Training Hall [2]

The next day arrived and Jimmy sat down at a table to eat with his friend at the local BcRohnalds. Austin had a day off from practice that day, so they decided to meet up to talk about the game.

He looked over and saw Austin devouring a LargeBac like he had been stranded on a deserted island with no food for months.

"Is it even ok for you to eat something like that? You might end up fat." Generally, athletes had to conform to a strict diet to maintain their peak physical state. Jimmy looked on with disbelief at the number of calories his friend was putting into his body.

"It's fine," Austin continued to shove food into his mouth in between words, "it's my cheat day. If I couldn't indulge myself every now and again I would go crazy!"

"Ok, ok. Please just don't talk while you eat…" Jimmy said while dodging the spit being fired in his direction.

After a couple of minutes more of gorging, Austin finished his food. He leaned back in his chair with a satisfied look on his face.

"So, what did you think of Ascension? Pretty cool right? It's WAY more realistic than any other VRMMORPG I've played before! It basically felt exactly like real life!"

Jimmy had a slight smile on his face and said, "Yeah it was more interesting than I thought it would be. The tutorial was a bit weird though."

"Yes, you're right! That creepy outline dude kept making copies all over the place. He even tricked me into thinking I'd be fighting some behemoth, but it just turned out to be a crummy slime!" Austin had a peeved look on his face as he narrated his experiences.

Jimmy suppressed the laughter that was about to burst out and snickered to himself when hearing about Austin's experience. "I guess I wasn't the only one to be tricked."

"Enough about that bastard, where were you teleported to? I asked around and found out that I was dropped off in a pretty big city in the Rone kingdom called Bastion."

Jimmy was happy to hear that his friend was in the same kingdom as him. It meant it wouldn't be very difficult to meet up. But it would still be difficult for them to meet up any time soon. It takes weeks to walk from city to city, and hiring a carriage would cost a lot of money.

"We were lucky, I also dropped in the Rone Kingdom. But I'm in the city of Eldwyn, so we most likely should avoid meeting up in-game for a while. It would probably be better for us to save up some money and level up a bit first."

"You're right, but I wanted to meet up with you as soon as possible." Austin had a depressed look on his face.

"Let's talk about something else. Have you noticed that the system seems to reward you when you meet certain criteria?"

"Oh yeah, you're right! When I was fighting the slime I got some sort of title that increased my archery damage! And later when I was fighting a boar I felt some weird energy while I concentrated and managed to kill it in one shot! Afterwards the system gave me an ability called 'Magic Shot',"

Jimmy was impressed how easily Austin's mood bounced back, but he was more impressed that his friend had already managed to acquire an ability. He had somehow learned how to use magic by himself!

"How does the ability work? I haven't acquired any myself yet."

"It feels weird, when I think of the ability it automatically goes through the motions of what I had just done, but without me needing to think about it. It's like acting in autopilot."

"Hmm… that's interesting. So that would mean once you earn an ability, you would be able to use it even if you forgot about how to do it yourself. However, it most likely isn't a good idea to use abilities often."

Austin thought about it for a moment and then nodded his head in agreement. "If we rely on abilities too much we most likely wouldn't be able to improve."

"Exactly. Using abilities should be for emergencies. It will be better in the long run for us if we manually use any skills we learn, rather than their ability forms."

After talking for a bit longer, the two decided to head home so they could play Ascension. The more they played, the sooner they could meet up in-game.

By the time he got home, it was 1 PM. He didn't have classes the next day, so he would be able to play a lot longer today.

He hopped into the hulking capsule and paused for a moment. He sighed and shook away his worries as he entered the game.

His body felt weightless as he appeared where he left the day before, outside the front of the training hall.

He stood there rooted to the ground as he stared at the entrance, his eyebrows creased as many thoughts raced through his head.

'Do I really want to keep training here? I paid the tuition already, but I could probably earn it back fast anyways. The longer I stayed here, the longer it would be before I could meet up with Austin. I don't even know why I joined in the first place, I decided before that I didn't want anything to do with dojos. I don't need to exert myself, this is only a game. I don't have any intention to be anything more than a casual player, so why would I need to min-max my stats? I should just leave…'

As Jimmy was lost in thought he was suddenly lifted into the air by his shoulders. Behind him was a familiar gigantic woman, Emilia.

"What are you doing standing there in front of the entrance looking like an idiot for eh? Get inside!" And with that, she opened the door and threw Jimmy inside.

'Oh yeah, that's why I joined.' He thought to himself as he rolled to a stop.

Someone snickering walked up and offered him a hand up. He looked to be no older than 16 wearing a babyish face, curly blond hair, and blue eyes. Contrasting with his face was a muscular body that made him look like a pillar. "You should avoid making sensei angry, it's better for your bones."

Jimmy accepted the hand and stood up. "You're the person I saw crying when I first came in yesterday!"

He sighed and said, "As long as you train here you will eventually cry, sensei says it builds character… My name is Henry by the way."

Suddenly Henry and Jimmy both had a shiver go down their spine.

Emelia appeared behind them with a toothy grin plastered on her face. "If you two kids have enough time to be chatting, you have the time to be training! Jimmy and Henry, pick up your practice weapons. I want you both to spar with me at the same time,"

~Common Quest~

[Survive for 10 seconds.]

[Reward: 4 endurance]

[Failure Penalty: Pain]

[Accept] [Reject]

Jimmy gulped, but he still clicked accept.

Both of them picked up their practice weapons and gave each other a meaningful glance. Jimmy used a spear and Henry used a sword. They spread out to either side of Emilia and readied their weapons.

Jimmy decided to look at Emelia's character page. He never got the chance to do it yesterday due to him being caught up in the flow of things, but he was curious to know how strong she was.

~

Emelia Yelath [lvl ???}

[Alignment: good]

[Danger level: Run Away!]

-

Sweat started running down Jimmy's face. She was too high level to see anything at all!

Henry had been training at this training hall for four years, so he had a large edge on stats. He decided to make the first move and lunged forward. He aimed his sword at her flank.

Emilia easily deflected the blow with her own sword, blasting Henry backward. She then sidestepped the stab that Jimmy aimed at her from behind. She kneed him in the stomach and he was sent tumbling backward.

Henry, not down for the count yet, got back up and continuously slashed her at different angles. However, not a single hit was getting through. Emilia blocked every hit with ease.

Meanwhile, Jimmy barely managed to stand up while ignoring his reorganized organs and waited for his chance to attack. Right after she blocked another one of Henry's attacks, they both stabbed at the same time.

Emilia effortlessly skirted past Henry's sword, grabbing him by the wrist and slamming him into Jimmy, sending them both crashing against the wall.

"Hahaha, nice teamwork! But, you are still slow as snails! Rest for five minutes and then go run as fast as you can around the building! Henry, make sure to put on the weights."

"Yes sensei!" The two groaned as they supported each other's battered bodies up.

[Quest Complete!]

[4 endurance gained!]

'I guess I'll try a little bit. The people here aren't too bad. I'm going to need that endurance though…' Jimmy sighed to himself.