First Blood

As Jason walked out the door, he set off towards the housing areas. He didn't want to risk completing the quest objective without initiating the quest first, as he might lose out on the special reward.

As he walked over, he checked his notifications that he had obtained while forging.

[System Message – Blacksmithing Proficiency obtained]

[System Message – Blacksmithing Proficiency increased to Intermediate]

[System Message – Congratulations, you are the first User to forge a rare item]

[System Message – Congratulations, you are the first user to forge a rare item without The System's aid.]

[System Message – Reward given will be title: Extraordinary Forger – Forging speed increased by 30%]

[System Message – skill mana sense has increased to intermediate]

After nodding in satisfaction, Jason took a glance at his interface.

[System Message -

User: Thanataion

Level: 0

Experience: 4/10

Titles: Mana Guru, Forerunner Forger, Extraordinary Forger

Class: None

Race: Human

Strength: 13 (+13)

Dexterity: 11 (+5)

Constitution: 11 (+23)

Intelligence: 11

Will: 17

Vitality: 102/102

Mana : 340

Defense:

Resistances: Necrotic +15

Proficiencies: Blacksmithing - 7/20 (Intermediate)

Skills: Mana Sense – 0/20 (Intermediate) | Mana Manipulation - 6/20 (Intermediate) | Iron Fist - 4/10 (Beginner) | Mana Strengthening - 5/10 (Beginner)

Passive Skills: Mana Guru Effect - 1/10 Beginner

Equipped: Frosty Longsword, Hellhound Heater Shield, Blessed Breastplate

Inventory: 8 Silver

Jason was very satisfied with his interface at the moment. 'I'm not even level one and most of my stats are already at the power level of a third level warrior.'

When looking at the numbers of his stats, Jason could determine how strong he was compared to the average man by the stat number. Ten was the average for every human being, give or take some depending on their real-world characteristics. For example, Jason was a heavy lifter on earth, so comparatively his stat was that much stronger than others.

Strength obviously determined how strong an individual was, if they were able to lift certain weapons, armors, or objects, and how much extra damage would be added on to an attack.

Dexterity determined an individual's reaction speed and how fast they could move.

Constitution determined how hardy an individual was; how quickly their vitality would regenerate, how much vitality they had, how strong their base resistances, how quick they would recover from status effects, and how much stamina one had.

Intelligence determined how quick an individual could learn, the complexity of spells that one could learn and how fast that mana regenerated.

Will determined the mana pool size and the protection of the mind and the spirit. Much how constitution was for bodily resistances, Will was for the mind and spirit resistance bonuses.

Vitality was your health pool; this was determined by your constitution. One constitution would equal three vitality points. As damage was taken from the enemy, vitality would fill the wound area healing the wound completely. Once the vitality points ran out, any damage would be permanent or deadly. In --Might, Magic, Mayhem--, once a User died their account would be deleted permanently and they would have to create a new account. Vitality would only regenerate after all wounds had healed completely and the User was out of combat.

Mana determined how much more mana a User had stored inside their body before they ran out. This stat was determined by the Will Stat. One Will would equal twenty mana, and the regeneration speed of mana would be determined by the intelligence stat.

As Jason was walking and trying to recognize where the User from the past had found this unique quest, he saw a group of players walking down the street.

There were 8 of them walking together, taking up the majority of the road. They had the weapons that the NPC guilds would give out to new Users, and they were clearly walking towards the exit of the village to go start the beginner quests the guilds would hand out such as, "Hunt down 20 goblins" or "Find 30 Sunflower Rocks".

Jason had no interest in these quests, as such he hadn't been to any of the NPC guilds yet. Seeing this group taking up the roadway, Jason walked off to the edge of the road so he could continue on his merry way.

This group was laughing and joking around as they walked by when one of them, who seemed to be leading the pack, noticed Jason in his freshly forged gear. Jason's sword and shield hung off his back, and his breastplate was out in the open for all to see. As they were freshly forged and polished, they were still shining faintly in the late afternoon light; clearly of a high quality and grade.

Just as Jason was passing a boy who had opened the door to leave a building to the side of him Jason heard one of the users call out.

"Hey you! Where'd you get that shiny gear from?" The leader of the pack sauntered over, stopping in front of Jason with his hands on his hips. Jason stopped and turning around he glanced over at this User.

He was a tall skinny fellow, probably in his early 20's. Jason stood at 6 foot 3, and was considered tall by everyone he met. This tall skinny dude took the prize though, probably standing around 6 foot 8. He had bushy brown hair that was pushed up by a bandanna tied around his head, with a two handed ax strapped across his back.

The skinny dude continued, "Never mind, you probably got it from some quest. We'll buy it all from you! Now hand it over." The man outstretched his hand and began reaching for Jason's sword, clearly not taking no for an answer.

Jason looked at the outstretched hand, and as it passed his face he grabbed it with his left hand, twisting it into a hand lock. The tall guy began yelling in pain as he was brought to his knees, trying to break free from Jason's grasp with his other hand. Jason looked down at him, a shadow appearing across his stoic face.

"I'm going to give you one chance." Jason muttered to the man in a low voice. "When I let you go, you stand up and continue on your way with your party. I don't want any trouble." Jason let go of the man who then staggered back to his party.

Rubbing his sore wrist, tall guy yelled out to his band of merry men, "No one messes with the Whiplash Guild! Get him!" Tall guy pointed towards Jason as he watched, while his guild members instantly began moving towards him.

Jason stretched his neck out to both sides, cracking and loosening his spine. 'This will be a good warm-up.'

Time seemed to slow down from Jason's perspective as he took in the scene. Tall guy was pulling out his heavy two hander, while two more of his party members were pulling out maces and shields from their inventory.

Two other men with robes started waving their staves in the air, drawing arcane symbols while chanting a phrase.

One other stepped off to the side pulling two daggers out from behind his back, while another went to the other side drawing an arrow across a bow while a holy aura began to emanate from the last one in the center.

At the same time Jason was noticing all of this, he drew his sword with the right hand and equipped his shield in the left.

He then remembered the boy who had begun to walk out of a door from the house directly behind him.

Lastly, he noticed that on the other side of the street sitting on a porch was an older woman, who was beginning to shield what appeared to be an infant with her body.

'They are all most likely level 0's like me, level 1 at most. Their weapons most likely range between ten-twenty five damage, their vitality around thirty, with no apparent armor on any of them. All of them are fresh from the Adventurers Guild.' Jason analyzed the situation in a split second and was already jumping into action. 'The street is too narrow to use spike growth.'

He quickly brought his shield up while pointing his sword tip towards the man with the holy aura; firing an ice shard as an arrow bounced off his shield. The man had no time to react, as he did not expect a swordsman to have ranged attacks. The ice shard quickly pierced through the man's heart and the red vitality bar above the man instantly depleted. The man's eyes widened as he fell to the ground dead.

Before the dead man hit the ground Jason was moving forward; he activated the skill stalwart from his breastplate to increase his defense by 15% as he dodged to the side of the descending mace from one of the warriors.

As he moved he swung his sword up, severing the arm of the man. Blood spurted out of the man's arm, and as his vitality bar zeroed out Jason slammed his shield into the shield of the other mace warrior; taking the mace of the man on his shoulder while an arrow bounced off Jason's breastplate. His vitality dropped another nineteen points.

The man that Jason just shield bashed was pierced by the Hellhound teeth in Jason's shield, and was sent flying, never to get up again.

'Having nearly triple the amount of stats than these guys is f*cking awesome!' Jason smiled from behind his shield.

An arrow and two fireballs the size of a baseball began to fly towards him. Jason positioned himself so that the arrow would bounce off of his armor and took both fireballs with his shield.

A mini explosion happened on his shield, slightly engulfing him. Jason felt his vitality drain thirty points as he charged through the fiery-curtain towards the archer that had separated himself from his party.

The man with the knives was quick to follow Jason but was still considerably slower than him.

"Noob." Jason muttered as he blocked another arrow with his shield and spun around backwards to give a backhanded slice at the archer. Jason felt the sure feeling of cutting through something solid, and as he turned to stare at the rogue, he heard a soft and a heavy thud hit the ground from behind him.

As the rogue looked at the now beheaded archer, he quickly turned and ran through the streets as far as he could from Jason.

Jason turned towards the mages, quickly catching both fireballs with his shield again. Feeling his vitality drop another thirty points, he pointed his sword towards the tall guy.

"It's not too late for you to join your friend with the daggers. He's obviously the brains of the group." Jason loudly taunted.

Tall guy ground his teeth and his knuckles turned white from gripping his ax too tightly. He glanced at the one-armed mace wielder who was now lying in a pool of his own blood. Without any vitality points, healers, or medical treatment the man could only bleed to death.

Gritting his teeth harder, tall guy looked at Jason and roared, "Who are you?"

"I am known as Thanataion." Seeing that the mages had stopped chanting, Jason lowered his shield. Even though he lowered his shield he continued to keep his sword at the ready.

"You have not seen the last of us Thanataion! We, the Whiplash Guild will never forget! I, Alex the Gladiator, will forever remember this injustice!" Alex looked at his remaining party members and left while waving his hands.

Leaving behind the dead bodies of his comrades, he walked out of the city with the last two mages.

After they had left, Jason used the shirt of the archer to wipe the blood off his blade and shield.

'That was a close one! Only 23 vitality points left. I definitely wouldn't be able to block any more double fireball attacks!'

[System Message – Combat ended]

[System Message – Killed 4 level 0 combatants – 8 Experience gained]

After Jason received the notifications, the bodies of the four users burst into white light and disappeared; leaving behind all of their items from their inventory and what they had on them.

'At least there's no more mess to clean up.' Jason thought as he quickly went to pick up his spoils of war.