Sweat leaped off Sage’s brow as he cast ‘Thrust’ for the umpteenth time. At one point, he had fallen into a rhythm of casting and recasting; he would finish the first movement, and then while repositioning himself, he would cast immediately. His motions were fluid, submerging him in a never ending cycle, only to resurface when his mana depleted. He would then wait for it to regenerate. 

Sage sheathed his sword as the notification for his depleted mana popped up; the training was over, even if he sought to continue onward, the wave of exhaustion that slammed into him, as if triggered from the sheathing of his blade, denied any possibility of that. The wobble of his legs told him it was time to leave. 

[Thrust Level Increased: 1-2 | Skill Modified]

It took him a while to understand the message, hindered by his exhaustion. Skill modified? He quickly opened his menu to check what had occurred. 

 

---

{Thrust: Lvl 2} Swordsman | Novice Skill | Active

Cost: 6 Mp 

Through rigorous training, you have become one with the skill. Regardless of the stance you are in or how balanced you are— be it the air or underwater— you can cast the skill. Deals 30 physical damage. Scales off of strength. 

[Home]

---

 

The Mp cost went up by one, but compared to the added ability to cast the skill without being in a balanced position was well worth it. 

Sage drew his sword once more, arms shaking, and started sprinting towards a tree. Fast approaching it, he sprung off the ground and cast ‘Thrust’; his arm drew back as if he prepared to shoot an arrow, and, as he was descending, thrusted towards the tree. Driving his blade through the center of it, the tree trunk splintered, and chunks of it flew in every direction. He had hoped he could topple it just as the Boar King did; alas, he did not. 

Sage closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, feeling all the tightness from his training— a training which immediately paid off. 

It was time to go; Felix was most likely looking for his outer ring partner. Making his way through the forest, Sage marveled at the skill gem. How were they created? Perhaps that was the skill crafting everyone was referring to, making skill gems. But that wouldn’t make sense, the menu said only one could be used at a time. 

He cast his eyes to the treetops, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sky. There were many things he didn’t know about this world, many things that would keep him from meeting that woman. His fist tightened. He needed to learn; a library could be of use, perhaps an information broker, if those were a thing. All that was evident was that he needed to learn more than what he’d been given. 

The moonlight filled his vision once more with the tree-line now behind him. The blue light was at a different angle than before, time was passing, though thankfully daybreak seemed a ways away. Like a hawk surveyed the land for its prey, Felix stood atop a hill, scanning the fields below and perhaps beyond, as he searched for, undoubtedly, Sage. 

“Hey!” Felix called out. He came running towards him, and Sage prepared his ears for a tumult. Gasping with wide eyes, Felix pointed to all the rips and blood and cuts that covered Sage’s body. 

“They were just boars, man, how’d you let them do that to you?” he said. 

Sage rolled his eyes, “They were tough boars. Tons of them came at me at once, I barely survived. The quests are done though, should we head back?”

Felix’s eyes had seemed distant through their conversation; they followed every movement of Sage’s arm. 

“Where did you get those?” Felix asked. He was pointing to the ‘Kings Gloves’.

Sage’s breath caught in his chest, his mind moved as quickly as possible. 

“I found them in a chest”— an idea came to him—“I went pretty deep into the forest and stumbled upon a chest. It gave me the gloves, boots, and a skill gem; I got a couple of silver coins too. Why? Are these special gloves or something?”

His heart pounded with each slithering of his silver tongue. With how game-like the world seemed, treasure chests had to be natural occurrences. 

Felix kept his eyes on the gloves and then passed them to the boots. He nodded and raised an eyebrow. 

“Your luck is out of this world. It’s very rare for chests to spawn this far from the Corruption, though it does happen. What type of equips are they? They look like typical fur and leather ones; any armor is better than none though.”

It was like ten years just got added back onto his lifespan; the relief was monumental. 

“They’re just fur and leather,” Sage said. The term Corruption came up again, what was this corruption? It turned the boar into a monster and seemed to spawn chests with loot. 

“Did you actually get a skill gem? That’s beyond lucky, which one?”

“Thrust, it seems to be a swordsman skill,” Sage replied. 

“Better than what I expected you to get. That’s a novice skill. A beginner skill would be more likely to come out of the chests around here. You just saved yourself a lot of money.”

Sage gave Felix a questioning look. 

“I wasn’t gonna say anything, but you seem to know an awful lot for someone from a farm,” he said.

Felix paused, briefly, before finding the words to say. 

“My older brother traveled a lot and used to come back to tell us what he learned about the world— until he abandoned us for whatever it is he’s doing now. I know more than the average out-ringer, that’s for sure.”

His answer came a little too quick for Sage to write him off as a simple farm boy; he had nothing to question him for, though, and had no reason to even if he did, so he kept his suspicions to himself. 

“Eldest son ran away and he was soon followed by the youngest, I feel for your father.”

A smirk formed on Sage’s face. “Do you mind if I leech off of that information of yours? My village was beyond disconnected from the world, I didn’t even know floating islands could exist. You seem to know much more than I first thought, mind sharing?”

The moonlight had dimmed considerably, casting the fields, and Felix’s quizzical expression, into the growing darkness. 

“What happened to being done with everything? You said you weren’t interested in all this stuff and needed to go back home. Why the sudden interest?”

Damn farm boy. What happened to his nonchalant, go with the flow vibe? 

“I wasn’t, and can’t say I am, but there’s something I need to make amends for, and it requires me to get stronger. And to get stronger, I need to learn more.”

Felix raised his lips into a pout and threw his arm around Sage’s shoulder, “You’re too kind, you don’t have to pay me back for what I’ve done for you. I did it because I wanted to, ok?”

Removing his arm, and taking a step away from him, Sage said, “I’m not doing it for you, it’s not as if the help you provided was all that special anyway. I need to meet a certain person and I doubt I can do it at my current strength.”

“Is that so, then why should I continue helping you? You can get help from other people along with the information you want. Why should I be the one to help you?”

Sage sighed. What a troublesome guy, he was like a dog and a kid, he was a pup. 

“I’ll join an exhibition team with you, that’s what you wanted, right?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Felix’s hand was held out directly in front of him. 

“You have a deal. I tell you what you need to know, you join a team with me; don’t go back on your word, you hear me?” he said. 

Sage couldn’t help but chuckle, “I won’t.” He looked around at the darkening fields, “Let’s go back to town first, yeah?” 

The din of the tavern made it hard for Sage to hear his breathing. Larger than the last one he visited, the interior was filled to the brim with people of all kinds. Women and men alike sang songs that seemed of great importance while tales with accompanying stories were told alongside them. Being at the center of such a rambunctious group was infectious and brought out the foot tapping and hand clapping of any who happened to be in their presence. 

Sage’s foot tapped, initially from the music, and lastly from Felix’s lengthy acquisition of their drinks. The distracted laughter of a dog turned turtle could be heard from a few tables over. Soon after, the golden-haired reptile appeared from the crowd carrying four mountainous glasses of bubbling cider. They swished as he placed them onto the table, sliding two over to Sage, nearly spilling them in the process. 

“I clearly asked for water,” Sage said, eyes on the mugs. 

Felix rolled his eyes, “Oh come now, we’re celebrating! That calls for a proper drink!” 

He took a small sip of his cider and then tipped it, raising his arm and guzzling the alcohol down in an instant. He slammed his mug onto the table and wiped his mouth in exaggeration.

“Your turn,” Felix said, motioning to Sage’s cup. 

When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? Sage tried his best to mimic Felix but choked on the abundance of liquid not even a quarter of the way through his drink. Felix’s laughter was cheerful and loud. 

“Hey, get this,” Felix started. “Apparently there’s been strange monster sightings around the outer realm. Villages have been getting terrorized by creatures they couldn’t identify. What do you think of that? 

Sage was still wiping his mouth. “I don’t think anything about it. I couldn’t even guess at what they were or anything; I know so little.”

Felix lowered his second mug, putting his downing of it on hold, “That’s why we need to join an expedition team! It’d be too dangerous for us to travel there alone, but with a team, we could figure out what the creatures are, and get paid for it!” 

He then returned to his drink and downed it in an instant. 

“Yeah, the teams sound wonderful, but your information comes first,” Sage said. He took a smaller sip of his drink. 

“I could’ve just gone to a library now that I think about it; there’d definitely be more information there than what you could give me.”

Felix nodded, “Most definitely, but there aren’t any libraries around here. There are bookstores, but that’s money spent— money you’re better off using for new gear.”

That was true. With his new funds, he could get a much better weapon and a decent set of armor, hopefully. He’d have to rely on the farm boy’s knowledge. 

Sliding his drinks to the side so his arms had room to rest on the wooden table, Sage set his eyes on a rosy Felix and formulated his thoughts. If possible, he wanted to learn of everything he didn’t know, but that wasn’t a possibility. Not only because Felix most certainly didn’t hold such information, but also because Sage himself wasn’t aware of the extent of his ignorance. He could ask what he knew he didn’t know, but that was it. It would have to do. 

“So, what do you want to know? My knowledge is limited, especially when it comes to card related things, but I’ll try my best,” Felix said. 

“I guess the islands come first. Where did they come from, you made it seem like they weren’t always there.”

Felix nodded, “They weren’t. The rest of the world was much the same. I suppose I’m better off explaining the Corruption than the islands alone. As you should know, The Corruption lies at the center of our world inside the inner ring. It’s like a tower of pure, cylindrical, dark essence that eats away at our world whenever given the chance. When it grows in diameter, consuming the land, it steals from our world and adds them into its ever-growing insides. The dungeons are like portals to the inside of the corruption; gates to worlds created from what once was part of our own. The gates to these dungeons are spread all across the land but are mostly situated closer to the corruption itself. Clearing the dungeon will return whatever stolen piece of our world was present inside of it.”

Felix waved down a passing waitress and asked for three more glasses of cider. 

“So the islands were one of these places stolen from our world?” Sage asked. 

“Exactly, a couple of months ago, after a two-year-long expedition inside a dungeon of the middle ring, the islands appeared. Each time we clear the dungeons, the corruption shrinks as if we’re battling it for control over land.”

“Like a tug-of-war,” Sage said. 

Felix tilted his head, “A what?”

“Nothing, just go on.”

“The Corruption is the reason for the cataclysms and mutated monsters too. Creatures like the Boar King used to be regular animals but were touched and filled with dark essence, mutating them into the monsters they now are. Cataclysms are the same; they were once just regular plots of land, like provinces or cities, but The Corruption tainted them, turning them into miniature versions of itself. Anything there becomes tainted with dark essence. When these areas or creatures of dark essence are destroyed, however, they become purified and regular essence will fill the air. That’s why treasure chests are more common near The Corruption, they’re formed by an abundance of essence. There’s not enough being converted where we are for them to appear so frequently, see how lucky you were?”

Sage nodded his head. So the scorpion and Boar King were Corruption-touched, that’s why he got essence for defeating them. Felix also said the world was like a dartboard, and that The Corruption was like a tower in the bulls-eye. That must mean that the outer realm would be the furthest away from the center of the land, like the furthest ring on a dartboard. That would be massive! How is he trying to say there are no adventurers from the outer ring, it would be the largest portion of the world? 

Sage shook his head to free himself of the thoughts. It was all quite clear to him, The Corruption eats the world and creates dungeons, clearing the dungeons returns what it’s eaten; clear enough. 

“How do we clear dungeons though? If it’s just land stolen from us, what would ‘clearing’ a dungeon entail?” Sage asked.

Felix shook his head, nearly spilling the cider he was drinking. 

“I don’t know that much, I feel you’d have to go inside of one to learn that. What I do know is that there are creatures inside more deadly than any corruption-touched creatures out here. They’re called Remnants; beings of pure dark essence. But for how you actually clear them”— he shrugged his shoulders—“I got no clue.”

Sage took a couple more sips of his first drink. What type of place would require two years to clear? How expansive was the inside of those dungeons? He could already imagine the rewards given for clearing such a place; the thrill returned. 

“Ok, then what about skills, stats, and classes? How do they work?”

Felix grunted, “You’re exiting my area of expertise with those ones. Skills are crafted using an add-on, stats increase your physical capabilities and the usefulness of the corresponding skills, and classes are required if you want to build an expansive repertoire of skills; something about the costs of creating skills being less if it’s one that’s categorized under your class. There’s a ton of classes though, I don’t even know how many.”

Felix waved his hands and ushered Sage’s attention to his second drink, “That stuff is better found out while exploring and fighting though, where’s the fun of knowing the entire journey before even starting it?” he said. 

The fun is understanding what you’re doing so you don’t waste your time. But perhaps that was enough for now, exploring the world would give him the rest of the information he needed. It was clear to him that, if he sought more strength, he needed to explore the world, fight monsters, and perhaps delve into these supposed expansive worlds known as dungeons. The Kings of the Forest lived in places around the outer ring; if his imagery of the land was proper, completing that quest would be quite the journey. It was far too soon, however, for him to come face to face with a creature akin to the Boar King. 

“So, an expedition team then. Are you sure we’ll be able to join one?” Sage said. 

Felix’s expression lit up. For the first time all night, he pushed his drinks aside and mimicked Sage’s table-propped elbows. 

“We’ll be able to find one, I’m sure of it. We may be two F-ranks, but there are thousands of royals creating teams now a day. The demand for people willing to work at their patron’s request far outweighs the competition we’ll face trying out for one.”

“Royal? Like, Kings and Queens and stuff?” Sage said.

Felix squinted his eyes and moved his hand in a so-so way. 

“The Kings and Queens very rarely form teams; they own all the other people below them, so they technically own all the teams in the world. I guess noble is a more accurate term. We’re more so aiming for an Earl or Baron, a Viscount would do as well. We just need someone to sponsor us so we have permission to explore Cataclysms and Dungeons, as well as supply us with items otherwise unobtainable.”

It seemed to be similar to how sports teams received money for sponsors so that the players could train in better facilities. Would joining a team nullify the need for buying their own equipment? These teams seemed like a shortcut to his goal. He downed his second drink, nearly spilling it over the edges of his mouth. 

“Let’s do it, Felix. Let’s tryout and join a team together and explore the world.” Sage said.

Felix’s eyes sparkled and a grin spread from ear to ear. He grabbed Sage’s hand and shook it. 

“Let’s do it! We’ll need to head to a larger city first, though. There won’t be any tryouts anywhere near this starting town. I’m pretty sure the closest city that would hold them is quite far away, we’ll have to check.”

“That’s fine, we can grab some quests before we head out and level up some more on the way. What level are you anyway?” Sage said.

He hadn’t even thought to ask Felix earlier; the boy was simply an annoyance that happened to aid him. Now that he would be traveling with him, Sage saw greater importance in who exactly this guy was.

“I’m level 12. I was level 11 when we first met, but that quest leveled me up. We may want to be a little higher by the time we reach there, so grabbing some quests is a brilliant idea. When do you want to head out, tomorrow morning?” 

Sage shook his head. He would continue his journey here, that was for sure, but he couldn’t forget about his own world. 

“I need to head back to my village first. There are some things I have to deal with. I shouldn’t be more than a day or two, wait for me here, ok?”

Felix sighed and lowered his head. His cheeks were basically red now. 

“Ok, make it quick though. I’ll come to this tavern every night until you return; don’t make me spend all my coins on cider,” he said with a chuckle. 

Sage laughed. “I won’t. I’ll be back as soon as I can be.”

The two grasped each other by the hand and shook them. There was a bond there that Sage didn’t even notice develop. He felt an obligation to return here no matter what.

Walking out of the bar, Sage was hit with a wave of fresh air that felt foreign to him. Finally free of the stuffiness, he felt like he could breathe. Sage noted the slightly brighter, moonless sky, and made his way into a back-alley. He had only been here for a day, but it felt much longer. 

“Exit world,” he said to his opened menu, sure that no one was near. 

[Exiting World]

His vision went black, but unlike before, his stomach didn’t lurch. There was no nausea, and he felt no twisting in his body. He was getting used to it. 

Sage opened his eyes and he was lying on the floor of his apartment, in front of his door. When light filled his vision, confusion befell him. He had just left when it was dark, why was it now light outside? 

Sage sprung off the ground and rushed to his bedroom. He picked his phone off the table and checked the time. 

“That’s not possible,” he muttered as he read the time and date. 

It was seven in the morning, and it was Tuesday. Sage had left Sunday afternoon and arrived Tuesday morning. His meeting with Jessica, his shift at work, he had missed them both. 

The nausea absent earlier now struck him along with the lurching of his stomach.