They uneventfully returned to Lomberg, and after a few minutes of searching aimlessly, found the quest giver.

“Ahh, you have retrieved the Orb? Excellent work! Here are your rewards!”

Gary saw the notification for a gain of 5 silver, and a screen appeared in his monitor.

Pick a skill to gain 300 exp was written on top of a massive menu of potential skills. The only ones that Gary had any experience in were Lumberjack, Unarmed, and Blunt weapons.

Wow, Gary thought as he poured over the menu of thousands of skills. Cooking, Hunting, Crafting, Engineering, Speech, Blacksmith, Enchanting, Alchemy were just some of the many listed. Gary was just starting to realize the depth of this game--one in which he had barely even started scratching the surface.

“Dude... What should we choose?” Dom asked, his eyes wide. “Wait, look, there are a bunch of magic skills! Ahh, sweet! Wind, Fire, Psychic, Conjuration…. Wow, this is crazy.”

“So many skills.” Cedric agreed. “Where do I even start?”

Gary agreed with Cedric, it was hard to even fathom the breadth of skills available to them.

In the end, he tried to add points to archery, but he received the following prompt:

You can only add points to skills you have unlocked. If you wish, you can save your points for later.

Gary decided to save them until he unlocked archery, given he was still interesting in becoming an archer.

Dom did the same, but Cedric added points to Unarmed, which grew him to level 5.

“You sure you want to do that Ced?” Dom asked. “Don’t you want to get good with a weapon?”

Cedric shrugged. “Maybe. It might be easier to train unarmed in real life though, so I’m considering just going unarmed main. Plus, there has to be knuckle weapons down the line.”

Dom nodded. “Smart, you’re probably right.” Dom then clenched his fist and scowled, “Man, I wish I could just figure out magic already! This is so frustrating!”

Gary patted Dom on the shoulder. “Dude, don’t worry about it. I haven’t seen anybody slinging spells yet, it’s just a rare unlock.”

Gary then thought of the arena team composition. Cedric could essentially act as the tank, he was the biggest in real life and was focusing on combat. If Dom could heal, that would be great, though obviously that was kind of up in the air. Gary thought the faster he got good at archery, the better he might be able to provide some ranged support.

“Hey guys, I’m going to go buy a bow with this new silver.”

It only took Gary a few minutes to find the archery shop.

The store was the standard fair, what Gary had really expected at this point. Behind a solid oak counter was a tall elf with brown hair and a scar across his cheek. Although most NPCs seemed to be human, atleast around Lomberg, every now and then Gary would see some other race.

“What is it that you desire, human?” the elf said softly as Gary approached.

“I’m just looking for the best bow I can get for around 7 silver.”

The elf sighed, looking slightly bored. “The Oak Shortbow is your best bet. It costs 6 Silver and 20 Copper. Additionally, it comes with 10 Standard Arrows and a Standard Quiver.”

Not bad, Gary thought. He didn’t realize until just now that Quivers were a piece of gear. “How much does a standard arrow cost?”

“Just 2 copper.”

“And can you reuse them?”

“Yes,” the elf said flatly. “Around thirty percent of wooden arrows will shatter on impact, but the others will survive.”

Gary took a deep breath. That made a pretty big difference. “Okay!” he said. “I’ll buy 30 more Standard Arrows then.”

The elf gave a curt nod, and then entered the back of the shop to retrieve the goods.

Gary started to feel excited. Finally, he would be able to train Archery!

The elf came forward with a bow that was about a foot and a half long, carved from soft oak, and complete with a supple bowstring. The arrows that came with were very average, with a chicken feather in the back and a sharpened stick for the head.

Oak Shortbow

Damage Bonus: + 1.5 + Arrow Damage

Type: Bow

Weight: Light

Speed: Fast

Damage calculated: 0.8 X Dexterity + 0.2 x Strength

The bow made for the common newb. You won’t impress anybody with this, but you can at least start practicing!

Huh, Gary thought. He was surprised to find that even a bow had increased damage from higher strength. Still, Dexterity was the most important stat here, clearly.

Standard Quiver

Ranged Attack speed + 0.5%

This is the worst quiver in the game. Practically useless.

Standard Arrow

Damage Bonus: + 0.5

Just a chicken feather and a sharpened stick! Not fancy, but gets the job done.

“We have a target dummy out back if you wish to get started training,” the elf said quietly. He gestured towards a back door.

“Sounds good,” said Gary, heading for the door. He appeared in a small wooded target range. Soft padded targets, adorned with the typical red bulls-eye, appeared at the other end of the range. They appeared at different distances: 10, 25, 50, and 100 meters.

Gary equipped the Oak Shortbow, his Bronze Dagger returning to his inventory. Also, he equipped his Standard Quiver and Standard Arrows.

His grip on the bow felt entirely awkward, his hands tight on the wooden handle, fumbling on the arrow with his other hand.

He would start with the 10 meter target, for obvious reasons. He nocked the arrow, held his breath, and did his best to keep his arms from shaking.

Twang! He simultaneously saw the arrow stick into the mud and felt a stinging slap on his forearm. Crying out in pain, he dropped the bow and clenched his arm. According to a pop-up, he had taken 4 points of damage, but it hurt a lot more than that.

Even worse, he didn’t even discover the archery skill. Grumbling, he picked up the bow and nocked another arrow. This time, he tried to hold the bow so the string wouldn’t slap his forearm, though he still wasn’t sure if he was doing it right.

Suddenly, he heard a voice behind him. “Wait, human. Your form is….off. Allow me to help.”

Gary froze, and then out of his peripheral saw the elf that worked in the shop. He relaxed, and dropped the bow.

“Great, thanks. I guess I needed some help, to be honest,” Gary said.

The elf gently took the bow, and showed Gary a better way to grip, and also how to bend his elbow at just the right angle. Gary listened eagerly, knowing that this was perhaps the only chance he would get at real instruction.

The elf returned the bow to Gary, and he carefully practiced the new position. After a quick glance, the elf nodded, apparently satisfied.

Holding his breath, Gary shot at the target.

This time, the arrow hit the outer ring of the bullseye with a satisfying thump!

Congratulations! You just unlocked Archery!

In game skill 1. Real life skill 1.

Gary was not surprised in any way that he had no real life archery skills. The only redeeming factor was that very few people would have any skills either.

Gary nodded, pleased at his progress. “Thank you. I’m sorry, but I haven’t even asked your name.”

“It’s Ruing’ard. Pleased to meet you, neoswordsman,” he said after a short bow. “You can return to me once you reach Archery level 25 and I can give you a quest.”

“Great!” Gary said. “Thank you, Ruing’ard. I really appreciate the help.

Ruing’ard didn’t smile, but his eyes lit up. “Of course.”