7 Lou
The entrance led straight to the village square. Rastel saw different races from humans to dwarves, beastmen, elves, and even an odd draconian, but mostly humans. There were a lot of humans.
The square also served as a market place as many people were going about buying and selling with stalls set up. Among the populace, he could recognize the players by the green arrow suspended above their heads. Players accounted for a substantial amount of the village's population.
The first thing he needed was spells. The system did not give anything other than the money and dagger. No skills were given to players and he had to get those for himself.
The system allowed you to gain skills by learning and getting taught or you could create skills for yourself by gaining enlightenment and practicing moves. There were no skill points to upgrade skills. The level and power of your skills depended entirely on your proficiency with it, how much you use it, and your base stats.
Although there were no skill points, there were stat points with 3 points given for every level up, with the basic stats being; Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Mentality, intelligence, and Stamina. There were also minor stats such as mana and physical resistance, poison resistance, etc. Those are affected by the base stats and any extra effort the player puts into developing them.
Rastel pulled up his profile by swiping down the right side of his vision. His level, basic stats, and skills were shown.
Name: Rastel
Race: Muan
Level: 0
HP: 100
Mana: 100
Strength: 3
Agility: 5
Dexterity: 6
Endurance: 4
Intelligence:9
Mentality:8
Skills: None
Titles: None
He sighed when he saw it, a muan's basic strength really is incredibly weak. 3 strength? What the heck was that!? That's the strength of a normal human child!
He swiped up the screen and moved into the crowd to look for a library. The best and easiest way for him to get skills was by reading books.
A player found out about this hack about three months into the game's release. As long as you finished a book on some particular skill, you automatically learn it. The only set back was that it had to be an easy basic skill.
The player also found out something a little bit special. Muan characters could increase their intelligence and mentality stat through reading books! It was an ability exclusively given to muans, just like how elves had a strong affinity to magic or human races had bloodline powers.
Although it sounded easy, most players disregarded it because they felt it was a waste of time. They would rather find instructors to teach them or figure it out themselves as it was more fun. Besides who could sit down in a library reading books when there were adventures to be had? They weren't a lot of muan players anyway.
But to people like Rastel who loved books, it was very convenient. It was even one of the major reasons why he chose the class in the first place.
As he moved through the crowd, he was able to appreciate the game more, everything was so real! He also felt the rarity of the muan race as he only saw about two or three muans with none been NPC's (non-player characters).
He walked around for about thirty minutes but still couldn't find the library. He sat down on a wooden box near an alley, tired.
"Why is it so hard to find the library in this village!" he cried.
"Are you lost mister?" a tiny voice sounded beside him.
"Eh, who's there?" he looked around.
A girl beastman came out from behind one of the boxes and looked at him inquisitively with large eyes.
"Are you looking for the library?" she asked.
Rastel looked at her, she had long blonde hair, feline ears, and large round yellow eyes. A long brown tail came out of her back and she was dressed in a plain black dress.
He smiled at her, "Yeah, can you tell me where it is?"
She pointed to the building right across the road and he followed with his eyes. It was medium-sized and had a diagram of a book in front of it.
"It's right there" she said laughing.
He turned around to look at her sheepishly scratching the back of his head.
"Ha....haha, I didn't see it since I was so tired I guess"
"You are funny mister" she laughed at him again.
"Thanks girl, what's your name by the way?" he asked.
"Lou" she said smiling.
"Alright Lou, thanks for the directions, here's five kryts to get yourself something" he took out five kryts from his pouch and gave it to her.
"Thank you!" she said happily as she took the money and disappeared down the alley.
He watched her go before crossing the road and entering the library.
It was really small for a library, there were about fifteen big shelves, and three small ones by the librarian's counter which were probably for special books. The shelves were arranged around the walls leaving the middle open to be used as a reading area. Tables and chairs filled this spot.
There were only two people there, an old dark-skinned human man with a pretty girl with light brown skin who looked around 16 sitting at a table. They both had green arrows suspended above them showing they were players.
Rastel walked to the librarian, a middle-aged elf woman with glasses to ask about the library. He had to admit, elves really were beautiful. Even at that age the librarian still looked attractively charming, although he was not really sure what her age was. Elves aged slowly.
"I'd like to use the library" he said smiling.
The librarian smiled back revealing a perfect set of teeth as she answered, "No problem, it's free. You would have to pay an amount of 15 kryts if you want to borrow a book though"
"No need, I'm just reading" he said and went to the first shelf.
He looked at all the books there then sighed, this was going to take a long time. He took the first ten books on the shelf and went to a table opposite the old man and the girl.
The man raised his head from the book he was reading to look at him, he smiled at him and nodded. He nodded back then sat down. The girl kept on reading, too concentrated to pay attention to her surroundings.
For the next 1 week in-game, Rastel only read books in the library once he logged in. This accounted for about 3 days in the normal world, time ran 3 times faster in the game. He spent all his money buying bread to keep his HP up as he read, it was possible to die from starvation. He finished the books in the library shelf after shelf gaining multiple skills as he went.
Magic, mining, herb gathering, forgery, he gained basic proficiency in a lot of skills. There were so many notifications for learned skills he grew numb to the "PING!" sound that accompanied each one. The old man and the girl were also there throughout the time reading, it seemed like they also wanted to finish the books there.
Rastel was a fast reader and finished all the books within the week. By that time, the old man and girl were barely finished. He was already familiar with them and greeted them as he dropped off the last books on the shelf.
"Old man, it seems I'll be leaving you here"
"Indeed, you're quite the fast reader" the man said laughing.
The girl looked up at him then smiled shyly, she went back to the book afterward.
"I'll be on my way then, take care of yourself old man" he waved as he left.
"You too young lad, we'll meet again if we're fated". The old man called out.
Rastel said goodbye to the librarian too as he left. They had grown friendlier as he continuously visited the library.
He stepped outside and felt the sun on his face. It was time for him to start his adventures for real.
Reading all the books in the library gave him 30 points to his intelligence and 23 to his mentality. For a mage, this was the best since his attack power would greatly increase and so would his mana.
He found his way to the village gates, it was time to go hunting. He was down to 4 kryts, a pitiful amount, and needed to make more money and also increase his level.
He was still at level 0 after all this while.
