Well, I did say that I have up to Chapter 5 written out, so I'm throwing Chapter 3 to the wolves while I work on Chapter 6.

Your sacrifice won't be forgotten *salutes*

*

A hunting party walked through the forest in search of the King Salamander.

They had received the commission while passing through a distant village. The difficulty rating was C, so the reward is likely to be pretty good.

The forest was silent except for the rustling of dead leaves as the party carefully made their way through the forest.

Suddenly, they heard a singing voice. The voice was mournful and full of sorrow, sounding oddly nostalgic as it tugged at the heart strings:

"Heaven, I'm in Heaven,

And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak...

And I seem to find the happiness I seek,

When we are out together dancing cheek to cheek..."*

"A Bard..."

A bard was one of the classes that you can play in Royal Road. Through the means of songs, they can support the party by buffing and healing the party. They weren't very good alone though, since they had weaker stats than the combat classes, making this purely support.

It suggested another party was in the area though, and they decided to head in the direction of the singing voice. Their leader, a Thief by the name of Zeke, led the way.

There were sounds of fighting as they drew nearer. It seemed to be drawing to a conclusion though. All this time, the singing voice continued singing mournfully.

The strumming of a stringed instrument could be picked up from the distance. It didn't sync properly with the lyrics of the song. Oddly but not of note, it seemed to coincide with the sound of blades slashing at something.

The party soon approached a scene of a concluded battle. One of the party members threw up at the sight. Blood, blue in color, could be seen everywhere, painting even the barks of trees in a deep blue.

A giant corpse lay there, heavily mutilated by wide slash marks here and there. From the red scales that could be discerned from the blue blood that covered the body, it appeared to be the King Salamander that they were sent to hunt.

"We have arrived too late..."

Other than the corpse, there was no one else around. The corpse wasn't properly looted as well...

As the party stood there staring dumbfounded by the sight, the singing voice was fading away as the song drew to a close...

"Come on and dance with me,

I want my arms about you,

Those Charms about you,

will carry me through...

... to Heaven, I'm in Heaven,

And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak...

And I seem to find the happiness I seek,

When we are out together, dancing cheek to cheek..."*

*Lyrics from "Cheek to Cheek", written by Irving Berlin (1936)

**

As it turns out, I joined at a good time; this particular batch of trainees were to become squires and soldiers at the castle, and were sent here to be trained.

Also, they were only in for their first week, so I was not drastically behind in terms of curriculum.

That was what I found out later when I asked around.

2 hours after I logged off to catch a break, I logged back in for the basic training course. By that time, it was early morning in game, so I was early, which was a good thing.

The other trainees consisted of mostly players and NPCs and over the next 10 minutes they assembled, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, stretching and yawning.

The Chief Trainer didn't show up, but one of his goons did. His name was Altaire, as shown by a name tag sewn on top of his breast pocket. He was clean shaven with a full head of black hair, and had a rather bulky guild. He scowled and said in what he taught was his fierce voice, which made him sound like he was gargling pebbles:

"Alright, maggots!! Welcome to another day of Hell. I would get on pounding your ugly carcasses if I had not realised we had a newcomer to you lot. What's your name, laddie?"

Again, the rusty old soldier decided to speak up. Simultaneously.

"Trainee Howard, Instructor!!"

"Oho, you seem to have suffered greatly in the past, I see. Any previous soldiering experience?"

"Only pounding up every other bleeder I came across for the past 5 years, instructor!!" I decided to embellish my past a little bit. Building a reputation never hurt anyone.

"Pounded, eh? Well, you will find us a different plate of clams here; tough to crack, and hard to chew!!" Instructor Altaire pounded his chest as he gave a hearty laugh.

"Alright, now that you lot have made yer acquaintance, it's time to soften ya up a little bit, so's that I can mold ya into real fighters. 15 rounds around the square, and make it snappy."

My happy delusions soon came crashing down on me.

Normally, in most games, you merely do slightly more tutorial stages, simple things such as hitting weak mobs like slimes or something.

In contrast, the basic training program in Royal Road consisted of two phases: physical training and combat training, spread over 4 weeks. In Virtual Reality, at that. It was aimed at new players who were stuck in the city for 4 weeks, so think of as your average basic military training of about 4 months, compressed into a single month.

Needless to say, the training was rigorous. For the first two weeks of training, morning consisted of jogging many rounds around the drill hall to build up stamina and vitality. "A healthy mind comes with a healthy body," the instructors would chant, like a mantra as they did completely not-monk things like throwing in a few extra sets of exercises just because they didn't like my face.

And the worst part was, that was merely a warm up to loosen up tense muscles and get the heart rate rising.

This was followed by physical training. Litres of sweat must be spilt everyday, as the instructors made us go through the works: push ups, sit ups, crunches, burpees, you name it, they spent 4 to 5 hours making us perform the exercise. This was followed by sprints and an obstacle course that seemed to change each time.

I noticed this: during a particular training, a certain stat could be boosted by about 1 point. Each portion of the training was aimed at boosting a a particular stat. Throughout the course, each time I finished a particular stage, a message would appear, sometimes in multiple instances:

[Your vitality/strength/agility/stamina has increased by one point.]

I was rather impressed at the game's ability to reflect and imitate real life, but isn't this taking it a bit too far?

Nevertheless, I was known back then for my ability to endure all sorts of hellish events. Where others would fall back, I would persist like a cockroach, which was truly ironic considering my lazy nature.

Despite my scruples regarding the futility of effort, I did not disagree outright against putting in effort.

If I live a happier and healthier lifestyle as a result of that effort, there was no reason not to do this, the efforts were all beneficial without any loss except that of my time, which I earn back by gaining a few extra years to my life time. And all the food I eat has to go somewhere right?

Perhaps, it is less of me being lazy and more about me being rational here. Either that or I'm just plain lazy.

Regardless, I had no complaints about participating actively in the training. It will all come to an end soon anyway.

As such, I was one of two players out of the 15 that joined to survive the physical training phase. The rest, coming from pampered backgrounds and weren't able to take it (due to massive cultural shock), had quit the training, taken a stipend for their time, and moved on in search of future endeavors.

I wish them all the best, I sincerely do.

The other player that stayed on was a guy called Blake. He was from Europe, apparently, and had some background as a martial artist. Hmmmm... Considering that this is Virtual Reality, there is some merit to this.

You will have better control over your movements and are able to the skills to better land attacks with greater power, speed and accuracy. While that advantage is not absolute, little advantages come together and accumulate to create an immense edge over the opponent.

The idea for being strong, therefore, was to obtain as many advantages as possible. Bonus points for building upon them. But this would take a lot of time, as well as effort, to do.

I wasn't prepared to devote resources into raising a game character that would be eventually deleted, though.

Nevertheless, I liked the process of growth. I haven't gained any levels, but already I earned at least 20 points in each stat. Royal Road seems to actively reward the virtues of hard work through small ways.

I liked this aspect of the game, since P2W elements were a much smaller portion of building stats. And a little bit goes a long way...

Much like other MMORPGs, Royal Road had websites where you could pick up gear and other requests with real life currency. I know for sure that I wouldn't be using those any day now.

New stats were also generated upon meeting certain requirements. For instance, after a particularly gruelling training session:

Fighting Spirit Stat generated.

[Allows you to cow weaker monsters with the force of your will. Also allows the user to call upon superhuman strength temporarily. You cannot assign points to this stat, and it arbitrarily rises according to the user's actions.]

After the first two weeks, I had 5 points in that stat. It's not much, but it was a start.

Leadership and Luck wouldn't increase no matter what I did, but I'm guessing that it was dependent on certain actions.

The two weeks, as I foretold, soon came to a close. I have gained much from the training, gaining 20 or so points to each stat except Fighting Spirit, Leadership and Luck. However, it was just the beginning of my troubles...

***

In game, the Sleepy Fortress.

"Eh, where could he be?"

A young girl wearing a bandanna was searching high and low for something, or someone.

She had a short build and a childlike face, making her seem younger than her actual age. Above the avatar was the given in-game name, "Lilee".

"I did tell him to come here, right?"

The girl looked worried as she continued to run all about the city searching.

****

Back in the Warrior's Guild:

The second portion of the course was combat practice. Each day, We would assemble at the drill hall equipped with the gear given to us.

We were shown several basic sequences to practice and we would practice using the dummies that were laid in front of us.

An instructor would stand there with us and call out the sequence to perform, shouting out the cadence as we attack according to the sequence.

For instance:

"Sequence 5!!"

"Forehand, backhand, thrust, parry, thrust, thrust, forehand side," we would echo.

This was executed according to the cadence called out. Initially it was slow to help us get used to it, but eventually the instructor would speed it up, eventually mixing up the timing to keep us on our toes.

Footwork training was also incorporated into the drills, adding to the difficulty.

Overtime, we were given armor to maintain and use in the drills. According to the instructor, warriors wear up to 3 kinds of armor going into battle, with leather armor under a suit of chain mail, topped with plate armor.

This, coupled with the use of a shield allows for the best defense, but required immense amounts of strength and stamina to be used effectively in battle. Furthermore, it slows down the user considerably.

This can be alleviated by wearing less armor, but at the cost of defense. Interesting.

However, the wooden sword that I was given weighed heavily on my hands, and my movements weren't very sharp. As such, I was lagging behind.

Blake had told me that the Sword Mastery skill had generated in his second day attacking the dummy, and was further improved during combat.

I wasn't too surprised, but my lack of weapon mastery was becoming apparent with the increasing difficulty of the weapon drills, where more complex and complicated sequences are called out with increasingly irregular timing.

While the swords in the other trainees' hands made beautiful sounds as they struck the practice dummy, I was slowly being left in the dirt despite me putting in the effort for once.

We had sparring lessons in between. I was able to win once or twice, but over time I lost handily every battle.

There was combat experience given each fight, but the victor claimed the lion's share of it. As such, the disparity between the trainees widened over time.

*******

A weird thing occurred during a training session.

We were attacking the practice dummy that day with our swords.

As always, I was having a bit of trouble, and the instructor had already come by a few times to correct my technique.

"Sequence 4!!"

This calls for a thrust, upper slash, spin and vertical slash. The spin was added for several purposes: to mess with the timing of the opponent who was expecting the slash according to the timing, to add impetus to my slash, or to suddenly switch moves and targets during the spin. For the sake of training, we were using the vertical slash.

This called for a good grasp of timing to use properly, but it was plenty deadly if it lands.

As I prepare to execute the command.

A suffocating feeling could be felt. It was palpable, and sent chills down my spine. I found it hard to breathe, and my pulse was rising in excitement.

What was that feeling? I couldn't resist turning my head to look as I looked round to find the source of that... commanding aura.

In the distance, I could see a slim figure. It was difficult to see, but I had a feeling that he was observing the lesson... Nevertheless, the involuntary movement drew attention from my instructor.

"Trainee Howard!! Quit daydreaming!! Drop and give me 100!!"

I broke out my revelry as I complied with the command, getting on the floor and performing 100 push ups.

"Good. Now don't doze off on this old geezer now."

"Sequence 7!!"

I went back to hitting the dummy, but I could not shrug off that feeling.

That day, I was distracted, and my technique was terrible as a result. The instructor had me perform additional exercises afterwards.

********

During the 3rd week, I was heckled by Lili regarding my progress. I was having lunch at the field when she came over.

"Howard!!"

Ah... Music to my ears. She sounded rather upset though, I wonder what was the matter?

"How come I couldn't find you in game?! Did you even start playing at all?"

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Ah, so that was that reason.

"Don't worry, Lili. I'm currently playing the game. It's just that I'm busy with a little something."

"What is it?" Lili's eyes shone as she looked at me hopefully. Just like a child, honestly...

"Shan't tell."

"Ehhhhh??!"

I sounded like a tease. Even I would react like that. Serves ya right, Lili.

"Now, now, just be on your way. Big brother's got things to do."

"Y-Y-You...You!!"

I ran across the field, laughing happily, as I was chased by a girl that barely reached my chest in terms of. height. She did seem red in the face though, but I attributed that to anger.

At dinner that night, my parents and siblings asked me what I was up to for the past few days.

"Just trying out Royal Road."

Wrong answer. I was suddenly set upon by my family like a pack of dogs competing for a kill.

"Do you need help with something?"

"Join my guild, we will help train you!!"

"What are you saying? Older brother has to join my guild!! We will surely do a better job raising him as a character."

"Oh? Glad to see that you are taking up the family business, son."

Honestly, my family is a weird one. But it was oddly warming, having the same interests...

Perhaps we shall come together and hunt one day.

But not before I level up considerably.

*********

But before I could do even that, I have other problems to deal with.

This is getting frustrating.

Each and every time, the slim figure would appear during training and observe.

It was distracting. I could feel his eyes on my back as I struggled to perform the given sequence according to the timing.

As though... he was assessing me, or somehow willing me to fail.

And it was working. My sword technique slowly worsened as time went on.

I took a lot of punishment.

Eventually, I will be expelled if this keeps up.

"How annoying," I muttered to myself as I swiped angrily at the training dummy

"WHAT WAS THAT, TRAINEE HOWARD?!"

"Nothing, Instructor..."

All this time, the slim figure remained in the distance, watching.

Is he some kind of stalker or something?!

**********

On the 2nd day of the 3rd week, I was called up to the chief instructor's office.

"Well, looks like we lost another."

"What a waste, at the last week too."

"It was nice knowing you."

"All the best in your future endeavors."

Enduring the snide remarks from my fellow trainees, I walked to the office, trepidation in my heart.

The Instructor was there, looking through his notes.

"Good afternoon, Sir." I greeted him with a salute.

"Hm." The Chief Instructor accepted my greeting with a grunt.

He set down the notes, and said to the figure standing in the shadows.

"You mean to say that this scrawny brat managed to sense your killing intent and responded to it?"

"That is correct," came a bored voice.

A man clad in purple plate armor walked out from the shadows.

The man, like the Old Blacksmith from before, was wiry. The armor was ornate and form fitting, showing a slim build. He wore a helmet with a dragon motif carved on it, which obscured some of his facial features.

"And you are saying..." The Chief instructor looked at me, doubt on his face. Gee, thanks, Sir. Good to know that you had so much faith in me.

"He has what it takes." was the brief reply.

"But he's not very good at swordplay..."

"Did I say that I wanted to teach him sword skills?"

Huh? What is all this about sword skills? About killing intent?

The Chief Instructor steepled his fingers and breathed out slowly.

"You need help, trainee. This is a warrior that is just passing by. His name here is -"

The Chief Instructor paused in his speech as he consulted a piece of paper.

"... Kite. He has offered to tutor someone in the way of the sword. I decided... No, he has chosen to teach you. You must be really bad at this if you needed remedial..."

Eh? Remedial?

But that was how I met the warrior that had introduced himself as Kite.

**********

"Hi, I'm Kite. I'm -"

"- A stalker."

I was pretty miffed about being messed with.

"Hahaha... sorry about that. If there's anything I could do to make up for it..."

"Well... there is one thing."

Woah, the hope meter just went over 9000!!

Too bad I'm feeling like an asshole as of current.

"Your still beating heart, roasted on a spit."

"Uhhhh..."

Kite seemed sad, but strangely it only served to make him look angrier.

"I'm kidding. So you are my... coach of sorts right?"

"Yeah. You got the right stuff for what I have in mind."

"Oh? What is it?" Interesting... I think this might make up for all that crap I went through...

"It's. A. Secret." Kite winked.

That night, I made sure to wash my eyes thoroughly with cold water and soap.

***********

After meeting with Kite, I went back to the drill hall to finish the session, but I was distracted throughout.

"Your technique worsens when you are distracted. What's up with you?"

My friends tried to ask about my time at the office earlier. No, that's putting it to lightly. Rather, they attempted to wheedle, threaten, interrogate, or speculate it out of me.

"Come now, you know that I didn't mean what I said earlier..."

"Tell us what happened earlier. Were you expelled?"

"How come he's still here then?"

"Tell me or I'll pummel ya!!"

Bloody idiots. I was content with keeping my mouth shut (considering what I saw), but they would not leave me alone if I did, so I just blurted out:

"I have to go for remedial training..."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Laughter exploded from the other trainees!! What bloody bastards!!

"That was it?! Ahahaha..."

"That's the first I heard of this, hahahhaha..."

"You are truly one of a kind, you know?"

Blake wiped the tears from his eyes and put a hand around my shoulder.

"Don't worry, we understand. Work hard, we shall graduate together."

I looked around. The other trainees had stopped laughing and had a serious face on. That would have some manly feels... If I didn't see a particularly tickled trainee still chuckling. I made a note to myself to channel the Chief Instructor later on regarding his belongings.

I decided to put on a brave smile, at least to gather back whatever manly atmosphere remained.

"Yeah."

NPC or player, these were friends that were brought together by circumstance, that stuck through thick and thin with me. We went through the same crap together, ate together, and slept in the same bunk. Even if we were to part ways after the four weeks, it was friendships that stay with you for a lifetime.

That was what I thought... Until I remembered that only Blake was a player character. The rest were all NPCs.

Damn, Virtual Reality. You are good...

***********

After that day, every night in game, I would stay back in the drill hall, and Kite would tutor me.

For all that "killing intent", Kite turned out to be a nice guy. Really. It was just that his voice and the look on his face... It had the "I'll KILL YA" look to it. Couple it with piercing eyes and a permanent scowl...

That of thing tends to put people on guard. Really.

I still haven't forgotten what I saw the other day, either, despite my valiant attempts to do so.

Nevertheless, on our first lesson:

"Boy. Give this weapon a try."

He handed me an iron spear. It was a wooden shaft, about 2 metres in length with a spear head in the shape of an arrowhead attached to it.

It felt heavy holding it, but it felt good. For once a weapon felt balanced and smooth in my hand.

"This is a short spear. The shaft has been shortened for the sake of easier handling. This would be what we will be using for your training."

"Shortened? How long is a spear normally?"

I suppose that I was stuck in the delusion that spears were a lot shorter normally. I blame Tarzan for this. Really.

"About 3 metres, although historically it has been known to go up to 5 metres in length in extreme cases."

3 meters? That is pretty long... No wonder spears had slow attack speed ratings in most games.

"The length makes the spear plenty legit as a weapon. Keep that in mind."

I tried to conjure up what I knew about spears from my prior knowledge...

... and drew a blank.

Then again, I never used a spear or pole weapon. It was mostly a two handed weapon, which denied me the option of using a shield. One less piece of equipment equals less stats, so I favored something like a sword-shield combination for its versatility...

Until now.

"Alright. Let's see what you make of it."

He pointed at the dummy that was set in front of him.

Feeling rather foolish, I jabbed at the dummy... But when I tried to withdraw the weapon, I couldn't. Kite had grabbed the shaft.

"No, no, not like that. You used both your hands right? That wasn't wrong, but there is a lot of weaknesses with that method. For one thing, it takes twice the muscle control to attack. This slows you down and that means that I can grab the shaft or break it unless you can withdraw it quickly."

Kite released the shaft.

"Instead, since you are new, try this instead: with your leading hand, have a light grip on the shaft. Your back hand is doing most of the control, the leading hand is for the sake of stability.."

He showed me the proper stance to take when wielding a spear.

The spear jab was a bit faster, and I could control it better now. Kite continued on as he warmed up to the topic:

"When you stand like this, you are presenting less of yourself for your opponent to target. This also lets you control the weapon better. The issue, I feel, is that because of the wide movements involved with a pole weapon, it makes it easier to get guarded. When slashing or smashing, is is also dependent on the rotation of your hips as well as your hands and arms..."

He also threw in other tips as we slowly practiced... If you could call them tips at all, more like a strategy guide:

"... You have the longer weapon, in most cases you should have a set distance between you and the opponent in order to take advantage of your longer reach. Once your opponent gets within your range of attack, it is difficult for you to do much."

"The thing about the pole arm was that it added a ton of angular momentum to a single swing, making it great for penetrating armor!!"

"It is cheap and easy to make, so you could mass manufacture these to arm your infantry!!"

"... Fluster and heckle your opponent with a flurry of stabs, then when an opening presents itself, commit to it!!"

Turns out that the first stab I did wasn't wrong after all. This adds power to the attack, but causes you to commit a lot of movement to it, putting you in a jarring position. It was pretty dependent on the timing.

Throughout, he gave me small tips to keep in mind as we delved deeper and deeper into the art of the spear. It was like having a coach, not that I had one since I wasn't very serious when it comes to sports...

Actually, let me make a correction. It was like having the encyclopedia rammed into your thick, numb skull, spine first.

Still, after the lessons, it was back to jabbing at the dummy.

"Even though I showed you all those tricks, your basics must be solid. An old man once said that a tree with deep roots would grow taller. Therefore, you must work on your fundamentals..."

Words of wisdom from the great warrior.

I was allowed to attack the dummy however I liked afterwards though, so I always did it quickly and do it properly, otherwise I would have to do it again.

I tried out different skills and tactics that I saw from martial art films. It was my one colorful moment in an otherwise boring training session.

Eventually, this skill was generated, and continued to grow during my remedial sessions with Kite:

Pole Weapon Mastery:

Increases the damage dealt and attack speed when using a pole weapon. No, this does not improve prowess for pole dancing.

Beginner Level 1/ 0%: +10% damage and 3% attack speed when using a pole weapon.

"..."

What an incredibly quirky skill description...

************

I was able to apply what I learnt in sword practice, but it felt rather linear.

Kite, regurgitating battle encyclopedia extraordinaire, had this to say:

"Different weapons call for different approaches, but the fundamentals are more or less the same in combat. Still, it might be better to pick a weapon you are suited with..."

So during a sparring session, on a whim, I asked the presiding Instructor for a spear.

It was a different one this time, a silent man with a slim build. Still, he handed me a spear without too much complaint. It was a wooden shaft that had no spear head, but one end of it was cut at an angle, leaving a rather sharp edge.

That drew comments from my friends.

"A spear..."

"What is he going to do with it?"

My sparring opponent this time was a trainee called Horton. He nodded approvingly at the spear.

"You seemed rather confident with that weapon. Your tutor did teach you something after all. Let's see what you are made of then!!"

"Literally or figuratively?"

With that smart comment, the fight started.

As expected, since his weapon had the lower reach, Horton choose to rush at me in an attempt to close the distance.

I fired off a series of stabs at different angles to slow him down. Several were blocked by the shield, but most of my hits found their mark. However, since they had little power behind it, they weren't killing blows, but still made the purpose of slowing him down and stopping him in his tracks.

Think of it as a striking snake, that strikes and withdraws quickly. That was what the concept was based around.

Still, Horton was made of sterner stuff, and now he choose a more methodical approach, advancing slowly with little movement. He was on his guard.

However, at this point, I went on the offensive, quickly closing the distance on the opponent. I caught him flat-footed.

Horton was expecting me to try and maintain my distance with him, and wasn't ready for my sudden lunge.

Again, the concept was based off the viper.

The weapon was pointed at his throat, and the training bout ended with my win.

*******************************************************************************************************

Back to writing Chapter 6 *flustered face*