• 3^rd Person POV

“INTRUDERSS!!!!” One of the mages shouted as they begin to run away downstairs. While some have begun muttering chants, sets of glowing golden chains began to appear albeit they are still faint just barely a shade of it can be seen.

Evan quickly sharpened his senses as adrenaline begin to  kick in. In that short period of time, he sees how the weave of mana being manipulated by those mages to craft those chains.  

He manipulate wisps of mana to whisk it away during the chanting and disturb the process of mana weaving as the chanting mages widened their eyes.

He himself can feel his MP bar is going down and his head have a numbing ache. By wedging it, he unravels the spells from the mages making them useless and with that their chants stopped.

Using that chance, he touches Umbra by his back and vanish to thin air. Teleported himself outside of the tower. *WHOOSH* They are now free falling to the ground below, dropping from the ninth floor of the tower. He chugged a mana potion down to his throat.

Their descent accelerated as they continues to fall from above, the surge of winds and the sense of free falling begin to creep into Evan’s mind “Quick! Quick!! What should I do” Evan eyes wildly look side to side as his mind twist & turns. He decided…

Waving his hand, he weaved mana making it surrounds him and Umbra as their descent began to slow down as if the force of gravity is lessened by that veil of mana.

From his perspective, Evan can see group of guards have begun to gather to the entrance of the tower with some mages who look quite haggard telling them something that Evan cannot hear.

Evan doesn’t stop to watch the interaction as he identifies several buildings for them to land. He furiously stroke Umbra’s back and ruffle his fur with the dog seems to be receptive and doesn’t mind it at all.

Upon landing on the roof of a building. He touches Umbra again as they teleported again to one of the alleyways, he’s familiar with. But before he could enter it though, he heard a shout from behind.

“STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!!” One of the guards shouted upon seeing Evan with him sweating buckets all over his forehead. “Uh…Oh…” Evan thought as he dismisses Umbra and ran into the alleyway. The group guards dashed forward.

*TAP *TAP *TAP *TAP. The sounds of armours clanging with their padded greaves adds in the intimidating factor into Evan’s mind as he formulated several ways to escape. He turn to the right and sees the alleyways are split to two.

He dashed in as Evan weaved mana and his figure splits into two each going to the opposite way. The leading guards stop for a second as he commanded “HUH!? 5 to right & left quick go!” The forces of the guards split. His heart beats loudly and pumped with adrenaline. He even forgets how to breath with his lungs begin to burn.

Since Evan knew where to go to the outside gate, he quickly went to that direction as he sees from the gaps leading to the streets. There are already heavy plated figures roaming about. “Crap! I need to go quickly” He realizes that his options are being limited by the second.

*CLANK CLANK* from behind Evan can hear the plating of the guards wear hitting against one another becoming louder and louder by the second. Evan have low physical status compared to a guard that is why they are gaining speed.

Until he reaches another sets of branching alleyways. He mutter spells with his figure split into more than just two. They all enter each of the alleyways with the guards decided to chase them all by splitting to individuals.

One of the guard catch up to the image as upon touching one it vanishes to thin air. With the other collided with a wall then dissipates

……

After a while, Evan cannot hear the clanging of armours anymore as he heaved a breath of relief with the spell invisibility have faded. “Haaah…. haaah… thank you for the inspiration Archmage Miriam”

His brain began to calm down from the adrenaline rush, he can think clearly as he weaved a veil of mana in front of him to create a shell. It’s a spell of his own make, a shell that made anyone inside it invisible.

Inside there, Evan felt safe for a moment as he took a short respite. “I cannot pay the bounty now, GC turn into money, and money turn into GC. Its only one way, so I only have 2248 GC right now. I guess… its time for me to leave Novitas until I get enough GC to pay” Evan thought while looking above the blue skies sighing and yawning too. Its late-night in real life after all…

Standing up, he leaves the invisibility zone with his MP fully regenerated. He weaved the flow of mana into boots. Making his steps doesn’t make any sound at all and accompanied by his heightened ‘radar’. He can see his MP bar steadily goes down upon activating the ‘radar’

He didn’t detect anyone at the moment until he moves further, then he sees 5 entities grouping together.

No doubt it is the guards, they appeared to have discovered his tricks. “Yeah… the illusory image doesn’t hold down for long after all” He thought while using another path to curve around the group. Evan needed to reach the walls of Novitas then he can teleport himself over it.

After around 2 to 3 minutes of trudging through the alleyways until he reaches a wall. He leaned his back to it and closes his eyes. Evan begun to imagine what the other side of this wall looks like as he began to try folding the mana together to form a wormhole. Exactly like what the physicist in MeTube explained.

*WHOOSH*

Evan appeared at the other side of the wall, thankfully he arrived at where he knew well. Right at the northwest side of Novitas an intersection between the slime field and forest of darkness.

He then ran, going deeper into the forest, pathways begin to be drawn inside his head leading to the familiar spot he and Umbra likes to lay around. His senses are still sharpened as he can see his MP already going downhill so much that it is now faintly pulsing red.

The rustling of bushes doesn’t even faze Evan as he continues to run and run, with his stamina bar already low almost empty. Until he plunge to what he sincerely believes to be the safe spot.

*BAM *BAM *BAM

He hurled himself to that spot with him tumbling down and finally lay on the soft patch of grass away from the forest of darkness inhabitants. And a view to the slime field that’s currently empty.

“Haaah….haaaah….haaaah. I’m… super tired” The reason why Evan ran, its because the enemies in forest of darkness are around 60 to 70 in levels. If he got hit by a ranged attack or ambushed, he would certainly die and spawned right at Novitas where he’s going to be pursued.

Taking approximately what feels like hours on eidolon time, Evan finally feels relaxed enough to see what things he has gotten in the dungeon and rewards, including levels up as he stands up from his prone position. He summons Umbra to his side, while distracted due to looking at the time panel & scrolling his own inventory.

Instead of the dog just appeared out of nowhere next to him. He emerges from Evan’s own shadow and nuzzles on his cheek.

Evan unconsciously rubbed Umbra’s snout while thinking “Good boy…” Before long he furrowed his brows. If Evan is currently standing, why can he touches Umbra’s snout without crouching down?

“Wait a minute… Umbra isn’t this big before???” Evan turn around and see Umbra fully. He is bigger than him, probably reaching around two metre in height & 4 metres in length. The fur have a darker blue colour and the underbelly is white as usual, in this size Umbra looks more intimidating rather than cute.

“Eh~ he still looks cute to me” Evan chuckles as he squish the dog’s cheek earning a tail wag. He then turns to the panel and check their status.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Certainly, Umbra grew bigger and gain more skills, he also upgraded his normal skills. I too get level up as well. Not as prominent as this good boy over here” Evan thought as he smiles cheering for the dog as he gives him a big bone treat while ruffling his fur affectionately.

*NOM*

In one chomp, he consume the treat earning a surprise look from Evan before he chuckles. A small warm-hearted atmosphere lighten up the mood compared to what’s happing to Evan.

“Yeah… it is the time for me to find another city or random safe spot away from Novitas” Evan thought, a bit melancholic as he remembers the general store owner and the woodworker.

Shaking his head, Evan concluded to leave. But before he do anything else there’s another thing he must check. He scrolls through the inventory panel to see what has been given to him due to the unique set of rewards. In there, he sees three new things with the similar high-light showing that it is new addition.

 

 

 

Understanding that, Evan feels a bit relieved. Knowing that his infiltration to the mage’s archive even getting caught and branded as a criminal was worth it. Putting his hood down, he gently put the tiara on his head.

At first, it is bigger than Evan’s head almost falling off but after a while it began to shrink to a comfortable and snug fit.

“Whoa… that’s handy. I guess I got +100% Duration & Mana Regen then? Hmm… let me think… ah! that would be double duration and double my MP regen” Evan is impressed by it as he aligned the tiara to make it look better.

He then confirmed what it does by looking at his status panel, after being satisfied in his quarry. Evan put his hood up to cover his face. As something dawned on his mind.

“They probably already seen my face when I free fall from the mage’s archive” Evan opened up the forums to see if there’s anything that has changed with Umbra snuggles to him.

 

His eyes wide in shock seeing that in the forum. “Ah… fuck me…” Evan cusses to himself, it appears the NPCs have reached out to the players as well. Thankfully, he already hide himself in this ‘safe spot’ with a glint of hope and gratefulness to his average looks.

“Their description of me is too general as such, I believe they are going to have a hard time finding me. I think I would have enough time to relocate to another city. Haah… good bye my goodnight sleep” Evan sigh deciding to let go of sleeping for a moment and find another city to reside.

He dismissed Umbra as the oversize dog or in this case since Umbra looks like a Siberian husky. He could misinterpret Umbra as a wolf. The dog jumped to Evan’s shadow and merge into it.

Evan opened up the net and check about crime in ‘Eidolon’ asking for a guide in that manner. He finds a website that explain them clearly.

“I see… as expected I do need to find other cities, the bounty or my negative reputation on Novitas does not affect other cities so they will be neutral to me. But if somehow, I got captured by players and transported to Novitas it would still work. Until I gathered 4k GC to pay off course.” Evan with a deadpan look just accepted his fate.

“I better get going” Evan cast a spell in his body making him look invisible.

Evan can be assured for now since he knew, if it is a buffing spell such as invisibility, protection, or those kind of things. It only consumes MP at the start then it lasts for a duration. But for telekinesis or ‘radar’ it continuously consumes MP at the start until he dispelled it.

Since he only use invisibility his MP went back to full as he can see the duration of the invisibility on his panel.

He also realizes that depending on how he weave the spell and the situation he’s in the cost also fluctuates. If he weaves them while in panic or trying to make it quick similar to brute forcing it like during the chase scene, it costs a ton of MP while if he took time it would costs less.

“Which city should I go? I already researched before hand about the cities that is ‘friendly’. Obviously the first result is Novitas. But there are more… for example; The City by the sea, Clamshore. Capital City, Frontera.” Evan give a slight nibble to his nails unconsciously while continuing moving west.

The scenery is changed from the thick verdant forest that almost no one can see their depths. Into grass prairie with farms. Occasionally, Evan can hear the cow’s mooing or chicken clucking. The breeze gently hit his face, although it has not enough power to flick his hood off.

He continues his steps until he reached a cross road. There, he has two direction he can go. If he still goes west, he will reach the city by the sea, Clamshore. But if he uses the other direction that lead to north, it would reach the capital city Frontera requiring 3 days in eidolon’s time of walking.

“I guess, I go to Clamshore first. Its much closer and I think my body is going to give up sleeping at this time” Evan keeps refreshing his invisibility each time he knew its going to wore out. Making him essentially invisibile all the time until he used a spell or being attacked of course.

“Thankfully, the roads to Clamshore or Frontera are filled with players around level 1 to 25. And they are mostly melee or ranged physical attacker. So! Their INT / WIS isn’t higher than my INT” He feels reassured as he continues to walk the road.

From the scenery of prairies, Evan look to his side as he can smell the scent of salty breeze. What Evan sees, is a vast expanse of azure blue seas. From afar, there are ships sailing to the world beyond.

Evan is on the cliff looking down to a beach where there are already several players fighting against oversized hermit crabs or hovering jellyfishes.

Checking the stats, they are around level 10 to 20 with the deeper they went the stronger the creature are. “Although… they just reskinned the creatures! Heheheh… nice to see those things happen in this game too” Evan chuckles while continue walking.

At last, he finally sees a city from the distance. With large ports and ships even being noticed by Evan from afar. Seagulls flying above the skies stealing some food from players and NPC alike which reminds Evan to keep his dog treat pouch closed or Umbra would get mad seeing his treats get stolen by seagulls.

Upon arrival to the gate of the Clamshore, he just passes through the guard as they didn’t realize that Evan have entered the place. He went to a secluded place feeling quite relieved by it, he’s now able to change his respawn to Clamshore as he can see through the panel. It shows that he has no bounty and his reputation is Neutral.

Finally he logged out from the console and drag himself to the bed. “Gah… I can’t… Zzzzz…zzzz” Evan didn’t even clean himself or get some snacks. He already fall asleep on the bed.