My plan was pretty simple but at the same time a bit hard to follow.

Although I’d just received access to my interface there was no stopping people learning about the different statistics ahead of time. Most of them aligned with traditional RPGs I’d read about and were fairly self explanatory, but the one stat that wasn’t straightforward was the one I planned on raising.

Aether saturation had to do with how much Aether your body naturally absorbed and held at any given time. The Aether was how humans generated their mana and was also tied into the strength of spells cast with mana. Most of the exact numbers were not exactly common knowledge as those who were capable of wielding great magic were also disgustingly stingy about who they shared the information or training methods with.

There were ways to naturally raise your saturation through various meditation or cultivation techniques, or so I had been told. After spending an entire eight hours sitting outside with my eyes closed and not feeling any changes, I’d given up on that quickly. Looking at the minute amount in my interface now that I could actually measure it didn’t reassure me that culviating it was the correct path either.

Everytime a merchant passed through town I would always ask them if they owned any books or knew of the path to power, and it was almost always a bust. However, one of the merchants who’d passed through last spring gave me knowledge that I hadn't heard before.

I approached him when he was at his cooking fire with his guards as they’d elected to stay in Tinyton overnight rather than risk the roads and night. The merchant was an older man with a weathered appearance and greyed hair. I was apprehensive to approach him because it was apparent from a distance that he’d been drinking, but I steeled my nerves and pushed through anyways.

‘Those disgusting wizards will never tell you how they gained their power, they all sit up high in their towers and dingle each other and themselves all day rather than help humanity advance.’ When first I asked him if he knew anything about wizards, I earned myself a 10 minutes rant about how wizards were the worst of the worst, super cheap, and would try to scam any honorable merchant out of their coin.

Apparently they were all natural hagglers and had higher charisma, allowing them to ‘swindle’ people out of their goods. From what I’d seen of his prices, the wizards he encountered likely wanted to pay what the goods were worth, not the ludicrous markup his items were sold for. I didn’t say that to him though, as he may have knowledge I wanted. Every minute of his drunken babbling had made me want to just walk away, but I didn’t and it was a good thing that I hadn’t.

‘There are other ways though, ways nobody mentions because they wouldn’t risk it. You ever hear about how much larger and powerful the mutant beasts are closer to the nerf sites? They soak up the Aether and it empowers them, it even gifts some of them with wisdom and magic.’

‘That’s all a myth though, everybody knows you can’t survive in the nerf sites.’ At the time, I’d believed that to be the truth. If somebody could live there then why would they ever leave, what with the entire area being filled with magical power.

‘And that is exactly what the people in power want you to think. The most powerful and lucrative dungeons and instances are located near the nerf-sites, and that's how the powerful stay in power. They farm the areas along with their goons and try to keep everyone else out. They say it's for public health, all because some people have adverse effects to the exposure. Eh? Yeah, adverse effects. Some people lose their hair, or a limb, or the coloring in their skin. Or they get a new color, grow more hair in strange places, or extra limbs. You get the point. But it isn’t that common I say.’

I stopped listening to his drunken wisdom at that point, knowing that it was going nowhere fast. I’d already gotten what I wanted, my road to power. I realized that even though I’d been told that the areas were unsurvivable, that didn’t align with what I’d heard of other tales. Like the origin of the elven race or the dwarves, who came froth from various nerf-sites.

I’d finally figured out what I was going to do, I was going to trek to one of the nerf-sites that wasn’t controlled by the government in order to gain power. The journey would be dangerous, and there was a high likelihood of my dying, but it was what I wanted out of life. So began my training with the hunters of the village, learning how to live off the land and follow tracks. I’d even learned how to wield a weapon from the town guard and exchanged one of my first kills for a poor quality salvaged spear.

Most of the weapons the village owned were of poor quality, due to our being located nowhere near any mountains or major mines. Instead we created our armour and weaponry from melting down the dead metal carriages of ages past that were located along the paved roads.

I went back home and packed the road rations I’d prepared in the coming weeks, dried grain biscuits and smoked jackalope. The jackalope had been a lucky kill, usually the deer-rabbit hybrids were far too fast to catch with a spear but I’d managed to find one that had been injured by another wild animal and stole the kill. The pelt had been sold to the tanner and I used the coin to buy a new bag to carry my belongings in and a waterskin.

After I stowed several changes of clothing, the food, spare cloth to be used as bandages, and several other essentials in my bag, I made toward to field to say goodbye to my parents.

They’d known for some time that I had no intention of sticking around in Tinyton, but I hadn’t yet told them where I was headed. Truth be told I wasn’t even sure of where I would go, just that I would be going west. Away from the government, and way from the shithole called Florida. West, toward my destiny. Toward wealth, power, land unsettled, and magic.

I found my father where I thought I would, just outside the outskirts of the village, although my mother was nowhere in sight. They were doing their best to finish off the crop of bell peppers and potatoes before the first frost set in, and spent most of their days ripping out the rampant weeds that sucked life from the area and spending what little mana they had to grow crops.

I approached my father and he looked up at me before returning to funnel his mana into the pepper bush, trying to encourage it to bloom again. I decided to help and spent my mana on [Weak Growth]. The effect was almost instantaneous as the magic drained from me and left my arms feeling weak and my head lightheaded. 9 of my 10 available mana sprung forth from my fingers and reinvigorated the plant, causing it to bloom and even grow a single small pepper from the end of one of the branches.

“Eh. Good one son.” My father was a proud man. He had once been apart of the town’s guard until he hurt himself fighting off a wave of beasts. He didn’t talk much about his past, and was a very quiet man more content to farm his fields than attend a dinner party. We were a lot alike in that aspect, both very unsocial. “I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind?”

“I’m afraid not, Father. I’m dropping by to say goodbye, where is Mom?”

“Laura is away with the Jackson brothers collecting water.”

“Do you know how long she will be?”

“A couple minutes longer than you’ll be here, if my guess is correct.”

Ahh, so that’s how it was. My mother was a very timid woman and had been vehemently opposed to my leaving town. We had a falling out almost a week back that ending in screaming and yelling about whose right it was to leave or stay. She told me that if that was the way I was going to be, than I was no son of hers. The last thing she’d said to me was good riddance.

“Right… I thought she may have changed her mind and would want to see me off. Guess I’ll be going then.”

“Wait.” My father shocked me by pulling me into a heavy embrace that lasted longer than usual, “You need to stay safe, you hear me? I know what it is like to feel wonderlust, I didn’t always live here after all. Just… If things get too tough, know that you’re still welcome here. Laura is going to regret everything she said to you, and regret not seeing you off, but she loves you, okay son? Where are you heading.”

“West.” He released me from the hug and held me at arms length. Then, with a final pat on both my shoulders and a nod of his head, he said goodbye. I looked away before wiping away the tears that had collected in my eyes and strode off toward the western edge of town, taking a short break to grab my spear where I’d stashed it away from my Mother. I didn’t put it past her to hide my weapon in order to try and convince me to stay.

I found my chosen path of Us 98, a road labeled by the past generations that was referred to these days as Westway, and set out with spear in hand and hopes in my heart.