First Advancement and Freila

[09:55]

When Shin's eyes opened, he was back in Mythos Online. His hands were in front of him as he laid on the mattress of the private room in the guild hall inn. His red hair was messily thrown about the sheets. He got up from the bed and without wasting any time, used [Retrieval] to pick up all his equipment and items scattered throughout the room one at a time and left the room, and headed towards the northern gate of Levendale.

Nightingale told him to follow the road north from Levendale and head toward Freila. There wasn't any kind of map interface that he could pull up in front of him so Shin was more or less stuck with just following his instincts and vague instructions from NPCs.

The bright grassy plains transitioned into a deep dark forest which eventually turned into a tundra. The dark green environment of the forest started to turn drab and gray as the trees he passed by became increasingly withered. The temperature drop was immediate and drastic. The temperature continued to drop to right below freezing. The armor that he purchased from Levendale came with a [Cold Resistance I] skill on it. The player running the armory seemed to know his market well.

He ran instead of walking to make the most of his time. The thick snow began to swallow his boots whole as brilliant white snow fell from the skies. The road was nearly invisible at this point but he could faintly follow footprints left behind by other players.

Unexpectedly, there weren't too many footsteps headed in this direction. Shin wondered why he didn't come across too many other players during his journey north. While running, he came across several new monster types. There were frost goblins, icewind bats, frostbite slimes, frigidstone elementals.

Most of these were monster archetypes he came to expect from other fantasy RPGs but the frigidstone elementals were unique. They were floating masses of stone and ice held together by a deep blue magic stone engraved with illegible scriptures. The monsters were at level 10 so they were just barely within his ability to one-shot them.

Monster levels were good indicators of how intimidating they can be but this was his first encounter with status ailments. These monsters inflicted [Frostbite] so Shin made sure to keep his distance when fighting them. He wasn't sure what would happen when inflicted with [Frostbite] but he was not about to find out.

Shin let loose arrows in rapid succession towards a swarm of frostbite slimes. He abused his newfound exploitation of the skill [Retrieval] from the night before by immediately pulling back arrows to his hand one after another as soon as they pierced his targets. Using this exploit, Shin could deal two instances of damage with a single arrow.

Chunks of slime flew and made splattering sounds on the nearby tree trunks and ice. Five, ten, twenty, the slimes fell in a matter of seconds as he got used to his new combat capabilities. When he thought it was over, a frost goblin scout attempted to ambush him by lunging at his backside. Shin was able to detect it before he took any damage as [Perception] allowed him to sense its attack as it got close. He quickly took out his dagger with a flip of his wrist, immediately casted [Enhance] on it, and throwing it straight between the goblin's eyes.

The goblin fell a meter away from him. Its body continued to squirm as blood gushed out painting the snow-white ground blood-red. Shin called the dagger back to his hands with [Retrieval] violently stopping the goblin's movement.

---------

[YOU REACHED LEVEL 10]

---------

[Congratulations, your basic skills have advanced to Tier II]

[The range and effectiveness of your basic skills have increased]

[Your skills will advance to Tier III upon reaching level 25]

---------

[Perception II] - Increase the awareness of nearby surroundings.

[Proficiency II] - Increases your proficiency at wielding most weapons and tools.

[Enhance II] - Focus your mana to apply a strengthening effect to an object of your choosing within a short radius.

---------

This was the moment when he learned that each class's basic skills evolve with certain level milestones. There were so many more systems to discover as the developers kept quiet about the game even up to its release.

Shin didn't worry about these systems at the time as he got used to relying on Nightingale to discover all of a new game's secrets within two days of its release. Nightingale hasn't ever taken this long to crack the code before. Mythos Online was more complicated than both of them thought.

He spent his newly acquired skill point on [Retrieval]; maxing it out.

---------

[Savant Skill Tree]

[Swift Strike LEVEL: 1/5] - Dash a short distance forward and attack enemies with your equipped weapon with 110%/150%/190%/230%/300% of your attack power.

[Retrieval LEVEL: 5/5] - While your equipped weapon is not currently held by you, call the weapon back to your hand so long as it's within 3/7/12/18/25 meters of you.

[Efficiency LEVEL: 1/5] - When consuming a resource or ammunition, there is a 15%/20%/25%/30%/35% chance that the cost will be refunded back to you.

---------

+++++++++++++

[10:44]

Standing atop a hill, Shin looked down to see Freila.

Freila was a northern city hidden in a valley between two mountain ranges sitting on a hill. The city shined brightly even in the morning with its large sprawling streets riddled with street lamps and large buildings. The lamps and lights in the buildings were on as the sky was completely deprived of sunlight due to heavy clouds and unrelenting snowfall. In the center, at the city's high point, stood an elaborate castle. Surrounding the city was a large castle wall about 20 meters high. All along the outside of the city walls was an unending chasm of ice and darkness as a sheer cliff of a ravine. Inside the ravine, small lights could be seen moving about.

As he got to the edge of the ravine, Shin saw moving wagons and carts along the side of the ravine. There were miners shoveling chunks of ice and stone and carting them to an elevator connected to the inside of the city from an alcove protruding from the castle walls.

Across from him was an expansive stone bridge large enough to fit two full-sized carriages. The bridge served as the only entrance to the Freila as it spanned across the ravine surrounding the city. Players in carriages and horses rode by as Shin made his way to the city gates.

"Halt! Do you have permission to enter Freila?" a guard NPC suddenly stopped him with a spear pointed directly at his chest.

As the guard said that, a prompt opened up in front of Shin, obscuring his vision.

---------

[Level Requirement: 10]

---------

The prompt glowed blue before shattering.

"You may pass."

The NPC lowered his spear back to his side breaking eye contact with Shin and the large steel gates slowly swung open.

Immediately in front of Shin was a pedestrian walkway beside a road meant for carriages. Conversations with between players and NPCs could be heard all around as the city was far more lively than Levendale ever was. He followed down the walkway with what seemed to be residential two-story buildings on each side of the road. Eventually, the road opened up to a large town square with a fountain three times as large as the one in Levendale. Lining the sides of the fountain were stalls of merchants and various NPCs.

---------

[Freila Commercial District]

---------

The prompt briefly appeared at the center top of his vision before fading away.

Shin decided his next course was to get in touch with Nightingale. He sent him a message asking him to meet up in the commercial district. Before long, Nightingale responded.

"Shin! I see you made it to Freila, I went offline for a while to do some research on the game so I'm still level 11. I figured this was good anyway so the gap between us is lower."

"I'll meet you by the fountain in a few minutes. I got some spicy news to share with you." He continued.

While waiting, Shin took a look through his item pouch to take inventory of what he collected. There wasn't anything notable aside from bits and pieces of generic monster loot and a few amber lustres. He took his loot to a nearby merchant stall and sold them for a small stack of silver coins.

An armory shop across the road caught his attention so he took a look inside.

The layout was almost identical to the one in Levendale. This time, an NPC stood manning the front desk. Shin browsed their wares along the back wall and a piece of armor caught his attention. It was far more expensive than all the other armor pieces but well within his budget due to the amber lustre exploitation the other day.

It was a heavy black coat with cut open sleeves for the user's arms. The length was about down to right below his waist. The coat came with a black fur hood. Shin inspected the coat's stats.

---------

[Ominous Fur Coat]

Crafted

[Specialization: ANY]

[Attributes]

Strength: 58 | Agility: 70 | Intelligence: 42

Attack: 32 | Magic Attack: 32

DEF: 152 | MDEF: 260

[Skill Effects]

[Life Regeneration I] - Slowly recover your health over time while in combat.

[Cold Resistance III] - Become immune to cold temperatures above -15°C

[Required Attribute]

NONE

(?) - Offensive attributes of this equipment are reduced by 30% when equipped by a Savant

---------

These stats were far higher than anything he was currently wearing and it didn't replace any of his existing equipment as this was an overcoat. It wasn't even enhanced. The stats were incredibly high for a piece of equipment with no required attributes. Shin figured that was the reason for the extremely high price tag. Whoever crafted this must be incredibly lucky or talented.

Shin guessed that [Proficiency II] decreased the stat reduction from wearing equipment as a Savant. He could only assume that this number would continue to go down as he reached higher tiers. This motivated him to strive for even more levels.

Shin spent most of his silver purchasing the coat and equipped it before heading back to the central fountain in the commercial district.