Having studied the book on magical classes, Gregory could hardly believe what he was reading. The three classes had given messages as being available to learn, but Gregory hadn’t wanted to make any rash decisions. All the classes had bonuses; the summoner was able to summon weapons and creatures to their aid, the necromancer could summon the dead to fight on their behalf, though the level of the dead capped at the level of the necromancer’s skill, and the enchanter could use supporting magic and also place permanent buffs on equipment with enough magic being used. With two classes available for learning, it was difficult to choose which way he should lean. Enchanter was an obvious choice, but the other one was something he wasn’t sure about yet. He would leave it open, especially since now he could learn either of the two classes freely.

Gregory also read the adventurer’s guild book, and made up his mind to join it. Not only would the membership get him some renown and a chance to work at any branch of the adventurer’s guild, but it would also have all his basic information. It meant that he would be able to get into cities without the need to be checked by a sorcerer first. It would save him time, and also be a good way to get him money in this new world. From what he read of the book, the adventurer’s guild was a long-standing organization that had jobs for any class, as well as a knowledge base that could help almost any class learn something new. Even if they couldn’t necessarily assist in new things, they had good ways of improving the variety that could be used.

Leaving the library, Gregory learned the Enchanter class, along with the skills associated with it.

You have learned the skill Enchanting.

You have learned the skill Stat Buffing.

You have learned the skill Defensive Buffing.

You have learned the skill Damage Buffing.

You have earned the class Enchanter for learning all the appropriate skills.

Gregory was tired, the reading had left him drained while wanting more. It was at this moment he noticed a village soldier, one of the inner guards. His level was a startling 53. It was very likely that this man was on a whole other league in comparison to Gregory, and most likely wasn’t the only one here with that kind of power. Gregory found a map store before he noticed an inn, and went inside. What he found left him amazed. This village had a map shop worthy of much praise, even a message went off letting him know what a find this was.

You have found a shop with a complete map of the known world.

Gregory’s eyes had grown in size at seeing the announcement, but he had barely kept his calm up. He went to look at the price and found it surprisingly cheaper than he had suspected. The cost was 20 gold, which is something he had obtained when killing the two powerful bandits. Not to mention what he had gotten from the split loot in their storeroom.

“Would I be able to talk you down from that price for the map? I know how valuable it must be, but it is still quite the sum.”

The cartographer was an older man, he was noticeably small but seemed like he would be quite fast. He had likely left his exploring days behind him, but had come out with a map that had every location in the known world. His clothes were rather expensive, inlaid with gold threading, and with some very intricate designs on them. His eyes were sunken from tiredness, but he was still quite lively despite the fact that he looked about to fall asleep at any moment. His voice was very energetic, proving that he still had substantial vigor.

“I am afraid that is the lowest offer I can give, it is the culmination of my life’s work, the map is probably the most valuable map on the planet. It lists every continent, and isn’t even missing the local names of cities in addition to the common name.”

Gregory looked slightly despaired, but knew that he had no choice. He opened his inventory and grabbed the 20 gold from it.

“Here is the money you need for the map, I really appreciate that I am able to get such an important piece of knowledge.”

The man quickly took the map from the display, and gave it Gregory after swiping the money from his hand in a very fluid movement.

“Enjoy the map, I hope it can help you as much as I enjoyed making it.”

Gregory was amazed at what happened next, the map vanished giving him a notification.

The World Globe has been unlocked, You may see locations and their approximate levels.

Gregory didn’t immediately check it, he wanted to wait until he was at an inn, but knew that what he had obtained was incredibly valuable. He walked out of the store, a new jump in his step. He was growing ever stronger, and he would be able to continue to grow stronger with every passing level and gain. He hoped to find an inn and after only a short walk and a brief search had found one. He moved inside quickly and saw that it was also the tavern of the town. Gregory quickly went to the counter and saw that room prices were listed up above. It was thirty silvers a night to stay, and seemed to be a rather decent place. There were two free meals offered a day, and access to one room. He quickly got the barkeeps attention, thirty silvers in his hand.

“Can I get a room, here is the money.”

The barkeep simply nodded, grabbing a key and handing it to Gregory. He mentioned something about food as well, but Gregory had already begun walking toward the room as he wanted to get situated first. He needed to know what else he could learn about this new place. Getting to the room, he noticed that it had some niceties he wasn’t expecting. It was a second floor room, but it had a water pump and the water pump was enchanted to spew hot water with a fire enchantment. Gregory also realized that the whole room was enchanted to give an aura that improved the restoration of health and mana. Reaching out with his newest class, he felt the enchantment on the room and tried to copy it. He was able to, but it turned out to be weaker than the rooms enchantment by a good margin.

Gregory went back down the stairs and grabbed some of the food that was there. It was rather plain, just using salt as a seasoning. There was some fish, what looked to be some beef, potatoes, and what looked to probably be wine. Gregory grabbed some fish, a potato, and just a small bit of beef, then put just a little of the wine in a goblet. It might be normal in this place to drink wine at any age, but but he still felt weird about it. He ate quickly before heading back up the stairs, trying to avoid any attention. It wasn’t hard to avoid attention, from the back he appeared to be quite old with his almost totally white hair.

Gregory had got a good night sleep, waking up early at the smell of a breakfast. The first thing he did was getting some of the hot water in the large washing basin and then washing himself with the soap. He put on his robes, looking at the tatters they were in. ‘I need to get these robes repaired, they are bound to fall off if I don’t get them taken care of.’ Heading downstairs, Gregory grabbed himself an egg, some of the ham, and a bread roll. He ate quickly again before he would head out of the city. Now that he had a map of the area, he wanted to get out and learn as much as he could.

Before leaving the city though, Gregory had decided it best to join the adventurer’s guild. He wanted to get his guild member’s card so that he could use it for the multi-purpose of identification in this new world and making money. As he walked, he saw the tell-tale sign of the adventurer’s guild. It was a pair of crossed longswords over a wizard’s staff completely horizontal and a vertical bow underneath the staff. Entering the building, there was nobody at the counter waiting to be seen, they were all picking jobs to do from either senior members or the job board. Heading straight for the counter, Gregory leaned in to ask a question over the noise.

“I’d like to join the adventurer’s guild, may I get an application?”

The man looked at Gregory, arching an eyebrow and trying to make a decision.

“Fill in the paperwork, if it is satisfactory, then there will be a mage to determine if the information is accurate and a license will be issued for our guild.”

Gregory quietly grabbed the paperwork for application and filled it out to the best of his ability. There were sections for name, alignment, class/es, as well as any feats that may have been accomplished. Gregory answered the information fully, and then handed the paperwork back to the clerk at the counter. The clerk himself then cast the spell on Gregory to see if all the information was accurate. He nodded a few times, before performing a small spell on the application, and then moved the pertinent information onto a guild-issued metal license card. The information engraved into the metal, and a full color image of Gregory appeared on it as well so that people would know who it was entering the city.

“This will streamline the process of getting into cities and taking adventurer’s guild jobs. It is two gold for the license, can you afford that?”

Gregory took the money out, and reached for license as it was handed over. The man smiled and settled back in nonchalantly at his seat. Gregory took the license and left for now, he wanted to do some traveling before taking any jobs. He left the city the opposite side he came in from, running to make some distance. He would keep an eye out for any bandit camps, as he never did single-handedly clear one out, and there was always the possibility that he would make extra levels for doing so.

‘What have I become? I care more about levels than people’s lives, even if they are just the lives of bandits. Just the lives of bandits, who am I to think like that? I am just a person, I should quit killing humans, but I need to get stronger to survive, and bandits kill plenty themselves to get stronger. I don’t think there is anything really wrong with reducing the bandit population.’

Continuing, Gregory saw another cave, this one less concealed than the bandit cave they saw. Moving up to it, Gregory didn’t hear anything and darted inside. Moving all the way in, it seemed that it was a bandit cave, just one without all the extra niceties the first one had. It did however have just as nice a “vault” door as the first one did. Once again, Gregory hid around the crates in the area until bandits would come back from their raiding. He actually fell asleep before the bandits got there, and then only woke up when he heard the noise being caused from all the bandits splitting up their spoils. Although, their “spoils” included a few helpless women and a child, probably a mother with two daughters and a very young son. Gregory’s anger burned and he cared not anymore that the bandits were people, only that they were people not deserving of human emotion. He stood up, preparing his expanding explosive mana sphere in his right hand to be hurled at the most powerful bandits. He shouted a command to the bandits, wanting to let them know what he wanted.

“Let the women and child go, they have no need to killed with the rest of you.”

The head bandit nodded with a grin and made a motion to let them go. They all thought they’d be be able to catch up with the women and the boy, having no idea that somebody on par with city wizards would be outside of a city. As soon as the innocents left, Gregory activated flame engulfment with his left hand, completely covering the entrance and exit these bandits had while throwing the expanding explosive mana sphere in his right hand. The blast burst forth, rotating, and ripping apart matter in the blast radius. When it exploded, even more bandits fell to it. With their only escape cut off, and nothing to do but trying to kill the magician in front of them, they all started running at Gregory. He performed another expanding explosive mana sphere, taking out another large chunk of them as they were coming at him. The rest were trying to make scarce around the room, but Gregory was firing off spiraling mana bolts and killing bandits as they scattered around the room. Notification had appeared to him while he was doing this.

You have gained one level, 11 stat points, and your status has been improved.

You have gained two levels, 22 stat points, and your status has been improved.

You have gained one level, 11 stat points, and your status has been improved.

When the last one standing stood still, Gregory saw the pleading in his eyes to be let go, but also a vicious anger for killing his comrades and knew that he would never truly change. He cast one last spiraling mana bolt, and the man fell to the floor as it passed through him. Gregory began gasping for air, the battle finally taking its toll on him. His knees had struck the dirt heavily, and he could feel the mana flowing into him from around the area. Despite having used much less mana than the last time he felt this way, Gregory was still quite drained from the sheer amount and percentage he had used in such quick succession. His auto-loot had picked up multiple different armors and weapons, as well as a couple keys for the loot room. He looked through everything and was fairly impressed with what he had gotten. It meant he would have some money in the next city he went to. One more notification came up as well when he killed the last bandit.

For clearing a mob, you have gained 5 levels, 55 stat points, one trait point, and your status has been improved.

Mobs cleared: Non-Hostiles, Wolves, Bandits

‘I need to work on my wizard skills, the elemental spells could be really helpful if they were more powerful. Flame Engulfment worked, but if they were stronger I don’t think it would have stopped them from passing through it. I need to work on making containing spells, spells that can force people to stay in the area. I also need to work on not draining myself so much. The drawback for casting magic like that is huge. What kind of person am I? I killed a person that had surrendered. Maybe he hadn’t mentally surrendered and would have continued this lifestyle, but he had physically surrendered himself to me and I ended him. What does that make me? Anyways, I should determine how best to allocate my points, probably best to put them into WIS and PER, I need to keep those up to stay strong.’

‘13 points to PER, 86 points to WIS’

Once he thought this, Gregory could feel the changes to himself. He had a way better grasp on the magic in the area, and his vision bumped up to be just a little bit better.

‘Wonder how many people were able to get rid of glasses with just minor boosts to PER, probably quite a few. At the same time, there are probably quite a few people that may have been in hospital beds and are now quite fit with boosts to CON, STR, and AGI. I am really wondering though, where exactly do my physical abilities lie in this new world we are a part of? Magic seems much less used than I had figured it would be, so many people seem to be more focused on weapon based combat than magic-based.’

Upon entering the store-room for the bandit’s treasures, Gregory saw a notification appear before him.

Would you like to move ‘Bandit Treasure Room Loot’ to inventory?

‘Yes’

‘Inventory’

Viewing his inventory, Gregory saw a stack each of cooked sheep, boar, and deer meat with at least thirty of each in the stacks. There was a stack of 13 wolf steaks, and then there was the ‘Bandit Treasure Room Loot Sack’ in one slot in his inventory.

‘If I open that loot sack, it will probably have more than I could fit right now in my inventory, I should probably find a way to increase the storage space I have before opening the entire thing. Either that or buy a house, but first I should focus on seeing what I can do to become stronger and better able to handle myself here.’

Leaving the cave, Gregory found the sun near completely set. Only a small sliver of orange remained on the horizon, casting the painted purple and orange sky across the area. Another group was moving close now, Gregory could make out a few warriors, clad in armor that seemed very mix and matched.

‘They must be natives of this planet, their levels also seem to indicate this. One is level 34, two are level 36, another three are level 37, and there is one of level 39 as well. Even if they are strictly physical in abilities, I doubt I would be able to do anything against them. There are too many at too high a level for me to be able to do anything against them. I will need to rely on my luck, and hope meeting up with them will not prove fatal.’

Moving as quickly as he could, Gregory made his way over to the group of travelers. Their direction indicated that they were heading in the same direction as him, making it an easy choice to travel with them to make his travel easier. On the other hand, would the group want him with them? Would they feel safe with a stranger that is at least as strong as their strongest member from what they can tell? These were questions that while asked personally, were dismissed since Gregory really just wanted to see if he could make his travel any safer.