He is hurrying to the class, staring down at the map on the booklet, when he knocks into someone who is doing the same thing as him, sticking their nose in the booklet while walking around. With Sen’s stable footing however, he has basically bowled her over.

“So sorry! Are you okay?”

“Ow, yeah, just skinned my hands a bit.”

“Sorry, let me help you up.”

As Sen grabs her hands to help her up, he notices he recognizes her.

“Julie?”

“Sen?”

Julie Kelly had been one of the kids his parents tried to get him to hang out with, and the only one who he had actually enjoyed spending time with. She has genius level intellect, and it is her parents that stopped them hanging out together as “He’s a bad influence on her”. He’d only convinced her to play a few games with him, so he is surprised that she is playing Fifth Dimension. He wonders for a bit if her parents had knew the same thing as his father. They are both famous scientists, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they knew about whatever it is that is going on.

She is older than him by two years, only a year younger than his sister, and is homeschooled much the way Sen is, though he is certain that she had been doing college level material back when she should have been in middle school.

Currently, she has grown up quite a bit compared to when he first met her. She won’t be described as beautiful, but cute was a fitting descriptor, with brown hair cut around her shoulders, and hazel eyes that shine with intelligence. She is wearing the same grey shirt and jeans that everyone starts with, even though most people have bought more stylish clothes or armor by now.

“It’s been quite some time,” Sen starts with a smile. “How have you been, and more importantly, how did you convince your parents to let you play this?”

She looks a bit uncomfortable. “It was actually my parents that decided to have me play, I managed to grind them down enough to let me play other games, but they’re the ones who bought me the capsule for Fifth Dimension of their own volition. I nearly had a heart attack when they actually asked me to play a video game!”

“Yeah, my father has been encouraging me to play as well. Any idea what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, but my parents seemed to be quite nervous about whatever it is.”

The two of them share a frown.

“Crap!” I’m going to be late for the class!”

Julie blinks at that, then starts running in the same direction Sen is. They soon both arrive at the classroom that would be housing the arrays class, and Sen holds open the door for her. They enter, and see that there are only two other people there. One is a man who looks like he could have been alive when humanity first arrived at Alpha, while the other is a baby faced man sitting in one of the the many chairs, making the room feel even more deserted than if it were empty.

They make their way to the seating, getting front row seating with no competition. Once they’re seated, the ancient man starts the lesson.

“Arrays are, in short, ways to make the ambient energy in the air resonate with other things. This can be done with special patterns, certain items, and by channeling the energy of crystals into those patterns or items.”

The man then starts to get into the common items and patterns used, and Sen is having trouble remembering even the slightest bit of the lecture. Looking over, he sees Julie utterly engrossed by the lecture, studiously taking notes on a notepad she has pulled from her inventory, her brown hair swaying with the constant turning for her head from her notebook to the teacher.

Sen sits for the rest of the lecture, but decides that arrays are most definitely not for him. As interesting as the idea of them is, the actual learning of it is a bit too in depth for his taste. He’ll stick to just hitting things with his sword. Thinking about it though, he’s a bit too tired to hit things with his sword, especially considering how little sleep he’d gotten. After logging out and getting some coffee and food though, he feels much better.

Figuring it won’t hurt to practice that stupid bone enhancement skill, he gets a practice room, and loses himself in trying to imitate the swirls, flows both slow and fast, and small eddies that seem almost like wind flowing within his bones. He makes a surprising amount of progress in a short few hours, but isn’t able to get it accurate enough to have it lock into place and flow on its own before he feels rested enough to go hunting again.

Calling up Lynna on his friends list, she soon agrees to join him, and he even manages to convince her to join him in going into the forest, though he agrees to allow the group to back out if they feel it’s too much. Grinning, he walks over to the front of the Lotus school, meeting up with Lynna, Xue, Jennifer, and John at the entrance. Lynna has her guide call one of the automated vehicles, and they’re soon on their way to the forest.

“Are we really going to the forest?” John asks in a nervous tone of voice.

“You don’t have to come with us you know,” Jennifer replies.

“How could I leave you on your own? A man has to be brave,” John says in a not very brave voice.

Sen holds in a snicker. He isn’t sure why John is so fixated on Jennifer, but at least it’s amusing to watch. Lynna looks a bit awkward at the conversation, while Xue simply sits there with a cold look on her face, making Sen wonder how Lynna had even convinced her to join the group. Deciding to find out the answer, he simply asks.

“Hey Xue, what made you decide to group with us anyway?”

“She beat me in Gladiator, and She’s AncientSword’s duo partner in it. I need a skilled group, and I knew she was good enough for it.”

Sen is slowly getting an odd look on his face. She was clearly impressed by AncientSword, that is to say, Sen. Sen looks over to see Lynna snickering.

“You know you could have told her.”

“But this is just so much more fun!” Lynna replies with a mischievous grin on her face.

“I’m sort of scared to tell her.”

“Oh come on, I want to see her expression. She hasn’t looked like anything but this ever since she transferred to my school.”

Xue is looking on, still with her cold expression, though Sen will have expected her to at least show a little of her supposed confusion. Sen reluctantly raises his hand.

“I’m AncientSword.”

“Bullshit,” Xue surprisingly replies.

Sen lets out a bit of a grin, maybe there was something to his sister’s plan.

“What’s your gladiator username?” Sen asks her.

“BladeDancer” Sen’s eyes widen at that, she’d started playing about when he had stopped, and she’d reached the top fifty in the leaderboards.

Sen has the car stopped, asks her to log off, then logs off himself. He grabs the helmet used for the so much less immersive games he used to play, and logs himself into gladiator. He instantly sends a friend request to Xue, and it is quickly accepts.

‘Told you,’ He sends before logging out and going back to Fifth dimension.

Once he’s back in, he’s next to the parked car, with Lynna sporting a massive grin, and Jennifer a smaller smile on her face, with John simply looking confused.

“What’s with the AncientSword thing?”

“He was a bit famous in the game Gladiator. A lot of people thought he would end up topping the leaderboards, and then he disappeared when Fifth Dimension was announced.”

“So?” John asks.

Jennifer gives the noob a bit of a stare. “He’s good at games.”

At this point, Xue appears before them, and stares at Sen a bit. He expects her to show a bit of surprise, but is surprised himself when a blush starts creeping up her face.

“I’m a big fan! Please fight me!”

Sen jerks back a bit in surprise. That… is not what he had expected. “If you want to pvp sometime, we can go to the arena. There’s no death penalty there.”

“Thanks!” Xue says, actually smiling for the first time he’s seen her.

Sen lets out a stunted “No problem,” before hopping back in the car, feeling a bit awkward. He is used to a bit of fame online due to being good at fighting, but this is the most exaggerated reaction he’s seen so far, and from a girl he’d thought expressionless.

They get back into the car, John still looking a bit confused, and Lynna still giggling. “It’s just a game, right?” John asks.

“Not this one.” Xue replies.

Sen’s eyes snap to her. “Do you know what’s going on?”

Xue is back to her cold face as she replies. “I can’t say.”

Sen sighs. It seems he won’t learn what is going for quite a while. They sit in silence, John’s look of confusion not fading until they arrive at the forest.

“Ok, we’re going to stay at the outskirts. It’s almost all F ranked monsters there, and we can handle them. If we run into anything bigger, let’s just hope we don’t die,” Lynna led the group.

Everyone nods, and they start into the forest. The first monster is a pair of spike panthers, which are easily dispatched by Jennifer and Xue after Sen calls out the attack. Everyone is silent as they continue. John tries to make small talk at the beginning, but gives up as he is simply ignored in favor of keeping a sharp lookout.

Howls start to sound throughout the forest as they continue, and everyone begins to tense up in preparation for a fight as they approach. They keep looking around as wolves start to approach, dancing in and out of their vision behind the massive trees. Sen grips his sword tighter, and the group circles up, everyone facing a different direction as the wolves start to circle around them. He can barely get a good view, but the wolves are a dappled brown, their shading blending in with the forest surroundings. Each one is large for a wolf, maybe four feet tall, and surprisingly muscled.

The first one eventually grows brave enough to attack, running towards Xue barely just barely under the speed their eyes can track it. As quick as it is, her sword is faster, interposing itself in between the two, letting the speed of the wolf impale itself upon her blade. Then all hell breaks out. The wolves seem to move in in unison, charging from all directions.

Sen is waving his blade as quickly as he can, using body strengthening to increase the speed at which he can move, and still barely able to keep up with the numbers. He will swing at one wolf, wounding it, only to be forced to swing at another as it closes on him, keeping him from dealing fatal blows. The others look to be having just as much trouble, especially John, who is already bleeding from both arms and a leg.

Sen keeps his steady fighting, focusing more on defense than offense, willing to give up a kill in order to not take any wounds, but his defense isn’t perfect, and he takes claws to his legs as he chops a different wolf in half, the blue line splitting it through its waist. The pressure slowly lets up as more and more of the wolves become wounded. Eventually, the group turns to offense rather than passively defending, and they down wolf after wolf, not letting any of them get away.

Sen looks around. Everyone is wounded here and there, but there are no major injuries except for John, who seems to be slowly bleeding to death, the flashing bleeding icon over his head exacerbated by his pale face.

“Anyone bring any healing items?” Sen asked, feeling sorry for the noob.

He’s greeted by a chorus of no’s. “You should probably log off before you die. Does anyone know if wounds stay after you log out?”

So long as you log out in time, your wounds will heal while you’re logged out, even if you’re bleeding to death,” Xue says, looking at Sen like he should already know this. Sen feels a bit of a blush rising to his cheeks. He should know, but he’s been too distracted playing the game to check over the mechanics out of game.

John seems torn looking at Jennifer, but eventually logs off to avoid the fifteen hour lockout. Lynna lets out a snort. “I know he wants to be with you Jennifer, but he really won’t be able to keep up here,” she says.

Jennifer sighs. “I mean, he’s a nice guy and all, but I’m pretty sure the only reason he’s chasing me is because his parents told him to.”

Lynna grimaced. “Yeah, that’s pretty bad.”

Well now he’s gone, shall we continue? “ Sen butts into the conversation. Even with his rudeness however, everyone nods, and Lynna and Jennifer both turn serious again.