Having Lucky’s race turn from Forest Wolf to Mana Wolf was a small boon. It would increase the level limit a little. Not much, as the maximum level of a Forest Wolf was 15, at which point Lucky would have turned into an Alpha Forest Wolf, instead his level cap would increase. Though Sam didn’t exactly know by how much.
Based on the general knowledge he got, the increase was maybe 5 or at maximum, 10 levels. Even that would make Lucky more useful in the short term, and grant him more time to prepare for proper evolution.
Not that he would get rid of Lucky for any reason. The excitable fluff ball was coming with him, even if the wolf would become useless in fights.
Fluff was love.
Fluff was life.
Sam watched as the energized Lucky tore through the monsters of the forest with a small smile. While the wolf’s new capability with mana didn’t mean much, with Deep Connection he would soon learn to use it enough to strengthen his body and maybe execute a few mana-based attacks.
Sam absentmindedly deflected an attack from a stealthy fox that jumped at him from a nearby bush, his Mana Sense pinpointing the position of his attacker before it even decided to attack him, as he thought about Lucky.
Now that he was done with that, he would only need to reach level 15, get a courier mission towards one of the nearest cities, and get out of the tutorial.
While he definitely wasn’t the fastest to leave the tutorial, Sam knew that by dedicating oneself to grinding, one could reach the necessary level and leave the tutorial area within a few real-life days- And with the help of a guild or gaming studio? In mere hours, if they were good.
But that was the magic of Magic Unbound.
It didn’t reward the highest leveled people. The game designers were thinking long-term. Slow and steady exploration, building a proper foundation, and social connections were more important than the race to the top.
And that would cripple a lot of currently high leveled players.
According to his memories, not an insignificant number of them would simply restart when they realized that they essentially gimped their characters. Not that they couldn’t have corrected their build and learned the required skills to be useful, but the time investment required was more than anybody was willing to invest.
But Sam wasn’t worried about anything like that. He gathered the skills he needed, and some he didn’t even know he could get, so he was happy.
And the moment Lucky took down the latest oversized hog, a notification rang out, and a window appeared in front of him.
[You are now level 15!]
[Thanks to your daring handling of mana, you gained +1 WIS!]
[You gained 2 Unassigned status points!]
He read the window, then simply closed it. The game didn’t tell him that he reached the level where he could leave the tutorial town. It would be handled in-game. Maybe a trainer would realize that he was strong enough to leave, or an important figure would find him to deliver something far away. But no matter what, the moment he returned to the town, his time was limited.
Even if he stayed out of the town, sooner or later, the system would have had enough and would engineer some kind of event that would chase him out of the tutorial area.
Not that Sam wanted to stay. He calmly added his points to Dexterity and Agility, did a final check of his status screen, then went to deal with the last hunted carcass.
[Name: Sam ‘Solar’
Level: 15 (1%)
Title: Magical Genius
HP: 200/200
MP: 680/680
STR: 10
DEX: 11
AGI: 11
VIT: 10
END: 11
MAG: 17
PER: 12
WIS: 13
LUCK: 10]
Nothing exciting, but Sam knew that having all stats above ten would net him a lot of opportunities. Plus, it allowed him to become rather versatile.
Nodding to himself, he closed the window and joined Lucky, who was dutifully guarding the carcass of the monster he killed.
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Sam returned to Greenwood without any fanfare. Granted, the area outside of the town was almost teeming with new players, while the wildlife was desperately trying to survive. Thankfully, the rabbits present were a hardy species and would bounce back once the locusts left.
He greeted the gate guard, who was actually doing their job, and not napping, then simply headed for the butcher, where he deposited his loot for processing. After thanking the butcher for his help, and receiving a simple grunt, he went to the Merchant Association and sold the hides, and while he was tempted to get rid of some useless loot from the bandit hideout; he knew that would be social suicide in this town. Plus, he had collected enough gold from the criminals that he had no need for more in the short term.
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Then he returned to the library to study a little more while the butcher worked. He still needed to say goodbye to Sarah at the Green Stump Inn, and Sam wanted to do it with a proper gift.
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A few hours later, he was standing in front of the inn, bag heavy with prime cuts.
Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself and stepped through the door. For some reason, after arriving at this new reality (after having died) this NPC was the first person who he had talked with the most. Sam knew it was not healthy, but he couldn’t help it.
Most of the people that the old Sam knew were either crooks or would sell him and his secrets out to the first person who offered a hit or some money.
Hopefully, he would be able to make some friends soon…
He was an introvert, but he still wanted people to talk to.
Inside of the inn was the usual. The patrons were sitting around the hall, either eating, drinking, or talking quietly with each other. And the owner of the inn was sitting behind the counter, calmly reading a book without a cover.
The moment the door opened, she looked up, and when she spotted him, Sarah smiled.
“Sam!” she called out, placing the book down and standing up. “Welcome back!”
The people closest to the door looked up, but when they saw him and Lucky, they simply went back to their discussions or meals. He was, after all, a regular and nothing interesting…
He returned the smile and stepped up to the counter.
“Hello, Sarah!”
“What can I do for you, honey?” asked the woman, giving him a once over, while also glancing at the visibly grown Lucky, who just gave her a wolfish grin.
“I… came by to say goodbye,” he said haltingly. “Leaving town soon.” Then he took off the bag he was carrying on his shoulder and held it out for her. “Also, here, a little gift.”
The woman gave him a tender smile and slowly took the bag. Notably, her arms didn’t even quiver under the weight of the meat he packed into one of the smaller and cheaper bags of holdings.
“Thank you, honey.” Then she put down the bag behind the counter and reached down with one hand. When Sam could see the hand again, it was holding a letter.
“Here, I prepared something for you.”
“You knew?”
Sarah just snorted.
“Young man! I’ve been here for a long time. I know about the call of adventure.”
Sam took in Sarah’s impish smile and took the letter with a quiet thanks.
“It’s an introduction to a friend in the city of Ironwood,” she continued. “She also owns an inn, though it’s more for long-term lodging than temporary, like mine. If you give her the letter – you can find the address on it – she will give you a discount, and maybe some more…” she finished with a suggestive wink.
Sam just stared at her for a moment before pocketing the letter.
“Thank you for your help, Sarah. I appreciate it.”
“Don’t mention it, honey! Just go and make me proud out there!” she exclaimed, looking pumped as if she was the one going on an adventure.
Sam nodded with a smile.
“I will. Thank you!”
And with that, he turned around and headed for the door. Lucky looked after his master, then at Sarah, and quickly darted behind the counter to rub against the owner of the inn, then ran after Sam, leaving a chuckling woman behind.
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Sam did a last check of his supplies, cleaned his sword, girded his loins, made sure his armor was properly on, gave Lucky a snack, threw a coin into the fountain for luck, checked his supplies, and then with a deep breath, stepped out of the town of Greenwood for the last time for a long while.
The sun was shining; the birds were chirping; the wind was definitely not howling, and Lucky was happily chasing butterflies.
They wandered forward, following the road laid with stone and dirt, and while Sam kept an eye out for trouble, he kept practicing his skills. He was mostly focused on Mana Sense, Mana Sight, and Mana Shield.
He was trying to figure out a way to connect Mana Sense to Mana Shield so that if he sensed something that would hurt him, the Mana Shield would automatically activate. But he was having almost no success.
‘Probably need more levels in Advanced Control…’ he thought as the two spells once again fizzled out. Mana Sight was only used because he thought that seeing the spells in action would help him with the task.
It didn’t. Though the lights were pretty, at least…
He must have been walking for around an hour, trees getting taller and taller on the side of the road, and the mountains getting a little farther away, when he heard a sound.
Sam looked up from his contemplation of the mysteries of magic and looked around, trying to find the source of the sound.
Then it came again, and this time he could hear it clearly.
“Hey, you! Stop!”
He turned and saw two people in black clothing running at him. He blinked in surprise and was about to give Lucky the order to run, as he had a bad feeling, when an arrow whizzed past his face, coming from behind.
For a moment, he froze, but then Sam moved. Surreptitiously taking a stance that would leave him stable and ready to respond to more attacks, he slightly turned his head and glanced behind him, seeing two people approaching, one of them holding a bow, both of them grinning.
The two people running, arrived in front of him, and while breathing a little heavily, they were still grinning while raising their weapons. One of them was holding an ax, caked with some mysterious material (though Sam had his guesses about its origin) and the other was holding a sword.
The one behind him, not holding a bow, was playing with a dagger.
Altogether, a pretty stereotypical bandit party.
Made up of players.
To somebody new, they would be indistinguishable from the NPCs, but to Sam, thanks to his inherited memories, they were rather obvious. The random pieces of armor and their behavior were rather telling. And, most importantly, they didn’t know that the knights of the kingdom regularly patrolled this road, and were rather harsh with any bandits they found.
No sane NPC bandit would set up shop here.
And if an insane NPC would have settled here, Sam would have already been killed or teleported to some random location or plane, or maybe trapped in some nightmarish illusion.
While his mind was racing, the bandits began speaking.
The one holding the ax smiled at him.
“Hello, friend. It seems you arrived at a place where you have to pay the new toll!”
Sam, for now, decided to play along while he stealthily began activating his skills.
“A toll? Nobody said anything about a toll!”
The man just continued to grin, while the other, believing themselves stealthy, began to fan out around him.
“It’s a rather new thing, my friend,” he explained, subtly raising his ax.
Sam gave him a wry smile.
“I see. And may I ask what this toll would cost me?”
The grin on the bandit’s and his friends’ faces grew even bigger.
“Why everything!” came the predictable declaration.
Sam just sighed.
“You guys are pretty bad at this bandit stuff…”
The grin on their faces vanished, and the man with the ax scowled at him.
“Shut up! There are four of us, and one of you. And I know that those wolves only go up to level 15. Do as I say, and you won’t die. Don’t and enjoy the timeout…” he trailed off, almost threateningly. But to Sam, it just seemed so stupid.
Sam sighed again and blatantly looked at each of them, noting their position, then spoke up.
“Next time, take some acting classes because this was pretty cringe!”
“What?”
Instead of answering the confused wannabe bandits, he moved.
Sam raised a hand and blasted the bandit holding the bow with a simple Mana pulse, throwing him back, then called out to Lucky.
“Lucky, kill!”
At the same time, he unsheathed his sword, coated it in mana, and parried a strike from the only bandit that reacted to his attack.
The other two just stared at him with slack jaws. Probably at his audacity for not giving up immediately. The weirdos…
Their friend on the ground screamed as Lucky’s jaw found the man’s throat. And Sam had to parry a few more strikes from the man with a sword, while the other two finally shook off the shock and raised their own weapons.
Sam grinned at them, and gripped his sword harder, while his other hand glowed with magic.
‘This is going to be awesome!”