First Clue

Beep! Congratulations User has Reached Level 5.

Congratulations User has met the requirements to reach the next Rank.

Initiating advancement to Rank: Novice Veteran.

A surge of pain radiated from Draven's chest spreading out throughout his body. Draven screamed in agony as his muscles started to twitch uncontrollably causing him to fall from the Tree crashing onto the ground below with a loud thud. He then struggled to his hands and knees unable to stand up. Panting for breath he could feel his blood raging inside his body as his dragon claws grew out and seemed longer and thicker than before. His scale patches slightly spread over more of his skin as they cut and tore their way through the surface of his body to make room. He could feel his mana radiating outwards into the air glowing in a multitude of colors.

Beep! The user has successfully advanced to the Rank of Novice Veteran.

Djinn DNA 2% installed

Due to the User's level further installation is not possible.

Ancient Dragon DNA 2% installed.

Due to the User's level further installation is not possible.

Due to the User's level, further Species are unavailable.

After the pain subsided Draven continued to lie on the ground, his body was drenched in sweat. Every fiber of his being felt sore. "I don't remember leveling up sucking this bad!" Draven muttered through his teeth. "I barely touched my stock of XP orbs I don't want to go through that again," He thought to himself after a few minutes his body became a bit lighter and he got to his feet.

Beep! Due to Racial progression, certain Traits have been improved.

Curious as Draven was, he climbed back up the tree and checked out the menu.

User Draven Morgan

Rank: Novice Veteran

Race: Human, Djinn, Dragon

Level 5

Class: None

Stats:

Health 80/80

Mana: 3000/3000

Strength: 11

Agility: 16

Stamina: 10

Intellect: 15

Spirit:20

Unallocated Stat Points: 5

Armor: 36 (11)

Racial Skills:

Wyrmling Scales raises armor rating by 25

Djinn Mana 2% multiplies base mana by 20

Dragons Vitality 2% Multiples base health by 4. Health regeneration +60%

Draven nearly fell from the tree again out of pure shock. "My stats are through the roof!" "I didn't think I was going to say this, but all that pain was worth it!" Draven was ecstatic over the changes in his body. "I wonder how high my stats will be towards max level?" Not that Draven had any idea what max level was in this world but seeing he was a Novice Veteran he naturally assumed he still had a long way to go. Draven looked at all the XP orbs still in his storage and immediately received flashbacks from the pain he just had to endure "Am I going to have to go through that every time I rank up?" he wondered to himself. He was sure he had enough Orbs to get another 5 levels unless the novice rank Orbs no longer helped him level which would make them useless to him.

He decided to hold off on it and give it some thought while he ate something. He pulled out a couple of roasted murky crabs and pulled off the legs revealing the cooked flesh inside. It was still warm. "Maybe things stay the way they were when the item was placed in storage?" In that case, anything food-related would stay fresh. Draven decided to leave one of the crabs in his storage for a few days to see what would happen to it. The Crab meat was delicious, in the past Draven rarely ate anything without condiments such as ketchup or mustard but after eating that dry tasteless bread these juicy crab legs were 5-star dishes, perfect as is in comparison.

While staring at the storage Draven remembered all the clams, he got from looting the crabs. In the Game, you would open these and typically get clam meat and have a chance for a pearl of various quality. Seeing that it's not all that different in real life, Draven decided to try his luck. As there was no convenient open-all button Draven spent the next hour opening up each clam. Luckily there was a button to open and loot what was inside otherwise Draven would still be sitting there all day opening up clams. In the end, Draven received:

322x Clam meat

1x Large Clam Meat

80x White Pearls

45x Black Pearls

18x Illustrious Pearls

4x Mage Pearls

1x Water Pearl

Draven's eyes twitched and as his lips formed a greedy smirk if anyone were to see him right now, they would see dollar signs in his eyes. Even in the game, I would be able to make a decent chunk of money just by selling this stuff to the vendor. If there are other people, he might be able to make more if any of these pearls are used in crafting. "Hmm, maybe I need them for crafting." Draven thought as he scanned them with the mystic eye.

White Pearl: Formed within a Clam, it is solid white and has no magical or defensive properties.

Black Pearl: Formed within a Clam is solid black and has a trace of mana. Mana concentration has been deemed insignificant.

Illustrious Pearl: Formed within a Clam, this pearl resembles a ball made of glass as it has no color. Can absorb a spell trait. It cannot store a complete spell. It can be used in Enchanting items.

Mage Pearl: Formed within a Clam glimmers in many colors. Capable of storing a significant amount of mana. Can store up to 1 Novice Rank spell not to exceed a cost of 10 mana. It can be used in Enchanting items.

Water Pearl: Formed within a Large Clam capable of absorbing water magic in nature. Can be recharged over time or by the User supplying magic himself. The Water pearl can be used to either cast a water-type spell up to Iron rank not to exceed 20 mana or can be used as a focus point to boost a water-type spell. It can be used in enchanting items.

Enchanting! One of the most profitable Professions in the game aside from selling raw materials and alchemy Enchanting was constantly needed People were getting new pieces of gear daily and in a hardcore raiding guild every piece of gear was expected to be enchanted with the highest tier enchants. "I'll make sure to save the Pearls used in enchanting, I'll need them to power level my enchanting profession as soon as I get it." Draven thought to himself. The Sun was starting to set Draven not wanting to fall from the Tree again climbed down and looked for somewhere to sleep for the night. He found a large wide tree with exposed roots that had enough space to crawl into.

Draven ripped out a bunch of bushes and leaves and covered up the outside of the roots. He spent a few minutes flattening and cleaning up the ground and he deemed it good enough to sleep in. He didn't worry about bugs, seeing his Draconic Aura was strong enough to scare the low-level wolves he doubted the bugs would bother him. He sat down on the pile of leaves, "ok Draven we both know you're going to level up the question is are we doing it now or after we wake up?" Draven spoke out loud to himself.

He could practically hear his father's voice "Stop procrastinating if you do it now it's done and over with and you can do what you want later!" That particular conversation had more to do with writing an essay for school but oddly enough fitted this situation pretty well. "Alright, Dad we'll do it your way!" Draven said as he took another handful of novice Xp orbs he formed a glob of water in front of him so he could wash them down as needed and started eating them up like a bag of M&M's. He kept force feeding himself the Xp Orbs and oddly enough the system didn't ring out so he kept on eating them. "Maybe he was right, and Novice Orbs didn't contribute to leveling up after reaching Novice Veteran?" he wondered. He kept eating the XP Orbs until all were consumed.

Beep! Calculating XP please wait!

"Oh nooo… it was waiting until I was done to calculate it all!" Cold sweat started to drip from Draven's forehead.

Beep! Calculating of XP Complete.

Draven braced himself for the worst as a surging source of heat began to spread throughout his body his muscles twitched his skin itched but it was manageable.

Congratulations User has Reached Level 6

Congratulations User has Reached Level 7

Congratulations User has Reached Level 8

Draven breathed a sigh of relief "ok that wasn't so bad" he thought to himself. A part of him secretly hoped to hit level 10 and rank up again knowing he would have to suffer the consequences but that doesn't mean he was looking forward to it. Draven decided to call it a day as he carefully laid down on his bed of leaves his bruises were still causing him sharp pain with every movement and now that he had been sitting for a while they seemed to hurt even more than before. After settling into a comfortable position, it didn't take long for him to fall asleep.

While sleeping Draven dreamt of being chased by the Hobgoblin non of his magic or abilities worked and it didn't take long until he was caught. The Hobgoblin smiled as he carried him over towards the water where the Giant mud crab emerged waiting for him. The hobgoblin began to cackle as he held onto Draven and slowly held him over the Mudcrabs face. It opened its mouth and the Hobgoblin thrusted Draven's head into it.

Draven woke up with a cold sweat panting. Doing his best to calm his breathing he looked around and after seeing he was still alone and safe he managed to calm down a bit. "Just a nightmare" he reassured himself. This new world was taking a toll on his mind, he knew he needed to get over it so he did the Man thing and pushed those feelings deep down and ignored them. The soreness from yesterday was almost gone and so were his bruises as they were only barely visible now. His leather jerkin was destroyed so he didn't bother to wear it anymore. His scales did a better job protecting him anyway. He then climbed out from under the roots of the tree and went back to travel along the shore in the hopes of running into civilization eventually.

After roughly 2 hours of mindless walking, he came across a large boulder that stuck out through the bank of the river with one side covered in moss. As he walked by Draven noticed a few lines that looked like it was carved into the stone. He quickly used one of his claws to scrape the moss off the boulder and saw a classic love carving. The symbol was John & Amy forever inside a heart with the year 2049 underneath their names. It seemed they spent quite some time carving this as it was very deep, and the lines were clean.

"Does this mean I'm still on earth?" Draven was confused how could this be earth? "We don't have goblins, hobgoblins, or giant crabs." He was glad to see proof that other people exist but what are the chances of being in another world where couples also carve their names into random things and just so happen to also use years as a unit for time that is close to ours, not to mention have regular American names. "Not only is this earth but I think I'm still in America," Draven muttered in shock at the realization. Thousands of questions were running through his mind but one stuck out more than any other.

"What the fuck happened?"