[Warning! You’ve just entered an area where a story event takes place.]

Klaus Park raised his eyebrows as he read the notice and wondered, ‘A story event? What is that? Well, it shouldn’t be anything I can interfere with, so it’s probably not a problem.’

He entered the small crowd that had formed at the entrance to the Training Center and came across the arena of a vast coliseum.

[You entered the Holinda Start City Training Facility.]

Since Klaus Park didn’t think he had much time to waste, he opted to go the other way the noise was. All he wanted was to start Rise Online’s famous combat tutorial as soon as possible. The truth is that the scene of the red-haired woman fighting seven men at the same time with a single sword was still deeply embedded in his memory.

The arena floor looked like a large pool of sand; Klaus Park headed straight to the area with some rag dolls for fencing practice. Besides the dolls was a man with blond hair and black eyes who smiled friendly after seeing the youth.

“Good afternoon, sir! Are you new to the arena? I’ve never seen you here.” the man asked, looking into Klaus Park’s face and hoping he wasn’t mistaken.

“Good afternoon. You’re right; I’m a newbie. I want to learn about sword fighting.” Klaus replied without caring, even after looking at the message above the man’s head, which displayed that it was an NPC.

“And teaching is my job here! You have a wooden sword with you, don’t you?”

Klaus frowned, not understanding. Then he thought about opening the inventory, and a screen appeared in front of him. A few minutes ago, in his inventory, there were only three loaves of bread as a novice gift, but now there was a wooden sword, making him surprised.

Before clicking on the wooden sword in his inventory, Klaus Park looked at the man and asked, “If I may ask, what is your name, sir?”

Klaus Park already knew the answer to this question as the names of the NPCs hovered over their heads, something that did not happen with Players.

The fencing instructor was surprised; after all, it was not common for people to ask his name. He made a heartful smile again and extended his right-hand forward. “My name is Berni, from the Coyle family. It is an honor to meet you.”

Klaus Park extended his right-hand forward and shook the NPC’s hand. Before buying Rise Online, he read on a forum that developing good relationships with NPCs could be as important as doing it with Players. These relationships could benefit him with extra information, hidden quests, discounts, and many other things.

“It’s all right. Before we start the sword training, I’ll explain to you the most basic thing: there is something called PR, which is an index to measure your current physical skill level. You can check this in the System Status Window and then in attributes.” Berni articulated with his hands as he explained. “People are not born into this world with the same level of physical fitness and ability, so don’t be discouraged if you see that your PR is too low. It is usually between 40 and 50.”

“Hm… I still haven’t checked my status.” Klaus Park replied to the instructor. Although he was an avid gamer as a kid, MMORPGs used to get off to a boring start for him. He always tried to get to the midgame as quickly as possible, but with this being his first time playing a NeuroGear game, he couldn’t rush that far away, at least if he didn’t want to get lost in the future. “Let’s see… Status Screen and then Attributes.”

[Status Screen

Nickname: Kaizen | Class: None. | Current Title: Transferred Beginner. | Profession: Jobless.]

“It is calling me Jobless? This game is pretty ruthless.” Klaus Park said while looking at the system, which made Berni laugh a little.

[Attributes

Strength: 1 |

Speed: 1 |Agility: 1 | PR: 120]

“My PR is equal to 120. Didn’t you say the normal is 50?” with his eyebrows furrowed, Klaus Park asked.

The fencing instructor gaped and broke out in a cold sweat. He’d had few opportunities to see rookie players with PR above 90, so seeing one with 120 was really surprising.

*

On the other side of the Training Center arena, several players were closely fawning over a knight whose armor was as golden as his hair. Above his head was his name, Elfire Waylan, indicating that he was an NPC.

The ornaments on his armor were silver and formed majestic designs on each part of the set. This could only mean that he was a noble; after all, the armor of normal city guards was considerably simpler.

The knight wasn’t the only NPC present in the center of the crowd; there were also two more young nobles with blond hair who looked younger than Elfire Waylan. The NPCs proudly chatted with the players, feeling welcomed by their people from the City of Holinda.

Elfire Waylan didn’t know that the players weren’t there by being impressed with him, but because they all wanted to create relationships with him to gain benefits from the nobles of the city. In Rise Online, titles, relationships, and money were as important as rare skills.

“Alright, alright. We’ve talked enough for today. The three of us have a mission to fulfill here at the Training Center, so I’m sorry, but we won’t be able to stay much longer.” said Elfire Waylan, raising his arms in the air and waving as if he were a king greeting his followers. ‘Disgusting people, I hope they die.’ He thought, still with a smile on his face.

Then the three armored nobles headed to the other side of the arena; however, they were surprised to see that the instructor they wanted to talk to was busy with a beginner. Normally, they wouldn’t mind getting in the way, only this time Elfire Waylan didn’t proceed and started looking over.

The three noble boys were watching the rookie Klaus Park, who was testing basic moves with his wooden sword on a training dummy.

Klaus had never touched a sword with his bare hands, but he could surely say that the sword in Rise Online looked perfectly real. The feel, the weight, the sound, everything about the sword, and the experience of using it were away from his expectation. He tried lunges, swings, and many other types of attacks, feeling a little regretful that he never practiced Kendo.

Elfire Waylan was secretly impressed by Klaus Park’s swordplay, but he couldn’t say why. There was nothing special about the way this beginner wielded the sword, just that it was still imposing, perhaps because he had a broad back and was tall? Elfire Waylan couldn’t say.𝐎𝑣𝑙xt.𝓬𝚘𝗆

When Elfire realized that the instructor had not even noticed his presence being so focused on the teachings, he approached and asked:

“You are Berni Coyle, aren’t you? You are under arrest for not paying taxes. Boys, tie him up.”