Chapter 4: Entering Aevitas.

You have recovered [Rabbit] x1 from your trap.

Your Hunter has reached level 2.

You cannot gain any more Hunter levels in the Tutorial Server.

Taking the skinning knife out of his satchel, Tobi got to work on the rabbit and recovered the pelt, the heart and the back left foot of the rabbit. He didn’t really need any more of the items as he’d already made enough [Rabbit Skin Boots] and [Rabbit Ear Hat]’s to get his shoemaker and Tailor to level 2. The heart had been used in the basic haste potions to make his alchemy level 2, and the rear back foot had been used to make [Lucky Pendant]’s until his jeweller was level two. Now with his Hunter also reaching level 2, only his skinning remained at the first level.

Slowly rising back to his feet after he finished his task, Tobi reset the trap and moved to another set of traps closer to the mining area where he’d found a Hare’s Nest. Tobi wasn’t sure if hare’s lived in nests or warrens, but in Aevitas, rabbits lived in warrens and hare’s did not. Before moving over to the Aevitas server, Tobi was determined to get all of his professions and sub-profession skills to level 2. And for a good reason too.

After learning how to make copper from [Green Rocks], Tobi had been fascinated and went to the mines to gather enough green rocks to do it several more times. Upon arriving at the mines and being taught the basics of mining, Tobi got to work. He used his pickaxe to strike the small, red, glowing dots on the copper lodes and gathered all of the green rocks that broke away.

Some time later, with more green rocks than he could possibly need, Tobi received the notification that his miner was level 2. Along with the level-up notification, Tobi also noticed that the red, glowing dots on the ore had disappeared. Having asked the pixie if the same thing would happen in Aevitas—if the ‘guide dots’ would disappear after he levelled the skill—the pixie shook her head and explained.

“The optimal striking location of a mining lode only appears in the Tutorial Server. The exception to this is when a professional miner is teaching you the mining profession; or if you have gained some kind of spell or ability that will help guide your hand. By reaching level 2 in mining within the Tutorial Server, you can test your ability without the help of the Strike Guide—just as would be the case in Aevitas. If you can successfully gather ore here without the guide, then you could do the same in Aevitas. Additionally, you wouldn’t need anyone to teach you how to mine in Aevitas, as you could simply teach yourself by mining some ore.”

After a few more back and forth questions on the matter, Tobi finally gained enough understanding to satisfy his curiosity tried hitting the mining lode a few more times. The difference was obvious almost straight away. The pickaxe never seemed to do quite as much damage after he lost the guides on where to strike. On top of that, his pickaxe durability began to drop with each failed attempt, becoming increasingly blunt and chipped as he progressed.

Crafting daggers with blacksmith had turned out to be the same too. With the guide to help him every step of the way, he succeeded with making 10 out of 11 daggers. Without the guide, he failed seven times in a row before finally managing to produce a dagger that was barely passable.

Tailor was equally difficult without the guide, if not more so. Having no guidelines for where to stitch and sew, or where to cut the material and how much hem to fold—and all the other instructions that came with the profession tutorial—Tobi could hardly produce any item at all. In the end, the only tailor equipment he could still make was the [Rabbit Ear Hat].

Reaching the location of his snares near the hare’s nest and finding it empty, Tobi sighed and reset the trap. He’d probably skinned twice as many rabbits and hares compared to how many Green Rocks he’d mined and yet his Skinning was still stuck at 87%.

“Can I just have the skinning instructions turned off now and see if I am still able with the next one I catch?” Tobi asked his pixie guide, hopefully.

“It is possible, but I don’t see why you are continuing anyway. As long as you are successful a single time in Aevitas, you will learned the appropriate profession. You should know however, that if your profession capacity is full, even if you try all day and perform the task perfectly, you will not succeed. I advise abandoning some of your current professions and testing the ones you have yet to learn.”

Tobi thought about it for a minute and glanced back toward the Tutorial Village. The professions he hadn’t tested yet were Fishing, Masonry and Farming. There were other professions in Aevitas, but they couldn’t be learned in the tutorial for various reasons. Mostly due to how much time it takes to raise the profession, but in some cases it was also a matter of not having the necessary materials.

“How long have I been in the tutorial so far?” Tobi asked, trying to decide on whether it was time to log off or not.”

“Your current online time is two-hours-and-nineteen minutes; thirty-eight minutes were spent creating your avatar and the remaining one-hour-and-forty-one minutes were spent in the tutorial.”

Looking toward the pixie doubtfully, Tobi thought back on what he’d been doing for the past couple of hours. He’d clearly been in the tutorial server for at least 6 hours; “I’ve been online longer than that. I spent an hour on mining alone.”

“The Tutorial Server operates at four times the speed of reality. Just like how a dream can encompass days in the span of minutes, Aevitas is capable of similar. Aevitas itself only runs at double the normal speed, but the Tutorial Server doubles again. While you have mentally been in the tutorial for 6-hours and 44-minutes, the actual time that has passed in reality is 1-hour-41. Adding to the time spent creating your avatar; the played time comes to 2-hours and 19 minutes.”

“That’s…” Unable to think of a suitable word to follow other than ‘insane’, Tobi stared blankly at the pixie for several seconds. Niamh had never mentioned anything about Aevitas being at a different speed to reality. Then again, she had mentioned spending fourteen hours running a dungeon only to get wiped. He’d assumed she was playing the game too much, but that was only seven hours in reality. Considering Aevitas could be substituted for real sleep, it probably wasn’t that big of a deal to spend seven hours online without a break.

Continuing to deliberate a few minutes longer, Tobi finally decided to just call it a day and go to Aevitas itself. He could learn the rest as he went along. If he’d only been online for a little over two hours then he still had about three more until his dad got home from work. That would essentially be six hours of Aevitas before he had to log off.

“I will go to Aevitas now.” Tobi said confidently, sure that he hadn’t missed out on anything that would prove to be very important. He knew a lot of people skipped the tutorial entirely, so it probably wasn’t that important in the first place, right? He probably wouldn’t have spent so long in the tutorial himself if he wasn’t so new to the whole idea of gaming.

“Please choose one of the following starter locations for members of the Human Race.” The pixie instructed, producing a basic and undetailed map of a place called Anderon. Twelve orange dots highlighted the starting cities that the humans could choose from. Each dot existing inside its own territory within the country.  

Briefly scanning the map, Tobi looked first toward the province of Deniya. It was the most popular human territory in Anderon and was located in the North-Western part of the country. The starter city was also called Deniya and Tobi was tempted to choose to start there. Unfortunately, it was the same city Niamh was in and he didn’t really want to be anywhere near her if he could help it.

Further East, just after Hartleypool, was Ardene. After Deniya, Ardene was arguably the second-most popular location in Anderon. At least that was what Niamh told him during one of her long and very descriptive narrations of the game. The bonus of choosing Ardene would be having family nearby. Lucy and her guild were based in Ardene so it was definitely a choice worth considering. Then again, the largest guild in Aevitas was Thunder Dynasty, of which his parents were members of. They were located in Hartleypool, stationing themselves between both Ardene and Deniya for optimal transport purposes between the two most popular locations.

As Tobi continued to hum and haw over which of the three to choose, his attention slipped toward the south. Why should he choose any of the locations where his friends and family were? It’s not like he was planning to actually play the game in the traditional sense. He would still raise his character properly, but that was only to ensure he could do whatever he wanted within the game. He was more interested with learning what Aevitas had to offer. He didn’t need his friends and family roping him into things and dragging him away from his own goals.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

No. Perhaps it would be better if he chose somewhere else after all. Somewhere that is out of the way, but not too far out of the way. Somewhere like…Gilleous? Camlann? Savan? Cohol? Brackley?

Looking around the various locations and mentally measuring the potential distances involved, Tobi focused his attention on the orange dot that seemed to be roughly an equal distance from Ardene, Hartleypool and Deniya. Pretty much the only city that fit the criteria of being far, but probably not too far, from all three locations.  

“Wait, before I choose a location, how does travel work in Aevitas?” Tobi asked, his eye fixed on Brackley, located toward the middle-ish area of Anderon.

The Pixie waved her hand and produced a list of ‘Transport Methods’ in a scroll window. At the top of the list was the image of a man walking. Just to the right was a description saying ‘One foot follows the other.’

Tobi continued reading through the list and found that the methods of transport were incredibly many. All methods of transport had a problem though: They were either hard to get hold of, had a large cost, or had harsh requirements in order to use; or in some cases, all three. The most common method of travel was actually by joining a ‘Merchant Caravan’ that was already travelling in the same direction. It allowed the players to get a ride in exchange for protecting the cargo.

Feeling somewhat indecisive about where to choose, Tobi hummed to himself with a frown. Be near friends, which also includes Niamh; be near his parents, which is between both his sister and Niamh; be near Lucy, which would undoubtedly benefit him a great deal; or strike out on his own, like he usually preferred to do.

“I guess I will choose Brackley,” Tobi finally answered, deciding to strike out on his own. Albeit with some reluctance and doubt toward his choice.

“Initiating transfer to Aevitas: European Server.”

The world instantly broke apart and felt, to Tobi, as though he were being sucked into a small, compressed space. The suffocating feeling that came in from all sides was brought with it a sense of panic and mild claustrophobia.

Not sure what else to do about the sudden change, Tobi closed his eyes and mentally reassured himself that it was probably normal. It would probably be over in a second, he just had to wait and everything would be fine.

After enough time passed for Tobi’s curiosity to get the better of him, Tobi opened a single eye to take a tentative look.

Error Connecting to Server. Re-establishing connection…

‘Huh?’

Connection Failed. Running Diagnostic…

Realizing that he seemed to be breathing just fine, Tobi relaxed slightly and felt the pressure surrounding him loosen a bit. The message in front of him was a little alarming but he wasn’t too worried really. Aevitas had been operating for 7 months already; something like this had probably happened before. Right? Probably.

Diagnostic Complete: Server closed for backup and maintenance. Returning to Tutorial Village to initiate Logout…

Tutorial Village server closed to prevent Character Creation during server update.

Attempting [Remote Force Logout]...

Connection to host interrupted. Reestablishing connection to host...

Host Dive Unit under forceful logout, unable to connect.

Rebooting Host Dive Unit. Host Dive Unit On. Host Dive Unit under forced disconnect, cannot establish link.

Reconnecting to world sever. Server connected. Synchronizing…

Synchronization failed. Reconnecting...

Error Code 277981UC. Resetting to default command. Connecting to Mother Unit...

Connection established. Accessing…

Access Granted. Synchronizing User Character…

User Character Failed. Character Synchronized. Accessing…

Following the long list of jargon, only half of which Tobi was able to follow, Tobi found himself suddenly propelled forward. At least he felt as though he was going forward; he wasn’t actually sure if he were moving at all. Feeling as though he were going pretty fast—dangerously so—Tobi slightly panicked and mentally prepared himself for impact.

A light came into view up ahead. He wasn’t sure what it was at first but a moment later he felt a sensation similar to falling; and yet not. The more important part was the incoming ground up ahead.

Closing his eyes, tucking his arms into his chest and turning his head to the side, Tobi waited for the moment he splattered on the floor. Thankfully, to Tobi’s relief, the sudden crash didn’t happen. Instead, Tobi’s final second was a slow fall where he floatingly rotated and landed on his feet.

His heart thumping and feeling slightly disorientated, Tobi put a hand to his heart and took a breath. The messages telling him that his character had ‘failed to synchronize’ was not something he’d been able to stay calm about; no matter how much he told himself that it was probably a common occurrence. His thoughts on the experience didn’t last long however as a window screen in front of his eyes demanded his attention.

Welcome to Aevitas. To get you started, you have received 1 x Basic Merchant Starter Pack:

1 x Merchant Map.

1 x Degrading Stone of Wealth (5).

10 x Copper Coins.

10 x Fortune.

1 x Basic Energy Recovery Potion.

1 x Basic Health Recovery Potion.

1 x Scroll of Returning.

1 x Leather Water Bottle (empty).

Closing the window and checking his inventory, Tobi confirmed all the items inside. Before he got started though, he first wanted to check his own character. He knew he’d lose the professions and stats he gained in the tutorial, but he still wanted to check.

Mentally braced for what was to come next, Tobi called out ‘Open User Window’ and confirmed what he already knew to expect.

Name: Tobi Donlan

Level1 Health: 100/100Fortune: 10 Energy: 100/100Satiety: 100/100

TITLES None.

STATS Luck0Charisma0 Endurance1Dexterity1 Agility1Mind1

Along with his stats, all of Tobi’s profession slots were empty, his sub-profession skill slots were empty and his items from the tutorial were also gone. Tobi now understood why few people wasted so much time on the tutorial server. He felt like the hours he’d spent there had gone to complete waste. The only consolation was that he now knew a bit about Aevitas itself and what he could do here. Still, he’d probably spent more time there than was strictly necessary.

Quickly checking his spells and abilities before continuing on, Tobi’s heart sank a little. The appraisal ability he had in the tutorial was missing too. The only spells he still had were [Tip a Beggar] and [Level Up]. His passives were only his Looter, Profit and Discount abilities.

Closing all the windows cluttering his view, Tobi paused for a second and wondered what he should do first. Unable to see any exclamation points to begin some quests, which was pretty much how the tutorial had started, Tobi felt at a loss. The pixie had warned him that they wouldn't be visible, but now he was actually here, he realized how much easier it would have been if an exclamation point was able to guide him along his first steps. There was no sense in procrastinating with indecision though, so Tobi pulled the Merchant Map from his pack and took a look. 

Whatever point of interest was nearest to his current location, that's where he would start.