Unfortunately, Frey didn't correct him on his statement but he knew that her responses were limited. Locke went around the Training Grounds to find a trainer that wasn't busy. It took a while but he found an old man with a fancy cane.

"Hey, would I be able to browse the list of possible spells that you can teach?" Locke asked the old man.

"Sure young pup take a look.”

A window displayed showing only one spell available to learn which was firebolt.

Firebolt - Fire Element/Long range projectile - 10 mana cost - Creates a small bolt of flame that impacts a target. Gold cost: Free.

While choosing to learn the skill Locke decided to ask. "There is only the firebolt skill in this list, is this the only spell I can learn or is there a requirement to unlock new ones?”

"That is all you can learn from me directly," The old man stated, "However I can offer a quest that has a reward for a spell."

Locke now understood why people were constantly peppering the dummies with firebolts however something was off. He double checked if the quest would become unavailable if it was declined at this time. The old man's answer indicated there shouldn't be an issue.

“Do you need me to teach you how to cast that spell?” The old man asked.

“No...I think it's pretty obvious how it works,” Locke replied while trying to ignore the constant fireball shouting background noise.

Locke found a free training dummy. After a few moments of hesitation, he raised his palm up facing towards the target. After a few seconds......"firebolt"

The small ball of flame formed in the palm of his hands and then slammed into the dummy leaving a small scorch mark. The projectile wasn't exactly fast and he felt like it would be possible to dodge if you were paying attention.

He stood there looking at the dummy for a few more seconds and then shot five more firebolts. A slight shiver crept up his spine.

Locke sighed, then proceeded to slowly crouch down with both his hands planted on the side of his head.

It's just as I feared.....shit this is why I hated magic in other games. Do I really have to say the name of the spell every time, there is no other way of activating it?

Looking around he noticed a few stares from the people around him. Standing up straight while putting his right fist to his mouth he coughed twice and walked away.

Nothing to see here folks, just someone having an internal crisis go back to your shouting.

There was also one interesting thing that was learned from this endeavor though. He noticed that his mana bar was still full even though six firebolts were cast. There was most likely a tutorial feature that prevented mana loss. The benefits of this tutorial were beginning to become apparent, this place might be more useful than people will realize.

Locke was making his way up a large staircase that connected to the large building that Frey mentioned was the Magic Training Center. Once he reached the top of the steps he was stopped by two armed guards outside the main entrance.

"Halt, state your business." One of the guards stated with a slightly intimidating tone. They both had their spears locked together forming an X between them just to reiterate the fact that you are not allowed to enter without their permission.

"I would like to enter the Training Center to receive guidance on magic from an instructor," Locke answered. This prompted one of the guards to step forward and ask.

“May I perform a system scan on you?”

Just after Locke nodded in acknowledgment he noticed a slightly uneasy feeling, it was hard to describe how he felt. It was like waves of hot and cold were flowing through his body in random directions.

“Perfect you have no active Training Ground quests, please proceed inside” The guards both stepped to the side and opened the door.

The most immediate thing he noticed was that he could not see the interior of the building. A blue shimmering liquid was contained within the doorframe that was swishing about. He made the correlation that this liquid gate was similar to the dungeon tutorial entrance that he saw previously. Granted it was a different color.

“Hey Frey, can you tell me what it is I am looking at here?” Locke questioned while pointing towards the Gate.

“Those liquid looking portals will generally signify an Instanced Zone, the color of the liquid will give you an idea on what to expect. Grey means a dungeon, and blue means a safe zone.” Frey replied.

Locke nodded in response and continued to walk through the portal. An “instanced zone” is a common term generally used in VRMMO games. These zones are generally personalized areas for you or your party to avoid crowding. For example, a dungeon instance could have millions of people inside. However, a five member party that enters will be in their own separate duplicated dungeon just for them. Kind of like a parallel universe or reality, but not really.

Walking through the portal felt like he was walking through a thin layer of water, his body was immediately chilled but warmed up fast once reaching the other side. It was a quick process and he was now standing in a small entryway. Looking around he saw walls crafted out of chiseled stone with fancy torch lighting. The entryway area comprised of three doors on the first floor and a stairway on the right side of the room leading up to the second level. After going up the stairs you would be met by a balcony that had a few doors along the backside of it.

“Frey which door leads to the instructor,” Locke questioned.

After hearing no response he looked around and realized Frey was no longer hovering above his head like before.

“Don't worry your guide will return to your side once you leave this place, please come inside,” As if on queue when the voice finished speaking the door at the far end of the room opened up.

Locke walked into the room. What awaited him was a cozy study with several bookshelves covering most of the wall space, a large desk in the center with stacks of books on it. The instructor, or who he assumed was the instructor was seated at the desk.

She looked pretty young maybe late twenties or early thirties. She had long red hair down past her shoulders, glasses, green eyes, freckles. He couldn't see her body features due to the wizard cloak that blocked the view but one could assume she wasn't overweight or anything like that. The expression on her face wasn't what he expected though, it just portrayed boredom.

“Welcome newbie my name is Claire you may take a seat,” She said while yawning pointing towards the chair.

“My name is Locke, it's a pleasure to meet you,” Locke replied as he sat down, a bit off-put by an NPC using a gamer term.

“I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but please wait a few minutes while I finish reading this.”

He could see her focus drawn towards a rather thick and old looking tome. After a few minutes, he started flipping through his in game menus. After going through all the in game menus he didn't really find anything new that he hadn't seen before, it was just a mild distraction at best. Even after all that time she was still flipping pages on the tome and jotting notes down. It was as if he wasn't there.

“ummm....how long do I need to wait?” Locke decided to speak up, a hint of annoyance in his tone as it had been at least five minutes.

Claire's eye twitched a bit, “not bad but also not great, Looks like you have a least a little patience but is it enough to learn magic though,” She stated quite frankly with her eyes still locked onto the tome.

Was she just testing me? The word choice the AI used indicated there was some sort of patience type test, but for what purpose.

After a brief moment, she bookmarked the page and closed to tome finally taking a good look at him.

“So I assume you want me to teach you magic, that sounds boring, why should I?” She gave him a blank stare and her tone remained extremely bored and monotone.

Caught off guard completely as everyone else in the tutorial has been extremely helpful so far. He subconsciously looked above Claire's head to see her name in displayed green letters, it was an odd instinct but her actions were very human like.

Hold up this is probably another one of her tests like the patience test just now. But why are there weird tests like this in the tutorial, just tell me what I want to know already.

He started looking at this situation from another angle this type of NPC interaction might be normal in the real game, so this in itself could be seen as a tutorial.

As Locke continued sitting there thinking to himself Claire sighed and spoke up “I didn't exactly ask a difficult question, why is it taking you so long to respond? How can you expect to learn magic while being so indecisive.” she shook her head.

“Oh sorry, I was just surprised is all,” Locke replied “I read that the magic system was complex in this world, there should be more to it than learning from the trainers outside.”

“Why would you want to do that? I will tell you right now a ton of mages throughout the world worked hard to develop the trainer system for folks to learn magic quickly. These spells can help you get past the most difficult encounters when used right,” As Claire was talking her voice was getting louder and sounded more and more irritated.

Just as Locke was about to speak up he got a glare from Claire that told him to just shut up and let her finish.

“and you have the gull to deny their effort and state that it is not good enough, what gives you the right?” Claire was looking deep into Locke eyes and her expression showed nothing but anger.

Locke decided to hold for a second with his reply. This was a very over the top reaction compared to her usual bored demeanor. It seemed like she was fishing for a specific response. All previous comments gave the impression that learning magic required patience, why was her response now pushing him towards a shortcut.

Looking straight in her eyes he said without hesitation once he collected his thoughts “I just want to learn magic starting from the basics.” His tone was very calm, eager, and earnest.

The room was silent for a few moments and for the first time a bright smile crept up on Claire's face.

“Good, and don't you forget it.” She replied enthusiastically.