Kevin

After wandering aimlessly for a while, practicing spells and trying to figure out how to do "art", night fell once more. This time however, I decided that sleep was for the weak and I kept foraging onwards. It soon got to a point where I needed to use a little bit of light magic to see my direct surroundings, and upon closer inspection, there was no moon in sight. "Odd, there wasn't even one yesterday either. Maybe it's one of those rare times where both moons are out of sight for three days." I thought. Soon I heard something rustling in the trees, coming towards the light. "Just like a moth to a flame" I thought. Soon, I saw an undead, flesh barely hanging on, walking limping quickly towards me. The undead fed on the mana of living creatures to keep themselves going. As a result of this, they were quite unfriendly most of the time. Especially the unintelligent kind. some undead had a control center of sorts. It was a large mass of mana that controlled the corpse somewhere in their body. Once you scattered the mana controlling the corpse. The undead would lose the prefix in its name, becoming just dead once more. Lots of the weaker undead happened to be this type. Just like this one in front of me. It was not hard finding the "control center", all you had to do was spot the purple glow in its body and target that area. One of the undead's eyes had a faint purple glow coming from behind it, so I immediately knew where to target. It was over quickly and uneventfully. All I had to do was conjure a thin rod of rocks from the ground. Which was surprisingly hard for this new body. And jab its eye a couple of times. I was curious if defeating the undead would change anything in the book, so I opened it up. My exp was now at 5/10, and making that earthen rod like I did leveled up my ground magic to level 2. My light magic had also reached level 2 after walking around all night. I soon came across 3 more undead and leveled up to level 3, With my exp at 10/20. At this point I had decided that sleep was actually pretty needed and climbed into a tree once more.

By the time I awoke, the sun was already at its zenith. By this point I felt decrepit. I had not eaten in 2 days or something, and it was getting to me. Water magic supplied water for me but I was really hungry, and I wasn't in the mood to eat an undead so I would have to find something else. I started to move again, hoping to find a town or animal soon. With undead around, there should be people somewhere near but who knows. I killed another one of those weird green things and my exp went up by 5 leaving me close to another level. I was starting to lose hope when I heard sounds of fighting close to me. Nothing more than muffled yelps but it was something.

Hurring in that direction I saw a person fighting a green creature! I watched for a little and the guy seemed to be about to win. And just when he was about to deal the killing blow, another green thing attacked him from behind. It must have also been drawn by the sounds of battle. Not wanting to see my only lead to civilization get impaled, I stepped out and threw a fireball at the green thing. I put some power into it, so one blast was all it took. The blasting apart of its comrade distracted the creature that the guy was fighting just enough to end the battle.

"Thanks" said the man, breathing heavily. "I'm Kevin." Kevin had short brown hair, stood at around 6ft, had light skin, sharpish features and gray eyes. "Winter" I replied "Winter? What about it?" He looked at me for a second. I stared back, then he said "...oh, is that your name?" "Yes," I said with a slight smile. "Anyway, do you have rations or something, because I am starving" I said. Looking at me a bit blankly, Kevin handed me some dried meat, which was enough for now. After devouring the meat and thanking him I asked "You know where a town is, or something like that?" "Yeah, after the goblin attack I figured I would head back" Kevin replied. 'Goblin? I wonder what that is' I thought. 'Oh! Maybe it's those green things, yeah that's it.' Kevin spoke up "Are you part of the brotherhood?" he asked. "The what?" I replied. "I guess not. You can take on requests for killing monsters or collecting things there and get paid. I can show it to you if you want, " Kevin said. "I'll check it out" I decided it would be good to make some money so that I could eat. I was no longer the richest person in the world after all. After talking for a bit I found that Kevin had woken up in a cathedral one day with no memories, so he didn't know where he was from. I just told him that I was from somewhere in the forest. Which for some reason was a satisfactory answer for Kevin. I wasn't sure if everyone had the leveling system, but after asking Kevin what his level was and him sadly responding that he was only level 3, I was certain that this system must be the norm in this place.

After a while of wandering, it was clear that Kevin was not too sure about the direction of town. "I was told that the thinner the trees the closer you were to the city, and it's always been reliable before…" Kevin said. "When I was on my way out here it was clear that the trees were getting denser, so why is there no indication of that happening now!" He seemed to be a bit embarrassed due to his inability to find the city but I was fine with being patient. After I killed two more goblins and achieved level 4 the trees finally started to thin. I was curious as to what type of place the city would be and what food there would be. After a while I noticed that there was a visible area where the trees cut off, but it was strange because there didn't seem to be anything past it. Upon reaching the tree line, I saw something interesting. Past the trees was just the sky. This was a sky island and I could see islands in the far off distance too. I looked at Kevin and the look on his face was hilarious. Along with the islands in the far distance, there were also lots of colorful floating energies and creatures flying in the sky. A sight that was not to be found even on my home planet or whatever.

After getting our fill of the view, we retraced our steps, killed a few more goblins and some weak water spirits (Apparently they call them slimes here, and the name fits) we found the city. The city was unremarkable. Wooden walls surrounded it, single and double story wooden buildings, and cobbled pathways. It was more of a large town than anything. Everyone seemed relatively unremarkable with some people carrying swords or wearing armor. Kevin guided me to the brotherhood's building which was only slightly more fancy than other buildings, having a small training area behind it. As we opened the door of the building we were greeted with the sight of, well, not much. There were a couple of people milling around or looking at hung up papers, which looked to be the requests Kevin was talking about. There were also some people standing at a desk which is where Kevin had started walking towards. There was a nice looking lady waiting at the counter. Kevin spoke up and gesturing at me he said "Hi, he would like to become part of the brotherhood as a mage." "I'm not a mage, I'm an artist" I said. Looking surprised Kevin said "But you were throwing fireballs powerful enough to one shot a goblin!" Not having a proper response to that, I just restated "I'm an artist." The receptionist was trying to get our attention again because to register you have to touch a stone that reads some of your basic info. It then projected it onto a little card. The card lets you take on requests from the brotherhood and ones that are given to the brotherhood from the locals. It also lets you enter certain areas that are blocked off to unregistered people. Kevin had apparently collected the blades of all the goblins that we had defeated and presented them to the receptionist to receive some money. There are two continuous requests at this location. One is to kill monsters, the stronger the monster, the more money you get. And another is for certain herbs that are apparently used to make some kind of healing medicine. Remembering that I was completely lost when it came to the art of art, I decided to ask the receptionist if she knew anything about art. "Hey, so even though I'm an artist I'm a bit new, so could you point me to someone or somewhere that could help get me started with art?" Quickly responding she said "The cathedral has a starter guide for any of the classes, and Kevin you should also go, seeing as you are using a knife still even though you're a shapeshifter." I was a bit surprised that Kevin was a shapeshifter, but I thanked the receptionist and found my way over to the cathedral with Kevin.