Although most of the last three real world days had been spent on being locked out of the game due to dying as well as running from the village to the cave on foot, it had not been a total loss. Since he was level 1 and had 0% in all his skills, there was no real loss for dying. Any items that would remain with his corpse would be either rye bread or his canteen and would be easily retrieved once he was back in the cave.

Back out of the capsule, he had gone back and read the early chapters of the game guides and understood more about the concepts and interface of the game itself. Still he only had twenty seven days left to get his review done and his character was still a wet-behind-the-ears newbie.

To reduce the impact of the loss of game time, he was intensely focused on finding ways to improve multiple stats at the same time. During the three or so hours in between dying and running cross country to the cave, he had managed to get some mining done and in doing so, received two system messages.

Strength increases by 1 point.

Agility increases by 1 point.

Strength was expected since the game guides had explained that miners could expect increases in Strength by doing intensive mining just as a person hitting a scarecrow sufficient times would increase in combat stats. He could also expect increases in Stamina and, at a lesser rate, Vitality as well.

The interesting part was the increase in Agility which none of the game guides had mentioned. That as well as the speed the stats had been given. The guides had all calculated the normal speed to around 1 point of Strength per 12 hours but he had gotten +1 in 3 hours

"This is good progress. It was a gamble whether all that balancing by Thorny would actually improve the agility stat but It really worked. Gains will probably slow down later but right now i need to mix the postures around though or I’ll start losing points from wisdom."

From reading the game guides, he was aware that constant repetition lowered the Wisdom stat. Losing points from a stat would have absolutely be avoided if possible since the net gains would be zero if you gained a point in Strength or some other stat then lost a point in Wisdom.

Once he was back in game after his death from choking and had come to terms with Thorny regarding the speed at which he would be literally be force fed the bread soup, he told Thorny about his new plan.

"Thorny, I’m going to balance the barrel on my head now instead of carrying it on my back, don't let it spill okay? We’ll also need to continue standing on one leg while mining."

"Just do it, it’s important"

“I also need you to think of a number between one to a hundred for me to guess.”

It was a time of torture (for Thorny) but by the end of it, Jinyang had gained points in strength, stamina, agility, vitality and even luck. As his luck improved, the rarer ores appeared during mining more often.

The rather obvious increase greatly improved Thorny’s mood. There had even been tiny amounts of mithril mined. Far from enough to patch the hole in it but still it showed that there was a benefit to working with the insane human. It also reduced the propensity for Thorny to closely question the human’s every plan.

By the end of the second in game day of non-stop mining, he had gained 10 points in strength, 8 in stamina, and 5 in vitality while also gaining 15 points in agility and 6 in luck. This was much faster than beating on a scarecrow which had been the popular method to train stats. Part of the reason was probably because Jinyang changed the postures and style of mining every four hours (after gulping down the bread soup) while another major reason was probably because Thorny, having unlimited stamina and being the puppeteer, could remain unaffected by the limitations of Jinyang’s virtual body and continued to push it to and past the limit. In fact most of the time, Jinyang was mining with stamina at 0 which would normally not be possible at all. He had, in essence, become a robot.

But the gravy train came to a crashing halt as a new system message popped up

Due to excessive exhaustion, you have been forcibly logged out and will not be allowed to log in for 12 hours.

As the gravitic field lowered Jinyang to the ground, his body felt incredibly sore. The system had actually moved this body in the exact postures as he was in game though applying varying amounts of force and pressure. The actual time he was in those positions was only a fourth of in game time though and movements were not always exact copies of those in game.

From reading the game guides, he had understood that the newer versions of the capsule used a mixture of physical and mental stimulation. When he was using the mining pick five times on the cave wall, his real body had actually moved following the same motion but only once. The second to fifth movements were just the capsule causing recalls from both muscle memory and actual memory of the first strike. This allowed any player to think they were using high speed multi-strikes that some combat skills granted without having to train or be fit enough to do it in real life.

The main reason for this was that when Royal road was first introduced, illnesses and other effects linked to a sedentary life style (of sitting in the capsule for hours) caused a social backlash and thus new versions of the capsule was designed to mollify the critics. In fact, the more recent Royalroad advertisements had specifically targeted it as being a fun weight loss activity if you purchased the newest model of the capsule. Safety thresholds were introduced to prevent anyone from being adversely affected by excessive exercise, which was what had caused Jinyang’s expulsion.

Of course the maximum force and pressure that could be applied by the gravitic field would never become life threatening or actually damaging. A player would not be quashed into a pancake even if his or her avatar fell off a mountain.

It was a good thing he was forced out of the capsule as the sudden surge of hours of muscle stretching had overstressed his out of shape body. Inside the capsule, neural dampeners had reduced how much of his real world tiredness he felt and once those were removed, the full impact of his exhaustion rolled over him.

"Ughh... So tired...Gotta eat..."

Stumbling into the kitchen, he grabbed slices of bread from a container, dunked them into water and munched on them listlessly. It looked (and tasted) very much similar to when he was force fed soggy rye bread in game. Swallowing the last of the bread he simply put his cheek down on the cold floor of the kitchen and basically lost consciousness.

It became routine for Jinyang to continue mining in Royalroad until forced out by the system after which he became closely acquainted with the taste of soggy bread both in game and out as well as the cold hard floor. Despite there being no let up in the intensity, the stat gains slowed greatly. By the time he had finished his first ten real world days in the game, he had completed the period with Mining at Beginner 8 and gaining 45 strength, 35 stamina, 15 vitality, 45 agility and 22 luck. The wagon was fully loaded with ores of iron, copper, tin, zinc and even precious metals such as silver and gold. Raw mithril and black iron ore had also been gathered but the quantities were vastly smaller, It was time to leave the cave.

"The time for the adventure to begin has come Thorny. We can mine more later."

"No problem. Our first destination will be Mythos, the beautiful capital of Mintarn!"

Half a day later...

"Thorny don't shake so much, I’m trying to remember which card has that picture of Freya. And I’m guessing the number you are thinking of, is thirty eight."

In Mythos or more specifically, the Training Hall in Mythos, Jinyang or more specifically his body under Thorny’s control, was hitting a sad looking scarecrow with a wooden sword in one hand while doing the splits or at least an approximation of the splits. The other hand was busy turning over 2 mixed decks of poker cards that were spread out face down. He was using the cards in an attempt to form pairs with the exact same suit and value in hopes of improving his intelligence stat. A few players were discussing what he was doing.

"That armour he's wearing, it looks very expensive"

"What is the doing? Training up stats? If he is, what's up with the cards?"

"He's been hitting that scarecrow without slowing down at all for eight hours. His stamina must be at least 400."

"Looks like someone bought a high level account and is showing off..."

"Yeah, looks like some rich guy doing rich things. You guys still wanna hang around?!?"

The guesses became "truth" as the group of people informed other newcomers of what Jinyang was all about. Most gave him glares or disgusted looks before going about their business. A young boy however was not discouraged, running up to him.

"Mister, they say you're high level. Can you tell me something big about the world?"

Jinyang (and Thorny) paused in their activity and looked at the boy and after spending a while considering, he replied.

"I'm going to tell you something that you will find out when you get older."

"Life sucks then you die."

The boy looked at him a frown growing bigger and bigger before...

"Waaahhhhh.... Waaaaahhhh...."

The tears of the boy attracted angry glares from the surrounding players and even some NPCs. A young woman led the boy away consoling him while still throwing scowls at him.

Jinyang was stunned. He had told the boy the biggest truth he had found up until now and yet everyone was mad at him.

"Perhaps that's another truth. People never like to hear the truth…"

You have been offered a chance to change to a choice of one of 3 restricted races, Undead, Demon or Dark spirit by becoming evil. Do you wish to become evil in alignment?

"No way!"

You have refused to change to an evil alignment

"No, it’s because these powers of darkness suck big time. Undead? What, so i can take more damage from holy energy? Or maybe so i can enjoy being damaged when i get a priest to cast a healing spell on me. Here, let me pay you to cause me more injury. And when i really want to be healed? I have to go and hunt for a necromancer or dark priest who, by the way if you didn’t know, are normally driven out of civilized areas. Look! I get to enter into dangerous wilderness with most of my health gone so I can find a healer!"

"And Demons. Sounds dangerous and powerful eh? But not only do they take extra damage and are weakened from just proximity to a holy person or place, you have to start off at the bottom of the food chain as some imp that's the size of a cat. Then if you kill a thousand holy creatures, you get to become a Succubus. Let me repeat that, I get to become a cat and if I do well as a cat, i get to change into a female demon out to seduce guys. Yuck!!"

"And Dark spirit? Really?!? Oooo, I get to fly though solid walls! Then what? Kill some creature and watch as other people loot it? Maybe enjoy the feeling of looking at gold and jewels because I would, sure as day, not get to hold them. Oooo, i get to remain poor, that's soooo wonderful..."

"And on top of that, i don't know who designs the armour and weapons for you forces of darkness people but they are really, really, really bad. A sword that's so carved with demonic faces that just holding it makes you hand hurt? And that can't be good for the balance either. And the armour for newbie darkness guys must have been made by clowns or real jokers because i can find no other reason to explain why they made hooks and spikes facing inward. Yeah maybe if you liked pain a lot, it would be a good thing..."

Thorny shrank a bit more with each sentence. It had not seen someone dissecting the faction of evil like a fishmonger's wife on a sunday market. Normally when he mentioned "Forces of Darkness", people would either be impressed, fearful or intimidated. This was not something he had ever expected.

However Jinyang was then up on his soapbox and could not be stopped.

"You guys need to catch up with the times. Want new blood to join you? Make sure you have something to offer. Give out a free quest C level item reward for a spanking brand new player and they'll sign right up. And you should offer the dark priest or dark magician classes, maybe even the hell knight as a class people could get into. Got to be something strong without major disadvantages."

"And you need to advertise your services. Have a slogan like 'Want to bring hell to your enemies? We can help'. Have some posters with Sucubbi or some sexy dark priestesses. Got to catch those eyeballs before they start joining the other side. Just waiting around won't help. And make it easier to contact you. Open up a few offices of evil or something for people to sign up at. The equipment? Get those from merchants. It’s cheaper and way better than that crap you guys make. Maybe even give out a fixed amount of gold as an expense allowance for fresh joiners to choose their own stuff."

"Of course not! Not until I’m filthy rich myself first! Until then, my motto is everyone should share with me."

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