“Hello? I’m Mellific. This is my boyfriend, just call him Frank. His full name in-game is too silly to speak out loud.” Melissa said as she walked up to them and titled her head with a smile. The three girls in question looked at the couple, curious about Red Sky’s real-life friends.

“It’s nice to meet you, I’m Sophie. The archer is Mia and the short one is Aria.” Sophie’s introduction set off their little chili pepper.

“Sister Sophie… don’t call me short! I’m still growing okay? You never know I might just have a miraculous growth spurt and beat you on both fronts!”

Aria seemed to forget they weren’t only girls around. Frankie let out an awkward cough while Melissa’s face reddened. The 3 girls also turned as red as tomato’s upon seeing Frankie but Sophie smoothly carried the conversation and transitioned into a different topic.

“Ehem, don’t mind Aria. She often says and does things without thinking but she doesn’t mean any harm. If I recall, Aria’s lack of filter when speaking and acting is actually how we met Red Sky.”

“Yeah, he did mention something about a little girl trying to trick him into partying together” Mellissa replied smilingly, finding Aria to be cute and bubbly, Mia quiet and reserved and Sophie to be both beautiful and eloquent. At least from their first interaction, she could tell the girls had great upbringing.

“I wasn’t trying to trick him! I was just… okay fine maybe I was trying to trick him…” Aria tried justifying her actions but she was too soft-hearted to outright lie so she admitted the truth in the end.

Her antics caused everyone to chuckle, the sight of 4 beautiful young women laughing happily was drawing more stares from the single young men around them. Frankie was especially feeling the heat, if looks could kill then he would have been sent offline 5 minutes ago already. He felt like he could even understand some of the looks. It was like they were saying “Bro, you already bagged 1 chick. No way you can handle all 4 of them so leave some for us!”

“Ehem, how about we walk as we talk? We can get to know each other better…” He couldn’t help but mention as the stares got a little too intense.

“Yeah, we can do that… did you two get your professions already? I guess Red Sky already told you about the training citadel?” Sophie asked as they made their way out of the north city gate.

The north of Velskryn led to a short plain with a small mountain range slightly ahead of them. These mountains were in the middle of the kingdom and were known as the Magical Mud Mountains because of the special mud monster that can be found all over the mountain range. The area was also home to many other monsters but the mud monsters were the most abundant type within the area. There was also a small dungeon just an hour away that held these monster types but in differing varieties.

“We’ve already completed the training course and got our professions. As you can probably tell, I’m an archer while Frank’s a shield warrior.”

“Mia’s also an archer, Aria’s a shaman and I’m a cleric for now…”

“Why did you choose to be a cleric?”

“Well, neither of these 2 girls wanted to be stuck being the healer so it fell on my shoulders.” Sophie explained in exasperation and then said. “If we wanted to go out and adventure then we would need a healer. Potions and bandages only go so far and if we run out of them then it’s a one-way ticket back to the city.”

“But couldn’t you take on a dual combat and healing class like a paladin?”

“Well… we weren’t exactly very knowledgeable about the game before starting.” Sophie said vaguely but Mia’s words relieved the embarrassment she was feeling.

“At least we knew somethings about the world of Faeron. Big brother was absolutely clueless when he logged on!”

“Hahaha, big brother Oscar really was silly…” Aria laughed hysterically as she recalled Oscar recounting his first day in-game. “It’s weird how small the world is… he also ran into Red Sky on his first day…”

Aria went on to re-tell the experience, finding it hilarious how Oscar just walked around and started shopping without even knowing how to get a class or where to go. He didn’t even know his way around the city and was just roaming about before bumping into Abel at Universal Bazaar. That meeting ultimately led him to the training citadel where he met his sister and her friends.

“Where is your brother Mia? Does he not play every day?” Frank asked, he was feeling a little awkward being the only guy around.

“No, he’s too busy with work. But he logs on whenever he can, he’s come to really enjoy Realm Quest.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how do you know Red Sky? Did you go to school together or something?” Sophie asked, curious about the relationship between them.

“No, we grew up together. We… we were all orphaned at the same time so Grandma Meng took care of us.”

“Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry and bring up bad memories.” Sophie apologized, feeling bad about where the conversation turned to. She and her friends were among the minority that weren’t that badly affected by that incident.

“It’s fine. It was so long ago and we were so young… Frank and I knew each other from before, our parents were friends. Frank used to be so mean to me, he refused to play with me and would always say he was afraid of getting cooties” Melissa smiled as she recalled those childish days.

“Yeah but I overcame my fear of cooties when you took care of me that night. I think it was the first night after our parents passed, I was too afraid to fall asleep and just kept crying…” Frankie recalled as he looked at his girlfriend lovingly.

Their interaction didn’t go unnoticed by the 3 young girls that each had different expressions. Aria looked like she was enjoying the telenovela going on live before her eyes, all she was missing was a bag of popcorn and a cold drink. Mia seemed to be longing for such a love life herself while Sophie looked to be lost in her own world, her thoughts were illusory and unknown to all.

“Ehem well that’s basically it. Even though we aren’t blood related, Red Sky is like a little brother to us, he’s family.” Melissa spoke with a red face when she realized how lovey-dovey her and Frankie were right before the girls’ eyes.

“What is he doing now? He mentioned he had to leave the city for a quest…” Sophie asked.

“Yup, he had a monster subjugation quest issued by the kingdom. He joined up with the garrison at Stormwatch to clear out a dungeon. I’m not really sure how that’s going to be honest… we haven’t seen him for 2 days now. He’s locked himself in his room, not even coming out for meals.”

“He’ll be fine babe. He already told us he would take a while and would make himself scarce for the next few days so stop worrying about him. Besides, he isn’t that little kid that used to follow us around everywhere, he’s a grown man.” Frankie comforted his girlfriend before he asked the girls. “What monsters are around here? Actually, where are we even going?”

“We thought we should ease you in to monster battles before hitting the Mud Lair an hour away from here.” Aria answered while jumping around looking for an enemy.

“We can attack a slightly higher leveled monster. Red Sky already gave us the rundown and with our improved stats from the training citadel, it shouldn’t be a problem to take down level 5 or level 6 monsters.”

“Alright then, let’s find some stone-spine squirrels, they’re great for beginners and give a lot of EXP. Even if we run into mud monsters then it’s fine, they’re really slow so just be careful not to get sucked into their muck. Their smell is absolutely disgusting and it’s hard to wash off their stench afterwards. Join my party so that the system gives you a proportionate share of the battle experience.”

*Ding*

Sophie invited you to their party, Accept?

Yes/No

After joining up in a single party, they made their way up the first mountain. Eager to slay some monsters!

**************

While the couple were heading off to their first monster battle, Abel was going through a thrilling battle of his own. Ever since Lard and Kell advanced to tier 1, they had hung back and would only intervene when one of the men’s life was in danger.

Each battle was a close brush with death for the men that were down a main tank and the biggest damage dealer from among the melee specialists. The pressure on the 3 shield warriors and the archers was much greater as a result, pushing them to excel beyond their usual best. Abel had leveled up when they were only a third of the way through the second floor. He was currently more than half way through his current level while his short bow mastery had long advanced to Trainee and he was 40% of the way through to Adept.

They were currently facing off against the kobold shaman and his cronies in the last room. Unlike the last battle on the first floor, Abel had targeted the archers first and helped take out 2 of them in the first 5 minutes of battle, the following 2 archers were taken out by Roy shortly afterwards. The pressure of dodging the ricochet arrows and shooting at the same time forced Abel to figure out how to run and shoot simultaneously, resulting in him learning a new skill!

*Ding*

User has created a new skill; would you like to name it?

Yes/No

Abel was obviously too busy to name the skill while in the middle of combat. In fact, he hadn’t even noticed the notification till the battle died down after Bruni and Roy both advanced to tier 1. The pressure was too much to even glimpse at his notification panel, much less name a skill.

*Ding*

Since user has chosen not to name the skill, randomly generated skill name shall be used.

New Active Skill: Arrowstride (Upgradeable)
+5% Agility for 30 seconds
+5% Precision for 30 seconds
+5% Attack Speed for 30 seconds

Cost: 10 Mana
Cooldown: 30 seconds

‘What the hell is the requirement to creating a skill… is it just concentration? I really need to test this out in the future. I could make all sorts of skills based on the martial arts I have in my memories.’

Abel was very curious about how the system judged his actions as passable to create an active skill. He didn’t understand how it worked, why Serpents Dance, Harmonic Breath and Arrowstride were considered active skills and what it even took to make them.

He shoved these thoughts to the back of his mind, he couldn’t figure it out in a matter of minutes. First, he needed to congratulate the 2 men that just advanced!