Chapter Nine

Improvised Training

Fred woke up that next morning with a strange feeling nagging at the back of his mind. All attempts to return to sleep failed miserably, he decided to walk down and get an early breakfast while he waited for the rest of his group to join him. As Fred was walking to a table however, the door to the inn opened, and in the doorway he thought he recognized the man standing there. Chris? No. Kevin? No. He snapped his fingers. Carl. That was it, Carl.

“Oh G__”

Fred’s eyes widened and he thought he was going to be sick as he saw Carl vomit blood, bile and what looked like remnants of Taco Hell burritos, then collapse into the pool, seemingly unconscious.

He went to help, but a firm hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“We’ll get him a room and cleaned up, he’ll be fine.”

Shadow’s voice came from behind him, which meant it was Akiro stopping him from moving forward.

“But what happened?”

Fred was seriously confused and concerned at the same time.

“This world, and the one controlling it, very much don’t like foreign deities. Even though he’s not one himself yet, he’s close to becoming one. Words and names have power, and he most certainly does not want their attention on this world.”

Fred frowned, absorbed enough in what was going on that he did not notice his group coming down the stairs as Carl collapsed. Zach had an odd look on his face that Fred couldn’t quite place.

“Move him to an empty room on the sixth floor, please.”

Shadow said to Akiro, who nodded and moved quickly, disappearing up the stairs. When had he picked up Carl?

“Now everyone, we need to have a meeting for your training, due to the circumstances.”

Her voice seemed to reverberate throughout the entirety of the inn. Fred guessed that it was another one of her skills. It made a sort of sense to him.

“Any idea what’s going to happen to Carl?”

He asked Shadow.

“Nothing, he’ll be fine. He won’t be able to do anything for a day though, which is also fine as this world is severely unforgiving of anyone trying to go off alone. Max groups are six people, and only him and the other three unknowns aren’t in a group. No, before you ask, they cannot be changed unless someone in a group dies permanently.”

Tanya’s eyes widened as Zach nodded slowly. He had heard as much from his family.

“Or unless they’re exiled from the group for an extreme reason.”

He muttered softly.

Only shadow heard him, and didn’t comment on it, though she did look at him briefly with a raised bushy eyebrow.

Before anything else could be done or said, the door to the inn slammed open, and a huge hand; the kind you would expect to see on a minotaur, reached in and dropped a {Bag of Holding} on the ground. “Carl” was written on it, in what seemed to be blood.

Shadow rolled her eyes, picked it up and tossed it to Akiro, who had just been coming back down the stairs. He returned back upstairs. She smacked the hand, the creature grunted and the door closed behind the hand.

“What the fuck?”

Tanya blurted out.

“{Gigantous Flame Minotaur}, usually chases one of the unknown earthborn from The Khazam’s antechamber, since he can’t teleport individuals from there, only groups.”

“Huh.”

That was all Fred managed.

“Wait, is that what the natives call us?”

Kate asked, eyebrows knit.

“Not much else we could call you, honestly. But enough small talk, everyone take a seat.”

Akiro came down from the upper floors yet again, and stood in the middle of the room, waiting for every group, besides the three missing groups and the other three unknowns to take a seat.

“Weak ones should have been level five before coming here, yet issues popped their ugly heads above ground. Only {Red Mage} Carl is not so weak, this is issue.”

Shadow nodded and continued for him.

“Akiro will be taking a few of your groups out at a time to help you learn more of the basics that you should have learned before coming here, including getting to level ten before moving on to the next town and helping to decide your attribute allotments.”

“I will also be helping with the attribute allotments for {Directors} and casters, as Akiro is much more familiar with melee types.”

Shadow nodded at Akiro, and he threw open the door to the inn, shouting behind him and taking off at a run.

“Front row weaklings, follow!”

“Rogues go with him too.”

Shadow added, looking at Stan, then at a few other people leaning on walls around the room. They each looked at each other, then seemed to melt away a moment later.

She nodded approvingly, this bunch was going to be interesting indeed, if their rogues were already practicing their skills this much.

Akiro stood at the back of the group, nodding slowly. These weak ones weren’t so stupid. John stood at his back, the only one to realize that Akiro was pretending to be the {Director} of the group, and so needed a priority on guarding. Zach stood on the opposite site of Akiro, at the eleven o’clock position. The others had formed up in front and not even bothered to check the scenario or why one of their very few paladins or monks were in the back behind their teacher. They, and Stan, the seemingly very adept and head of the Rogues of this group, were the only ones that seemed to grasp the extreme importance of managing their Spirit, Mana, and Stamina. Akiro nodded again, agreeing silently with Shadow’s earlier assessment of this centuries batch. They would go far, and maybe even kill The Khazam. Of course, the repercussions of that… Akiro shook his head, clearing his mind.

“Incoming!”

Akiro barked out harshly, seeing the group of Level three {Dire Wolves} encircling them due to his level fifty skill, {Supreme Absolute Perception}.

{Supreme Absolute Perception}: Minimal level to acquire: fifty. Required elemental attunements: Fire, Air, Water, Light, Sensory.

Cost: N/A

Passive skill

Further Requirements to attain: five hundred battles successfully won where {Absolute Perception} of previous tier was able to detect enemies before the battle began.

Effect: the user scans a radius of five hundred yards to detect any hostile entities, being alerted immediately of detected enemies’ levels, skills, elemental weaknesses, stats, and status effects.

Stan’s eyebrows rose as his new passive {Identify Skill} ability triggered at that skill going off.

{Identify Skill} Skill unique to Rogues that allows them to know the effects, status, and requirements of other Skills that allies use.

As Zach, John, and the other frontline fighters began their training under Akiro, the {Directors} and their ranged allies were having their own fun.

“Now, {Directors}, make sure you have all your spell scrolls learned and your stat points allotted.” Shadow suggested lightly, coming to a stop in a clearing at the base of the nearest mountain, roughly five miles away.

Fred pulled up his status screen.

Fred – {Director} Invoker

Available Attribute Points: 5

Health

75

Mana

150

Strength

7

Intellect

15

Dexterity

10

Agility

10

Mana regen

15

Stamina regen

5

mana

15

Stamina (cannot be increased for your class)

10

Invocation Focus

10

Spirit Manipulation

20

“Make sure not to focus too heavily in one stat, for your sake, and your party. Bards, I would recommend Dexterity or Focus. Invokers, Invocation Focus or Spirit Manipulation.”

“What do you mean by not focusing too heavily in one stat? what happens?” A stout man with a full beard and a drum hanging off his shoulders in front of him asked. Chris, Fred thinks his name is.

Shadow smiles gently and nods towards him.

“Glad you asked. It’s actually because of Bards that people are suggested to not put too much focus into one stat. We keep seeing bards put all their attribute points into focus, which is great for your class. However, putting points only into focus has caused many party wipes.”

“How?”

Chris looked bewildered.

“Because the bards focused so intently on what they were doing, and keeping buffs up, they didn’t notice their tank get outright killed and the Spirit of the rest of the party plummet, or vice versa.”

Shadow looked at him with such intensity, Fred had a feeling that none of the bards would be investing in focus whatsoever today.

“Intelligence also has a place among your stats however, as it increases the potency of your spells, such as {Sound Wall} or {Fire Wall}, allowing them to protect you from more damage while reflecting more damage or inflicting more damage, whatever the case may be.”

Fred thought it over for a moment, then decided to put two points into Intelligence, one point into Mana Regeneration, and two points into Spirit Manipulation. His new stat window looked like this:

Health

75

Mana

150

Strength

7

Intellect

17

Dexterity

10

Agility

10

Mana regen

16

Stamina regen

5

mana

15

Stamina (cannot be increased for your class)

10

Invocation Focus

10

Spirit Manipulation

22

Shadow nodded slowly, then pointed towards the end of the clearing where the shadows were deepest.

“I want you {Directors} to put up alternating walls of sound and the other elements, remember that you can control what passes through the walls.”

“Even ice walls?”

A bright pink haired girl asked, raising an eyebrow, looking at her staff dubiously.

“Yes, just somewhat harder to do.”

“How…?”

“You’ll have to figure some things out on your own, you know. We can’t teach you everything.”

Shadow frowned at her deeply.

The earthborn hung her head slightly, disappointed.

That seemed to trigger something, as Shadow snarled and nearly snapped at her.

“You earthborn never seem to understand this very well! Us natives cannot help with any fight with The Khazam. Because he controls this very world, and everything native to it, we cannot do anything but help prepare you to a degree.”

“If we help you earthborn too much, this system in place that The Khazam has implemented will detect it and you will be unable to help anyone fighting him as well. So yes, you must learn a great deal by yourself.”

Fred raised his hand, slowly.

“What happens if a native did try to help?”

Shadow sighed, sadly.

“It’s what happened last time. The earthborn finally had him dead to rights. A native wanted to strike the killing blow. However, if a native of Al’Qarim tries to attack The Khazam, some innate ability triggers. He was restored fully, and most of the strength from all the natives on this world was siphoned to him, making him far more powerful than before the fight started. It was temporary, but it lasted far longer than the earthborn did at that point, and he was at least ten times stronger than before, with all of his abilities able to be used instantly. Even simultaneously.”

Fred paled a bit, and looked around the clearing. Many of the others looked like they were going to be sick. Even learning too much from the natives, instead of on our own could do that? And I’m still confused as to why this entire world is structured like an MMORPG, even that ability sounds exactly what happens with a Raid boss in some MMO’s...

“Does something else happen when that does?”

A petite girl with blond hair pulled into a braid asked nervously.

“Yes. The normal rules about being able to respawn with the usual penalties are broken, and they are permanently devoured by The Khazam. No more chances.”

Someone in the back of the clearing threw up violently at this statement. A few others looked much greener than before.

“Yes, this happens as well if you don’t learn enough on your own. We assume it’s a failsafe, meant to guarantee his survival.”

“But that’s enough, we need to get your training done and head back to the inn. Archers, get ready to fire.”

As the alternating walls of Sound, Fire, Ice, and Earth rose up, Tanya and the other archers nocked their arrows. Taking careful aim to not actually hit anyone, Tanya imbued her arrow with Death magic. {Kiss of Death: Arrows}

“The first volley needs to be able to pass through, while blocking the second. Pay attention and make your walls bend to your will, what you need them to do, as you need it.”

The first volley passed through Fred’s fire wall and a few more walls, until it stopped in the middle of a sound wall, then propelled back towards the one that shot it, sloppily.

Kate swore she almost heard everyone rolling their eyes and the murmuring of “Bards…”.

“You tried to change the vibrations instead of making an exception. That’s more advanced, and can certainly be used in redirecting attacks back, instead of just allowing something through or blocking an attack.”

The bard in question, James, groaned slightly.

“It’s always the more advanced stuff I get the hang of first. I’d hoped it would be different here, but I guess not…”

One of the other bards turned to him and started discussing with him what he had done wrong.

“That was actually much better than what I was hoping for, on the first try. Most groups do far worse.”

Shadow nodded approvingly.

The day progressed gradually; The melee fighters working on tactics and group fighting under the supervision of Akiro, who also happened to explain to the melee fighters about the importance of self-learning in far less words than Shadow, while the ranged and {Director}s were under the supervision of Shadow; as this would continue for another week. Several miles away, an ebony skinned figure emerging from a cave system close to an inn, his being much more dark skinned than any of the other earthborn helped to hide him in the areas covered by dense shade, along with his black clothing.