Short summary of the last chapter:

Spoiler :

Voice messed around with his magical abilities, and learned quite a bit. He managed to create several buffs and debuffs. He went to get a metal fairy summoned, then learned how to steal other people’s fairies.

Also, let me know if anything is wrong with the chapter! Be sure to comment!

Shout out to Sargon for donating! You’ve bought my love.

Also the winner has been chosen! The Soul Musician will be written into the story after the current mini arc.

I sat in the orb for a few minutes. It wasn’t a rough ride, but it was annoying to have to stay in that orb for so long.

After the few minutes were over, I was roughly put on the ground. The orb disintegrated around me, revealing a dimly lit metal chamber. The only two people in the room were MegaLloyd and me. I wasn’t tied up or anything, but the oppressive atmosphere was enough to make me stand still.

MegaLloyd turned to me. I could clearly see his name now. It wasn’t MegaLloyd at all. It was ShortDwarf. I don’t know how the little guy managed to fool my sense motive, but I was not about to let this over powered piece of shit fuck with me.

I cocked my head a little. “So… Where is LastingBeauty?” SD’s eyes went wide as I asked that. I smiled my most charming smile. I knew that SD was a little bit arrogant, and had a bad temper. Those were the only two traits I knew coming into this.

While smiling, I continued. “You managed to fool me about your personality, but I have a skill that allows me to see past disguises. The only reason I came with you was that I saw your name. I know for a fact that you could crush me like a bug, so why chance it?” I shrugged.

Realizing that LB was probably the one that disguised him, I quickly scanned the room for mana signatures. I found three. One was me, another was ShortDwarf. In the far corner of the room was another.

I nodded in the last mana signature’s location. “I assume the person over there is LastingBeauty?”

ShortDwarf stared at me for a long moment. His head was slightly tilted, as if he were examining cattle to buy. He nodded. “Yeah, you can come out Beut.” LB walked past me, and stood by his side. She gave me a scornful look.

Hey! I can’t help it that I can see past most of your shitty disguising skills! I was a little offended at having her so angry at me, but it was whatever.

ShortDwarf coughed, before continuing. “Well. I heard there was a group of assassins sent to kill off Lord Labin. Seeing as he was mine foster uncle, I decided to squash them. But what do I find when I use my daily teleport to get here? The assassins already turned on Balin for stiffing them on the check!” He smiled.

I waited a moment before talking. I was nervous about interrupting him. Being in a room with the two most powerful players in the game will do that to a person. At this point I discarded the emotional read out I received. LB however was still an option. She had a ‘suspects lie’ emotion. “Well, I might have lied a bit to the fake Labin’s guards. I wasn’t actually one of the assassins. I just took his place. I actually got him killed by the earth priests. Heh.”

My heart was beating about a million miles a second. SD looked at me, then began whispering to LB. After a few moments he turned back to me. “Say I accept that story. What were you doing in the temple of the metal god?”

I gave him a slightly quizzical look. “I just wanted a metal golem summoned for me. After all, the metal god is the best in turns of offensive power.”

SD seemed to buy this. He nodded. “Alright, but why did you kill the female dwarf player? She hadn’t attacked you. It seemed as though you only took weapons from, or attacked, those that attacked you.”

I shrugged. “She was the one that got the guards to attack me. She deserved some sort of punishment.”

SD thought for a moment. “Alright. I have a choice to make. I can either let you go, or kill you. Convince me why I should let you go.” While he was saying this he was also unsheathing his battle axe.

My brain was going through every possible thing I could tell him, but for some reason I said, “I could be your pack mule…” I would have face palmed if I didn’t think it would have gotten me killed. The entire scenario was nerve racking as hell.

Kretchof took that exact moment to send me a message. I didn’t read it, I just sent him some reply that seemed to fit.

SD was discussing something with LastingBeauty. After a few minutes of thinking they were going to attack me, SD finally turned toward me. “Pack Mule isn’t enough. Sorry bud. You can keep the weapons you stole, but you’ve gotta die.”

“WAIT!” He had already raised his axe, and prepared to attack. He rolled his eyes at me. “I can also buff you!” He licked his nasty little dwarf lips. He raised an eyebrow, so I continued.

“I have a few buffs I can do that might make you or LastingBeauty a bit stronger.” He sent a look to LB. They both spoke again for a moment.

“Alright. Show us and we will decide whether it’s good enough to let you live. You better be fast about it though.”

I used the minor petrification on Lasting, but instead of darkness I used light. I was hoping that I would give some cool bonus for increased battle potential.

Movement Enhancer (Minor)

The target gains some movement speed, and will find it easier to move. The target gains a 50% bonus in both categories. This duration of this spell is (10 + (light affinity/10) * Aura) seconds.

The base spell cost for this spell is 500 mana.

It took a total of 805 to permanently enchant her to have that effect. She tested out her enhancements. She seemed to move much more fluidly, and much faster.

She began nodding and speaking frantically to Shorty. ShortDwarf spoke. “Alright, you can buff her. Great. What can you do for me?”

I held up a finger as I disabled the buff. “I’ll need a moment to get my mana back.” I briefly explained my permanency skill while we waited. “I can keep the buff up as long as I’m within distance. My maximum mana is decreased while the buff is active though. It won’t really matter since a 25% buff to either of you two is worth more than me.”

I meditated to regen mana better. While I was doing that I mentally went over my buff/debuff list. I decided on Defensive, and Hp buff. Defensive increased the general armor, whatever that was, and Hp buff increased maximum hp.

I cast five of each on myself, then got a notice.

Damage Immunity (Minor)

The target gains immunity to damage. The target gains a bonus 50% armor rating. The target also gets a total of 25% hp bonus. This duration of this spell is (10 + (light affinity/10) * Aura) seconds.

The base spell cost for this spell is 500 mana.

Holy fuck! If that’s minor what’s major!?

I again regenerated my mana, and then cast the new buff on SD. He seemed to like it a lot. He liked it so much so, that he cut himself with a dagger just to see the effects. The wound wasn’t deep, and it partially healed up.

I healed him for the rest. It seemed as though he was fairly pleased at the buff he got. “So you can keep this buff going forever?”

I nodded. “As long as I’m within distance, and not dead. If I’m dead it goes away. I also just got enough to put the buffs on two people at once.” I gave him my meekest smile. I had to up-play his ego as much as possible.

Even with my new found powers, I knew I didn’t stand a chance against SD. I had to make him believe could kill me without a second thought, which he probably could.

Although…

I used the debuff version of the spell, obviously aiming at the dwarf.

Damage Multiplier (Minor)

The target becomes weak to damage. The target loses 25% armor rating. The target loses 12.5% maximum hp while this debuff is active. This duration of this spell is (10 + (dark affinity/10) * Aura) seconds.

The base spell cost for this spell is 500 mana.

As I thought it only decreased the original buff by half, but it still proved a point. The debuffs all worked at half power for some reason.

I couldn’t completely cancel out the buff with just one debuff. To fully cancel it I would need another 600 mana or so. That would upgrade my permanency skill pretty fast. Still, I could level the skill up by just buffing the two of these fools.

Actually this might work out. I can help them out until I grow a few levels. Twelve levels would be perfect. I can just betray them when we are in a desperate situation, and run away. Or better yet, wait until we almost kill a boss and take the loot for myself.

ShortDwarf had an unusually high amount of enchanted gear. I had never gotten any I couldn’t help but wonder why. While thinking about it my mind wondered to my luck stat.

I decided to ask, “So Master ShortDwarf, could you tell me how you obtained such amazing items?”

He unintentionally took an arrogant pose. “You wanna know? Well I’ll tell you!” He smiled at me, much like someone explaining they went to Disney land to a child. “I have conquered many dungeons. The bosses of those dungeons drop gear based on your luck stat. My luck is at 75! HAHAHA!”

I did my best to look amazed at this. That explained why I never got any good equipment from anything. I had to hold back a sigh as I realized the penalty Ancestor had given me for becoming an Ancient Elf.

…

Wait a minute! Ancestor came to me when I was new to the race! What if…

I opened my Racial Menu.

Current amount of True Elf Players: 2.

Because you were the first True Elf Player, you are the Racial Leader of all True Elves. You will remain the Racial Leader of all True Elves until such a time as a True Elf bests you in combat.

Bonuses from being the Racial Leader of the True Elves:Gold per day: 0Racial Army Size: 2Global Influence: 0 (1000 if you reveal a True Elf is Mar’s Chosen)Racial Powers Unlocked: 0Racial Powers: None

Oh I was kind of sad to figure out Ancestor had just left me for another. I had a feeling that this might come to bite me in the ass. I had to find the other elf, and either kill it or enslave it.

That part about the racial powers looked promising though. Shorty was saying something to me.

“ay to get ready. So meet us at the Metal God’s Temple tomorrow around this time.” I nodded happily. “I will talk to the priests to get you a Metal Golem summoned. And if you don’t prove to be useful I will kill you.” He glared at me as he said this. I wanted to steal LB away from him, but she seemed to like him for whatever reason. I already had too many people to take care of. I didn’t want to add another.

Shorty allowed me to leave, so I contacted Heather. I sent her a message, ‘Hey come find me…’ I gave her my approximate location. I found a secluded spot and waited for her.

While I was there I read over some of the update information I had previously ignored. There were some interesting bits. They made my plan a lot easier.

Heather came running at me, covered in blood. Lily followed her, obviously out of breath. She had a blood splatter on her face, and looked somewhat traumatized.

I knitted my brows, confused. “What happened!?” My eyes quickly shifted between Lily and Heather. If they got me a bad rep in this city, I’d kill them both. EDI would never know.

Heather chose to explain it. “A couple of dwarves tried to force Lily to... Anyway I made sure to,” she gave a bone chilling smile, “show them the error of their ways.” She licked her lips. Damn she was crazy.

I understood what they might have tried to do, but Heather scared me as always. “Well good job then. Those fucks deserved it.” If someone tried to fuck with my property, they deserved to be attacked by Heather. “So did you get any loot from them?”

Heather gave me a weird look. “No, they didn’t drop anything.”

I cursed under my breath. I could have used a surplus of good items.

“Alright girls, I am going to have to go away for a while. Heather I want you to watch Lily for me.” Heather cautiously nodded. “Lily, I am going to send you to my save point with Heather. Ask for Evan the blacksmith. He should be able to watch over you while I’m gone. When I’m done here I will go back there.”

Lily looked as though she was about to say something, but I continued. “Heather I was to try an experiment. I’ll need your help.” She nodded, not like she had a choice. “I’ll be sending you ahead Lily. Take these and give them to Evan.” I dumped some of the weapons I got in her inventory.

An interesting bit of the Save Point feature was that I could send pets or legal children to them, as long as I was close to them. I sent Lily to . A bright blue light engulfed her, and she was gone.

“Alright Heather let’s do this.”

Heather’s POV:

It hurts! It hurts! I cried out in my mind. I couldn’t even move any of my muscles enough to cry out for real. I’d kill him for this.

I felt my entire body being ripped apart. Every fleck of skin, every piece of fur, every drop of blood, all of it was being tore apart and put back together. Over and over it went.

I got lost in the eternal pain. My mind wandered into nothingness, only to be brought back by the excruciating pain.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even think. Everything that was me was being stripped away. Replaced by some unknown force.

Let’s go back a bit.

Lily was carrying me on her shoulder. I wasn’t even as big as her entire shoulder, so it was ok. Lily and I were discussing the city while we walked through it.

Lily was a mostly quite girl, but I still liked her. She was cute, and she was always nice to me. “So,” I asked her, “What do you think of the dwarves city? I’ve never been here myself.”

Lily mumbled an answer that I had to strain to hear. “It’s nice. I like River’s Cross better though.”

“Me too. There are not enough wolves here. I want to hunt something. The only thing here is dwarves though.”

We talked about meaningless things for a while. After wandering for an unknown amount of time I got a notice from Voice. It said to meet him.

Of course he didn’t give me his location, but he never made things easy on me. I had stopped hating him as much recently. I learned something eye opening in one of my conversations with EDI.

The topic was: Is it bad to do something good for a bad reason? The discussion went on for hours as Voice was in his own world.

The answer we finally agreed on was simple. Doing good is never bad. Although using the consequences of the good action for bad is bad. If you help someone who is starving, they won’t care if it’s to get famous. They will just be happy they can eat.

Voice was as two faced as a person could get, but he did mostly do good things. So no matter what the reason was, until he used the result for evil, he was good.

I directed Lily to where Voice was. When we reached there we were assaulted by several dwarves. Two of them even tried to take advantage of Lily!

I easily dodged the attacks of the dwarves, and sucked enough blood to last me several days. When Lily was being held down I went blind with rage. Lily was my only friend since Rabs and Troy left. EDI was nice, but she was only here for Voice.

Lily always seemed to be watching Voice, but for a totally different reason. Sometimes she would make this face. She seemed to inherently hate him.

At first I agreed with her, but then I noticed times when she genuinely wanted his approval. It didn’t make any sense to me.

I tore into the dwarves holding Lily down. She seemed to know what they were about to do to her, even though she couldn’t speak their language. Not that I could either.

I ate through both of their stomachs in an instant. I thoroughly drained both of any blood, then consumed their bodies. Sadly Lily got some blood on her while I tore through them the first time. She looked away as I ate them though.

When I got to Voice I tried explaining the situation, but he only cared for the loot! I couldn’t believe him. He told us he was sending us back to Rand. I was glad I could hunt wolves again, but I was suspicious of why he would do that.

After he sent Lily away, he told me what he was about to do. He didn’t even give me enough time to tell him my worries about it. I decided to leave him as soon as he came to pick Lily up from Rand.

I no longer cared for being his pet. Good food wasn’t worth all of the pain and suffering he thought he could put me through.

Voice’s POV:

I explained to Heather that I was going to evolve her using my Mana Crystal. I used it on Heather, and saw several notices.

Use Evolution Crystal on which pet?

I chose Heather from a drop down list that had only her name.

What? Heather is evolving! Say B to cancel.

Heather started morphing. She seemed to be oscillating between two different bodies.

Heather is a Vampire Rabbit. The Evolution Tree for Vampire Rabbits has been unlocked!

Heather has a powerful disease! The disease has been incorporated into Heather’s evolution.

Heather’s fur started melting, her entire body soon followed. A red goop fell to the floor. Heather looked like a red blob. The blob seemed to be perfectly symmetrical, but could freely move the liquid it was made of.

When the process was over I received a notice.

Congratulations! Your Heather has evolved into a Blood Slime!

Slimes have a unique Racial Ability to absorb anything for nutrients. Slimes have the Racial Trait: Maximized Regeneration. A Slime will continue to regenerate until it is physically impossible to do so.

Blood Slime’s have a unique Racial Ability to harness one stat of a creature whose blood it has absorbed. The effect will be at 10%, but be permanent until the Blood Slime absorbs a better version.

One Blood Slime Racial Ability has been locked. Heather must reach level 100 to unlock the ability.

I gaped at the notice. Whatever ability Heather had locked would be OP as fuck. There was no way I could allow her to think of leaving me. I would have to be nicer to her from now on. I would make her want to stay with me more than want to live.

I pet the weird red blob, “I want you to make sure to protect Lily, got it?”

The blob responded by constricting on my hand slightly. I guess that was a yes. I sent Heather through to Rand. I made sure to dump the rest of my loot in her inventory after making sure she could still hold items.

After that, I began plotting my escape given various scenarios. The worse case would be if the two fuckheads found out who I was, and betrayed me. I had to have some sort of counter measure against that.

They didn’t know that I had other types of fairies yet. If they did they would have made mention of it. I decided to go get the metal golem fairy. At the very least, it could help me understand the inner-workings of metal mana a bit better.

Before I did that I read through the books my compendium had. Now that I could read the titles of the books I could tell if I made the right choice in choosing them.

Two books caught my attention right off the bat. ‘Learning to Learn’, and ‘Strengths and Weaknesses of Dragons’. I decided to spend my time speed-reading the books to help the process along.

Learning to Learn was quite interesting. It detailed how many warriors, and thus dwarves, were too confined in their way of thinking. It gave several mental exercises that one could do to help this. I noted them for future reference.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Dragons was exactly as the name implies. It detailed several known abilities of various dragons. I was amazed by the sheer amount of different races of dragons. There were as many types of dragons as there were playable races and sub-races.

It wouldn’t have been a stretch to say that book alone took several lives to make. After reading those books in only an hour total, I went on to read the rest.

The books I got were: Arms and Armors of Ysga; Locations of Minerals and Gems; Qualities of Minerals and Gems; Learning to Learn, Philosophy of Ysga; Dwarven Smithing and Masonry; Mana Lost to Dwarves; Strengths and Weaknesses of Dragons; Engineering for Beginners; and A Miner Task.

Arms and Armors gave a detailed description of the most common weapons and armor made by dwarves. Mostly it was axes and heavy armor, but there were some swords thrown in. It also gave a simplistic recipe for making each.

I learned how to make an iron war axe, an iron battle axe, an iron throwing axe, a dwarven battle axe, an iron long sword, an iron two handed sword, and dwarven plate armor.

The next two books just gave information about what types of caves different ores and gems would be found, and ranked them according to rarity and worth.

Dwarven Smithing and Masonry was a brief history of how dwarves ‘invented’ smithing and masonry. Mana Lost to Dwarves detailed how dwarves actually lost the ability to use most magic. Apparently it had something to do with being around Mana Crystals when the dwarven race was so young.

They eventually moved away from the Mana Crystals, but the damage was done. So it’s kind of like a hereditary type of cancer? I wonder if light mana could fix it?

You have been given a quest.

Success: Restoring the ability to use magic to the dwarves.

Difficulty: ???

Failure: N/A.

Reward: None, no one will believe you are the one that returned magic to the dwarves. The gods seen no reason one way or the other on why dwarves need magic now.

Success results in the Dwarves becoming able to use magic.

Do you accept?

You can accept this quest later.

“No.”

Seriously? No reward? I might gain some cool stuff along the way, but there is no freaking way I’m making dwarves more powerful. Not unless I gained something from it.

It sounded like way too much of a hassle. Since my luck was so low I had 0 chance of getting cool items unless I killed the first thing in a new dungeon. It just wasn’t worth all of the work I’d have to put into it.

Engineering for Beginners showed me basic mathematic skills that I already had. It showed what dimensions something would have to be to actually work. It was interesting, but not something I couldn’t figure out on my own.

A Miner Task was a play on words. It asked me to bring a load of iron ore to one of the metal smiths in the city, and I would receive a reward.

You have been given a quest.

Success: Bringing at least 25 pounds of iron ore to Igza.

Difficulty: Low

Failure: N/A.

Reward: Money appropriate to the amount of ore you brought, and a chain quest.

Success results in Igza becoming more friendly towards you.

Do you accept?

That one wasn’t too hard. But I thought it was weird that books gave quests like this. “Sure.” After accepting the quest I decided to go improve my white space inside the DIVE pod.

After reading the entire batch of books, my intelligence had increased by 10 points. I only needed another 10 in order to upgrade my Mana Affinity skill. Once I got that ranked up, I could increase the rank of my Magical Mastery.

I exited DIVE and arrived in the white space. I had quite a bit of DI bills stacked up. I guess people really liked my videos or something.

I opened the menu, and checked out what I could do to the general area. After about five minutes of scrolling through various menus, I came across a tab that said ‘Themes’.

After clicking on it a box appeared stating several types of self-explanatory themes. The list was fairly long, and even included a brief description of each theme.

When I saw Fantasy DIVE Theme I clicked on it.

This theme adjusts all buildings to resemble what they might be in the fantasy game DIVE. All purchases made here do not affect the game. DI bills are still used in this area. Other players will spend DI bills here, not DIVE money.

Other players? Does that mean I can actually already invite others here?

“Help: Invite Player.”

Invites to your DI room can be sent from your registered home. Invites can only be sent if your DI room is not set to public. (It is set to private by default). You can send an all-inclusive invite to all players for 1000 DI bills. Players can only join your room once per invite. Players will be notified about the invite when they log into the DIVE pod.

No one else had sent an all-inclusive invite yet. I decided to be the first. I had literally hundreds of millions of DI bills at this point. I wished I could convert this money back to real cash. Too bad I couldn’t do that.

I sent the invite, and chose the theme of Fantasy DIVE.

You are the first person to change the theme of their DIVE pod. You are allowed to change any part of your DIVE room to any theme (others must only have one theme).

I noticed something as I looked around. My inspect skill became active! I was getting info on everything around me. This was obviously because I chose the theme. I was definitely going to capitalize on this.

If skills carried over to this side of DIVE, then they might go to DIVE from here. As I thought about the endless possibilities, I looked at all the things I could do to my little area.

My mall changed into a castle looking structure. It was a very long, and short, castle though. Still, the inside was what mattered.

The shops had become stands, and the dojos looked like they were straight out of DIVE. I added in a ton of DIVE weapons to each dojo. I had them all specialize in certain ones though. One dojo was only for armor, and one taught ranged combat.

The food court turned into a large town square like area. The menus reflected what could be found in DIVE. I could have added my creations to the menu, but decided against it. I did spend a little extra to get the special pots and pans I designed. It improved the quality and taste of the food by a nice bit.

I added in a tailoring shop, an alchemists shop, and so on. I want every skill to be trainable here. Of course I put a price tag on every part of it. It might be easier to train skills in my world, but it would also be more expensive.

I hired out several NPCs to help man my stands. They each only cost a few thousand DI bills, but had to be maintained. In order to do this I added in a large farm area about a mile away from the mall. I added in a paved brick road to help get there.

I added in a forest outside of the castle. It was fairly large, and I filled it with demon monsters. That cost me a million by itself. Still, the forest could produce food, and alchemy ingredients. It could even be used to level up battle related skills.

That is if the skills gained here were sent into the actual game. If they weren’t it was no big deal. People could still use the forest to get used to the general idea of the game.

The forest was teeming with nature mana. I could see the general shape and location of most nearby plants just by being near the forest.

I also added a few things that would help the gatherers. Including, but not limited to, a mine, a lumber mill, a quarry, etc. I wanted the people here to be forced to gather their own goods, or pay for mine. If they had no choice but to pay, then they might be less willing to come.

I added in more houses that were within the theme boundary. They became villages that seemed to help support the merchants in my castle. The giant farm had its own small village.

I moved all of the houses I bought into the theme boundaries. All of them except mine, the one with the computer and tv and stuff. Electricity didn’t exist in DIVE, so I didn’t want a useless object. I also made my house inaccessible to any but me.

The end result was interesting. My new city surrounded a large merchant centered castle. The city was surrounded by forest on all sides, except for the road to the farm. On the way to the farm were various things gatherers could use to level up their skills.

I had only spent about half of my total DI bills by that point. I decided to by full inventories for all of my shops. Some of the shops I made share inventories, even though they were competitors.

I basically made a bank where the merchants would buy things from. The merchants would sell their goods, and buy more of them from the bank. The bank was set to automatically buy more goods as soon as the merchants bought them.

I thought this would help simulate an actual economy. Whether it would or not… well that was to be seen. After spending 85% of my total money I didn’t know what to do. I still had a few million DI bills left over. I expanded the forest a bit, and added more villages. Once I got to 10% remaining I stopped. I might have a use for the 20 million DI bills.

I decided to see what was happening on the net. Instead of leaving the pod, I just went to the house I owned within it. I looked online as how popular my videos where. I got a few hundred thousand hits total, but that wasn’t enough to explain my massive amount of DI bills.

I angrily flicked through the help menu again. I was getting a bit agitated from looking at it so much. After a moment I found the likely culprit of my massive amount of money.

DI bills can be acquired in several ways.

1) You can buy 10 DI bills for 1 USD.

2) DI bills can be awarded for having popular DIVE videos on our site (Only approved videos will be shown).

3) If a player finds a glitch within the game, they will be compensated once it is patched.

4) If the player has their character directly nerfed because of a patch, they will be compensated.

5) If a player assists the core program of DIVE in weeding out unfairness in DIVE they will be awarded DI bills, see 3 and 4.

Well that explains it. I’ve been nerfed every few fucking seconds!

I decided to see if the character data really did get changed by doing things here. I tried pulling up the character menu. It worked.

Still doubting it, I began to try purifying my metal mana. It was already at 1% purity just from being in the metal part of the city for a while.

I watched as my purity level quickly reached 5%. I blanched. Wait wait wait. I can access internet here. Does that mean I can use outside information!? I decided to give it a go. The system told me it would give me a warning before taking action against me.

I looked up some general info on the temple I was going to get my golem at. Even though you couldn’t act on the information, it was still being posted. I don’t know why anyone would bother though. I guess some people thought it would be cool to know about places or people they would never get to see.

Still, it gave me the opportunity to check out my theory. I learned that a special brew of dwarven ale was sold at a specific tavern. If I went there with the intentions of buying that brew it should tell me not to.

After I looked up the information, I bought lessons from the tailoring merchant. I was a little upset that it also cost me money to learn, but I understood that it was for the best. Otherwise this little idea of mine would get patched instantly.

Learning to tailor only took about an hour. The only thing I learned to make was a simple coin pouch, but I received a recipe for a simple cloth vest.

Right before I logged back into DIVE I saw a notice. It said something about training, so I just said yes to it. I was excited to see if I would still have my skill, and if I could use my illicit info.

I logged back into DIVE and started heading towards the tavern. I didn’t get any notice. I went in and ordered my specific ale. I still didn’t get any notice! I was way too excited to hold back my roar of joy, which netted me quite a few looks from the surrounding dwarves.

I didn’t care though. With my newfound source of information, I could do anything I wanted! Although it was doubtful that I would get any hints on quests. I could still find general information easily. This was, easily, the single greatest weapon I could ask for. With outside knowledge I would have a HUGE advantage over others.

I decided to go to the temple to get my golem summoned. Of course I went back to my DIVE room first. I looked up all of the, almost non-existent, info on that particular temple. Turns out, the guy in charge of actually summoning for non-dwarves was obsessed with magic.

Most people that summoned metal golems were dwarven magic fighters. They only used their limited magic to boost attacks. He would basically flip his shit if he saw someone use magic other than self-buffs or attack magic. I also looked into the prices of stores in the area. I found that seeds were insanely expensive here.

Once I got back into the game, I disabled my disguise. I registered it first though. I adopted my human disguise instead. People would associate me with the Chosen of Mar if they knew about me. I spent an hour looking for a shop that sold seeds. They mainly sold seeds that produced things that could be made into ale. Still all I needed was a seed. I had to travel to the earthen side of the city.

I walked into the seed merchant’s store. It was very similar in structure to Susan’s shop. There were several shelves lining the walls. Ten feet from the door was the counter, with a door way right behind it. Beyond the doorway was a stairwell to the left.

It actually looked eerily like Susan’s shop. I knew for a fact that the game was more complicated than just using presets like this. It was either a huge coincidence, or it was done deliberately.

I must have had a weird face, because the man behind the counter gave me a look. At least it wasn’t scornful. I walked up to him and engaged him in conversation. The man was about six feet tall, with dark brown hair, and deep purple eyes.

He was sporting a white lab coat, spattered in green, and a hat that seemed like you would see on an FBI agent.

“Hello my good sir! I heard this was the best place for non-dwarves. That seed seller that worships the metal god tried to rip me off!”

I started examining his goods. I had an idea that might have improved my ability to buy and sell goods. While using my inspect, I focused on an object. I used barter to try to see the general price of the good. I already knew the average market price, so I imagined that as well.

Detect Price

Current Level: Novice Level 1 Exp 0.00%

By determining the price of a good or service, without aid, you have gained this skill.

You can now see basic information on the price of a good or service. The price you see is between 50-150% of basic goods or services, and 10-1000% of rare goods or services.

You gain an additional 10% competency bonus to Barter.

To level this skill, you must examine the price of various goods or services.

Levels in this skill increase the accuracy of the skill. Ranks in this skill increase the amount of information you see about a good or service that would affect its price.

I fused the skill into Inspect. The seed I was looking at suddenly had ‘100 gold’ with a line pointing to it. I continued to speak to the salesman.

“I would like to purchase a book on seeds, as well as at least one seed. Do you have such a book?” I gave him an expectant look.

The man contemplated whether he should tell me or not. He eventually decided. In a deep rumbling voice he said, “Fine. Come with me. If you can pass a small test, I’ll give you the book for free.” He waved a finger. “If not, ya gotta give me the gold coin it’s worth, but you don’t get ta book.”

I only had 20 silver. That was only a fifth of what the con artist son of a bitch was asking. Obviously I wouldn’t be able to pay either way. I smiled. “Sure, but if I don’t win, I want to at least see how much the book is actually worth.” I looked at him expectantly.

He rolled his eyes, then signaled me to follow him. He turned around, and headed to the door behind him.

Spoiler :

Stats WindowNameVoice0fReasonClassMana EnchanterLevel 35Health: 100Mana: 1900Stamina: 350Current Title: SurgeonHealth Regen: 1/sMana Regen: 20.4(15.4)/sStamina Regen: 5.1/sStrength41Agility34Wisdom204Intelligence190Endurance51Dexterity44Luck0Vitality35Charisma35Compassion95Leadership66Logic22Piety89Unused Stat Points0Fame860

Skills WindowAutomated Novice Level 9 Exp 25.00%

Speed Reading Novice Level 9 Exp 00.00%

Auto Read Novice Level 20 Exp 50.00%Group Skill: Key to Self-Sustained Alchemy Novice Level 24 Exp 10.46%

Group Skill: Long Distance Inspection Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Automatic Nursing Novice Level 12 Exp 50.00%

Group Skill: Con Artist Novice Level 17 Exp 90.16%

Group Skill: Magical Mastery Apprentice Level 40 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Skill Mastery Adept Level 50 Exp 21.23%

Group Skill: Tactical Survival Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Tactical Combat Training Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Breakdown Novice Level 12 Exp 46.64%

Group Skill: Harvesting Mastery Novice Level 3 Exp 11.11%

Group Skill: Crafting Mastery Novice Level 5 Exp 00%

Affinities WindowLight70%Water60%Wind25%Nature55%Metal25%Earth45%Fire25%Darkness100%