It was eerily quiet. Bones circled the bodies once, then observed his surroundings. He was on a small open clearing, grass up to his knees, surrounded by the forest. His mind drawing blank, he didn't think much of what happened. He knew he probably should have but he didn't.

I wasn't exactly what you would call a sentimental person before, but I'd still feel something, shame at least.

He looked intensely at the corpses, the way they were dressed, equipped and finally their faces twisted in surprise, shock and horror.

ding

You have learned a new skill: Identify

Irina, Priest lvl 5, dead

Mitras, Mage lvl 5, dead

Anna, Archer lvl 6, dead

Validas, Guardian lvl 6, dead

He supposed he should feel something about getting a new skill, happiness maybe, but it wasn't a time nor a place. Identify revealed a priest and mage to have been lvl 5, archer and the guardian lvl 6. He bent down over one of the bodies and started searching. He looted the hood of the mage and boots, gloves and leather armor of an archer. He found a small pouch where he counted 2 gold, 43 silver and 20 copper coins. Amount small considering their quantity. He wasn't sure if that could be considered a lot or not but he leaned on not. Their weapons could be useful and he bent down and reached for a mace next to the body of its previous owner. He picked the mace up and mulled over where he could store it on his body. As he was thinking about it, mace disappeared from his hand. Leaving only the tiniest wisps of blue sparks in front of him. Bones spun around, narrowing his eyes at every dark patch he saw, looking for something, anything.

What just happened? It just disappeared in front of me. One moment the mace was in my hand and the next...

Right as he was about to finish his thought, a mace appeared in his hand.

“What in the world…”

He opened up his notification and read what just happened.

Item: Mace [common] stored in inventory

He thought about storing the item and it disappeared from his hands again.

“Inventory.”

A new screen appeared, looking a bit different than his usual screen.

Inventory 1/8

Mace x1

“This is…a dimensional space the core was referring to. It was a storage place to hold items?” He said but his expression was that of bewilderment and amazement.

Just when I was thinking of where to hold my items…

Taking a deep breath, he started picking up items he deemed useful and storing them in his inventory.

He left their bodies to the beasts and continued his way across the open field back into the cover of the trees.

He knew he had new notifications but he just didn't feel like looking at them. Eventually, he relented. New levels meant more power so he opened and read them as they came.

Combat experience gained

Combat experience gained

*

*

Level up!

Congratulation, you are now level 8

+1 STR, +2 VIT +2 INT

Level up!

Congratulation, class Bonemancer is now lvl 5

You have learned a new skill: Mend Bones

Level up!

Congratulation, class Bonemancer is now lvl 6

He stopped in his tracks. He was halfway to lvl 8 but the amount of exp needed to reach the next level was far from what four kills should net. He was right before, he was awarded experience for each of his actions and additional experience was rewarded for killing humans. He frowned just thinking about being rewarded for the killings and even more so that it didn't bother him as much as it should have. As for the skill.

Mend Bones (basic) - Grants the ability to mend broken bones. Rate at which bones mend depends on mana spent and is affected by the VIT and WIS attributes.

It was clear what the skill did. Mending, what he now needed, probably the most. He noticed his health points never regenerated to his max hp pool ever since he took damage. All the nicks, cracks and scratches against bones, never fully healed by normal regeneration.

He used the skill and the new feeling overcame his body. A pleasant and serene feeling as green mana mixed with typical blue one flowed through his body, fixing every little nook and cranny all those hits made. A minute later, he was at max hp once again and his bones, good as new. His mana on the other, dropped by a third. Seems this new ability of his and the convenience of mending wouldn’t come lightly.

He climbed the nearest tree and continued hopping from tree to tree. He encountered more than one adventuring party consisting anywhere from three to five party members and occasional solo adventurer. Solo adventurers mostly fought monsters below their level and equal level while parties were fighting monsters and beasts up to three levels higher than them. He kept hidden and followed adventurers from a distance for a day when he decided he had seen enough.

No adventurer was below lvl 5 and they were used to fighting monsters. They all looked young, fresh out of school which wasn't far from the truth. They had stances and tactics drilled into them, but inexperience was easy to spot. He was seeing more and more adventurers meaning he was nearing the end of the forest, or was it the start of the forest?

Continuing his direction west he engaged in fights versus monsters whenever he could. Few monsters being lvl 7 and one even his lvl, putting up quite the fight. Eventually he gained another level in class and was close to gaining level in a race. Overleveling every monster he had seen on the way, he noticed that killing monsters more than two levels lower than his own, just wasn't worth the time or the effort, given the combat experience gained.

Few hours later he was standing on the branch of a tree, overlooking a group of adventurers preparing a camp for the night. Dozens of scenarios were going through his head about how to approach and how his last approach could repeat itself. Eventually he decided his last approach was the correct one and it wouldn't have failed if he was fully covered. He adjusted his gloves, pulled up his boots and lowered his hood. His face was covered with straps of clothes from…never mind where from. Only tiny slits were visible where his empty eye sockets would be, radiating a baleful blue light from within.

*sigh* “Here we go again."

“Ahem, greeting adventurers! I mean you no harm!”

As expected, suddenly appearing got everyone tensed and in a stance to battle. Unlike the first time, no one was yelling and charging at him. So far, so good.

“Stop right there! Don’t come any closer!” Shouted a woman at the front, wearing chainmail and a two handed battle axe.

“Alright, here is fine right? Good. I mean you no harm like I said. I’d like to join you in the camp over the night if it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle. All sorts of beasts are lurking in the night and there's safety in numbers.”

It sounded reasonable and every group member turned to the last member standing behind them. It was another woman with dark long hair wearing a purple robe, pointy hat and holding a staff pointed in his direction. She watched him for a few more seconds and then relaxed, moving the staff away from his direction.

“Sure, you can join us. My name is Less, these four are my party members. Norris, Nica, Kate and the one still baring her teeth your way is Anna, our frontliner.” She said with a smile.

While others greeted him back, Anna snorted, ignored him and walked away.

“Don’t mind Anna, Berserkers are like that. Short fuse and bad at socializing.” Provided an explanation, the only male member in a team, Norris.

They started a fire, or more accurately Less started it by snapping her fingers. She, turned out, was a fire mage, a leader of the party and the highest level here at lvl 10. Others were lvl 9 and they seemed like a pretty capable and balanced party. Their whole party was focused on offense with Anna at the front keeping enemies at bay with her wild and wide swings of her battle axe. All of them had uncommon classes with a Ranger having minor healing ability. Understandably, they wouldn’t go into details about their classes and abilities with a complete stranger so Bones continued his questioning about the nearest town, adventurers and adventuring guild. His questions, however, raised eyebrows and everyone was showing puzzled and rather surprised expressions.

“Nearest town is Westbrook, half a day of walking from here. How do you not know this? And what do you mean by “what are adventurers” and “what is an Adventurers Guild?”

Nica answered, all puffed up. Apparently, such information was common knowledge and Bones was...forced to come up with an explanation on the spot. His story? Would be of a young mage wannabe from afar village whose village was burned to the ground by…lets say bandits, with him being a sole survivor, now seeking revenge. As he was telling the story his voice became more silent until they couldn’t hear him anymore. Party members listening to a story all looked at each other and nodded in agreement.

“It’s fine, Mr?”

“Jones.” Bones replied after mulling it over for a second.

“Mr. Jones, you don’t have to say anything anymore. We understand how you feel, most of us lost someone close to us too. Either from monster attacks or bandit attacks.”

He played the part perfectly. Hopefully no one noticed he avoided answering why he didn’t know about Adventurers Guild. There was only so much bulls*it he could come up with.

“Let me start from the town of Westbrook. Situated in the western region of our kingdom. You do know about our kingdom of Wezar?” Nica asked.

“Of course, of course, please continue!” For the love of...stop questioning me so much.

“Right. Westbrook is a small town governed by the branch of Adventurers Guild. Foremost, it’s purpose was to stop monster surges in this region from reaching the middle kingdom. The zone we’re in right now is a part of the training grounds for lower lvl adventurers to gain experience and level skills. Deeper in the forest, both south and southwest from here, the monsters are way above our lvl and mountains in the distance make up for a natural border between us and desolate lands and…”

“Booooring!” Anna interrupted

“Keep it short! He doesn’t need a history lesson, just give him facts about a guild. Rest he can find and read in the guilds library yeah?”

“Ah sorry, I got carried away…”

“No no it’s fine. I’ll make sure to visit the library. What can you tell me about adventurers guild then, facts would be nice.” Bones said with a grin while turning his head to Anna.

“Adventurers Guild is considered to be the most powerful among the guilds and is also the oldest one. Records show that the guild was founded before the creation of the system and its purpose was the same ever since. To protect our world from monsters and invaders!”

“Right, invaders, mhm.” I am definitely going to have to visit the library…

As promised, Nica was nice to summarize short facts about the guild, about what they do and why they do it. Bones also got some questions about the system answered. Mainly about attributes, classes and skills in general. Attributes are as described in what they do and how they affect the user. In short, he was glad he didn’t put any of his free points into strength and dexterity. It wouldn’t affect him much because he had no body to temper but bones, and intelligence should be the stat he should continue to focus on. With a point in WIS when he felt he needed more regeneration.

Classes were first available at lvl 5 which he knew and at lvl 25 he would be given a choice to upgrade his first class or even select a new one, if he met the requirements of course. Same with levels in race. He would have to check in the guilds library as to what those would be. Next upgrade after lvl 25, would be at lvl 50 and then again at lvl 75. As for the second class? He would be free to choose one at any point as long as he met the requirements. At lvl 99 the user is capped and the only way to advance further would be to Ascend, to which no record is written as to how exactly. Beginner classes are mostly classified as common and uncommon with occasional rare classes. The classification wasn’t done by the system but was considered as general knowledge according to how frequently classes appear. There’s no limit to classes but with each new class, experience gained was reduced. Nica warned that taking an additional class so early could gimp the progress of the main class and that there was a proper time when to learn a new class.

Skills on the other hand, do have a limit. They are limited by the skill points that are gained per class level, which he completely missed to notice. Until lvl 25, he would gain a skill automatically every 5 levels at the cost of 1 skill point per skill. At lvl 25 he would be provided with a skill of his choice. Additional skill points could be used to forcefully upgrade the level of a skill.

“Thank you for the explanation. Our village was a small one and the only ones who could teach were the elders of the village. I have noticed, fighting higher level monsters provide more experience?”

“Of course! System expects us to challenge ourselves and rewards are for doing it. Increased experience, increased skill proficiency and better loot are some of the bonuses provided by killing higher level enemies than yourself.”

“Alright that's enough for today. It's gotten dark and we are waking up early. Go to bed.” Scolded Less.

She was right. The night has fallen without even Bones noticing. Women shared a bigger tent and Norris had his own. Everyone went to their tents and into their sleeping bags, leaving bones outside wandering what to do. They offered him an extra tent and he gratefully accepted, but he had no need for sleep. Only fatigue he felt in the last few days was a mental one and meditation was all it took to get rid of it. So he got up, entered his tent, sat cross-legged and entered meditation.