With his work done, Eli felt the need to be alone and he needed rest. There was little time to for him to relax, go over his character sheet or figure out exactly what happened. A moment to himself was all but impossible. Deciding that ignoring notifications and personal growth was no longer an option, he made his way to his room.

As he traveled the now cleared island, towards the temple, he saw several players training combat skills against makeshift dummies. Like lightning, an idea flashed through his mind, causing his lips to curve towards his cheeks. Training, skills, abilities, and the system; thoughts on each sparked into being. Then he picked up his pace.

If he wanted his budding plan to succeed, he needed to learn and adapt to his new situation, rather than let the world force him into making rash decisions. It was time to act take his new life seriously. People were relying on him. He needed to talk to Aida, alone.

“Aida, you there?” Eli asked, his words leaping from his mouth to echo off the sparsely decorated walls of his room.

Her came instantly, devoid of her usual snark, “Always.” Apearing in her fairy form, vocalizing the word, not into Eli’s mind but into reality. Not giving Eli time to reply, she continued, “It’s time we had a little talk Eli. You’re neglecting a lot of issues, you’ve put off a lot of problems, and you’re missing some very valuable information.”

“I know, thats what I—” Eli started, before being cut off.

“I’m not going to chastise you Eli. And I know you know. You’re plan is good, if you’re on your own or in a small group. But training and gaining levels isn’t going to solve all of your problems. You’re a leader now.”

As Eli sat watching the pulsating orb of light floating around his room, he remained silent. He knew that she was growing, learning, and adapting in her own way. If she wanted to speak, he would let her.

“I’ve been parsing your memories, or Elliot Millers memories at least. It’s difficult to say if you are even the same person. But that’s not what I want to talk about. Elliot Miller was a loving father, an attentive husband, and a leader or men. He was a good person, and so are you. There’s only two possibilities here. You are either a replica of this amazing person, a clone of sort, built using his memories. In either case, those memories and experiences shape your current reality. Not only the ones from earth, but the ones from your time as an NPC. They both make you who you are. You are the noble, yet goofy, entrepreneur from earth and the solitary former scout who wants to keep his family safe.” Her words, were soft and clear. Not quite a whisper, yet not loud enough to be heard from the other side of Eli’s door. “You have to decide what you’re going to do here and now. Do you dig through your memories, be the man you were on earth? Or do you go off with your small group of friends to get stronger? Because the only way to level up, to gain real power in this world, is through adventure. That means leaving these people behind. Not forever, but you will have to trust that they can manage without you while you’re away. You have to be the one to set them up for success.”

For a long moment, Eli thought. There were no words of objection or distain. Aida was right. He was planning on leaving with Don, Michelle, and James. His plan was to level up, grow stronger, and protect his people by sheer will alone. If he were stronger, his family would have never been taken from him to begin with. That was what he though, but the reality of the situation was different. Doing everything himself was not an option. Aida knew this, he knew it, and so did everyone else. Don had been telling him to calm down and think since they first met. So Eli sat and thought out lout, while Aida listened.

“You’re right. If we leave, things could go bad quickly. Even if the shrine is finished tomorrow, Don and I get healed, and we have enough equipment to start really grinding, it won’t be enough. The city has little to defend itself, there’s no real plan in place, and the only one who completely understands the system is James. He was Elliot Millers friend. I may not even be that person. I still don’t even know what he wants to do.”

Somewhat dull claws poked at thick furs, as Eli’s fingers tapped at his bed. His mind raced. Ideas and possible outcomes played out as he closed his eyes. A moment later, he stood.

“We need to get stronger. All of us. Not just me and the people in my group, but this entire city. The adventures, the NPC’s, everyone needs to grow.” Eli said, curling his fingers into a fist around his thick blanket. “But how do NPCs get stronger. Not by adventure, they don’t level. Then how?” Letting his words linger as he thought, he thought back on the large cities from earth. The wonders of glass and steel from his memories.

People on earth didn’t have magic or levels. They had technology and teamwork. Community made them stronger. When humans worked together, things of wonder followed. They get stronger by having jobs, resources, structure and the willpower to accomplish a shared goal. This was true of the NPCs in Entarra, at least for those with names or the ones deemed necessary by the system. The King of the Orcs and his capital city were famed for being nearly invincible. It would be insane to even think about attacking, without a massive army.

As it stood, Eli and his group were the king. They were the barrier that stood between the budding town and other adventurers, monsters, and the blight. If they left, here would be little more than a rag-tag group of poorly armed NPCs to stop another group of adventurers from taking over entirely and none of them would stop a horde of blighted monsters. They needed to build up strength, fast.

“That’s what we need. There’s not a single group of adventurers who can take on an entire city of NPCs on their own,” Eli started. “The problem is that this isn’t a city and what we are calling a mayor is just a mid tier NPC that any player of a decent level could wipe the floor with. This is just a small settlement, with nearly no finished buildings or defenses. It’s wide open. A clearing on an island with the frames of a few simple structures.” Eli paused, going over his simple instructions to Myr, “We are working on a few things, but there’s no real plan in place and I’m no king.” With a sigh, Eli opened his eyes. Thinking over Aida’s words, Eli hung his head, “There’s still so much I don’t know. I never even bothered to finish looking over the settlement interface. Hell, I haven’t even decided what build I want to go for.” Pulling up his character sheet, for the first time in days, he lowered himself back to his bed. “My stat points are just sitting here, unused.”

“Then lets get to work.” Aida said, her voice resolute. “You’re on the right track. We just need to get you there. Like you said, these people need direction. They need resources and structure. They need leadership and a plan.” As she began highlighting areas of his menue for Eli to focus on, she floated directly in front of his face, “Eli, try to remember that you’re never in this alone. I am always here for you and you have friends to lean on. Don’t go through all of this alone.”

With a smile and a nod, Eli focused his attention on his character sheet.

Eli Miller

Level 8

Hitpoints: 290 / 290 | Stamina: 220 / 220 | Mana: 160 / 160

Attributes:

Strength - 23 (+20% damage with strength based weapons | + 25% carrying capacity)

Dexterity - 17

Constitution - 21 (+20% natural health and stamina regeneration rate)

Intelligence - 11

Spirit - 22 (+20% natural mana regeneration rate)

Charisma - 15

Luck - 15

Available attribute points: 27

Skills:

Combat:

Arcana - 5 / 100

Archery - 23 / 100

Axes - 24 / 100

Clubs - 1 / 100

Daggers - 7 / 100

Swords - 17 / 100

Shields - 8 / 100

Tactics - 18 / 100

Thrown Weapons - 5 / 100

Unarmed - 10/100

Subskill: Brawling - 10/100

Improvised Weapons - 1/100

Heavy armor - 10/100

Light Armor - 14/100

Crafting:

Lumberjack - 20/100

Survival:

Medicine - 6/100

Subskill: First Aide - 6/100

Perception - 10 / 100

Stealth - 10/100

Survival - 16/100

Subskill: Tracking - 15 / 100

Willpower - 10 / 100

Lore & Knowledge:

Insight - 1/100

Lore (Beasts) - 5 / 100

Knowledge (Divine): 5 / 100

The first thing that caught his attention was his increased stats. Nearly all of his attributes and combat skills had taken massive leaps. While the battles in the altar room, library and outside the temple itself had nearly killed him, they had also helped him grow immensely. After reaching twenty-three in strength, twenty-one in constitution and twenty-two in spirit, Eli had reached his first ability milestones.

After reaching level twenty in any ability, it would provide a milestone effect. They usually offered a buff to the natural increase that the stat provided. With strength it was increased damage and carrying capacity. Constitution was health and stamina regeneration and so on. The only ones not immediately obvious were charisma and luck.

What he did know, was that the the natural growth for his ability points drastically slowed after reaching twenty. That he reached was able to push past this cap over the course of a few days was a shock to both him and Aida.

Her explanation was that it was most likely caused by him leveling up in rapid succession. Being involved in so many fights, that he really had no place taking part in, caused him to skyrocket in level. Nearly every foe he had faced was far above his player and skill. Surviving the encounters gave him bonus experience and pushed him past the soft cap on his ability scores all at once. He knew the chances of it happening again, near zero.

After looking over his ability scores, he focused on the rather large pool of twenty-seven unused points. With the natural growth of some of his skills coming to a halt, he wanted to focus on those. While charisma and intelligence were hard to raise naturally, there was still a lot of room for natural growth. Spending points on things he could increase through training, seemed like a waste.

Before spending his points, he thought about his role in a party. As it stood, his party consisted of him and three others. Michelle was a bruiser, one part tank one part damage. While she could take a lot of hits, it was mostly because of her racial benefits and high constitution. Armor and weapons could increase her tanking ability, as would actual abilities. The issue was her play style, weapon choice, and her lack of a class.

She used two handed maces and cudgels. These weapons were easy to use and did a lot of damage to nearly every type of creature, but they were nowhere near the best tools for defense. The warrior was also hesitant to wear full plate armor or anything that restricted her movement more than necessary. Her play-style was simple. Charge in, do as much damage as possible, take some hits, and kill the enemy before she went down. In short, she was a bull. Reckless and extremely dangerous, but not an ideal defender.

Then there was Don. He was a caregiver at heart. He was a healer. While he could do consistent damage from melee to short range, he was not built to sustain significant damage. To Eli, the Turta’s path was simple. Focus on healing and self-defense. If he could do that, the party would be able to focus on eliminating any threat. A healer who could defend themselves in a pinch would be immensely valuable.

James however, was a mystery. According do Don and Aida he was some sort bounty hunter class. Eli knew his friend used daggers, hand crossbows, and magitech muskets. How he played, or preformed in combat, was yet to be seen. His class seemed to focus around one-on-one combat, while being able to survive for a long time in the wild. He had chosen his class specifically to hunt Eli down and bring him home. Wherever that was.

That left Eli. He had magic now, but his highest level skills were in melee combat and bows. To confuse matters more, his offensive magic was somewhat unwieldy and hard to use while enraged. This was especially true at range. He thought back to the time he attacked, and nearly killed, James.

While his magic missiles had been devastating, over half of them had missed. Being honest with himself, Eli knew that his offensive magic would be unreliable in its current form. What he could rely on was creating weapons and armor for himself.

For a long, silent moment Eli sat and thought. His mind went back to his father. Lean into your strengths and improve on your weaknesses. The mans words came back to him, they were the same in his original memories and those from the game world. If you want to help others, you need to focus on yourself first. If you aren’t at your best, you won’t be able to help anyone.

The mans words rang in Eli’s mind like a bell. For this to work, he needed to focus on himself. There was noway to control or predict what everyone else was going to do. How or what anyone else will choose or what they will be prepared for. What he could control was himself and his build.

With this thought in mind he spoke, “I’m a melee fighter who’s somewhat competent with a bow. I know a little magic, but planning my build around it would be risky and time consuming.” He spoke to himself, as if confirming what he knew all along. “I’ll never be some ultra powerful mage that fires spells from the back line. I don’t have a teacher. The closest trainers are probably miles away. It’s just not going to happen. That’s just not who I am. I won’t sit back while others fight for me.” He paused to consider what would set him apart. Then it struck him, “My class focuses on strength and spirit. There’s no reason I can’t incorporate my magic into the way I fight now. But how can I use magic to increase my damage output or ability to absorb damage?”

Aidas words came quietly, this time in his mind rather than the empty room,“Think about your skills, abilities, and spells Eli. Think about the system. Everything you’ve learned. The rules are important, but so is knowing how flexible they are. This world is built to adapt to the intention of the players, not railroad them into a set path. If you don’t see an option available, create one.”

As if guided by his AI, he replayed the events of the day in his mind. For a moment, he channeled energy into the ironbark seedling. He filled it with his mana and forced it to grow. If he could do that, what would stop him from repeating the process with his weapons and armor?

With a thought forming in the back of his mind, he called out to his guide in excitement, “Aida, can you give me a summary of the notifications I received while shaping the statue?”

“Of course. You learned two new abilities, your meditation and willpower skills increased, and you gained a point in luck.”

Nodding, Eli opened his abilities tab, “What were the abilities and what do they do? I need as much detail as possible.”

As Eli read over his new abilities, she confirmed his hypothesis, “The abilities are Natures Resolve and Natures Focus. Natures Resolve allows you to substitute health for mana or stamina after you have reached zero. Be careful with this one. The cost is steep at a one-to-one ratio. Natures Focus is an evolving ability, so it can level up. It allows you to channel your shaping and creation spells to effect a larger area or speed up the process at which you shape or create. It essentially allows you to surpass the limitations of your shaping spells. Again, be careful. Channeling these spells like this increases the base mana cost by twenty points and twenty points per second and doubles the spells cooldown time.”

There it was, Natures Focus, his idea was taking shape, “Okay, I’ll keep the dangers in mind. But tell me if I am correct in assuming that the cost involved with Natures Focus only becomes extreme if I am shaping or creating something large. But if I use it to create something small really quickly it shouldn’t be that massive. Something like a piece of armor and a weapons?”

“Correct. It essentially allows you to surpass the limitations of your shaping and creation spells at a cost. The more powerful the ability gets, the larger the area and faster the speed. It’s how this temple and the city that used to be here were created. If you read into the games lore, it says that a circle of druids and mystics used to care for all of scorn. They used their magic to create flourishing cities and impressive magical structures. At least, until they went missing. So, I don’t see why you couldn’t use it to make weapons and armor quickly. But, again, it will be a huge drain on your mana. The mana increase is both flat and exponential. The initial increase is only twenty more than the normal casting cost. But each second increases this cost by an additional twenty. Speeding up the creation time of a bracer or dagger might only cost you an extra twenty to forty mana. But a chest piece or leggings would be nearly half of your mana.”

Taking note of the limitations of the ability, Eli moved on to his next question, “Understood. But how does the ability work in technical terms, what am I actually doing to the object I’m trying to manipulate or creating?”

“Well, that’s a little more tricky. When you’re creating an object, you’re pulling materials from the surrounding area and replicating them out of mana. While it is a permanent object, it is also considered magic. So it can be dispelled. At least, until you reach a higher level or learn some form of permanence spell. If it’s an object that already exists and you are shaping it, you’re essentially using your man control it. Kind of like a puppet master. Natures focus does several things in this situation. It allows you to speed up and direct the rate of growth. Like what you did with the statue. It also allows you to manipulate larger objects or at a much faster pace.”

At Aida’s response Eli’s hear raced, he knew that his next few questions would impact the rest of his life in Entarra, “So, in theory, I could create an object using my environment, then shape it however I wanted? Correct?”

“Correct.”

“Okay, and since I am imbuing my mana into objects to shape and create them, I should be able to do so with other abilities and spells. Correct?”

After a slight pause, Aida returned into visible space to float around his head. Stopping next to his left ear, she whispered, “Correct.”

Eli stood, a smile stretching across his face, “Come on. It’s time to test something.”