Chapter 2: The Village of Sed

Once the welcome voices resounded, Xeno’s sight turned completely white. After a few seconds, he regained his vision and found himself in the plaza of the village. He looked around amazed as he saw the citizens swimming about the village doing their businesses. There were Maomer in stalls made of coral selling fish and clams, there were a few selling coral weapons and armor, there were even a few selling jewelry made of pearls.

But these sights of commerce were of little consequence to Xeno. What really amazed him were the houses built with sand and coral. They all looked like sandcastles, but the kind built by professionals. Each was like a work of art, yet the people here moved on with their lives. They must’ve gotten used to the sights in this village already.

Xeno took a moment to take in the sight, before calming down.

“Okay, this place looks cool, but I need to figure out what I’ll be doing here first… Let’s see… Rules of the Adventurer #1 – explore all options, was it? I think that was it… To explore all options, I would first need to know the options available to me in this place, which means physical exploration of this place… Hmm… Might as well fill up the details of this village in my map in its entirety, or at least as close to its entirety as possible.”

Having decided his course of action, Xeno opened the MAP and saw that while most of the village was still obscured and without detail, the outline of the village was already drawn; the plaza where he was now also appeared in the map, only clearer and with more detail. The plaza was around the south of the village, so Xeno decided to head in that direction first.

“Oh? Huh, feels no different that walking on the surface, there’s no resistance… Maybe it’s because of my Water Affinity?” – Xeno mused as he walked southwards.

The houses on the way were the same as the ones in the plaza, as such soon enough Xeno felt the same as the others of this village in regards to the houses. He got used to them pretty quickly… The way to the village’s border was filled entirely with houses, no shops or any sort of other building. However, at the far end of the street, next to a wall that separated the village from the outside, was a large black building. Xeno felt that it was ominous, until he saw some Maomer exit the building and realized what it was.

The Maomer that were in the building were tall and more buff that the ones he had seen so far. They wore seemingly heavy shell armor and carried blatantly large spears, they also had a belt with nets fastened to them, guards Xeno realized. There was also another Maomer present who wore silver shell armor and carried a Trident and kept instructing the guards, a commander Xeno guessed.

“This will be a good place to come to if I decide to train my melee skills, but I’m not sure if I want to become a Warrior yet…”

He continued to watch as the guards opened the gate that was in the wall and exited. The gate remained open, so I walked towards it and looked outside. There, the guards were fighting what looked like a large crab-like monster. It was trying to pinch the guards with its pincers and had managed to snap the spear of one of them that tried to block the attack with it. Not only this, but the spears of some were being broken when they tried to pierce the crab’s shell. Xeno watched for a bit and sighed at the guards.

“The weakness of crustaceans is their underbelly… Attacking their hard shell will only cause the reflection of the force they apply on their attacks onto their weapons…” – Xeno murmured.

“True, these younglings still need more training. What would you have had them do?”

“Probably use those nets to immobilize the pincers between two of them while the rest work on turning the crab on his back.” – answered Xeno without noticing he was talking to someone.

“Oh, a good strategy indeed, but those crabs can rip the net to shreds.”

“That would be inconsequential if the nets are wrapped around the outside of the pincers, outside of their cutting reach…”

“True, true… I take it you have experience in combat?”

Xeno’s eyes opened wide as he realized he wasn’t talking to himself, but in fact to someone else. He nervously turned to see that the Commander was right beside him, watching the guards face off against the crab as he pressed his back against the wall.

Noticing Xeno’s expression, he laughed loudly.

“I guess not, or else you’d have felt my presence, but you do have an eye for battle.”

“I’ve read a lot about the creatures of this world and how to deal with them…” – Xeno answered shyly…

“You don’t say? Well, want to take a gander at that crab?” – the commander extended his trident at Xeno, but he answered.

“Sorry, sir. My combat ability is lacking as I’ve just arrived at this world.”

“No problem, child. Those troops are initiates with most likely less fighting experience than even you. Well, they are fighting that crab, but until they defeat it, it doesn’t count as experience. Besides, it was pretty obvious you just arrived, Outworlder.”

Xeno felt the term a bit tasteless, curious as to how it was obvious and asked the Commander, who answered to his surprise:

“We Maomer swim whenever we move from one place to another, unless what we are searching for is near the ground, but you were walking, not swimming.”

Xeno facepalmed and groaned.

“Hahaha, don’t feel so down; they say the most obvious things are the ones that escape people.”

“Sigh, right…”

“Anyways, as I said before, your battle skills are about equal to the ones of those kids over there, don’t belittle them. See for yourself.” – he once again extended the trident towards him.

“Fine, I’ll try it out, but don’t expect me to be a battle prodigy.” – Xeno said as he took the trident.

“Don’t worry kid, I know you aren’t a prodigy. You’re just smarter than those kids, which is much more valuable in battle than being a prodigy.” – he said smugly.

While Xeno doubted his words at face value, he decided to just accept what he had to do. He looked back at the Crab and saw that only two of the remaining Guards still had useful Spears while the rest were trying to get the Crab’s attention. Still, none of them used the nets on their belts…

Xeno sighed one last time before swimming towards them, trident in hand. He noticed that swimming here is much easier than in other Terminals he had played in, but placed it due to his aquatic race and his webbed limbs.

When the guards saw him, they were relieved, but then confused as they saw the one wielding the trident was not their commander, but someone unknown.

“Don’t stop! You’ll get killed like that!”

The guards reacted and moved away in time to dodge the pincers.

"Whew… Luckily no one died; else this battle would be even harder with the moral.” – Xeno murmured to himself.

He got closer to the swimming guards and said loud enough for them to hear him.

“Tie up his pincers!”

“With what?!” – answered one of them.

“Your FREAKING nets!” – told him Xeno, slightly annoyed now.

The guard facepalmed and took out his net and tried to get close to the crab, but he couldn’t do so as each time he got too close the crab moved backwards and pinched at him. Seeing that this would take too long, Xeno swam towards one the guards that was trying to catch his breath.

“Give me your net for a moment, please.”

The guard complied in between breaths and Xeno swam around the guards will he was behind the crab. Then he swam as fast as he could towards the crab, which was occupied with the guard that was trying to rope him. When he got close enough, he grabbed at the top of the crab’s shell and began to tie the net around the shoulder of one of the pincers.

"Damn, this is harder than I thought… Damn it!” – Xeno kept trying to tie the net together, but every time he tried to force his hands to wield the net his hands hurt quite a lot. Now he realized why the Maomer had such crappy Dexterity, their webbed hands got in the way of delicate work! Xeno kept trying to recreate an old knot he practiced some time ago, but not only did he not keep practicing the knot, but his webbed hands kept getting in his way.

By this point the Crab had stopped paying attention to the guard and tried to pinch at Xeno, but he was too far from its reach from atop his shell. The guard took the opportunity to dash at the other pincer and tied the pincer from the bottom, crappily. The crab quickly snapped at him with the pincer Xeno was trying to tie and then cut the badly tied net away from the pincer, freeing it. The guard seemed to be despairing.

Xeno finally finished the knot he was working on and started to tie up the other arm. Seeing that the arm was not restrained by the net, the crab ignored the rider on top of it and went after the guard. However, tying the second knot went more easily than the first time now that Xeno grew accustomed to the pain in his palms and had remembered how to tie this particular knot; Xeno had finished.

Xeno stood atop the crab and pulled a portion of the net with all the strength he had. The crab’s arms were forced upwards and he was unable to move them. It started to get panicked as Xeno tied the net once more to ensure the crab would be unable to rip off the net easily. When he was finished, he let go of the net, but the movement of the running crab was too much and he flew off from the crab and was left floating in the water, upside down.

Xeno quickly straightened himself with difficulty as he watched the crab run after the guards, attempting to crush them under its weight. Xeno shouted then:

“Everyone! Together in a single group!”

The guards, seeing the net tying the crab, didn’t doubt him and got together in a single spot. The crab ran towards them like a truck. The guards started to get nervous.

“Don’t separate, hold your ground and take the hit with your hands!”

The guards were now freaked with the idea of taking the hit from this crab, but there was no longer any time to dodge. They placed their hands in front of them. The crab smashed at them, causing them to slide backwards in the sand, but they managed to hold their ground.

“Now flip that crab over!”

The guards took hold of the crab’s underside, instinctively following the order, and flipped the crab in one swift motion. The crab, not helpless with its arms tied up and his legs in the air, kept wiggling his legs with all the energy it had.

“ATTACK!"

The guards didn’t need that instruction anymore, but they felt a surge of fury as they attacked the crab that had been playing around with them all this time; those that still had their spears intact, stabbed at the crab’s chest while the rest punched at him. Soon, the crab was in critical condition and died.

While the guards celebrated their victory, Xeno swam back to the commander and said while extending the trident back towards him.

“Well, that went better than I expected.”

“Yep, you might not have needed the trident after all.”

Xeno looked at him strangely the said: “Wasn’t the trident the reason why they listened to me in the first place?

“Hahaha, not at all. Once again you prove yourself an Outworlder, we Maomer have strong ties of family with members of our race and will treat all members of our race kindly, even Outworlders. They would’ve followed you if only to give you a chance.”

“Ah… So it was like that, huh…”

“Anyways, I’d like to thank you for helping me teach those kids a lesson here. They are quite strong for Maomer, but they aren’t quite up to standards in terms of Intelligence, so they needed this lesson badly.”

“So that’s why you had me sent to help them…” – Xeno said understanding.

“Yep. Well, for a reward how about just keeping this trident here. It will most likely come in useful, regardless of whether you become a warrior or not.” – he gave back the trident to Xeno.

“Thanks, errr…”

“Oh, hahaha! It seems we forgot to introduce ourselves before! Name’s Sion, Lancerknight of Sed.

“Ok, thanks Sir Sion. Mine’s Xeno.”

“Very well Xeno. If you want to know of a good career path for you, you might want to ask Ol’ Rupert for advice. I’m sure he can give you plenty of information. He’s the head librarian of this village by the way.”

Xeno thought for a while, the head librarian could really prove to have some information of use. He might as well take this offer while it lasts, but first he has to continue his exploration. One thing at a time.

“I’d like to visit him soon, which direction is the Library at?”

“It’s three blocks to the right, just before the Western Gate, the tall building with a gate fence of its own.”

“Ok, thank you for the help Sir Sion.”

“No no, thank you for your help, Xeno. See you later.”

Xeno walked a bit away and when he was far away from Sion…

*DING*

Xeno stopped for a moment. That sounded like a notification. He opened the menu and saw that the Questlog and his Status were both blinking. He opened the Questlog and saw:

“I guess what he said about not noticing when one receives a quest was true… Might as well look at the trident.”

“Much better than my knife and I can apply for the position of Captain? That must be Sir Sion’s position then… But the best part is that I’m no longer seen as a Newby! Though I wonder what’s that Luster stat? I’ll have to research that later.”

Then he opened his Status Window and saw that he had gained 15% Exp because of the previous fight. Xeno was exhilarated while he closed the windows and opened his Map once again. He was pleasantly surprised to see that the directions that Sir Sion had given him had been integrated into the map. It was actually close by, so he decided to follow his advice and visit Ol’ Rupert.

The Library was a rather large building of sand and coral that stood taller and rather more extravagantly than the buildings Xeno had seen so far, though in similar design. The Library was surrounded by a fence made of coral and in the sand between the fence and the library, variuos tall seaweed grew elegantly in the shape of an arch above the pathway to the door.

Xeno was pretty sure that the growth of those seaweeds had been modified somehow, most likely with magic, in order to achieve this view, so he gazed for a moment at the scene before walking towards the door.

When he opened the door, he found himself in a rather small room in which all that could be seen was a woman sitting behind a desk reading a book and several doors. Xeno walked over to the woman and waited.

"Yes, what can I do for you?” – she said without prying her eyes away from her book.

“Err… Excuse me, my name’s Xeno and I was told by Sir Sion to come here to speak to someone called Rupert.”

"Ah, Sir Sion sent you, huh?” – she said finally marking the page, closing the book and taking a good look at him.

“Well you don’t seem to be lying… The Head Librarian is currently in a meeting though, so you’ll have to wait a bit. In the meantime, why don’t you take some books to read?”

“Sure, do you have any books related to the Topography and Biology of this area?” – Xeno figured he could gather some more information about his surroundings while he could.

The woman looked at him strangely, but quickly returned to her original expression.

“Certainly, you’ll find what you’re looking for if you take the third door from the right, down the flight of stairs to the left for two floors, then open the door to the right.”

“Thank you, much appreciated. This place sounds quite big, could you show me a map of it?”

The woman rummaged with the drawers of her desk for a moment before giving me a map of the library. I was scanning it when she said:

“Keep it, we have several copies, but make sure to return it when you leave the library."

[8 Helix Hours Later]

Xeno was reading the last conch he had picked up. His hobby (obsession) with reading allowed him to read much faster than common people would. In total, he had read 9 conches on Topography and 5 conches on Biology. In addition to this, he had begun to study worldwide Demography in order to better understand how the world worked here. So far, his MAP had retained all data he had learned and translated it into images.

Yes, you read right, Conches. Due to being underwater, paper would get wet and ink would get dispersed, as such the society of Maomer which thrived on Intelligence and Power created another method to preserve information. Scribes would learn to carve words into conches where the magic within them would preserve the carvings and allow reading. Xeno honestly compared it to reading from a conch-shaped phone.

At first he became a bit taken aback not only by the conches, but also by the language. The characters shown in the conches could only be described as squiggly lines and spirals. But as he looked at the images, they morphed into his own language. An effect of the innate knowledge of the Aquan Language most likely, he guessed.

Regardless of how much he had read already, the Head Librarian still had not come and Xeno was starting to feel famished. He put the conch down and took out a Stale Coral from his Inventory.

While Xeno was honestly reluctant to eat something that smelled bad, he had little choice in the matter as otherwise he would die of hunger sooner or later. He took a bite out of the hard coral and tasted nothing. His teeth shattered the coral in his mouth, letting out the tasteless feeling. It honestly doesn’t feel so bad, it may taste like nothing and it does feel like eating nachos rather than churros, but it’s repugnant smell stuck to his nose even after he finished eating the Stale Coral. Xeno honestly wanted to ask the chef to rename it Stench Coral. Ugh...

Xeno finished reading the conch and once he did he heard:

*DING*

He opened his Menu and saw that his Status and his Abilities were blinking.

Xeno was surprised at the amount of abilities he had gathered, especially the masteries which seemed to be Lv 0. Perhaps because he hadn’t used them much, he had not gained the necessary experience to learn the skill and therefor was not notified by the system, but the experience was still recorded in his abilities window. He was honestly thankful that The Helix did not have a maximum number of skills/spells/abilities for classless players, or else he might be in trouble learning so many things without realizing it.

Then there was his status window:

For a moment, Xeno couldn’t see any differences from before, other than the Conditions which he expected anyways. But soon he noticed his Mana recovering and realized that its cap had increased and that could only happen when his Intelligence increased. He read through his stats and realized that both Intelligence and Wisdom had increased by 2 points each. He wondered for a moment why he was only notified now, but then realized that thanks to the Newborn condition, the stat gains had doubled and he simply had gained both an increase in Intelligence and Wisdom simultaneously.

While the increase in stats was nice and all, the skills are the thing that now motivated Xeno to continue reading while he waited for the Head Librarian who was still nowhere to be seen…

[7 HELIX DAYS LATER]

Xeno had already forgotten about the fact that he came here to talk with the Head Librarian as he immersed himself in the library’s collection of conches. He had read over a hundred books so far and he was feeling quite happy. His body however felt a bit tired after being awake for seven days, but he was too into the conches to notice for the moment.

Suddenly, Xeno felt a hand on his shoulder and looked. A rather old Maomer stood behind him, he had a long beard that reached the floor and small glasses hooked to his long nose. Xeno realized that this was the first elder Maomer he had met so far.

“Young lad, I’ve heard you were looking fer me before?”

Xeno felt unsure for a moment, but then remembered Sir Sion.

“Ah, yes! My name is Xeno, are you possibly Mr. Rupert?”

“Why, yes indeed; the Head Librarian of this village at that.”

“Good, Sir Sion told me to come looking for you.”

“Hmm? Oh, you must be the lad he asked me about before, the Outworlder that was born a little while ago. He told you wanted an assessment of your Career options, was it?”

“Eh… Well, technically yes.”

“Ah, good, good. Then please follow me to my office, but please return the conch back to it’s shelf before, please?”

Xeno swiftly placed back the conch in the shelf and followed the elderly Maomer up the flight of stairs back to the lobby; there he was saluted by the secretary. He took the door in the far left and entered, ushering Xeno inside.

The office seemed pretty simple with only a desk and a pair of chairs on opposite sides. Mr. Rupert sat down in his chair and Xeno quickly sat down in his, remembering how AIPADS hadn’t talked while he was on his feet.

“Well, there are a few things I should ask you in order to determine what profession would suit you best, but for the time being could you please show me your skills? The name and level of your skills will do just fine.”

“Ok, Show “Mr. Rupert”: SSA Basic Info”

In the time Xeno was reading conches, he also took the opportunity to create several custom windows commands so he could get easy access to his information. Particularly, he created this window command in order to see his overall skills, spells, and abilities in one small page along with their progress. At first he placed the letters of the acronym in order, but as he gathered stares from other readers he changed it to SSA.

Watching his Abilities again, Xeno realized just how much he had read since coming to the library. He had tried to gather as much info about the immediate surroundings as possible. He considered to get some more info on the other races, but considered doing that later if possible, not at the moment. He also obtained the skill Ecology which acted as sub-ability to both Biology and Cartography, as the info he collected on the creatures of each area was now being recorded in his MAP. It seemed that whenever he leveled up sub-abilities, the main ability gained a good amount of EXP. However, some Abilities stuck to 99% and would not level up no matter how much he read about them, so he figured that he needed to realize the appropriate actions at least once in order to gain them…

“… Lad, when exactly where you born?”

“I think… Status… 7 days ago.”

“Tell me you weren’t waiting for me all this time…?”

“Err… Yes, I was reading… while waiting so… don’t worry…” – suddenly, Xeno was feeling a bit lightheaded.

“Lad, you are starting to look a bit pale. You REALLY need to get some rest.”

“Huh, I… Feel fine?” – Xeno looked at his status window and was surprised to see his Satisfaction was at 30%. Sure he had avoided sleeping in case the Head Librarian came and he was asleep, but he had made sure to eat enough Coral to survive as well as use the facilities within the library. [Don’t ask how Maomer bath or go to the toilet] Surely his body wouldn’t feel bad if he stayed awake so long, right?

“No, no, no. You need your sleep. It’s good for you and you know it, don’t you?”

“Well, yes…” – Xeno was feeling a bit faint, so he had to admit defeat and accept he needed some sleep.

“Look, you can use my bed which is right next to this room. I know you Outworlders have to rest in your world as well as ours in order to stay healthy, so don’t bother denying my goodwill. You can stay there as long as you need to.”

“But… ok…” – he was a bit reluctant to sleep in that bed, but remembered how Sir Sion had told him that the members of this race treated other members of the race as immediate family.

Ol’ Rupert guided Xeno towards the room and gently forced him into the bed. He didn’t leave until he made sure Xeno had fallen asleep. Then he exited the room to get some coffee and later talk to a certain individual. He might’ve found a new apprentice for an old friend…

*CONSIOUSNESS HAS FADED*

*PLAYER IS IN DEEP SLEEP*

*AVATAR LOCATION: SECURE*

*INITIATING LOG-OUT*

*XENO: LOG-OUT*

Chapter 1-B: Tutorial Mode Chapter 3: Friends upon a Time

Chapter two was pretty good in my opinion for a starter. This one gives us a greater view of the protagonist’s mindset, showing us how he reacts when placed in an unlikely scenario. He seems quite informed, no?

This chapter might raise certain questions such as:

“Doesn’t he have to wait a month in order to leave the village?”

Don’t worry though, Xeno will not delete himself any time soon. Others will keep Savi from making Xeno commit suicide in order to get some sleep. Next up is a Real World chapter where we take a closer look at the life of our protagonist, with special mention to some others.

As for comments I have received on my story. I will take them into consideration when making future chapters. I really do need to lay back on my usage of the word “was”, just this chapter used that word over 60 times....

I am also quite certain that my writing skills have taken a hit because of how little I’ve been able to utilize them these past years, making my explanations longer than they should be in normal basis. Heck these author’s comments are quite long as they are, hahaha… Don’t worry, as the story progresses, not only will I get better at this, but there will be less to explain and a bit more action than present.

Though I am curious about one comment… You see, where I am from (Spanish language), when someone uses his hands to propel himself from the bed and lands on his feet, most people say “No saltes de la cama” which translates according to my knowledge to “Don’t jump out of bed”. I would like to confirm this translation and if it’s incorrect the proper translation to utilize.