The Earth After Rebirth

Ding!

[You\'ve entered the Forest of wonder, where beauty is unimaginable and danger lurks deep within.]

"What a chilling message. Beautiful but dangerous." Kiro mumbled to himself.

The forest seemed peaceful and healthy. Trees as tall as skyscrapers from the real world could be seen. Birds were singing. If you walked quietly enough, or stayed hidden, animals such as squirrels, deer, showed themselves. It was truly a beautiful sight.

The forest made it clear that these animals were harmless. So attacking them was futile. The developers made it so that they couldn\'t be killed or physically attacked by players either. This was just their work, to show off the beauty of nature.

Kiro decided to scout first, checking their daily routines for 2 days. The goblins hunted in the forest they set up their village in, their village was guarded, and they took turns to stand at every corner. Their weapons were quite shabby, they had stone spears and clubs.

Everyday hunters would go out to hunt, others would collect fire wood, while others fetched water. Kiro found himself mesmerised by their organised society.

He started by installing traps close enough to their village but far enough that he wasn\'t detected. He climbed a tree nearby and bided his time. He found himself hoping he had chosen the elven race because then he could have the archery class. He would just sit here and pick them off one by one if that were the case.

Goblins didn\'t suspect a thing, they went about their day. When none of their hunters or woodcutters returned they assumed the goblins got too arrogant and went too far into the forest, only to be killed by stronger monsters. They paid it no mind, instead they\'d keep sending more.

This went on for a few days, they\'d send new hunters and Kiro\'s traps would spring up, he\'d go down and take care of the rest that weren\'t killed by traps. He had killed over 80 goblins. He was now at level 4. He used all the AP he gained on intelligence. It looked like the skills he got so far use magic points.

He even unlocked an AOE skill called Vibrations upon reaching level 4, basically he had to hit the ground with his staff and the affected enemies would be stunned while losing HP at the same time. Stunned for 10 seconds, the cooldown was 1 minute and it used 50 MP.

Name: Kiro

Level 4

Race: Dreki

Class: Sagehood

Subclass: -

HP: 170/170

MP: 130/130

Attack: 50(+50)

PDEF: 30(+20)

Strength: 15

Vitality: 10

Dexterity: 10(+2)

Stamina: 10

Intelligence: 13

Equipment: uncommon cloth armour and boots and uncommon staff.

Skills

Staff Wielder (Rank A, can\'t evolve) 20% damage

Vibrations (AOE Rank A, can evolve)

Consumes 50MP, 1 minute cooldown

Blink Step (Rank S, can evolve)

Consumes 20MP per second.

Hurricane Punch (Rank B, can evolve)

Kiro looked at his character sheet with a satisfied look. After killing them, he\'d set up new traps and go back to his tree.

On the 4th day however, the goblins came out of their village. Hundreds of them. They knew something was wrong. So they mobilised all their fighters and started marching towards the forest, Kiro knew now that he had no choice but to fight them head on.

------

At a dingy little smith shop, one dwarf could be seen doing his usual, crafting weapons. While another was trying his best to be one with the fire, he had been doing this for days on end. He thought he\'d get normal monster slayer quests like the rest of everyone else. But—

"You\'re not doing it right!"

"You\'re not teaching it right!"

"I told you, I cannot teach you this. I can only stir you in the right direction!"

"This is the right direction?"

"No! You\'re not getting it all. At this point you won\'t be a master craftsman. This profession needs you to wield fire like it were your fifth limb."

Initially, Hiro thought craftsmanship and alchemy were just armour, weapon and potion creation. He didn\'t realise that, these two things go back way before electricity had been discovered. As the times changed, they also evolved in their own ways.

Unless he grasped the concept, he\'d have to just quit and be your run-of-the-mill craftsman. He didn\'t want that at all, he hadn\'t levelled up once since he got here. He hadn\'t cleared the first quest the old dwarf gave him.

His master wasn\'t at all that good at teaching. So they bickered a lot, while Hiro accused him of being a bad teacher, and the dwarf, Rufian, would accuse Hiro of being a slow witted student.

He sat there again, and tried to listen and be \'one\' with the fire. The fire seemed to resonate with him more when he felt passionate, he did feel passionate about craftsmanship that\'s why he chose VR science in real life. To create VR hardware one day. To be the greatest engineer in Sanctauri.

The old dwarf\'s lips curled into a smile. He felt pride he had never felt before. This is a person who had crafted thousands of legendary items, but he had never felt this proud in his life.

This was his first student after all. He almost teared up. The young dwarf was enveloped in fire, but he wasn\'t getting burnt. \'That\'s right. That\'s how you do it. You breathe together with it!\'

Ding!

[Congratulations you\'ve attained a skill, fire manipulation.]

[Fire attacks will be nullified up to 90%]

[You can conjure flames. The skill uses 10 MP per second]

[You\'ve cleared a quest, you\'re awarded 10 000 EXP]

Level up x6

60 AP, 30 SP.

[You\'ve unlocked, Purify, Crowd Control and Alchemy infusion]

Purity: can purify certain materials into the best of their version they can be.

Alchemy Infusion: allows you to infuse alchemy with weapons.

Crowd Control: allows you to draw the enemies enmity.

[You can rank up some these skills to use their more advanced versions.]

Hiro heaved a deep a sigh of relief. He thought he\'d have to quit this game once and for all. But his persistence paid off. He knew craftsmen needed strength above all else, which is why 20 AP was attributed to strength. He then put the rest of it to other attributes excluding dexterity. He kept his skill points.

Name: Hiro

Level 7

Race: Dwarf

Class: Craftsmanship

Subclass: -

HP: 150/150

MP: 150/150

Attack: 100

PDEF: 100

Strength: 25

Vitality: 15

Dexterity: 5

Stamina: 15

Intelligence: 15

Equipment: shabby armour.

Skills

Fire Manipulation (Rank S, can evolve)10MP per second.

Purify (Rank A, can\'t evolve)

Alchemy Infusion(Rank S, can\'t evolve)5MP per second

Crowd Control (Rank A, can evolve.) 50 MP per second.

"I can finally be proud that you\'re my student. Aren\'t I a great teacher?"

"Shameless old man, don\'t take credit for my hard work!"

The real work started now, Hiro started his journey of learning different kinds of materials, herbs and ores. He\'d spend the next week brewing potions, learning various concoctions and creating weapons and armour his new master deemed worthy.

------

At the same time, the war between one Dreki and many goblins was about to begin in the forest.

Kiro knew he had no chance unless he used every skill in his arsenal. He wielded his staff, standing on a tree he could see about a hundred goblins coming for him. It was a chilling sight, for a second he questioned whether or not he could beat them all.

He jumped off the tree, their eyes landed on the man who just landed on the ground, as if on queue both sides started running toward each other, it looked like they were being pulled to each other by an invisible thread.

Just before they could be at arms length with each other, Kiro made his move. He hit the ground with his staff as hard as he could, activating vibrations. Every goblin within 200 meters of him was affected, he didn\'t waste time as he jumped over the stunned ones. Tap dancing on their heads, until he reached the ones that weren\'t.

He started killing them mercilessly. The staff was a blunt weapon, but the damage it could inflict was equally deadly. He must\'ve killed 30 when he realised he had been completely surrounded.

He then activated blink step, he blinked outside the circle that they were using to corner him. He was in mid air, and decided to try out hurricane punch, so he activated it.

A gust of wind appeared out of nowhere and descended on the goblins that had formed the circle, killing them instantly and denting the ground.

"P-powerful."

He landed at the dented spot and charged forwards. Killing the goblins without prejudice.

Before they realised what was happening, his MP bar was at half. He activated vibrations once again.

-50

-20

-90

-15

-100

Kiro was having a field day. Even though these goblins were level 5s, they weren\'t very smart. So he took advantage of that, and toyed with them. Forcing them to use their brains only to make them more confused, thereby disrupting their battle formation.

Ding!

[Congratulations on clearing the quest.]

They dropped a lot of useless weapons and armour, and some gold coins. Kiro quickly put those up for sale on the forums, he figured a newbie would buy them.

Before leaving he went around the goblin village to see if he could find anything worthy, but there was absolutely nothing of value. Not even the kidnapped villagers. So he started towards the beginner\'s village.

The chief was delighted when he saw Kiro returning from battle victorious. Albeit sad that there weren\'t any survivors from the kidnapped batch.

Ding!

[You\'ve received 12 098 EXP]

[You\'ve received a skill book]

Martial Arts skill book: Learn the ways of the sage. This skill will help you learn martial arts skills easily.

Levelled upx3

[You\'ve unlocked a new skill, Chi. You can borrow energy from living things.]

More than these, Kiro was ecstatic that he would finally, finally go to the labyrinth now that he was above level 5. And all of this grinding took 15 days in-game. Which was 15 hours out there.

He called Hiro, and they decided to meet up in an hour because even he was done with his business. Apart from the fact that he looked beaten up, Kiro didn\'t think much of it. He had no idea how craftsmen levelled up. But the way Hiro was, it didn\'t look like a walk in the park at all.

He went to war with goblins, but he still looked better than Hiro. He had forgotten that, sometimes, mental fatigue is all it takes to break a man completely.