Authors Note: I'm going to take Levot's suggestion about summon's having a bloodline and I’m going to extend it to tamed beasts and animal companions as well. Thanks for the Idea Levot! Also my plan is to release a chapter every Saturday/Sunday with the chance of another chapter during the week.
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“Why are we starting our exploration here?” Nicole asked Ren, a bit confused
“You’ll see in a minute.” Ren replied with a slight smile.
The duo were walking the abandoned cabin a little outside of Jona that Ren had discovered after getting lost in the forest months earlier. They entered the cabin and Ren pulled out a new lantern from his inventory. Ren walked to the cabinet and crouched down before lighting the lantern and opening the door.
"What are you doing?" Nicole asked as she walked around the cabin
"You'll see." Ren replied uncovering the ladder down to the old workshop.
As Nicole watched, Ren took the lantern and slid into the cabinet and down the hole underneath. Nicole watched with surprise as her brother seemed to just disappear into the cabinet. She walked over and looked inside, amazed to find a hole with a ladder underneath.
"Come on." Ren called from the bottom, "and close the cabinet behind you."
Nicole cautiously climbed in and close the cabinet before making her way down the ladder to Ren. She was once again amazed. Before her was an old underground workshop that had definitely seen better day and even though it wasn't very grand or interesting to look at she couldn't help but feel a little but of excitement. She had just started the game and she had already been to an area most people didn't know about, even if it wasn’t all that important. As she took another look around Ren called out to her.
"Come on. We're just beginning." He said.
Ren lead Nicole down the passage at the back of the room that lead to the broken down cabin in the woods. After some time they arrived at the other end and Ren lead the way up into the old cabin.
"This is actually pretty cool." Nicole said, looking around the cabin. "How did you find this place?"
"I got lost chasing some foxes and just stumbled across it. It was a life saver." Ren said.
“Where to next?" Nicole asked
"Pick a direction. I didn't do much exploring, no one did really, as this area is a little deep into the forest for most newbies to get to and get back without dying or becoming seriously injured."
"Ok. Let’s go...this way" Nicole said, walking out the door and turning to go deeper into the forest.
As they walked they talked a bit. Sometimes it was about what was happening in the real world, sometimes it was about the game, and sometimes it was just them pointing various thing they saw out to each other. Their family had done some hiking in the past so the two of them exploring the woods reminded them of that.
As they explored they attacked any animal they came across to raise Nicole's level. Ren was using the tutor system the game had to help Nicole level faster. The way the tutor system worked was that the tutor's damage would be reduced to the average damage of the level that the student was at, though if the student's health dropped below 20% health that restriction was removed. The tutor would also not receive any xp from killing something and the student would either receive an amount of xp bases upon the damage they dealt or, if they defeated an opponent by themselves, the student would get 50% more xp than normal. These affect would last until the student reached level 10 where the tutor system would be automatically turned off. At some point Ren got the idea to start training his sister by having her run through the forest in an attempt to raise her agility and endurance while they were out exploring.
The duo explored, fought, and ran around in the massive forest until the sun started to set. As it got darker they set up camp for the night. Ren made a fire with [Primitive Fire Creation] then took out a small pot and started to boil some water from a nearby river. Once the water was boiling he threw in some rabbit meat from the day's hunting as well as some herbs and the cut up bits of a potato like plant he got in the village. He looked over at his sister who seemed to be staring off into space with a slightly confused look on her face. Ren knew she was examining her stats.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
"Anything wrong with your stats?" Ren asked
"No nothing's wrong, the opposite in fact, I’m just a little confused about how my agility and endurance raised so much without me having to spend any stat points from my two level ups today. Is it an effect of the tutor system or something?" she said
"Nope. It's because I had you running around all day as training." Ren said
"But everything I read about trying to train yourself in-game says that you only get a few point every once in a while making it impracticable. Nothing mention anything like this. I mean I gained six points in agility and nine in endurance in one day. It's ridiculous."
"Really?" Ren said, "I thought that how it worked for everybody. Maybe everyone else just didn't have to have the right...motivation." As Ren said that he thought back to that first month and had to suppress a shudder.
"Right. Well I’m going to log off for a bit to get some food and stuff." Nicole said, "See you in a few hours."
With that she logged off, leaving Ren by himself. Vulcan crawled out of Ren's pocket once Nicole left and climbed into the campfire. He burrowed into the coals a little and fell asleep. Ren just shook his head at his familiar and started meditating. Ren was still trying to find his mana core and had actually made some progress recently. He was now certain that his mana core was not in his limbs or the lower half of his torso, which narrowed down the location significantly.
Ren meditated for about an hour. During that time he would cast [Static Blitz] into the ground and follow the mana back it's the source. He didn't make any major progress but Ren felt like he was slowly getting closer and he will find it soon. After meditating Ren took out the book he took from Aukrokia and continued translating it. Ren felt like he was around halfway to understanding the language and had translated enough to begin to understand what it contained. The book was a crafting manual but depicted things Ren had never seen or heard about in the game. Such as what looked like a flying ship and metal creatures. This made Ren very excited about what was contained in the book. He had never played very many games before this but he had Read a few books that had magic powered constructs and he was beginning to think that what was in the book was similar to that. Ren spent the rest of the time he sister was gone translating the book, earning himself a points of wisdom every time he figured out a new letter or the meaning of few words or phrases. When his sister logged back on about eight hours later he put away the book and they continued with their adventure and his sisters training. After they cleaned up their camp site The duo set off in a random direction again.
Ren and Nicole had been wandering around for several hours and, like the day before, attacking any animal they came across. While there were more rabbits and foxes and even a few wolves the hardest one they came across was a level 10 bear. Ren had to step in and help Nicole by distracting the bear and taking most of the damage while Nicole attacked it. It took them close to 15 minutes to kill it but it was worth it. Ren got a great quality bear pelt and Nicole went up a level. Shortly after fighting the bear they stumbled across a small cave set in the forest floor. Ren found it by stepping in the wrong place and falling in. He took some damage but not a whole lot since it wasn't very deep and he had [Fall Damage Reduction].
The light from the surface cast a dim light on the back of the shallow cave. In that dim light could be seen a skeleton in decaying clothing with a surprisingly intact bag by his side. They walked over to get a better look at it. Ren crouched down by the skeleton and opened the bag by his side. Inside was small coin purse, which he gave to Nicole, some now decayed rations, a small leather bound book, and a ring that had the symbol of a sun like eye floating above an open book surrounded by a circle of runes.