“Hmm, interesting.”

Before I move, I hold up my hands before my face and notice they are exactly the same as my real hands down to the creases, scars, and nails. This must be somehow taken from our memory, because there is no way a helmet would be able to scan this amount of detail otherwise.

The first couple steps I take are unsteady, but soon it’s just like I was taking a regular walk outside. In everyday life we don’t usually think about how we walk, rather, it is a natural process involving the contraction and relaxation of muscle fibres in response to nervous stimuli.

As I start making my way down to the dirt road leading into town I marvel at how realistic the movement system is in this game. The dirt has a particular roughness to it and coarse grass brushes against the soles of my feet. Little pebbles make their way between my toes, but surprisingly my bare feet are not hurting as much as I would have expected.

Within the [User Settings] there is an option to adjust pain levels. I can see the purpose of this setting, as I can imagine being hit by a sword and the like would hurt like hell. The default setting is 50%, but rather than adjusting it, I leave it as is. Of course this is after trialling adjusting it both up and down. One’s sensitivity to touch also correlates to the pain adjustment scale, although to a lesser degree. Therefore, to not lose out on the sensitivity I left my settings to the default.

All my senses were enhanced in this world and I could pick up on the subtle movements of the grass as the breeze passes by. This doesn’t feel like a game, but rather more like an enhanced reality. Other players in my vicinity are also making their way onto the road from the field, and the area is quickly becoming crowded with identically dressed players.

“Hey watch it!”

“I was walking here”

“Wow! so cool!!”

“It’s as if I am really here!”

“Get out of my way”

“Hehe, noobs.”

“Rabble rabble rabble”

“Rabble rabble”

So many people are talking simultaneously that it becomes difficult to hear what is being said. Everything turns into nonsensical rabbling. Where is the tutorial? Where is the beginner village? You would think they’d have designed this better. As it is now, a flood of people are making their way down the narrow dirt road.

Off in the far distance the skyline of the city can be scene, and to our backs is seemingly endless grasslands.

With gaining a head start in mind, I begin paying attention for animals on the sides of the road.

*rustle rustle*

Sure enough, 10 meters to my left I sense movement in the grass. I don’t think anyone else has picked up on it yet, but I cannot hesitate. I stop walking forward and inch my way over to the side of the road without attracting attention. I equip my wooden short sword while slowly making my way into the field.

“Hey, look over there! What’s that guy doing?”

“No clue, maybe he just wants to try out his sword. It is rather difficult to learn after all.”

“Yea, you may be right”

I can vaguely hear some random onlookers commenting on my actions, but pay them no further heed.

I slowly advance as I concentrate on the movement. The wind is blowing in my direction off of the fields and so I am currently downwind of whatever it is. But, I can never be too careful.

I am currently less than 2 meters away from it, crouched down among the grass. There it is! Looks like a level 1 rat, although, it’s about the size of a football with grey hair and little beady black eyes. The perfect target for a first kill. As I fix my vision on it, a screen pops up in my peripheral vision.

Species Level Rat 1 Vitality Unk Stamina Unk Strength Unk Mana Unk Defence Unk Intelligence Unk Dexterity Unk Spirit Unk Skills Unknown

Hmm.. Not much to go off of here, but for a level 1 how hard can it be.

I take a few more steps forward trying to not disturb the environment. I think this is a perfect opportunity to try out my skills. I activate Cloaking, which makes my body invisible. On the top of my UI I can see a countdown in red showing how long my skill will remain active. Only 4 seconds remain.

Without hesitation, I leap towards my target. Bringing down the wooden sword in a smooth, sweeping motion. The target becomes aware of my presence; however, it is too late as my sword sinks into it’s flesh. The rat’s body is rendered incapacitated by my swing. My heart is pumping erratically as the thrill of the hunt settles in. I prepare to take another go, but soon realize the rat’s health bar has depleted entirely. The bonus from backstab does not take effect, because the rat noticed my attack at the last moment; however, my starting strength bonus is enough to deal lethal damage to this simple creature.

My first kill. I check out my status window and see my experience has gone up by 1. It seems nine more rats are required before I can level up. While I am in my menu, I notice a new option labelled [Bestiary]. I decide to open it up, and to my surprise, I can see the rat’s status in greater detail. It must require the killing of a creature to add it to one’s [Bestiary].

Species Level Rat 1 Vitality 10 Stamina 20 Strength 5 Mana 0 Defence 5 Intelligence 1 Dexterity 10 Spirit 0 Skills None

The rat drop a couple of copper coins, no idea how it got them, and then fades into pixelated dust. I now have 12 copper coins, which is the equivalent of 0.12 of a silver coin. The game currency, called Tor, is based on precious metals where 1 Tor equals 1 copper coin. The system goes up in increments with 100 coppers equaling 1 silver, 100 silvers equaling 1 gold, and 100 gold equaling 1 white gold. A fairly standard system without the need to worry for metal purities.

Rather than immediately joining the crowd headed into town, I decide to stay in the fields a bit longer to see if I can find any more creatures to hunt. As luck will have it, within 5 minutes another rat shows up. However, this time there are three of them all together and I don’t quite think the same strategy will be effective. I equip the kitchen knife in my left hand while walking directly towards the rats. But, when I get within 5 meters I crouch down. It would be best to catch one of them by surprise since they haven’t noticed my presence yet.

I activate Cloaking and move in for the kill. This time I complete a successful sneak attack on the closest rat allowing for backstab to activate thus killing it in one shot. The other two rats are alerted to my presence and go on the offensive charging in from the front, hatred shining in their beady little eyes. I manage to block one of the rats with my kitchen knife while swinging my wooden sword on the stunned rat; however, the remaining one uses my opening to attack. The attack dealt 1 damage to myself and the pain almost caused me to drop my sword.

“Arghhh....”

Since I am not accustomed to pain, it sure hurt like hell! I can’t even imagine what it would be like on 100% pain and sensitivity.

I quickly finish off the stunned rat before moving onto the last remaining one. Thoroughly engaged in the fight and paying no attention to technique, I pummel it to the ground leaving it so that even it’s closest kin would not recognize it’s remains. After the battle settles, I am able to organize my thoughts better and I begin to collect my loot. It seems I made another 5 copper out of them, as well as gaining one small rat fur.

Exhausted, I have another look at my experience bar. Six more experience points until I can level up, maybe if I found a different spot I could level up faster on different creatures.

*gurgle*

After all this fighting I begin to get hungry. It seems I will need to eat frequently if I wish to maintain energy for fighting. I open up my [Inventory] from the main menu:

Inventory Copper coins 17 Small rat fur 1 Barley bread 10 Small map 1

The only food I have is the barley bread, but really, how filling can that be. I take out one piece and begin to munch down. The taste is bland and the bread is nearly rock solid. It hurts my teeth to even take a bite, but I keeping eating it until the bread finally disappears.

After resting, I decide to stay here until I reach level 2 before making my way into town. 20 minutes and six kills later, I have finally reached level 2. Along with that I gained another 11 copper coins and 3 small rat furs. It’s time to check out my my stats and upgrade using my skill points.

Being an assassin, upon levelling up I automatically gain 10 points of strength and 5 points of dexterity. This is based on the 20 strength and 10 dexterity initial boost my class gets. Along with this I gain 20 points of mana, 10 points of vitality, and 10 points of stamina for each level up, as well as 10 skill points to use at my discretion. I choose to split those points between defence and dexterity, as I am currently very squishy. From all of that fighting I gained an additional skill: Swordsmanship Level 1.

Player Status

Player Name Quinn Class: Assassin Level: 2 Guild None Experience 10/30 Stats Vitality 110/110 Stamina: 110/110 Strength 40 Mana 120/120 Defence 15 Intelligence 10 Dexterity 30 Spirit 10 Skills Active Passive Cloaking Level: 1 Backstab Level: 1 Swordsmanship Level: 1

Alright, now that i’m finished here I might as well make my way back to the road and join in on the crowd headed to the city.

As I take a look at the trickle of people, it seems I have caught the tail end of the rush. There are only a few stragglers, like me, who had either logged in later or chosen to explore their characters further.

The grass fields to the sides of the roads slowly change into farmers fields as I plod along. NPC’s and players can be seen working together in the fields. They must have found a job or quest and decided to take the advantage to get ahead of their peers.

Jobs are recurring events that can be repeated as many times as one desires and any amount of players can partake. The typical reward for these events is currency and the occasional material reward. Whereas quests are non repeatable unique events that are requested by the world’s inhabitants or other players. That’s right, a player can post quests to be completed as long as they pay the appropriate fees. Quests will have a greater monetary reward in addition to the acquisition of experience and quest points. Quest points can be used to post quests as well as a source of renown for the player.

In the near distance I can see a small farming village on the outskirts of the city. Finally we have the beginner village! Although, it has probably been bogged down by the massive influx of new players passing through. There was no small amount of people that started in the same vicinity as me, so I’m not getting my hopes up too high.

*Sigh*

To my dismay, as I get closer I can see huge crowds have overtaken the village. I’m not one for large crowds, but I suck it up and make my way into the bustling village. It is about time to start to make my mark in this fantasy world.