For a while, he spent his time playing with Lucky, talking with Sarah about nothing particular, then when a few neighborhood kids walked by and saw Lucky, watched as they played with the excited wolf.
And while that happened, Sam tried to calm his raging thoughts.
Because while he knew it was a game, it was still so lifelike and the NPCs so human-like that the thought of children being killed made him so mad that he almost threw up.
Seemingly, the game developers also understood the problem, as the game had a setting that turned off blood and one that made it so that dead bodies vanished, to protect people.
Still, he consciously decided not to engage those options, to train himself for the future.
The feelings still weren’t easy to reconcile …
Probably why around a year after Magic Unbound became a worldwide sensation, the therapy scene for VRPTSD exploded…
Watching as Lucky happily, with his tongue out and tail wagging, jumped around the courtyard of the inn with children laughing and chasing after the silly wolf, he couldn’t help but smile.
He was shaken out of his reverie by a voice talking behind him. Not getting up from where he was sitting, Sam craned his neck around and saw Sarah standing there with an understanding smile on her face.
“It never gets easier, Sam…”
“Huh?”
The woman just sighed a little.
“Saw your face when you came back, and then when you came down from your room. I saw that same look on thousands of faces.”
The only thing he could do was nod.
“Don’t worry, honey. As long as you care, and have that feeling, you’ll be alright…” continued the woman. Then she gently raised her hand and patted his shoulder.
“And if you ever need to talk, I’m here…”
And with that, she gave one look at the kids playing with Lucky, then turned around and went back to the inn, leaving Sam alone with his thoughts.
“Huh…”
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The next week, real life time, he spent running around Greenwood town, and doing small errands, quests, and getting the required levels to leave the tutorial town, and, most importantly, collecting the skills he needed.
The game handled the leaving of the tutorial town rather interestingly.
In most games, you had to complete an event, or reach a certain level, then you talked to an NPC or artifact and you were teleported to the main city and thus began your adventure.
Here, in Magic Unbound, the tutorial town was truly part of the world, and people could visit whenever they wanted, thus the developers had to get creative.
It wasn’t currently known, but the game tried stopping everybody from leaving the tutorial town before level 15. True, one could leave before that, but on the way to the nearest city, there were some ‘strategically’ placed high leveled wandering monsters that would always find a player, sending them back to the tutorial town to resurrect.
And how would the game stop them?
In the same way, it would stop people from returning to the tutorial towns to cause trouble. NPCs would approach them, lamenting about lost pets, artifacts, or people. Or an NPC that they had a great reputation with would approach them for help with something secret, and so on.
Or the game would generate some random event based on their interest and previous action. And as gamers were known to follow the shiny, it was really easy to distract them.
Thankfully, Sam knew what he wanted, so the game didn’t have to distract him.
The first thing he did was visit the library and start to learn some new languages.
In the beginning, everybody spoke the common tongue, but there were several other languages that one could learn. Sadly, the Greenwood library was rather small, but it still had a few basic languages that players could learn.
Sam started every day by reading the books that would teach him the language under the scrutinizing eyes of the stereotypical librarian. After that he went out to hunt animals, to sell them, and to have something fresh to feed to Lucky and to get some experience for leveling up.
By the end of the week, he acquired the Dwarven language, and he was well on his way to learning the basic Elven language.
Then the rest of the day was spent either going to the mage tower, learning new spells, or approaching other people for lessons on certain skills.
In the mage tower, he was taught, thanks to the power of money, a few basic spells that were required for life outside of civilization.
Like the Firespark spell that generated a small spark of fire, excellent for starting campfires, or Condense Water, which, as the name suggested, allowed him to condense water from the surrounding air to drink. Then there was Clean, which obviously allowed him to clean stuff.
According to his inherited memories, it was touted as the most used spell in the game.
Following that, he bought the spells Mana Strike and Mana Slash, which allowed him to add mana to his strikes and slashes. They were very basic spells, but they were called the foundational spells that most late-stage skills were built upon. Mastering them would allow him to learn a lot of different skills.
And most importantly, after proving to the mage tower that he was capable of casting all these spells, he was finally allowed to buy the Mana Body Enhancement. The spell was another one of the basic spells that were still in use in the late game.
Simply, it enhanced all physical attributes of the user, and it synergized with all his other supporting spells really well.
Then when he managed to cast these spells without the aid of the system, and he was confident he could maintain them, earning a few more points in MAG and WIS, he turned his attention to other teachers.
The tutorial town had something for everybody.
So, after leaving the mage tower, promising the old man who taught him the spells that he would religiously practice them, he sought out the physical trainers in the town to learn other basic skills.
Sadly, the people who were capable of teaching those skills were the guards.
And when the Captain heard that Sam was there to learn skills, he took over from an embarrassed guard, while all the others gave Sam pitying looks.
So, Sam had to endure the man extolling his virtues, loudly, to everyone who even came close to the practice ground, and when they were alone, asking him what his next heroic deed would be.
Though he had to admit, despite the Captain’s eccentricities, he was a competent teacher.
Sam learned the Basic Footwork in record time, and after asking for it, the Basic Breathing Technique. Though he almost regretted asking about it, as the Captain went off yelling about his instincts, and how great a warrior Sam will become.
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Which he could understand a little.
Breathing techniques weren’t ultra rare skills, but they were basically unknown at this point to the players, and no teacher would take the initiative to teach the noobs, as it would only be required at later stages. And when players reached those stages, the breathing techniques available were much better than the basic ones.
But he was a gamer and having an extra passive skill that decreased stamina consumption was always nice.
Then he simply spent his time honing his skills and going out to gather experience.
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Sam wandered through the town, snacking on roadside meat, while Lucky, now tall enough to reach his hip, walked alongside him, as people (mostly children) waved to them.
Over the days he spent grinding on the mobs around Greenwood, Lucky reached level 10, getting the Lucky Aura skill, that gave everyone around Lucky an increase of Luck, while also evolving from Gray Wolf to Adult Gray Wolf.
Lucky only had five more levels before he reached the apex, evolving into Alpha Gray Wolf. If Sam didn’t know how to evolve the fluffy wolf further, then soon Lucky would lose his use as a pet. But for that, he would need to reach the city.
But for now, he simply enjoyed the wolf’s presence, and at night, he used the mountain of fur as a pillow.
As he walked, he saw a number of players also walking around, either alone or with a large-ish group. The numbers have been steadily increasing, and to his knowledge, it was only small-time streamers and a few guilds that had migrated over to the game so far.
The bigger guilds and studios were still waiting to see if the hype was real, but probably they all had a few people checking the game out.
Thankfully, the ‘secret’ of how to acquire a pet was leaked by somebody (Shadowland was starting to get requests for Magic Unbound) and several people were walking around with all kinds of pets. He saw adorable rabbits hopping after their masters, as well as birds circling up in the air, or giant bears lumbering after people decked out in mismatched metal armors.
It was hilarious to Sam how seriously these people took these pets.
While, yes, at these low levels they made experience farming faster, and you could more easily solo things, they were limited enough that upon reaching the next city they would rapidly become useless.
The Great Pet Rage was something that happened in the other Sam’s past life, and it would probably happen here too. Sam just shook his head, then as he watched slyly as a young talented woman sauntered by, he finished his snack, then headed for the nearest bench.
He was so focused on training that he rarely checked his status page to make sure not to chase the numbers. Focusing on mastering the basic techniques was much more rewarding for him.
Sam sat down on the bench, and Lucky flopped down next to him like a few hundred pounds of pure death and fluff. He pulled out a few strips of fresh hog meat (it was delicious as a steak, and Sarah had even commissioned him to go out and gather a few hogs for the inn), then, as Lucky snacked away, he opened his status screen.
[Name: Sam ‘Solar’
Level: 14 (9%)
Title: -
HP: 200/200
MP: 680/680
STR: 10
DEX: 10
AGI: 10
VIT: 10
END: 11
MAG: 17
PER: 12
WIS: 12
LUCK: 10]
His status points have reached a nice level, with most of them over ten, and his mana had soared thanks to his passive skill.
Lucky’s status page was even nicer to look at.
[Name: Lucky
Race: Adult Gray Wolf
HP: 680/680
MP: -/-
Level: 12
STR: 16
DEX: 14
AGI: 21
VIT: 17
END: 13
MAG: -
PER: 18
WIS: 9
LUK: 7]
[Strong Jaw: Level Max (Passive) The jaw of the wolf is strengthened.]
[Lucky Aura: Level Max (Passive) Those who are in the same party as the wolf receive a buff to their luck. It depends on their luck how big the increase will be.]
The health points at this level were insane, though the Lucky Aura was a little annoying. Every time the aura activated, it randomly increased his luck, and the game wasn’t nice enough to show how much it was increased.
Aside from those, Sam’s skills also increased.
Mana Shield has reached level 21, which granted him his next sub-skill, while Controlled Mana Shield simply increased in level.
[Sustained Mana Shield: Level 0/10 (0%) (Passive) Thanks to the experience with maintaining the Mana Shield over long periods of time the cost of the Mana Shield decreases. 1% decrease per level.]
It was an amazing skill for later, as the Mana Shield skill had no theoretical limit, though in practice after a certain time it was almost impossible to increase the skill level.
Sword Mastery also improved, but as he had no opportunity to test himself against anybody in a real fight, as hogs and feral wolves surprisingly didn’t really carry swords, there were no big changes in the skill and its subskills.
The greatest increase was in his intermediate Mana Control skill, as he was almost always using it, almost becoming second nature. The cycling of the mana was becoming easier and easier, and the usage of skills required less and less concentration.
[Intermediate Mana Control: Level 13/15 (7%) (Passive) You understand the basic concepts of mana control. You can now do more, achieve more, and gain more while manipulating mana. The skill increases the amount of mana regenerated at a time and decreases the cost of mana skills by 14%. The bonuses from the Basic Mana Control remain. +6,3 Mana Regeneration per Second]
[Focused Mana Control: Level 5/5 (MAX%) (Passive) Mana control when meditating increases. Decreases skill's mana cost and increases mana regeneration when under the effect of Meditation skill. Bonuses are increased when under the Deep Meditation skill’s effect!]
And Sam even earned an awesome subskill for it!
[Continuous Mana Control: Level MAX (Passive) The longer you control your mana, the more efficient it becomes. The cost of the mana control exercise cannot become zero.]
When he received the subskill, Sam spent at least half an hour laughing to himself. There was a similar skill in his inherited memories, but that was only when meditating, as the user was a meditation nut. And that allowed them to reach unprecedented heights. And now he got something even better.
Companion Sense also reached level 11, as he kept spending time with Lucky, as well as playing with him every day. Though, surprisingly he hasn’t yet gotten a subskill for it. Probably after level 20 or 25…
Meditation was also approaching the maximum, with Sam reaching level 21 with it, while also maxing out Deep Meditation. Mana Sense didn’t really increase much, as sensing his own mana was insufficient after some time.
Though Multitasking has increased to level 20, making him even more competent in battle.
Then came the real gains.
First of all, he managed to dig deeper and increase the level of Mana Well.
[Mana Well: Level 1/5 (1%) You grasped something deep and abstract. Mana is like clay in your hand. Your body is a wellspring of Mana. Increases how much mana a Magic status point grants you. Current increase: Three times increase.]
The amount of mana he could bring forth astounded the old man at the mage tower enough that he even offered to take Sam on as his apprentice.
Sadly, as Sam wasn’t planning on becoming a true mage, he rejected the offer.
Though the old mage didn’t give up, and every time they met, he tried to get him to accept to become an apprentice.
Then, thanks to his almost non-stop training, Mana Synergy also leveled up.
[Mana Synergy: Level 2/10 (6%) (Passive) Thanks to your combining compatible skills, you managed to find a synergy between them. This synergy is completely useless in battle, but when you train your skills and completely focus on them, the rewards from your training increase. When using two or more mana skills simultaneously outside of battle, the cost of their use is reduced by 3%, while you receive 1,3 times more experience in training.]
Sam smiled in satisfaction slightly as he ran his eyes over the list of his skills and spells, happy that he managed to achieve this much in such a short amount of time.
Then he closed the window and spent some leisure time basking in the sun, watching people, and, of course, practicing mana control.
----------------------------------------
Later, after logging out of the game, and a nice hot shower, he made himself a simple cup of ramen, then plopped down in front of his computer, and began looking up news and discussions about the game.
Gaming news sites were still preoccupied with other games, but a few smaller ones were talking about it, but to Sam, it seemed that they were just simply testing the waters.
Then, as he continued to skim over the articles, a title caught Sam’s eyes. Or rather, the author of that particular article.
Unbound wonder in a fantastical world by SummerRose
He remembered SummerRose. Or rather, the other Sam remembered. At this point, she was a small-time streamer and journalist for a gaming website, but after a few articles and some excellent streaming sessions, she rocketed to the top of the world of the journalists of Magic Unbound. For a while…
Clicking on the article, he began reading, while also wondering how he could contact her and maybe nudge her in the right direction. It would be a shame if he couldn’t prevent her death…