In the town of Jylen, the sun was beginning to crest over the mountains, bathing the dark stone and gray wood predominant in the town in an amber light. The lighter pallet easily took in the light, causing the streets to glow slightly as the light shone on the buildings. And the light, all being caught by the architecture, was seemingly shining directly through the window in Matt's room and straight into his face.

Groaning in annoyance, Matt rolled over but the cruel sun had already done its job, and Matt was awake. Trying his hardest to return to the somewhat comfortable bed and fall back asleep, Matt was foiled from the onset since he has always had an incredible time trying to fall back asleep. Once he is up, he isn’t going back down. Groaning loudly, He sat up in his bed and as his mind cleared away the brilliant bliss of sleep, he remembered where he was and his past day.

Quickly moving the comforter off him, Matt stood up from the bed and walked over to the wall where his armor was hung up. Reaching a hesitant hand out, he placed his hand over the jacket's chest plates and felt the smooth wood and fabric beneath it. Yesterday was real, not just a vivid dream, and that meant he was in an entirely new world with new magic to explore.

Smiling, Matt went to put on his armor and clothes before he felt his body notify him that he had business to attend to. Stopping from the armor, he quickly changed into his regular clothes and left his room, locking the door behind him. Hannah had said that the washrooms and whatnot were downstairs, and going back down the stairs he found the door leading to the facilities behind the stairwell.

The bathrooms were separated into two parts, the wash rooms themselves that had tubs and other similar facilities for bathing, and the wasterooms separated. Walking in, Matt was a bit worried about how these definitely were not modern toilets, but while everything was made of wood and not the most comfortable, there was some form of running water and a sink with that old fashioned soap so it was good enough.

Finishing his business, he returned to the main room and saw that several of the other adventurers were already up and eating breakfast. They were similar levels of unequipped when compared to last night, however now they seemed to have left their weapons and other lighter armor upstairs.

Moving over to the bar, Matt saw Hannah who was looking at him and as he stopped at the bar, Hannah had set down a plate of what looked like some fried eggs and a few slices of a fruit that looked like an orange but had the colors of a red apple. Weird.

“Evnin kiddo. Saw you head down the stairs so I figured you’d need a plate. The washrooms are open if you’re a bath in the mornin type of guy.”

“Thank you Hannah, that sounds good.” Matt said with a smile as he sat on one of the stools and started to eat his breakfast. Hannah smiled back and moved further down the bar to clean up other plates. The eggs were a little bigger than the chicken eggs he was used to, and taking a bite showed how they were a bit denser as well. Interesting. Taking a bite of the apple orange was also interesting. It was softer than an orange and didn’t have a sour taste at all, just a sweet juice that tastes kind of like strawberries. All together, it was a good breakfast.

Handing Hannah the plate with another thank you, Matt went upstairs and put his pajamas back on and went to one of the washrooms. As he had already discovered, there was a small rectangular mirror at the front of the room near the door, a small cabinet that held some towels, washcloths and various soaps that Matt looked over and picked a few out, and the main piece of interest being the large wooden tub at the back of the room, a small side shelf on the wall, and a wide tinted window sitting above his eye line that he could open if necessary.

The floors were made of stone, and while the walls were wood just stretching his bond over them revealed to his Shaper senses that there was something about the wood that had been changed to make them resistant to mold and water damage. He couldn’t tell exactly what, just that there was some level of Shaping that went into making these walls. Taking his clothes off and putting them onto an empty shelf in the cabinet, he moved over to the tub.

There was a faucet stretching out of the wall and hanging over the edge of the large wood basin. Feeling the wood he was impressed with how smooth and solid the tub felt, any worry of splintering and otherwise discomfort was removed from his mind. The tub was around three feet tall and an oval shape five feet long.

Matt set the soaps he had picked down onto the shelf and looked at the faucet. There was a normal faucet handle wheel that when turned caused water to start pouring out and filling the tub, and a red gem just below it. Touching the gem caused it to glow slightly and the water that was pouring out suddenly became hot and hit the colder water already in the tub with a hiss of steam, surprising Matt and making him step back.

Watching with interest, he felt the water and was delighted at the hot temperature. It was just on the edge of being too hot, which means it was perfect. Waiting for the tub to fill to his liking, he shut the spout and crystal off with another press and lowered himself in with a content sigh.

Relaxing back in the tub, he just let the hot water wash over him and soothe his muscles. Yesterday's activities weren’t that strenuous to him, but it had been a while since he has been that active. He will probably need to start stretching and exercising more actively now if he is going to be an adventurer. It wouldn’t be that hard to make modern equipment either, so he wouldn’t need to improvise with whatever they have for training equipment here.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Thinking about his life on earth, Matt felt a bit conflicted. He probably should have had a more intense reaction to the fact he would never see his old home again but he felt strangely calm about that. He had died, and while that sucked and still made him shiver when he remembered laying on the sidewalk, he didn’t really miss his old home, which made him conflicted at the realization. In his old life, he already lost any family or close friends he did have and any other relationship was tenuous at best. He didn’t really have any important connections back home, but here he literally had Connection flowing through his veins!

So he felt conflicted. He probably should be freaking out at least a little, or maybe raging against fate, but he just can’t bring himself to care like that. He got a second chance, and one that was so exciting and made his heart quicken just by thinking of the adventure and possibilities. It was a whole new world where he felt like he actually could make his life into something more.

And right now, he was sitting in a large wooden tub, taking a bath in an old fashioned inn, with other people outside all looking forward to the day of adventure, eating fantasy eggs. Smiling a bit at the absurdity of the situation, he leaned back and decided to put it out of his mind. To his knowledge, there was no going back, and he wasn’t even sure if he would want to, so the best option was to live this new life to the best of his ability, and make sure he grew in his abilities.

Relaxing back in the water, Matt pulled up his status screen and looked at the one point he had sitting on his screen and thought over his options. There wasn’t really anything else he could use immediately, the materials and properties he had could cover everything. There wasn’t really any material that he had strong access to until he could either harvest for himself, and if he needed a new property just saving the point would be best. Interestingly enough, when he thought about the bath he was in he felt the system respond and if he focused, he could awaken ‘Water’ as a new material, which was an interesting discovery.

But other than that, he decided that just holding onto the point would be the best bet until he needed it. And there was always the option of saving more than that to level his Scale again, or save up for whatever Blueprint does when he gets to level five. So many options, and so little time. Feeling the water cool slightly, Matt decided to stop just soaking and actually clean his body. He wasn’t very dirty, but a proper scrub was never a bad idea. Grabbing the cloth and soap he retrieved earlier, he set to task and cleaning himself. The soap was interesting. He was never a person who went out and purchased artisanal, handcrafted soap back on earth, he used exclusively the mass produced stuff in a bottle, so experiencing how different the process was compared to what he was used to was interesting.

Finishing up and draining the tub, Matt felt refreshed and ready for the new day. He quickly dried off and dressed back into his looser pajama clothes. There was a basket for the used towels, so he left the one he used behind as he returned to his room. He saw that most of the adventurers had cleared out, leaving just a few stragglers. Hannah smiled and waved at Matt as he passed by, which he returned as he headed to his room.

Now that he was nourished and cleansed, Matt looked towards his equipment, Matt grinned as he suited up and got ready. Everything fit just as well as it did last night, and he was ready for what the day had in store for him. Reaching down to grab his pack, Matt had a thought. He still had a lot of fabric and some wood left, and while he didn’t need to make any more armor, he could still use it. Quickly making a bond with the material, he made several items.

The first was four small pouches he attached to his belt, two on each side. They were simple flap pouches with wooden snap buttons that didn’t really snap close, he just fused them together. Moving away from his body, he turned the rest of the fabric into more pouches and several bag compartments that he attached to the frame pack, so now he didn’t need to strap things directly to himself anymore and had places he could put things if necessary. And the best part of making everything with his shaping was he could just move the bags and have access to the frame if necessary.

Seeing the newly upgraded pack, Matt was satisfied with the progress and put it on, leaving behind the rest of the still unused wood in the room. He had his helmet hanging on a better hook that was under the shelf of his backpack again and with his bat on his back, he headed back out of the inn and quickly moved to the Adventurers guild.

There was less foot traffic now in the morning compared to yesterday evening when he arrived in the city, but there was still the occasional adventurer or pedestrian going about their business. Matt didn’t get a lot of attention from the regular townsfolk, but he did notice several of the adventurers give him curious glances as they spotted his unique equipment, but nobody had more of a reaction than passing interest, which was understandable since he definitely stood out.

Entering the guild hall, he noticed that it too was less crowded. There were a few people either going over the quest board or eating some kind of breakfast, but the place was practically deserted compared to the celebrating crowd last night. The receptionist desks were also quite empty, with only two people being staffed and one adventurer talking with them.

The free receptionist was the same Marvin who had helped him out last night, and upon seeing Matt enter the older gentleman perked up and waved Matt over.

“Ahh, Matt, good to see you! I was hoping you would stop by, although I can’t say I expected you to look as you do. Did you make some new equipment after you left here?”

“Oh, yes. I have been working on awakening Fabric for a while and last night I got it, so I upgraded what I could.” Matt couldn’t reveal that he had done the entirety of unlocking a new material last night, so hopefully his lie would be more believable. There was only so much lifting his prodigy reputation could do.

“Ahh, well congratulations! I will update your file. But besides that, that was a matter I wished to discuss with you. Now, you came into the guild hall yesterday after traveling through the forest and encountering some tree stalkers, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s what happened.” Matt certainly had no idea where this was going, but he certainly was intrigued.

“Excellent! Well, there has been a new silver ranked quest posted in the forest, and I recommended another adventurer party take you with them!”

“Huh?”