“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

- Nelson Mandela

Rich and I wandered to the blacksmith’s shop, where we could hear the clang of metal. I summoned an earth elemental and sent it to attack Aaron. A mighty shove sent him falling to the ground, and the little beast jumped on his chest to attack. I decided to see how the others would respond rather than order it away. An arrow whizzed past the elemental and buried itself in the dirt, but a small knife buried itself in the elemental’s body, knocking it off of Aaron. It squealed and slammed a hand onto Aaron’s face, stunning him. I launched a mana bolt at the earth elemental, knocking it back a bit, and Rich followed suit. Another of my mana bolts thudded into the little creature a moment later, and Tom rushed over to deliver the coup de grace with a sword. Rich and I trotted over laughing as Aaron got to his feet swearing.

“What the hell was that?! I haven’t seen any monsters around here at all today and then all of a sudden I’m attacked by some mini-boss!” Aaron yelled.

Rich and I continued to laugh.

“Actually, Aaron, that was one of my new spells,” I chuckled, much to Aaron’s chagrin.

“You sent some little rock freak after me as a prank?! Do you know how much it hurts? The pain is reduced by like 50% but it still hurts to have a giant rock monster bash my face in!”

Upon reflection, I realized that maybe I had indeed gone a little too far, but I wasn’t about to admit that.

“I was looking at it more as a tactical exercise. As you could see, you were caught off guard, but the rest of our team destroyed the threat quickly. Although, who the hell shot that arrow?” I asked, bewildered. It was a terrible shot.

“That was me.” Greg raised his hand meekly. He was holding a bow in one hand, a quiver of arrows looped over his shoulder. “It’s a lot harder than it looks, but I know it’ll be very useful once I master it.”

After asking what weapons they’d all decided to master, I learned that Aaron had chosen the sword, Tom had chosen the glaive, Greg had chosen the bow, and Drew had chosen the daggers (both throwing and otherwise).

“Where's Gabriel?” I asked.

“In there,” answered Drew, gesturing towards the blacksmith shop. I walked inside to see Gabriel waving his arms in the air, liquid metal swirling in the air around him. I shouted his name once, but received no response. I shouted his name again, and this time he looked over, his eyes glowing gold. He blinked, and his eyes returned to normal. He traced some kind of pattern into the air, and the metal around him funneled down onto the table. He motioned me over, and I could see that he had created a gleaming silver blade, affixed to a grand hilt.

“Wow, Gabriel, you made this already?” I marveled.

“Well, crafting is a lot different than you’d think. All you need to make something amazing is a high enough crafting skill, the materials needed, and the right schematic. Anvelles gave me a book full of schematics for magic items, and a ring that boosts my crafting skills to max. I started with an ability that boosts the speed at which my memorization-based skills like crafting, smithing, and tailoring. I think it has something to do with my history in engineering school.”

That would make a lot more sense than my ability. Gabriel had worked as an engineer for several years, so a boost to crafting skills would certainly make sense.

“But why focus on crafting when your skill will just be reset to level 1?”

“Because if you craft a schematic enough times, you can craft it without one! So I’m just crafting high-level items over and over again so I can learn the schematics for when we enter the game. Check this out!” He said excitedly, gesturing into the air again. Objects swirled around, and a replica of the table he was using appeared.

“That’s cool and all, but I think we can just by tables.”

“Not this table. This is a crafting table, so I can use it for all kinds of things! NPCs have to use anvils and smelters to craft metal objects. But with this table, us immortals can just open the GUI and craft using the schematics we have learned. Another amazing thing is that I can imbue certain items with magical properties. A lot of things can get bonuses or special properties based on the ingredients, but you can use a mystable like this one to give weapons enchantments after they’re created!”

“That’s awesome! Have you learned any schematics yet?” I asked.

“They require you to make them a large number of times before you could even begin to remember them! And you expect me to have learned any?” he asked incredulously. I looked down, abashed, as he said with a smirk, “so of course I’ve learned two already. And before you ask, they’re a [Ring of Minor Fortify Health] and [Mana Pillar].”

“What’s a Mana Pillar? I haven’t heard of that.”

“A Mana Pillar can absorb ambient mana and affect the area around it, boosting the power of spells in that element or granting the owner special abilities. I’m not sure exactly how much ambient mana there is in the game, but it seemed like a special item, and it’s not too difficult to make, so I figured I should learn it. The rings I learned how to make boost health by 30, so basically they boost Constitution by 3. I’m working on memorizing schematics for some high-level magic items like scepters and a few stationary items that I figure would be good for our base. There’s something called a Constructor that I really want to learn how to make. Not to mention a few other weapons or equipment items. My tailoring skills need a little work, and I’ll need to budget at least 3 hours for learning spells. I’ll keep working until we enter the game.”

“Okay Gabriel, I’ll see you around.”

18.5 hours later, we stood clustered together in the scribe building, presided over by Embelles, the Telles-like NPC that specialized in writing skills. I’d spent the past 10 hours poring over countless scrolls and books from both Embelles’ and Spelles’ buildings. None of the other buildings had really interested me, but the others said that they were pretty cool. Throughout the day, I’d learned everything I could about the world we were entering: monsters, spells, kingdoms (there weren’t any), languages, races, and all manner of other details. Notable magic items? Rituals? I was particularly interested in demon summoning and necromancy, but there wasn’t too much information regarding those subjects. I could see that using objects of great power could augment or unlock branches of those magics, but the only thing I could find of interest was rituals that had to be prepared using runes I just couldn’t memorize. I asked Gabriel to take a look, but he said it was as though they were erased from his mind when he walked away. Apparently, the headstart he got on crafting would not be extended to rituals in the tutorial.

We recapped what we had learned: I had learned of rituals and as much as I could about military strategy and the world we were entering as well as picked up the staff fighting skill, Gabriel had learned a bunch of schematics as well as two spells, Greg had finally started to get archery down and had even picked up some construction skills, Rich had pored over the books with me and learned swordplay, Aaron had learned several martial skills, Tom had learned unarmed fighting as well as staff fighting, and Drew had picked up several stealth-based skills. Together, we marveled at the world around us. It was virtually indistinguishable from real life, but our bodies were stronger, faster, and more durable than ever before. I wasn’t sure what eternity would bring, but I was already happier than I’d ever been before.

A bell tolled, reminding me of a famous quote, “never send for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” As my vision faded to black, I felt, for the first time in my life, content with the end.