A sneeze pulled Owen from sleep early in the morning. Golden sunlight barely peeked through the forest canopy. Dew coated his feet which had apparently decided to stick themselves outside of the mirage blanket while he had been asleep. Amidst his grogginess, he pulled them back under the blanket and dried them off, only to realize they itched terribly. Upon poking his head out to figure out why, he noticed several bumps atop both feet. Bug bites. Owen groaned and pulled the blanket back over his head. He hadn’t even spent a few hours awake in this world, and yet the smallest things were out to get him. Wonderful.

Before he could rue his bad luck, he heard a soft whimper nearby. Out of pure curiosity, he lifted the blanket just enough to peek through a slit opening. Unfortunately, his vision was still blurry since he had just woken up. He rubbed his eyes a few times until he could see straight before peering between the trees where he heard the noise.

A shiver shot down his spine as soon as he figured out what was there. Barely a stone’s throw away, he saw several canine animals with bristly snow-white fur ambling about. The closest one was a mother nursing her litter of ten wolf pups who already looked capable of tearing him apart limb from limb. He recognized the creatures from the closed beta of Pathwalkers. They were called bristlefur wolves and were notorious within the community of Pathwalkers as the second strongest beasts within the bounds of the closed beta. If he recalled correctly, they ranged from Level 3 to Level 7, but the adult wolves displayed strength and agility closer to what many experienced VRMMORPG players calculated other beasts would have at Level 10. Within the closed beta, the strongest players barely reached the temporary level cap of five, yet the wolves still annihilated full raid parties. The only stronger beast in these ‘beginner’ woods was the witherbear, which was basically a raid boss. Larger packs were even more difficult to combat than the witherbear. In other words, the bristlefur wolves were dangerous. Too dangerous. Stealthy evacuation jumped to the top of Owen’s priority list.

Praying the mirage blanket would mask his presence, he slowly rose to a crouching position while tightly wrapping the blanket around himself like a cloak. A low growl aimed in his direction stopped him in his tracks. It came from the mother wolf nursing her pups. It seemed the blanket did not make him as invisible as he had hoped. A heavy sense of trepidation seeped into his heart and he waited with baited breath. The outdoors were not his domain. He held zero doubts these bristlefur wolves could tear him to shreds without breaking a sweat.

Much to his surprise, the mother wolf quickly lost interest and lowered her head back to the ground. Her predatory grey eyes remained focused on Owen, but she gave no indication of pursuing or chasing him.

This blanket is probably more useful than the wakizashi, Owen noted to himself.

In order to test the effectiveness of the blanket, he inched away from the bristlefur pack. Other than the mother wolf, the others did not pay him any attention. Perhaps she was simply more alert because of her pups. Assuming that to be the case, Owen quickened his steps while remaining crouched. A few of the other bristlefur wolves glanced in his direction, but that was it. He could finally breathe easy. However, he decided to remain alert. Luck could have been a factor in the wolves not paying much attention to him.

After traveling carefully for a good ten minutes, Owen allowed himself to relax by sitting against the trunk of one of the willow-like trees which glowed at night. It wasn’t glowing now, though. Countless oval-shaped leaves growing from vine-like branches hung only a few inches from the ground. Each leaf was a beautiful semi-transluscent blue-green color. There was even more cover than the one he had slept beneath last night. The bark on these trees was remarkably smooth. The texture felt like a crude version of vinyl.

“I guess I really am in a different world, then,” Owen mumbled under his breath. After all, there wasn’t much of a sensory system for touch, smell, or taste within Pathwalkers, yet he experienced all three quite vividly here.

Curiosity rose within him. Was this a real world? If it was, then what was the game which used its locations? How did the creators know how to build the world? All kinds of questions about his situation rose in his mind. He wanted to know the answers. He just didn’t know where to find them.

Wait… what about the screens, then?

Owen quickly brought up his quest log from the previous day. Once again, the only quest there was the ‘Hidden Quest’ about becoming a Pathfinder. He tested opening and closing it with voice commands and then tried doing it by only thinking about it. As it turned out, he could bring it up without the voice commands if he focused hard enough. That was good to know. From there, he tried every other possible screen function he could think of based on the streams he had watched.

“Menu. Options. Status. Skills. Community. Guild. Mail. Chat. Inventory. Map. Journal.”

Only three of them worked. The semi-transparent screens of varying sizes popped into the air in front of his eyes.

Owen Watts' Status Personal Info Stats Level: 1 Strength: 8 Max HP: 43 Vitality: 7 Max SP: 25 Dexterity: 9 Name: Owen Watts Agility: 8 Race: Human Intelligence: 6 Class: None Wisdom: 7 Sub-Class: None Awareness: 5 Titles: Pathfinder Canditate Equipment Affinities Head None Fire 5 Arms None Water 15 Hands None Wind 10 Torso None Earth 5 Legs None Lightning 0 Feet None Ice 0 Cloak Mirage Blanket Poison 0 Undergarments Blessed Briefs Metal 0 Primary None Light 0 Secondary Owen's Wakizashi Dark 0 Stat Points 0

Owen chuckled when he saw that the mirage blanket counted as a cloak. Perhaps it was because of the way he tied it around his neck. Now that he thought about it, though, this way of tying it was rather intrusive when moving around.

Upon closer inspection, he realized his base stats were slightly higher than a Level 1 player. All the streamers he had watched started with 45 points to allocate as they wished. However, he had a total of 50, though they were already set in stone. If comparing his stats to the game, it seemed like he could probably handle himself against some of the moderately strong beasts in the forest like kangas and rattilas so long as he could utilize his mixed martial arts. Again, he realized that his bum shoulder which had been shattered in an official match wasn’t hurting now. He could only assume the part about his body being reverted meant that it had been healed. If that was true, it meant he could do things he hadn’t been able to do for almost two years. The thought excited him. He needed to test his physical capabilities as soon as possible.

Skills Skill Name Type Skill Level Spark Innate 1

Then, his eyes landed on the single skill in his skill list. He never saw such a skill in the skill lists of the streamers he had watched. In fact, he only knew of some of the basic passive and active skills, though one could guess what many of the advanced skills would be based on the ones seen in the beta. However, an innate skill was a completely new concept. Perhaps it was added recently? Or perhaps it only applied to non-players? He couldn’t be sure. He tried to focus on the skill itself, yet no description appeared. In the end, he could only assume the skill list was just that: a list. No more, no less. In contrast to players, he would apparently have to figure out his skills through his own research. Yet another mystery had been added to his list of things to figure out.

From there, he practiced closing the two screens without the voice command a few times. For now, the action caused considerable discomfort like times he had thought about breathing and started to consciously focus on each breath rather than breathing without thinking. Practicing with opening and closing the screens would hopefully allow him to do it as easily as breathing in the future. After practicing a few times, he focused on the final small screen in front of him.

Options Tutorial Mode: ON/OFF

Tutorial Mode?

Owen’s eyes narrowed upon seeing the single option available to him. What exactly was the tutorial mode? He decided to test it out with a voice command.

“Turn off tutorial mode.”

{Disabling tutorial mode will disable automatic language translation, guidance screens, stat allocation assistance, item descriptions, and lore boxes. Tutorial mode can be re-enabled with the voice command: “Enable Tutorial Mode” at any time before completing “Hidden Quest”. Do you still wish to disable?}

{Yes/No}

“Huh. Interesting. Well, since I can re-enable it… Yes.”

As soon as he said ‘yes’, the screen vanished. Only the sight of the semi-translucent blue-green leaves filled his view. He tested opening the screens with and without voice commands, but nothing happened. The attempt was about as effective as a magikarp using splash. After that, he tried staring at the mirage blanket and wakizashi. Again, no screens appeared. How much did the tutorial mode cover? He didn’t know but would eventually figure it out. For now, though…

“Enable Tutorial Mode.”

At first glance, nothing changed. However, the screens appeared when he tried to summon them. It had been successfully reactivated. The fact instantly relieved the tinge of anxiousness hiding at the back of his mind.

“It mentioned something about auto-translation… Maybe I should disable the tutorial mode so I can learn the language here before its permanently disabled?”

A sigh slipped from his lips. All of this was overwhelming. He had been whisked to a foriegn world without warning. Friends and family remained behind on Earth, and he didn’t know if he would ever see them again. Since he didn’t have a specific path to follow now, he scratched the side of his head. Going to the starting city, Raylea, probably wouldn’t be a good idea in his current attire even if the blanket could potentially stave off unwanted attention. On the other hand, staying in the forest could get him killed. Both options were terrible.

Suddenly, his stomach rumbled, forcing him to come to a decision. His vision moved from the blanket wrapped around his shoulders to the wakizashi held firmly in his right hand.

“Guess I should go hunting or something. Better than ruining my reputation in town with this getup, at least.”