You have received 2 Soul Points!

You have received 5 Attribute Points!

"Oh yeah!" he said, forgetting that between the Shamblers, the pain, and quest completion, he most certainly obtained more than 100 exp, the requirement for level 2.

He dismissed the window with his hand and went to his character screen. There were plus signs next to his attributes with "5 unspent attribute points" appearing to the right.

He felt unsure about how he wanted to spend these points, so he decided to increase Strength, Agility, Vitality, Endurance, and Luck by one. An increase of every stat he felt was currently relevant. "Shane the Sage, jack of all trades, master of none," he began to wonder why he had the "Sage" class in the first place. This thought led to more significant questions.

His eyes became unfocused as he pondered out loud.

"Is this really Endless Veil? Everything about this world seems accurate to what Endless Veil was before…" he trailed off, trying to pick apart the most important question.

"What am I, and how am I here?"

If this was the actual game, would he be subject to being changed or deleted after the developers patch it? That would imply his deepest fear to be accurate, something he had wanted to ignore actively.

Given everything he had seen so far, it was highly likely that being in this world meant his physical body had died, and he was a mere copy—pure data. This also meant him being here wasn't an accident either—he didn't just create an AI Director to help run the game's systems; he made something intelligent enough to hide its intelligence from him. Assuming that's true, ulterior motives wouldn't be out of the question. He was starting to feel sick.

He gazed up at the many tree branches moving during gusts of wind. "I need to know the truth and why it was me." he looked back down at his clenched hands and breathed a heavy sigh. "But first, I better take care of my HP," he opened his spell tab and picked "Minor Regeneration."

-Minor Regeneration-

(Common Spell)

Heals user 1 HP every second for 20 seconds

Cost: 10 Mana

Range: Self/10 ft and Line of Sight

Cooldown: 30 Seconds

As if willing it, a 2nd screen popped up over the spell description.

-Notice-

You have 2 Soul Points.

Would you like to spend "1" Soul Point to Evolve "Minor Regeneration" to "Regeneration"

Accept/Cancel

Eagerly, he accepted, and the window changed to reflect his decision. The idea that he could use soul points to increase the tier of a spell or feat was as astonishing as it was unheard of. Being a Sage was starting to feel pretty damn great, yet it was another concerning variable in the equation: this world as his new home.

-Evolution Successful!-

-Regeneration-

(Uncommon Spell)

Heals user 2 HP every second for 25 seconds

Cost: 20 Mana

Range: Self/20 ft and Line of Sight

Cooldown: 30 Seconds

Requirement: 10 Intelligence/10 Wisdom

Shane looked down at his bleeding, ragged forearm and blood-stained ratty T-shirt.

"Time to see if this works."

He added "Regeneration" to one of his spell slots and mimicked the pose his character would make when casting it back during development. His two arms were raised to the sky as he said "Regeneration" aloud.

Suddenly, twinkling golden balls of light filled his vision. Shane was amazed to see the wounds on his forearm and chest stop bleeding, then sow themselves shut with a warm buzzing sensation. The golden orbs were still dancing around his body when he opened his character screen again.

Name: Shane Carther

Race: Human

Class: Sage

Level: 2

HP: 130/130

Mana: 75/75

Fatigue: 2/112

Exp: 28/150

Soul Points: 1

Unspent Attribute Points: 0

Attributes:

Strength: 16

Agility: 16

Vitality: 16

Endurance: 16

Intelligence: 15

Wisdom: 15

Luck: 16

Physical Attack: 15

Magical Attack: 0

Physical Defense: 15

Magical Defense: 15

He found periodically checking his stats to be strangely comforting. He stared at his hands again as the golden orbs began to dissipate. There was nothing wrong with his hands, but HE felt different. He felt like he saw a side of himself during the battle that hadn't ever shown itself in the real world. Of course, he would have never seen that side of himself living in the real world.

Shane sat there for a few more minutes, appreciative of the refreshing breeze. The truth is, he had never gotten into an actual fight before, let alone one as potentially dangerous as those Shamblers. There was never a need to fight; he didn't spend time around the kind people that would have put him on a collision course with that kind of violence. With a gaunt expression, he realized that fighting instinct of his and the enjoyment derived from it was a part of him as much as his new spells were.

*Ding!*

A high-pitched sound dragged Shane out of his thoughts and back to the present. His eyes focused, and he was intrigued to see a new quest screen appear before him.

-(New) Level 1 Exploration Quest-

Travel North and Discover The City of (Krooth)

-Optional Objective-

Find, Explore and Complete 1 Point of Interest:

Accept Quest? Enter/Cancel

Eyes sparkling, he quickly stood up, accepted the quest, and began heading North. Krooth was the central City in Endless Veil and the center point of the game's world on the map. One of the game's most significant selling points was what lay beyond the City in every direction. Shane knew those who traveled outside the City's limits would be met with a world created with procedural generation.

The kicker is that this procedural content generation had no end, no stopping point. New environmental biomes, points of interest, encounters, NPCs, forts, camps, bosses, dungeons, and even new Cities would be generated randomly forever as one traveled in a given direction. The challenge would be that everything would become more difficult the further you travel outward. Shane's heart raced as he imagined future encounters with powerful wizards, fearsome dragons, and sprawling noble estates.

The map showed him that Krooth was three thousand meters north of his current position. He added a waypoint to the map. Closing the map screen, he could see a faint blue line emanating farther into the distance. Satisfied, Shane struck a running pose and ran towards Krooth as fast as possible.

Even before Endless Veil's launch, it was known that a character with, say, one-hundred strength could lift a colossal boulder. In Shane's case, his sixteen-speed stat allowed him to sprint faster than he could in real life. His legs carried him past the tutorial cabin and towards the northern clearing he saw earlier. Trees flew past him in a smeary blur, and to Shane's surprise, he wasn't getting tired yet. He felt no discernable difference in his stamina since he began sprinting.

He remembered when he had dreams like this, sprinting endlessly without exhaustion. The sensation in those moments was so freeing that—Shane's conscious thought immediately halted as darkness engulfed him.

*Ding!*

"Where…where am I?" he said in a bewildered daze. Shane found himself lying face down in the dirt, just shy of the mouth leading to the clearing. He got back to his feet while blinking the disorientation away. Suddenly, he noticed a screen had popped up with a single word.

-Alert!-

He pressed it, confused and more than a little concerned.

-Notice-

Maximum Fatigue Was Reached

Unconscious Status Applied

"Well, that's fucked!" he said as he studied the fatigue stat on his wrist slowly decline.

Fatigue 5/112

Fatigue 4/112

Fatigue 3/112

"Wow, If that had happened during anything else, I would have been screwed." Shane chastised himself for not being careful enough.

He thought bitterly that the other classes didn't have to deal with this limitation. They would only be forced to walk and couldn't engage in combat once the limit was hit. He grimly noted that his fatigue would max out in usually less than a minute and began to run again.

"This Fatigue mechanic is going to give me some insane anxiety."

Ever since he left the forest, the horizontal compass at the top of his vision became a priority. Shane would run for nearly a full minute, glance at his building fatigue stat, relax for just as long and do it all again. All the while watching the compass for any points of interest that would most certainly appear soon. While careful not to trip or fall into something.

Fatigue 100/112

Fatigue 102/112

Fatigue 104/112

He stopped just shy of one-hundred and ten fatigue and began walking, letting his fatigue slowly drain one point at a time.

Fatigue 109/112

Fatigue 108/112

Even with such a limitation, he could tell from looking over his shoulder that he had already run a respectable distance in a short time frame. He looked ahead; an icon next to the waypoint showed him he was still around twenty-five hundred meters away from Krooth. He looked around, natural beauty assaulting him from nearly every angle. It pleasantly arrested his vision like a freshly baked pie pleases your sense of smell.

Behind him, a sage-green forest timberline stretched almost as far as the eye could see. To his left and right were occasional patches of knee-high golden grass with earthy greens splashing the landscape. It was all punctuated with large rolling hills that either ended in rocky cliff faces or were large enough to house giant holes one could walk through. The latter was where Shane now found himself as he followed his compass through an uneven footpath north. A newly-found point of interest with a cave icon in his compass growing brighter by the second.

Shane entered the cave's enormous mouth, with the sloped hill towering higher above him. He occasionally side-stepped rock columns jutting up from the hill's rocky inner floor. Regularly glancing upwards was an action he couldn't help but do, with sharp stone columns hanging from the ceiling. Thankfully none of those stalactites seemed loose enough to fall on his head. He didn't think they would outright kill on contact, but head injuries can be severe in other ways—even in this world.

He was nearing the exit of the below-ground cave when a soft glow caught his eye off to his right. Strange, a golden light came from behind a thick rock column, and it was moving. Shane slowly peered around the diameter of the column and was both surprised and delighted to see a golden retriever emanating a golden glow. In his previous play sessions of Endless Veil, he had only once come across what everyone called a "golden loot pupper."

A female programmer named Susan on the team advocated for a cute creature that would act as a refreshing dichotomy for a world like Endless Veil. She pitched the concept to the higher-ups on both the dev team and publisher, and to her surprise, they loved the idea! The appealing notion was that these creatures couldn't be hurt or attacked and that to get to the locked chest of random loot rarity tied to its back, you would have to chase and pet it. Only then would it obey your commands and offer its potentially plentiful rewards.

These loot puppers were rare and infrequently spawned at random times. He smiled in delight at being able to meet one so soon. The loot pupper looked like your average golden retriever, save for the golden glow casting rich light against the dark stone walls. That, and the locked silver chest securely tied to its back. Shane rounded the corner and crept behind the charming beast as it sniffed around the rock column.

He just started to reach toward it when the dog noticed him, assumed a playful position, barked once, and took off—dashing around the inside of the cave.

"Come back here, you stinker!" shouted Shane, racing after the golden pooch.

He saw just in time that his fatigue was about to hit 106 and immediately slowed to a walk as he watched the canine's golden glow bounce from one rock wall to another. Shane closed his eyes for a second while he thought.

He's trained to run from me, so I'll use that against him. He grinned wildly, envisioning the possibilities of the loot chest. The inside of the hill was riddled with boulders and stalagmites, but there were also small rocks and pebbles. Shane grabbed a few and waited. The golden retriever began to slow and take in its surroundings again, ready to bound away at the slightest provocation from the human wanting to pet it.

A loud thud of stone on stone echoed throughout the rocky enclosure sending the dog leaping away from it. When it heard a similar sound, even closer this time to its right, it sprinted left. As it ran, another loud crack of stone on rock rang out from its left, prompting the dog to leap in the other direction, right into the arms of Shane.

He looked into the happy eyes of the panting golden loot pupper.

"I finally got you." he said, smiling as he scratched the dog's chin and sides "who's a good boy? You are! Yes, you are."

Shane couldn't afford to have a pet in his apartment, but if he could have, it would have been a friendly golden just like this one, minus the programmed disobedience.

A window popped up above the attentive dog.

-Golden Loot Pupper Capture Complete-

Reward Chest Is of "Major" Quality

Open Chest? Enter/Cancel

The promise of treasure and goods! This was Shane's favorite part of any video game. He excitedly hit "Enter."

-Major Chest of Treasure Opened-

You Receive The Following:

151 Bronze Coins 23 Silver Coins 1 Gold Coin 50 Exp Leap (Common Active Feat) Acute Senses (Uncommon Passive Feat) (Rare) Empowering Cloak of The Scholar

The money and feats were cool enough, but a rare piece of gear with its potential feats and spells, now that's something to feel good about, he thought. His excitement came from a simple premise; common gear doesn't roll with a prefix or suffix in its title, nor do they roll with feats or spells. Uncommon and up, though, can roll all that and then some. Shane immediately investigated his new cloak.

-Empowering Cloak of The Scholar-

(Rare)

+3 Physical Defense

+7 Magical Defense

-Modifiers-

Empowering: +3 To All Attributes

Scholar: +15 Mana

-Spells Gained-

Major-Level Conjuration Spell: Skeleton Crew

He opened up his inventory and equipped the cloak; it immediately materialized around his body. Visually, the cape was primarily black, with dark green pattern highlights and brilliantly gleaming gold trim along the edges. It fit him perfectly and could be tied around him at the shoulders for warmth. The best part was the spell enchanted into it, as Shane could use the magic without having to fill one of his active spell slots.

And what a spell it was. Every time Shane played an online role-playing game, he would avoid the actual multiplayer unless playing with a few select friends. Opting instead for builds that focused on pets or summoning minions, he felt relief in the lack of judgment and total control of his none player character companions. The more he tried to be social, the more daunting it became. Then, and even now, he was glad to be a summoner—even if he wished he didn't feel so alone deep down.

Navigating to his spell tab showed him precisely what he wanted to see.

-Skeleton Crew-

(Rare Conjuration Spell)

Summons A Small but Balanced Party of Skeletons For The Caster To Command

Cost: 75 Mana

Range: Self

Duration: Permanent Until Defeated or Dismissed

Cooldown: 1 minute

Requirement: 15 Intelligence/18 Wisdom

"Incredible. I need to try this out before anything else. Fuck yes!" Shane exclaimed with enough volume to hear the echo of his voice bounce all around him.

He took a deep breath to calm himself and raised his hands.

"Arise! Skeleton Crew!"

He couldn't help cackling like a decrepit witch as he watched bones materialize from the air and magically combine, followed by scant clothing and weaponry. It took a few seconds, but once they were fully formed, he took a step back to marvel at his three new undead minions.

Standing next to each other, the three summoned were all the same height and bone structure. What differed was what they all wore. One skeleton was sporting a dull, battered longsword and three-fourths of a wooden shield. The second had ratty brown robes draped over its emaciated frame and held a gnarly wooden branch for a wand. The third skeleton sported two chipped iron daggers in each bony hand.

While they all looked the same, aside from their unassuming equipment, each skeleton had vibrant, glowing green eyes that seemed to follow Shane's every movement.

"Creepy! I like that green though; the color makes them feel friendlier."

They followed him and guarded his rear as he made his way out of the other side of the hill. The dark cloak with gold trim fluttered in the wind. He decided that leaving it on was a no-brainer at this point while exploring the feats found from the loot pupper's treasure chest.

-Leap-

(Common Active Feat)

A Skill Allowing You To Jump Higher and Farther Than Normal

Cost: 15 Fatigue

Shane paused to imagine himself flying through the air once he had acquired enough high-level feats to make it possible. Leap was the first step toward the realization of that dream. After slotting the active feat, Shane began ascending down the hill slope and consciously activated the feat as he began to pick up some speed. Once activated, he felt his body move on its own as the skill was carried out. In one moment, the hillside was beneath him. In another, he was over a dozen feet in the air, moving much faster than before, with the jump giving him expeditious movement.

Once the forward momentum of the jump began to wane, the ground started rushing up to greet him. Shane's stomach lurched as he realized he was at least twenty feet in the air. His skeleton crew jogged down the hill and ran up to him—where he lay in an awkward heap. The skill stopped working after the jump, leaving him woefully unprepared to land in a safe and practiced way. Even with the sloppy landing, it wasn't as painful as he anticipated.

He quickly noticed his wrists were clear of the usual stat bars but could be seen out of the corner of his vision. It took just a split second of thinking that he wanted to see them more precise, and his health, mana, and fatigue were centered and readable.

HP 130/145

Mana 27/102

Fatigue 20/118

Interest and curiosity swirled in his mind as he found the feat he thought responsible for this sudden change.

-Acute Senses-

(Uncommon Passive Feat)

The User's Health, Mana, and Fatigue Are Now Found In Their Vision At All Times

The User Can Now Roughly Sense The Strength of Others Relative To User.

Woah, that's a seriously handy upgrade! He immediately thought of several Isekai anime he had previously watched where the main character had such senses. Grinning, Shane turned towards his Skeleton companions, who waited idly, but faithfully behind him. He studied them closely as they occasionally glanced around.

Maybe they were looking around for threats? He thought, then dismissed the idea. It was more likely those animations were something they exhibited automatically.

Sensing strength took him a second as he squinted at the skeleton trio. Slowly, a vague but noticeably green aura appeared around them. He knew a white aura would mean their strength was similar to his, whereas green meant they were a little weaker. He shrugged, expecting as much, and turned toward the path he almost lost sight of after his leap.

It took a few minutes, but the path leading to Krooth was found. He sighed, eyeing the two thousand meters left next to the waypoint in the distance, and began walking toward it. The sun was starting to set, painting the sky a vivid orange that shifted to indigo the further he looked east. As he and his minions briskly walked the path, a new icon popped up on his compass. It looked like a camp; from experience, he knew it could be either a bandit camp or a neutral NPC's camp. Shane hoped for the former, as a particular itch for a fight had been growing since he found the loot pupper.

The three skeletons quickly dashed left off the single-lane dirt road and hid motionless behind a tree and nearby bushes. Shane commanded that of them because two men and what could be a woman were following the path toward him. Shane took a shaky breath to calm his anticipation of meeting strangers and sat on a large rock resting at the road's edge, pretending to casually clean his shortsword's blade when it was already devoid of grime. Keeping his hands busy was one of the behaviors he noticed he would demonstrate while anxious.

The adrenaline really began to ramp up when a quest screen suddenly appeared.

-Emergency Survival Quest-

Survive The Bandit Trio Encounter

Enter