Day 8 - August 11:17

[You have entered [Midgard], one of the 9 worlds.]

[The basic stat [Hunger] was created.]

[[Introduction to Midgard] was added to your Inventory.]

One was confused. What the hell happened? He was just standing in the temple finishing his glorious quest, and now he stood outside in the middle of nowhere without any reward? No, wait. One of the popups said something about a class being created for him. With thinking Class he opened the necessary window in his menu.

Class: [Priest: Apprentice of Loki]

Faith 1/1  [Generates by 1 per hour. Can be used to activate skills from the Skill Tree of priest classes]

Class-Related Quests: [Find Loki]

Class-Related Skills: [Pray]

Before bothering to study the skill tree he looked up the new quest his class gave him. It also seemed that he had not gained any gear, stats or special awesome rewards. Why did he even bother to complete this stupid quest? He should have just taken the atheist buff and ran the hell away. He would definitely take revenge on those priests later. Now that he had wasted a good eight days he might as well try to make the best of it. Maybe his new class had some perks after all?

Quest: [Find Loki]

Objective: As a loyal servant to your god, naturally you want to meet him. Loki, The Deceiver, is not found easily though. It might take a lot of effort to find his guidance. Information gathered about Loki will be stored in this quest.

Information: Fenrir is the son of Loki. Maybe he knows how to find his father?

Reward: [???]

Decline: Decline this quest by refusing the apprenticeship as a priest and laying down your class. This action will lead to [Curse of Loki].

One was disappointed. Another really long quest that most likely promoted his class further. A class he did not want to have, and one that he did not even know about. And judging from its task it was a really hard and long one. After all he would have to find Fenrir and then most likely further rare beings that lead to Loki. Not to mention the popup earlier that mentioned nine worlds. He quickly abandoned the thought of going after this quest. Next he inspected his new skill.

[Pray] 0/25

Through continuous prayer your Faith can increase your believes.

Costs: 1 Faiths

Channel-Time: 20 minutes.

Reward: Increases your Faith-Stat by 1 permanently.

Seemed pretty useless. One looked up the skill tree in his class window as well. There was only a single skill in the first column. The others further down were blacked out and the 0/25 clearly indicated that he needed to spend some Skillpoints to upgrade. This would most likely unlock further skills. But those points could only be received after a level up, so he was unsure if investing into this would be a good idea. Praying seemed like a pretty useless skill after all. Out of curiosity One hovered the skill in the window with his finger. Further information appeared.

[1/25 Skillpoints -> decrease Channel-Time by 48 seconds.]

It seemed that fully upgrading the spell allowed him to use it very much faster. 25 times 48 equaled 20 minutes too. Maybe it was an instant cast after that? One figured after all the time he spent gaining this class he had to make sure to use it well. And declining this class to be something else would be punished through his new quest. His streak of luck was clearly over, throwing him into his old habit of getting trolled by the game. Praying for a god that clearly lured him into all this. After upgrading it completely, using all his skillpoints the spell evolved.

[Pray] 25/25

A short prayer allows you to refocus your Faith.

Costs: 1 Faith

Channel-Time: 5 Seconds.

Reward: Increases your Faith-Stat by 1 permanently.

[Passive: Prayer activates for all priest skills used.]

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

One quickly used his newly gained skill and after a brief prayer his Faith increased to 0/2. It also showed in a timer how long it would take to recharge the next point of Faith.

[00:59:47]

The skills further down were still locked though. Since it now took two hours to recharge his Faith he would make a habit of spending it always, thus increasing his pool a lot. Maybe it would be useful later, once he got any good spells or skills. With some luck he would be able to find someone to dispel strong curses later on, making it possible to escape his fate? As his new class was really useless, he moved on to checking another new stat.

Day 8 - August 11:32

[Hunger: 97/100%]

Your current need for food. Once it drops below 5% your ability to move around will decrease drastically. When 1% is reached your Health-Points will be lost gradually until you die.

Wow. Pretty hardcore. He really had to make sure to have enough food lying around. After that he grabbed a carrot of his inventory, just to see how much it would help. 99%. So a single carrot increased it by 2%. That was not a whole lot and the bar seemed to drop rather quickly as well. One immediately pulled out the [Introduction to Midgard] from his inventory. He really needed more information.

Hello traveler.

You find yourself in the world of [Midgard]. Unlike godly realms a big threat to your life will be [Hunger]. It will gradually wear you down and the only cure is food. Be careful as resources like wood, stone, metal, meat and wild animals are limited. Once humanity hunted them to extinction or used up the resources they will be lost. You need to find a steady source of food to survive. There are villages of NPCs all over the map, where you can find some to buy as well.

As the world is in constant conflict the villages will raid, invade and wage war at their own terms. NPCs have their own believes and are not holding back on achieving their dreams. While some are harmless and good, decent humans, others seek violence, very much like the real world.

Players may participate to securing a city, village or even an empire, as the whole map is PVP unrestricted. Prepare yourself, search for allies and survive!

Rare occurrences like Dungeons, Events or Portals to other worlds on Yggdrasil, The World Tree, can be found starting from the 30th day after world creation. [22 days remaining.]

Not a whole lot of information but One appreciated the warnings. He already experienced some NPCs that attacked him, and would be extra careful now. The open world PvP was something he really had hoped for, it was just much more fun to fight someone that had a real mind and emotions. Since this world was recreating Earth,and it still took 22 days to be able to find dungeons, or other things where you were able to level up quickly, he now had to find a way to increase his wealth.

Questing would most likely be a good option too, but as he already had a lead in many crafts he wanted to get a further headstart. He really should learn how to cook as well, just chewing on dry bread and carrots would really make his tastebuds scream in pain. Since the coma nurtured his real body he had to do something for them ingame. Over a hundred grilled meat most likely would secure his life for quite some time. And if he did it properly, over a fire, the meat would taste well too.

While checking his new option of a world map, he was disappointed to find his location only among a huge amount of grey area. A small text in the bottom indicated something helpful.

[Trade your map to another player] and the function [Buy map from another player].

Carefully he started to explore his surroundings. The hill had given him no information whatsoever, only the mountains in the far distance would allow him to take a proper look over the endless green he spotted before. Once he reached civilisation and other players he could start to gain information.

As knowledge was power, especially early on, he wanted to get his hands on a decent map, a cooking skill and information on the current prices of the market as well as the item system. If the gear he had could be improved and how, where he could buy some as well as quests that gave huge rewards. Players were often sharing information to help others in games, but One was only out for his own personal gain.

This world was described like the real world, and he would try and carve a huge part out for himself. A empire to rule. That would be fitting for someone that was able to play 24/7 nonstop. Down from the large stone hill he trailed through the woods, in search of small tracks, roads or rivers. Rivers would be especially interesting. If water alone restored some hunger, he could save a lot of food by following those creeks to the sea. Once you reach the ocean it was only a matter of time until you stumbled onto a village.

Aside from looking for a way back into civilisation One looked to improve his woodcutting skill to 100%. it was currently at 69%, so finding a small tree would give it the last push towards the next level. As he was in possession of the [Receipt of Approval: Woodcutter Beginner I] he would be able to increase it to the second beginner mastery as well.

The woods in Midgard were much more diverse too, they basically covered every age from a couple of days to thousands. Since he found a lot of younger trees One held back with his plan for now. The discovery of another player would be more important for now. The woods rarely changed, sometimes they grew denser and thick bushes hindered him from crossing through. As it would be too time intensive to cut his way across he advanced quickly on the map. After about half an hour he measured his path.

Nearly 8 kilometer. On the huge junk of grey that was only a small, small part. The map altogether measured 1700 km times 1200 km adding to a total of over 2 million km² (or 780.000 square miles in retarded units). That was quite the huge map. That would be approximately five times the size of norway of a fifth of the United States.

After discovering a couple squirrels and a few foxes that he tried to hunt, but failed miserably, he found a large road, which lead right through the woods. The animals in this world were reacting much more quickly and fled at any sight of danger. It was really realistic and that felt rather frustrating. Even his dagger skill was too slow, as they already ran when he moved his hand. Maybe he could hunt them if he snuck up on them? One decided to try out hunting later as well. After his killing spree of bunnies before the ritual his mastery had reached 92%.

Increasing the skill could really keep him fed properly too. There was an insanely huge amount of options to choose from among his jobs, sadly none were battle skills useful for killing other players or securing a way to fight monsters. Not that he had seen any so far. But that would be sure to change soon. Most likely the game developers did not want to give the early starters too big of a lead by letting them grind their levels blindly. One was drawn away from his thoughts.

The woods around him locked his attention. It was very hard to believe that he was really inside a game right now. Chirping bird sounds, small insects hovering in the air, only to be preyed upon by birds, frogs or other animals. Those were not save either though. Nature went its course and ravens snatched a couple of birds out of the air. A fully functioning eco system. Very detailed and accurate at that.

As this had not been the case in the temple area, it was really distracting. The thought of sitting down in the middle of the road, just to observe came to his mind on multiple occasions. But then his gaming mind pushed him further. He had to find other players.

After another twenty minutes he was equally distracted and nearly did not notice the stranger approaching him a little further down the road...