Chapter 2 - Character Creation

'Wow, she's beautiful,' Yoshi thought when he saw the woman.

[May all the blessings be with you who have stepped on the land of Archenland]

I approached her to inspect.

"Are you an AI?" I asked.

[Tell me your name otherworlder]

I was slightly disappointed that she didn't answer my question or maybe she intentionally ignored it.

"I'll go with my real name Yoshi and I will also use my appearance just as is."

[Are you sure you don't want anything to be changed about your appearance? You could also change your race into an orc, an elve, or maybe a beastman.] The woman asked with a confused face.

I smiled brightly to her, "I am satisfied with how I look, so I'd kindly decline the offer."

[Very well Yoshi. I hope you and your journey in the land of Archenland full happiness]

Seconds later, my vision darkened and the next thing I knew I was teleported to a village.

The village is bustling with people, but what made it populated is the number of players online. As it is the very first day of release, it was to be expected.

Like everyone else, I also am wearing the beginner's set of equipment. A plain white shirt and brown long pants.

As the servers had just been officially online for minutes, most of the players were still on the very first place that we were teleported after creating our characters.

They were all minding their own business and so was I, because finally, I am able to feel the sun.

'The tingling hotness of the sun's light hitting my skin, I just love it. For the very first time of my 20 years of living, I am finally able to feel the sun.' Yoshi thought to himself as he reminisced the times when he was only able to sit and look out of the window.

His eyes started to get moist, "I could really just stand all day here!" he said.

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20 minutes have passed and Yoshi is still standing on the same spot just feeling the sun. The people around him started giving him looks and some were even gossiping.

"Look! The statue is still here." said sarcastically by a guy.

"Is he an NPC?"

"He's definitely wearing the same equipment as us, he's a player." replied the girl.

"He's a 10, but he's a weird person."

Quite a lot of things were said before Yoshi had finally regained himself. But, he wasn't finished yet, he had another thing that he wanted to do, and that is to run in broad daylight.

As he was only able to stroll around the house. The space wasn't able to let him run around the place. So, now that he had the chance to do it he would definitely do it.

He did some light exercises, and after that he positioned himself. He took his first step and he ran around the village. He was only able to run around the place for 10 seconds because that was the only limit of his stamina but he persisted for a couple of seconds.

Suddenly a notification appeared.

[Persistent runner (passive) has been learned]

He slowly walked back to the place where he was first teleported to and read the skill that he had just learned.

[Level 1. Persistent Runner (Passive)

As you run out of stamina with running, you are still able to continue on for a minute.

Agility + 5]

"Aah~" he said, satisfied by what he just did, "Time spent well. Now maybe I should really play the game."

Yoshi just remembered that earlier when he had just arrived at the village a notification rang, but he just ignored it because of all the things he wanted to do first. Now he had the opportunity to open it.

However, he does not know how to look for the quest. So he opted to ask a fellow player. He looked out to the surrounding area and saw a boy who was beside the fountain. He approached him.

Yoshi spoke out and waved to the man, "Hi, I am Yoshi." he smiled,

The boy got surprised to see Yoshi but he still introduced himself regardless, "I-I am Lynch."

"Cool! Hi Lynch. Ummm… Do you know how to see the unread quests?"

"Y-yeah, I-I know. Just go to the menu and you'll see the quests section or you can also just call out quests out loud to open it."

"Nice! So, let's see. Quests" Yoshi shouted.

And a holographic panel appeared out of nowhere.

[Quests

1 Unread Quests]

Yoshi clicked the unread quest and another panel appeared.

[Quest - Training ground

Train your mind and body for the upcoming battles that you'll face in the fields where monsters lurk. Go to the training ground and train yourself to become stronger.]

Yoshi murmured while he was reading the quest. And Lynch overheard what he just said.

Lynch who was still in front of him voiced out, "Ummm… If you don't mind, can I tag along with you? I-I was also planning on going to the training grounds before you had asked me a question."

"Sure. Let's go."

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After quite a while of walking, they had finally arrived at the training grounds. And as expected it was crowded. They went in and saw an old man who was inspecting the players who were slashing the dummies.

Both Yoshi and Lynch approached the old man. When the old man had finally noticed the both of them he pointed to a bunch of wooden swords and said. "Get your asses out there and give me satisfactory slashes."

"Yes sir!" said Yoshi.

"Y-yes sir" intimidated Lynch.

We positioned ourselves to the dummy and when we thought of slashing the dummy, with the help of the combat assist system, our bodies moved on their own.

After quite a while of slashing had been done a notification appeared.

[Heavy strike has been learned]

I stopped myself from slashing the dummy and read out the notification.

[Level 1. Heavy strike

Slashes the enemy in a downward motion and deals a hard blow.

Restriction: None

Mana usage: 10 MP

Cooldown: 10 seconds]

"You could also learn skills by repeating actions. Cool"

As he finished reading, he positioned himself again and decided to use the skill.

"Heavy strike" he said out loud.

His body moved on its own, he raised his hands upward and then after a second he swung his sword downward and it hit the dummy. The skill was successful and it hit the dummy. But, he felt that there was something wrong about what he just did.

He opened the menu panel and went to the settings to check because maybe it had something to do with the sensitivity.

He scrolled down and then there he saw the combat assist system. There was a switch on it, he thought maybe the problem was about the system. So he turned it off.

Then he decided to test out the skill again on the dummy but this time without the help of the system.

He gripped the sword hard and raised his hand voluntarily and when he decided to swing the sword downward, he called out the skill's name.

"Heavy strike!"

With the wooden sword, he had slashed the dummy into half.

All the players who were still in the training ground looked at him with a surprised look.