“Talk about getting side-tracked.” I chuckled. I was rather astonished by how good I felt, the nap had been good but more than anything healing that boy really lifted my spirit. The small detail that I had been at the very least partially responsible for the injury in the first place, only lessened the feeling a bit. “Lets not sweat the small stuff.” I thought with a shrug

With the help of my map I made my way back to the inn stopping outside a tailor and after only a bit of hesitation I entered the expensive looking store. The tailor fussed about me for a bit trying to persuade me to sell my shirt to them claiming the quality was extraordinary. “The glory of machine sowing I guess.”

Having taken my measurements the tailor and her assistants immediately started the work of fitting the clothes she had selected to my large frame. As she did so I got back to my skills and resolved myself to potentially do something stupid. “I refuse to believe that Telekinesis is this useless!” So I spent 8 skill points and with what sounded like the ringing of a bell, the bell being my skull my world went black.

“ir… Sir! SIR!!!” I was awoken by the tailor who was shaking me violently and shouting in my ears. “Oh thank the gods…” The plump woman placed a hand on her sizable chest in relief.

“W-what happened?” I asked groggily, my ears ringing.

“When I returned with your clothes I found you collapsed on the floor dead to the world.” She stood up with a grunt and sighed. “What in the name of the gods happened?” She looked at me sternly as she shot my question back at me.

I was about to answer that I did not know but I decided to look over my stats before I spoke. To my surprise there was no change except…

Will: 5/220

“What?” I looked at my will that was slowly recovering. “How did my maximum Will double?” The only thing I had…

Special skills: Interface, Skill point system, True familiar (Simon), Sixthsense, Telekinesis,

“Telekinesis turned into a special skill? What the fuck?” I was more than a little confused. I had no firm grasp on what ‘Special’ skills were, but I had come to the conclusion that special skills did not have level.

“So?” the tailor asked, tapping her foot on the floor.

“I’m terribly sorry.” I stood and gave her a bow hiding my confusion. “I have been through a lot recently, I must have pushed myself too far.” This appeased the tailor and she let out a huffing breath.

“That so? Well you should take care of yourself better.”

“I will do so.” I gave her my best smile as I stood back up.

“Make sure that you do, now after the size corrections the total will come to 3 gold.” She raised her eyebrow slightly and I swallowed a cough.

“That was a bit more than I had expected…” The tailor just raised her eyebrow at that and glanced at my shirt. “but I suppose that quality work comes at a premium.” I bit down on the slight panic I felt as my available funds were rapidly being whittled away.

Having paid I thanked the lady and left the store with five new shirts, three of these were plain and two were frilly monstrosities that I normally would not be caught dead in. But the tailor, her name was Ulana by the by. Had convinced me that those, along with the decorated pants that I had also bought, was the bare minimum required for the central section of Elianor. So it was with a far lighter purse I walked the last bit to the inn and got shouted down by Imon.

“Victor, there was a letter delivered for you, I had Annie take it to your room.” He gave me a meaningful look. He probably wanted to hint that the letter was important, or at least from someone important.

“Thanks.” I waved at the massive innkeeper and walked up to my room. It was not hard to guess who the letter was from and when I entered my room I found a letter with the seal of a stag mid jump on top of it resting on the floor. “Looks like Annie slid it under the door.”

I picked up the letter and stopped myself from ripping it. “Paper of this quality might be hella expensive here.” Unfortunately I had nothing to open it with. “Well I guess I do…” I grimaced and with a thought a black knife in the style of an army knife appeared in my free right hand. It almost hummed with power and it felt like my senses sharpened and my muscles grew taught just from holding it. The blade was about as long as my underarm and the handle was so comfortable in my hand that combined with the near weightlessness of the weapon I could forget that I was holding it.

Just from looking at the keen edge I knew that this knife was magnitudes sharper than any knife I had ever used before. So it was with utmost caution that I opened the letter by cutting away the seal. “Puhhh…” I sighed heavily, wiping the sweat off my brow. The content of the letter was unexpected, or well mostly.

Dear Victor Lynth.

It is with great dismay that I must inform you that I have been unable to deter the Duchess from her current course of action. Thus I must apologize to you once more and be the bearer of bad news instead. The Duchess in all her wisdom has decided that you should take up residence in some other place. The Duchess has instructed me to ASK you to leave Elianor. I have argued that this is beyond rude but my pleas have fallen on deaf ears. The only thing that I have managed to do for you is arrange for an assignment with the guild to take you away from this once hospitable city.

My deepest regrets, Hector Alvian. Chancellor of Elianor.

“Well shit.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. I recalled the distasteful look on the stunningly beautiful Duchess with her dark golden hair and emerald green eyes. “She must really hate me for some reason…” I tried to figure out why but I came up blank. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to play the cards as they are dealt.” I lay down in bed and looked up at the unfamiliar ceiling that I would soon be seeing for the last time.

“Guess that means that I should prepare as best I can.” I took a deep breath and acquired Space attribute magic. ”Here’s hoping!” I closed my eyes and waited for... something to happen.

“Hu?” I made a dumb sounding noise and looked over my status, seeing that Space attribute magic was there but I felt no change. I didn’t suddenly have access to any spells, nor some unknown understanding of magic. “Fuck!” I swore loudly and grabbed my head angrily. “DID I REALLY JUST WASTE ANOTHER 20 SKILL POINTS?!” I rolled around in the bed in anguish. “First the fiasco with Telekinesis and now this… I want to cry…”

It took me quite some time to calm down and I ended up just sitting staring at the last part of my status page with sorrow for quite a bit.

Name: Victor Lynth, lvl 1 Human.

Class: None

HP: 90/90

E: 62/84

MP: 132

Will: 220

Attributes: Str: 8, Agi: 9, Dex:10 , Vit:9, End:7, Int:12, Wis: 11, Cha:9.

Skills:

Special: Interface, Skill point system, True familiar (Simon), Sixthsense, Telekinesis

Passive: Mind palace 1, Mind 1 🡪 2,

Active: Storage 3, Soul weapon 8, Space attribute magic 1 (new).

Boons: Esper

Skill points: 4

“Only 4 skill points… 4!!!” I squirmed in my bed for a good while regretting my decision until my stomach growled and with heavy steps I made it down to the common room in hunt for some food.

In my dazed state I didn’t taste the food or notice the concerned look on Annie’s and Imon’s faces.

As I stumbled into bed I really felt like I needed a drink so I went to retrieve what remained from the vodka that I had used to clean the snake bite. However as I tried to access my storage it felt like a battering-ram had struck me in the face and the world turned black.

I woke up groggily and with a terrible headache, it was as if I had spent the entire night drinking and then gotten into a fight which I had lost, badly. “W-what…” I shuddered as I gingerly sat up in bed clutching my aching head. “What happened…” I looked around blinking the tears and fog out of my eyes, the room was obviously empty and no one answered me.

I had a brilliant thought and was about to retrieve a painkiller from my storage when my hand froze mid motion. Memories of the last time I tried to use Storage returned to me and I gulped. “Let’s not do that right now.” I spoke in a sombre voice into the empty room.

Instead I opened my Interface and was about to click Status I instead clicked Notes on a whim and saw something there that I had not seen before ‘Log’. I clicked it.

19:43,24: Skill: Space attribute magic 1 has been forcibly upgraded to: Dimensional magic 3, due to use of superior skill: Storage 3. 16:23,21: Skill: Telekinesis 9 (Unique) has been to special skill: Telekinesis (Unique).

There were notes for every time I had used a skill, there was even a log that caused me to wince.

14:52,11: Skill: True familiar (Simon), inflicts septic bit on XXX.

“I really hope my treatment was enough to help the boy.” I was suddenly feeling more than a little guilty. Taking a deep breath I checked my status and noted that I really did have Dimensional magic 3 now. “So… Do I fall unconscious when skills upgrade?” I shuddered glad that I learned that when I was safe. “If that had happened when I was fighting which, let’s face it. In a world with actual demons and monsters it was more than likely I would have died… what a terrifying thought.”

With some trepidation I retrieved a painkiller from my storage and sort of just stopped in the middle of that action. “So that’s how it works…” I looked at my hand that reached into the rip in space that my skill created. My Dimensional magic skill gave me a much deeper understanding of the Storage skill. It was a skill that was created by first building an anchor to what was called a ‘void’ dimension, then by pumping mana into this space you could ‘claim’ a section of that dimension. After that you would start to pump even more mana into your claimed space and solidify it making an enclosed space that can be accessed through the anchor.

All in all, creating even the simplest Storage was a very arduous process, one that I could not even explain properly. I might have the skill but I did not have the spells required. What I did learn was that my storage space was fully ‘completed’ and I could grow it over time by connecting to the anchor and giving it more mana. From what I understood Storage was a high tier version of extra dimensional storage that only I could access. I had understood that there were several security measures installed in my skill that would keep anyone but me out of it.

I ended up sitting there looking at the hole in space that I’d conjured for quite a while and by the time I felt like I had learned what I could my headache had passed. “I really need to find someone to teach me these things.” I sighed. I was about to leave the room when I decided to sniff myself and retrieved the half used deodorant from my storage along with one of my new shirts.

“Well this will take some time to get used to…” I looked down on the ‘fine’ linen shirt and wanted to scratch myself all over.

Down in the common room I was served a surprisingly familiar breakfast of Bacon, beans and eggs. Though not a fan of beans it was still quite nice and filling.

“So, what will you be doing today?” Imon asked casually.

“I will be visiting the Guild.” I answered as I polished off the last piece of bacon.

“The Guild?” Imon looked askance at me. “What do you need from those mercenaries and… ahh…” I leaned closer to me and whispered conspiratorially. “Because of the Mage Guild, right.” He gave me a wink and got back to work nonchalantly. His whisper had likely been heard by all the other few patrons that were having their breakfast due to the rather loud volume of Imon’s voice.

I couldn’t help but shake my head, Imon was not a man to share your secrets with. “What did you mean about the Mage Guild, I’m going to THE Guild, so what did that have to do with the Mage Guild?” I asked, making sure not to whisper as that would just draw more attention.

“Huh?.. W-what?” Imon just looked at me dumbfounded and it took him quite some time to recover. “I mean, you are visiting the Guild to access the Mage Guild right?” Imon looked very confused and this amazingly lowered the volume of his voice. Not that it didn’t carry to the entire room anyway.

“No, I was simply told to visit the Guild.” I thought for a moment. “Is the Mage Guild part of the ‘Greater’ guild?”

“Well yeah…” Imon suddenly looked at me suspiciously. “It’s like that everywhere as far as I know… where are you from anyway?”

“Brandstone.” I answered without hesitation. “But I lived in Wismar, it is ‘quite’ far from here.” I chuckled.

“Never heard of them…” Imos rubbed his chin. “No Guild there?”

“Noo, not much need for that back home. Most things are either handled by the government or by smaller companies where I come from.” I had a rather fond smile as I recalled the small cobbled roads from the neighbourhood around my apartment.

“Huh, who’d have thought that there was a place that the Guild has yet to reach.” Imon snorted, amused and shook his head. “Well in that case, I’ll tell you a bit about the guild before you blunder into some of their more unsavoury types. You see under the as you called it the’ greater’ guild there are 3 sub guilds. The Mage guild, the Explorers Guild and the Mercenary Guild. From the names I’m sure you can guess that they handle different parts of the jobs they receive. But they can tell you more about that. For now, just know to stay out of the mercenaries' right wing, they have some really unpleasant sorts in their employ there.”

“Thanks, I will do just that.” I thought about what Imon had said and felt a rather childish sense of excitement at the mention of the Explorers Guild. I had always had a fascination with exploration. Alas that was hardly a viable profession on Earth. I thanked Imon again and after asking for directions I headed to the Guild office.