3 Picking a destination

In his past life, Carter had spent way too much time playing the Planar Realms. His dad would've been pissed at him for wasting so much time if he'd still been alive, but now that he was living in it the knowledge of how the game worked was going to give him a massive head start. Of course, the real life version of the Planar Realms was infinitely more complicated than the game version. Just the sheer number of options for Base Professions alone told him that.

In the game, Carter had never walked the road of a Scholar before, he'd been more interested in fighting and getting into trouble. However, now that he was here for real he figured that learning about the world was an important step for his future. Walking into the library, Carter spent 2 of his precious silver to buy a permanent library pass that'd work in any public library in the Humboldt Empire.

This empire didn't exist in the game, but Carter's research quickly showed that it stretched for thousands of miles in all directions. He was currently in Warren, a small city on the border of the Angor Forest. He remembered the Angor Forest from the game, a beginner hunting ground that seemed never ending. If you managed to reach the other side of the Forest you'd find yourself in

Beastman territory, where only strength mattered. Carter really wanted to check out the Beastmen, he'd always had a thing for cat eared women... but he was too weak to even think about it right now.

Instead, he decided to choose a school or temple to study in. One of the best perks of being a Scholar is your automatic acceptance into several schools and temples. Usually, you had to spend 100 Gold or more to enter one of these schools and several of them only accepted Nobles. However, just by having the base class of Scholar, Carter was guaranteed immediate entry to many of them. Remembering how difficult the first few levels had been in the game, Carter smiled as he realized just how much better off he was now.

Walking through the stacks of books, Carter found a book ranking the best schools in the Empire. Opening it up, Carter scanned through the options quickly and sighed as he realized these were all religious schools that required a vow to join the order of a God upon completion of your studies. Carter had nothing against most of the Gods, but had no interest in tying himself to one of them.

Continuing, Carter skipped past the Warrior school section. With his knowledge of the class from his time playing the game he could probably form his own school and blow them out of the water. Finally, he found a section about Wizard Schools. Picking a couple of books, he smiled as he found every one of the skills listed was a viable option for him. "Wizards manipulate the world using knowledge to force the elements to listen to them. These schools are renowned throughout the Humboldt Empire for their ability to allow their students to pick the Wizard Class upon graduation." Carter read from the first page of one of the books. After reading all of them, Carter found one school that stood out from the rest.

The Temple of Thought is a temple that dated back thousands of years. It had been the training ground for some of the most devastating Monks and Wizards throughout history. What attracted him the most to the Temple of Thought was their martial arts. There, he could learn some of the most profound martial arts while training as a Scholar, and according to the book the best students could dual or even tri-class upon graduation.

Most people only qualified to possess a single class. For instance, in order to become a warrior you are required to have 15 constitution, 15 strength, and 20 levels in block. This is the easiest class for peasants, only needing to reach level ten and train in blocking. However, the requirements for some other classes are nearly impossible to reach. Wizards require a minimum of 20 Intelligence and 15 Willpower making them a rare class for non-nobles to learn and why Scholars are considered so valuable.

People with two or three classes can be incredibly strong, but also receive a 100% penalty in experience points to level up per class. One of the differences between the real life and the video game is that every 10 levels your lifespan doubles meaning that just by reaching level 10 in your base profession your life span doubles from 50 to 100. Having multiple classes means you hit level 10 multiple times, but also slows down your leveling making it so that only the ignorant and arrogant dare to choose more than one class.

Carter wouldn't have to choose his class anytime soon, but was attracted to the training offered by the Temple of Thought. He decided to head to the teleportation portal before it got too late to check out how much it cost.

Walking through the streets, Carter blended in perfectly with the upper class crowd headed towards the portal. However, his clothes and where he was walking marked him as wealthy and after appraising him some thugs found that he was only level 1 and without guards. They started following him, waiting for an opportunity to pounce.

Due to his experience, when Carter caught sight of a couple thugs walking in the same direction as him he immediately took a left turn and watched carefully. Sure enough, they casually crossed traffic and followed him down the road. Taking several quick turns, Carter headed towards a semi-deserted area of town while doing his best to identify the people following him. In the end, Carter picked out four of them and use appraisal on them.

-> Kenny level 5 peasant

-> John level 3 peasant

-> Billy level 6 peasant

-> Connor level 2 peasant

"I should be able to deal with them." Carter thought to himself as he took a left into a darkened alley before picking up speed. He jogged far enough into it that no one on the street would realize what was going on inside it and sat down to wait for the thugs to catch up to him.

"There he is!" A voice yelled, and Carter saw the 4 thugs running into the alley to mug him.

Smiling widely, Carter stood up and cracked his knuckles. He was looking forwards to the fight, ever since he'd had a heart attack during the finals Carter had been itching to kill something. Ready, he decided to attack. The worst mistake you could make when fighting is to allow your opponent to gather and build momentum unchecked.

The thugs were surprised when their target suddenly took off, sprinting towards them. "It must be a dead end!" Yelled Billy excitedly, "Don't let him escape and find the guards!"

Nodding, the 4 of them spread out to make sure Carter couldn't run past and got ready for a fight. "Idiots." Carter snorted in disgust. When fighting a group of people there were two tactics you could take. Either take out the weakest first to make the odds more favorable, or take out the strongest to hurt the enemies morale.

Carter chose to take out the strongest, figuring he could take them out with ease. As he neared the group, Billy lowered himself and ran at Carter trying to tackle him. Carter slammed his open palm down on the back of Billy's head as he jumped, making use of Billy's momentum to slam him into ground head first as Carter vaulted over him.

Billy's head bounced off the stone alley and he stopped moving, causing the rest of the thugs to gasp. Connor suddenly turned and started to run away, "I told you this wasn't a good idea!"

Pulling his dagger out of his bag, Carter threw it at Connor's back trying to keep him from getting away. "Fuck, I really need to train!" Carter said in disgust as he missed the throw by more than 10 feet. Noticing a brick, he bent over and picked it up. Tossing it up and down to get used to its heft, he threw the brick as hard as he could and beamed Connor in the back of the head.

-> 15 Blunt damage dealt, 3 second stun

That was more than enough time as the remaining two charged at him yelling, "You fucker!" Kenny tried to stab him with his dagger as John came in to try and tackle him.

Ready for their attack, Carter dodged backwards and used both hands to grab Kenny's arm, changing the angle of his attack so that the dagger plunged into John's stomach as he dived forwards to tackle Carter. Before Kenny could let go of the dagger, Carter stepped forwards and slammed his elbow into Kenny's sternum, knocking his breath out and breaking a couple ribs. Then, he kicked out a leg and tripped Kenny. Kenny went down face first and Carter continued, slamming his heel down on the base of Kenny's neck automatically, breaking his neck like he'd done so many times before in the VR Fights on Earth.

Not bothering to check out John, Carter caught up to Connor just as the stun was wearing off. A quick jab to the throat was followed by a knee to the balls and Connor was dead moments later.

After making sure all four of the thugs had died, Carter looted their bodies finding two daggers and 8 copper. Putting it all in his dimensional bag, he jogged to the other end of the alley. He'd been wondering how killing someone would make him feel. The VR Fighting games had been too realistic, and killing someone felt almost anticlimactic to Carter.

Saddened by the discovery that he was already a cold-blooded killer, Carter left the alley after making sure to erase his tracks.

A blinking light in the corner of his left eye caught his attention. Focusing on it, it opened up his logbook.

-> Killed level 6 Peasant gained 60 experience.

-> Killed level 5 Peasant gained 50 experience.

-> Killed level 2 Peasant gained 20 experience.

-> Killed level 3 Peasant gained 30 experience.

-> As you killed them in self defense, no blood points have been awarded.

-> Skill Hand to Hand combat learned.

-> Hand to Hand combat reached level 4.