The East gate allows one to enter the vicinity of Sonata Kingdom. The largest kingdom in the region and is currently in a war against two other kingdoms and Lorkhan Empire. We arrived to a settlement made by other players.
“Weapons, y’all! Got some epics here for a somewhat affordable price!”
“Potions here!”
“It gets rowdy, huh, Siola.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh right, do you need anything? I can buy you some to get started.”
“A spell that requires less than 10 Intelligence would be nice. Low Mana consumption too.”
“Let’s look for them before we set out then.”
“Heheh, I’m in your debt.”
We went searching a lot, but unfortunately, no one is selling anything less than Rare here. That is until I see a hand waving at me just by the tree.
Squinting closely, I can see black long nails belonging to a pale skin hand.
Glancing at Minty who is busy haggling with someone, I went to check it out and see that there is nothing on the other side of the tree.
At least, that’s what I thought until I got choked and lifted into the air, pinned to the tree.
“Hnngh?!”
“Hush, Luosa.”
My mother’s voice, except not. When she reveals herself, it is indeed Replica. That woman who tried to set me up in front of Ludtleth.
“You, hnngh, wh-why are you here?!”
“Something’s changed. Before, you walk in the middle of that line between a wanderer and a traveler. And now, all of those insects feel somewhat the same. Including you.”
“Explain.”
“It’s, nnngh, can you let me go so I can explain it properly?”
As soon as she let go, her tiddies pushes my back to the tree, “Buh?!”
“Speak.”
I wanted to say that I feel threatened when she got me cornered like this, but surprisingly, I don’t feel that way. But I have to explain this change in a way for her to understand.
“It’s the Divine System.”
“My powers are all gone, including the blessings and contract that I’ve made with lord Ludwig, I’m reduced to literally nothing. I can’t even make walls to protect myself properly like how I used to. Same goes for them.”
“So, you’re all have gotten weaker?”
“Yes, but there’s also one more thing. What you know of as Travelers, they never felt pain or feel much of it at all, were they not?”
“Right now, all travelers are the same as I. They can feel pain just like I am. It used to be an option for them to opt out. But now, they can all feel excruciatingly pure one at that.”
Her eyes looking at me like a hawk, she backs one step only for her to stab me with those sharp nails. Pain quickly surged to my brain.
“Ngaaah—" my mouth shutted and my eyes grown heavy in an instant, but then…
! {You have died— E--/0r}
! {You have died— E--/0r}
! {You have died— E--/0r}
“How annoying. Your body has been deeply reinforced by it.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“It’ll take time for me to find a way do it, but I’ll be in touch.”
“D-Do what?”
{Health: 0/11}
{Health: 4/11}
{Health: 11/11}
Healing me just like that. Her eyes glances somewhere and so I went to see in her direction and find Minty walking towards me. Replica has gone when I look back.
“Siola, jeez. What’re you doing here. Look, I found something for you.”
* Firebolt Spell Book / Common / Requirement: 3 Intelligence
Sighing, ‘It really has to come down to this one, huh.’
“What, you don’t like it?”
“No, no, I mean I’ve actually seen it before, but ahh, gimme gimme.”
“Here you go.”
“Let’s see.”
Flipping the book over. Reading and flipping pages. Thankfully, nothing’s changed about the learning process. There’s only a stat requirement now.
! {New Spell has been learned}
* Firebolt / Tier 1 – Basic / Fire / Cast to conjure a small bolt of fire, dealing 10 fire damage at enemy upon impact, buildup burn overtime / Cost: 3 Mana / Requirement: 3 Intelligence
“Got it.”
“Eh? Already? Wow, you read fast.”
“It’s nothing. How much did you get it from?”
“Oh, for free actually. The mage that was selling actually got pretty annoyed at me and just send me on my way with it.”
“Lol, what the hell.”
“Lol?”
“Ah.”
“Heheh, didn’t know a Mithra would say that.”
“Come on, stop it. Let’s get us those Exp so we can farm stuff for our shop.”
Nodding, “Mm! Oh wait…”
“I forgot to put us in a party. I need to add you to my friend list too.”
“Oh, my friend list is actually broken, so—” when I pull it up, it works, “Oh wait, never mind. Let me just add you instead. Silvita… right there.”
“Hm? You don’t have a name yet?”
“Oh right, I forgot. Ahh, I’ll do it later.”
“Alright then.”
! {Party Created}
~ {Silvita Lv. 144 has been added to the Party}
~ {Leader Status has been relinquished to Silvita Lv. 144}
Following her as we go down the hill right on the dirt road.
Something I noticed though is that Stamina is slowly going down. A single point does not mean it will go instantly to 0 but walking reduces it variably depending on how much movement is spent and it’s less than 1. But then I noticed something up ahead.
“Mint— I mean, Silvita look! Goblins.”
“Okay! Watch my back, Siola.”
Taking an arrow from her quiver, she takes her first shot, initiating the battle. But she missed her shot, but then another one, and she missed again. The goblins notice the arrow and charges.
“What the—.”
“Minty?”
“Ahh, hold on, Siola.”
She takes another arrow and pulled it to the back and then shouted, “Magic Volley!”
When she takes her shot, the arrow split into three and swirly as it hits the body of a goblin, they push the creature on its butt upon impact and killed it.
“Nice! Two more!”
She quickly takes another arrow from her quiver and proceed to use the same strategy to deal with the goblins. They died, but she suddenly breathing heavily.
“Good job, Minty!”
“Let me see what we got here.”
* [2x] Magic Core / Common / Contains the soul of a low ranked creature
* [3x] Goblin Ear / Common / Goblin body part
“Some materials, what do you think, Minty?”
Walking with a heavy panting.
“Minty?”
“Huff, th-that’s as expected, hehe. But why do I feel so… tired?”
Assisting her to take a seat.
“What’s wrong?”
“I… I ran out of Stamina.”
“What? Already?”
“I-It wasn’t like this before.”
“Wait, have you checked your ability status yet? You know, the update changed quite a bit. I lost a lot of my magic too, which is why I was—.”
When she checked, her face shudder, “Huh?”
“No, this can’t be.”
“Siola…”
“What do I do?”
Taking out a Stamina Potion, “Here, drink this.”
When she calms down, I wait for her to recover.
“I thought they were just reducing the attributes. I forgot to check… Now I have useless stats with me. Did I just… ruined my account?”
“Hey, hey. Relax, okay? You’re still level what, 100? By the time you get to level 200, you can just patch the hole you need. Besides, all attributes are important now.”
“I almost couldn’t drink that Stamina pot.”
* Stamina Potion / Common / Restore up to 10 Stamina / Requirement: 1 Vitality
“If I were to get hit, I wouldn’t even be able to drink a health potion, Siola.”
“Well, you’ll just have to be careful from now on. Wouldn’t want either of us got hurt.”
“Hurt?”
“Realism Mode is gone remember? Instead, it’s we all have something similar active now. The patch says if we get hit, we can feel it. At least, that’s what I interpreted.”
* Realism Mode has been deprecated.
* Every player above 18 years of age will now have 1:1 experience with their avatar
“One-to-one?”
“No wonder I feel so tired.”
Grimace, I can feel her worries. With my hands on her shoulders, I tried to relax her with a massage but it looks like it doesn’t help at all.
“How… How can you be so calm about this? What if we… die?”
“Well, it’s not like we’re actually going to die though.”
“No, but… Siola, the, the pain and everything. Don’t you feel scared about this?”
“I do, Minty, I do. Of course I’m scared. It’s just that I’ve started the game on Realism Mode to begin with so nothing has changed for me in that regard.”
“What? Why would you. No, it doesn’t matter now.”
“I’m-I’m sorry Siola, but I don’t think I can do this. The place we’re going is not high level, but at this point, I might as well be a beginner like you. I can’t just…”
“Hey, hey,” feeling her cheek, “What is this? I thought you became more dashing but turns out, you’re the same little duckling I first met.”
“Siola.”
“Come on, get up.”
Pulling both of her hands.
“We can do this. Both of us, together.”
Looking at her in the eye, waiting for a proper respond. She nodded.
That nod puts me to smile. And so, we continue our journey, but this time, with me leading the front with her as my guide. A guide shall be protected.