"I’m not complaining, and am thankful for your generosity, but you obviously planned for several sessions of training. May I ask why you are so helpful to me?"

Felix wasn’t sure what he expected when he asked this question, probably excuses, but Cailin showed an unexpected honesty as she replied, "Several reasons. First is what I just told you, nothing has happened in this town since I arrived. Well, one thing did, but Francis was too scared to send me away from him.

"There is also your Title. It is my first time seeing it, but Runefather sounds like a prestigious position. And you must be familiar with the saying, a good Runesmith is a good friend."

Felix wasn’t, but he got it.

"Thank you for your honesty. Before we start off though, I have one more question, I hope you won’t get offended by it."

Cailin snorted, but said nothing, so Felix asked, "Why is your Level so low? It can’t be that hard for you to level up with your strength, right?"

Felix half expected to still get offended by the question, yet all she showed was surprise as she asked, "You don’t know about the Level Zones?"

Felix shook his head, and Cailin explained, "The System generally is rather fair. And Red Dawn Town is a Safe Zone. What this means, is that entities above a certain level will get suppressed. The level here is between 10 and 15."

Felix tilted his head and said, "My friends were close to Level 20, and they didn’t have any problems. So were the Ocuminis, actually. Their caster was even Level 27."

Cailin replied, "It’s all about the difference in levels, and the duration of the stay. At Level 20, you could probably stay for a couple of days before getting uncomfortable. So for you, it doesn’t really matter. However, I have been here for several months, so if I was any higher than Level 15, I wouldn’t be able to stay."

"So people in cities would be much higher leveled?"

"Most people in Fìrma, the closest city, are close to Level 50. Most are stopped by the Tier 1 rank up though."

Felix perked up at the mention of Tier 1 as he asked, "I’ve heard about this promotion, but how come not everyone can do it? Is it that hard?"

Cailin shrugged and replied, "I can’t tell you much about it, because everyone’s promotion is different."

"There is no common factor?"

"Not really… well, the promotion itself, of course. Mana evolves your body. But other than that, not really."

The more he learned about it, the more certain Felix was that his Innate Curse was screwing him. If there was a place for doubt before, everything pointed at the promotion being impossible for him now.

Feeling the need to change his mind, Felix got into his stance, and Cailin followed as the two started sparring.

It was nice to do something else after spending an entire night working on his Runes, and so he spent an entire three hours with Cailin, training until he could barely move.

It came with a nice surprise too as both his Strength and Agility gained a point. Normally, by this point, Felix would have gone for a break, probably a nap as he was tired both physically and mentally, but he instead returned to Chris’ workshop.

After exchanging greetings with him, Felix directly went into meditation, and not just anywhere as he stood right next to the main forge. The heat was so strong that Felix would lose an HP about every 10 seconds.

His natural HP Regeneration was far from good enough to stand this, as it was calculated in the same way as MP Regeneration, that is HP/7200. With 170 HP, Felix regenerated 1 HP about every 50 seconds.

However, Chris had a special object he had made and used for himself, a special meditation mat.

[Rejuvenation Mat, Semi-Fine, Level 10]

[Rejuvenation: By sitting on it, restores 1 HP every five seconds.]

Using this mat, Felix was able to meditate right next to the forge, training his Fire Resistance while working on his Runic Magic.

And like this, a sort of routine set itself for Felix as he eagerly waited for news from Yasue. It took a little more time than he first expected though as slightly more than a week passed since Yasue told him about the plan.

Actually, Felix suspected that it was done on purpose, as he did not receive news on Blue Light’s Leader on just any day, but on the 30th Day since the game was released. In other words, it had been exactly one month since the game had been launched.

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This was an important date because while it was pointless to compare players after only a week of game play, as players with lucky encounters would be clearly ahead of other players, now that a month had passed, the strongest players all had the opportunity to catch up on the lucky ones.

And if the Guild Leader of Blue Light were to get killed now, then there would be no excuses for him. It was quite the devious plan, but Felix wouldn’t complain, as that only made his job easier.

That’s why, for the first time since the start of the game, Felix was about to leave Red Dawn Town and its surroundings, to head for the closest city, Fìrma. Or rather, the area right next to it, the Mountain Pass.

It was a zone filled with monsters between Level 30 and 50, and it was where the Guild Guilder leveled up, alongside with the Main Team of Blue Light.

A month into the game, the average level of players had risen to 20, while experts were around 30. As for top notch experts, such as Felix’s prey, they were getting closer to Level 40.

As for Felix himself, he was still Level 10. But he wasn’t just any Level 10.

Name: Odin

Level: 10

Title: Runefather, Otherworlder

Class: Runic Mage

Profession: N/A

HP: 303/340

MP: 1000/1000

Vitality: 34

Spirit: 100

Strength: 25

Agility: 27

Intelligence: 100 (104)

Faith: 5

Free AP: 0

Skills: [Expand]

Equipment: [Expand]

His magical stats had unfortunately stopped increasing from training, probably because he had put nearly all his AP into it, but his Physical Stats had drastically increased.

The Stat that had the most increased, by far, was his Vitality, as it gad gone from 17 to 34, so it had doubled. This wasn’t thanks to his training with Cailin either, but instead from training his Fire Affinity, as constantly losing HP turned out to be a pretty solid way of training the Stat.

It had also allowed him to rank up his Fire Resistance.

[Basic Fire Resistance]

[Rating: D]

[Effect: Lowers the negative effects of fire and heat.]

As for his other areas of training… he had improved quite a lot. Hopefully enough for him to survive in a zone 20 to 40 levels higher than him, and kill the Guild Leader of Blue Light, who was at least 25 levels higher than him.

Oh well, worrying wouldn’t do him any good.

It was now properly geared though that Felix left Red Dawn Town, heading North-East for the Mountain Pass.

His weapon was still Skera, as it was the best weapon he had made. His gloves were the Sombre Gloves, which he had picked from Euron, and in his back was the Bag of Holding, in which was the Staff of Long Winter, along with provisions.

The rest of his equipment, he had crafted himself, and they were all Semi-Fine equipment. Felix hadn’t done much forging in the last week, so he hadn’t managed to craft another Fine piece.

The first area Felix had to go through to head to the Mountain Pass was a low level area meant for beginners filled with poisonous animals. Felix directly ignored them as he sped past the area.

The world of Epoch was a large one, and the Margarita Kingdom, in which Felix had appeared, was in the West of the continent. It was a rather large kingdom, most of which was filled with lush forests. The eastern extremity of the Kingdom though, where Felix was headed, was a rocky area.

The Mountain Pass was actually one of the main trade routes between the Margarita Kingdom and their Eastern neighbor, the Brightsky Kingdom, another human kingdom.

However, it had recently been overrun by monsters, and while the cause for this was still unknown, many quests had been issued to investigate the issue.

This, on the other hand, had created some conflict within the city, because it was a trove for Quests and XP. Whoever managed to monopolize the area, would be able to level up ahead of the others.

In the end, it was Blue Light who had managed to win the area, as the strongest Guild in the city. It was quite impressive, as they weren’t even the only First Tier Guild in the city. According to Yasue, who had recently secretly relocated to Fìrma with his guild, Blue Light had allied with several Second Tier Guilds to completely monopolize the area.

And to make sure no one would steal their area from them, Blue Light had players watching over the area 24/7, stopping any player that wasn’t from their Guild or allied to them from entering.

This was actually a common practice within Epoch, and prior games, as resources were finite, and only by performing such tactics could Guilds get ahead of the rest.

This both made Felix’s task easier and harder. Harder, because sneaking in was pretty much impossible, at least for him who didn’t know a thing about discretion. Easier, because his goal was to humiliate Blue Light, and what better than a Level 10 piercing straight through their defensive lines and kill their Guild Leader?

One thing to note though was that when Felix made some research about the guild, he did find that they had increased their defensive measures because of ‘anonymous’ attacks on their turf. Felix was pretty sure that it was Yasue making his task harder to make a bigger impact.

Anyway, Felix had to walk for three hours before reaching his destination. Travel in Epoch was quite diverse, going from teleportation to carriages, and Felix even heard about a train somewhere. However, most means of transportation were only available from the cities, so Felix had to walk the way there.

On the way, he avoided any fighting, opting to run instead, not because of the level of the monsters, but because he didn’t want to level up. He wanted to arrive there at Level 10, it was important.

As the rocky area came into sight, Felix did not immediately go in, but instead logged off, both to rest a little, and to inform Yasue he was in place.

Half an hour later, as he returned to the game, Felix spotted a man sitting against a rock next to him.

[Thousand Streams, Level 28, Thief]

Felix felt the name was familiar, but he couldn’t recall where he had seen it. He did not immediately go for the attack though, as he asked, "What color are raspberries?"

Thousand Streams, an Asian man dressed in leather armor, replied with a chuckle, "Blue, because they are the best."

Felix found the thing silly, but Yasue had insisted they used this as a code to recognize each other. The technique itself made sense, but the answer… Felix recently discovered that Yasue could be childish at times.

Stretching a little, Felix asked, "Are you ready?"

"I should be the one asking. I’m only here to film the whole thing, and help you find the way to Isaiah."