Sarah had finally decided to play Eternal Realms: Legacy after months of her best friend, Jacob, urging her to try it. She had ordered the headset 2 weeks ago, having saved up for a month by working her part-time job at Papa Sean’s. It was tiring to do both high school and work part-time, but she enjoyed the extra spending money it gave her. And today was the day her hard work had paid off: the headset had arrived.. After all the hype it had received from Jacob, she was a bit excited to try it out. So that night she made herself dinner earlier than normal and informed her parents she was going to be playing a game - they ignored her as usual - before going to her room and lying in bed. With a bit of anticipation, she moved her hair out of the way and put on the headset. Flipping the “on” switch, she felt her body go numb as her consciousness was whisked away somewhere else.

After a brief loading screen, the game system loaded and asked for her login credentials. Logging into her account, she was immediately asked to create a character. She thought for a bit and ultimately decided to make an Orc Fighter, with her main stats being Constitution and Strength. After being asked what town she wanted her character to start in, she decided on Dustfall, the starter town on the edge of the Great Wasteland. Even though Jacob had started elsewhere, his character was currently closest to this starter town, and she wanted to join up with him as soon as she could. Loading in, she found herself in a town featuring West African architecture, with buildings made from mud bricks and coated with plaster, beautifully crafted with flat roofs and open doorways, along with wooden support beams sticking out of the walls at set intervals.

Deciding to get her leveling done fast, she immediately headed out into the nearby wasteland. There she found some easy earth elementals to fight. She got a couple levels in quickly and was beginning to head deeper when she saw, off to her side, a large dust storm begin to form. Behind a red rocky hill, she saw dirt swirling around rapidly, and a large figure began to emerge from the dust. Seeing this, she was scared she had gone too far into the Wastelands for her level, and she quickly backed away from the large dust storm. She went to an earlier zone and continued fighting earth elementals. Soon, however, she started making her way back closer after realizing where she had seen the large dust storm still contained basic enemies. So, she decided to check out whatever had caused that large dust storm before.

She quickly found the hill she had been behind when it started, and she climbed up to the top of it. Looking down beyond into the small valley between the rocky hills, she noticed a circle of about 10 meters in diameter that had all the dirt torn from the ground, and it looked like it had been deposited into a mound in the middle. Deciding to get a closer look in case anything was left behind from the event, she skidded and slipped down the hill and walked closer to the mound of dirt.

Peter was unconscious, resting from his debacle when suddenly a ping went through his brain. He tried to ignore it, but it happened again quickly after, and this time he woke up a little more. Then, his mind went on full alert as he realized what was going on. Something was moving on the ground around him. And it was getting closer.

Sarah approached the mound, and saw at the top of it some dirt that didn’t quite fit in with the shape of the rest of the mound. It looked like it had been placed on top after the rest had already formed. Curious, she used <> on it.

<>

She almost burst out laughing. All her cautiousness and curiosity for a simple level 1 Earth Elemental. She picked her war hammer up from the straps holding it in place along her back and readied it to attack the poor elemental.

Peter, meanwhile, was in a panic. His <> skill had given him a basic understanding of his foe. It was a large humanoid, and they looked to now be holding a hammer of some sort and preparing to attack him. He noticed his MP bar was back to full, and quickly moved away from the impending strike. His opponent, seemingly ready for this, lunged forward for a quick bash, which connected with him and sent him flying.

||HP: 30/50||

‘That one hit took away 20 HP? They must be higher level than me.’ Peter was panicked, but he already had lots of experience in the game, and knew when he needed to focus on a battle. He tried to erect a barrier of dirt to keep the large humanoid at bay, but they easily vaulted over it. He backed away again and thought of how to attack. The person facing him was clearly a close-quarters fighter, and moving in to bash them with his ‘arms’ was probably a bad idea, especially since they were probably stronger and tougher than him. So, he did the next thing that popped into his head. He gathered a tiny ball of dirt with <>, and tried to launch it forwards with as much speed as he could muster. It flew away from his body at the high speed of a kid throwing a baseball. It managed to reach the humanoid chasing him, but they didn’t even dodge it as they continued chasing him.

Peter didn’t even think they had taken a single point of damage. Still, he didn’t give up. Continuing to move back, he thought of charging up a shot instead of releasing it instantly. So he gathered up another ball of dirt, and this time started spinning it in place and preparing to launch it forward. Once it had built up some decent speed, he willed the rotational speed to become linear speed, as well as trying to boost the ball of dirt faster with even more MP. This time, it shot out at quite a decent speed, hitting the humanoid again and causing them to falter in their steps momentarily. A ping from the system alerted him to a new skill.

<>

<>

‘Another skill! This one is much more useful in a fight.’ Peter was ecstatic. This was exactly what he was hoping for. With the skill now helping him out, he found it much easier to form and shoot the <>. He continued kiting the humanoid that had now become the test subject for his new skill, running away while intermittently shooting. Eventually, the humanoid stopped chasing him, but he knew he was going to win the fight at some point so he turned around and continued the chase in the opposite direction. Within a minute, he shot another - now much faster - <> and felt the humanoid body suddenly disappear from his <>. Releasing a vibration, he saw a few scraps of metal lying on the ground, along with a small, circular object.

<>

<>

The chime of system notifications alerted him to his kill. ‘Ah, that was an orc? And a Mauler too, they’re quite the formidable close-quarters fighter. What’s a Traveler, though?’ He thought for a moment, and then remembered what the innkeeper Tim had called him on his last day in the game as a player.

“Congrats on that level, those can be hard t’ come by. I don know how you Travelers get them so fast.” Tim had said.

‘Yeah, that’s what they called us players in general, that’s right. Meaning… I just killed a player?’ Peter was unsure how to feel about this. Assuming he was in fact in the same game he had been playing, the Orc player he had just killed should respawn in about 30 seconds in their most recent inn room, with only some gold or an item or two gone from their inventory. He hoped this was the case, as he didn’t want to think about the consequences of what he had just unthinkingly done if it wasn’t.

Turning his mind away from that topic, he released another vibration and took a closer inspection of the items dropped by the Orc. He remembered using the <> skill previously as a player, and it worked by laying your eyes on an object and then activating the skill. He didn’t have any eyes, but he was sure his <> could act just the same way. He tried releasing another vibration, this time focusing extra hard on the orb on the ground.

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<>

‘I knew it! Every creature has access to some form of Identify.’ Glad that his theory was correct, he quickly looked at the item description. ‘Hmm, the core of a level 2 earth elemental, just like me. I know it only says ‘used a material in crafting,’ but I wonder if I could somehow use it like an experience potion.’ Peter remembered back in his player days people sometimes spent money to buy experience potions. The game made it so you could only use one potion of this kind a week, but for power levelers it was still an important resource. He knew that experience potions had to be tailored to your race or class to work, which made him unable to use the potion Jacob had offered him at one point. Maybe as an Elemental, he could use this orb in a similar way?

With not much to go on, Peter immediately began his experimentation. He manipulated the earth around the Orb to cover it, then brought the whole thing closer to his body. Carefully, he began integrating the mass of dirt using <>. The outer bits of earth blended seamlessly into his body, but the orb remained separate. It was inside his body now, but disconnected from it. He could clearly feel the earth surrounding it touching the smooth surface of the Orb, but his body did not react in any way. Taking some more initiative, he began randomly moving it around his body, hoping it would just work somehow. Not getting any response, he eventually stopped and thought for a while. The Orb could be brought into his body, but it was less like eating something, where the energy from the food was broken down by the body and reprocessed, and more like a piercing, where something was put through the body but really didn’t interact with it at all. Not having a stomach of any kind, he needed to find a way to extract the potential energy in the Orb.

Thinking back, he remembered the feeling he had when he was first manipulating his form. He had been doing a lot of experimenting, and during that he had noticed the strange movements of energy while doing so. He was more focused on the shape of his body at the time, but now he thought this energy might be the key to his current predicament. He focused inwards again, trying to feel that strange energy. He found it quite easily, as it was still helping him hold his form. It formed a complex path through his body, but with no real center. It was impossible to follow any one path of the energy, but looking at the whole thing it looked quite like the circulatory system of his old body, besides there being no ‘heart’ pumping it around. It just seemed to flow endlessly around, nothing guiding or pushing it.

He slowly began to change his form from his usual ball to the half-humanoid shape he could take, and focused on the feeling of the changing energy. He quickly saw the energy make brand new branches, guiding itself into the new limbs and cutting off the pathways that were no longer needed.

‘I’m guessing the energy I’m feeling is my MP. It’s so weird to feel it as a part of my body. In the game I knew it was there, but I never had the ability to feel it moving around my body the way I do now. Perhaps he could use this to his advantage. His ability to feel the mana flowing through his body could lend itself well to manipulating his skills in whole new ways. He turned his attention back on the mana pathways in his body. He was uncertain how to proceed, as the pathways were way too complicated for him to try and figure out. He made up his mind to rely on his overwhelmingly high Willpower stat, and willed the pathways to change slightly. A whole section of them was suddenly cut off from the left side of his body, and the earth there crumbled as it had nothing to connect it to him.

‘I guess that counts as a success. Let’s see if I can just Will this thing to work out.’ Peter picked up the Orb in its ball of earth again and integrated it into his body. Feeling the mana pathways close to the orb, he willed them to touch it. They changed and shifted, and as he lost control over a different part of his body, the pathways around the orb suddenly enlarged drastically, and began sending small pathways to touch the Orb. Upon touching the Orb, though, nothing changed. Taking it a step further, Peter willed the mana pathways to break the surface of the Orb and force themselves inside. At first it didn’t work, and the surface of the Orb felt impossible to get through. But Peter strained himself and didn’t take no for an answer. He put his mighty Willpower stat to the test, and finally he felt a crack resound from the Orb, as a small tendril of his mana wormed its way into it. Suddenly from the orb a rush of energy burst forth, but luckily the mana pathways around it were large enough to greedily absorb it all. Even though he had no taste buds, he felt the warm pour of the mana like the earthy and slightly bitter taste of fresh coffee inside his body.

<>

<>

Peter felt more tired after forcing his way into the Orb than after his fight with the Orc. But he was more than satisfied with his gains. He had successfully learned to - slightly - manipulate his mana pathways, and even extracted the lingering power in the Orb left behind. To fully check his gains, he opened his status screen.

||Name: Undetermined Level: 3 (+2)

Race: Earth Elemental

HP: 150/150 MP: 150/150 STM: 120/120

Wisdom: 15 (+10)

Perception: 7 (+2)

Willpower: 240 (+40)

Charisma: 30 (+10)

Luck: 240 (+40)

Dexterity: 6 (+2)

Agility: 9 (+4)

Strength: 12 (+8)

Endurance: 12 (+8)

Constitution: 15 (+10)

Free Stats: 20 (+20)||

||Skills:

Race Skill: <>, <>, <>, <>

Learned Skills: <> ||

‘Stat gain is the same I had at the first level, except for Willpower, Charisma, and Luck. A bit sad I won’t be getting 200 per level, that would totally be busted. But now that I know I can get more powerful from these Orbs, I think it’s time.’ Time for the hunt to begin. To enact step one of his - vague - plan: get strong enough to face his friends.

~~~~~~~~~

Sarah had seen the error of her ways. She had initially dumped all her free points into Strength or Constitution, since she didn’t see the need to be fast if she hit extra hard. Unfortunately that led to her only getting 1 Agility per level from her class, making her only have 4 Agility at her level. This had actually been fine, until she met that stupid Earth Elemental. She had thought the fight was going to be boring and uneventful, as she had been killing level 3 and even level 4 Earth Elementals before that. Their strategy was simple: get in close and bash her. Of course, she was much better at bashing than the Elementals, so she always came out on top. A few had managed to escape, burrowing their way into the ground when they realized they were outmatched. But never had they engaged in a ranged fight.

That annoying Level 1 Earth Elemental had continuously kited her, staying just out of reach of her hammer while pelting her with rocks. The first couple hadn’t done much damage, and she thought she could waste away its mana while tanking the hits, before being able to get in close and finish it off. But it had been slightly faster than her, and it didn’t seem to be running out of mana at all. So she had called off the chase, expecting the Elemental to continue on with its business once she stopped attacking. But no, it continued to chase her while she was running for her life, and eventually it managed to kill her.

She logged off afterwards, her trembling hands removing the headset from where it lay. She had a brief thought of chucking it across the room, but managed to calm herself as she pulled out her phone to text Jacob.

“This game really has no mercy. I was killed by a Level 1 Earth Elemental at Level 4.”

It took a couple seconds, but eventually she saw the ellipses pop up as he wrote his response.

“LOL! ive never heard of anyone dying to a level 1 earth elemental. how u die? did it gang up on you or find you after a big fight”

She stared at her phone, her confusion palpable.

“No, it didn’t. It kept running away from me and shooting rocks, even after I tried to escape it kept following and shooting.”

“u mean u didnt have enough AGI to run away in time? usually monsters dont chase very far once you leave them alone. try to run away before your health is critical.”

She didn’t have the heart to tell him her health had been at half when she disengaged, and the elemental had chased her for a full minute before she had died.

“Yeah I’ll make sure to invest some in AGI for the next few levels. Anyway, what's your in-game name? I’ll send you a friend request.” Putting the thought of the strange Elemental out of her mind, she resolved not to get too close to any strange phenomena in the future, unless she had some back-up nearby.