The gentle buzzing of the alarm woke her the next morning. She lay on the forest floor listening to the pleasant sounds of the birds singing and the chittering of the little squirrels racing around the trees of her virtual room.

"Good morning Sam," she said after rolling onto her back and stretching. "Any problems to report?"

"Good morning Natalie," Sam replied. " There are no problems, the new raft are working as intended. You have received 100 credit points for your last two days of work, 60 credits for the actual days rostered and 30 credits as a bonus for finding and reporting the problem with the old raft of robots."

Natalie sat up surprised, she hadn't known she would get the points that quickly, she had thought it would be the end of next week at the earliest.

"Why did I receive credits so soon Sam?" She asked.

"The Work Order Division is placing you into its system as a new status Young Adult, you will receive another 30 credits tomorrow as the system is adjusted." Sam said. "Monday you will start a full paid week of System Work, which will run to Friday when you will be paid 150 credits, plus or minus any fines or bonuses you would have received."

"Why is the amount so small?" Natalie frowned. "I thought I would be paid nearly twice that amount."

"Technically you are Natalie, but since you live at home with your parents, they still pay for the majority of your expenses, the remaining amounts you acquire above the 150 credits will be placed into their joint account." Sam said. "This will not change until you have reach 18 and have been re-evaluated for complete adult status, upon which time you will receive a rise in credits and a one bedroom apartment of your own."

"Oh, I see I will have to work very hard," Natalie said quietly. " I know from my schooling how expensive it is to raise a child, I will have to try to help out as much as I can now I'm able too."

"That is sound reasoning Natalie, and with the new raft we have just received, we can be twice as productive, if you wish to proceed," Sam stated. "I can apply for the unused hours between 1am and 6 am to increase our output of work orders."

Natalie thought about it for a second then sighed, yes it wouldn't leave her any space if a problem occurred but it was possible to do it if she and Sam kept to a regular schedule. She also knew to drop the extra work orders wouldn't be to hard if it proved to much for her to handle.

"Ok Sam put in an application please, but make it so that if I need to cancel for any reason or cannot keep up, I will not incur a penalty for it." She said.

"That can easily be done," Sam said. " You are not expected to work as hard as a Full Status Adult and any penalty's you receive will be adjusted accordingly."

Now that her sudden finances had been seen to, Natalie had Sam log her out of the pod. She climbed out and looked at her room thinking about all the things her parents had done for her since her birth. She would never be able to repay that, and she knew they would be upset if they realised she was thinking on those lines, it would be better to keep it to herself, she decided.

After breakfast and a shower, Natalie decided she wanted to help her parents out even more so she went and found her mother and started to help her with the morning house chores, they chattered and giggled their way around the house getting it done very quickly. Then she went outside and did the same with her father and the gardens.

Both parents thanked her and gave her a big hug for helping, but Natalie felt like she had accomplished more by the fact that both of them sat down and started doing projects they had been working on for weeks and they seemed very content.

Tiredly she walk back upstairs, and climbed back into her pod, She had Sam put her into real sleep for an hour, then he would wake her into the game so she could play.

The morning light shining into the small shack hit her face and woke her up. She smiled that was a good way to start her game day, she thought and sat up. None of this would be possible if they hadn't worked out a way for people to sleep and work at the same time in VR, she felt rested and alert now after her hour of real sleep.

Standing up she went outside to check on the herbs and berry bushes she had planted the day before. They had already spiked though the ground, she took out the hoe and watering can and set about seeing to her large garden.

She had nearly finished, when she felt that warm tingling flush go though her body once again, only it felt a little different from last time not as intense.

Congratulations

You have acquired the skill Herbalist

Starting level

0/15

Tier Level

0/20 Copper

To raise your tier level you will need to spend 5 levels to gain one tier level.

The notification slowly faded from her sight, but Natalie was happy finally she had done it. Now she needed to check her status to see how far she was from a farming skill as well it had been at 30% last time she had checked.

"Status" she thought firmly.

Crystal [Dogkin] level 1

Stamina 10 +

Strength 10 +

Intellect 10 +

Mana 50 +

Unassigned stat points 13

Skills

Herbalist level 0/15

Farming 87%

Unassigned Skill points 2

skill points can be used to reduce the amount of Experience needed to Level a skill, 1 skill point will reduce the amount needed by 20% per skill. Use them wisely.

Natalie was pleased to see the extra information about the skill points that will help knowing what they were actually for, she decided to once again to just leave the points she had alone for now, she had time and would rather gather as much information on the use of the points as she could before committing to placing them.

It also seemed that she only got the skill points when she leveled up her avatar not when she leveled the skill it self. Now she needed to work on the farming skill. She went about finishing up the gardening, hoping it would be enough to get the farming skill but nothing happened.

She put her tools away into the storage shed and exited the sanctuary, outside she was astonished to fined other players trying to find a way in. There looked to be about nine of them, and they looked frustrated.

"Hey you!" A player shouted, upon seeing her leave the Sanctuary, " How did you get in and out of that place?"

They moved towards Natalie as a group she looked nervously back at the entrance, maybe she should go back inside again they didn't look friendly.

"Wait we just want to know how to get in there, just tell us how you did it." Another player said. "I'm sure this wasn't here yesterday."

Natalie paused, she looked at them for a minute, if they where going to cause her trouble then really there was nothing she could do but endure it, until she found a way to be stronger.

"I can go in and out because it's my soulbound Farming Sanctuary." She told them quietly. "No one can enter it but myself."

This made them all stop and stare at her, mouths open.

" How did you get a soulbound item this huge, in the first few days of the game?" A tall Human spluttered incredulously, "And your level 1, just how ?"

" I talked to the Herbalist in the Village, she sold it to me," replied Natalie. " I leveled to 1 doing what she required of me."

She shrugged as if it hadn't been a big deal, but she wasn't going to lose her edge on this lot by giving out any more information.

"Tell us how you did it!" A large bear beastkin growled as he moved towards her.

"I just did," she answered. Then she turned and ran towards the Village, the group followed her for a few minutes then turned back to her sanctuary and continued to try and force their way in.

Natalie went to the herbalists shop, she was a little worried about the players she didn't know if they could force their way into her Sanctuary or not. Maybe Molly could tell her about how it works.

Natalie enter the shop and found Molly sweeping the floor in front of the counter, she stopped what she was doing once she set eyes on Natalie.

"ahh Crystal, how are you going with your farming ?" Molly asked, she seemed pleased to see Natalie." Work out how to set up the sanctuary ok ?"

"Yes I have it up and already have a crop of Sundaisys, Blueguards and Healberries half grown, they should be harvestable by tomorrow afternoon," she happily told Molly. " but I have questions about the Sanctuary itself,"

" Good I'm looking forward to the herbs you will produce Crystal, and I can answer a few questions you might have," Molly said, "as long as I know the answers anyway."

"Can anyone force their way into my Sanctuary?" She asked. "And how do I get into it or out, if people are outside the entrance of it waiting for me."

"Firstly, no one can force their way in, they have to be invited by you and even then they are just visiting they cannot change or damage anything once inside." Molly said with a reassuring smile. "You do not have to enter or exit by a set means, you simply will yourself into it or out of the Sanctuary, it's a part of you now, you can will yourself into it from my shop if you wish. But you cannot will yourself from it into my shop."

"That seems a little over powering," Natalie said thoughtfully. "It feels like I didn't pay you enough for the Sanctuary, it must have cost a lot more then what I paid for it."

"Not at all child," Molly laughed. "That was one of the first low level items I made, once I reached silver tier in Farming and Herbalist, when you get yourself to that level you will be able to make them as well."

"That's low level?" She asked astonished, " it will level up as I use it, that seems super useful."

"Yes Crystal it will seem like a very good item to you right now, but as you get higher in tier you will realise what I mean," Molly said with a smile, "But do not fear, raise this one you have and when you get to the point you can make better simply forge this one to the one you will make later. Every profession has a starter Sanctuary and as you level yourself and the item, you can add other professions into your Sanctuary, yours will be dominated by the farming and herbs because you received it from me. If you had received it from say the blacksmith you would have a dominate theme of the forge and smithy."

"oh that sounds wonderful," Natalie enthused, " Thank you Molly, is there any other professions you think I should add right now? or would it be better to just do the two I have so far for a while?"

"You will need to get the two skills for this part first, but once you do, get to the stables and earn the right to get animal husbandry, it won't be easy and I'm not going to tell you how, but you will find it necessary." Molly replied. "Also Crystal the distance you travel away from your Sanctuary matters, you can only will yourself to it if you are in a 5 mile radius of it, it will inform you when you are getting out if it's boundary."

" Ok Molly thank you for answering all my questions," Natalie said. " I think I'll go back and try to get the other skill I already have herbalist."

Molly nodded and turned back to her sweeping, Natalie closed her eyes and thought hard about her Sanctuary, willing herself into it, she opened one eye to see if it worked and found herself standing by the little bed in the shack.

She jumped around in delight, then rushed out into the garden eagerly, checking on the plants she could see everything was going alright with them. She looked at the remaining plot of land, she hadn't used it yet. Humming to herself she grabbed some Yellowdell flower seeds and started to plant them.