Chapter 16

After a night of spent crafting and harvesting oysters, I logged out feeling like I'd actually accomplished something. Atlantean Mother-of-Steel was amazing. The ingots made from processing oyster shells was not only lightweight and rust-proof, but a spear made with Mother-of-Steel could sweep through payara like butter.

Better yet, once I knew cerulean crystal shards could calm the payara and let me navigate Oyster Hollow unmolested, I discovered a few other resources. King clams were hiding among the algae-covered reef. Clams alone were valuable to me, but king clams grew a golden fur on the exterior of their shells. This fur was called 'the King Clam's beard'.

Once it was processed, it became sea silk.

The discovery kept me busy farming the stuff until my alarm went off.

I never knew when Sheynan would decide to stop by and talk to me, so I gave him until lunch to appear. When he didn't show up, I left my safe corner of the classroom to search for him. This gave my classmates reason to gossip, but I ignored them in favor of finding Sheynan and asking him about the secret to leveling up.

I found him playing basketball in the gym. I waited at the edge of the court, internally cringing over how some of the guys gave me weird looks, until Sheynan finally noticed me.

"Jay?" he blurted, fumbling a pass in surprise.

"Hey," I mumbled in embarrassment. Was it really so surprising that I wasn't glued to my desk? "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"No, it's fine," Sheynan replied with a wide smile. He jogged over to me and the other players followed out of blatant curiosity. "What's up?"

"How do I level up?" I blurted. "I've tried crafting, questing, and fighting, but I haven't gotten any experience points."

Sheynan stumbled in place. I hadn't even known such a thing was possible, yet he did it. "No way," he gaped. "You started playing? When?"

"Last week, but I'm still level zero. I know I'm missing something. I just don't know what."

Sheynan laughed. He immediately covered his mouth, realizing he was being rude. "Sorry. It's just I had the same problem at first. Aetherscape doesn't follow the typical pattern where everything equals experience points. They wanted to make it so a player's level was representative of their actual ability level."

I wrinkled my nose. "What does that mean?"

"Leveling up doesn't make you stronger," one of the other basketball players explained. "You level up when you can prove you've become stronger. What class are you?"

"Sage," I replied.

"Go to your Sage trainer and have them test you on your Sage-specific skills," the guy said.

"As far as I know, I don't have any class-specific skills. I leech skills from other classes."

Sheynan turned in place and shouted across the court. "Trace! Aren't you a Sage? Come over here. We need your wisdom."

I recognized Trace on sight. He was the raven-haired Captain of the basketball team, the idol of school athletes, and an avid visitor of the school library. I often saw him there after school, although I'd never felt the need to greet him. He was in the social circle for the popular guys while I lacked any resemblance of a social circle at all.

"What's going on?" he asked as he joined our impromptu powwow.

Sheynan pointed at me. "Jay just started playing Aetherscape and he's a Sage. He can't figure out how to level up, so help him out."

"Sage?" Trace repeated in surprise. "I thought I was the only person who saw the potential in leveling up the class. Most people think it's a trash class only good for tradesmen."

I shook my head in adamant denial. "I don't see why everyone on the forums says that. Since you can take skills from all the other classes, it's possible to build one character with the potential of a full six-man team. You can fight, heal yourself, cast spells, and even use an assassin's skills to escape. How can it possibly be a trash class?"

"Exactly!" Trace exclaimed. His excitement quickly waned as he remembered why he'd been called over. "The only difficulty is actually leveling up, as you've already noticed. I have that problem myself. Everyone else is already level ten or higher and I'm still level five. Not that levels really matter. The attribute bonus is small and it's more for content gating and reputation purposes than being something you actually need to play the game. I'm starting to think the only reason the game has levels at all is because players felt weird not having a benchmark for their progress."

"Probably so. I know I'd be happy to reach level one at this point."

"Well, in theory, leveling up is the same for Sages as any other class. You learn a skill from a Sage Trainer, then ask them to test you on it when you feel ready. The Sage skill they give players at the start of the game is that language skill, but you can't be tested on passive skills. You'll have to find a different Sage trainer, have them teach you a skill, then get tested on that if you want to level up.

You gain a level for every active skill where you reach a minimum completion threshold of seventy percent. For level one, they test you on one skill. Level two tests two skills at the same time, and so on. But they only test you on class-specific skills, so keep that in mind.

You can have fifty Warrior skills, yet all those skills are useless for leveling as a Sage. That's actually what makes it more time consuming for us. Our class-specific skills are the ones we use least. Plus, it can be difficult to track down our trainers because they wander around instead of taking up a static posts. I think they did it on purpose because Sages really do have the most potential. Unfortunately, few people bother. Everyone wants the instant gratification the other classes provide."

"That's short-sighted," I commented.

"Hey!" Sheynan blurted in self-righteous indignation. "Not all of us care about instant gratification. For your information, I chose Archer because I thought I'd look amazing with a bow."

I laughed along with everyone else, enjoying myself as the rest of the team took turns teasing Sheynan over his apparent vanity. Unfortunately, as soon as the moment passed, I slowly returned to my senses and realized I was still a geek while these guys were some of the more popular students in school.

"I should let you get back to your game," I said, politely excusing myself.

"Wait!" Sheynan reached out to grab my sleeve and stop me. "Do you want to play ball with us? We're a man short for four on four. Reese busted his ankle."

I winced and quickly shook my head. "I don't think I'd be any good at it. I've never played before."

"You won't know unless you try," Sheynan countered. "You said you've been playing Aetherscape for two weeks now. I'll bet you a milkshake at Bryant's you can make a free-throw on your first try."

I raised my eyebrow at him. "Isn't this backwards? Shouldn't I be betting I can do it while you're the one saying I can't?"

"You'll understand once you give it a try." Sheynan held out his hands, demanding the basketball from one of his teammates, and planted it in my hands before I could refuse. Everyone else seemed to catch on and quickly escorted me to the free-throw line.

Seeing I wasn't going to get out of it, I stared up at the basketball hoop and tossed the ball without thinking too much about it.

It went in.

I gaped while the other guys hooted and cheered. Sheynan ran to get the ball and planted it in my hands again.

"It was a fluke," I argued. "Beginner's luck."

"If you say so. Right now, you owe me a milkshake after school. If you want to go double or nothing, we can go again. No cheating, either. We'll know if you miss on purpose."

"I never cheat," I retorted. "I just don't understand how you're so confident I'll make it."

"Aetherscape," Trace answered from where he was watching from the side. "Full immersion games aren't the same as 2D games. Think of it like image training. Not only have you been improving your hand-eye coordination, but you trained your spacial awareness and gained better understanding of how to control your body."

"Mind over matter," Sheynan added in agreement. "All the top athletes use full immersion gaming as part of their training regimen now. Even if you aren't doing it intentionally, you'll get stronger the more you play."

"As long as you challenge yourself," one of the others clarified. "A lot of gamers are only in it for the money, so they avoid combat as much as possible."

"Money?" I repeated.

"We'll explain that over milkshakes," Sheynan interjected. "For now, it's decision time. Are you going to go double or nothing? Or will you surrender and play a game with us?"

I groaned and shot him a pitiful look. "You know I'm not fond of group activities."

"One game, ten minutes max," he promised mercilessly. "You can survive ten minutes around other people. In return, you don't have to say a word when we go to Byrant's after school. You can just sit with the group and listen."

"What's wrong?" one of the others asked in confusion.

"Jay's an introvert like Trace," Sheynan explained. Understanding dawned on everyone's faces while I glanced over at Trace in askance.

Trace blushed and waved for me to look away.

"That's cool," the other player said. "Trace already explained how it can be exhausting for introverts to be around us loudmouth knuckleheads. You and Trace can be corner buddies and recharge in silence or whatever. We won't take it personally."

They weren't going to let me talk my way out of it.

"Fine," I grumbled. "But one of you are going to have to remind me of the rules. I haven't played basketball since middle school."

"I thought you said you never played," Trace teased.

"Middle school PE doesn't count," I argued. "I honestly—"

"What's going on here?" a teacher called out from the gym doors.