Xixi flashed in a small cave into existence. When she watched her surroundings she realized that there was only stone and water to see. The cave wasn’t big but provided enough space for one or two people to camp in it. The only thing hindering anybody to reach the cave was the fact that the only entrance was through the water, which seemed to be anything but calm.

“Well shit” she mumbled realizing that she would only be able to leave through the water too. Calming herself with a deep breath she closed her eyes and concentrated on opening her status window.

Status Name Titania Xixi Social Status Commoner Race Demi-Selkie Sub-race Demi-Human Age 18 Level 1 Statistics HP 24/24 Mana 22 SP 18/18 MP 22/22 Strength 5 Willpower 4 Constitution 1.8 Perception 2% Agility 3.0 Charisma 60% Base Attack 2.5 Base Defense 3.6 Skills Literacy (Advanced) Level 11 - 0% Hunting (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Cooking (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Riding (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Gathering (Basic) Level 1 - 0% First Aid (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Skinning (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Trading (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Fishing (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Toolmaking (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Survival (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Archery (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Swordplay (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Swimming (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Spells Transformation (Seal) (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Network Connect (Basic) Level 1 - 0% Spatial Rift (Advanced) Level 11 - 0% Titles none Occupations none

She was stunned at the long list of Skills, especially by the swimming skill and the transformation spell as she never bought these two. It took a few minutes for her to remember that she was a Demi-Selkie and both would be attributed to her class.

“Nice. At least that will help to leave this place” she said happily. Taking another look around she made sure that she was in fact alone before undressing and storing everything in her necklace. She then stepped next to the pool of water and entered cautiously, shuddering as the freezing cold water swapped against her bare legs. When the water reached her waist she started to swim, or rather she tried to. She was only able to swim for a pathetically short time before she was out of breath. Remembering her swimming lessons in elementary school, she turned and floated on her back in the water to gather her strength once again. It took her a few minutes before she was able to try it again.

This repeated for nearly an hour, while she was constantly able to swim for just a little longer before she stopped and left the water again.

“If the time for the seal transformation is just as short I will be unable to leave in a short amount of time…” she said to the silent cave.

But even the knowledge that she would have to stay for more time in this cave wasn’t able to let her despair. She simply used the time to look through her skills again and when she saw the «Spatial Rift» skill in her list she couldn’t stop the grinning.

Concentrating on the effect she wanted to get she said “Spatial Rift” but nothing happened. “Gosh… I should have had listened when Raven explained how to use Mana…” she groaned as she realized that she didn’t even know how to use the spells she had.

Xixi lay down, slipping her legs back into the water, as she felt herself relaxing. She closed her eyes and started to control her breathing so relax even further. Her Mother had taught her this way of starting to meditate when she had a pretty bad attack as a child.

The sounds around her got even heightened at this point, trying to distract her, but she prevailed and focused on relaxing her body and mind. It took her a few minutes, but then she slipped into her meditation, not noticing the silent ding that sounded.

Only when she stopped her meditation a few hours later did she see the messages

New Skill Rank Basic achieved Rank Advanced

she paused, looking at the messages in front of her in wonder.

In the next moment, a window about her newly acquired Skill opened up as if the system was reacting to satiate her curiosity about it.

Meditating Skill Level 12 Rank Advanced Meditating allows clearing one’s mind. Effects Health regeneration + 0.24% Mana regeneration + 0.24% SP regeneration + 0.24%

Xixi nodded smiling, even though the effect didn’t seem much and she didn’t even know her base regeneration, it was clear to her that every tiny bit of boost to her regeneration ability is positive. Another thing that made her happy was the knowledge that the system can give her the details of specific skills so she would never be stuck with a skill with unknown effects.

After her rest, she went into the water again to continue her swimming practice.

“Why can’t they do it like all the other games and simply granting me the ability to swim indefinitely like all the other games” she grumbled as she took a rest for the umpteenth time. Though to be fair she had to say that learning and practicing the skills this way was a great change to the magical appearing abilities from reading a book like the other games did. So while she grumbled about the time needed to train the body of her avatar she had to accept that she liked it.

When she realized that the light, that the water brought into the cave, was diminishing quickly did she take out her backpack from her necklace after a few tries to access the subspace. Confronted with the many item cards inside and the fast dwindling light she simply placed all the item cards on the ground and put the backpack next to them. It didn’t take long before she found the card she was looking for.

Superior Tent Item Card A tent with enough room for up to 4 people as well as a basic shelter for Mounts and Companions. It is furnished with four basic sleeping bags, a fireplace, two standing torches. The Companion shelter is fitted with a water bag and a medium sized feeding trough. Price 1,500 gold coins

It was one of the most expensive items she bought but having a decent quality shelter for herself and her companion, she wasn’t stingy. She went a few steps from the other cards away before she crushed the card, as she was expecting a medium sized tent. But the true size of it made her wonder, the companion shelter was big enough to fit six horses and even had some moveable fencing attached to it. That way one could keep the horses or other mounts inside the pen without being forced to tie them up. The tent itself was even more massive, two standing torches stood next to the entrance like guardians. An entrance big enough to let two people pass through, and the inside was divided like a small hut. In the center, the fireplace was located and four cloth walls with curtains as doors, made space for four individual rooms, each one having a sleeping bag placed inside and still having enough room to allow the user to place down a few more items to store the luggage. “That can still be called a tent?” Xixi asked surprised after her short tour through the mostly dark tent. She then went ahead and lighted up the fireplace, or at least she tried. It took her quite some time before her efforts were rewarded with a small, yet fast-growing, flame. By then it was already pitch black around her.

She took a brightly burning twig from the fireplace and used it as a torch to get the items she had left outside. Sitting back at the fireplace she looked through her cards one more time, crushing most of them one after another.

A pile of items appeared one piece after another next to her, four blankets, a full set of basic cooking utensils, four sets of dishes and cutlery. Next were the food items she bought for her companion, containing hay bales and multiple sacks of things she never heard of like eashew or perarrot. A bunch of food items followed most of them were nonperishables like cured or dried food only a few fresh things appeared. Even her drinks were mostly water skins filled up with fresh water and only a few of them contained juices and one even held alcohol. The last things to appear were a load of bandages, ointments, and tinctures.

While on her other side a much smaller pile was created containing a bow along with a quiver of arrows, a short sword, a leather armor, riding gear for her and her companion and a huge saddlebag. Leaving her with only one unused card.

Following the rumbling of her stomach, Xixi went ahead and started to cook a light dinner for herself using about half of the fresh food. After her meal she took off the removable walls from one side of the tent, leaving her with a big compartment and two smaller ones. She then moved most of her items back into her necklace, leaving some food and water as well as the blankets in the tent, before she made sure that the fire was unable to light up the tent or anything else. Finally, she placed the remaining sleeping bag, she had put the other three into her necklace as well, near the fireplace and lay down to sleep.

The next morning, she ate the leftovers from her dinner and left the tent with the last remaining card in her hand. She walked a few meters before she stopped and activated the card “Nightflash” she called out and the card disappeared from her hand while a black Horse materialized in front of her. It looked very domineering, having the same shoulder height than Xixi, it was moving its ears to hear around it before it concentrated everything on Xixi.

*ding* A message appeared in front of her.

Companion detected. Activating Companion Status window

“Hey, buddy… I’m Xixi” she said a tad nervous. She had never seen a real horse in her life but she had always dreamed to own one and to ride on it. And now she was here, even though it was only a game in the virtual reality, she owned a horse and her body won’t stop her from riding it as her avatar was healthy without the normal regulations she had to follow to take care of her fragile health.

Nightflash was standing there, not moving at all and simply watched her rather warily.

Not knowing what to do Xixi didn’t move, thinking about what she should do, when she thought of the Companion Status window. Like she wanted the screen appeared in front of her.

Companions Nightflash

She tapped on the name hopefully to get a detailed information, relieved when the screen changed.

Nightflash Race Horse Gender Male Health 25/25 Strength 8.0 Speed 7.5 Acceleration 3.0 Stamina 5.0 Agility 5.25 Awareness 75% Loyalty 0% Tack none

Seeing the 0% Loyalty Xixi thought about how to gain Nightflash’s trust. Following her mother’s saying that love goes through the stomach she started with putting down some food for him before she left him alone. She repeated this several times, always leaving a small amount of fodder for him. So when the day was over, and she again lit the fire in the tent, Nightflash started to eat the fodder that she was still holding in her hand. Even though he didn’t want to be touched yet this was a huge step forward.

She figured out a schedule to train her swimming, swordsmanship, and archery while getting Nightflash to slowly trust her. Using this schedule, she trained herself for nine days in the cave, because of the time scaling only three days had passed in the real world. Only then did she have enough stamina build up that Xixi wanted to give a try to leave this cave. When she was finished with her breakfast she started to pack up, she recalled Nightflash into his card form and placed everything into her necklace, the sole item she was still wearing at that point. Xixi took a last look to make sure she didn't forget anything. Opening the map, she checked that she had pinned the cave, as such a hidden place might come in handy in the future.

Xixi took a long breath to relax when she stepped into the water.

As she reached the deeper part of the water she took a deep breath and dived into the water. Many stones reached into the already narrow passage, making it hard for Xixi to navigate through them safely while releasing her breath in a slow and regulated manner. But she had already explored this part of the passage, so just before she was out of breath she kicked the ground under her and shot to the surface.

A deep breath entered her lungs and she took a short break floating on the water, to let her stamina recover. The next part would be the hard one, as the structure of the passage gets more and more complicated undercurrents are created, while the water was always flowing with more speed and power, making this passage work like a meat grinder.

When her stamina was topped up again she started diving again. Xixi struggled to move forward, fighting against the powerful current that tried to smash her against one of the many Stone spikes around her.

Slowly she inched forward, keeping a stable rhythm in her swimming to stop herself from being tossed around. After a few minutes of struggling she saw the end of the passage. Just as she rejoiced an especially strong current rippled through the water and tossed her back. Panic rose in her as she grabbed onto one of the spikes she missed, stabilizing her body only a short distance of a group of spikes that would greet her as soon as she let go. Xixi held on as hard as she could but the duration of her diving left her starting to feel suffocating and he strong current kept sapping her of her strength fast.

It took only a few moments before she felt the grip of her fingers unable to hold on any longer. Her face paled when she saw the spikes coming nearer at a fast pace, she forced her body to keep struggling against the current. Suddenly she felt a warm wave wash over her but she was in no state of mind to take notice of what happened. She was still forcing her body to try to move forward when her speed suddenly spiked and the feeling of suffocation eased up. The exit of the passage came into her sight rapidly as she sped ahead.

She finally reached the outside. As her head broke through the water surface she took a few deep breaths and looked around. A few meters ahead of her a boat was swimming and before she could even start to swim towards it she hears one of the people on it cry out, "A Seal! Hurry up! We need to catch it. Their hide can be sold for more than we would make in a month normally!" The voice hadn't faded jet when a spear was sailing towards Xixi, instinctively she dived into the water again.

She swam with her fastest speed away from the hunters. The spears missing their target as she dived until she reached the sea ground.

When the spears stopped, Xixi went ahead and kept diving as much as possible.

Only when she wasn't able to see the hunters anymore did she stop her head again above the surface. Finally, she could relax.

Xixi stopped for a moment when she remembered what the hunter had said... 'Seal? … SEAL!?' she looked at her reflection in the water, but instead of her human face, she was greeted by a seal with wonderful hide, having a slight black shimmer in it.

But before she could even think about it she transformed back into her human self. The transformation wasn't painful at all, it felt like something warm was traveling through her whole body, so it was rather comfortable. The fast change from one body to the other still left her uncoordinated for a moment.

Only when she had found her bearings again did Xixi start swimming again, this time the shore was her goal. It took everything from her to reach land, so when she did she collapsed onto the ground.

It was already noon when Xixi opened her eyes again. Shivering she took a blanket out of her necklace and dried herself off before she started to put the leather armor on. The armor had many straps and buckles to close up and Xixi had never before tried to wear it. This resulted in her struggling to wear it and more than just one curse could be heard from her. A couple minutes later she finally finished strapping her short sword to her belt. Her quiver was situated over her back. She then called Nightflash out. “Hey there. It’s alright…” she said calmly to pacify the stallion that radiated nerves and the readiness to fight or to flee if needed. Her voice did calm him a little bit down as he obviously stopped shifting and turning but instead concentrated on her. The saddle, with the already prepacked saddlebag, attached to it, flashed into existence together with a blanket and the bridle. Slowly, just like in her training, she first placed the folded blanket on Nightflash’s back, walking around him once to make sure it was placed correctly so that he won’t get any chafe or pressure marks from the saddle. She then picked the saddle up, and heaved it with a grunt over his back, placing it on top of the blanket. She checked that the saddle rested correctly on both sides and that nothing folded up in the process before she buckled it up. Lastly, she put the bridle on his head, closing all the small buckles after making sure it was placed correctly.

Holding the reins loosely as the two started to walk towards their next adventure.