Ren has been walking for a few hours. He left Jona village the previous day and has yet to see anyone else on the road. As he walked around a bend, Ren began to hear arguing coming from up ahead.

"We should go back to the village before we go any further. We'll be back there anyway when we die of hunger if we continue. By taking a few days to go back and collect supplies we'll save ourselves from losing a level." (Male voice)

"But we'd be losing so much time if we went back! We can just gather food as we walk. That way we don't have to carry any." (Female voice)

"Well do you know how to hunt? How about what plants we can eat? Can you cook? I know we can't and I've heard that it's not that easy to learn either" (Male voice)

Ren had finished walking around the bend at this point and saw a party of three people standing in the middle of the road in front of him. There was one male, one female, and one person wearing a robe so Ren couldn't tell their gender. The male looked to be about 5'11" and was dressed as a warrior. He wore a breastplate, arm guards, greaves, and a helmet, all of which were made of iron. He also had a shield across his back and a short sword at his waist. The warrior looked to be arguing with the girl who's about 5'8" with brown hair that reached down to the upper portion of her back. She wore leather armor and arm guards, had a quiver on her back, and a bow over one shoulder marking her as an archer. The third person was small, about 4'8, and was wearing a long robe with a hood so Ren couldn't tell what they looked like nor could he see any weapons. Ren guessed that they were some kind of specialist or a healer of some sort.

Ren caught sight of the trio at the same time they saw him. The shortest one interrupted the warrior and the archer and pointed in his direction. The warrior looked a little surprised to see someone else on the road but the archer looked ecstatic and energetically motioned for Ren to approach. Ren walked towards them but readied himself to run away if it came to a fight. The archer who was beckoning moved right up close to Ren, stuck her face close to his, opened her mouth, took a deep breath and said,

"Can you cook?" she asked

Ren’s was stunned into silence by the random question, he was extremely confused by her. After a few moments of silence the archer started pouting as she was getting a little impatient by Ren's lack of answer. She opened her mouth say something but it was quickly covered by the hand of the warrior and she was pulled back.

"Sorry about that, all she thinks about is food." said the warrior.

"I do not!" the archer said indignantly, shoving the warriors hand away.

"Right," said the warrior, giving the archer a look that said he didn't believe her. "Are you by any chance heading to Crale?” He asked

“Yeah. I’m looking to join the Craftsmen Guild. You?” Ren said

“We’re looking to join the academy there. It’s supposed to one of the best in the area.” The male said.

“Why do you want to join an academy?” Ren asked

‘Academies can help you level up faster and teach you skills that you otherwise wouldn’t know. They teach all kinds of thing from normal combat to magic. They probably teach crafting too.” He said.

“Interesting. Maybe I’ll look into it.” Ren said ‘Anyway, maybe I’ll see you guys around.” Ren said as he started walking away.

“Please wait a moment.” The male said, reaching out to grab Ren’s shoulder but stopping just short of doing so. “Since we’re traveling in the same direction, why don’t we party up and travel together? There’s safety in number after all and traveling by yourself will be rather lonely.”

“No offence, but we just met. How do you know I’m not a bandit player? How do I know you’re not one?” Ren said.

“I can assure you we’re not bandits. If we were, we would have already taken you’re stuff by now. As for if you were one, unless you’re a much higher level than us I doubt you could fight three on one. My name’s Powell by the way. I’m a level 16 Human Warrior though I want to be a Guardian at some point. These are my teammates.”

"I’m Lixiss," the archer said, "I'm a level 15 elf archer. Nice to meet you." she said, pulling back her hair with one hand to show her pointed ears while shaking Ren’s hand with the other. "The quite one is Azriel," Lixiss said pointing at the shortest member, "She's a level 15 human Rogue. Don't expect her to say much. She’s pretty shy." Lixiss did a circuit around Ren, examining him, before suddenly stopping and leaning closer "so can you cook? And what’s your name? Your class? Where did you get that armor? Did you make it? Are you a craftsman? Are you any good at figh..mmfffh." the flood of questions was once again stopped by Powell's hand.

"Sorry again, she not very good people." Powell said, it earned him a glare, which he ignored.

Ren just ignored their antics and introduced himself

"My name is Krono, I’m a human. I'm level 13 and I don't have a class yet." Ren replied, “and yes I can cook, but I wouldn't say that it the food I make is all that good."

When he mentioned that he could cook Lixiss' eyes light up. She pushed Powell's hand away and asked, "Can you join our party? Please?" Lixiss was practically begging him to join.

"You won't have to fight if you don't want to, you can just do the cooking and stay in the back." Powell added

"Ummm..." Ren didn't know how to reply. While traveling with a party would be safer, Ren didn't know these people, they could be player killers for all he knew.

"Well since you're not agreeing yet you leave me no choice but to use our secret weapon!" Lixiss said and she moved behind Azriel. "Feast your eyes on this!" she yelled as she removes Azriel's hood.

When the hood was removed Ren saw shoulder length silver gray hair framing a cute face with silver gray eyes that matched the hair. Azriel was trying to cover her face while attempting to pull her hood back up, though Lixiss wasn't letting that happen. All together there was only one word that could describe what Ren was seeing, adorable. Eventually Azriel won the battle for her hood and pulled it back up, though not as far as she had previously.

"So do you want to join now?" asked Lixiss.

"ummm...I don't know," Ren began when he felt a tug on his coat, "hmm?" he looked down

Azriel, who had walked up to Ren and tugged on his coat, was now looking up at him. When she had his attention she said one word, "...food..."

Ren sighed. He couldn't take anymore. Lixiss was begging, Azriel was gazing up at him in a slightly hopeful expression, and Powell was just laughing at his predicament.

"Fine!" Ren said loudly, "I'll join your party."

"Yes!" Lixiss yelled out happily, throwing both of her arms up in victory.

"Welcome to the party." Powell said

Ding!

System Message You have been invited to the party

'Lost Brigade' would you like to accept?

"Yes"

Ding!

System Message You have joined the party 'Lost Brigade'

_______________________________________________________________________

*Later that day*

The sun was just starting to set when the party stopped for the day to make camp. They had traveled for several more hours after Ren had joined the party and they hadn't yet run into any monsters or bandits so they made good time. It didn't take long to set up camp and Ren soon had a fire going thanks to [Primitive Fire Creation], which seemed to impress the others. Ren pulled out a small metal cooking pot and pan and started preparing the food. In real life Ren wasn't that great a cook but he knew enough to get by. Ren filled the pot with water set it to boil. While the water was heating up, Ren cut up some rabbit meat he had collected earlier and set about cooking it in the pan with some vegetables and spices. After a few minutes the water in the pot was boiling so Ren took it off and dropped some herbs in it in an attempt to make something like tea. The rabbit was almost done and was emitting such a delicious smell that it was causing Powell, Lixiss, and Azriel to drool. Ren was concentrating on cooking so he didn't notice. When the food and tea were done the only sounds that could be heard were that of food being shoveled into mouths, tea being slurped, and plates being scraped clean. When all of the food was eaten and the tea drunk, the party just relaxed around the fire, enjoying each other’s company and the peaceful atmosphere. Powell was the first one to break the silence that surrounded them.

"While we're waiting for the sun to raise I’m going to log off and take care of a few things. See you all in a few hours." with that Powell logged off

"I think I will as well." Lixiss said, Azriel nodded in agreement, "Cya in a bit." They both logged off, leaving Ren by himself, though he wasn't worried

In Second Awakening people don't usually travel alone, as that makes them an easier target for monster, raiders, and player killers. The reason Ren wasn't worried about being alone was because of the camp. In Second Awakening when people are traveling from town to town they can set up something called a camp. A camp is a temporary safe haven that can be setup by anyone, npc's included. While inside the area of the camp monster attack are less frequent, health, mana, and stamina regeneration is improved, and the residents of the camp get a defensive buff, though the buff is only active if they get attacked first, not if they attack first.

After the other three left Ren tried to think of something to do. After a few minutes of thinking he remembered something he’d seen in Jona a lot but never really gave much thought to until now. In Jona Ren had seen people sitting on the ground, legs crossed and eyes closed, with a look of intense concentration on their face. Ren was bored so he thought that he’d give it a shot. Sitting down with his legs crossed, Ren put his hands on his knees and closed his eyes, trying to copy what he had seen people doing. Not knowing what to concentrate on he didn't focus on anything. After several minutes Ren was thinking about stopping and doing something else. It was boring just sitting there and not doing anything. He almost gave up but decided that since so many people were doing it so it must be useful in some way and kept at it.

Ren had been sitting and breathing for around 30 minutes when a message notification had broken his concentration. Slightly annoyed because he had just started to relax and the feeling of calmness and peace he had briefly felt had felt good, Ren open his eyes to read the message.

System MessageConcentration has increased by 1

Ren sighed at the unimportant message before dismissing it and disabling notifications and going back to what he was doing, wanting to get back to that feeling of peace. Ren closed his eyes and placed his hands in his lap and reached out the feeling. It only took a few minutes to get there this time and Ren let the calmness slowly fill his body. As the calmness fill him, Ren began feeling like he was slowly sinking into a sea of peace. He kept sinking for what could have been minutes or hours but he didn't care, all Ren cared about right now was how deep into this sea he could get, feeling like he was being called to go deeper. Heeding this call Ren went as deep as he could, the peace and calm staying throughout but something new joining in. This something new felt powerful and fierce but controlled, like a storm inside a bottle. Just as Ren was about to cross into this realm of calm but fierce energy he felt himself blocked by a barrier and, try as he might, he could not breakthrough.

After time Ren gave up and left his sea of tranquility, as he had come to call it, and opened his eyes. Than immediately closed them to protect his sight. The sun had risen while he was relaxing and it hurt to open his eyes. Ren tried again but used his hand to shield his eyes from the worst of it while they adjusted. When he could see Ren looked around but didn't see any sign of the trio being back. Ren check his friends list to see how long it had been since they had logged in to see that it had been 16 in game hours, or a little over three ours in the real world. He then turned on notifications to see what had happened.

System Message Concentration increased by 32

System Message Congratulations! You have learned a new skill!

Mediation - Active

(Beginner - lvl 1 - 0%)

A skill usually used by practitioners of martial arts

or by mages, meditation allows one to calm their mind.

It can relax a person as well as increase their

Concentration. Meditation can also sometimes

lead to the discovery of one’s inner energy or

even access to one’s soul.

-Increases regeneration of mana and ki

-removes the [fear] and [confusion] statuses

-improves concentration

System Message Mediation increased a level x8

While Ren wasn't surprised by the new skill he was extremely surprised about the large increase in concentration and dumbfounded about the fact that [meditation] had leveled up 8 times! Interested about how far he was from a rank up in [meditation].

"Statues window [meditation]"

System Message Mediation - Active

(Beginner - lvl 9 - 99%)

A skill usually used by practitioners of martial arts

or by mages, meditation allows one to calm their mind.

It can relax a person as well as increase their

Concentration. Meditation can also sometimes

lead to the discovery of one’s inner energy or

even access to one’s soul.

-Increases regeneration of mana and ki

-Removes the [fear] and [confusion] statuses

-Improves concentration

Ren was shocked again. He had just gotten [meditation] and it was almost at the rank of intermediate! As he thought Ren noticed something else odd, while the rate of advancement for extremely rapid, it was even weirder that it would just stop at 99%.

It’s almost like there's a barrier between the different ranks, he thought.

At that moment Ren felt as though he was struck by lightning.

A barrier! Of course! If I can break through it [meditation] can rank up! Ren was thinking of the barrier he had felt while meditating.

Ren was just about to try to break the barrier again when Powell logged in, followed by Lixiss and Azriel a few minutes later. Not wanting to waste any time, they packed up the camp and started traveling towards Crale once again.