[The item Broken Spear is now repaired]
…
[You lost 512 ranks in a job. Operation terminated because the level of the job is zero]
I worked without a rest for countless hours, and this was the result! My heart raced as I failed for the last time. Please, please overflow.
[The item Broken Spear is now repaired]
…
[You lost -512 ranks in a job.]
[Congratulations! You are now 5-Grandmaster Enchantress; Maximum rank had been reached]
[Please select your mark and an alias, if you desire]
“Can I pick a snowflake as a mark and Ice Princess as an alias?” I blurted out even before the blue box materialized.
[Congratulations! Your mark is a snowflake]
[Congratulations! Your Enchanting alias is Ice Princess]
[You were caught by the anti-cheat system. Please remain still. Investigation is in progress…]
My body turned numb and even though I tried to move, my hands refused to obey me. Well, I expected as much. A pleasant voice of a young man entered my ears, “Manipulation not detected, achieved only by the means of the game. Reward in progress… Grandmaster not obtainable, suggesting Expert, level zero. Do you consent?”
Yes I do, dear System! I screamed in my mind. A white flash blinded my vision, and the strange grip on my body slowly faded and I yelled loudly for the entire forest, “I am an Expert Enchantress!”
[Congratulations! You are now 3-Expert Enchantress]
My screaming woke up Lucas, and he yelled, “Alfa six!” but then his hazy eyes inspected me, as I was running around and applauding, so it took a while before he said, “Is that good?”
“Yup! Levels in spells and jobs are in six ranks and normally you can advance to the Expert only after years!” Jumping around, I got to him and hugged, but after a second I rose and hugged a tree.
While he was observing me with his confused stare, he got up and dusted his clothing, albeit it took him a while. “Okay, but how does that exactly help us?”
“Silly Lucas, we can sell the enchanted items!”
Lucas held his head in his palms for a second and then said, “I am sorry to say it like this, but you need to hear it. They sold the most expensive item around twelve golds. Even if we sold them for fifteen, that is only thirty dollars. How do you expect to make ten thousands? Charlie…” He couldn’t look me in the eye and walked away.
A silly guy. He didn’t have any imagination, as always. “Stop being so rational.” Noticing a spear near me, I threw it at him and it broke on contact. As I expected, he still stood there like an idiot, but that was okay. Not everyone could have a knack for exploiting. For that - the next thing I had to do was to enchant a shield.
“Hey, Mr. Mage, look for a fallen tree. I’ll make a shield and that will be our ticket to the greatness! We need at least feet wide.” Lucas nodded, and we started searching the woodland, which was full of trees; but who would have thought it will be so hard to find a fallen one?
A sound of snapping twigs announced we were trashing through a small overgrown ravine, where we found a tree almost decayed, with a lot of mushrooms growing from it.
“Yep, that’s… fine, I guess.” I said and cut off one big circle. That decayed wood almost disintegrated in my hands, but despite that I carved an improvised holder with a chisel. What a masterpiece! A rotten shield!
[You created Pitiful Shield]
[Pitiful Shield] Quality: 0-broken DEF: 1 Durability: 1/1 This is garbage; do not use it.
Lucas rested on the tree, so when I offered him the item, and he inspected it, he nearly fell down and glared at me like if I was a non-alcoholic beer. I laughed at his expression and couldn’t stop. My jokes are the best!
“I understand, Charlie. Do it, if you must. I will fight some wolves over there.” He left me to my unstopping laughter and climbed up. Did he finally got fed up with me? Whatever, I will save him. This debt situation still felt like a gigantic bear was pressing on my chest, so I examined the shield again. I hope it’ll work.
Since I had something I could enchant the Fire Resistance with, I had to engrave the runes and because I couldn’t afford any mistakes, so I re-ran the instructional video a few times.
Same as the silhouette in the video, I sprinkled the dust on the entire shield, but even though I tried to do it evenly, the dust refused to move and fell in a cluster and clumped together. Useless garbage! I clenched my fist, blasted it away, and tried again. Next, it was the wind that gently blown it away. That damn thing!
After I finally placed the dust and put the fire essence at the center, I had to clean a sweat from my forehead. Wasn’t this the easier job? Whatever. Although the rune was only one, it certainly wasn’t easy. It took me a few attempts to only imagine it in the air, and even then the faint imagined contours weren’t ideal.
The tricky part was to pour my mana and create the rune by hand. Any half-decent artist would laugh at me as I cautiously drew the lines. But hey, I was not an expert; I was The Exploiter. The rune pulsated as the mana was trying to explode, almost as if I tried to hold a boiling pot. With the last curly line, I poured in all the mana and a blinding red light shot from the shield.
The dust absorbed the rune like a hungry sponge and engraved it on the surface of the rotten wood, exactly as I drew it. Child’s drawing; but it worked! At the place of the Essence, a beautiful snowflake formed - 3 inches in diameter. The name I picked during my exploit, Ice Princess, rounded nicely around the bottom.
[You enchanted the Pitiful Shield. Rating: 46%]
[Pitiful Shield] Quality: 0-broken DEF: 1 Durability: 1/1 Enchanting: +5% fire resistance This is garbage; do not use it. Enchanted by ‘Ice Princess’.
Good! With no other delay, I set for the village again and intuitively only stepped on my toes and even jumped over shrubs! Behold, the art of running! In a corner of my mind I expected the game to mock me with 0 level of running, but the game windows were silent.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
My stamina lasted only for a few minutes, so I had to walk the rest of the trip. Whatever. At least ten NPCs crowded the auction house, and I squeezed through them, not even apologizing. Ryan was in full business mode, and four customers were waiting.
Come on, move! Sell your useless wares to the NPCs, not my Ryan!
When it was my turn, I said, “Hey Ryan, look at what I made!” I trashed my shield on his counter and proudly puffed my chest. He grabbed it, brought closer to his nose, and after he examined it, he looked back at me like it was beyond his comprehension. That resulted in rolling my eyes. “God, Ryan! Ignore the shield, I mean the enchantment!”
That stupid Irishman looked at it again, then his eyes widened, and he smashed it with a tiny hammer. Before I could scream about being gentle at him, he said, “Five percent? How is this possible? The best enchanting I saw was at the maximum of 2 percent!”
Nothing could hide my grin now. “I am that good, but we can discuss it later. Can you contact Lisa, the Fire Goddess?”
Now, it was his turn to roll his eyes. “For the love of god, please do not call her like that! Yes, I know someone who can get in touch with her. But why? Do you want to sell your services?”
“Yes, I need credits and I need them fast. Can you negotiate me ten thousands? I am Enchantress and the only thing I need for the fire resistance enchantment is an Essence of Fire and an Enchanting powder.”
“I understand. Lisa is the right person. I will get you the money.”
As he was contacting the right people, I was sitting on the ground next to him. Stupid auction booths, auction offered only two chairs and I couldn’t block the customer one. Low lever players came one after another and sold everything they found laying on the ground.
One customer brought a wolf leather. A wolf leather! After he unloaded all the furs in the unlimited storage box next to the booth, he grinned happily by only receiving two silver coins. What? Did he know that two silvers were like… nothing? I gazed at Ryan and refrained from saying anything, but I didn’t know he was in this sort of business.
“What’s wrong?” he asked after he couldn’t bare all my stares.
“Nothing. It is just… All the work for two silvers?” I followed receding back of a dwarf and shook my head. “Isn’t it better for them to fight specters and get all that plasma? You can get faster leveling and better money. Several times.”
Ryan revealed a few of his teeth, a rare sight. “You are the power gamer, aren’t you? Yes, you are, if I ever saw a one. Just enjoy the game. By the way, do you know about the Duke's quest? Are you going?”
Slipping into a customer chair once again, I said, “Wait, what quest? I don’t know about that.”
Leaning on a side of his chair, he said, “In a few days a Duke ship’s expedition will come here and they are recruiting players for a main quest. I don’t think I can level up to level seven, sadly.”
The Duke expedition should be a minor main quest I hadn’t tried in the past life, so I knew little about it, but the main quests were always juicy. “Sounds interesting, I’ll try to get there, thanks for the info.”
But the first thing was to get a steady supply of gold. For that, maybe we should get the meadow - the best property in the “early game”. The variable as Irwen was annoying, but she shouldn’t attack right away, right? If I could get Lucas to develop it, we would rake in money.
“Ryan! You old snake!” Lisa's voice interrupted my train of thoughts and she shook his hand right away. “I was told that you have something interesting for me?”
As expected, he didn’t appear amused by her antics and simply handed her my shield. “Look at the enchanting.”
“Ice Princess?” Her eyes sparkled. “What a cute nickname! Do you know her?”
I stood up and dusted my poor dirty robe. Then I sit back down before I rose again. Okay, me. You can do it. Although my body urged me to stay silent, I said, “Me. Princess.”
An imaginary weight on my shoulders cropped up again. Why? Why was this happening to me right now? I couldn’t tear my stare from the ground and took in a deep breath. It’s just a talk in a game. Nothing hard, right?
“Sweetheart? From the Frexie?” she asked in a surprised voice and examined me, especially my hair. “You are so cute!” Before I could react, she hugged me and squeezed my face near her cleavage. Okay, now I was speechless for… another reason. “But how is that even possible, Princess?”
Despite it felt like something stuck in my throat, I said, “Look, my title.” After that monstrous success of talking, I shared my complete name with her.
[Princess, Hero of Ice Blood]
“You are the Hero? How can I be one? Is there a Fire God?” She couldn’t control her mouth. I suffered in her hug and she patted my hair like I was some kind of doll. Not that I could complain, she gave me two compelling reasons not to.
“Psst! Secret!” I said, and reciprocated her hug, “Leader of the first party, the scorching dungeon, gets title the Fire Tamer. Cool?”
“The Fire Tamer?!” Her eyes sparkled again, and jumped up and down, dragging me in in her embrace. “How many enchantments can you do? Can you tell me more?”
I couldn’t say a word and averted my eyes. Not now, please. Where is my wine, or better yet, whiskey to lose my tongue? She still hugged me and stared into my eyes from only a few inches away with a pleading look. I wanted to answer her, but my mouth refused to work. Please? No? Okay, okay, my body. I slipped from her hug and sat on the ground without a word.
“Lisa, I said that the trade will go through me. I am the middleman.” Oh, thanks, Ryan! “There is not that powerful enchantment on the market, so our services are expensive.”
“How expensive?” Lisa’s tone changed to serious faster than my dazzled mind could think. “Do you know the gold is sparse? The demand is much higher than supply, so the price is up to 3:1 now. I can’t buy the gold in higher quantities.” Yes, this was the heiress burning with fire I knew from my old life.
“We are aware of that, thus we are offering you the possibility of buying our services with credits. Twelve thousands is the adequate price. As I gesture of good will, we will not sell the fire resistance to anyone else, not until you complete the dungeon.”
“That is a steep price. But the Fire Tamer…” Her gaze returned to me, and her face brightened as if she wanted to devour me with her cheerful grin. Because of that, I squeaked some intangible words, jumped up, and backpedaled to a stall wall. “Will she enchant the equipment for the entire party?”
“Yes, as long as you will supply the ingredients for the enchantment; an Essence of Fire and an Enchanting powder.”
“Agreed. I will tell my cousin to send the money to your account right away.” Before I could find my wine, she ran towards me and said, “Princess, can you come to our rented room at the tavern in the evening?” Just as she said the last word, she buried her head into my chest and navigated my hand to pat her head.. What the hell? Not that I’ll complain. He-he.
[Lisa wants to add you as a friend.]
“Yes,” sadly, I couldn’t say more, but that was enough for her and she ran away when I accepted her request. As she waved at me from a distance, I sighed and slouched my shoulders. I can’t date a girl now, can I? She was more friendly than I expected and not at all the heartless fire destroyer from the rumors flying around. That was the reason I liked her instantly, not that closeness to her chest. For sure.
“It’s pleasure doing business with you.” Ryan turned to me with a smile and motioned me to go away.
[Ry4n1 wants to add you as a friend.]
“Thanks Ryan, same here. Please send me the money right away.”
The new simulation - testing facility
Lucy sat on the windowsill enjoying an hour long break; her favorite. She thought about the happy times when she and John were drinking coffee here; well, he drank his whiskey, but that was beside the point. Since he had disappeared without a word, she had to retreat into the storage room alone. She was out of luck today, because her Boss found her.
“Lucy, I always liked you. If I ever had to fire anyone, you would be the last.”
“That’s… Oddly specifics, boss.”
For him, it wasn’t. He liked her since the beginning, so beautiful, so intelligent. Too bad she wasn’t interested in him, but in that god-for-nothing John. Thank heavens he left.
As they were weirdly chatting, they heard a loud scream and voices from the outside. The revolution? Lucy got curious and walked towards the door, but he blocked her path.
“Shouldn’t we look what’s going on?”
“I don’t think so! Aren’t you afraid of them?” His nightmare became real - the employees, which he was oppressing, rebelled. As he finished his thought, the door slammed open and a long sword pierced his heart from the back. He couldn’t even scream and died on the spot.
“Are you Lucy?” asked a short man in a gray duster, as he pulled the sword out of the man and cleaned with a paper cloth. Lucy nodded and didn’t dare even to breathe.
“Good. Where is John?”
“I don’t know. He quit work.”
“I understand. That’s a pity; I just cleared the sword again.” He advanced forward with a single motion and sliced her ear clean. “You still don’t know?”
“I swear! That’s all I know!” Lucy screamed and held her ear. That was a mistake, because the sword struck again; she lost her fingers.
He tried to get any information from her, but that was useless, so he left her screaming on the floor and picked the phone.
“Hawk reporting. Suspect had gone off the grid. I presume he’s a trained operative. His ID got archived and disappeared from his home. When I searched the place last night, I found the recipient with name Charlie for a capsule, only a three hours after he entered the main simulation. That suggests he sold the apartment to that blonde woman right away.”
“The workplace was a dead end. His handler, Lucy, knows nothing. I let her live, but I don’t think he will come look for her. But if you have some men to spare, I would watch her hospital room. Maybe the government will send someone. Next clue is a private server in Africa; the ID termination went through there. The online traces are clean, but they have an offline backup up to half year, I will travel undercover.” He examined his sword and a deep smile appeared on his lips “I am always one step behind him. This quest is fun; thank you for the opportunity, sir Nathan.”
“Good job, Hawk, but you can’t kill the NPCs as you please.”
“Why not? Their screams are entertaining.”
“This is the main simulation, you can die. We have no powers or respawns here.”
“I know, that makes it fun.”