After the evening work, Nathan sat outside with Peter and Elderade, the latter was breastfeeding her son Dale. Peter had a strong drink in his hand, one Nathan refused for water instead.

“So, Nathan. You and Marcilio were talking up a story all day. Hope he answered enough of your questions.” Peter asked.

“Oh he did. He’s a good son you have there. All your kids are well behaved, and I’ve seen all ages and different ones.”

El smiled. “We did our best to raise them. We can only hope in twenty years, once Dale here is off on his own, we can finally retire and live with Marcilio or Nadiel by then.” She laughed.

“My parents did the same. Being a doctor back where I am at makes good money. But I never did it for that, although it was a great bonus.”

“So why did you become a Doctor?” Peter asked. “If you don’t mind saying.”

“Ahh you want the short or long answer?” Nathan asked.

“Long,” El said.

“Short,” Peter said at the same time. The two of them looked at each other and laughed.

“I’ll compromise and give a mix of the two.” Nathan took a drink of water. “Essentially when I was a kid, I got horribly sick. My parents took me to over ten doctors, and spent a fortune on me. Eleven doctors said I was going to be dead in less than a year, the twelfth said I could either die quicker or take a chance and live a long healthy life.”

“His hospital had at that time a new method to take care of the problem I had. My parents gave me my first real adult decision. Risk dying, or live for a few months the most I could and die for an absolute sure. I made the choice, and obviously it worked, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Since then I took a severe interest in medicine. The Doctor later on sponsored me once I got my Masters and till he died I could always call him for anything.”

Nathan smiled at the memory. “He was like a second father to me. I wanted to be just like him, give another kid or even an adult a second chance at life.”

“Wow, I don’t even know what to say about that.” El said.

“It’s all fine, I’ve told the story plenty of times. I feel like I was given a second chance to help people. That’s what I’ve always tried to do, help. I can’t tell you how many patients I’ve seen die due to the risky procedures I’ve recommended, and the nights I lost sleep because of it. On the other hand, there are just as many i’ve saved doing the same. It’s a difficult job, and one nobody should take lightly.”

“I see, well if it means anything, I think you did your best.” El said. “I can hear it in your voice. You care for everyone you ever treated, including Peter.”

Peter lifted his injured arm to show, but winced in pain from doing so.

“Thank you Elderade.”

“You can call me El, Nathan. I know my Elven name is hard to pronounce.”

Nathan nodded, but then turned to look at her. “Elf?”

“Nah, she’s Half-Elf. But don’t let that fool you, she is all human in bed.” Peter said, the drink slowly removing the filter in his mind.

“Peter! Really? Ugh.” El huffed in annoyance. “Yes, I am a Half-Elf. My Father was an Elf, my mother was a Human.”

Nathan blinked and took a closer look at El. He could see her dark hair had been covering her ears, but her face looked like a beautiful woman, nothing really mader her look different than a human. All those movies he’s seen had Elven women have a certain ‘glow’ about them.

El could see he was looking at her and moved her hair to show her ears that were pointed. “I look more Human than an Elf, but if I were a male, it would be more obvious. Elves look more feminine, but don’t mistake them for being weak.”

Nathan had no clue what to say. “Oh good to know?”

“Do you not have elves on your world?” El asked.

“Only Humans actually. We have fictional stories about you though. Actually about a lot of things. Gods, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Zombies, Magic, Super Heroes, magical potions, weapons that can carve mountains in half, but none of that was...is...on Earth. None of it was real.”

El was in more shock than Peter. “That’s...hard to believe. Things that I’ve lived with, fought against or beside, and used first hand are all fictional stories. Just made up night time songs where you are from?”

Nathan nodded. “Yup. Only humans. Not even monsters. The most monstrous things we have are Alligators, Sharks, and maybe tigers. We have Snakes, Spiders, and some more deadly but smaller things as well.”

“What about wolves?” Peter asked.

“We have those as well, but we domesticated most of them into Dogs now.”

“Dogs are great companions. We have those as well.” Peter said. “We had one when we first started this farm when Marcy was a tiny baby. He died five or six years ago. El doesn't want another one though.”

“And live through the death of another member of our family? Never!” El said, causing baby Dale to start crying from her sudden shout. “Oh...I’m sorry Dale, shhhh.”

El took her son back inside to try and calm him down.

“So Nate, I wanted to talk to you about your plans moving forward. El’s friend will be at least a couple of months before he gets back, if he gets back with an answer that is.”

“Your son asked me the same question. Like I told him, I want to continue helping people with my ability as a Doctor. Shit, if I can learn healing magic that’s just an extra bonus.”

Peter nodded. “The problem is you will have to join a guild, and the only ones that have Doctors are Churches. I assume Marcilio told you about them?”

Nathan nodded. “He did, but surely there are other ways to learn healing magic right? If not, then I can just use the methods of practice I know to help people.”

Peter chewed at his lip in thought. “That would be hard to do. First, you need a guild, regardless of what you want to do. And within that guild, they only allow certain builds, unless you are an Adventurer, they let you do anything you want. The only guilds that allow for anyone with medicine are: Churches, Alchemist, Guard, or Adventurers.”

Nathan shook his head. “I’m not a man of faith, my world we had churches, but none of them had magic. Many believed their God or Gods could help them, but in the end it was almost always modern medicine, the other small percent was luck or a fluke.”

Peter chuckled. “Well I can promise you they are real here. El has seen a couple before, but it’s not something she recommends. You still have three other choices, all are great and if you join the Guard you can sign a contract and take a pay cut your first year to join for free.”

Nathan shook his head, this was coming a little fast at him. “I’ll have to think about it. I still have much to learn, and would be in poor taste to join without knowing enough to blend in. Plus, if I can go back home, I rather pick a profession that allows me to bring magic back to my world, so I can help everyone out.”

“Oh that’s easy, you just need an Essence Orb to unlock it all. Don’t need to teach much.”

Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Essence Orb?”

“Yup, it’s a little magical artifact crafted from a broken Dungeon Core. You touch it, and boom, you get access to your numbers and skills. When I joined the Agriculture Guild, I learned three basic skills: Botany [Crops], Animal Handling, and Farming. Once I gain enough Experience, I plan to become an Agrimancer. Learn my first bit of magic.”

“Anyways, getting off track a bit. If you can bring one of those back with you, then anyone can learn magic, skills, and grow past their normal limits. Take El for example, she may look like my petite beautiful wife, but she is dangerous with a knife.” He smiled at a memory. “Can’t tell you how many times she came close to cutting off my man hood. Yet, she is the love of my life, and wouldn’t have it anyother way.”

“Wait, why doesn’t everyone have access to this Orb? If anyone can learn magic and become as strong as you claim, why do you live like this in a farm? You could have endless magic to do whatever you want! Right?”

Peter shook his head. “The Guilds control who can be Awaken. There is a reason for the control they have. Firstly, once you awaken, you have to go in bi-yearly for a progress check. If they see you learn any skills or magic they don’t approve, off to jail. If it’s something horrible like Necromancy or such, then you get killed. Adventures get away with a bit more than any other guild, since they fight monsters and clear dungeons. But something like Demon Summoning or Flesh Magic? You are a goner.”

“And? Just do that still, but let it go for everyone.”

He held up a hand to Nathan. “Let me finish. Learning these skills and spells require Experience to increase your self worth, or Level. There is a seemingly infinite number of monsters, but they don’t just grow up in a day. They take weeks, even months for a dungeon to return to full power.”

“Then there is the problem of life. Some people can grow to live longer as they themselves grow with Experience. Now you have more people, all after a limited resource. Now what do you think happens? At least, that’s how Elderade explained it all to me.”

Nathan was about to say something but stopped himself and thought about it. “Do only dungeon monsters give Experience?”

Peter shook his head. “No, but they give the most. Killing anything gives experience, even other people, but don’t get any wise ideas. It won’t go well for you in the long run.”

Nathan held his hands up in defence.” No no. I wouldn’t dream of that...but I know if people are desperate enough, and enough start doing it, it will be a disaster. Especially if the criminals outnumber the law enforcers.”

“Exactly. There are checks and balances in place to prevent evil people becoming so strong they can’t be stopped. We had more wars and fights because of them, and every time more rules and regulations are put in place to prevent it.”

“Marcilio mentioned a war, the Drake-Men or something are now guards in Twin Oaks?”

Peter made a face. “The Drake-Men are the reason for the most wars. Their ancestral Dragons are greedy fuckers. Luckily they are all dead now. The Drake-Men helped in the most recent war, and our King gave them a deal to try and rejoin the main populace.”

“Something you mentioned, Experience and Numbers, what did you mean by that?” Nathan asked.

“Just that. The Numbers are a representation of your six core traits. Experience is a numbered value of your current self worth. Not in monetary worth but in the literal term of Experience. As you grow stronger, you gain the ability to spend the Experience on skills and your core traits. You have to see it yourself, to better explain it all.”

Nathan tried to be nice and not laugh, but his face told Peter enough. “Don’t believe me do ya?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to, but are you talking about stats? Increasing things like Strength and learning skills by killing monsters and gaining Levels and Experience? That’s….that’s insane! How can you measure one's ability like that?”

Peter took a gulp from his drink. “Magic.”

Nathan groaned. “Of course that’s the anwer.”

“El can explain it more if you need. She is Level 27 after all. I’m barely Level 4, and that’s because El took me to kill a few beasts before Marcilio was born.”

“How is she that high compared to you? I know she has a past, but doesn't that cause problems?”

“Her past is that, in the past. She lives a simple farmer's wife life now. She rarely uses her skills anymore these days. Most of them are for fighting, so she just pretends to be a low level like me.”

Nathan spent the rest of his night trying to understand his newest realization of this world. “I’m in a god damn video game aren't I.”