Chapter 2-Beginning Tutorial Island

Chapter 2-Beginning Tutorial Island

Everything went black as the helmet did its job and slowly put me to sleep. The system started up, and I opened my eyes. I was standing in a dark room; however I could see a light approaching at an untraceable speed soon blinding me as it forced me to cover my eyes.

I slowly opened my eyes as they adjusted to the now bright room. A gaming introduction like this was strange but not uncommon there been games that like to jump scare people for fun at the start after all. I shook my head and focused up.

It appears to be designed for royalty as everything pristine white, but there is also red carpet and curtains with symbols on them I don't know. In here with me was a woman who was patiently waiting in front of me. She gave off a nice feeling, much like a loving mother. I quickly realized that she was an angel with her massive feathered wings spread out behind her and her blond hair that seemed to radiate a holy gold, however, she didn't have a halo.

"Welcome to our world, one chosen by god. What race would you like to live amongst?" She asked as a screen scroll down in front of me, revealing all my choices.

In front of me were four races with them being, Dwarves, Humans, Beastmen, and Night Elves, I quickly scanned through their descriptions. It was basically all the generic descriptions of these races and what kingdom there affiliated with. However, the interesting part was that it seemed every race has a unique starting ability.

-Kingdom of the Sacred Phoenix-

-Humans-

(Rare(Passive)) Strong Will: gain a 50% bonus on your chosen path.

-Kingdom of the Sacred Bear-

-Dwarves-

(Rare(Active)) Blessed Hands: Grant bonus stats to an item you crafted. (2hr. cooldown.)

-Kingdom of the Sacred Dragon-

-Night Elves-

(Rare(Passive))Soft Light: Heal faster in the presence of the moon and gain 50% increased healing.

-Kingdom of the Sacred Tiger-

-Beastmen-

(Rare(Active))True Nature: Shapeshift to your beast form and increasing Primary stat associated with the chosen animal by 50%.

I frowned as I contemplated what I thought was the best choice for me. Humans were good. However, there wasn't necessarily anything too special about their ability. They got the selection of the combat path, magic path, or the crafting path where they would gain a bonus, to benefit them on their chosen path.

The Dwarves seem to have been made for people who wanted to focus on the crafting aspects of the game, and while I also quite like crafting I had a terrible experience with Dwarves in another game, I still shuddered at the thought of it. However, despite my bad experiences, the extra stats they will gain will make their items very desirable.

The Elves were interesting and were basically made for the healing class. However, I've never been too fond of healing; it just never interested me, and I never seemed to enjoy it when I tried it out.

The Beastmen were the most diverse of the five races as you were able to choose any animal type that you wanted to play and your preferred type would reflect there the stat buff for their shapeshifting ability. For example, a turtle beastmen gets the bonus to vitality, while the lion gets it to strength and a mouse would get intelligence. It's relatively straightforward.

I made my choice as my finger then pressed the Beastman race, and I chose the fox type. I've always had a soft spot for animals so being an animal person just makes sense and I decided on the fox for the dexterity buff it gives, meaning things will seem slower around me in combat and increase my time to react. I would have preferred the wolf however, there buff is Wisdom, and I don't intend to go down the magic path.

"I see you have made your choice," The angel speaks up again. I just nodded and waited for her to continue.

"Your character has been set to male and do you wish to customize it to a 20% difference?"

I wasn't surprised by it setting it to male by default. Ever since the giant scandal a few years back, playing the opposite gender was outlawed, gaming companies were even forced to cape the customization rate so guys couldn't make trap characters. It's all because some guys had played girl characters and then tricked innocent girls into meeting up in real life so they could kidnap them. It was disgusting and all over the new when the case came to light.

Despite there good reasons, It only makes sense that many people quickly became upset by the limitations as it forced people to build character's that looked too much like their real selves. Honestly, at the time even I was a bit upset by that fact however I understood that it was for a good cause. Although the less understanding people still had a valid reason to be outraged as your real identity online is an essential thing to keep secret. While some will reveal it if they are confident in their backgrounds, most chose to keep the fact hidden.

If your real identity is discovered, you could become famous and be targeted by your enemies in spite. There are cases of people going too far out of revenge... The gaming screen for MMORPG's is very competitive, so Its common to make bitter enemies over loot and territories. And so due to fierce protest, the gaming company's backed down a bit and allowed a 20% customization rate which isn't much better, but it is enough to hide your real faces.

"Of course!" I said and watched as a menu of options scrolls up in front of me, all I did was change my hair colour to red and make my face a bit thinner to match my foxy characteristics, Pun intended. When I was satisfied with the look, I hit submit and waited for her to continue once more.

"Please select your name you will use in the Soul Frontier."

I wrote "BloodFox" as its a name I've used a lot in the past, and it happens to fit my current character perfectly.

Error! Invalid name. Please choose a real name.

I was greatly disappointed by this message. It's something that happens from time to time in games where creators want the game to feel more realistic as if it's an actual world.

So I default back to the name I used for those games and typed in the username ''Skoll'' and hit enter. It's the name of a famous wolf that chases the sun trying to devour it. It has always been one of my favourite names despite the fact it, not a popular one.

"Skoll is it? A rather... eccentric name but still a good one." She says with a bitter smile. Obviously, she wasn't a fan of my choice.

"Now Skoll please select an egg from the table in front of you."

I then noticed the table on my left contained a neat row of round objects. This one was strange and threw me off for a bit, but thankfully due to my gaming experiences in the past, I caught on quickly. It must be one of those things where this choice will have meaning later on. This has happened before in some other games I've played as sometimes they do this to test people and find out what they're like. It's similar to a personality test as there is only so much monitoring a person's brain waves can tell you about them."

There were only four eggs on the table, and all of them are blue with blood red marking. The only difference between them being the symbols on them. I would assume there are the symbols of the kingdoms that I read about when I chose my race. Bear, Tiger, Phoenix, and Dragon and there all a little bit differently sized. It's best to be honest with this kind of test, so I decided on the tiger egg as it's affiliated with my current race.

"Thank You! Your choice has been recorded!" She says happily apparently quite pleased by my choice. She seems to be quite the moody AI.

"Now, please select your difficulties."

A menu of writing appeared in front of me reading,

[You will be sent to an island created by God to prepare you for what's to come. What path will you take? Easy, Moderate, Difficult, or Impossible?]

They came with short descriptions about what you start with but gave nothing else away about what happens on the island.

Easy starts you with a Sword, an attack skill, a defense skill, and an armour set.

Moderate gives you a short sword, armour and a defense skill.

Hard came with a short sword and armour set but no skills

Impossible only starts you with a small dagger.

They say nothing of rewards but it evident that the more complicated something is, the more likely it is to give a better bonus at the end. I figured this is just the beginning, so how hard could they make it anyway? And with that, I chose Impossible as I always liked my challenges, anyway.

Another screen appeared after I made my choice 'Are you sure? You can only change the difficulty after 24hr. have passed.' I frowned at that but waved off the warning and hit continue.

"On the island, you will mostly be doing missions that help the village, and you will be given a short tutorial on how to fight when you first arrive. Good Luck and I pray you will be our champion." The angel says, holding her hands together to pray and then everything went dark as the light disappeared.

Without warning, I suddenly found myself on the outskirts of a small village. I looked around and noticed that I was standing on a broken-down stone circle in front of it was some kind of stone statue that faintly resembles the angle that I was talking too and behind it was a church that has been destroyed by time. I figured this must be some kind of teleportation gateway. It's pretty standard in other games. As I was about to search the village for quests, a screen appeared in front of me. Quest Created!

[Job hunting!]

[Goal: Find the Village Chief and see if he needs assistance.

Reward: 50 copper.]

I closed the prompt, and it reminded me I need to take a quick look at my stats. However, another notification popped up.

[Do you wish to modify your current stimulation sensitivity? By default, it is left at 65%.]

Oh, I had been wondering about that as nothing had felt different from current models so far. So they added a slider, then? I hit yes and slowly turned it up, and another warning appeared.

[Warning! Turning up stimulated sensitivity past 85% can potentially have consciences on your health are you sure you wish to continue?]

That makes sense I suppose, I ignored the warning and turned it all the way up. I understood what the warning was ettin at. It could affect my mental state as some people even had problems with dying at a 65% stimulated sensitivity. Where hey fell weary for a while after dying in the game. It's unknown how much it could affect you at 100%, but I have confidence in myself as I have always had a strong mentality.

After confirming the changes, I felt a rush of air around me. It was an odd feeling it almost felt like I had just woken up; however I wasn't in my bed, I was in the game.

"Woah..." I say slowly flex my hand as if it was the first I ever played a game. Nothing looked different, but the feeling was out of this world. After I calmed down and got used to it, I decided to get back to what I was doing and open my status menu.

Skoll - Level 1 Beastman

Class:Novice Adventure

Health: 50 - Mana: 50

Stamina: 100%

Attack Damage: 5

Strength: 10

Vitality: 10

Agility: 10

Dexterity: 10

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 10

Crit Strike: 50%

Physical Reduction:(0%)

Magic Reduction:(0%)

Karma: 50

Stat Points:0

It's a normal beginner's stats page, there's nothing too surprising about it. Moving on, I opened my bag, but all I found was the mysterious egg the angel gave me and 100 copper coins. I had typical starting clothes as they were just a cheap-looking black shirt and brown pants.

The bag itself looked slightly worn. It was also a tiny bag, so it didn't have much room to start with, and with the egg taking up most of the space, so it does make me thankful I didn't take the largest egg. Hopefully, I can get a better bag soon. The last thing I had was the dagger at my waist. I picked up and inspected it had a faint grey glow to it and the stats read,

(Normal)Small Dagger

Attack 5-8

Pretty much as I expected however I don't know If it will be enough since I did chose the hardest difficulty so it would be wrong not taking this serious enough. I decided to look around for a weapons shop and see If I can get anything and If I have I will sell the dagger, looking for the village chief can come later. I was walking around and quickly found the village itself to be pretty desolate. It's like nobody lived here. They might all be in their homes, but it was slightly spooky nonetheless.

Eventually, I came across a house a little bigger than the rest with a stone chimney, and I heard sounds of banging metal. I glanced at the sign hanging in front of the door, and I had already realized on the way through town that I can't read, maybe it is a skill I will get eventually as language skill is a feature from other games. However the anvil symbol was on the sign, so I'm assuming this is the weapon shop.

I opened the door, and the little bells jingled as I walked in. I took a quick look around as I waited for the blacksmith to reach the counter. It was a pretty small shop with only a few daggers on display. However, while most of the weapon racks were empty, there was a small wooden shield off to the side despite the fact it looked pretty beaten up. The only real weapon in the shop seemed to be the bow on display behind the counter.

I wasn't disappointed though I wasn't like I was expecting to find some godly weapons in the beginner's area. It didn't take long for a man with a deep voice to come out from the back of the shop.

"Paul, is that you? I said I'm working as fast as- Oh! How can I help ya?" The man said, noticing I wasn't who he thought I was and quickly switched tones from irritated to polite.

"I was hoping to find out if you had any cheap weapons and maybe some armour depending on the prices," I ask as politely as possible.

"That's going to be a tough one. We don't get many outsides around these parts and weapons aren't my speciality however I do make basic ones so we villagers can defend ourselves if needed. Unfortunately, it's all I've been making recently! Our special little pests have been a real pain lately!"

"Pests?" I urged him on. I could sense a quest from him.

The wererabbits! The dastardly little things! Their population seems to have been getting quite large lately. It's unknown where they got the food for them to bread that much, but I suppose that doesn't matter. What does matter is that our guards have been going through my weapons like crazy recently! Wererabbit fur is quite tough, so they chip my blades easily." The man stopped for a moment to take a breath and attempted to calm down. It would seem he has a lot of pent up stress.

"So I guess that means I won't be getting any weapons."

"Well It not that you can't, but you can imagine that getting a weapon might be a bit more pricey than what you're hoping for." The man says taking note of my clothes showing off how poor I was, but I didn't mind currently I was quite poor.

It's unfortunate for me, but I guess I'll have to manage with my little dagger. It's going to be difficult without a proper weapon if what this man says about the rabbits it true my weapon will quickly fall apart. I had thought he was going to give a quest, but I guess I was wrong, so I turned to leave. However, before I left the store, the blacksmith stopped me.

"Wait! Young man If you are willing to help us out. I'm willing to lend you a short sword." I turned around to face the man. I was quite happy to hear that as another weapon will be good if these rabbits are as tough as he says.

"What do you need help with, sir?"

"The guards have been having some real trouble lately too much in fact. I'm more than willing to lend you a blade if you go help them out."

"Of course, It's what I intend to do in the first place," I say with a smile.

"Oh, thanks for that lad! These pests are troublesome for everyone around here! They are constantly plundering our farms!" The man digresses before turning back to me.

"Anyway, you are going to want to look for Paul and Jessica they should be at the farm working on the defense." The man says, handing me a short sword. It appears to have a few nic's in the blade but was still usable. Suddenly I had a small notification appear in the corner field of vision, and it read.

Quest created! -Help The village take care of the Pests?-

Goal: The wererabbits have become a real problem! Look to see if you can't find the local guards led by Paul and Jessica and see what you can do to help.

Reward: A short sword

"We appreciate your help more than you know, we don't get many outsiders here, and we haven't had contact with the outside world in years, but enough about that! What kind of armour were you looking for? Depending on how many coins you got, I might be able to get you something decent."

"Anything works but preferably light armour, and it needs to cost under 100 Bronze coins.

The blacksmith slowly says in thought while rubbing his chin, "Well, I have a set of light leather armour that I made last week out of scrapes. They can cost ya 100 copper, but they're not in great condition. Are you sure you want it? They might fall apart after a few good hits."

"I'll take it; it's better than nothing, "I said, handing him the coins I then inspected all the armour.

(Normal)Small ruined Leather helmet

Agi +1

(Normal)Small ruined Leather chest plate

Agi +1 Str +1

(Normal)Small ruined Leather pants

Agi +1

(Normal)Small ruined Leather shoes

Agi +1

I then equipped my new gear. I had expected a quest from the blacksmith as they always tend to need something. After leaving the blacksmith, I made way for the centre of the village as it has the most prominent house I would assume it's the be the village Chiefs. However, while on the road, I spotted a young boy sitting on a bench all alone, I found that odd as everyone else in town is hiding in their homes. I could feel my gamer instincts tingling for a quest, so I made my way over.