Empty... 

Everything around me was so... empty. 

A neverending sea of black surrounded me yet these small spherical things floated from me... bubbles? 

How do I know of this information? Why is everything becoming lighter? Brighter?

The sea of black illuminated as a sphere of white grew and expanded in front of me. It grew and grew until it covered all of my vision. And the words and voice spoke to me. It was cheerful, bright, feminine and oddly robotic.

"Welcome A.I. Bermonte to Duel Dimensions" 

What? Bermonte? A.I.? Duel Dimensions?

"You are registered as serial 57797863 created by User: Julie Baker. "

Created? User? 

"You are assigned the class Novice until further points are invested into your kit." 

I tried to hold a hand up to stop the voice, to have it explain to me in details but I found myself unable to move. What was going on? What was happening?

"You part of the community: Sof and you have two current allies: Astrid and Cuelance: Both are classed as Novices and your creator has generously supplied you all with an Encampment, Cooking Pot, Water Well, Armory, Elder Tree, and Icy Archive. Transporting now" 

I reached out to the light I strained my muscles and I felt sound explode from my mouth. "Wait!" I cried but the light faded away and I now found myself looking at a hide tent ceiling. 

Coarse dirt and aged beddings of my fur bed tickled my backside as I took a look around. The air was chilly, potentially from the Icy Archive that the mysterious voice told me about. What was my purpose here anyway? What was Duel Dimension?

I got up from my bedroll and walked outside. From the other two tents emerged two other figures.

A girl with blonde hair tied in a scorpion braid. She had a normal hide shirt and pants with leather gear covering her vitals. I can only assume she was shorter than me due to the fact that I felt the need to look down just to face her. She was a bit thin

The other person to emerge was a man who wore a similar attire. This man had cropped brown hair that hugged his head. He was about as tall as me with a bit of fat on his arms and stomach though it didn't seem to hinder him. 

We all took in each other and each of us waited for the first word to be thrown out. Something told me that we'd be working together from now on so it would be in our best interest to get along.

"Astrid: Novice: Nice to meet you all" the girl said briskly, a chilly aura in her voice. Her greeting and introduction was flat but she went straight to the point.

"I am Cuelance, It is nice to meet you all, Sorry if its short, I'm new to all this." the guy chuckled nervously.

Cuelane was such a long name, I probably will shorten it to Cue.  On that note they both stared at me as if waiting for me to speak.

"I am Bermonte, I am confused of why we are here but nice to meet you." I bowed my head a tad bit before straightening up again. 

As we got our introductions out of the way the feminine, robotic voice spoke again. 

"You are all created to work together in Duel Dimension, In this realm you will be fighting other communities for points and resources. Your Creator and User: Julie Baker will be guiding you as she sees fit. For now there are these important buildings I will be guiding you." 

In the our surroundings a building lit up with a glow. It was a wooden building plain to the eye and not that big. If it wasn't shining then one would assume it was a log cabin. 

"This is the armory, you can pick up melee weapons here and train in warrior classes. " 

The building lost its luster and another building... was it a building? A giant tree started to glow.

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"This is the Elder Tree, nature-based classes will be birthed here. You can find your spirtuality or connection to the forces of nature." 

The tree too lost its glow as another place... more like slab lit up. It was a verticle face of rock with steps going into the interior downstairs. An icy aura permeated the air as mist and fog as it dissipated in the area around it. 

"Icy Archives, an underground facility to learn about ice-based classes and skills. You need higher and higher ice resistance to delve deeper into the archives lest you freeze to death. All books cannot be taken out of the archives."  the robotic voice spoke.

"The rest of the facilities are for general living. Encampment is your living quarters and defines how big your community can get. Cooking Stove and Water Well are general necessities of food and water. Hygiene and other resources are not provided." 

I didn't know the extent of what would be provided but from the looks of it we'd have to go hunt our own food or at least cultivate it.  I'm not sure if our water well had a limit to how much water we could draw but to waste it on hygiene, as important as it was, seemed like a waste.

We all stood as the explanation ended and I felt a deep urge starting to well up inside me. 

"The tree" a whisper reached my ear and I looked around.

The other two seemed to have something similar happening to them as they too looked around.

"The Elder Tree, a nature class you will be."  the voice whispered again. This one was different, it wasn't the robotic voice of the announcer but a more subtle female voice that spoke of melodies in the wind.

I felt compelled to go to the tree, I didn't know if I wanted to resist it for the sing-song voice just resonated with me. It made me feel as if I wanted to go to the tree all this time.

I took a step forward, and then another, and then another. I continued to take steps as I looked around. 

Astrid was busy walking toward the Armory. Cue pulled his gear tighter as he started to descend into the archives.

As I reached the Elder Tree it started to open up. The knot expanded to form a staircase which I took upwards to find myself in a hollow filled with books and other materials.

"You are eligable to learn a class, Which class will you choose today?"

[Elementalist]

[Druid]

[Shaman]

[Farmer]

[Gardner]

[Next Page] [1 of 2]

I didn't understand what they were but the voice spoke and I felt my body move to select Druid

A notification popped up in front of me: 

[Congratulation! You have acquired the Druid Class]

[You obtained 100 Skill Points (SP)]

[Would you like to learn any skills?]

I clicked yes and a list popped up:

A list of skills flashed before my eyes as various spirits came into focus. 

There was common ones like Bear Spirit, Wolf Spirit, Bird Spirit.

There was no fantasy spirits such as Pheonix and Kraken but I can only assume that was because we didn't a high enough Elder Tree. 

Where the term high enough came from I do not know, but the voices seemed to be cursing that we didn't have enough points to upgrade the tree.

I scrolled through the list as the voices in my head kept cursing at the low-tier spells and she paused as she came across a section tab.

[Due to having the Icy Archives you have access to Ice-Spirits]

[Snow Fox Familiar: 100 SP]

[Arctic Spirit: 100 SP]

[Ice Armor: 100 SP]

The list went on and on and my mind told me to get one of the skills and upon clicking confirm I felt the SP drained from my body.

[Congratulations! You have acquired the Arctic Spirit Skill] 

[Arctic Spirit: Imbue your body with a Arctic Spirit. Gain Increased Ice-Resistance and have the Ice-attribute added to your attacks. Cost 30 MP to summon and 3 MP to maintain. Rank D]

A new notification and a the robotic voice spoke again.

[You have obtained a skill that requires MP or Magical Power: MP is your total magical power that resides in your body. As a Druid you can obtain MP from your surroundings. When you are out of MP then you cannot cast skills.]

[You have used your Skill Points to obtain a skill, there are various uses of Skill Points. Some examples are to Obtain or Upgrade a skill or class. Certain items are also affected by skill points. Each A.I. obtain their own skill points independantly of others. There are various ways for you to obtain Skill Points. You can hunt beasts and monsters in the surrounding area. You can trade treasures or turn in quests to obtain them. The most profitable is to duel other User's and kill their A.I.]

I started to sweat. If it was easy to obtain Skill Points by killing others, doesn't that mean that there would be people who just camp us? What if there was a raid going on right now?

[To obtain skill points from A.I. kills, one must send a squad into the Duel Dimension where squads of one, two or three are pitted against each other. You can retreat at any time with a penalty in Skill Points brought back. Likewise if you withdraw early then the points the other team obtains your lost points. Warning: Any and all A.I. killed is permenantly deleted with only a memoir of their character in the Hall of Dead] 

I thought about it for a while... to obtain Skill Points from killing others we have to specifically want to go in. We can retreat at a loss of points, and any deaths on our side is permanent. What the heck? What is this place? Determining my death so easily!

I looked skyward. Julie Baker please don't be a psychotic person who sends people to their deaths just for fun. We obviously aren't ready." 

[All A.I. have obtained a class and skill! Transfering to Tutorial Combat Stage] 

Well damn. Curse you Julie Baker! I mentally screamed as I felt my body turn into particles and the world started to turn black.