The run to Gafoda was boring, to say the least. She didn’t really expect anything to happen, but running non stop for five days was just not the most exciting thing she’d ever done. The entire time she ran, she kept up her Frozen Arsenal. A sheet of ice that creaked with each step covered her body. At her side were two short swords that she’d summoned as well just to keep her appearance of a rugged adventurer up.

Her Aura of Frost was running as cold as she could make it, and she pulled a small cloud of snow behind her with her Frost skill. Overall, she thought it was a pretty good use of her time, it was just so incredibly boring.

Nothing happened. There were no bandits, no wild animals, no unworldly Okiu jumping out of the forest. It was just a safe journey to another town. Even when she would slow down to eat and look around a little, she never even saw any tracks that belonged to anything other than a human.

She saw Moaning Point off in the distance after the first day. The snow capped peak poked up on the horizon whenever the dense forest of trees opened up enough for her to see it. At first it excited her. She could see her goal, it was right there on the horizon.

But as she ran, it didn’t seem to get any closer. The days passed, and she thought she might kinda see more of it than she did the previous day but wasn’t sure. It was such a slow process she wasn’t really sure how much it had changed. Was she only able to see the snowy peaks or did she see the rocky cliffs yesterday too? When did that happen, she wondered.

There were a few other people on the road, an equal split going to and from Gafoda by her count. Most were solo travellers, covered in armour and weapons. Often dragging their own magic behind them as they rushed past Zoe.

She saw a few people who were in their high forties but for the most part the people she saw were dark red or dark blue marks to her identify. Even people who seemed to be around her age were far higher than her.

Through her time in Flester, she’d begun to think that she wasn’t that far behind people her age. Emma was only just coming up to level forty herself, most of the people she went to school with were late twenties, early thirties. A little ways ahead of Zoe but not by a whole lot. Zoe’s Patient Decider and powerful starting class gave her a nice boost that helped her catch up.

Or so she thought. But now, seeing so many people her age at a level she couldn’t even identify, even with her higher than usual identify level, she wondered if she was further behind than she expected. Was it just that the people in Flester lived more comfortable, relaxed lives and didn’t have as much of a focus on getting their levels up as high as possible?

She supposed it made some sense. People in town were in a town, surrounded by walls. They enjoyed the safety. But the people who went to Moaning Point were putting themselves in danger and for only one purpose. To grow in power. It was a totally different mindset of people she was going to find herself surrounded by, she realized.

Or maybe there was another answer. Maybe the solo travellers just tended to be higher level, but those who stayed in town and maybe joined caravans or groups that travelled less frequently might be lower level? She’d only really be able to tell when she got to the town proper.

For now, it was nearing the end of the fifth day and she was sure that Moaning Point was getting closer. The mountain towered over her in the distance and pierced through the dark clouds that surrounded it. Fog seemed to drip down the mountain’s form and obscured much of it from her vision.

The bits she could see were difficult to make out because of the distance. Her sight was better than most but even when the mountain looked so close the trees looked no larger than ants. It gave her an appreciation for just how large the mountain really was, unless the mana anomaly warped the trees to make them particularly small for some reason.

Zoe kept running through the night, and by a few hours after the morning sun rose she finally saw what must be Gafoda. A small town set at the base of the mountain. The buildings were mostly made of a dark wood and stone, the roads were simple packed dirt. Hordes of people walked through the roads, each covered in armour or magic.

What surprised her most was the amount of children she could see. There were so many kids. They didn’t seem lost, at least. The younger kids walked around holding their parents’ hands and talked about their plans to tackle the lower levels of Moaning Point together. There were a few groups of teenagers who were planning their ascent as well.

And other than the very young kids, Zoe saw nobody lower level than her. And even most of the kids seemed to be nearing her level. There were a few kids who showed up as orange to her identify, the first time she’d ever seen people without their first class before.

But most were light blue around level fifteen to twenty. And the teenagers blew Zoe out of the water. They were all at least level thirty, and some of them even reached up to forty. Higher than Emma even, despite being probably at least ten years younger.

She shook herself out of her stupor and continued into town. It was a completely different vibe to Flester. Everybody seemed so on edge. In Flester, her Empathy always seemed to have this anxiety that rested below everything else. Everybody had it, everybody was always worried about this or that. But in Gafoda? Anxiety seemed the predominant emotion people felt.

Along with excitement, and confidence. As she walked around, she saw people turn to look at her while their curiosity and anxiety spiked for a moment, before they carried on with whatever they were doing. Whatever this place was, the people didn’t seem to feel that safety that Flester always had.

There was no towering wall that surrounded Gafoda to protect people from the outside. There were some guards, though from what Zoe had read it seemed they were mostly volunteers who chose to do their part to keep Gafoda from completely falling to ruin. But there was no organization, no vetting of the people who came to town. No reassurance that if something happened, the entire armed forces would be put to action to protect the town.

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No, everybody here was on their own. If an elemental decided to attack, Zoe doubted even the volunteers would truly risk their lives to protect the town. Maybe some of the lower level undead who wandered down from the mountain, some of the wildlife who decided to attack.

But if something catastrophic happened? There was no promise of safety here, and it showed. Everybody was stronger here, everybody walked with more confidence, despite their stronger fears and worries. Everybody knew they were on their own, and they liked that.

And Zoe found herself drawn into the small town. She liked it too. It was rugged and full of danger, but if people brought their level eight child here then it couldn’t be too bad. It gave her a nice view of what life might be like if she continued on this path, of what the people she’d meet might be like at least.

Her first step was to find somewhere she could rest. Moaning Point was right here and she wanted to climb it, but she’d just spent almost a week running non stop. She wasn’t tired physically, her stamina was totally fine. While she ran, she tried to maintain a pace that wouldn’t drain her stamina too much.

And remembering her experience with the boar attack outside of Flester, she tried to remain calm on the run. If she let her mind run and tire itself out with fear then she’d need to rest far more often. And it worked. She distracted herself with all of her little menial tasks and the time flew by.

But despite her stamina being fine, mentally she wanted a break. She wanted to sit down, look through her gains from the run, eat some food, have a nice nap and then tackle the dungeon when she woke up.

And with that, she remembered that this was supposed to be a dungeon. A mana anomaly. Zoe looked up the mountain and tried to see the anomalous mana, but nothing really stood out to her besides the amount of it.

Down in Gafoda, the wisps of light seemed just like Flester. But when she turned her focus upwards towards the mountain, they grew denser and denser. It never blocked her vision, which still surprised her. Even as the mana should have impeded her vision a bit she could still see the mountain behind it as clear as if the mana weren’t in the way.

She took a deep breath. It seemed so daunting, somehow. What mana was exactly, she still didn’t know. But the sheer amount of it up the mountain was incredible. And she couldn’t even see all that far before the dark fog covered up everything. How high was she seeing? Halfway? A quarter? And it was already so intense.

Zoe found an inn to rent, run by an older woman with red hair and a face covered in scars. Forty copper per night, or a week for two and a half silver. She paid for two weeks, and then made her way to the room she was given.

It wasn’t nearly as nice as the one that Joe ran. In the first place, it was only one floor. The dining area was small and made up of only a couple large tables that ran the length. The hallway that lead to the rooms was thin and barely enough for her to walk through.

The room she got was large enough for a single small bed that she barely fit on and a small night stand that sat next to it. Zoe sat down on the bed and shook her head. It was hard.

Better than sleeping on stone but not by an awful lot. She had walls though, and at least the illusion of some privacy. She pulled up her stat sheet and hid the skills that didn’t change to check on her progress.

Class 1: Earthian (26)

- Identify (51)

Class 2: Seasoned Frost

- Cold Affinity (33)

- Time Affinity (17)

- Frozen Arsenal (21)

- Alacrity (18)

Class 3: Chrono Enchanter

- Time Affinity (14)

- Mana Affinity (3)

- Alacrity (18)

- Immaculate Enchantments (4)

——

General Skills:

- Vampyric Senses (57)

- Vampyric Empathy (59)

- Tracking (34)

- Stealth (32)

- Frost (63)

She noticed that her level had gone up and dumped the ten points she got from that into Vitality. She wanted to get to one hundred vitality and then she’d bring Endurance up to fifty. And from there, she’d figure out what to do. But she needed bigger pools. Stamina was rarely important, but she knew from experience that when it did end up mattering it mattered a lot.

The rest of her skills levelled up quite a bit and she smiled at her progress. Both of her Time Affinity skills levelling up so much, along with her Alacrity skills also getting levels of their own was extremely noticeable. She could notice a very clear difference between the speed she had now versus when she left Flester.

But she still didn’t think she needed two Alacrity skills, and swapped out her second for Mana Manipulation. She felt the world speed up around her as the skill was ripped away from her and she had to readjust to being a little slower.

She took a few minutes to get used to being so much slower again and then laid down on the bed to have a nice night’s sleep. In the morning. Her circadian rhythm was going to be completely ruined as the years went on in this world she thought to herself as she giggled.

Zoe had grand dreams of battles with undead creatures. Zombies being frozen by her skills, their rotting flesh sheering off their body and shattering on the ground. Magic thrown through the air and frozen in place with a wave of her arm. And then she woke up groaning.

Her back was sore from the hard bed, so she stood up and stretched a bit and then sat back down to eat one of the sandwiches she had in her bracelet. Zoe wasn’t really sure what her plan was for the day.

She wanted to get started on Moaning Point and see what it was all about, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to wander around and see what Gafoda had to offer first or not. In the first place, she wasn’t super sure where the official entrance was, but she had seen a couple of large stone towers off in the distance a little ways up the mountain and decided to start looking over there.

Zoe got up and left the inn to wander around town for a bit. It was late evening now, but the town seemed just as busy as it was earlier in the day. People walked around with their children or groups and chatted about their failures and successes.

The shops that she walked past were interesting. Alchemy seemed like a very popular job here, with the majority of stores selling a bunch of different potions. But there was a surprising amount of clinics advertising their healing capabilities. Zoe was capable of both and thought she might be able to make a decent living here if she really needed to. Even if it was only as a healer, since Alchemy still didn’t so much appeal to her.

When she got to the towers, she saw a large, albeit much smaller wooden gate between the two. It was open at the moment and a constant stream of people seemed to be walking through it in both directions. Nobody was taking tickets or payment, and Zoe decided that she couldn’t wait anymore. She could browse the shops when she got back, but the dungeon was right here, and she wanted to explore.