We visited five groups in a couple of hours and saw that most of them had started to join up anyway. We heard further that one of the groups had found a river running through the forest. We decided to go on to see what it was all about.

After about an hour, we did find a large group of people, and a fairly large river. After questioning the others, we found out that quite a few groups had come up after finding out there was drinking water. However, that was not all.

"There's a strange group of trees, with some sort of strange creatures made of mist circling slowly between the trees. They make quiet soothing sounds and if you relax, you hear something like a distant melody," a large teenager told us.

"Nonsense, there is no melody! But the creatures do have a pink...or blue tinge." interrupted another youth who had a heavy ax on his shoulder.

"Don't interrupt me Otto." continued our first interlocutor. "The most amazing thing is that these trees are actually shops!"

"You can buy different things with the points from killing zombies and such." added Otto. "I got that knife for 12 currency units."

"Besides," the first speaker continued. "They sell different things like food, clothes, weapons, arrows and many other items. And there are many things you should definitely visit."

"What are these currency units?", I asked.

"When you first enter the shop, it explains that currency units can be earned in various ways on the Tutorial island, the main one being killing the various creatures that inhabit it."

After questioning some more, we headed to the strange tree-shops.

They were growing close to the river, and about 100 yards from the forest. They were a group of 32 trees, with a multitude of fog made creatures slowly drifting through the trees. We all listened and some heard the music playing, others did not. I didn't care. I hurried to the nearest tree and when I touched it an online shop appeared in my mind's eye.

I had a total of forty two "currency units". Once I started looking around the store, I realized that this was not much at all. There were a number of extremely expensive items. Some were even worth hundreds of millions. What was surprising was that quite a few of the objects had no description.

As I was browsing, I noticed that there were various foods and beverages, and a warning that their sale would not always be available, as well as access to this store. As I looked around the store, however, a plan began to form in my head.

"I need to hurry up and collect a lot of these 'currency units' and find out more about them. Besides, there are a lot of interesting things here that I want to purchase."

This store was definitely changing my plans quite a bit. Before I wanted to stay with the others and help create and develop a central human camp, but now I realized that I have multiple ways to increase my power, but I needed large amounts of currency units. I was sure that personal power in this world was going to be pretty important, both for our survival and your status. Besides, the more power someone had, the faster they would be able to earn currency units. And from there become even stronger and from there earn even more currency units! Something I was used to seeing in the various games I played. Especially in strategy games.

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However, I knew from personal experience that the vast majority of players in various games tend to be very inefficient. They tended to endlessly waste their time on… not doing anything meaningful. Time that good players used to get stronger.

"Maybe it will be different here," I thought, shaking my head.

I went back to the store and purchased a large notebook and pen. For the rest of the money I got food and some bolts for my crossbow. The latter were not cheap. Two arrows for one currency unit!

I then spent some time browsing the shop and writing down some of the more interesting things and their prices. Especially things like arrows and food, which were on the top of my list for now.

After I finished with the shop, I found the group I had come with and told them I was going to explore the town, showing them my journal. One of them offered to leave my backpack with him, but I refused. It weighed a lot, but it had important things for my survival in it. And I wasn't planning on fighting the zombies in person, I was going to rely on my summons.

Half an hour later I entered the city, and relying on my imp for scouting, found a few isolated zombies and a couple of small groups of two or three zombies. Unlike yesterday, the zombies seemed to be stronger and my bear was getting some weird wounds on its body every time it got hit. Its skin was starting to turn black and it was losing its strength. I had to step back and summon a new creature.

I met other people, and even one of them was coming here for the second time, and I found out from him that killing zombies rewards approximately two currency units for three zombies. The first time he came, he had killed 12 zombies and had only gotten nine currency units.

The cheapest food to last a day costs 15 currency units and the slightly better quality and more plentiful ones - 20 to 25 currency units. There were also options for various drinks, for example the cheapest bottle of wine cost 29 currency units and there was a warning that quantities were limited.

This same message appeared on a huge number of products. Quantities of many things were limited. We had to somehow learn to live without these products, or as I planned, stock up on them.

I hurried to kill more zombies and soon other people, one by one, or in groups, began to appear in the vicinity. So the zombies quickly thinned out and we had to go further into the city. There the zombies were more thickly packed and we had to be more careful. I turned down several offers to join a group or in one case to form one. I had my bear, and started using my crossbow bolts more freely. Even though a zombie gave less than a point, and bolts were expensive, I could often reuse them. It was usually hard to pull them out, but I started targeting the softer spots of the zombies and doing various experiments. Until I met an archer who I asked what he was doing with the cost of arrows and such.

He explained to me that there are special techniques for pulling out arrows using mana. I offered him some of the food I had purchased and he showed me several times how to do it. I was pretty good with mana manipulation, since almost all of my time was spent in mana intensive training, especially those of my second skill... mana manipulation.

And so using my crossbow more and more often and taking out and cleaning the bolts, I started to kill zombies a little bit faster, in addition I was practicing the use of my crossbow, as well as the new technique of taking out the used bolts.

This meeting got me thinking about what other skills I was missing out on, so I came back much earlier than planned - around five pm and started asking various people about their training. Quite a few of them refused to talk about it, especially with "strangers". Though I guess since we all ended up in this damned place, we weren't such strangers anymore. However, although many refused or spoke reluctantly, there were always those who shared their knowledge without inhibition. I was one of the latter.

I was often asked about the creatures I summoned and the manipulation of mana, and by the end of the evening we had managed to get a small group of summoners, necromancers and elemental mages. Everyone was enthusiastically showing off what they had learned.

It appeared that instructors, for better or worse, often focused on the personal choices and style of the individuals. As a result, the training of the different individuals was quite varied and this exchange of experiences helped immensely.

However, I hadn't "unlocked" the elements and so these conversations weren't that helpful for my battle spells. Although I had a training plan on how to practice touching upon and unlocking them, it was going to be a slow and difficult process.