I found myself wandering around Anka as I looked at the item and weapon shops. I was trying to get myself familiarized with the area since I had a feeling I would be in this town for a while. I arrive at a tea cafe called “Thirstea” a sign was posted directly outside the door that read “We have boba!”

‘I’m pretty sure I’ve been to this place somewhere before’

This was the meeting place that my brother mentioned. I called Maico yesterday and told him I started playing MARE, I had more than a few questions to ask about the game. He insisted we meet in-game.

As I walked through the door I heard the chime of a bell over my head announcing my arrival. A server standing at the front counter looked in my direction and greeted me with a smile.

“Please take a seat anywhere you’d like!”

“Thank you...”

I began to scan the inside of the cafe for any signs of life... Quite literally… there weren’t many people here. I was glad it was nearly empty, I didn’t want random players eavesdropping on our conversation. I spotted a man sitting alone at a booth in a corner of the cafe. He was a human with brown hair and tan skin. As soon as he noticed me he smiled and waved with enthusiasm as I started to make my way towards him.

“Hey bro long time no see!”

I already knew who he was but his demeanor made it that much more reassuring and it gave me a sense of nostalgia. I had not seen him for almost a year.

“Hey, Maico! What’s up? How have you been?”

Maico got up from his seat and gave me a warm hug.

“Haha, I’ve been good I missed you man, how long has it been? 1 year?”

“Yeah, it’s been almost a year.”

“haha, I see you picked the Krux race. Good choice! Did you need some tips on how to make a good build?”

“I had to pick Krux because it was the only way to pick the class I wanted. But that’s not what I wanted to ask you about”

“Alright well let’s sit down first I already ordered us some boba”

Maico gestured me to take a seat as he sat down as well.

I explained to him what happened after RO shut down. About my Unique traits, about my stats, my luck, the system messages, everything.

“…….”

He didn’t say anything for a while as he seemed to be deep in thought.

Almost a minute had gone by before he opened his mouth.

“Hmm… that’s interesting”

“Is that the only thing you have to say about it? I want to know if I can get in trouble if anyone finds out about my unique traits. Wouldn’t others see it as some sort of cheat?”

“Hmm... I don’t think so, getting a “unique trait” is not something that’s unheard of in this game. It’s rare but it happens”

“So you mean other’s have unique traits like me?”

“Not exactly ‘like’ you but there are definitely people out there with unique traits. Although I’ve never heard of anyone getting a unique trait at the very beginning of the game and 2 of them for that matter, not to mention before even creating a character. Some developers must really like you or something.”

“I doubt anyone likes me that much, but that does lift a weight off my shoulders... thanks”

I felt a bit more relieved knowing that I didn’t have to worry about my traits somehow getting me banned or attracting too much-unwanted attention. Although I wasn’t going to flaunt them around anyways. I still plan to be cautious and I don’t intend to paint a target on my back

“No problem! I’m sorry I can’t tell you much regarding your [Unique Traits] but I wouldn’t worry too much about them since they were given specifically to you by the system I think you were meant to have them. But If you have anything else you need help with don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I do need help with learning the basics of the game and I want to avoid the tutorial.”

Maico flashed me a big grin before he started his speech.

“Of course! What are big brothers for huh? To start off, this town ‘Anka’ is in a region called Initium, there are multiple regions and they are all categorized as low-tier, mid-tier, and high-tier. Initium is the lowest of the Low-Tier it is the very beginning after all. You will reach the Mid-Tiers around level 40. But you have to be very careful because once you leave the low-tier regions PK is permitted anywhere and there are no safe zones. The High-Tier areas are more just for end game content which you should reach around level 70. High-Tier areas aren’t very populated due to there not being sufficient players past level 60, the game really slows down once you reach the 60s range. One thing I really need to warn you about is the Blood Moon Events, There are also a lot of normal Eclipse events but Blood Moons are really bad omens. Stay in town until the Blood Moon Events are over because if you don’t……”

We continued to talk for about another 3 hours, He told me about the eclipses, blood moons, the best way to level up, guilds and players to watch out for, my class’s strengths and weakness as well as some good build paths. What items, weapons, and sets can be useful for me and how to use them. He taught me about dismantling, crafting, enchanting, reinforcing, enhancing, mounts, PVP/PK and many more things, we even caught up with each other on what we missed over the last year.

We both stood up from our seats and left the empty tea cups we finished 2 hours ago on the table and gave each other another hug.

“It was really good to see you again little bro, and if you ever need anything don’t hesitate to give me a call.”

“Sure thing”

Just as we were saying our goodbyes and we were about to go our separate ways he turned around.

“Oh by the way here, take this”

He handed me a ticket.

“What’s this?”

The ticket read ‘[Name change ticket]’

“Didn’t you come up with that name when you were like 12 years old? Don’t you want to change it?”

My brothers knew that I was only 12 when I created my first character in RO and they knew the story behind my IGN. ‘Ghost’ was the name of my Cat, and ‘DKing’ was because I was a big fan of a certain pirate show. I just thought of the things that I liked and put them together, ‘GhostDKing!’

“Nah, I like my name I’ve had it for 8 years and I plan to keep it but thanks anyway.”

I handed him back the ticket

“Alright man, you do you”

“I will”

“Take care bro!”

“You too!”

My brother waived at me as he walked away and we both said our goodbyes. I pulled out my friend list just to make sure I did indeed add him.

Friends [1/1]

Ca1tSith [Online]

“He changed his name”

Everyone knew him as xMaico on my server, but on the [Hephastos] server where he ruled as king, Ca1tSith was his name.

I left the cafe and stood outside as I checked the beginner’s equipment my brother gifted me. I equipped the short sword and cloth armor and I started to head out of town towards the fields of Initium.

But before I embarked on my new adventure in the world of Mare there was something my brother recommended. I reached Anka’s gate and I looked around the area, there were 2 guards guarding the gates.

“Excuse me” I approached the guards

“I’m looking for a man named Jean, do you know where he is?”

The guards both looked at each other for a second before looking back at me.

“You mean that drunk over there?”

The guard pointed at a man sitting down with his back against the town’s wall. He seemed to be asleep with a bottle in his hand. There was no mistaking it, the man matched the description Maico gave me perfectly. In RO online there was an NPC that would give out quests to slay X number of monsters. There was also no limit to how many times you could accept his quests. Jean served the same purpose in MARE.

“Hello, sir”

There was no reply

“……”

‘Is he even awake?’

I got a little bit closer

“Zzzz...Zzzz”

‘.....I guess not’

“WAKE UP!”

I raised my voice as well as give him a small nudge with my foot.

“Wha…. What do you want?” He looked up at with me with squinting eyes.

“I want to kill monsters”

“You want to kill monsters?”

I didn’t reply, I just continued to look straight at him. He put down his bottle and reached into his robe that looked like a yukata and pulled out a scroll.

“Let’s see here”

A window with a listing in alphabetical order appeared in front of me.

-----------------------------

12 Bats 45 minutes

10 Golems (small) 30 minutes

20 Golems (small) 60 minutes

15 Gray wolves 60 minutes

10 Red wolves 60 minutes

15 Red wolves 80 minutes

12 Spiders 50 minutes

15 Spiders 60 min…..

-----------------------------

“You can choose any one these you like but you can only have one of these active at a time. There’s also a time limit so make sure to finish the quest before the time runs out If you don’t the quest will end and you won’t gain anything.”

When I clicked on the listings it showed me the rewards. Most of them were just around 200 [Lan] and 300 [Exp] as well as different reward items like potions and other consumables. Judging by the rewards and the time limits for each monster small golems seemed to be the easiest. I wanted to test out the waters first before I went out and accidentally got myself killed.

I chose the 10 Golems quest.

“Pfft..”

I could hear Jean make a mocking sound as soon as I chose my quest, but I ignored it.

“Thanks... I’ll be leaving now”

I turned around and started to walk away from him.

“Good Luck” I faintly heard him say as I got further away from Anka.

--------------------------

I looked at my HUD display which covered all the edges and corners of my view, at the very top was a [Golems [0/10]] quest indicator, on the right edge were all the menu shortcuts, at the bottom were my health and mana bars, just under those at the very bottom there was a very long and thin bar that indicated my [Exp]. It currently indicated 0% but it wouldn’t stay like that for much longer. I looked at the bottom right of my HUD where my minimap was located. I was heading north as per the instructions from my brother. Anka was the southernmost point of Initium, further south there was nothing but barren land.

I headed north towards the Moorlands where all the monsters were and also where I could find the path to the next town. I saw a few wolf packs from a distance and immediately avoided them knowing that if they spotted me there was no chance of me coming out of it alive. I came across a very large boulder surrounded by an innumerable amount of smaller ones.

“This must be the golems”

I had played plenty of other MMOs where golems liked to disguise themselves as the terrain to the point where my instincts were screaming when I came across this scene. I picked up a small rock that was at my feet and threw it towards the golems. I wanted to see if I could aggro just a few of them. I wanted to avoid a situation where they could all swarm me at once. Or the worst possible scenario where the huge boulder in the center turns out to be a field boss.

I kept creeping closer and closer throwing tiny rocks at them as I approached. I was around 25 meters away from the edge-most golem when I picked up another rock and threw it. A few of the small boulders started to rumble. The golems stood up and slowly started to walk towards me. I aggroed 6 of them, I quickly took out my sword.

“Why did my brother give me a sword instead of a cane or staff if I’m a Dark Mage?” some may ask. But the answer is simple because I’m still Level 1 I don’t have any magic spells and it’s much easier killing monsters when you hit them with a sword instead of a cane.

Once the golems were within 20m of me a health bar appeared over their heads along with their name and levels. From what my brother told me this shouldn’t be the case. He said that unlike RO were you could clearly see the monster’s names, health bar, and levels in MARE they wouldn’t be visible unless you used a skill like detect or a scan spell.

Things began to make more sense [King’s domain] was an area where RO’s rules would apply. It’s like I never left RO... NO! It was like I brought RO with me into MARE! A huge grin appeared on my face at the idea that RO wasn’t truly dead. But at the moment I didn’t have the time to indulge in my happiness I could see the golems were already a mere 3 meters away.

I clenched my sword and started swinging down at them. The golems were about chest high and were mostly made of rocks and hardened mud with some moss growing on them.

*Klunk.. klunk.. klunk.. klunk*

It felt like I wasn’t doing any damage to them as my sword bounced off their bodies. But the red numbers appearing over their heads and their clearly depleting health bars said otherwise. I focused on the golem closest to me as I kited backward. Their stubby arms were not long enough to match the length of my extended sword. I kept my distance as I continued to bash them with my sword

*Klunk.. klunk.. klunk.. klunk*

It took about 10 hits to take the first golem down

[You have gained 25 [Exp]]

[You have gained 16 [Lan]]

[You have gained 10 [RP]]

[You picked up a [Rock]]

A few messages appeared on the left side of my HUD. I understood most of them except for one.

“What the fuck is RP?”