After leaving the shop Eldrian headed to the training fields, spending the last hour of sunlight practicing with his spear. The training fields had been surprisingly busy, with many players seemingly being taught. Eldrian assumed these were the teachers he had read about, unfortunately he couldn’t really find more information.

Eldrian thus didn’t bother himself too much with them, only taking a casual glance during his breaks. As the sunset, he headed to the magic tower and logged out.

The next few days were spent in a similar manner. Eldrian going to class after having done his morning exercise routine and logging into the game after class.

During class, he got more and more work, yet somehow he managed to complete most of it during his hour breaks, between his classes. Due to this, he managed to somehow keep his gaming time intact, yet he knew this would not last.

During his gaming time, Eldrian continued to practice magic first, then go smithing, and after spending an hour or two practicings.

In this manner the week passed and Friday came. Waking up the Friday morning, Eldrian was frustrated that he hadn’t leveled up, needing just 50XP to reach level 4.

‘Why didn’t I get more XP even though the number of ingots increased?’ Eldrian complained to himself as he stood up and stretched.

His new daily task had been to form 3 then 4 and now 5 ingots, yet it only rewarded him the same 200XP. Granted it also rewarded him with more money, up to an entire silver now. Eldrian felt he couldn’t complain too much. He was making more than most of the other players.

Yet while he was making more and his leveling speed seemed to be similar to the more active and adventurous players, he felt his growth had slowed down. Or rather that he had none since he still hadn’t managed to really feel or use mana.

Most of the players had now found themselves some type of teacher, and with them not being High Elves they managed to learn skills and spells within only a few hours. In fact, many managed to use a skill or spell within minutes. Needing the extra time to get used to it.

This was because the skills and spells didn’t work as a single entity, rather they had to combine it with their fighting style. Eldrian found this very interesting and couldn’t wait until he could try it.

He learned about this from reading posts and watching videos about it, Eldrian had started feeling disheartened in the process. It looked so much more fun what the others were doing, yet he was stuck going to a dungeon to train his magic. At least he enjoyed the blacksmithing, even though no magic was present. Eldrian found it entertaining to see the metal being forged.

Unfortunately, the blacksmithing routine had also started getting boring after doing the same thing for a few days.

After stretching and getting over his frustration, Eldrian grabbed some cereal to eat. Heading out for a run right after.

While running he thought about his plans for tonight, he and Erik had decided to go to a club. This would be their first time going out and Eldrian was stressing about it, luckily Erik was in the same boat so they both had someone to lean on and complain to.

After his run, he changed and headed to class, during which he again got some new information. This time it was a class test he would have to write Wednesday. Cursing the professor Eldrian wondered if he would be able to play on Tuesday. He reasoned that he would be able, as long as he worked during the weekend. Which certainly wasn’t something he was looking out for.

This news made him more excited about tonight.

At the end of the day he excitedly headed to his house, yet as soon as he arrived he realized he had around 5 hours to kill. Since most of the clubs only started becoming busy after 8, closer to 10. This information was found when he had asked his sister for some advice.

Not knowing what else to do Eldrian logged into the game, thinking that he could at least finished his magic and blacksmithing. Seeing as the first normally only took an hour and then later he had more than enough in his backlog.

Eldrian also wanted to level up, to ease his frustration about his lack of growth.

Logging in Eldrian headed directly to the dungeon. He and Dave had come to an understanding to meet there. If Dave was first he would normally just read some papers while waiting for Eldrian. If Eldrian was first, well then he would just dawdle until Dave arrived.

Unfortunately, Eldrian had forgotten that he was earlier than normal. He usually ate something and surfed the forum before logging in, yet today he had directly logged in. Looking at the time Eldrians saw that it was only 3AM.

After a few minutes of debating if he should go wake Dave, Eldrian decided to just do it. As such he climbed the stairs, knocking on Dave’s door quite nervously.

As the door, open Eldrian quickly said, “Sorry to interrupt so soon. I want to get today started early.”

Looking at a fully awake Eldrian in front of him Dave sighed and cast some spell on himself. After which he left his room while saying, “Alright, let’s get going.”

Eldrian followed, greatly relieved that Dave was being so cool.

Knowing the process Eldrian went to his position and soon they were inside the dungeon. The Magic Crystal was still hidden behind an ice wall, which Dave had simply kept since Eldrian started coming here daily.

Sitting down against one of the walls Eldrian made himself comfortable and cast the spell, Anthos.

After casting the spell a mental tug of war happening inside his mind. As before he managed to keep most of his module, yet a few pieces broke off. Frustrated about the module still breaking Eldrian focused with renewed vigor. Trying to pull them back.

This didn’t do anything for a while, yet some of the pieces stopped floating away. Grinning Eldrian tried to command the pieces to come back to him.

Doing this he felt quite stupid. It was similar to trying to move something with your mind. How exactly do you focus to do it? Yet Eldrian managed, somehow. One of the pieces slowly started drifting back to the rest of the spell module.

Before the piece could rejoin, the spell ended. Disappointed and excited at the same time Eldrian immediately cast the spell again.

Surprised Dave looked at Eldrian, using Magic-Inspection Dave clearly saw that Eldrian had no mana left, yet he had cast the spell again.

Soon Eldrian felt pain for the first time this week. Grinding his teeth he kept his focus on the spell module, managing to keep it almost intact. Only a few pieces were floating apart, only a short distance away.

‘Almost!’ Eldrian shouted internally, yet the spell soon broke down.

Just as he wanted to recast the spell he felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking up he saw Dave looking at him.

“Take a rest first. That one hurt again, didn’t it.”

Frustrated Eldrian didn’t answer, yet he did as Dave said. Glancing at his stats he found that his HP was again down, having lost around 40 points.

‘So, overcasting a spell can cost HP. Why?’ Eldrian asked himself, quite certain that this wasn’t supposed to be a thing. He felt it was unlikely that Elves could use their health instead of mana.

After a while he felt that it was likely linked in some manner to the Magic Crystal.

‘Must be, as it can force my spell to form. It might force it too much.’

After resting Eldrian cast the spell again, and one more time after that. On the last attempt, only one small piece had broken from the spell module, this piece having floated next to the module. Just a few centimeters away.

When he had started the pieces would disappear into the darkness which surrounded the spell module, yet now it stayed. It stayed very close to the module.

Eldrian felt greatly satisfied after this session. He felt that this was his first major hurdle. Soon he would be able to move on to more satisfying training.

Leaving the Magic tower Eldrian headed to Boran’s. There he simply melded 12 semi-ingots into standard ingots. Finishing his daily task quite quickly, giving him around three more hours to do as he willed.

[Daily Task Completed: Form 5 standard ingots.]

[Formed 5; Player backlog 28]

[Daily Task Reward: 200XP, 100 copper]

Leaving the shop Eldrian smiled broadly as he looked at the system message, thanks to this daily task he had reached level 4. He now needed 7850XP for the next level, yet he was glad in having gained this level.

While the progress was certainly not the same as the other players, it was still progressing.

At the training field Eldrian started with his spear, spending around an hour as a warm-up. After which he was itching for a fight. Thus he headed to the nearest barracks he knew -Old Sword’s barracks. He had only been doing the same training this entire week and now he wanted to let loose a bit.

Arriving at the barracks he quickly saw all the trainees doing their routines.

‘It is still quite early…’ Eldrian mumbled as he saw where they were at in their routine. Curious on how late it actually was Eldrian looked at the time, [Time: IRL-17:51 ; IG-05:51].

“Crap.” Eldrian looked around and saw that everyone was busy. Not going to be able to spar with one of the trainers Eldrian headed back to the training field. There he took the bow he had looted and started getting used to it.

[Longbow]

[Grade: Normal, Tier 4]

[Damage – 17<Physical Piercing Damage <18>]

{Damage with normal arrows}

[Attack speed – 0.5 <Attacks per second:0.575>]

[Max range: 140 meters]

[Durability – 489/565]

[Attribute requirements:]

[Strength – 95, Agility – 84, Weight – 1.4kg]

Eldrian spent a few minutes getting used to the bow. He also tried using his inventory to take the arrows out, yet quickly found that this task required far too much concentration. In the end, he pulled ten arrows from his inventory, sticking them into the ground. Pulling an arrow as he needed, fetching those he had shot after finishing those in the ground.

After around an hour of shooting Eldrian had only managed to hit the target dummy about ten times. This when he was only 20 meters from the dummy. At this stage, his face was burning from embarrassment.

After missing another he decided to call it a day and log out. Only an hour was left until he needed to log out in any case.

…

Waking up Eldrian took a shower, shaved. Combed his hair and dressed up. Right before leaving he ate some noodles, having gotten this advice from his sister.

She had told him it helped her to feel better after getting drunk. Yet Eldrian planned more on not getting drunk, at the least he didn’t want to get wasted. He felt confident eating would also work for that.

Feeling nervous Eldrian left his apartment and waited outside. While he didn’t have a car, Erik did. Eldrian wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to drive, but in the end he had given in after Erik assured him that he wasn’t going to get drunk.