Eli felt a lot less guilty now about climbing into the Simbox when the meal was done. He couldn’t imagine what his mother’s character would look like, or what class she’d play. It just seemed so far out of reality that his imagination ran wild with it, picturing her wearing heavy armor carrying around a giant sword and cleaving boars in half.

He shook the image out of his mind as he reappeared in the craftsman guild hall, taking a peek at his inventory and decided to start with refining. There was only a singular furnace in the Craftsman Guildhall, big enough to house 3 medium sized crucibles, and at the moment it was unoccupied.

Winter jumped at the chance and moved towards it, shoveling in coal from a pile nearby and billowing the flames to the right temperature, then filling 30copper ore into the first crucible - the max that would fit.

The process of forming the ingots involved him keeping the furnace hot enough to melt it down and remove as many impurities as possible, then carefully pouring it into ingot molds that sat nearby. Once the first 30 started he looked around the hall to see it was clear and got a bit ambitious. He dropped 60 ore into the other two crucibles and stuck them in the flames, beginning the process of making sure all 3 crucibles remained smoothed and evened out of impurities as the ore liquified, taking out other metals or objects that floated to the top using tongs.

The heat blazed outward as he worked, causing sweat to drip from all over, but he managed to finish the process on all three crucibles without trouble, pouring the ingots and collecting them, in total managing to get 18 bars of roughly equal quality to the ore. Feeling proud of himself, he loaded up all three crucibles again and continued.

“Having fun? Woof!” Ruffily asked as she approached from behind about midway through the second batch.

“Y-yeah, actually. Did you want to use one?”

“Not just me.” She smiled while motioning to two grumpy looking players glaring at him, tapping their feet impatiently. “You’re pretty good at that though, 3 at once is not bad for a beginner.”

“I think I could handle more, to speed this all up.” He said as he leaned back for a moment to get a reprieve from the heat. “Are there places with bigger furnaces?” He asked.

“Woof! Yup, of course, the big cities have them, but they’re also public. Serious crafters usually get a private one built. You can hire a decent leveled architect once you buy some land.”

“You can buy land? Right, I remember reading about that...” Winter replied. “How much is something like that?”

“Orm prices went up because of you! Woof! But Kalmoore land is still on average cheaper than the other islands. I’m saving up for a plot myself, woof!” She grinned as her tail began to wag. “Of course if you want to buy the deed to land for really, really cheap, you could do it in the wilderness, there’s some places you can claim. Players can't steal your stuff that easily but guards won't be around so creatures and other NPCs aren’t restricted from walking in on you while you’re napping. Risky risky, woof! To answer your question, A small 1 room house in Orm would cost you about 30 000 gold pieces, woof!” She answered.

At this, Winter gasped and took in a mouthful of smoke, causing him to cough excessively for a moment. He did some quick math in his head before recomposing himself.

“That’s 300$ worth of gold, for an in-game house!” Winter shouted at her, others in the hall started shushing him almost immediately.

“Yup! It’s an investment though! If you think that’s bad you should see the prices on the more popular islands like Savrigard. I hear houses in the capital go for tens of millions of gold. Some people are crazy, woof!” Ruffily shrugged.

“H-how does someone make that much?” Winter asked in disbelief.

“Playing a lot, or spending real money. Lots of people like to show off in this game. There’s even a popular stream show that rates people’s in-game houses, it’s kinda fun to watch. Woof!” She said excitedly. Winter had to take his focus off the conversation for a moment to tend to his copper.

“So making money from this game really isn’t just a dream, eh?” He grinned as he worked.

“Nope.” She smiled back. “And it’s easier if you got a big ol’ private furnace! I might let you use mine once it's built! I’ll make sure to get one that’ll go hot enough smelt mithril, unlike this junk.”

“R-right, I look forward to it.”

“In the meantime though, Woof!” She did a hand motion to tell him to hurry up, and Winter apologetically nodded to both her and the guys waiting impatiently. Once he finished his batch he switched to just using one crucible and continued talking shop about crafting in the game with Ruffily.

By the time he’d finished with his ingots his stamina was drained and opted to share a spiced steak with Ruffily as thanks for her information again before moving on to tanning and woodcutting.

After that was crafting. He tried out a set of copper armor first - it was time consuming to make and when he equipped it he felt too clunky and uncomfortable. So instead he made an attempt at a set of leather armor, and it felt much better once equipped. The quality wasn’t that great but he went in on leveling his leatherworking from there, eventually ending up with something passable.

After that he worked on making backup shields and tools and tried to expand his inventory a bit more. All his work in the guild hall took up another half a day of in-game time but he was proud by how fast all of his skills were progressing and took a break to look at them as he munched on a few apples.

Name: Winter

Race: Human

Gender: Male

Level: 3

Class: Priest

Health: 156/156

Mana: 72/72

Stamina: 68/68

Hunger: 100/100

Armor Rating: 46 (-8.21% Damage Taken)

Strength: 14

Agility: 14

Constitution: 18

Intelligence: 10

Spirit: 14

Charisma: 10

Equipment

Chest: Simple Leather Armor(8% Quality) - Armor: 18

Legs: Simple Leather Pants(4% Quality) - Armor: 12

Feet: Simple Leather Boots(11% Quality) - Armor: 8

Hands: Simple Leather Gloves(6% Quality) - Armor: 8

Mainhand: (Empty)

Offhand: Copper Shield

Class Skills [Priest]

Minor Heal(Beginner): Level 5

Smite(Beginner): Level 1

Gentle Touch: Passive [Eirene]

Pacifism: Passive [Eirene]

Basic Skills

Shield Mastery(Beginner): Level 7

Sword Mastery(Beginner): Level 1

Crafting Skills

Mining (Beginner): Level 6

Woodcutting(Beginner): Level 5

Herbalism(Beginner): Level 4

Creature Harvesting(Beginner): Level 5

Weaving(Beginner): Level 3

Sewing(Beginner): Level 3

Refining(Beginner): Level 6

Blacksmithing(Beginner): Level 5

Woodworking(Beginner): Level 4

Alchemy(Beginner): Level 1

Tanning(Beginner): Level 4

Leatherworking(Beginner): Level 4

Artistry(Beginner): Level 1

Architecture(Beginner): Level 1

Scribing(Beginner): Level 1

Cooking(Beginner): Level 4

Feeling pleased and still wide awake, despite it being past midnight in the real world, he thought he’d try his luck and see if he could avoid Keldan and friends on his way out of Orm - if not he’d just call it a night. He stepped out of the guild hall and wandered the streets to the west, keeping a keen eye for any suspicious individuals loitering about. He spotted Herilon patrolling around but no sign of the others.

Winter continued walking onward to the outskirts cautiously - assuming they may have wisened up and set an ambush for him in the forest, but at first he saw nothing. When he reached the tree-line and started to feel safe he heard a voice from behind a nearby tree.

“They’re not here, they logged out for the night.” A jovial female voice spoke, startling Winter into jumping and bracing his shield. She slowly stepped out from the shadow of the trees until the moonlight illuminated her.

[Silentwire - Level 8], She looked about his age, slender build with plain skin tight cloth and leather armor accenting her body shape. She had long black hair partially tied into a ponytail, partially hanging in the front down to her shoulders on either side of her face, bright blue eyes staring at him with a smile.

Winter took a moment to calm down. He was expecting to get attacked and still wasn’t sure he was safe despite her friendly demeanor. However seeing her level he felt a lot less threatened - he considered the distance back to town and how much damage she could do to him in the time it took to get Herilon to notice he was being attacked, and he must’ve looked back over his shoulder at Orm without thinking because Silentwire seemed to almost read his thoughts.

“I’m not going to attack you or anything. I actually came to help out! We go to the same school - I saw Keldan’s stream, they’re trying to pick on you, so I wanted to help out.” She raised her hands to try and appear harmless, keeping her distance.

“You were going to help me fight them? They’re in their 30’s, you’re only level 8.” Winter raised a suspicious brow at her.

“I just started playing this Tuesday… I’ve been trying to level up fast to help…” She replied shyly. Winter was having trouble with this one, he couldn’t get a read on her. She wasn’t livestreaming or asking him for anything, so…

“Why do you want to help me exactly?”

“Well..” She broke eye contact and put her hands behind her back, fidgeting her feet in the dirt like a little kid would when they’d just gotten in trouble for something - further confusing Winter. “I’ve been in a few of your classes and I noticed you are always studying, so... I thought it wasn’t fair that when you tried to have fun that everyone started harassing you…” She replied shyly, to which Winter sighed.

“So it's pity then. Right, I appreciate the thought but I’ll be okay on my own.” He said dismissively, to which she stepped forward worriedly.

“N-no, not pity! To tell the truth, I just wanted to play with… you…” Her face flushed bright red and she put her hand over her mouth as if she could pull the words back in.

“You’re being oddly persistent here. How much are they paying you…” Winter started glancing around at the treetops, he thought he’d just now pieced it together. This person is being used to lure him from the town, most likely being paid by Keldan and his friends.

“No one’s paying me! Sheesh.” She looked flustered now, stomping one foot on the ground. Winter ignored her for a moment, squinting his eyes to look around the nearby treetops and listening carefully for the sounds of any movement. Silentwire patiently waited for him to finish and look back at her. “Believe me yet?” She crossed her arms.

“If you go to our school, what’s your name?” Winter asked.

“Selena... Mabrinosh… Selena Mabrinosh. We have science together this semester…” her voice trailed off as she saw Winter’s blank expression. “You bumped into me the other day and knocked a bunch of Simboxes out of my hands, and helped me pick them up…” Her confidence dwindled as she watched his face remain blank.

“Oh, yeah, right, of course, Selena. Mabinrosh.” He said this while opening up his friends list, relieved to see Davoth still online at level 7. He started messaging him in plain view of Silentwire, though she couldn’t see his interface she could see his hand motions and surmised what he was doing.

“Seriously?” She huffed then began tapping her foot impatiently.

“Do you know someone named Selena Mabinrosh?” Winter messaged Davoth, speaking in a whisper so that Silentwire couldn’t hear.

“You mean Mabrinosh? Really quiet girl, goes to our school. Why’d you ask? Oh shit you’re level 3 now?” Davoth steered the conversation quickly.

“Yeah… got revenge on some boars.”

“Sweet, I’m almost finished up with the archer basic quests to unlock all my base skills. We can meet up and start leveling for real tomorrow if you want!”

“Sounds good...” Winter looked at Davoth’s level, 7, comparing it to Silentwire at level 8 in front of him. “Have you been leveling nonstop? You’re already 7.”

“Y-yeah, as much as I can. I’m gonna have to dip out soon though, the Simbox Center started charging extra for Simbox usage if you stay in one for over 8 hours. It’s a real pain. I gotta get some income fast before my parents find out how much I’m spending to play.” Davoth replied.

“Ahem.” Silentwire cleared her throat loudly as Winter had stopped paying attention to her, he had even started walking away trying to find some boars to start grinding.