Surprise surprise!

New chapter! Yey!

This is bound to have a lot of grammar and typo errors.

I was in a rush to finish this chapter, since I'm going on an overnight trip to the beach with my family.

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Kristine was inside the training room. She was sitting on the floor, with her legs folded underneath her thighs, and her bottom resting on the heels. Her hands were resting on her lap, and her back was ramrod straight. This was the pose she use when she undergoes visualization training.

In her mind, she was fighting against her great-grandfather. She threw punches, kicks, elbow and knee strikes, head-butts, shoulder rams, and tried to grab him. He dodged them all, never losing that warm and kind smile on his face.

"It's not about speed, or strength," he said. "Even if you are faster than others, or stronger than them, you can still be defeated. Why is that?"

Kristine shook her head. She didn't know.

"That is... because your stats are still Expert Ranked."

"No, that's not iiiiit!!!" Kristine screamed loudly as she suddenly opened her eyes and started rolling on the ground. After a while, she lay down on her back and catches her breath.

"I can't concentrate," she said loudly and raised her hand as if to grabbed something. After a while, a loose smile formed on her face as she imagined holding the cute little beast she was taming.

"I'll name him, Leafy." Then suddenly realizing her thoughts had gone astray once again, she rolled on the wooden floor while grabbing her head.

On the way to school, Rayhlee met up with Kristine. It was a new feeling for the both of them, probably because of their history of having no friends to walk with to school for a long time.

"You made a huge commotion yesterday," Rayhlee said while walking with a bounce on her steps. Kristine who was walking beside her just sighed. "What were you doing when I left for the town?"

"A lot happened. A pet turtle, a strange mask, and a teleport item," Kristine said, summarizing the events without any enthusiasm. Rayhlee only tilted her head in confusion.

"But still, to think you'd enrage a BT out of nowhere. What did you do?"

"BT?"

"Beta Tester. You didn't know? That guy you dueled yesterday was a Beta Tester. He's been playing the game since the beta testing stage, that's before it went live." Then she suddenly crossed her arms and made a thinking pose. "It's weird that he's in a town far from the frontier towns."

"Haaa." Kristine only sighed.

"So, what did you do? When I saw you yesterday, the duel was already over. He was pointing at you screaming about some sort of revenge."

"Haaa." Another sigh escaped from her mouth as she remembered the previous events.

* * *

"Hey, watch where you're going!"

After falling down, Pristine patted her clothes and looked around. She was back in the town plaza of Lancendai. Whatever that item was, it teleported her back in town. Because she was still a bit shocked of what happened, she forgot about the burly man she bumped into.

She placed the Leaf Turtle on her shoulder and started to walk towards the tailor shop to look for Raylight when she was shoved from behind, causing her to lose her balance. She managed to stop herself from falling down, and glared back at the person behind her.

"I finally caught your attention, little girl." It was a big man wearing black plate armor that covered every inch of his body. He was two heads taller than Pristine. There was a huge war-axe on his back. "No one ignores Magnum Max. You better remember my face!"

"But you're wearing a helmet," Pristine retorted. Uh-oh, she thought. She had been a little out of it because of what happened earlier and just said her thoughts out loud.

Obviously mad, the man who called himself Magnum Max, violently took of his helmet and said, "You better remember my face!" while leaning towards her. The turtle on her shoulder which was still nibbling on a nut it took along with it when they somehow warped, suddenly spit the nut at him. Still moist from the turtle's saliva, the nut stuck to his forehead.

"Pi pi pi pi pi pya!" it let out a stream of noises as if cursing him!

Reaching his limit, Magnum Max took the war-axe from behind him and said in a low growling voice, "Duel with me."

"Wait, I just started a fe---"

"I said duel with me!"

Overwhelmed, Pristine accepted his duel invitation.

[ Duel Rules ]

[ Players involved in the duel must fight within a 10 meter radius from the point of initiation of the duel. ]

[ Victory is decided when one player surrenders, lose all Vitality, lose consciousness, or leave the duel area. ]

[ There are no death penalties when dueling. ]

A countdown of five seconds appeared at the top of her screen. She tucked the small beast into the space between her chest and her leather armor. It snuggled itself in there with a 'pya'. Unsheathing the longsword on her back, she readied her stance.

Magnum Max had a confident smile on his face. He was planning on thrashing this ignorant little girl and teach her a lesson. He had noticed the guild emblem on her chest. New Eden was a small guild but it had a very good reputation of exploring difficult dungeons on the frontier. He planned on shaming this guild in front of the other players.

He went to this small town in the beginner area to recruit newbies. His guild, Shining Glory, was aiming to conquer the most difficult dungeon available now. It was the tunnel that leads through the Range of Demon Beasts. Once they cleared the dungeon, it will allow players safe passage across the mountain range. He planned to set up a toll for the passage. It was going to be easy income. The role of the newbie players were to act as bait for the monsters. That way, the core members of the guild can clear the dungeon without suffering death penalties. They can discover the abilities and strength of the demonic beasts present in the dungeon by sacrificing the newbie players.

To convince the beginners to join them, he planned on bringing down a member of another guild to show off the strength of him and his guild.

'Judging from her appearance, she probably started a few weeks ago,' he thought, excited of devouring this easy prey. If he knew that this player he was looking down on only started two days ago, he would be in for a shock.

With the countdown reaching zero, he casted a fire elemental enchantment, the 'Blazing Weapon' spell, on his war-axe, turning it into a fiery blazing weapon of carnage.

"Die!" he yelled, sure of his victory. He made a huge step forward and slashed his burning war-axe horizontally with all his might. This was his sure-kill attack that won him all his duels. The wide swinging arc would not allow dodging to the side or to the back. The effects of the fire enchantment increased the range of the damage, and the heat haze that resulted distorted the opposing player's sense of distance. He had a savage grin on his face, but it soon turned into that of shock and fear.

Pristine, upon seeing him cast the fire enchantment on his weapon, knew what he was planning. Increasing attack range and disturbing the opponent's sense of distance was a very basic strategy among duel strategies. Her great-grandfather did this many times against her by wearing loose long-sleeved robes with weird stripe patterns during their training.

With no hints of fear or doubt, she stepped forward within the range of the war-axe. She cast Shock Grasp with her left hand, and consumed it with Icio Ruo. Using the slight movement boost, she parried the war-axe slightly upwards by hitting the bottom flat side of its blade with her sword. Receiving damage from the fiery blaze, her Vitality quickly dropped to less than 40%. She casted Munio Parvu as many times as she could within the small time available at that moment while under the effects of Increase Reflex. Reaching out her hand, she cast another Shock Grasp and tapped his plate armor. It easily paralyzed his body as the lightning currents easily passed through using his armor as a conductor. Seeing that the effects were powerful enough, she consumed the lightning currents with another Icio Ruo, pushing the huge man out of the dueling area.

Shocked by what happened, the loser angrily shouted profanities at Pristine and made complaints like it was not fair, and the duel should have been concluded by having one of them dead and not by some stupid disqualification rule.

"You should just accept your defeat," she said as she turned around to find Raylight appearing from within the crowd.

* * *

"So that's what happened," Rayhlee said while nodding to herself. "I just confirmed one thing."

"What?"

"You're actually really really strong! Are you actually some sort of secret superhero?"

"Uhh..." Kristine was at a loss of what to say. In fact, what Rayhlee said was not that far from the truth. Only it was her great-grandfather who was a hero, and she only acquired his genes.

"Well, let's report this later to the seniors!" Rayhlee said as she bouncily walked towards the school gate.