Even though he made sure to be turned away from everyone else, Aurus had a wide smile on his face as he joined the rest of the group into the forest. The reason was the screens that appeared in front of him when it became clear his plan worked.
| Congratulations player 'Aurus'. Due to your actions, your 'Intelligence' has increased by 0.2. |
| Congratulations player 'Aurus'. Due to your actions, your 'Charm' has increased by 0.5. |
Aurus had to admit that even though he didn't know how big the value of stat points was yet, he was rather glad to see his actions seemed to be approved of within the game. Charm didn't only increase if you were good to people and make them feel good about themselves and you, it also increased if you made them prone to follow your directions.
Aurus guessed that most, if not all of the stat points probably had multiple ways to increase them, allowing you to grow without being too restricted.
When the group now consisting of about forty moved through the forest, leaving behind a few that didn't want to follow a woman or decided to go on their own, it quickly became clear things would be rather annoying.
It was hard moving through the forest, you constantly had to move through thickets and all kinds of greenery got in your way. Aurus saw one man using his sword to cut through some of the greenery in his path but just five minutes later, the blade cracked entirely and a large part of it fell to the ground.
The man cursed for a bit about his broken sword as he threw the useless hilt to the floor as well before moving on.
Seeing this, Aurus grabbed both the broken blade and the hilt and put it under his belt, he suspected that it may be possible to fix broken weaponry.
The group was moving along quite nicely, now that they were occupied taming nature, they weren't really thinking about where they were going as they just continued to follow behind Taralia. Looking around, Aurus noticed that many of the mages stayed close to the back of a warrior, they weren't physically as strong so they had to make full use of the warriors right now.
Aurus also noticed a couple were waving around their wand or touching their crystal ball in various ways trying to cast magic but nobody had been successful thus far.
Since they probably had a bit of time before they would find a clearing and he was walking in the footsteps of a few particularly burly warriors, Aurus decided to open the forum while they were walking instead.
He looked on the main page trying to find out how to cast magic but found nothing, most of the top posts were still people complaining about the excessive realism.
Yet even after a detailed search Aurus found nothing. Suspicious, he tried looking up how to improve stat points but still, it came up empty. Something that should be impossible considering that thousands should've found out about the badly hidden system already.
In response, Aurus quickly created a post explaining that stats can be increased by performing them. And in the case of wisdom, talking out loud was the best way to unlock and improve it.
When he tried to publish his post, he got a pop-up.
| Alert! This post goes against the terms of service. Please check section 7 S. |
Recalling that he had to sign an agreement when his dad handed him the console, Aurus looked up the terms of service.
Section 7 S talked about the use of social media platforms including the game forum. You were not allowed to post anything about the first and second tutorial and a bit later it said that overall, within the game, you could not share strategies to get quests or level up using outside platforms. If you wanted information on how to progress in the best way, you would have to get it from within the game. Either that or you would have to meet up face-to-face.
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If you tried to bypass this rule multiple times on purpose, you would be banned from the game, as would the person or people that willingly bought or asked for this information outside of the game.
There were a lot of fancy and hard-to-understand words, but in reality, it was rather simple. If you share strategy guides or anything related to the tutorials, you would be banned. As long as it wasn't within the game that was.
Just as Aurus thought about how to properly monetize this before word got out, he heard Taralia yell from ahead, "Water! We've reached a river! There's a riverbank we can walk on as well!"
As soon as she said these words, the people within the group seemed to relax a little, even though they only moved for about ten minutes, they were already getting exhausted, this was obviously due to the many obstacles along the way.
Aurus quickly went ahead and passed by the warriors in front of him, reaching Taralia's side.
"Look, if we take it left it seems to turn northwards, I'd say it's likely the lizardmen either have a base there or at the least close to the river," Taralia said, before freezing up as she looked at an invisible screen before her with a stunned expression.
Aurus figured she probably got the wisdom stat, so in order to avoid other people figuring out something was off with her, Aurus continued speaking, "Yeah, and the other end of the river just seems to go east, going by your directions. I think we should follow the river eastbound, see if there's anything there. I heavily doubt we were dropped at an island with nothing on it except for a shit-ton of bushes and the lizardmen village."
By the time he finished speaking, Taralia had come to herself again, "Eh, right! Yeah, we should at least have a look. At the very least we can find a clearing close to the river to avoid anyone getting lost!"
Aurus noticed her eyes unfocused again for a moment but ignored it, "Well, you heard the lady, let's find a clearing eastbound!" Aurus exclaimed. Most only heard these words and not the previous conversation but Aurus didn't think there was a use in repeating everything again.
"Oh, and Jay," Taralia said, this time only so loud so that Aurus would be able to hear her. "You should take your tail and scout forwards, if there are good weapons somewhere, I think it's best if we get them first. Some of the others could cause trouble."
With a confused expression, Aurus looked behind him and noticed that a few meters behind him, he indeed had a tail. He recognized these three had been shortly behind him when they were walking through the forest as well. Two of them were mages, the same ones that were the first to figure out Taralia and Aurus's plan and support them vocally, getting the group to follow them, one of them didn't have a weapon in hand and the other had a staff. The final person that consisted of his tail was a warrior, Aurus recalled he was one of the ones that was also getting annoyed when idiotic warriors kept trying to take charge. He only had a spear in hand as it was, with no other items on his person.
"You three! Do you want to come with me to scout out ahead? Make sure there are no enemies that'd trouble the group." Aurus said in his most authoritative tone. In reality, the situation could still go in any direction, he had to try to stabilize Taralia's position to make sure they could actually succeed in taking charge of a sizable group and get good results within the tutorial.
Surprisingly, the warrior looked as if he had been waiting for Aurus to ask this as Aurus hadn't even finished his second sentence when he came running towards him.
The two mages looked at each other for a moment and exchanged a couple of words before nodding and coming forward as well.
| Congratulations player 'Aurus'. Due to your actions, your 'Charm' has increased by 0.3. |
Ignoring the notification, Aurus introduced himself with the same name he used on Taralia, "My name is Jay Collin. Our goal is to go forward, see if we can find decent weapons or items, and divide them amongst the more capable members of our group." he explained, since they were closer together now and further away from the main group, he didn't hesitate to share the real purpose, if he didn't, they might not get along later.
"The name's Grunk!" The large warrior said as he roughly took Aurus's hand and shook it, "I don't want no leadership position or nothin', I just wanna get behind some capable people and gain what I can." he explained honestly, an appreciated gesture by everyone around.
The final two mages were quite small and looked very similar. They looked like they were the same age as Aurus at around fifteen. There was one boy, who was holding a staff and the currently weaponless girl.
"I'm Graves, and this is my sister Gracey, we're just looking to get used to the game for now. It seems best to do so with capable people," he explained, as open as the others had been.
Seeing as how, at first sight, each of them seemed at least somewhat honest, he turned around, "well then, let's see if we can find anything up ahead!"