Cole and Obi headed deep into the forest. They only had 30 minutes before everyone had to re-convene. Obi noticed a large, beautiful glade in the congested forest, and the two stepped in to look for something to fight. While they searched for something to fight, Cole made a little small talk.

"How's your sister doing?"

"Well, I took her for a check-up yesterday, she had a few small tweaks done to her arm."

"What about you? Doc prolly said something."

"Oh, you know Doc. She gave me an ultimatum and a final date for my leg replacement."

'Damn dude. I know how much you love her, but you should think of yourself too ya know?"

"Don't get me started again, Cole. Drop it."

"Aight, don't ya get jumpy now."

Cole unsheathed his sword and mentally turned on his HUD. Seeing this, Obi was about to do the same when a massive spider landed on his head. He screamed and flailed as he tried to get it off, and Cole finally found the opportunity to get it off and kill it.

Once the tension wore off, Cole reached out his hand and helped him up. After a few seconds, Cole began to chuckle, and they both broke into all-out laughter.

After the light moment began to wear off, Obi checked his Experience bar.

Exp: 77,890|79,000

"Hey, I'm only around a thousand away from level 80! Let's get cracking."

Cole headed forward again when he saw a few more spiders. It was easy to get rid of them, maybe even too easy. They kept walking and found a massive cave entrance.

"Hey, if there are so many spiders, there should be a spider boss in here somewhere."

Obi stopped walking. He was terrified at the thought of spiders and mortified when he saw them. He had nightmares, and he did not want to re-live them.

"Oh c'mon. I'll be right there, just follow me."

Obi reluctantly agreed and they trudged into the cave. For the first few minutes, all they saw were small spiders no larger than their heads. After picking them off, they kept continuing deeper and deeper. Once another few minutes had passed, they could hear a rough scuttling in front of the, what seemed like nearly hundreds of spiders.

Obi began to hyperventilate as he saw them pour down the congested tunnel. There were hundreds, even thousands of the creepy 8-legged arachnids. They knew they wouldn't be able to fight the spiders off, and so they turned tail and ran. Thankfully, they were faster than the spiders and were able to sprint back out without a scratch.

"Damn, Obi! That was supposed to be a low-level boss battle. I've never seen anything like this in Fern Forest!"

"Well, who knows? We need a good mage to take that down."

"Agreed, we can't do that on our own. How about we head a bit further in? It's only been around 10 minutes."

They continued deeper into the forest, talking and exchanging stories. They soon came upon a troop of goblins and immediately hid behind some massive trees.

"Why are there goblins in the forest, this is fishy. First the spiders and now the goblins."

"There is something wrong, Cole, and look, the Chief is level 27. This area is only a level 5-10 zone!"

"We better get rid of the group before they terrorize other players."

Cole and Obi kept sneaking around the goblin's camp until they reached the back of the encampment. Obi nodded, and Cole whipped out a dagger, sticking a firm throw straight into the back of a goblin. Cole and Obi both looked impressed.

The body quietly fell to the ground and they advanced while keeping an eye out. Cole left most of the kills to Obi, knowing that he needed the experience. They continued until they had eliminated most of the goblin guards in the camp.

Instead of directly communicating with Cole, Obi opened up a Voice Chat and mentally talked to him.

"Where's the Chief? I thought he was supposed to be back here?"

"I dunno, maybe he moved?"

"Weird."

They continued moving forward again, leaving the Chieftain's hut in shambles. The chief was no-where to be found. His elite bodyguards were also missing. Obi felt a chill run down his spine as he noticed all the weapons missing, and involuntarily, he used his [Shield Dash] Gem and flung himself forward with his shield extended, covering Cole's open back, and blocking a massive spear, headed straight towards Cole's head with considerable force.

Cole swung himself around and readied another dagger as Obi kept his shield up. His hands were tied as all kinds of weaponry was hurled at his shield. Obi had no choice but to advance into one of the shoddily-built goblin huts and let his mana recover. When he had been building his character, Obi had never worried about his mana storage, but he was now realizing that it was a major problem in his battles. His max mana was around 300 when most of his abilities took over 100 or even more.

Cole followed him into the hut just after he retaliated with another dagger throw that just missed one of the attacking goblins. They re-grouped and Obi started re-gaining mana. He had to start using his shield gems more, especially his new [Double Swing] Gem.

"So that's where they're at, huh?

"Goblins are supposed to be stupid, how'd they even know to flank us?"

"Man screw that, thanks for the block back there."

"Enough talk, time for you to do your damage. Stay behind me until I pop my wall."

Obi slotted out his [Triplet Shield] Gem for his [Golden Wall] Gem. When Cole unsheathed his second sword, Obi rushed out with shield in front of him and he had already gained a lot of ground before the knucklehead goblins spotted him. The second he heard weapons clattering behind him, Obi used his [Golden Wall] Gem to give Cole the time and distraction to open up on the enemy.

His shield enlarged and was slowly enveloped in gold. His shield glowed bright enough to keep the Goblin's eyes on it. They were naturally greedy and so were attracted to anything that glowed gold.

Cole saw this massive distraction and sprinted around the Goblins to get behind them. They never knew what hit them when two swords wreaked havoc among them. A few minutes later, all the Chieftain's Elites were on the ground in pieces. Cole backed the Chieftain into a corner and then backed off to let Obi get the kill. The goblin did have a decently sized hitpool, but Obi wanted to do it in style.

He walked up to the goblin and pulled his sword out from his back. Activating his [Double Swing] Gem, Obi cut into the goblin, and the ability phased the sword back through.

[Chieftain Health: 20/100]

Seeing that the Chieftain was still not dead, Obi swung around gracefully and decapitated the poor goblin.

[Chieftain Health: 0/100]

[Level Up! Current Level 80]

"Yeah! You did it!"

"Let's go! I'll check the Chieftain, you check the bodyguards."

Cole nodded and they went in separate directions. Obi knelt and went through the loot.

1x Medicinal Herb, 1x Book of Knowledge, 2x Potion of Healing, 1x Goblin's Spear, 6x Mana Fruit, 1x Chieftain's Battle Axe, 1x Secret Gem, 2x Epic Gem

"Hey Cole, this guy's got some really good loot."

Cole didn't find much of interest, and he came back empty-handed. When he saw the loot, his jaw dropped and he started picking through it all.

"You can have the spear and axe, and we can split the Mana Fruit. You can also take an Epic Gem, I'll take the other two."

"Alrighty, Obi."

Obi checked the Gems, and he found that the Secret one was for his shield and the Epic one was for his sword. He put them in his sack before turning to face Cole.

"Well, it's time to pick your next class, go on."

"Don't rush me, Cole."

Obi opened up his in-game menu and it materialized in front of his eyes. Reaching out to scroll to his profile, he opened the screen so Cole could see the options as well. There was a glowing circle next to his avatar, and Obi touched it. Interestingly, instead of showing his options, a portal similar to a dive appeared and started to suck him in. Cole quickly grabbed onto Obi so he could go with him.

They found themselves in a black room, and 3 choices were placed in front of him. He could see how his character would be impacted and how it would be changed if he picked each class.

"It's this fancy because this is the last stretch before max level. Ya have to choose wisely.

The three choices were:

—Shielded Crusader

—Hammer Paladin

—Authority

Obi spent a few minutes looking at each one, and immediately overlooked the Shielded Crusader and crossed it off his list. He was left with Hammer Paladin and Authority, but he couldn't make up his choice. The Hammer Paladin would be able to tank, but boost up the team more, whereas the Authority would be able to soak up way more damage. He wondered if he could dual-class this late into the game, and the game read his thoughts before dropping an option to dual-class. It would cost him a few hundred credits to change this far into the game, but he accepted anyways, and Cole was shocked when both classes merged into one and were sucked into Obi.

"I'm dual-classing now, Cole."

"Holy shit that's awesome! I never got that option though."

"Well, I don't know how that happened either. I'll test my new powers out when we start training with the others."

They were brought back into the game, and Obi pulled out his sword, now turned hammer. Cole gasped with shock as Obi grew with the armor growing with him, with Cole now standing at elbow height to Obi. His shield grew as well, almost covering his entire body while being impressively wide. Obi stood regally, with hammer and shield deployed.

"I'm a Paladin, and an Authority."

"Wow. You look amazing and terrifying at the same time! Let's get back to the Shedee tree, we're late and the others will be waiting"