The two walked for a while and during that time Dante decided to test out one of his newest skills, Turtling.
He closed his eyes and with a small effort he focused on the skill and tried to activate it.
Then a few things happened. He felt something new draining away from him. Was this what it felt like for skills to spend his stamina?
Then he heard several people gasping, a few shouts and so he opened his eyes. Looking out he saw a small crowd holding a distance from him.
Looking down he saw why. The skill appeared to actively be making a set of armor for him. The armor reminded him of a turtles shell.
The armor was somewhat transparent thus allowing him to see it wasn't very thick. But damn, it was restrictive.
Trying to move with the skill active was like walking through water. It took an effort for every step, though he was glad that didn't seem to effect the dexterity or speed of his fingers or hands.
The skill description did say that this would alleviate as the skill level increased so he took to training the skill up for a bit.
Although he only was able to train the skill for a minute before Califa asked him to stop, which he did.
He got a skill level out of it though.
Skill, Turtling has leveled! Lvl. 2...
He considered flicking the skill on and off as they walked but quickly decided that was something he could do on his own time later.
After walking for about half an hour Califa stopped at the entrance of a grand building, which looked much like other adventurer's guilds he had seen in anime.
"Welcome to the adventure's Guild. Huh...It looks like they repainted." She said with a small smile.
Together they stepped into the guild.
The interior reminded him of the Adventurers guild from Overlord. Though instead of wooden flooring it seemed to be marble. It really looked quite nice.
They walked in and up to a counter where Califa began speaking with a human male about signing Dante up.
The whole process took little more than a minute as dozens of screens flickered in and out of existence rapidly in front of Dante and the person manning the counter.
To his surprise the man produced a large blue box and handed it to him, it was about the size of an iPad.
"What's this?" He asked.
"That is the Guild insurance contract. Please read over it and if you accept the conditions sign at the bottom...Please actually read it." The assistant asked with a bit of a strain to their voice.
"I didn't expect this. At least its not a bunch of paperwork." He said offhandedly.
"Most of the paper work is handled by the system as it already has access to the necessary information. Please take a seat and return the slate to me when you are finished." He said as if speaking from a preprepared script.
'Time to grind some levels in reading.' He thought as he sat down with Califa in some padded chairs in a waiting area not to far from counter.
Surprisingly there weren't too many people in here right now.
Looking down he got to reading. As he read he found that the insurance agreement seemed to be the rules and conditions for what was covered and what wasn't.
What was covered was quite extensive. From missing limbs or appendages, to blindness, deafness, and other such conditions.
The rules basically could be summarized as such.
If you don't die we can fix you. But it's going to be expensive as hell.
It seemed the guild would automatically take 20% of any profits he earned from adventuring when he went to sell.
Which he was sure as hell didn't like but was also sure as hell he wanted to be insured against the many, many things that this agreement said it would cover.
It took him 10 minutes to read the contract and fully understand it. Which gained him 8 levels in the reading skill and the achievement, "Terms and Conditions".
Skill, Reading, has leveled! 1->8!...
Terms and Conditions- +10% to Wisdom score when working with Contracts...
He signed away and handed it back to the man at the counter.
After a few seconds he was handed a small, somewhat opaque card, about the size of a driver's license.
On the card, it displayed his level, rank, name, and a picture of him.
Dante A. Stone, [Rank 1] Lvl. 13 [Skills] [Roads] [Quests] [Log]
"And this is?" Dante asked with a little uncertainty.
"That would be your Adventurer Identification card. So long as you have it on your person or even in your inventory it will monitor certain things. For example, if you take a quest to kill, let's say, 10 goblins then that quest will appear on the card and display the current number of goblins hunted. This also extends to any monster or... player that you kill. It's a means to keep track of who killed what. It's very helpful in determining reward distribution when multiple people take part in a single quest." Said the man behind the counter.
It was also explained that the options he saw on the card were a sort of emergency back up. By tapping the options the related screen would be pulled up.
When he asked what kind of emergency it would be used in the man simply replied, "In case you ever leave the boundaries of the System."
He learned that should he leave the boundaries of the system that many of it functions would simply cease working, though some might continue working at diminished capacity depending on the circumstance.
The things he said would stop working were the System Store, Ranking up, and Roads, although it seemed that a Patron or sufficiently powerful being could lend power to restore that function.
Dante let that information sit for a moment before speaking on what had been spoken about earlier.
"Not to say I would but couldn't someone just drop the card, kill someone and then pick it back up?" He asked, playing a bit of devil's advocate.
"Yes and no. As for the dropping idea, it doesn't work. The card as soon as you take it becomes a Soul Bound item. It works within a range of about a meter from whoever it's bound to. Should it leave that range, it vanishes and is moved to the player's inventory. Even if one attempted to remove the soul bound effect..." The man paused stopping himself before he went off on a tangent.
"...Which is very dangerous by the way, the guild would be informed as soon as an attempt was detected." replied the man behind the counter, his smile wavering for a second before returning in full force.
"I suspect that if you don't have an inventory for it to go to, it would probably either reappear on your person or in something similar to the system wallet?" Asked Dante who was rubbing the stubble on his chin.
+1 Wis...
"Indeed. Such work arounds have been tried for nearly as long as the guild has existed. Which is almost as old as the system itself. The system always builds failsafe's, either before or just after such things are discovered. The system’s always learning, always adapting, improving, listening, watching." His tone was joyous at first but was brought down, until he paused and spoke the final words, words of warning.
'Well that's unsettling.' Dante thought, though he did appreciate the small gain in Wisdom, and the information.
"So Dante, shall we move on to some shops and skill train..." Califa was interrupted as a loud retching could be heard from off to the left.
Many eyes turned towards the source of the sound only to see a man leaning one hand against the wooden wall and retching onto the floor. Several people were nearby who seemed to be his friends as they appeared to be trying to comfort him. Dante was about to walk out with Califa before he saw it.
The woman standing next to the man was speaking to him.
"You see Johnny, this is why you shouldn't have drank so much last night! You're lucky I have purify otherwise we would probably be paying to have this place cleaned!" She said as she looked down at the puddle of liquid and mush on the ground and it began to glow.
Dante moved towards the group of several people standing around the now clearly hungover man.
"Dante? Where are you going?" Califa said as she followed after him, once she noticed he had stopped following her.
As he walked, he watched the mess on the floor slowly vanishing into soft blue light. But not it wasn't just the mess that glowed with that faint blue light it was her!
"Susan we all know you love Delve, and think Purify is the best. But we both know Cleanse from Arcs is much better at the lower levels!" As the larger man spoke he raised up his hand and the mess rapidly became clouds of dense air that rose up before dissipating into the manasphere. Leaving a perfectly clean marble floor behind.
The woman he had called Susan looked at the large man with a sour expression and a glare.
"How am I supposed to train up purify if you keep Cleansing every mess Tod!?" She exclaimed angrily, while rapidly banging her fists on his chest.
He seemed amused by that as he cracked a smile.
"Hello? Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice your little group and did you say Purify from Delve, and Cleanse from Arcs?" He asked before realizing he had made a mistake. Turning back to look at Califa standing a few steps behind him, arms folded across her chest Dante winced.
"I'm sorry for getting distracted. Let me talk to these guys for a little bit then we can move on to the shops. I know a great shop you might be interested in." He said thinking of the Walking Corpse and not either of the other shops that Oscar ran. He tried not to think about the other ones right now.
Califa raised and waved a hand in resignation before walking up to stand beside Dante and better listen to the conversation.
Dante turned just in time to see Tod, a large young man who stood a head above the rest reach over and place a hand upon Johnny's shoulder. His palm glowed for a moment and Johnny straightened up seemingly feeling a bit better. Tod besides being tall, about 6'6 or 2 meters, His skin was pale but he had vibrant blue eyes that contrasted heavily with his short and curly, dull red hair.
He looked fairly Irish to Dante's untrained eye.
Johnny, as he had been called, inspected Dante for a moment before turning to Susan and asking, "Can you keep Purify up, I have a terrible taste in my mouth...", he glanced at Tod for a moment, "Thank you Tod." He paused taking a deep breath and rubbing his face before he continued.
"I'm Johnny, as you might have heard, and your name is?" He said, turning towards Dante.
"Dante. It's good to meet all of you." he replied, shrugging his shoulders.
Johnny made a motion with his hand and a water bottle appeared in it, before he began quickly downing it.
As he was drinking the water Susan piped up.
"So Dante, what's your class?" She asked inquisitively.
"I'm a level 13 nobody actually. I don't have a class yet." He replied with a shrug and a smile.
Then Tod turned and asked a question.
"Hey wait a minute...I she an elf?"
---------------------------
"So I overheard you saying that you had purify, the skill from Delve? And you have Cleanse from Arcs? How?" Dante asked as he pointed to Susan and Tod respectfully, truly curious now and not afraid to show it.
"Yeah I do have it. Have you read Delve?" Susan replied. To which Dante simply nodded with a smile.
"I have, it's not a bad story. Though I found the system a little lacking, it had it's highlights.” He spoke his mind before looking at the warrior.
"Tod was it? You have Cleanse from Arcs right? That's gotta be one of my favorite stories!" Dante exclaimed, earning a growing grin upon the warrior's face.
"Yeah, nice to meet you. I do have Cleanse! It's a fucking great spell isn't it?" Tod spoke as he reached forth and took Dante's hand while eyeing Susan with a wide grin on his face.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Tod waved a hand butting into the small discussion between the two.
"Me and Susan have been having an argument for forever since we each only read one of the stories. SO in your opinion!?" Tod paused glaring daggers at Susan who glared right back.
"Which is better, Cleanse or Purify?" Tod asked none too subtly indicating which he wanted Dante to choose.
Susan looked about ready to start their previous argument back up before Dante interjected.
"While I prefer Cleanse over purify, each spell and the system they come from have their own benefits. Cleanse has low mana cost, while purify can get up to insane power and range, or a mix of the two. Auras aren't my thing though. Mana exhaustion is a real bitch!" he exclaimed, eliciting nods from several of the group including Susan.
"I know what you mean that's why I'm trying to see if I can get the Dynamo class! It's a real bitch trying to get this class I'll tell you. Here's hoping it gives at least resistance to mana exhaustion, if not immunity for all the work I'm putting in." she said with a measure of worry and pride.
"Dynamo is a good way to farm exp for leveling but are those levels worth it is the true question. What rank are you guys?" Dante asked curiously.
"[Rank 1]."said Susan.
"I saw it next to my level on my guild card but the guy wouldn't explain it to me." asked Tod.
"Is that like your level or something?" Spoke the man who had been silent up until this point. His expression and tone hinted that he didn't really care about the answer. No his expression and the way his eyes darted back and forth to him. That told him something was up.
"Ah, before I explain what rank is, what are your levels and main classes?" Dante spoke.
The grouped discussed for a moment before pulling up their status pages
"Level 4 aura mage [Rank 3], level 18 with the Leader and warrior classes, level 15 Ranger, level 3 Paladin [Rank 3]..." They replied after a moment of discussion amongst themselves.
They all looked to Tod as he simply looked around at them innocently.
"What? It happened last night when I got the class. Did I forget to mention that?" Tod asked quizzically only to be assaulted with questions from his friends.
In order.
First had been Susan who seemed very proud of her newfound class and rank. Her shoulder length blond hair was a bit unkempt as it seemed she had been working hard.
Johnny came next with the highest level, he seemed to be the leader that let others do the work for him despite him being only [Rank 1].
'Anyone with the Leader class had to be more of a talker than a fighter.' was the impression he got from the information he had.
Second to last there was the silent man. He hadn't spoke at all this whole time. Upon asking the man reached out his hand and introduced himself as Richard. Dante couldn't help but find the guy more interesting than the other's. He just couldn't place why that was though.
Last but not least came Tod, he was proud of his level despite it being low. Probably because he was [Rank 3], but still he spoke with an air of humility. His copper hair pulled back in a ponytail. He reminded Dante of someone but couldn't remember who.
----------------------------------
Dante spoke with the group for a while about D&D spells about any differences they had noticed.
How he remade the light cantrip. To his surprise Tod and Susan both stated they had done something similar.
Dante asked Tod about if he got the spell from his class but Tod told him that he had remade the spell before he had gained the class.
They showed him something they had found after a little bit of questioning their guides.
System Skill Points (SSP) 15
"System skill points? How do I have 13 already?" Dante questioned very confused by this turn of events.
"You get the points for doing things like remaking spells and when you level up. So when you remade the arcane and holy versions of light you got two points and the rest are from leveling." Susan replied before pulling out a blue box and presenting it to Dante. Tod immediately produced one of his own and also showed it to Dante.
Purify (1)
Purify an area of poison, corruption, and contamination
Maximum level: (10)
Range: 1 meter per rank, Mana cost: 10 MP/min per rank, Purchase price: 1 SSP Do you wish to purchase? Y/N
Cleanse (1)
Purge an area equal to the level of the spell in meters of all Toxins, Disease, Filth, and Corruption.
Maximum level: (10)
Duration: Instant, Range: 1 meter, Mana cost: 100 mana, Purchase price: 1 SSP Do you wish to purchase? Y/N
Dante looked in awe. So, with a smile he bought both.
He felt a twinge of pain as a familiar warning appeared.
Warning you have exceeded your Soul capacity...
"Damn it well 5 points to Spirit then." He said as he placed his 5 stat points into Spirit.
"Did one of your skills level and push you over the edge?" asked Johnny whom was seemingly familiar with what had just happened.
"Yeah, I bought both the skills and that pushed me just over the edge. Having so many skill really eats at your souls capacity. At least they only seem to count as common skills." Dante complained eliciting a smile from everyone present.
Tell me about it, was the unanimous sentiment.
Taking a moment to think he put the last 10 points needed into the Tireless I road.
Every day you push against your limits, going so far to push the very capacity of your soul time and time again. +4 Will, +1 Spirit...
Congratulations! You have completed the Tireless I road!...
Calculating...
+2.5 to all regenerations...
10 points went into Spirit to expand his soul capacity. Hopefully he wouldn't run out of capacity in the next 5 minutes.
"As I was about to say, you guys can fight about which is better. But in my opinion, Cleanse is better for immediate cleaning needs, while Purify is better for more long term/ large scale endeavors." He said eliciting a look of disappointment from both Tod and Susan. Though the later gave a small nod of acceptance to the clever play.
Then a thought hit him.
'I remade the cantrip light. How much harder can...' he thought as he realized this would more than likely be rather hard. 'I don't know the first thing about remaking spells. Remaking light was basically...It was like I let a light that was already there shine for all to see.' He pondered that for a moment as he stared at the blue boxes.
'I could always use some more points so lets give Dancing lights a try...' He thought as he began his attempt.
Dante cast light, causing a small amount of light to pool in his hand. The others paused in their heated discussion and watched him. Wondering what he was doing.
He held in his mind how it felt to dance...
How it felt to move and sway in the wind. He remembered freedom and joy...
He used External mana manipulation to shape the liquid light in his palm with about 100 mana. Slowly the liquid light began to rise up. Like a bubble made from squeezing a bottle of dish soap it rose. It rose and grew and changed until it overcame something intrinsic to the spell that had created it. And so it changed.
External Mana Manipulation has leveled up! Lvl. 1->3...
The small orb of light lift off of Dante's palm and began to grow, not only in size but also in luminesce. Dante felt the mana around him beginning to stir as coalesce around this orb. The Orb burned bright and then it was three smaller lights each about the size of a tennis ball.
Mana Sense has leveled up! Lvl. 11...
Student of Magic has leveled up! Lvl. 2...
"Dancing lights. Hell yeah!" Dante exclaimed. After checking the blue box from earlier he saw it had indeed gone up by 1.
--------------
The others asked him how he had managed to remake Dancing lights and after a bit of persuasion and promises that he could come adventure with them he relented and helped them to remake dancing lights.
After that they spoke more of what they had found out about the system and only now did they tell him more DND spells were real.
They all showed their joy and amazement of how the spells they had loved had come to life and now they could use them.
Dante learned that thaumaturgy and prestidigitation both cost 1 small gold in the store.
'If most cantrips are 2 small gold I might have to devote some funds to buying up a fair few.' He considered as he purchased the spells.
He felt that familiar door swing open just long enough to let the light that was those spells pour through before it closed again. The spells assembling themselves there in his mind.
Though it was interesting as the system seemed to treat them more like non leveling skills.
Thaumaturgy [Cantrip] You manifest a minor wonder, a sign of supernatural power, within range. You create one of the following magical effects within range.
• Your voice booms up to three times as loud as normal for so long as you concentrate on the effect.
• You cause flames to flicker, brighten, dim, or change color for so long as you concentrate on the effect.
• You cause harmless tremors in the ground for so long as you concentrate on the effect.
• You create an instantaneous sound that originates from a point of your choice within range, such as a rumble of thunder, the cry of a raven, or ominous whispers.
• You instantaneously cause an unlocked door or window to fly open or slam shut, may fail if effected object exceeds certain parameters. (Height, weight, thickness, etc.)
• You alter the appearance of your eyes for so long as you concentrate on the effect.
If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have up to three of its concentration effects active at a time, and you can dismiss such an effect at will. Cast time: At will, Range: 30 feet
Prestidigitation [Cantrip] This spell is a minor magical trick that novice spellcasters use for practice. Created effect may be subject to any nearby environment.
You create one of the following magical effects within range.
• You create an effect for so long as you can concentrate on it. Such as a harmless sensory effect, a shower of sparks, a puff of wind, faint musical notes, or an odd odor.
• You instantaneously light or snuff out a candle, a torch, or a small campfire.
• You instantaneously clean or soil an object no larger than 1 cubic foot.
• You chill, warm, or flavor up to 1 cubic foot of nonliving material.
• You make a color, a small mark, or a symbol appear on an object or a surface.
• You create a nonmagical trinket or an illusory image that can fit in your hand and that lasts until you end concentration on the effect.
If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have up to three of its non-instantaneous effects active at a time, and you can dismiss such an effect at will. Cast time: At will, Range: 10 feet
He opened his hand and there appeared a marble made from gold. He smiled at the use of Prestidigitation before he let his concentration lapse, and watched the small sphere made of gold disintegrate into the mana that had made it.
He had an idea, though he doubted it would work. He pulled a large gold coin from his system wallet, holding it in his left hand, and after a careful inspection tried to replicate it with prestidigitation.
A large gold coin did appear in his right hand.
A quick inspection of the coin found while the head side of the coin was a near perfect match, the tails side was less than passable.
'Not bad for a first attempt I suppose.' He thought with a small measure of pride, though his success was likely due to his raised stats.
Now came the real test.
He tried to place the fake coin into his system wallet. To his utter surprise it worked, but then a system notices appeared.
Invalid coin detected...
Fraud detected...
Dispatching agent...
"Oh fuck..." he said aloud, unable to help himself.
Thankfully the agent was Virgil.
"Dante I see you thought of an exploit. Thankfully for you this is a minor offense and the system appreciates those who find exploits." Said Virgil with a small smile as two things happened.
One the air where he had placed the coin into his wallet from poofed with a dispersal of mana, more than likely the coin vanishing.
Two the large gold coin in his left hand glowed and shrank. Its color changing from gold to something more silver.
Examining the coin for a few seconds confirmed his thoughts.
1 Small platinum coin...
He smiled as he placed the coin in his wallet.
It was no infinite money glitch but it was still appreciated.
"If you try it again you will get an error stating invalid coin. My time is up good day Dante." Virgil said as his body broke apart into so much mana.
He turned and noticed the others looking at him with questioning looks. He was about to speak when he noticed something odd.
He felt a little colder now.
'Was it this cold before?' he thought before he looked at Susan and it donned on him.
His eyes widened as the realization hit him and he asked, "Who's running the winter aura right now?"
Susan smiled, he learned that each one of them had one of the three main season skills from Delve. All except Fall, the hardest to get.
Susan had Winter, Tod had Summer, Richard had Spring, Johnny also had Summer. Susan and the other's were quite intent on getting the Fall aura but couldn't quite remember the requirements to unlock it.
As it seemed that even though the system made the skills real, said skills still had their requirements.
Even the part where you had to pay experience to access higher tiers on the skill trees.
Tod mentioned how sending had changed to be more like the Arcs version of the spell, having no class or level requirement now like in Arcs.
After inquiring he heard it was also 1 SSP.
Dante pulled up the blue box for sending.
Sending
You open your mind to a creature with which you are familiar allowing for communication over long distances. The creature hears the message in its mind, recognizes you as the sender if it knows you, and can answer in a like manner immediately. The spell enables creatures with an Intellect stat of at least 1 to understand the meaning of your message. 1 mana per word, possibly more if it's a long word. Transmission of thoughts, feelings, and memories more substantial than words is possible but incurs increased mana costs. Spell may be maintained for as long as you have sufficient mana.
You can send the message across any distance and even to other planes of existence, but if the target is on a different plane than you, there is a, variable chance that the message, or parts of it, do not arrive. You are made aware when the message fails to arrive and a mild understanding of why. You cannot target dead creatures with this spell unless other effects would allow you to do so. You are made aware if the target creature is deceased.
Duration: Instant, Range: unlimited, Mana cost: 1 MP/s minimum, Purchase price: 1 SSP Do you wish to purchase? Y/N
'I can get sending...Sending seems like it got a fair bit of overhauling under the system. Note to self ask Virgil about sending. What can I try and remake next for more points? How hard could it be to remake Firebolt? Yeah Firebolt sounds like it will do. I will have to look into the other skills I can buy later.' He nodded as he thought, then he purchased Sending and looked to his right at Califa. She seemed to be as enraptured with the discussion as he was, her displeasure with having to wait gone now.
Dante reviled in the feeling of light pouring into his mind.
--------------------------------
Elsewhere on Earth...
Men, and women, young and old fought on the beaches and in the streets not against monster.
No they were fighting each other due to a quest the system had prompted them with as soon as each of them had returned.
Global Quest has been issued!
Spare Some Change?
Find and collect metal change.
You may have said coins appraised and "cash them in" via this quest box.
For every coin given to the system an amount of money shall be added to your system wallet based on its appraised value.
Other forms of currency are accepted and you shall be fairly compensated for turning them in.
(It's recommended that anyone participating in this quest acquire 1 SSP and purchase the Detection skill from the System Skill Store.)
Appraise Cash in
----------------
Several men worked together to find all that they could on the beach before many others had this same idea.
The three friends had been fans of Delve and in their foolishness died trying to raid that Halls of the Dead.
A decision they had been regretting ever since they encountered the denizens of that dungeon.
Now the three friends were scavenging a beach for all its valuables. They had managed to find several coins, even some lost and forgotten jewelry.
Each man had the Detection skill. One man was combing the sands for change to turn in for the quest, though he decided to hold onto a quarter the system offered him a small gold for, 100 dollars.
Another searched the sands for jewelry, as scanning for gold or silver came back with very fuzzy results.
Then there was the third man, he searched the surf for anything of value but after seeing a shark and scanning it he decided to go back to shore as fast as possible.
His skill had identified several sharks and he wasn't confident in fighting such thing, especially in the water.
Many people worked hard and fast trying to earn as much money as possible to use in this new world.