“Iris, open skills.”

A small golden eye appeared in front of me, hovering at eye level while two tiny white wings fluttered above it. It blinked several times before opening the menu.

Iris was Project Babel’s built-in AI assistant. I had never understood why every game company insisted on putting an AI into everything, but at least this one was easy to use.

The eye drifted slightly whenever I moved, always remaining within my field of vision. Technically, I did not need to speak to it. Neural commands worked as soon as I thought them, but saying the words aloud still felt more natural.

A transparent window opened beside Iris.

SKILLS

Combat
—Close Combat Lv.1

That was the entire list.

Project Babel did not lock players into classes. You could learn any skill you wanted, and if you changed your mind, you could start training something else without making a new character. Every skill improved through use.

Across the field, some players punched slimes while others fought with swords or bows. They were already developing different builds without ever touching a class-selection screen.

That was the part I liked. Most MMOs made you choose before you knew what you enjoyed. Project Babel let you figure it out by playing.

First, however, I needed to defeat something.

I selected an isolated slime and took a step toward it before stopping.

Something was missing.

In a normal MMO, half the screen would already be covered with colorful ability icons—attacks, cooldowns, buffs, and the usual rotation of buttons you pressed until the enemy died.

My interface had none of them.

“Iris, where are the combat abilities?”

The golden eye moved closer.

“Project Babel has no preset combat abilities.”

Its energetic girl’s voice did not match the disembodied eye staring at me.

“What does that mean?”

“Players perform their own attacks. Skills develop through practice, and techniques can be created by repeating movements successfully.”

I looked back at Close Combat Lv.1.

“So the game doesn’t give me an attack. It just tracks what I learn to do.”

“Correct!”

That was considerably more interesting than filling a hotbar with abilities someone else had designed.

Instead of unlocking a move, I had to make one.

Suddenly, every open window vanished and the edges of my vision flashed red. Something struck me between the shoulders, knocking me forward a step.

It did not hurt, but the impact was convincing enough to make me turn quickly.

A green slime bounced behind me.

Of course. I had been so busy reading menus that I let the weakest monster in the game attack me from behind.

Great start.

The slime was roughly the size of a basketball. From watching the other players, I had already learned its entire attack pattern: jump, tackle, repeat.

The only awkward part was its height. Punching something that barely reached my knees did not seem especially practical.

“Guess we’re doing this.”

I kicked it.

The slime flew backward like a soccer ball and bounced several times across the grass. Its health bar dropped by roughly twenty percent.

There were no damage numbers or exact health values, only the shrinking bar. After years of games explaining every calculation, the lack of information felt strangely empty.

Four more solid hits should have finished it.

When the slime launched itself at me again, I stepped aside and struck it out of the air. Its health bar entered the yellow range, and the creature stopped moving.

A brown sphere appeared inside its translucent body, resembling an oversized avocado pit.

There it was.

Once its health fell below half, the slime exposed its core and began attempting to divide. The process looked like a three-second channel, which meant the player had a brief opportunity to interrupt it.

Basic beginner mechanics. The sort designed to teach players to watch the enemy instead of mindlessly attacking.

I moved forward to break the core, but another green blob bounced into the edge of my vision. It must have wandered over while I was focused on the first one.

The second slime launched itself toward my back.

I pivoted and punched it as it passed, knocking it away, then turned back and drove my heel through the exposed core of the first slime.

The brown sphere cracked.

Its body collapsed into a puddle of harmless green liquid before dissolving into the ground.

A notification appeared.

[Lv. 1 Forest Slime]
DEAD

Species: Unknown
Level: ???

[Close Combat XP +1]
[Physical Resistance XP +2]

Obtained:
Slime Sludge ×1

Cause of Death: Unknown

A few meters away, another player was staring at an identical results window.

“Wait, why does mine say the cause of death is unknown?”

His friend crouched beside the remains of a slime. “Maybe we need an analysis skill.”

“There’s an analysis skill?”

“No idea. I’m making stuff up.”

At least I was not the only person receiving question marks.

Movement flashed across the edge of my vision. I turned in time to see a player sprint past the tutorial field.

At first glance, he still wore the basic linen clothes as everyone else, but his equipment was different. The sword at his waist was not one of the standard weapons I had seen around the city, and a compact wrist crossbow was attached to his left arm.

Project Babel had officially launched at nine that morning. Since I had logged in around noon, he could not have more than a three-hour head start.

Three hours had already been enough for him to find equipment and leave the tutorial area.

Some players really did not waste any time.

He ignored the slimes and continued toward the forest beyond the fields. That was the edge of the tutorial grounds. Past it waited the actual game—unmapped territory, unfamiliar enemies, and whatever the developers had decided not to explain.

In most MMOs, I would have followed him without hesitation. Exploring somewhere I was not supposed to reach yet was half the fun. The worst possible outcome was usually dying, respawning, learning something, and trying again.

Then I looked toward the corner of my vision.

HP: 20/20

Death in Project Babel also meant dropping every item I was carrying.

“Maybe not yet.”

Apparently, common sense had decided to show up.

The first rule of solo play was to prepare for anything. For now, that meant killing slimes until I had enough skills, money, or equipment to survive beyond the tutorial grounds.

After several more fights, another problem became obvious.

Efficiency.

Kicking one green blob at a time was slow. If I wanted to farm properly, I needed a weapon, better skills, or preferably something capable of hitting several enemies at once.

I continued anyway.

After another dozen slimes, someone nearby groaned.

“My XP bar is barely moving.”

“Mine too.”

“So we’re done here?”

Several players began drifting back toward the city. One man stretched his arms over his head and announced that he had spent the past hour farming slimes and needed a break.

I opened my own skill window.

Close Combat Lv.5

The last few kills had barely moved its experience bar.

That was the progression wall. The slimes had served their purpose, and the game was telling us to move somewhere else.

I looked back toward the city gates. It was time to sell what I had collected and find out what came next.

After an hour spent fighting green blobs, the city somehow felt even more alive than before.

The main street stretched between tall white-stone buildings with orange rooftops, resembling one of the old coastal cities along the Adriatic Sea. Colorful banners hung between balconies, while cafés and food stalls crowded the sides of the limestone road. Players and NPCs sat beneath shaded awnings, eating bread, roasted meat, and elaborate desserts as they watched the crowd pass.

The main difference from a real European city was the number of customers carrying swords.

That raised another question.

How was I supposed to distinguish players from NPCs?

I focused on a woman walking past me. A faint white name tag appeared above her head, identifying her as an NPC. The player beside her displayed green text instead.

Pretty standard MMO design.

The name tags only appeared when I deliberately focused on someone, preventing the street from becoming cluttered with floating text. Without them, the NPCs blended naturally into the crowd. They did not stand in fixed positions repeating the same sentences or march endlessly along obvious routes. They stopped to browse stores, spoke to one another, and reacted when players blocked their way.

By 2050, conversational AI was not exactly groundbreaking. Experiencing it inside a full-dive world was still different from watching it on a screen.

A few steps ahead, a girl stopped in the middle of the street and pointed at another player’s sword.

“Wait, how did you get that already?”

The man looked down at the weapon hanging from his waist.

It was difficult not to notice. The long silver blade had a blue crystal set into its guard, and its surface gave off a faint glow whenever it caught the sunlight. It did not resemble something a player should possess only three hours after launch.

“Founder’s package,” he said.

“That came with the founder’s package?”

“Yeah. Sword, title, some cosmetics, and a few other things.”

“Does it have crazy stats?”

“Nah.” He drew the blade halfway from its sheath. “Same stats as the beginner sword from the weapon shop.”

“Still looks cool, though.”

She leaned closer to inspect it.

“You have the sword skill, right?”

“Yeah. The Sword skill appeared the first time I swung it.”

“That’s all you had to do?”

“As far as I know.”

Several nearby players immediately turned toward the weapon shop.

Someone muttered, “So we just need to buy any sword?”

Apparently, using a weapon was enough for the system to recognize the related skill and begin tracking it. It did not give you any attacks. What you learned to do with the weapon was still up to you.

A small notification appeared in the corner of my vision.

Hunger: 50%

“Seriously?”

Fighting apparently consumed more than stamina.

I wondered what would happen if the meter reached zero. Reduced stamina regeneration seemed likely, though it could also cause health loss or some hidden status effect.

That was worth testing later, preferably when death did not mean dropping everything I owned.

First, I needed to sell my loot.

The general store was not interested in buying slime parts.

Apparently, Project Babel was not one of those games where you could sell monster organs, broken boots, and legendary weapons to the same merchant. After asking around, I learned that each shop only purchased materials connected to its profession.

Slime materials belonged at an alchemy shop.

The nearest one was already marked on the city map. When I opened its door, a small brass bell rang above me.

The interior was quiet compared to the crowded street. Wooden shelves covered the walls from floor to ceiling, each packed with glass bottles in different shapes and colors. Red, blue, green, and gold liquids shimmered beneath the warm lights. Bundles of dried herbs hung from the ceiling beams, filling the shop with a mixture of fresh flowers, crushed leaves, and something sharp I could not identify.

It felt like stepping into a pharmacy built inside a garden.

A young woman stood behind the counter. Messy ginger curls surrounded her face, thick round glasses rested on her nose, and her green apron was covered in stains from experiments that had probably not gone according to plan.

She looked exactly like an alchemist.

After a brief conversation, I opened my inventory.

Slime Sludge ×37
Slime Core ×12

The materials appeared across the counter. The alchemist inspected several samples, nodded, and placed a small leather pouch in front of me.

The moment I touched it, a notification appeared.

City Credit +300

The familiar sound of coins stacking played in my ears.

There it was—the satisfying sound of making money in an MMO.

As I turned to leave, a book lying near the edge of the counter caught my attention.

“Can I look at this?”

The alchemist glanced toward it. “Oh, that? Of course. Beginner guides are free.”

I picked up the book and read the title printed across its cover.

So You Want to Become an Alchemist

The first few pages explained the basics: how ingredients carried different properties, why preparation mattered, and how even a simple potion could fail if the ratios were wrong. Most of it was introductory material, but it was enough to make the recipes farther into the book understandable.

A notification appeared after I finished the first section.

[Alchemy XP +1]

So the book had not given me the skill. The system had simply recognized that I understood enough to begin practicing it.

“That makes more sense.”

Killing slimes had earned me enough money to begin. Now I needed ingredients worth turning into something.