I first heard the elven village rather than saw it. From far ahead, the noise and clutter of a busy city could clearly echo in my ears far louder than any natural sound. Following the sound, I was rewarded with a breathtaking sight. Even though I was still in the deep part of the forest, dominated by enormous trees and thick vegetation, the village put all that to shame.

Gigantic trees dozens of meters high, with trunks big enough that could easily fit an elevator in, were sprawled over a vast, clear area. Beneath them, all the high vegetation was either cleared out, giving way to clean, earthen streets, or was meticulously gardened to create bushes and flower beds that filled your eyes with an endless cascade of colors and shapes.

Looking upwards, the massive branches of the ancient trees opened up like hands that tightly grasped wooden houses, from which rope bridges hang, connecting one massive structure to another. Even higher than the rooftops, the thinner branches of the trees continued upwards, creating a massive dome of green leaves that covered the entire vast area like a blanket. As the sprigs interweaved in the canopy, they left gaping holes towards the evening sky, from which rays of light pierced through like spears stabbed in the ground. And where the rays landed, huge crystal formations, about two-three meters high, reflected them in multicolored hues that eventually filled the whole place with a very gentle light.

Around the crystals, there were wider patches of soil and flowers, like round plazas, where throngs of people stood, forming groups chatting, selling gears, or even sparring and dueling. There were all kinds of races present, from humans to dwarves, to even wilder things like golems. But the crushing majority was of races related to nature, like elves, undines, wildkins like me, and even some beastkin. Looking over the races, and especially the female wildkins, I was suddenly shocked by a harsh realization, I WAS THE LOLI RACE? CRAP!

The momentary distraction was broken as the sounds of the village entered my ears. Everyone was shouting, recruiting for clans, for parties, for quests, advertising their wares or simply arguing about prices and mechanics. On the actual paths, you could see people walking hurried from one place to another, others riding horses, boars, huge lizards, and even a few small carriages. But the most prominent were the elven guards, dressed in shining metallic armor decorated with leaves and vines and painted a very light green, and carrying the same exact spears and longbows.

For a starting village, the place looked like a metropolis, way different, and way larger than Grinea. It actually made you wonder if the starting areas were balanced at all! On the flip side, I was having trouble imagining a newbie here going off to hunt rabbits, so I guess it all evened out in the end.

I was probably looking like a moron, mouth agape and all, a purebred tourist, as a guard actually stopped by me and asked me if he could help me with anything. After getting directions for all kinds of npc driven stores, like the blacksmith, the leatherworker, and the herbalist, I thanked the lean elven guard and decided it was about time to actually contact Keros. Unfortunately, it seemed he was out of the village, alongside with that Spitha, doing a quest. He would be back by nightfall from what I gathered, giving me plenty of time to actually focus on some of my immediate concerns.

First things first, I really had to get rid of the ugly bundle of daggers and my Rusty-kuns, because they were quite cumbersome, so the blacksmith was my first destination. Unlike the rest of the tree houses, the blacksmith was actually located on the edge of the village inside a low wooden house by a tree trunk. From outside, the only thing indicating it was a blacksmith at all was a weird looking stone chimney on the outside wall. On top of the chimney, pulsating magic runes absorbed the smog as it came out, preserving the clear atmosphere of the forest dome.

I pushed the elegantly carved wooden door and entered. Inside, all sorts of stands held different, heavy, armors, and a plethora of weapons, with a clear favoritism towards spears and thin, delicate, longswords. Most of the armors were colored in different shades of green and decorated with golden or silver flairs, but the weapons looked more minimalistic than them, with as little flair as possible and made following thin lines, relying more on their slick style rather than decorations for their splendid image.

From the back of the store, behind a closed door, banging noises could be clearly heard.

A slender elven lady wearing a blue long summer dress approached me. Deep wrinkles surrounded her eyes and gray streaks appeared amidst her long brown hair, making her one of the oldest looking elves I've seen since I entered the village. Despite that, her eyes were sharp and clear, and her voice smooth and soothing.

"Greetings little one, how can I help you?"

Really? I know my race is short, but being continuously addressed as "little one" will get annoying.

"Greetings to you lady as well. I want to sell a few goblin daggers, as well as these lumps of iron. Also I want to browse your daggers."

She looked at the tiny Rusty-kuns making a surprised expression as she kneeled towards them.

"Oh my! You guys look so dirty and rusted. I bet my husband will clear you up in no time!"

The poor Rusty-kuns tried to threaten the old lady with their lance-hands, but she simply laughted it away as she hugged them and stood up, with the elementals still struggling on her hands.

"So, undo the spell to let the elementals free from their bodies, so I can take them to be evaluated."

...I didn't know I could do that. But apparently it was quite easy as the second I thought about it, it happened. And with the raw rusted iron in her hands, the old lady disappeared behind the closed door.

Browsing the store, I finally found the daggers. There were two types, one exactly like the one Keros had, long and slick, like a slightly wider and longer stilleto, and one shorter, even wider, and curved, like a very short scimitar.

"So, how'd you like them?"

Her abrupt voice from right behind me made me jump surprised. I hadn't even heard the door, let alone her walking right behind me. She nonchalantly grabbed two daggers, one of each type, and she twirled them between her fingers.

"I can guarantee that both are excellent quality. You can gut whatever you need to with either."

She said and there was a very disconcerting glint in her eyes as she looked at the deadly weapons in her hands.

"Frankly, the stabber is better than the slasher, more efficient. But it's quite harder to use, requiring precision. On the other hand, with the slasher, even if you madly thrash around, you're bound to chop your enemies eventually. OUCH!"

She grabbed the top of her head as a rugged old elf who had crept behind her smacked her lightly.

"Stop giving my weapons weird names!"

The, black from coal, elf turned then towards me.

"Forgive me wildkin. She gets over-enthusiastic with all kinds of weapons. Name's Erthian, I'm the local blacksmith."

The blacksmith looked even older than his wife, but he was quite easy to talk with. He suggested the curved dagger for starters, but despite that, I went with the long one. Basically, the game didn't have level restrictions on the basic equipment, but skill proficiency restrictions. If I grinded dagger mastery a few more levels, I should be able to fully utilize the next tier, which was the long stiletto. He was also kind enough to buy the iron, the daggers, and even sold me a bar of steel, which I planned to use as a source for a metal elemental. Unfortunately, because my old dagger was soulbinded I could only sell it as material instead of a weapon, since he would have to smelt it from the start.

After the blacksmith, after I subtracted the silvers I had to give to Keros, and the nearly two gold pieces that the dagger costed as well as the raw steel cost, I barely had over two gold pieces left. Still I decided to check the leather armor recipes.

The first thing that caught my eye as I climbed the tree house was an armor stand displaying the fancy leaf armor Keros wore. It was actually made from thin overlapping metal leaves, colored in a way to blend in the forest, linked with magic on top of a very flexible thick leather layer.

Disregarding that, like the blacksmith, normal leather armor had two proficiency tiers available. It seemed wolf leather armor, like mine, was the beginner's grade. Wolf leather was mostly used as soft leather for boots, gloves, and such. For actual armor, the two available were simply boar leather, which consisted of a thick layer of hardened boar leather, and composite leather, which consisted of two distinct layers of much thinner boar hides, and in between there were iron fillings sewed in.

Obviously, I went with the composite one. Unfortunately, even with the ten percent discount I was getting due to my reputation, I could only barely buy one recipe out of the six required to have a complete set. What's more, after looking at the pattern I bought, I realized I could not learn it yet. My crafting proficiency was still too low!

Leaving disappointed, I took a look towards the leaf armor, which was obviously miles better than what I could make. And then I noticed it's price. The chest alone was 20 gold!!! The little shit was rich!

In light of the recent development, his share of two gold pieces I was hoarding were used for a higher purpose. That was buying ten more wolf hides from a player who apparently had went berserk on the wolf population, flooding the market with their hides, and basically forcing himself to sell just an idea more than their shop price of two silvers.

Alongside my own three hides, I made some leather pants, then broke them down back to leather, losing half of it, rinse and repeat till I was all out of leather. But at least, the composite leather recipe appeared usable now with my new skill level.

And with that, I was totally broke, save for the crystals. Last stops were of course the quest rewards.

As I entered the herbalist shop I was invaded with a thick, scented atmosphere. The countless jars that lined the shelves could barely contain the aroma of the bottled leaves and powders. And in the middle of the room, an elderly human woman was busy grinding even more of them in a mortar.

Her white hair was caught in a bun in the back of her head, but stray tufts had escaped, giving her a much wilder appearance. That mess was amplified by the random twigs and leaves that were caught in her rough garments which consisted of a long, brown, skirt and a leather vest.

She turned and looked towards me without stopping the rotating motion of her hands moving the pestle.

"Yes? What is is boy?"

She called with a voice just a bit louder than normal. Just enough to annoy people when talking to her.

"Eh, sorry for the intrusion. I was searching for Heslithiana."

I hoped that the elven herbalist would be a tad better than the annoying mess in front of me.

"Yes? I told you, What do you need?" She repeated, raising her voice a bit higher.

Great... she shouted because her hearing was failing.

"I SAID I'M SEARCHING FOR HESLITHIANA" There, this should be enough for her to hear.

She finally stopped playing with the herbs, put down the pestle and stood up. Even her eyes looked a bit crazy as she tried, in vain, to straighten up her skirt as she rose.

"Are you an idiot or something? I'm Heslithiana, and I already asked what you wanted, why the fuck do you shout repeating yourself?!"

"Eh? But isn't that an elven name?"

"So? Am I not elf enough for you? Aren't my ears pointy enough? Or is it that I'm not as pretty? Eh? ANSWER ME!"

She approached me step by step, raising her voice as she bombarded me with her questions. Her eyes were opened wide, staring daggers at me as her finger started punching her questions right on my chest, one by one. I was at a total loss. Certainly not prepared to deal with crazy old women.

"What?... But..."

"Heh, just kidding boy. Relax" And like a balloon, she deflated as she smiled mischievously towards me. "I'm adopted, but this never gets old. This always gets humans and lost souls off guard. Mind you, only them for some reason, every other race responds normally. So, I guess you're either the exception or a lost soul. My bet is on the last. So, what did you want with me?"

What's wrong with those npcs! Why can't they be normal people! Geez.

"Well, I'm here to teach me that skill." I said carefully, trying to put as much emphasis as I could to the word that, exactly like the first crazy witch did.

"What skill?"

...I knew that was going to happen... stupid witches and their stupid rewards!

"Errrr, you see, witch Shannon over at Grinea told me to ask you to teach me a skill, but she never mentioned which skill in particular, just that it would be helpful for me."

At the mention of the witch's name, she suddenly got serious instantly, her smile disappearing as she frowned. A second later, she started pushing me towards the exit.

"I have no clue what you're talking about boy. Leave."

"What? Why?" Hey! my reward!

"I said LEAVE." And she suddenly started exerting quite a bit of strength, actually pushing me towards the exit, which frankly speaking, I wasn't too fond of being pushed out, given that there was just a small balcony and afterwards a fifteen meter drop. As I tried to resist, I felt something inside me swirl and move, and a blue screen popped up.

You gained the skill Curse Lv1 You learned the Curse Talent: Evil eye

Curse

By focusing your rage and intentions on a target you can severely thwart him with pure magical curses and debuffs. Some races consider even the knowledge of this skill as malicious and evil. Uses rage.

Evil eye

You curse the target to suffer more. Increases his damage taken (degree depends on base skill level) for a short amount of time (amount depends on skill level). Requires visual contact. Costs: 30rage

As I was reading the messages, the herbalist's voice once more rung as she continued to push me towards the exit.

"Now, go. As I said, I have no clue whatsoever about what you're asking me. And don't ever come back!" So... that's THAT skill eh? Seems... familiar.

As I left the tree house, willingly this time, and reached the ground floor once more, I had this nagging feeling that I've seen this skill somewhere before. As I was planning from the start to play a summoner and buff type of character, I had obviously looked over both buffs and debuffs to decide which path to follow, so maybe that's why it seemed like I've heard about such a skill. Browsing the forums gave me an answer pretty quickly, the skill was indeed in the old beta thread. Apparently, it was a rare type base skill, which meant base skill that you could only get from specific trainers via quests, or via skillbooks. But it was rated pretty averagely. The main problem was, in fact, the rage usage instead of the more traditional mana.

While rage skills for casters were deemed pretty good in general, since this one was a debuff type of skill, and you usually want to start with debuffs and not end, rage usage was counterintuitive. You wanted rage as finishers, debuffs were much better as openers. Still, it wasn't a useless skill, in much longer boss fights and such, you could reliably use it. It just sucked for general gameplay. Hence, average.

Ok, ok, better than nothing. One down, one more to go. This one should be more straightforward.

The druid was quite easy to find. Around the center tree of the village, which was three times as thick as the rest of them, there was a huge round garden with massive bushes and patches of herbs and flowers that befuddled your senses with their hues and scents. There were three elves, all dressed in thick furs covering their whole bodies, and hoods that had intricate antlers on them covering their faces. Asking around, one of the guards pointed towards one of those, which I really don't get how he was different from the other two, and there I was.

"Hello Sir, I'm..." I tried to politely introduce myself, but he instantly halted me by raising his hand.

"I know who you are my child. We're all very grateful for your assistance in this grave matter. You're here for the reward right?"

"You do? Keros told you?"

"Keros?"

"...xXLegolassXx13"

"Ah, I didn't know he went by Keros, that sounds better than his actual name indeed! But no, it wasn't him that told me. It was the spirits."

"Spirits?"

"Hm? Yes. Spirits. That's how most nature magic works. By manipulating, animating, empowering, or killing the spirits that reside on natural things like plants and animals. In your case, it was the spirit of a bird that watched your fight and came back to report to me that all was fine. If you had failed, I would need to know immediately to actually mobilize a force to take the hobgoblin down."

You're telling me that this guy could have sent reinforcements this time? I obviously made a sour face as he continued.

"No. I couldn't help you instantly. It would take quite some time to move the forces here. And more importantly, it's always better if Lost souls kill monsters compared to us mere mortals. When you kill them, you steal some of their essence, so they don't grow stronger. When we kill them, all of their energy returns back to earth, effectively making a hole in the water, since they will eventually respawn, maybe even stronger."

That... makes sense within the context of the lore. A convenient little reason for quests it seems. But more importantly, I think I found a way to make my elementalism even stronger!

"So, you mean nature magic is like elementalism? Not actual magic but more like summoning?"

"Hmm... That's a strange way to put it. I would have to go with... no. You can vaguely say that elementals are the spirits of forces rather than the spirits of actual beings, and thus much simpler. One represents a single force, the other a whole life. Plant spirits, which are basically the simplest form of nature spirits, and they are still much more complicated than an elemental. So, nature magic resembles normal magic, but relies on coaxing, or strengthening, or slightly altering spirits to give an instantaneous effect. But in order to fully control it like an elemental, it would be much harder. And that's for plants. For animals, one would need to reach the realm of shamans to actually affect them, and for higher beings than animals, like fully sentient races, it would be even harder."

Still... What I had in mind could actually work.

"Can you teach me nature magic? I've got some monster stones to pay you." Let's not mention that we basically have zero gold.

"I could. Normally I would charge one about a gold for that, or someone of your status a little bit less than that. But since I've already half-explained it to you, and since you decided to help out of the good of your heart rather than being sent by us, and it was a severe fight for your limited ability. I'll let you learn this one for free. Now..."

Indeed, most of the stuff he told me were basically extensions of what he had already explained. The big difference this time were the actual chants to utilize those manipulations.

You learned the skill Nature magic Lv1 You learned the Nature magic Talent Entangle

Nature Magic

By manipulating the natural spirits you can force nature itself to obey you. Nature races react more favorably to you if they know you have high ranks of this skill. Uses mana.

Entangle

By rapidly raising the undergrowth under a foe's feet, you can cause him to stumble and become immobile. Strength and duration of the vines depend on the base skill. Uses 10 mana.

And right when I was finally managing to reduce the number of active skills I was using, two more popped up. But at least this one could really help, in the future. For now, let's put it somewhere in the back of my mind that it actually exists altogether. Other stuff has more priority.

"Now, that should be it for Nature magic. What about your enchant? You have any idea what you want? Although, to be honest, your armor looks bad enough that I think it would be a waste to use an enchant on it."

"About that... I understand that I've eaten up a bit of your time already. But... how does enchant works? Like my inscriptions but more permanent? So, you make some stuff better, right?"

"Wrong. Inscriptions base the effect on the rune you draw. Soul-infusions augment something by using the raw power of the souls. But, enchant is much more majestic than that. Enchant arts, not to be confused with enchantment magic, actually fully utilize the soul of a monster stone to draw its characteristics. Using the hobgoblin as an example, an enchant with its stone, would result in either increased strength or increased rage generation. If we had a flame salamander monster stone, we could make an enchant that reflected or generated heat and fire. A naturally invisible monster? We could potentially bring out an invisibility effect. And etc."

"So, basically, we take the abilities of the monster who's stone we use? As for equipment, I do have this dagger, is that good enough in your opinion?"

"Yeah, and that seems... adequate. You will probably use this for some time. Actually, since you seem like a caster type, but also you wear leather and use weapons, and since you already told me you know how to inscribe" As he was talking, an iridescent stone appeared in his palm "then how about that?"

"That is...?"

"You couldn't tell by the color? Tsk tsk tsk, education those days... This is a chameleon monster stone. I can use the color shifting property to create an enchant that will alter color and paint properties on the item. While it sounds useless, and it directly adds zero offensive, defensive, or utility capabilities, it has the unique property of allowing you to actually shift your painted runes on the item without disrupting them."

"Err... what?"

"Usually inscribers are stuck with whatever rune they've painted with that permanent ink of theirs. This enchant changes that. Let's say you use a physical damage inscription normally. Suddenly, an ice golem appears, which is quite resistant to physical damage. You change the inscription with the enchant to something like fire damage, use your mana to empower the new inscription, and now you can obliterate your foe! If you don't like it, I also have some orc stones for more brutal strikes and some giant lynx stones for faster attacks. Or, you could always give me the stone you got from the hobgoblin to make you a rage or a power enchant."

"No... actually, it does sound useful. I shall be in your care." I said as I bowed and handed him my dagger.

Enchant actually sounded quite intriguing, hunting specific monsters for specific abilities could actually be a fun minigame on its own. But at this point, I was feeling like I simply had too many skills already. Nevertheless, it got into my "maybe" list as well.

As I got the dagger back, which now had a cool glint into it, like it slightly reflected light in different colors, I instantly marked it with a P.Att rune and tried to switch it. Surprisingly, it was quite fluid to do so, taking just a thought and a moment. But if you changed it while the inscription was active, it forcibly canceled it. On the plus side, I could also freely switch the color of the dagger as a whole, which obviously meant that now I had a black matte one. You can never go wrong with black.

There were still a few more hours before nightfall, and I had a new toy to test. Checking my map, I navigated through the forest rapidly, searching for the marked location of the boars. This time, since I had to forcibly level up my dagger skills to remove my penalty with my new dagger, I decided to actually not use elementals at all. Which basically, nearly got me killed on the very first boar. Those things both took and gave a beating!

Lowering my standards a bit, I actually summoned the newly anointed Knight-kun. My shiny, steel, board and lance arms, elemental. I had to go with the extra skills options to get the shield and the taunt, but since I only needed him to hold aggro and not die, I chose to try the new extra intelligence option to see what it'll net me.

"Now, Knight-kun, let's see what you can do!" I shouted towards the military saluting pile of steel.

"SIR! YES SIR! As your knight, I'm excellent in defense, and I can draw their ire. If someone decides to run, I can elongate and thin my lance to pierce up to two meters away SIR! If I drop my defense, I can change my shield arm to a second lance and pummel them, Sir!"

What? What just happened?! I looked dumbfounded towards the, still saluting, elemental.

"You can talk?!"

"Yes, Sir! Obviously Sir!"

"Since when?!!!"

"Sir! Since you created me, Sir!"

"Cut it out with the Sir shouts!"

"Sir! I can't comply, Sir!"

"...Whatever. Let's go kill some boars then!"

"Sir! Yes, sir!"

With Knight-kun the fights went more smoothly. Though, he lost aggro quite a few times. Apart from annoying me, increased intelligence seemed way worse than extra power for such uses. It mainly allowed him to talk and to make decisions by himself instead of relying on instincts and my own mental commands. Which could be great on other occasions, granted, but not when it's just him, me, and a boar; I can handle that much.

Regardless, actually talking with someone, even if that someone was hellbent on referring to me as sir and replying in a military tone to everything, was better than the silent hunting I was getting used to. Time actually flew quite easily, and slowly but surely, so did my grip on the slim dagger. The main difficulty was that because it would get in too deep with stab, when I tried to slash immediately afterwards, it basically got stuck. But after some practice, and a skill level, I actually managed to control the slashing motion to occur just as I was pulling the dagger out, resulting in a wider, bleeding, wound.

The second I reached level ten on my dagger skills, and got a new attack, Execute, which dealt damage based on the amount of damage the enemy had already received, was when I finally felt comfortable enough to say that I've mastered the dagger. By that time, night had fallen and I had already killed fifteen boars and leveled up.

Name: Qualexis Race: Wildkin Gender: Male Title: Beginner adventurer Level: 8 Experience: 1990/8000 HP: 95 MP: 170 Rage: 0/100 Stamina: 150/150 HPregeneration: 0.08/sec MPregeneration: 0.17/sec - STregeneration: 10/sec Strength: 10 Dexterity: 14 Agility: 14 Constitution: 8 Intelligence: 20 Wisdom: 17 - - Physical attack: 40 (45) Magical Attack: 37 Physical defense: 36 (63) Magical defense: 187 Critical chance: +4% Critical damage: 0% Speed: +4% Reputations: Elves: Favorable, Fey: Favorable, Grinea: Allied, Avon: Interested, Aerlinth: Liked EXP%: 1x, +0.2x bonus for hunter related skills. Skills: Talents: Natural camouflage Lv5 - Elementalism Lv12 Summon minor elemental, Single enhance, Double enhance, Advanced options, Inscribe Lv9 Minor P.Att rune, Minor P.Def rune, Minor M.Att rune, Minor M.Def rune, Magic ink, Mass inscription, Resonant inscription, Dagger Mastery Lv10 Stab, Backstab, Quick slash, Retreating strike, Execute, Sneak Lv5 - Outdated Stonemanship Lv4 - Toughness Lv6 Reduce pain, Rogue armor mastery Lv6 Rogue stance, Cooking Lv3 - Dissasembling Lv6 - Leatherworking Lv5 - Throwing Lv3 - Tracking Lv3 - Infused Elementals Lv8 Inscribe minor elemental, Double inscription, Soulbind Lv2 - Mana sense Lv1 - Trapping Lv3 Set minor snare, Minor blasting-earth deathtrap, Hatred control Lv2 Provoke, Abuse, Deep hatred, Elemental Playground Lv1 Single element glamour, Meditation Lv5 - Pathfinder Lv3 - Curse Lv1 Evil eye, Nature magic Lv1 Entangle, Combination Points: 1