged.

“What happens if I don’t choose one?” Darith asked curiously.

“Nothing really, but you’ll struggle. Like I said, intermediate abilities level painfully slow without an affinity towards them, Masteries as well - and you’ll be much less effective. You’ve probably already noticed that compared to your beginner spells, after level 50 Spell Mastery stopped going up so fast. Rather than trying to stay a jack of all trades beginner, it's best to choose a path. Even I chose my affinity as a Trader, by using my Merchant Mastery and Crafting Mastery, combined with my high level bargaining, blacksmithing and tailoring skills.” Tao replied.

“This game really covers all skills like that?” Darith asked in disbelief.

“Yep, from farming to singing to hunting, mining, and cooking. Whatever you want to be, you can be. It’s truly a second life.” Belle smiled.

“Beats the hell out of my factory job in the real world.” Tao replied.

“So I need to choose a good affinity.” Darith said to himself.

“Well, with these you’d be on your way to becoming a decent Wizard. That’s one of the more versatile affinities and it's pretty easy to get, only requires one mastery at 50. I’ve bound the staves to you, so you can learn the skills. You oughta pick out some armor too.” Tao said as he tapped his fingers through the air and suddenly a light flashed in front of Darith’s eyes.

Acquired: Beginner’s Lightning Staff x1

Acquired: Beginner’s Nature Staff x1

Acquired: Beginner’s Wind Staff x1

Acquired: Beginner’s Dark Staff x1

Acquired: Beginner’s Light Staff x1

Acquired: Beginner’s Arcane Staff x1

Acquired: Beginner’s Earth Staff x1

Acquired: Beginner’s Ice Staff x1

Each item prompted him to learn the respective spell, and he accepted each and every one of them. Each taught a bolt spell of the respective element, very similar to Fire bolt. They varied in damage, cost, and cast speed, but more importantly each indicated their weaknesses, such as Lightning bolt being useless against stone and rock creatures.

You have learned the spell Lightning Bolt!(?)

You have learned the spell Nature Bolt!(?)

You have learned the spell Wind Bolt!(?)

You have learned the spell Shadow Bolt!(?)

You have learned the spell Radiant Bolt!(?)

You have learned the spell Arcane Bolt!(?)

You have learned the spell Earth Bolt!(?)

You have learned the spell Ice Bolt!(?)

“I’m not sure If I’ll level these but it's good to have the option.” Darith said. “Thanks a lot.” He said, turning to join the others, but he saw them instead approaching him, each holding different sets of gear.

“Here, I got you the robes, they improve your mana regeneration, so I figured you’d want them.” Liana smiled as she handed him a set of brown linen robes, she herself having a set as well.

“Oh. What’s the other armor types too?” Darith asked.

“Leather’s light, makes it easy to move. I picked the simple stuff because its tighter fitting, doesn’t get in the way of moving.” Elise said as she plopped down her leather armor on the counter.

“I went with heavier leather. Same reasons but I don’t… well I prefer it more loose.” He said as he placed down heavy leather armor. There was a loud clunk as Gabriel dropped chainmail on the counter with big shiny copper shoulderpads, legplates, greaves, the whole deal. Everyone looked at Gabriel and he just shrugged.

“Had the most armor.”

“Was there any other choices?” Darith asked.

“With beginner armor you won’t get much variety, they pretty much summed it up.” Tao said as he went one by one giving out the armor. “That should be everything, right?” He forced a smile.

“I think so. Thank you so much for helping us out.” Darith replied while bowing politely.

“No problem, just don’t forget it was the Friendly Fox guild, if you see any of our guys in trouble be sure to help them out.” Tao replied.

“We will.” Darith nodded politely. Everyone else threw out thanks and bows as the 7 of them left the shop back into the plaza.

“How about we stop by the martial arts academy next? They’ll train you in any weapon mastery up until its level 5 for free. It’s a good way to learn how to use a weapon.” Belle suggested.

“You should see me with a bow now.” Aaron grinned.

“Y-yes please, let’s go there.” Elise pleaded, looking to Darith.

“Okay, let’s check it out.” He nodded. The group began travelling away from Griffin square down another busy street, occasionally bumping shoulders with people. Jaese took this time to walk beside Liana who was busy taking in all the buildings and people around them.

“Liana… I wanted to ask you something.” Jaese asked, and she turned to look at him.

“What’d you want to ask?” She smiled.

“When we met in the hospital… did you already know what had happened at the bank?”

“Nope, I had no idea. Darith didn’t invite me to the game until Friday.” Liana replied.

“I see… what made you want to try and help me?” Jaese asked, sounding a bit relieved.

“I thought the things you were saying were crazy, like something from a video game, so maybe I could’ve helped… turns out it actually was from a video game though.” Liana shrugged.

“Darith said he wants to get us stronger and stop bad players, and I agree that's what we should do… but do you have any idea how he plans to do it?” Jaese asked her.

“I don’t know yet, but he’ll figure it out.” Liana smiled.

“You seem so sure, why do you believe in him so much?” Jaese asked, Gabriel and Elise started listening in while Darith walked in front talking with Aaron and Belle.

“I’ve never seen him give up on a game, no matter how hard it was. The more challenging it is, the harder he tries. Once he spent 3 days playing a jump-rope mini-game just to get a collectable item, didn’t even have anything to do with the rest of the game, but he wouldn’t stop doing it until he got it done.” Liana replied.

“This is a bit more serious than just a game though.” Jaese replied.

“He jumped in to save your life, and mine, and all the other police officers. That Thomas guy was way higher level than us, and we could’ve escaped easily. But instead he stayed and kept trying until he found a way to win. Even if its more than a game, Darith is the same, he won’t give up ‘til he wins.” Liana smiled. The three listening just went silent, it was broken by Aaron turning back to get their attention.

“There it is! Avistion Martial Arts Academy! Most people just call it the Training Grounds.” Aaron said as he pointed to the large building. It had castle like walls with a large wooden gate held wide open, several other people going in and out wearing beginner armor. As they stepped through the gate they found a stone walkway going directly into the building in the center that resembled a castle with blue roof tiles, but on the left the area opened up into a wide field.

The field was filled with row upon row of training dummies, archery targets, and all sorts of equipment used to practice different weapons and skills. The group could see at least 20 other players already training various weapons. Among them were NPC’s marked with ??? levels giving them instructions, they all had the same attire of plain white shirt and brown pants with a black armband bearing the blue spread eagle on it.

“The lead instructor is the big guy sitting on the bench under that tree.” Belle said as she pointed across the training grounds at him. It was a large muscular human with dark skin and shaved black hair. He sat with a sleeveless white shirt on, his arms crossed revealing his unusually large muscles.

“I can learn to use Kunai here?” Elise asked.

“Yup, just tell him the weapon mastery you’d like to learn and you’ll get an instructor. You get experience here really really slow, and once you hit level 5 in the mastery it’ll cost you money to get more training. It’s really only worth it to train your base stats through physical activities and learn how to use the weapons themselves here. After that you’re better off hunting monsters.” Belle replied.

“Okay, cool. Darith I’d like to train here for a bit and try and figure out the Kunai thing, that okay?” She asked.

“Same here.” Jaese said.

“Me too.” Gabriel added.

“A-alright,”

“What about Magic, can I practice my light magic here?” Liana asked.

“You’ll have to do that at the Magic Academy.” Aaron replied.

“Then do we split up?” Liana asked.

“That sounds risky, this city is really big…” Darith thought on it.

“You should be able to keep in contact with party chat. Do you know how to use it?” Aaron asked.

“W-well, we kinda just made this party.” Darith shrugged.

“It’s easy enough, just touch the person's name in your party interface that you want to talk to, and they’ll be able to hear what you say. If you touch all 4 of them at once, they’ll all hear you. Don’t feel bad about not figuring that out, someone else had to tell us too, and apparently they figured it out by chance.” Belle replied.

“Testing testing!” Liana said while touching all 4 of the others names, and they could hear her voice once from her mouth and a second time in their heads.

“Whoa!” Elise exclaimed.

“Awesome…” Darith said as he touched the four names in the top left of his peripheral vision as well. “Can you guys hear me?” he asked.

“Loud and clear.” Jaese replied, while Gabriel nodded.

“Okay great. You guys stay here and learn as much as you can, me and Liana will go and check out the Magic Academy and see what else we can learn, then we’ll meet back here.” Darith said.

“You got it little man.” Gabriel replied.

“I’ll stay with them and get some more bow training in.” Aaron said.

“See you later.” Elise waved to Darith.

“Good luck guys.” Liana replied. Gabriel, Jaese, Elise and Aaron turned and walked towards the large muscular man on the bench.

“Come, I’ll take you to the Magic Academy. You’re gonna love it!” Belle cheered, leading the two out of the Martial Arts Academy and back into the streets.

As they approached the man, his name above his head became visible. Lead Instructor Hagrim. He stood up and uncrossed his arms and looked at Gabriel first.

“You’re here to learn how to fight, I take it. What mastery are you looking to train?” He asked in a deep voice.

“I’ll start with this.” Gabriel said as he pulled out a two handed sword.

“Good choice.” He replied, then waved his hand around in a strange motion. Afterwards a glowing white figure appeared beside him. When the light dimmed and eventually diminished, a human with black hair tied in a ponytail was visible wearing the same clothing as the other trainers.

“Let’s get started.” The man said, motioning Gabriel to follow him. The others watched as Gabriel was lead to the field of training dummies as the trainer began asking him basic questions.

“I want to learn how to use daggers and kunai.” Elise said excitedly after seeing what happened.

“Good enthusiasm. We’ll start with daggers first.” Hagrim replied, this time a young female nemothyne with raccoon ears appeared, smiling at Elise.

“Crossbow for me.” Jaese said, and Hagrim nodded. Last but not least, a tall female elf with white hair appeared, smiling at Jaese.

“Let’s begin.” She said, leading Jaese towards the archery targets. Aaron observed as the three began.

“Have you ever wielded a two handed sword before?”

“No.” Gabriel replied.

“We’ll start with the basic stances then.” The instructor said. He leaned in and demonstrated to Gabriel how to hold the weapon, Gabriel observing him closely and mimicking his behaviour. “Good. But it’s one thing to copy me, it's another to understand what I am doing and why I am doing it.” He continued, as he began explaining the basics of shifting your weight to swing the weapon effectively.

“Hi there, I’m Carsie.” The Nemothyne smiled, reaching to shake Elise’s hand.

“Hi, I’m Elise… nice to meet you.” Elise replied awkwardly. It was obvious she wasn’t sure how to interact with this person.

“So you’re looking to use daggers huh? Really good choice, they’re super light, makes moving really easy!” Carsie said with a grin.

“Y-yeah… I was just worried they aren’t that good of weapons. The beginner skill I learned is just called stab… It doesn’t even seem like much of a skill.” Elise said as she watched Gabriel take his first swing with the two handed sword across the training grounds. Carsie followed Elise’s eyes to see what she was looking at.

“True, a long sword can do some big hits. But daggers…” Carsie held out her hands as two daggers formed out of light in them from her inventory. She then dashed past a row of 6 training dummies in the blink of an eye, making several slashing noises. Elise watched as all 6 of the training dummies fell to the ground in pieces. “Are more about speed and finesse.” Carsie grinned slyly.

“Holy- you did that with just the daggers?” Elise asked.

“Yup.” Carsie replied as the training dummies began repairing themselves, glowing faintly until they were back to their original states.

“Teach me how to move like that!” Elise said as she hopped in place with excitement.

“So…” Jaese asked as they reached the archery targets. “Are you a… a person?” Jaese asked.

“Yes? That’s an odd question.” The elf replied.

“I mean… like, a real person?”

“I’m real, my name is Luryala.” She rolled her eyes at him. “Are you a real person?” She asked mockingly.

“Y-yeah, of course.”

“Do you mean to ask if I am from this world, or am I another worlder like you?” She asked.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant to ask.”

“I’m from this world.”

“So do you have, like, feelings, and thoughts?” Jaese asked curiously.

“I feel uncomfortable. And I think I’m stuck training a moron.” She replied.

“S-sorry, this is just my first time here.” He replied nervously.

“It’s alright. We’re used to it. Take out your crossbow.” She said, and he nodded, pulling it out along with a quiver. “Show me what you’ve got so far.” Jaese nodded, took aim, and fired the bolt, missing the target completely despite trying to line up the shot.

“You looked like you knew what you were doing for a second there, what happened?” She asked as she walked to pick up the bolt.

“I’ve shot… weapons like this before, in my world. Just not quite like a crossbow.” Jaese replied.

“I see. Reload it and try again.” She said as she walked back and handed him the bolt. Jaese struggled with the mechanism, fumbling around a bit until the crossbow made a weird clinking noise and the bolt flew up out of his hand, landing softly on the dirt beside Luryala.

“Do you want to know what my thoughts are now?” Luryala grinned at Jaese. He sighed and bent down to pick up the bolt.