Author's Note: So who else feels like the updates are getting slower and slower on Royal Road? Or is it just me?

An easy guide to the story (tells you what it means if I put things in bolded brackets, and stuff like that).

Spoiler :

EASY GUIDE TO THE STORY

....... Multiple periods in a row with nothing else anywhere near it usually refer to silence, or the fact that nothing is happening.

(* *) means author's note (which I generally use to make comments as inside the story chapters).

[ ] refers to a skill or ability that is used. Right now there are no different markers for passive and active skills

'things in italics' Things in italics with the little apostrophe marks are someone's actual thoughts

***** If the asterisks form a small line and the next sentences start a line or 2 below it, it means either:

A) A change of viewpoint

OR

B) A time-skip

(which basically means stuff happened in-between 2 events, but I'm skipping over it to get

to whatever is happening in the present)

------------------------ Dashed lines in bold refer to where the chapter starts and/or stops

I'll add more if I do more things.

An easy guide to the different measurements (for people that are familiar with the metric system, and vice versa)

Spoiler :

GUIDE TO THE DIFFERENT MEASUREMENTS

10 feet is around 3 meters

1 mile is a little more than 1.5 kilometers

I'll add more if I find out more

Characters:

Spoiler :

Zhang: Arrogant, greedy, manipulative and smart, with a surprisingly protective side when it comes to Misa. Likes to play the warrior/tank role, but is actually an unspecified (no class), which means he is a jack-of-all trades. Thinks that Wahshi (although he calls him "Washy") is an NPC which will lead him to a great quest. But he still offered him up as a tribute to the "Elder Dragon" in exchange for everyone else's lives. Currently suspected of being over level 200

Misa: Bloodthirsty, sadistic and uncaring, except for when it comes to the people she likes (which currently includes only Zhang). Has the overpowered hidden class Sun Mage which is supposed to focus on peace and pursuit of knowledge. She uses it to do whatever she wants, which usually ends up getting her in trouble with the Sun Spirit, whom all Sun Mages are contracted with. A mysterious event involving at least herself and one other person seems to have shaped who she has become. Her Sun Mage powers are currently sealed, due to her misuse of them during the fight with the living trees. Currently suspected of being over level 200

Alexa: Cautious but with a good heart. A mysterious event seems to have caused Zhang and Misa to hate her deeply, but she still sees them as her 2 best friends who have been there for her for a long time. She struggles to try and make up for whatever happened in the past, causing her to more than once overlook Zhang and Misa's hatred and wrongdoings, even if it hurts herself in the process. Rogue-type player (actual class not mentioned yet). Currently suspected of being over level 200.

Wahshi: The Main Character. Real name Raes Bastion, framed for a crime he didn't commit and separated from his daughter while he was sent to prison for 20 years. What he wants to do now is earn enough money through the Virtual Reality game so that he can start searching for the daughter he lost, and maybe a little revenge on the way there against the people that framed him. Was recently betrayed by his former fellow travelers and killed by a dragon. He somehow managed to survive ANOTHER trip through the Mist of Souls. Currently an unspecified (no class). Currently level 1.

PREVIOUSLY:

Spoiler :

Wahshi was betrayed by Zhang and his party, and died at the hands of the "Elder Dragon". He revived at the Mist of Souls, where he then proceeded to rush out of there, at the cost of immense amounts of pain. And several pounds of flesh. After jumping through the pool near Gaia's tree, he plummeted through the canopy and managed to survive.

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“Hey Misa, do you think we did the right thing back there?”

I stared at her.

It had probably only been an hour, or maybe an hour and a half since we ran from the “Elder Dragon”, as Zhang called him.

We were walking down a path that Zhang was sure led out of the forest. This time around, the forest vegetation was actually getting farther apart. That and the fact that everything seemed to be getting smaller only proved his point.

This time around, I’m going to make sure that we’re headed the right way, regardless of what Zhang said.

Zhang was walking in front like usual, trying to act like a macho man. He’d switched to his Knight set of equipment, no doubt because his Tower set was already ruined by those monkeys from earlier on. It was too bad, because that had been one of his favorite sets that he had, armor that he’d been able to enchant to make a flying, protective dome.

Of course, it didn’t mean that the armor he had on wasn’t impressive. It looked a lot like a certain possessed armor from some old cartoon that Zhang used to love watching. Some kind of Alchemist anime? If this was in real life, he’d probably be drowning in sweat somewhere in there. The heat probably would’ve choked him alive by now too.

The whole continent had a tropical climate after all. That meant hot, humid and sweaty. Even though this was a game, people still died from being stupid about things like that. Luckily though, you could get your armor enchanted with a handy Rank F cooling spell. It made it a lot easier to wear heavy armor around. Aside from that, the gleaming steel armor was made so that almost anything that hit it glanced off. Just like armor in real life too.

There was an enchanting circle on the palm of each gauntlet. Zhang was always so proud of those, because they did something special to any weapons that he equipped. He was always boasting about how it was the best feature from the Knight set that he’d made. Though he boasted about that Tower set even more.

In my opinion, that Rank F cooling spell probably hadn’t been strong enough to stop the hot air from making his head swell up like a balloon.

Honestly, sometimes it got a little annoying to see him act like this. It pissed me off more than just a little too. But I couldn’t really blame him.

After all, we’d both changed a lot since that night.

Even thinking about that night lit a fire in my chest. And it wasn’t the kind that ended up in a bedroom with my fiancée.

It was the type that ended up with somebody in a ditch.

Alexa took one look at me and shuddered. She turned away, almost as if she couldn’t bare to look at me anymore.

‘Wonder if it was something in my eyes?’

Wouldn’t be the first time somebody thought my eyes had a “sadistic” glint to them.

She probably thought that I was mad because of her question.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about us having left him back there, but it didn’t feel good either. Especially when I remembered those black eyes that just stared at me right before they got squashed by a giant equivalent of a toenail.

I was glad Alexa had turned away. I didn’t want her to see me shudder when I remembered those eyes.

‘It’s fine, right?’ I told myself that as Alexa and I followed Zhang on a path that was hopefully going to end up outside the forest. After everything that just happened, resting up at an inn somewhere in The Walled City was more than a little bit appealing.

I’d long ago found out that mage staffs were also great to use as walking sticks in almost any kind of terrain. You’d think they were only for old people that couldn’t stand up straight anymore, but they were surprisingly great for anyone that travelled a lot. As we climbed over root after giant root, and avoided pitfall after pitfall, that staff helped me stay upright during the times where I would’ve just fallen flat on my face.

Alexa was a rogue-type, so with her high DEXTERITY she moved about the forest easier than me or Zhang.

Although the guy in the suit of armor had his own ways of walking around without tripping over anything. There were plenty of times that I could’ve sworn I saw some kind of enchanting circle light up briefly on the bottom of his boots every time he was about to fall.

After walking awhile, I knew we already somewhere back in the 2nd layer of the forest. That meant it was only a matter of time before we were out of here!

Looking up at the display in the top-right corner of my vision, I saw that it was already a little past midnight.

We were really making good time compared to when we first came in with that NPC! That was a given of course, since we’d had to slow down our walking speed when we first came here with him. IT TOOK 5 HOURS TO GET DEEP INTO THE FOREST!!

When compared to the almost hour and a half it took us to get back to the second layer (and no doubt 1st layer in another hour perhaps), we were probably like somebody that had just taken off weights from their legs and discovered that they were much faster than before.

‘Alright, maybe I was a little hard on the old guy,’ I thought to myself after using my mage staff to stop myself from falling face-first after tripping on another tree root. ‘Zhang did say he was level 1, and he didn’t exactly have anything to help him move around in the forest like we did.’

In all honesty, I couldn’t say that I felt good about how we’d just left him to die like that. But it was a necessary sacrifice. After all, one of us had to die, and even though I hated Alexa, I wasn’t ready to let her die just yet. She still had a lot more coming to her after all. So that old guy Wahshi had to take the hit. He’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was a necessary sacrifice. Zhang and I had to get stronger. To make the man that did this to us suffer, there were a lot of things we had to do that we might not have been comfortable with in the beginning.

‘It’s fine, right? He’s just an NPC… And this is just a game, so it’s fine…right?’

The more I thought about it, the worse I felt. It wasn’t the first time Zhang and I had been forced to do something terrible in the 10 years in-game that we’d been getting stronger.

It was the first time we’d done something to an innocent person that trusted us so much, though.

‘It’s all for the greater good…right?’

Unknown to her or the others, a symbol had just appeared on the back of Misa’s neck. Something which looked very much like a faded infinity symbol that had just been cut in half…

It was at that moment that Wahshi had successfully used his skill on Misa. [Reckoning from the Afterlife]…

**********************************

'Dammit! They're getting farther away!'

Through whatever mysterious force that his ability, [Reckoning from the Afterlife] had given him, he could feel that the distance between himself and Misa had been increasing over the past few minutes. To anybody else, this would've made perfect sense. After all, she and the others in Zhang's party were probably higher than level 200, and Wahshi was just level 1.

But of course, he always forgot about that part since he still wasn't used to gaming. Even though he'd studied a lot about the game in the 1 month that he actually prepared for it, studying theory and doing a practical were two completely different things. Otherwise, anyone that read up on medical theory could easily become a surgeon!

A crystal-clear example of his inexperience with games was the fact that it was only a minute ago that he'd remembered that the display in the top-right corner of his vision showed local time, in addition to his Health and Mana! It was something that had completely slipped his mind earlier when he'd activated his ability which was helping him track down Misa and her friends, and thought that there was no way to tell when sunup or sundown was!

Now at least, he knew that it was past midnight.

The entire continent had tropical weather, so obviously it was in a tropical part of the world. The thing about tropical areas though, was the fact that they had no winter! In fact, the entire year could generally only be split up into two seasons, rainy and dry.

This meant that for the most part, sunrise and sunset were always around the same time the entire year! And that was generally around 5-6am in the tropical parts of the world.

Anybody that had taken a class in Geography 101 would know this. It was even taught in public high schools after all!

For Wahshi’s real life identity Raes Bastion though, he’d learned it while in prison. Even though they taught it in High Schools, it didn’t mean that people paid any attention to it though.

That, and the Prison Library was notorious for having lots of protection, and few people inside it at all times.

Why was this information important to him though?

BECAUSE THAT MEANT THAT THERE WAS ONLY 5-6 HOURS UNTIL HE AUTOMATICALLY DIED FROM HIS [RECKONING FROM THE AFTERLIFE] ABILITY!!!

Granted, it cost him half of his Health to activate it, and it took 10% of Health for every hour until sunup/sundown, so he wouldn’t last more than 5 hours anyway. The 50% of health that he had left wouldn’t last past the 5th hour.

He moved through the forest as fast as he could, miraculously not encountering any monster or animal that would’ve forced him into battle or go into hiding. The only thing that slowed him down was the terrain itself.

Huge leaves slapped him in the face as he rushed past them, his feet maneuvering in some strange dance-like fashion between the spaces of roots and vegetation that seemed to try to trip him up, and more than once he had to suddenly jump over holes in the ground probably left behind by monsters which were mind bogglingly heavy.

All the while, even though he was going at his fastest pace, he could still feel that Misa and the rest of her party was getting farther and farther away from him.

‘This is useless! At this rate I’ll die before even getting close to them!’

He stopped running.

Looking down at the ground with his eyes closed, he paused and took a deep breath.

Sounds of life echoed throughout the forest, mingling with the dying cries of various beasts and monsters as they preyed on one another. A breeze floated by, ruffling the leaves of the plants near him, and his robe as well.

Tilting his head up, closed eyes facing the tree canopy above, and the sky beyond, he let out that deep breath. You could barely hear it as it joined the breeze mingling its way through the forest.

Suddenly, his eyes flashed open as he gazed up at the tree canopy, and thought of the sky above.

‘That’s it!’

His lips curled upwards into a grin.

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Author's Note: DON'T FORGET TO RATE/REVIEW/COMMENT!!

Sorry about the delays up until now. I'll try to make the updates faster.

Spoiler :

STATUS WINDOWNAME:WAHSHILEVEL:1RACE:HUMANGENDER:MALECLASS:NONEMONEY:0G 1S 0C, $0

TITLES:FIRST-BORN OF THE MISTFAME:100INFAMY:0HEALTH:105 (+5)MANA:160 (+170)

STRENGTH:22 (+10)INTELLIGENCE:10 (+10)(+3)DEXTERITY:10 (+10)(-2)WILLPOWER:6 (+10)(+7)VITALITY:10 (+10)CHARISMA:0 (+10)AGILITY:10 (+10)DEFENSE:10 (+10)(+1)LUCK:1 (+10)

*Mana= 100+ (Willpower*10), Health=(LVL*100)+(Vitality/2)

Wahshi's Skill/Abilities

Spoiler :

SKILL LISTPASSIVEFIRST-BORN OF THE MIST:

ELDEST: YOU ARE THE OLDEST CHILD OF YOUR CLAN, AND THEREFORE THE STRONGEST. +1 TO ALL STATS FOR EVERY MISTBORN IN THE WORLD, EXCLUDING YOURSELF (CURRENT NUMBER OF MISTBORN: 1 [YOURSELF])

PLAYER:

PERSEVERE: YOU HAVE GONE THROUGH INCREDIBLE PAINS TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL. WHEN HEALTH IS LESS THAN 50%, PAIN DECREASES 1% PER ADDITIONAL PERCENT OF HEALTH LOST

ACTIVEBORN OF THE MIST:

SOUL ORIGIN (BEGINNER RANK): YOU HAVE ACCOMPLISHED A FEAT FEW WOULD KNOW ABOUT, AND DISCOVERED THE BIRTHPLACE OF YOUR SOUL. TRAVEL TO THE MIST OF SOULS IS NOW POSSIBLE UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS, IF THE COST IS PAID.

ACTIVATION METHOD 1:

REQUIREMENTS: DEATH

ACTIVATION COSTS: ANY AND ALL PENALTIES FOR THOSE THAT KILLED YOU WILL BE NULLIFIED; YOUR KILLERS WILL RECEIVE TRIPLE THE AMOUNT OF EXPERIENCE THEY WOULD NORMALLY RECEIVE

*AUTOMATICALLY ACTIVATES UPON DEATH, REGARDLESS OF WILL OR INTENT

ACTIVATION METHOD 2:

REQUIREMENTS:??? ACTIVATION COST: ???

PART THE MISTS: CONSTANT, UNCEASING EFFORTS TO DIVINE THE TRUTH BEHIND THE WORLD AND EVERYTHING AROUND YOU, HAS RESULTED IN A STRANGE ABILITY TO DO SO.

GATHERS ALL INFORMATION FROM YOUR CONSCOUS AND SUBCONSCIOUS, BOTH KNOWN AND FORGOTTEN.

CAN BE SWITCHED BETWEEN PASSIVE AND ACTIVE

PASSIVE: DISPLAYS ALL RELEVANT KNOWN AND FORGOTTEN INFORMATION INTO YOUR VISION

COST: PERMANENT USAGE OF 10% OF TOTAL MANA

ACTIVE: [i]IN ADDITION TO DISPLAYING ALL RELEVANT KNOWN AND FORGOTTEN INFORMATION, IT REMOVES ANY AND ALL FALSEHOODS

COST: CONSUMES 20% OF TOTAL MANA (WHICH CANNOT BE RECOVERED OR USED UNTIL ABILITY IS SWITCHED TO PASSIVE), 5% of TOTAL HEALTH/SECOND (CANNOT BE RECOVERED UNTIL ABILITY IS SWITCHED TO PASSIVE)

ABILITY LIST[tr]PLAYER:

MENU: Access to a game-like interface

RESURRECTION: May be re-born 10 hours after death (game-time)

INVENTORY: Access to a small, pocket-dimension which can hold belongings up to a certain limit

LOG OUT: Return to your original world

BORN OF THE MIST:

MIST FORM (LVL 1): FIRM CONVICTION IN WHAT YOU THOUGHT WAS TRUE ABOUT YOUR ORIGINS HAS ENABLED YOU TO TURN BACK INTO THE MIST THAT SPAWNED YOU

AT 1ST LEVEL, TURNS YOUR ENTIRE BODY INTO MIST. HIGHER LEVELS WILL ALLOW YOU TO CONTROL WHAT PART OF YOUR BODY YOU WISH TO TURN.

AT 1ST LEVEL, MIST FORM CAN STAY ACTIVE FOR A MAXIMUM OF 2 SECONDS. ABILITY MAY BE CANCELLED AT ANY TIME.

ACTIVATION REQUIREMENTS: NONE

ACTIVATION COST: 2% of Max Health

RECKONING FROM THE AFTERLIFE (LVL 1):

Life is hard. Betrayal is worse. The RECKONING that comes after, will haunt you more than you can imagine.

BEWARE!! When one is cursed, 2 graves will follow!

While there is always an escape for one who is cursed, the one who curses will be damned regardless!

COST: 50% of Health

EFFECT 1: Curse a person you have met. If you have enough hatred, you will know where to go to find them! Lasts until Sunup or Sundown, depending on when it is activated.

EFFECT 2: -10% Health/Hour. If Sunup/Sundown is reached, -100% Health. If the RECKONING is fulfilled, -100% Health

RESTRICTIONS: Can only be used on targets with enough Hatred attached. Can only be used by those with Spiritual Energy, Spiritual Connections, or the Equivalent thereof.

TITLE EFFECTS

FIRST-BORN OF THE MIST: +10 TO ALL STATS, ACCESS TO MISTBORN ABILITIES WHEN DISCOVERED, ACCESS TO UNIQUE ABILITIES GIVEN ONLY TO THE HOLDER OF THIS TITLE (IF DISCOVERED), PASSIVE SKILL “ELDEST”

PAST

PRESENT

Spoiler :

UNKNOWN SCHOLAR’S ROBE (MODIFIED)[NO LEVEL REQUIREMENT]A ROBE OF UNKNOWN STYLE AND DESIGN. ONCE, IT GAVE OFF AN AIR OF SCHOLARLY NOBILITY. CHANGED TO MAKE IT BETTER FOR BATTLE, IT IS NOW PROOF THAT EVEN THE LOFTIEST OF SCHOLARS WILL FIGHT IF NEED BE.DEXTERITY -2, INTELLIGENCE +3, WILLPOWER +7, DEFENSE +1

TRUSTY IRON KNIFENO REQUIREMENTSA GIFT FROM THE SPIRITS OF THIS WORLD, TO ALL WHO HAVE COME TO ITSTRENGTH +1

BOOTS NO REQUIREMENTSA GIFT FROM THE SPIRITS. ALTHOUGH LOW QUALITY, IT MIGHT LAST IF YOU TAKE GOOD CARE OF IT. IT WON'T DO MUCH BUT SLIGHTLY PROTECT YOUR FEET THOUGH.