Author's note: Welp, I added the first named character in this chapter as a funny reference that I just could not pass up on (after writing the second named character) then realised that the second named character is a reference too... I didn't change the second name even though I kinda wanted too. Doesn't feel right for some reason.

Got REAL lazy with woodcutting but there really wasn't much to tell... at least in my opinion. We'll come back to the skill later though.

This chapter i noticed that i tend to overuse his name a lot... I tried to limit it this chapter but it's not easy. It's still my first story though, so please bear with me.

Edit: more suffering with tabels...

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Zaran started to feel peckish a short while after leaving the leather working guild. He checked his inventory but... nothing not even a loaf of bread or a drip of water in it at all. He sighed and went towards the market square. Users that chose the merchant class were already setting up their stalls, clamping on to every user that passed them by with the request to buy their loot. Because Zaran was still clad in his beginner gear, none of the merchants cared to bother him. By now, most people that gained a few levels already had a couple of pieces of new gear.

Zaran walked towards a stall were various magic-related gear were strewn around. "You buying?" Zaran asked to the huge lion man merchant.

"Sure thing! What are you selling?" the huge lion man asked in an overly polite tone.

"I'm selling the skill book for fireball... how much?" Zaran asked.

"I can give you... 10 silver for it." the merchant replied.

"Deal." Zaran said as he took the book out and nonchalantly tossed it over to the merchant. The merchant gave Zaran his coin. "If you ever need anything in the future feel free to find me!" the lion man said as Zaran walked away. He walked to the closest grocery store and picked up a 10 big field flasks for 10 copper's each, which he filled up at the fountain in the middle of the market square. Zaran took his time to stroll down the market to find the cheapest food possible that he could buy in bulk. He stopped at a stall where a two meter tall Zuno with a face straight out of the movie "300" was selling rice balls and small bread buns for a mere 1 copper each. Next to the rice balls and small bread buns was a sign saying, 'Pantheon's failed products'.

Zaran didn't see anything wrong about them so inquired about why the sign was there. The Zuno replied that while they look okay, the taste isn't that incredible and nobody wanted to buy them after a bite. Even selling them at one copper each barely anyone would buy them. Zaran who was not able to pass up on the opportunity, bought fifty of each and stored all but a handful of bread buns in his ring.

"So lousy my first meal..." Zaran said as he devoured the buns at the speed of light. "They really taste horrible" Zaran shuddered as he finished the last one. After a few gulps from one of his field flasks, Zaran walked towards Virul's church to check the time. Exactly 4 pm. Still got time for a few crafts granted they don't take too long.While I could just use the experience I already have, it's better to learn to avoid missing out on more quests. I could even learn new techniques too.

With renewed energy Zaran made his way to the bone shaping pavilion. Compared to the enormous leather working pavilion this was quite small in size even though the area of the pavilion was approximately the same size. The pavilion was, unlike the others, surrounded by a large flower garden. Peculiar about this flower garden was that most of the flowers had a very powerful fragrance, at a first glance he could already see many roses, oriental lily's, hyacinths and sweet peas. Yet even those powerful fragrances could not compete with the putrid smell that exited the pavilion. The putrid smell made the unaware users turn around and villagers or users that were already used to it ran in a wide arc around the pavilion to avoid the blunt of it.

Zaran gulped a few times before finally daring to get closer to the pavilion. It's not a smell he was unfamiliar with but he could never get quite used to it. Like all the other guilds, this one as well had a handful of guards guarding the entrance, each taking turns as to when they would guide new applicants inside. Zaran walked up to the guards and politely waited his turn to enter the pavilion. As one of the guards was leading him towards a small room on the side of the pavilion, Zaran noticed that the middle of the pavilion had large hot water basins filled to the brim with bones. Surrounding those basins there were workbenches to the left, where a few people were cutting away skin from bones and scraping leftover flesh from them. To the right of the basins Zaran noticed a big terrarium with beetles that he had never seen before.

"What are those beetles used for?" Zaran asked the guard. He was greatly interested in the unknown and it's only his drive for knowledge and his drive to improve his arts that kept him sane for all these lifetimes. A normal person would've gone insane long ago.

The guard angrily grumbled "Ask the teacher." he then stopped in front of a small room and told him to enter it.

Zaran knocked before entering and was welcomed by an extremely high-pitched voice that in his mind could only belong to a child. "Enter! It's open ~!".

You are kidding me right? Three out of four have an annoying voice? Are the gods playing with me? Or is my luck THIS horrible? he thought while a cold chill ran across his back.

A petite cat woman greeted him as he entered, she was about a meter fifty tall, very slender, but still had a fair amount of chest, which Zaran noticed due to the fact that she was wearing a white apron that for some reason seemed to stick to her skin.. Her brown hair was tied up in two ponytails, which made her seem all the more childish. "HI! You here to learn?" She asked excitedly.

Zaran replied upfront "Yes, please teach me. My name is Zaran." Seeing that he was not willing to waste words on pleasantries, the petite cat girl waved her hands towards the small workbench in the middle of the room, urging Zaran to go over there. "Ah ~ my name's Elise! So uhm... let's start!"

"Bone shaping in itself isn't really hard, if you've ever worked wood, you'll find that it is quite similar. But, before we start to shape bones we obviously have to clean the bones. There are a few steps you will have to do. The first step is cutting off remaining meat from the bones. It'll takes some work to remove all of it, first we cut away the obvious bits and pieces with a knife, and a second knife is hereafter used to scrape free the sheath of tissue that still encircles the bone. Then the bones are cut towards the usable length, and usable density of bone. After cutting the bones we then put them in hot water along with various kinds of enzymatic detergents. “

“Alternatively, you could use dermestid beetles to avoid most of the previously mentioned steps. However as you can’t really be carrying them around all the time, hence the previously mentioned steps are what even us teachers still use to this day. Well... at least most of the time.”

She paused for a moment and looked at Zaran's face. Seeing no confusion on it she continued. “Once we have done the previously mentioned steps we can start shaping the bones. For shaping bones, we require the following items: a hatchet, rasps and files, sandpaper and steel wool.” As she was saying this, she took out all the mentioned tools in pairs and presented a set of them in front of Zaran.

“Bone can be carved into a rough shape of the final product rather quickly. As bone shatters instead of splitting, it’s paramount that you always vigilant when shaping bones.”

“For every product you wish to shape with bone, it’s important to know the length, width and other requirements that it needs to have. If you know these requirements you select an appropriate piece of bone. Then we begin shaving and chipping pieces away like so.”

Elise quickly walked over to the side of the room and grabbed a couple of bones from the pile of bones that lied there, ready to be used. She quickly started shaping the bone in a rough knife and urged Zaran to follow her example. Zaran had little trouble creating the rough shape and a small smile appeared on Elise's face, happy with Zaran's 'quick uptake'.

“After shaping the general shape with the hatchet, we use a rough rasp or file to whittle away protrusions."

Elise started rasping and filing the bone and Zaran did the same, this time, the Zaran's outcome was even better than Elise's leaving her in shock. It took her a few seconds to recover from her initial shock, staring at Zaran in disbelief for another moment, but then continued explaining.

“Then we use sandpaper to further smooth the bone. When the surface of the bone is completely smooth, we use steel wool to further polish the surface, which will bring out the variety of natural colors that the bone naturally has.”

She again showed him and a short while later they were both finished. The game system sure is convenient. This would have taken at least four times as long in reality. Zaran thought, happy with the final result, although it was a shame he could not equip it yet.

Bone knife (Good)Damage10-15Required level5

Bone shaping lvl 1 (beginner)You can now shape bones in a large variety of end-products. The quality of the product will depend on time spent combined with your proficiency at the art.

Zaran quickly took his leave after the lesson ended and went straight back to the market square. It was even more livelier then before and he had to squirm his way through crowd upon crowd of users. With a bit of fancy footwork he was still able to move about quickly between the stalls. Whilst checking his money he noticed that only had 8 silver and 58 copper were left, but they should be enough to pick up the beginner's greatsword and beginner's spear.

The beginner's greatsword had a very broad and thick blade and whilst people were using it to cut, Zaran knew from experience that such a greatsword would not cut but rather smash. Very few greatswords with a broad blade had a sharp enough edge to be able to cut. The beginner's spear had an oak shaft and a sharp bronze spear tip. The shaft wasn't supple and oak wood wasn't particularly good to make weapons with so he knew that it was prone to break if used by an expert. Still it would serve it's purpose for now. Both of these weapons did a mere 5-7 damage each, which was surprising since he expected the greatsword to do more damage but he paid it no mind.

After walking around on the market for a while and comparing prices he went to a shop that sold the weapons relatively cheap and the weapons were still in a good condition, so he quickly paid 2 silver for the both of them. After acquiring these weapons he squirmed his way through the crowd again and left the city through the western exit. The lush fields on which the flygaan lived, greeted him again. He didn't notice before, but there was a mountainous area behind the hunting field. The mountains weren't particularly tall and if you didn't pay attention to the scenery you wouldn't even notice they were there. Some user's were still struggling with killing the flygaan but Zaran paid them no mind and passed straight through the hunting ground.

While wandering around the market square he had heard that the miner's guild and woodcutter's guild were both past the flygaan hunting area. He was thankful for this information because he wouldn't have found out himself. Surely he could've asked some civilians but they might have looked at him strangely so he tried avoiding directions. Sure enough, after nearly crossing the whole hunting field, the woodcutter's guild view popped up into view.

Soon after he arrived at the woodcutters guild. Calling it a guild felt a little overboard as it was not much more than a large crudely made wooden storage house and a crudely made shack that was used to store tools. Unlike most other guilds this one did not have any guards and Zaran even had to wander around for a bit to find the instructor. After receiving a basic axe and protective goggles, the instructor just told Zaran how NOT to cut a tree and then told him to fetch for himself.

Zaran inspected some nearby trees but didn't find a tree that he really needed so decided to postpone training it.

Woodcutting lvl 1 (beginner)You can now cut wood, the quality of the logs you receive will increase depending on your level.

He didn't look back to the woodcutting guild as he continued on to the mountainous area. A quite large fenced-off area soon popped up in the horizon. As he got closer, various other buildings popped up left and right. Quite a few storage areas, living quarters and a gatehouse could be seen. A few hundred users were lined up at the gatehouse, so Zaran went over and checked what the commotion was all about. In front of the gate a large notice was posted.

"The mines are temporarily closed due to a spider infestation. Unless we get it cleared out we cannot possibly allow anyone to enter."

Zaran pondered for a second then talked to a nearby guard.

"Could i possibly help clearing the mines? I'm a beast master with moderate skill so i might be of use." Zaran asked politely.

"A... a beast master?!?" the guard exclaimed shocked. "Give me a moment!" the guard immediately ran inside and soon returned with an old miner in tow. The old miner wore brown pants, a grey tank top and had a mining helmet on top of his head, with grey hair slightly showing form underneath it. For someone who looked like he was about eighty years old, the miner still had a very powerful physique as his build was very muscular. "You really a beast master boy?" The old miner asked.

"Yeah, Henry taught me." Zaran said eagerly.

"Oho... Henry picked up another apprentice? Come in then boy! We could user your help!"

The guards opened the gate and allowed Zaran to enter, much to the dismay of the other users who were staring at Zaran with gazes full of envy.

"Where's the entrance to the mines? I'd like to get started right away." Zaran said excitedly.

"Follow me." the miner said in a serious tone. The old miner strode towards the entrance of the mine and Zaran even had trouble keeping up with the old man. Two minutes later they arrived at the mine. The entrance was seeled by a giant double iron door and a wooden bar was blocking the way in. An eerie aura welcomed Zaran as he walked up to the door. He remembered feeling the same aura in Henry's place.

"Hellbeasts..." Zaran muttered.

"What? Boy, are you serious?" the miner's eyes almost popped out of his head as he heard this.

"The aura feels the same. I can't say for sure if i don't enter though." Zaran said as he grabbed the large wooden bar and removed it. He picked up a nearby lit oil lamp and entered the mines. "Close it after me." he whispered. "Don't want those things to get out."

Worst things worst i could just respawn while the miners definitely can not.

The old man obliged and closed the mines after Zaran. Only a dim light coming from the oil lamp lit his way. He went deeper in the mines and for the first few hundred meters, no enemy was seen. As he got further in the mine shaft actually got brighter and eventually it got bright enough so that he didn't even need his oil lamp anymore. Whilst turning his oil lamp of he saw a huge shadow coming through the mines.

Zaran immediatly entered a battle stance and waited for the spider to show itself. Moments later a huge 1 meter long spider with 2 meter long legs came around the corner. He inspected the monster and his jaw dropped to the floor as he saw the monster info.

Dying hellweaverLevel4 (58 - 54)

The next moment, the spider noticed Zaran and rushed towards him...