Please Note: Statements between % something in italics % are game system messages.

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Swamy lifted his head from the test he was writing. They had found that today was a surprise test day. He thought about how to answer the questions, which asked for an opinion or an argument, rather than a correct answer. Virtual reality was a complex and deep subject involving as much of the psychological as the physical aspects. After all it was not only a discussion of how to apply physical laws on to the virtual reality, but it was also a question of how much to limit it by those laws. For example, games allowed people to fly. If you followed physical laws you would need to have hollow bones to make you lighter and a streamlined body structure like a bird. Unless ofcourse you had the ability to turn into a jet plane or a bird using metamorphosis. Which became another argument of limiting the laws.

It was this flexibility that allowed people to separate reality and virtual reality adding imagination in their concept of world creation.

Though if you have open ended questions like, 'describe your feelings' or 'how do you think', it became more of a matter of psychology than science.

Swamy finished writing. He checked his answers for any mistakes and read it again to make sure his point was coming through in the answers. After making a couple of changes, he read it again. Satisfied, he stood up and walked towards the teachers desk with his answer sheet in his hand. He put it on the desk and walked out of the classroom. He breathed a sigh of relief coming out and headed to the cafeteria. They had free period next, as the prof had come down sick, so classes would resume after lunch.

In the loud and noisy cafeteria, he soon found a group talking loudly having four of the loudest people he had met. Even the girls seemed to shout out their opinion across the table at times. Swamy simply took a seat next to them and opened his lunch.

"Ah homemade as always Swamy. Your Aunt must dote on you."

"Yeah, she is really nice too."

And with the short comment they began their loud discussion on the test. That too, soon changed as all of them finally realized that they would have to agree to disagree. And the talk switched to Long Island.

"I finally learned cooking!" said Himali. "It was really hard to impress the old man Goffam, the cook I got the quest from, but I finally succeeded with an apple pie."

"Congrats. Ah I wish I have your luck. I have been trying to learn tailoring but so far no success. Rajan got his quest from a different tailor and he's succeeded already. Maybe it is easier to learn from some people than the others." Sneha complained.

"Could be. I also haven't impressed the blacksmith so far, maybe I will give up and get the quest from some other blacksmith." Manish agreed.

"You can't do that. Didn't you read the posts? I guess you didn't. Once you get a skill quest from one, you cannot get the same skill quest from any other, even if you drop it. They simply don't agree. Ofcourse I don't know if this rule applies to npcs of other locations but in the village, once you start to learn from one, no other blacksmith will allow you to learn from them. You have to go back to the one you started with. Don't know why, but they would like exclusive student teacher relationships, I guess." the information house of our group Rajan spoke.

"Are you serious!! Man that sucks big time!"

"Yeah, this guy learned first hand and posted. It looks like a lot of people were on the verge of dropping and some actually did and were trying at other places, but this post changed everything. Its the most popular post in the forums right now."

"So you are stuck with the npc you choose till you learn or drop! And like if you can't get out of the village, you can't know if you can learn from somewhere else. So you can't drop it either!"

"Ah! That's harsh Manish. We will now have to choose who we learn from carefully. So what other information you got Rajan?" asked Himali.

"Hmm, lets see.." saying which he got out his cellphone and started to look at his information notes as he called it. "There seems to be a lot of people joining the battle schools and magic schools, and they say that learning is pretty hard as well. Battle school is pretty difficult in itself and requires you to hit the dummies with instructors coming in and helping with their forms occasionally. But most of it is hitting the training dummies. No information of anyone having got the strength stat."

He looked at a bit more ...

"Ah this is the one I wanted to talk about. Magic is different in this game. Seems like it is not based on Intelligence like other games as we all got that stat. Also there seems to be an age limit of 9 to enter the magic school. But those who join do not immediately learn magic. They are given books to read. A lot of stuff about channeling and perceiving, etc which I didn't understand. And they have to train their body as well for some reason."

"So did anyone learn magic already?"

"Hmmm well the post only says so much. The girl who posted it is still doing the reading. Though a few people should have reached age 9 by now. In any case, it will be interesting what people do find when they actually learn magic.

Oh! and there seem to be people putting up price lists of all items in all the starting villages. It seems like the economy might rise as people have started earning money."

"As expected of the information house. Good job Rajan!" Sneha said teasingly.

Swamy listened to everything as usual, not saying much.

Swamy excused himself, saying he had to go somewhere for a while and left the table.

"Alright see you later in class, Swamy!" and everyone went back to their talks.

Swamy started walking towards the sound rooms in the music department. He had gotten some extra time today and he thought of practicing a bit more. He was still age 5 in the game. Infact his age hadn't increased since he left the village. And he still hadn't learned cooking or flute till now. He did feel that impressing Lady Altia was tough. She never complained about the food, so Swamy could never say what was wrong with it. Another of those things he will realize as he experiments. And ofcourse playing the flute seemed to get harder as he kept remembering Lady Altia's notes of that night.

But so far Swamy had never thought of changing teachers. Even if he hadn't found out about this restriction he would still have tried to impress Lady Altia. Which is why he was practicing in that empty sound room, in the extra time he got. And what's more his training in the game had got doubled.

Swamy shuddered a little as he remembered the last two weeks. Ever since Lady Altia decided to double his training, two weeks in real life had passed. And on every day of those two weeks, he discovered a new kind of hell.

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Raka was trying to block for his life.

The first time sparring after he got the strength stat, Lady Altia was surprised at his sudden increase in power. Every strike he made went 'THWACK' instead of the light 'thump' it was making earlier.

"Oh how wonderful!! Seems like I can start really training you!" saying which she now started to counterattack. Raka had to constantly move to strike and block. If he didn't block, he would get hit. If he stopped striking, she would start increasing her speed and he would get hit. In a side effect, his Endurance increased.

'Its quite painful', Raka thought looking at his increasing Endurance stat. Ofcourse to keep increasing it, he had to always experience pain which Lady Altia delivered in increasing effectiveness. Everytime he thought that the pain had lessened, like she knew, she struck a little harder than before and the pain continued.

By now they had moved on to complex movements with both sides blocking and striking and side steps to avoid. Atleast he was doing that. Lady Altia seemed to not care and simply blocked. He moved to strike another time, when she pointed her stick towards him and moved back a step as he was about to connect. And as soon as his staff passed downwards, she moved forward hitting him on the chest like piercing with a sword. Raka grunted in pain and took a few steps back and immediately raised his staff to block her second attack.

"How did you like that? This move requires precision but if you do it correctly, your opponents attack becomes your attack."

"Y..yes Master!"

"Alright then your turn."

THWACK and Raka got hit on the head.

"Judge your distance well, your opponent is moving towards you after all!"

And so on so forth the training continued. He really regretted not learning martial arts before; he could have saved himself a lot of pain.

Ofcourse he still had to climb the hill, like 10 times now and practice his forms for double the time apart from all the sparring. It went on for almost two weeks in real life, almost a month and a half in the game. And this time, Lady Altia never missed the day he would log in. Even when he came in early, he would find her sitting there or practicing her sword waiting for him.

Not that it made it any better. Sometimes he even thought fighting that one horned rabbit a couple of times might be better than this.

So two weeks after, Raka was still sparring with Lady Altia.

He moved his staff fluidly blocking, dodging and striking, being blocked and then moving again to block or dodge. He was getting into a rhythm now and his staff rotated, revolved, struck and pushed onto his opponent when he suddenly side stepped, and charged holding his staff like a knight lance, at the very end. This sudden movement caught Lady Altia by surprise and he thought that it might finally hit her, when she took a step to the side and completely dodged it. A return THWACK and he was pushed to his knees by the pure force he felt on his staff as he blocked, and then Lady Altia disappeared. The next moment he felt intense pain from his back where she struck and he fell down face up.

"Wonderful!! That strike back there was quite nice. Seems you have absorbed the training well. Now get up!"

Raka struggled on to his feet and raised his staff at the ready. He knees wobbled from the strain but his eyes said, he won't give up.

Lady Altia looked at him with smiling eyes.

"Trainee Raka. Please stand at attention!" she said in a formal tone.

Raka stood in attention holding his stick to the side.

"Trainee Raka. I hereby declare that you have successfully completed the level 1 warrior training course of the Ilmentia nation, Gurrow village Battle training school! Congratulations!"

"Thank you Master....um Lady Altia" Raka added trying to keep to the formal routine.

"Tell me, what is a warrior's objective?"

Raka thought for a bit.

"To do good in the world!"

"And how do you define what is good and bad?"

"Um by the people you protect!"

"But what if the people you want to protect, engage in war and you have to kill people "

"Um....I don't know!"

"So what is the warrior's weapon?"

Raka thought of answering staff, sword, etc but he didn't feel that was the right response in this situation.

"I don't know!"

"Exactly. For a warrior, right and wrong are just two sides of the same coin. After all, right for one will mean wrong for the other. A warrior's primary weapon is strength not power. If you look at it, even someone weak as you can kill a one horned rabbit when it is injured. Do you feel guilty that you have killed someone or something that tried to end your life. You don't. Do you feel scared! Ofcourse you do. But you retain the ability to move. That is strength.

Power will come as you grow older and wiser. Your strength comes from within.

A warrior's true value lies in the strength he has, the courage to use that strength and the will to improve. We call this a warrior's honor! When you receive anything from a warrior you respect, you always accept it with honor."

"So I offer, again, my congratulations trainee Raka!"

Raka knew he was supposed to say something. He felt the clue to be in the words he had just heard. Deciding, he replied.

"I accept your congratulations with honor!"

Lady Altia smiled once again.

"By the way this is also the school motto and its tradition. When you receive anything from the school, you always say that you accept it with honor" said Lady Altia returning to her usual tone of voice.

"Now that its over, lets return back to the village. He he he, and now that I think about it, we still don't know how fast you can run back to the village now, do we!" and Raka could swear her eyes were twinkling!!

He shivered. He could almost pity the next poor soul who gets trained by her.

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The guards at the gate of Gurrow village looked at the distance at a dirty torn toga clad young man who seemed to run like someone had set fire behind him. He was running like if he didn't get to the safety of the village, something dangerous might gobble him up. The guards at the tower who noticed him first, raised the alarm and about ten guards came ready carrying long spears and clad in armor. They got in formation in front of the gate hoping to stop whatever was chasing that young man. The guard captain climbed on to the guard tower to have a better look. He looked for quite a while, and then called everyone inside and ordered them back to their jobs. This was not a danger to the village.

'Well if it was, its not like these greenhorns can handle her' chuckling the guard captain returned back to the guard office.

Raka saw the village gates in front of him as he smiled. His ordeal was over or atleast that's what he thought.

'Now in reflection it wasn't so bad. It had a lot of painful moments, but I raised a lot of my stats and there were some pleasurable moments as well' thought Raka thinking about the cooking, the flute playing and ofcourse the bath. It seemed that Lady Altia liked to take a bath once in a while, and at the hill, the lake enjoyed her company and Raka, who waited for such moments.

'Well it wasn't so bad after all. But I should look forward to a new day!'

Raka entered the village.

%

You have grown. Your Age is now 9.

Age restriction applied.

%

'My age has increased by 4? And what's up with the age restriction?!'

"Master, is there a restriction of age for leaving the village?"

"Hmm, yes there is."

"What is the restriction?"

"Oh anyone below 14 cannot leave the village. The monsters around here are strong so they would not be able to handle them."

'Eh! But he got out at age 5.'

"Um master, how did I get out?"

"He he he now that's a secret. But I guess you will find out sooner rather than later. I will let Verina handle that."

"Does it have something to do with Lady Verina?"

"Hush now, you always ask so many questions. Be patient, lil eggplant."

Raka was pleasantly surprised to hear her call him 'lil eggplant'. A while ago she had stopped calling him that. It was not like he missed it, but hearing it again felt nice.

'So all roads lead to Lady Verina.' Seems like she had most of the answers he wanted.

When Raka had left Gurrow village, the village street was empty. Everyone was holed in the library trying to learn the language of the island. When he came back, he saw so many people, bustling about here and there. Raka had been following the forums so he knew that people were looking for quests and learning skills. However to see so many people all of sudden after spending so much time alone or with Lady Altia, left him shocked. And a little disoriented. He did not know where to go like he had forgotten where everything was. Lady Altia gently patted him waking him up from his shock. They walked together to their destination, the Battle school.

They reached the school and entered. As he expected he saw several players hitting the training dummies with their staff. Nathan and the other instructors made rounds to check once in while and correct their forms and so. Some people were pretty good, moving naturally, while others seem to be learning from the beginning as Raka had.

'These must be the ones who know martial arts in real life. Knew I should have learned as well!' thinking this and that, they proceeded inside. Raka also headed to the training ground with Lady Altia as if it was natural.

"Ah Lady Altia, you are back!" greeted the instructors as they noticed them. Even some of the students bowed and greeted her, "Welcome back Lady Altia!"

"Hello everyone, how is it going?" She replied at their greetings.

"Everything is fine! We were expecting you to come today. There are a couple of messages but none of them important", said Nathan when he finally realized that Raka was standing behind her.

"Ah, and who is he? Is he a new trainee? Boy, you forget your manners!"

Raka inwardly laughed at the irony and simply bowed and greeted him.

"Hello, Nathan".

"Eh, you know my name. Has it become famous already! And what is up with your clothes. You look like you came up from the hills....." saying which Nathan closely looked at him. And then he was shocked enough to let his mouth hang open.

The other instructors and students all looked at his strange behaviour!

"My Goddess, you are alive! I thought you had disappeared forever!" finally realizing who he was. Ofcourse Raka didn't expect Nathan to remember him, for he had only seen him for a few minutes. But he was glad that he did.

"I survived with honor!" said Raka and Nathan and the other teachers understood.

"And with lots of luck!" he added as an afterthought at which the Nathan and others laughed. Even Lady Altia smiled proudly. Or that's what he hoped. He was never sure when the devil might make a visit.

"Congratulations Raka!" and the other instructors finally remembered that day when one toga clad of Goddess's children had come asking for training from Lady Altia and she had accepted.

'I think they did not expect me to return!' he thought looking at the instructors faces.

"He he he well anyway, my student is still alive and as you see well enough. Though he looks a little forlorn in those ragged clothes. Nathan, do you think we can manage to give him some slightly better ones?" Lady Altia asked while smiling. Nathan nodded as if he understood, but replied,

"I am sorry. As we did not expect him, we did not prepare. It will take a little while Lady Altia."

"Hmmm. It cannot be helped. Even I wasn't sure till today."

Then she turned towards Raka and said,

"Well Raka, I am sorry but it looks like you will have to visit the battle school again for your graduation formalities. I will send out word later when we are ready."

"Alright!" Raka nodded. He wasn't going anywhere anyway. He thought to visit the magic school after this.