It was a small round muddy area surrounded by trees and bushes from all sides. Aside from Bold there was a middle-aged man sitting on a bench, casually enjoying his surroundings. Bold stood in front of the logs placed at one corner of the area checked out the instructions of the spells.  

“Shagai Shoot” – code 4531

Method:

Imagine horse, sheep, goat, ox and camel all happily residing in the palm of your left hand. The shagai that forms on your hand can take four different forms. The forms will be chosen randomly.

1- Horse form – Fastest but the weakest projectile 
2.-Camel form – Largest and strongest projectile
3- Goat form – Targeting projectile. It targets your target when you target it.
4- Sheep form – slow startup but multiplies into many small projectiles.

“Horse summoning”  - 87921

Method: Imagine cutting the wind with your dearest friend. Hear and feel your friend’s breathing, trotting and neighing      

His horse summoning spell had to be practiced later, given that it’s offensive capabilities lacked. Which meant-

“Here goes nothing”

Bold immediately typed the codes of shagai shoot and imagined what was on the instructions. It did not happen. He tried again…for about another 5 minutes. But nothing…

“This is ridiculous”

He looked at his spell menu again, cancelled his codes and retyped again. Tried to imagine it more and more vividly. But nothing came out of his efforts.  There wasn’t anything specifically wrong he was doing, at least he hoped so. The man said that he needed to train a lot in order to properly get a grasp of this ability and as it turns out that was the insufferable part.

From a gameplay standpoint, Bold understood that this system would reward someone’s hard work and determination. But when the spell itself wasn’t showing any indication of working it just seemed frustrating. Other games knew how to guide the players and reward them for every little achievement they made. Repeating the same task again and again not knowing if you’re even doing it rightly or wrongly was silly.

He tried for the next five minutes to imagine the five animals residing on his palm. But seeing as how his efforts produced nothing he gave up. Obviously, it was better to tackle this tomorrow where he had a better spirit.  It was enough for today. As he was heading towards the exit he heard a man’s voice.

“Hey, you giving up now?”

“Huh?”

The person who called out to him was the same man sitting on the bench until just now. His mouth was covered in light beard and mustache. His black eyes were penetrating.  There was a sarcastic grin on the man’s face which revealed his silver teeth.

The man examined his behavior from top to bottom and said. 

“Learning spells sure is a pain, isn’t it?”

Bold didn’t have any reason to be nice to or let alone interact with the guy but he was glad to find someone who related with him.

“Y-yeah”.

The man looked at the sky with dreamy eyes but soon gazed at him and smiled again. 

“What’s your name?”

“Bold”.

“My name is Arman” 

“So…Arman. Have you learned any spells yourself?”

“Yup, already mastered two spells despite just arriving in this game four days ago. My friends already mastered all their spells tho. And they were new to this game too”

“Really? Must have been quite a pain in the butt for them”

“Well, not exactly. it’s more like we were just lucky for finding a shortcut”

“Wait, shortcut? What do you mean?”

Bold desperately wanted to get an answer. Arman raised his eyebrow and slowly walked towards him.

“It’s really rude of other people to not tell you. There is a much faster way to learn these spells”.

“There is? And everyone knows about it?”.

“Well not everyone knows about this. But I bet the people who are here in this game more than a year probably knows”

Wait. Wouldn’t that mean mister Jonathon should have known about that too? Why didn’t he tell me?
Ehh, probably should have bribed him for more info.      

“And what’s that? You wouldn’t mind telling me? Or is that too much to ask?”

“Nah, stop being so grumpy dude. it’s nothing to hide really. If you searched around you probably would have found it out yourself at some point. There is an AI in the wood which can help you learn any spell”.

Arman pointed at the woods behind the training ground with his index finger.

“There is? This close?”    

“Yeah, surprising, huh. There is an old mentor of sorts just at the depths of the wood. It’s an AI. Input the name of the spell and that man gives you hints and your attempts at perfecting your spell becomes 2 times more effective if you train next to him”.

A flame emerged in Bold’s eyes. Arman pressed the button on his shoulder and opened up the menu.

“Oh, but you need to hurry if you’re going to train. You need to apply to the training before 5 pm. The training starts at 6”

“Man, I gotta hurry then”.

“Yup, and I’ll help you locate the mentor since you’re a bit late. Just follow me”.

Arman ran towards the woods and Bold followed after him. Within the forest, everything was covered in dark green leaves and plants. It was quite hard to keep track of where one should go. Arman was sprinting at a steady pace but he suddenly stopped. Bold wondered what was his reason but soon he saw 2 people emerging from the bushes.

One was a tall teenager whose look indicated that he might be from a European country. The other was Asian. A bit shorter than Bold. The two men mischievously grinned as soon as they saw them. Bold examined their behavior with caution but Arman smiled and said:

“Those two are my friends”.

“Oh, okay” said Bold but he couldn’t shake off the tension from his back.  

The tall teenager did not greet Bold but walked towards him with no hesitation and stood beside him. However, the Asian boy typed on his wristboard and suddenly his left hand submerged in black flame. The kid then gave a devilish look towards him and Bold knew what was going on. He tried to run away but the tall boy immediately pulled his right arm and pinned it against his back. And his left arm was locked tight by none other than Arman.

And before Bold could shout for help the Asian boy rushed at him with full speed and threw his arm into his belly. The impact caused Bold to nearly vomit, his vision was blacking out and it felt as if all of his energy was sucked out of him. Bold pathetically fell to the ground face down.

He couldn’t move a limb.  Was it because of the sucker punch? No that was not the case. Bold deduced that the spell the teenager used to wrap his fist around had caused this. His body felt as if it was being burnt on a hot stove but aside from his head he could not move anything.

“Turn him around” ordered Arman.

The two men grabbed him from the torso and rolled him over and now he was facing the trees and the leaves which managed to completely conceal the sky. He couldn’t believe this was happening. He needed to escape, he needed to shout.
 
“What the hell are you doing, you bastards?!”

The tall teenager sat down and looked at his face with a grin and then dipped his hand into his dimensional bag. Few moments later the teenager pulled out the few golds he had and his rusty dagger.      

“This fat fuck only has 300 gold”

“Sheesh, so he bought a bunch of spells with all his gold then? Lucky for him I guess” said Arman and kicked Bold’s body.

His boot hit between his ribs and it sure as hell hurt like a motherfucker. The man kicked him again and Bold let out a squeal. Bold was red hot and rigidly furious. He barely managed to move his head to look at Arman. Tears started to roll down his eyes. He wanted to stop it but he couldn’t. He knew he would only look weak and pathetic if he doesn’t stop them somehow.

But, even if he didn’t cry, Bold indeed was pathetic and powerless. How could he have been naive enough to not see such an obvious scam?

The Asian boy said in a hoarse voice:

“You got everything worth taking?”

“Yeah”

Arman sat on his knee to face Bold, patted his cheek playfully and walked away. The other two followed him and a few moments later they had vanished into the woods. And after a brief moment of despair and helplessness, Bold could feel his strength and stamina rushing back into his body as if he was never immobilized before.

Bold ran as fast as he could to try and find the bastards who robbed him empty but the trees and the bushes blocked his vision and he himself was simply not as fast as he was in high school. His knees hurt from the steering of his legs and he occasionally wobbled and lost balance.  And it didn’t take long before Bold gave up.

There was no way he could find them and even if he did find them, just like Arman said, would he have been able to take down three people? No, it was impossible. He was simply too fucking weak to do anything. 

Bold kneed, kicked and punched the large tree nearby out of frustration. After minutes of ranting and self-loathing Bold decided to leave the park while bowing his head. 

           Walking along the grey slope under the setting sun with slumped shoulders Bold finally managed to reach an inn. He entered the tavern, passed the hordes of men who were singing and dancing. He ignored every one of them and went upstairs. What awaited him was a hallway that arched towards the right. On this floor, there were five rooms in total that were meant for the customers.

If I could just sneak into one of the rooms. No one will know. As long as some idiot doesn’t order the same room it shouldn’t be a problem.
 
He opened the door and peered into the dark room.

“Hey, you wanna get a room?” said a grumpy man from behind.

An electric shock ran through his spine and Bold turned around with a jump.

“Ahh, ah, ah. Well, you see I…I don’t have money at all”

The bald man with a grumpy face scanned his figure insultingly.

“Clean up my inn after these drunkards leave. Can you do that? Or you’re one of those types who have no talent but eating and shitting?”.

“N-no. I-I can. Of course, I can”.

He tried to make the last of his sentence as bold as possible by forming a heroic smile on his face. But his boldness broke in half as soon as his work started.

“What? You got a kid in your belly? Move your ass, punk”

“Goddamn, what did I do to deserve this?”

He swept the floor and swiped the tables. His arms hurt, his knees cracked. His back ached.

This is terrible, this is terrible. FUCK THIS SHIT. Damn it. Is this what TRUE PAIN feels like? Shit, Imma commit harakiri if this keeps going on.

He panted hard as he cleaned the dirt off the floor. Seeing how he slouched on the ground and moved like a sloth the grumpy innkeeper darted him with daggery eyes.

“Sheesh, you almost sound like you’re going to have a heart attack any moment”.

“S-shut up. I’m doing fine”.

“Watch your mouth, son. Without me you’re going straight out into the streets”.

“The streets are probably less noisy”.

“Oh, what was that, punk? You said something? If you wanna say it, say it to me loud and clear” the innkeeper roared.

Bold panted loudly and screamed as he grabbed his chest with a red face. 

“H-hey, kid! What happened?”

“Air, I need air”

Bold fell to the floor with bulging eyes and a fear-stricken face.

“H-help me, please”

With his last bit of strength completely dissipated, his arm fell to the floor lifelessly.