Practicing While Walking

Alra gathered the items he received and put them neatly in his inventory ring which was a beginner model, given to every starting player. "Beginner's Inventory Ring" was a white colored ring bound to the player account. The ring served as a personal inventory for the players and had 15 empty slots. Alra who had acquired the herb collecting skill had already filled 4 slots of the inventory with stacks of low quality herbs he had gathered. The wolves and the bears he had killed earlier also dropped materials, filling 5 slots. After adding the loot from the bear, his inventory now had a single slot left open.

"I have to return to the villager." Alra reminded himself, making his goals clear, getting into the town was now one of his priorities since he also had the empty his ring. He slowly left the area, leaving behind the ashes of the bear. As he walked, he opened his palm and slowly materialized a drop of light floating on his palm, warmly shining. The small drop of light slowly stabilized and became bigger in size, forming a small orb, giving a soft glow around it, serving as a flashlight. And then the orb suddenly jolted in the air, and became liquid and covered the hand of Alra as if it was a forming a golden glove. As Alra practiced the usage of light, manipulating the shape and the texture of this small orb, he walked away from the depths of the forest. He was done here, for now...

After 10 minutes of walking and playing with the light, Alra heard the System voice again. "Lifegiving Blaze showed promising talent in the manipulation of light gaining "Art of Light Manipulation Rank 1" ", "Lifegiving Blaze learned self taught skill "Light Orb" ". "Armor of Light Rank 1 has been acquired." The voice of the System sounded as he walked.

Alra smiled softly as his hard work was rewarded. He had been making the small light orb for the past 10 minutes, and he changed the shape of the orb, making it into a glove, a small rune in the air and his latest try was to use light to create an arrow. Alra didn't know that his actions were seen by the players who were leveling in the forest, and was now posted on the forum with the title of "Weird person walking in the forest with a light orb.". The main point of this discussion was to ask if this person was an NPC, because priests didn't have a skill called "Light Orb" at such a low level. Rare events in the game were so many that even after a month, the forum and the officially accepted guide page lacked information. Even though some players did knew this game had the ability to give players freedom to form unique skills, they didn't necessarily teach it to the others which led to this misunderstanding by other low level players who believed they may have seen a rare NPC.

The idea behind not teaching others about the information they acquired was because superiority was always a good thing in games. The more hidden abilities one had gave the person more strength when faced with someone who underestimates them. Most of the players above Level 30 comprehended the ability to create personal skills after witnessing the look of disdain their class mentors gave them. "Such a strong potential but blind to growth."was one of the most famous sentences shared on the forum and was said by a class mentor to a player after the player argued with the NPC. The player who earned this scolding was named Shining Star who was currently rank 3 in the PvP charts. He was arrogant but strong, he was the type of person who would say thank you to himself after giving himself a compliment in the mirror. His self importance was high, but his regard to others were drastically low.

The game was out just for a month by now so competitive stage was still far away but many people expected him to eventually become a god player. Which was also why the class mentor scolding him caused a big discussion in the game forums.

In this game, skills were mainly for a list, so that the player would know what he could do. Skills were not a limitation, because of the ability to make skills, the game expected the player to be able to create unique skills to find the best playing way made just for them.

As Alra walked as he played with the orb, he didn't come across any monsters or players, which made his journey easy and fast.

He came back in front of the tree the wounded villager was still leaning against, still breathing softly. Alra slowly gathered the light orb back to his palm, and directed the floating orb towards the dying man. The orb which was led by Alra's thoughts landed directly on the wound of the man, slowly covering it all, the power of the light was a fickle thing in this game. It can burn the flesh, leaving behind a pile of shimmering ash or it can mend the wounds, even recreate limbs. It depended on the ability of the person. Most players didn't give this a thought, even though the game was actually made to make them ponder upon the nature of things. Healing skills were harder to create compared to offensive ones after all. "Holy Touch" was a skill, taught by class mentors which made it impossible to learn for Alra who still haven't done the main quest chain. He didn't want to make his small experiment even longer than required so Alra decided to create a healing skill on his own.

Light was gentle and comforting at times, however one mustn't forget the damage it can cause. Healing spells were the spells which were based on the gentleness of the light. Alra who was already aware of the way of thinking behind the healing spells didn't have much trouble when it came to forming a light orb specifically used for healing.

The light seeped from the blood stained shirt of the man, slowly shining as it healed him.

"The skill "Light Orb" has been upgraded thanks to Lifegiving Blaze and his understanding of the nature of the Light, adding the passive effect "Will of the Priest"" System announced. Alra who was expecting to acquire a new healing spell was surprised to see that healing someone made "Light Orb" become an upgraded skill. He wanted to check his skill book, but he saw that the wounded villager who was now healed and renewed was expectantly looking at him, waiting for him to start a conversation.

"Hello again sir, are you feeling better now?" Alra said to the man gently as he started the conversation. Alra was, in fact a person who could talk to others easily, unless he wanted to become friends with them that is. When he thought of becoming friends, he would get nervous and the only thing he could do was to shyly try to speak. "If this goes on I will only be able to become friends with the NPC's." he thought.

"You saved me young priest! You have my thanks. I remember asking you to do a delivery for me, but now I can do it myself. Why don't you come to my house to stay during your days here?"the man said in an energetic and happy voice.

"Last Wish has been changed to A Warm Welcome. Contract book has been updated."

Alra looked at the man who was smiling at him warmly. "Alright, thanks for allowing me to stay." He replied to the man. The villager who was waiting for him to answer, smiled even more brightly "Follow me, lets go to my village."he said as he started walking, Alra slowly walked behind him, sometimes stopping to gather more herbs, and this slow trip continued for a while as the group of two slowly got closer to their destination.

They soon came to the outside part of the village which a small farm where villagers were working daily. "Hey Will, who is that with you?"a voice sounded, and a man who was around the same age as the wounded villager who was called Will, came near them. "My guest." Will replied to the man in an indifferent manner. From what Alra could see, Will didn't like this person that much. "We are tired from our journey so I will talk to you later." Will said to the man, making it clear to him that he did not want to talk right now. Will started walking and Alra continued to follow him, they didn't talk until they reached a small house. "Here is my house, it may be small but my family and I will pay you back for your kindness." Will said to Alra as he opened the door.

Alra stepped in, and the moment he had sat on the chair Will gave him, his sight went dark.

In front of his eyes big blue letters started appearing, "DISCONNECTED" was the main title. Beneath it was the reason, which was "The user has not been eating for 10 hours, which is dangerous for the body." Alra looked at the statement and felt embarrassed for forgetting to eat. He closed off the game helmet, and slowly took it off his head. He decided to come up with a way to eat as he played, and walked out of his room, feeling a bit dazed after long hours of gaming. He made his way to the kitchen to see the familiar scene of Zan cooking for him. They didn't have a conversation, mainly because Alra was still dazed from the game. "Food is almost ready." Zan said as he smiled softly at Alra, and then went behind him and started fixing his hair. The kitchen was warm, Alra felt at ease as he waited for the food to be done. It was a nice evening in his cozy little apartment.