“PERSEUS!” Ether shouted to his cackling friend as he ran. “WHEN I FINISH THIS BOAR I SWEAR YOU’RE NEXT!”

[Boar] Lvl 2

This pig has a family, probably. Maybe.

Who are we kidding, you don’t care.

Oh, right, details. The tusks are sharp. Avoid them.

Ether was quickly losing hope of ever finding an ordinary system message. He was also quickly losing hope of surviving his own ‘tutorial’ match, as he clumsily dodged the furious beast he was now trapped in a makeshift arena with. The chest high wooden walls had seemed small when he was on the other side, but now they seemed to tower ominously over him.

“At this rate, I’ll be safe for another month!” Perseus shot back with a grin. “Quit running and fight it! I beat mine before you even got to town, it’s not that hard!”

“You played this game before it even came out!” Ether shot back angrily. “I just got handed a knife and thrown in the ring! BY YOU!” He hissed in pain- actual pain! - as the boar slammed into his side.

[Boar] tries to eviscerate you for 4 piercing/blunt damage.

Warning: You are at or below half of your maximum health.

Continuing to take damage may result in death.

Well, that message seemed almost -

To avoid dying, we recommend surviving.

Nevermind.

Thankful that he’d at least remembered to pull the dagger out of his starting bag, Ether drew the short blade and took a swipe at the boar.

You dealt 2 slashing damage to [Boar]

That was less than ideal. He tried to dodge around the hateful little beast, as he’d seen the young woman from earlier do, but..

[Boar] tries to eviscerate you for 3 piercing/blunt damage.

… it was a lot harder than she’d made it look. In fact, as a fresh wave of white hot pain ripped through him - along with the boar’s tusks - he found himself wondering if she might’ve had some sort of evasion skill. He quickly rolled to his feet, one hand grasping at his pack. He hadn’t wanted to waste what sounded like a consumable item in the tutorial fight, but he was down to his last 2 HP.

He focused on the name of the item he wanted as he tapped his bag, and it materialized in his grasp. The Scroll of [Shock]. He immediately got a prompt.

Would you like to use this item?

{Yes}{No}

He tapped yes, and his vision blurred. He felt a strange throbbing feeling in his head, and a tingling in his spine, as if he was being watched. Then, several messages popped up at the same time.

Congratulations! You’ve learned the spell [Shock] from a spell scroll!

Congratulations! By learning your first spell, you learned [Casting] lvl 1

[Orlando] has cast [Silent Lesser Heal] on you

You’ve healed 8 points of damage!

[Boar] tries to eviscerate you for 3 piercing/blunt damage.

By the time Ether had actually processed the first notification, the furious beast he was fighting slammed into him again, sending him toppling to the ground. His head was still spinning from using the scroll, but he felt the strange pulsing headache fade away as he forced himself back to his feet. Quickly pointing at the boar - who seemed just as surprised as he was to find that he was still alive - with his pointer and middle fingers he twisted his wrist and shouted the name of his new spell.

“[Shock]!”

A burst of blueish lightning flew from his outstretched fingers and slammed into the beast, causing it to squeal in pain. It spasmed, thrashing about, then collapsed to the ground. It twitched clearly trying to rise to its feet, but Ether was having none of it.

“[Shock]!”

You have dealt 10 electric damage to [Boar]

You have dealt 12 electric damage to [Boar]

You have defeated [Boar]

You have reached level 2!

You have gained 1 stat point!

A slow clap from the side of the ring drew Ether’s attention away from his menu.

“Good work, Chosen!” the applauding man said dryly, his deep voice carrying easily across the ring as he leapt over the chest high wall that formed it. He had dark skin, a playful smile and a quarterstaff strapped to his back. “You’re lucky I was here,” he added after a moment. “If it wasn’t for my spell, you would’ve died against that critter. Tell me, do all Chosen charge headfirst into trouble, or do I only meet the crazy ones?”

Ether scowled as he used [Identify].

Orlando

Member of Elysium

Native Human

Level 8 Generalist

Alfam’s resident weaponmaster

He’s always happy to to teach the Chosen of Yggdrasil what he knows

Perhaps a little too happy

Ether couldn’t help but notice a few additional details that [Identify] had failed to mention. For instance, it said nothing whatsoever about the fact that the 6 foot 6 mountain of a man standing before him was the single most muscular human being he’d ever laid eyes on.

“You must be the one who healed me then. Thanks for that - I thought the scroll would cast the spell, not teach it to me! It kinda caught me off guard.”

The muscular weaponmaster nodded as he strode forward. “You’re not the first person to make that mistake - though it seems all of those that do are Chosen. I suppose Yggdrassil didn’t teach you much, eh?”

Before Ether could voice a reply, the man clapped him on the shoulder with enough force that he sincerely expected a damage window to pop up. “That being the case,” The man rumbled in a deep baritone, “you’ll be needing some proper training, wouldn’t you say?”

“Y-yeah?”

The massive man’s face split in a wide grin. “Excellent! Pick up any weapon you want from the rack over there, and I’ll show you how to use it.”

Ether blinked at the rack in question, which held dozens of sharp, metallic instruments of death.

“Will you use the same kind of weapon?” he asked out of curiosity as he walked up and down the row.

“No,” Orlando replied as he spun his staff. “I’ll use this staff - for your safety.”

The adventurer blinked. “Isn’t… isn’t that a little bit backwards? I mean, we Chosen get to respawn if we die, right? Shouldn’t we be the ones forced to use training weapons while you use whatever you like?”

The smile on Orlando’s face shifted in a way that made him feel uneasy for some reason. “How polite of you to be worried for my safety,” he said, his tone of voice still warm and friendly. “In fact, I’m so touched by your concern that I’ll make you a special offer. If you can hit me even once out of the first dozen rounds, I’ll teach you an extra skill or spell, and I’ll even let you keep the weapon! Of course, I won't be holding back as much as I usually would for those rounds, but I’m sure it’s nothing a Chosen like you can’t handle! I mean, just look at how you handled that boar!”

Ether was beginning to suspect he’d struck a nerve somehow. He wasn’t interested in getting his ass handed to him for the rest of the afternoon, so he immediately opened his mouth to refuse Orlando’s offer.

Then he saw Perseus vehemently gesturing at him from behind the Generalist’s back, shaking his head and waving his arms frantically.

Ah, that’s right. Perseus wanted to get right to questing, didn’t he? That’s why he pushed Ether to jump into the fight against that boar with no training.

“Sure,” Ether replied with a smile. “That sounds fair. Just one hit, right?”

It was just a game. What was the worst that could happen?

The answer, as it turned out, was almost everything.

The first round, Orlando struck his hands with blinding speed, forcing him to drop his weapon before sweeping his legs out from under him.

The second round was much the same as the first, if slightly slower now that he knew to keep his distance.

By the fifth round, he felt like he had a good grasp of how to hold his weapon and where to plant his feet, but he still couldn’t last thirty seconds against his opponent. In spite of his massive size, Orlando was fast.

Things somehow managed to get even worse from there.

His weapon soared through the air - a desperate gambit. He charged towards Orlando, only to have his weapon knocked from the air and tossed back at him.The edge of the glaive sliced easily through the thin shirt he was wearing and left a nast looking cut on his left arm.

Orlando has dealt 5 slashing damage to you with [Reflect Projectile]

“That’s the tenth round to me,” Orlando observed calmly. “Come, now. Isn’t that enough? I believe I have proved my point several times over now.” He waved a hand towards Ether, a flicker of green light pulsing in his palm as he did.

[Orlando] has cast [Silent Lesser Heal] on you!

You recovered 5 Hp

Ether said nothing more as he slowly pushed himself to his feet. Admitedly, throwing his weapon had been a pretty stupid idea, but after the way the other fights had gone, he’d been out of ideas. The smart move would probably be to give up and save himself yet another painful and embarrassing defeat.

He angrily snatched his glaive off the ground, brushing the sand of the arena floor off of it - then paused.

“Why would I give up when I’m about to win?” He called back to Orlando with a cocky grin.

The dark skinned trainer blinked at him. “Win? You haven’t even made me sweat, boy! Did you get a concussion earlier? Because I don’t think my spells can fix that.”

Ether shook his head and planted his feet firmly in the sand, gripping his weapon tightly. He dropped into a low stance, butt of the glaive held by his head while the blade stayed close to the ground. “Just one question before we start this round. How much damage did you say I had to do to win?”

Orlando laughed. “I said you had to hit me. I doubt you could deal much damage yet, Chosen. I may only be level 8, but I’m the strongest man in this valley by far.”

“So if I hit you and deal no damage at all, I still win the extra skill?”

His opponent nodded slowly, as confused as he was confident. “It would be unfair otherwise. Several of the people I’ve trained couldn’t actually damage me until they hit level 3.”

“Perfect!” Ether beamed at the befuddled trainer. “You can start whenever you’re ready.” Orlando, clearly irritated by his trainee’s sudden cockiness, leapt into battle almost as soon as he heard those words. Ether felt the Skill coming before he saw it, and jumped to avoid the [Leg Sweep] even as he plunged his glaive into the sand beneath him. He leaned back the second he hit the ground, putting his full weight and every ounce of strength he had behind the move and praying it would work.

Sand sprayed into the air as he used the glaive as a makeshift shovel, and while Orlando quickly covered his eyes, the sand hit nearly every part of him. For what felt like an eternity, the two of them stood there, frozen in place.

Then, the trainer laughed. “So that was your ploy!” He said when he finally stopped laughing long enough to speak. “Not bad, Chosen, not bad! Victory by technicality is still victory. Now, about that training…”

Congratulations!

By repeatedly bashing your head against the humanoid equivalent of a brick wall until you

… “won”, you’ve obtained [Basic Weapon Proficiency: Glaive]!

You learned the Skill [Pocket Sand]!

How prestigious. I’m sure your parents are proud.

Orlando has offered to teach you [Silent Lesser Heal]

{Yes} {No}

Orlando has offered to teach you [Reflect Projectile] Lvl 1

{Yes} {No}