After a brief discussion with Claire, they both met back up in the training room for Locke to showcase the results of his training. After roughly ten or twenty minutes of launching Ice Spears the instructor finally spoke up.

“Alright that is enough, I have a good grasp on the method you created. There are two negatives with this method and one positive at least from what I can tell.” She declared.

“That doesn't really put my mind at ease, am I going to have to develop a new method later to keep up?” Locke spoke with a frown.

“Well...not necessarily. The downsides to your method are that it is less flexible and the mana cost of your spells will be higher resulting in slightly less damage efficiency. The upside will be increased cast speed the more you are used to it. Some mages use similar methods without too many problems.” The instructor explained.

“Increased cast speed you say? You mean the time it will take for me to form a spell will be faster than normal? Why would that be the case?”

“There is virtually no limit on how fast you can rotate the spell core as long as you can control it properly. Also the needle you are creating with mana is also stationary and close to the palm of your hand. This removes a lot of the issues other mages might have with mana being too far from the body resulting in weaker control.”

“That makes sense actually, I do want double check something with you though. You mentioned the lack of flexibility, I assume you mean that if I try to increase the size of my spell core compared to what I am used to the Second Brain fails to assist properly when casting the spell is that correct?”

“Correct, that is the problem you would run into.” Claire nodded.

“Couldn't that issue be resolved with more experience though? As long as I teach the Second Brain through repetition on multiple different ways to cast each spell that should get around it right?

“Yes, that would work, of course, however you should know as well as I do it wasn't easy teaching your Second Brain that method. During the tutorial where you have zero mana costs that problem won't be apparent, but once you leave the tutorial what will you do then. Also if you are thinking that the issue will go away once you have high enough wisdom, it won't. More complicated spells are going to take much more mana to practice.”

Locke sat down focused on his thought. He was forced to acknowledge that she was correct. It was extremely difficult for him to learn a single spell at a specific mana cost, granted it should be easier from now on. To remove the drawback of not being flexible he was going to have to put in a lot more effort. The main question is if the time and effort required are even worth it. He would fall way too far behind others in the game if half of his time was spent practicing.

“Well, I am sure you will figure it out, now let's get to your reward for completing my final task.” She declared.

A quest notification sounded indicating that he completed the aspiring mage part three and was awarded 400 experience and a ring of wisdom.

Locke looked through his menus and noticed the ring was deposited straight into his inventory. He pulled it out and after inspecting the ring he found it would increase his Wisdom attribute by 5 which was quite nice. The system only allowed for a user to wear two magically enchanted rings at one time. It would reject the ring completely if you tried to put it on. Think of it like trying to force two repelling magnets together.

“You mentioned the final task, does that mean you have nothing left to teach me?”

“The system will not allow me to give out any more quests or personally teach you.”

Locke thought for a bit and decided to push his luck “The Sigils I have learned so far have a lot of limitations and I was curious about other aspects of magic. Do you happen to have a book pertaining to other forms of spells? More specifically I am looking for a persistent buff that enhances my attributes at the cost of mana.”

“There is a book in my possession that does exactly that. It is also a basic form of instruction that you could probably grasp. Also, I am rather fond of you. Most of the other idiots annoyed me, what a rude bunch they are. However, I am not going to give it out for free.” She struck a thinking pose for a second before announcing “Alright if you would trade me that ring the quest rewarded for the book then there shouldn't be a problem.”

Wait didn't she just give me the ring? No that is not quite right it appeared in my inventory as a quest reward....also she specifically stated that the quest rewarded it. Is this ring valuable to an NPC like her? Or is she programmed to not be able to assist further without taking something away from me? Also, wait a minute, what did she mean other idiots? I haven't seen anyone else in here. Is her specific AI present in other instances......that is pretty cool.

He looked at the ring for a minute before handing it over. It was hard to say if the trade was worth it as he didn't really know how strong or how common magic items were this early in the game. The book in his hands had the title “Basics of Self Enhancement Sigils” which sounded exactly what he was looking for. With the book in his hands, Locke knew he wouldn't regret this trade.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Self enhancement magic is not commonly used by mages in the early or mid stages of the game for many reasons. You will figure this out pretty quickly as you go. That is not to say this magic doesn't have its uses and it will be beneficial to learn this while in the tutorial.” Claire stopped and stared at Locke for a bit before finishing. “Alright, that is all I will say, you can use the training room for as long as you like. Do not enter my office again I have much work to catch up on and I cannot assist you any further anyways.”

Locke and Claire said their goodbyes and parted ways. While their interactions were strictly business he still bewildered at how life like this NPC was. He would almost assume that this NPC was actually an employee of the company that made this game but dismissed the thought. There were too many downsides to doing so, hiring a ton of employees to run specific NPC's to fool the millions of players just seemed too costly. It would not take long for people to figure it out as they continued playing the game. Plus what she said earlier made him think she was in multiple instances at once.

Double checking with the guards that he will not be prevented entry if he left the building Locke chose to go outside to read. The change of scenery will be nice and it would be good to see how other players were taking advantage of the tutorial.

While it took a lot longer to finish reading and understanding the book while observing his surroundings, it came with several benefits. The main benefit was that other than securing equipment for the dungeon tutorial, there was nothing else that he would need to focus on. Locke decided that he would continue honing his magic before entering the dungeon tutorial.

This didn't mean that the other parts of the tutorial wouldn't be useful to players, far from it. The combat training location is where most of the players ended up, well aside from the ones that rushed the dungeon tutorial. From what Locke investigated he learned that players training there can gain quests similar to what he got from the magic trainer that rewards experience, skills, and equipment. The same rewarding quests existed in the artisan training location for players that are working towards a non combat approach to completing the tutorial.

There were many reasons why he decided against taking part in the other training areas but it ultimately boiled down to three main reasons.

1) The quests that rewarded experience and items would be out scaled eventually when he continued on with the main game after completing the tutorial.

2) With his previous experiences playing other games of this genre there was no need to learn how to fight in the combat training area. He also didn't feel that combat skills would be that helpful for him right now for similar reasons.

3) He had absolutely zero interest in crafting or construction at this time.

Locke dismissed the fact that there could be unique interactions and rewards to his acquisition of the self enhancement spellbook from Claire. He felt his time was better spent getting used to magic and learning more custom spells while having no mana costs. Spending too long in the tutorial attempting to get minor advantages will end up causing him to fall too far behind.

He headed back to the magic training grounds before logging out. It had been a little more than a week inside the game which is roughly twelve hours in real life. Locke could continue to keep playing of course but he chose not to. Most people could stay inside a VR capsule for almost two days without any health problems. That is provided you live off nutrient paste and tablets. To deal with food shortages these were designed to make it so people didn't have to eat or drink as often. They also had an added effect of not needing to go to the washroom for several days. It somehow deals with waste problems....but it tasted awful so there were some people that didn't use it.

Now that he was outside of the Depths of Magic it was time to unwind. The plan was to finish learning the self enhancement sigils and more custom spells. He also needed to be able to use the custom spells with varying many costs, which means the amount of time it will take for him to finish his training won't be short.

Stepping out of the VR capsule Locke proceeded to take a long shower and then prepared some food. Cooking was a minor hobby of his, it was something he enjoyed doing to pass the time. He went to sleep shortly after his meal. When he woke up a few hours later he relaxed a bit and browsed the Depths of Magic forums for some useful information. It turned out to be quite beneficial in the end as he learned a bit about how classes worked as well as sleep mechanics in the game.

The sleep mechanic seemed interesting. Since you spent multiple days inside of the game at a time they introduced a system that made it so you have to sleep like in real life. Outside of the tutorial, everyone has a stamina bar that shows 0-100%, your stamina cap will remain that way until you start getting a debuff due to lack of sleep. This debuff will reduce your stamina cap by a small amount at first but will progressively get worse the longer you hold off sleeping in game. Some folks tried to work around it slightly by going to an inn and logging out for a bit, however, while logged out the debuff does not reduce. Players also mentioned that as the debuff gets worse you will feel drowsy just like in real life which could be fatal in certain dangerous situations. There has not been enough testing yet as the game just came out, but it is possible that sleeping in game might help with sleep in life real....but it's most likely not much due to the time dilatation.

As for classes, it seemed pretty straightforward. Once you leave the tutorial and enter the main game you will be presented with a number of classes to chose from. The selection is based on how you played during the tutorial, if you focused on magic and nothing else you will see caster classes. If you focused on both magic and melee the choices would be magic and melee classes. Some classes seem more specialized than others but come with their own set of drawbacks according to what players are saying.

“Well at least I don't need to worry about my class selection, after my training, I should have a number of magic focused ones to choose from,” Locke said out loud while stretching, “That said I should do some melee combat in the dungeon tutorial just in case there are more interesting options.”

Locke got back inside the VR capsule. It was time to begin the training montage to learn enhancement magic and some more spells. Then after that, it would be time to brave the dungeon tutorial for some much needed combat. He didn't consider himself a combat junkie, but he enjoyed the thrill of a challenge.