Saturday 16 July 2022

So I got fast Internet v.09

My country has always been without fast internet. But today for one reason or the other my parents could make for a fast internet. So I tried to play an RPG VR game:

Ok, I started in a field with modest armor and a sword, there are slimes everywhere. Let's just start by observing them... hmm there are different colors and different sizes and speed. Let's explore around more.

After walking for a while there seems to be a nearby village, let's visit the village. Hmmmm... there are some npc but I don't see other players. There are a restaurant, a silo, and just some houses. Let's explore more...

After walking for a while I saw a town, let's visit the town. Hmmmm... there are quite a lot of people in the town but they don't seem like players just npcs. There are item shops, weapon shops, a church, there was a university and also a palace. The people here uses giant birds as mounts, I guess there are carriages too. Hmmm there's fountain, let's try to drink from there. Oh, it refreshes hp and mp, but I'm at full hp and mp so it does nothing else I guess.

Ok, let's go back and find those slimes!

Hiaaah, Hiaaah, (*slashing some blue slimes)

Heeeaaah, ha! (*slashing some red slimes, and green slimes)

Wow, it seems like they have agro mechanism, now a lot of slimes are coming at me! Heeeeah!

(After slashing widely there appeared a beam coming out of the sword)

Wow! so this is a special move!, nice... heaaaaah!

(Using the special moves there were a lot of slimes killed, they almost couldn't touch me)

 -----------------------------------

I kept on hacking and slashing killing slimes here and there, it seemed like the black slimes were the strongest or the toughest, but after some slashes I managed to kill them anyway. After a while I got a hang of it, and became more efficient in killing those slimes. Then there were less slimes left in the field. I went to find a serene place to sit for a bit.

"Phew, this game is pretty fun. But there seems to be little clue about more mechanism. How many experiences points I have got? What are the job classes? I guess I could find more info from the NPC... but there should be some basic clues somewhere at the beginning of the game right?"

Regardless of the thoughts I went even further away from the town or the villages and went deeper into the woods.

In the woods there's a spring and a floating celestial gate

"Wow what is this?" I jumped into the gate and got transported to another place.

This place seemed like an inside of an electronic device of some sort, there were cube like critters running around, a few came and attacked me. I tried to slash them here and there but they just came back at me being unaffected.

"Wow, this is dangerous!" I ran and jumped back to the celestial gate behind me and got transported back into the woods. I fell down inside the river

Swam back up to the ground I realized 2 of the cubes were following me all the way. They kept on attacking me and so I kept on trying to hit them back with my sword while I used my other hand to protect myself. Funnily apparently their attacks did nothing to me, after taking many of their attacks my character didn't seem to be hurting or were in trouble. However, my attacks did nothing to them as well.

After endless bouts without results, I decided to just stop and let them keep on scratching me while I concentrated on doing other things.

With these cubes following me I went deeper into the woods, the light was getting harder time to pass through but while the forest was a bit darker it also became colorful and interesting. Different kinds of trees and herbs, insects, little mammals and also treants, little ones. Of course those things attacked me when I got close, so I hacked and slashed and killed some of them. Compared to the ordinary slimes they were tougher, like the black slimes, no they were easier to kill a little bit, but they dealt higher damage. I must learn their attack patterns and move swiftly between the trees in order to keep myself alive.

The electric cubes got in the way sometimes because I needed to time my attacks and they interrupted. Other than that it was pretty easy to clear all of them in the end.

It seemed like one of them dropped a bow on the ground, an item drop. Later I found out that it was the treants that dropped such wooden item. I tried to use the bow and it was pretty hard, but after some practices I managed to get the hang of it, although I still think that I haven't really used it the way it was meant to.

These cubes started to got into my nerves, so I jumped back to the celestial gate and to that electronic realm. In there I ran around in circle as quickly as I could leaving those cubes and all of the other cubes behind. In the end I exit out of the gate, dove right into the river again, swam back to the ground, and it seemed like I those crazy cubes weren’t there anymore. Yes! Success!

I crawled up to the dry land, and as I lifted my face up… there was a huge black wolf staring at me menacingly, I was so surprised and before I got time to breathe instantly it pounced on me. I jumped back into the river, and dove deep into the water. I got a scratch on my back, but the wolf didn't get to catch me, it followed me into the river though. As I looked back it was gasping for air and swam slowly. Immidiately I swam upshore leaving him behind.

Now that the distance between me and him was pretty far, I jumped back to the land and ran to the pasture where the slimes were. When I got there I laid myself on the grass, panting, it’s funny how this game got me lose my breath but apparently it did.

When I finished recollecting myself, I went back to killing slimes, and then I decided to explore the town.

In the town I immediately went to an armor shop and checked out the items offered there. This particular shop focused on selling beginner / rookie items, they were not specializing in consumables or equipments like other armories do. With materials dropped from the slimes I could obtain enough money to buy some new equipments, a dagger, a bow, and a boot. I didn’t buy any new body armor and some other types of items that caught my eyes, but that would do it for now I thought to myself.

The town was busy but wasn’t very crowded, I saw more interesting buildings such as the library, the town hall, and of course The Guild Centre. I visited the guild and talked to the guild administrator. She was a cute girl with short yellow hair, her eyes were shining as I introduced myself. She assessed my stats and to my surprise I was still at level one.

“After killing all of those slimes I didn’t even up one level? That’s something new for a game…” Thought me to myself

“You are at level one” said the administrator with a sweet smile

“It’s rare to have quests offered for those under level 20 here, people would’ve solved the problem themselves without having to hire adventurers”

Hearing this I cringed at myself

“Oh but don’t worry, right outside the city you could find some slimes to fight. Killing 5 of them would take you to level 1, a bit more than that to level 2, and more to level 3 and so on.”

“Huh? Really? I asked her”

“Yes!” She raised her voice noticing my peaking concern

“Eventually it’s going to take a lot of time to level up only from killing slimes, after you reached level 5 you should be able to kill wolves deeper into the forest”

“But…”

“Hey administrator!” Suddenly a loud voice heard while the door was opened with a bang

“Oh, it’s the ‘Mare’ party, I’ll talk to you later. What is your name new guy?”

“Bright”

“Talk to you later Bright, these guys usually needs special attention” She winked as she said it and left me alone.

I went out of the city again, this time putting my face down while thinking about the situation. “This is a problem”. I didn’t bother exploring other parts of the town now, I laid down on the meadow again while staring at the bright blue sky with beautiful white clouds artfully shaded, texturized, and programmed so that they would move gracefully.

I’ve killed so many slimes, I’m sure I should be about level 5 by now. Was it because of that crazy cubes’ attacks? That electric dimension seemed to be so suspicious; it gave me an impression like it was made for expert players. What kind of status effect had they put on me? Experience Halt? Something like that? Oh no…

At this point I decided to logged out of the game.

After having a meal I logged into the game again, it was so strange as I thought hours had passed, but in real life it only had been a couple of minutes. This game is hyper intense, I thought to myself.

So I went to the Guild again and tried to find a party, it was almost impossible since my level was stuck at level one. In the end there were some nice people willing to protect me as I tagged along their quest

They went pretty high up in the mountain and fought wolves, bears, and hostile bird monsters. I tried to be useful by shooting my arrows from a far, but it dealt no damage to any of the monsters. The party that I was with was quite good with their teamwork and they had no problem protecting me as they were finishing their objectives. At the end of the day I managed to contribute by using healing potions or curing potions for status debuffs.

At last we finished our quest, it was a dangerous quest but they cleared it smoothly, while carrying me in the process.

When we went back to the guild they shared some of their rewards with me but I refused, they kept on wanting to give it to me but I wasn’t feeling good about my performance so I left them early, didn’t bother to join their little celebration at the town’s tavern.

The guild administrator assessed me right after we finished and to everyone’s surprise I was still at level 1, that was something I forgot to mention. I inquired about what happened but nobody knew what was going on. They asked whether I could show them the celestial gate and I brought them to the river but the gate wasn’t there anymore. So at the end of the night I logged out and dragged the bothersome thoughts into the real life…

Only 5 minutes had passed.

--------------------------------------------------

After my dinner with family, I went straight into the VR again, 

Logged in, I found myself waking up in the inn while the morning was still dark. I went to the forest in order to find the celestial gate again. I kept on searching until the sun was up but couldn’t find anything. I also tried to kill some monsters along the way, slimes, insects, and wolves. 

Yes, now that I had fighting experience against strong monsters, I knew how to beat regular wolves even with my standard bow. I know how to keep my distance and misdirected the enemy, sometimes when I messed up I used the potions that I’ve stocked up before. Brought me to full health instantly

At last after sometime fighting I only got 1 potion left, the sun was shining bright and some people had started coming into the woods to level up or to gather materials, the NPCs. Before I went back into the town I checked out the materials that I’ve collected, bee stings and wings, slime jellies, giant caterpillar’s silks, giant caterpillar’s tusks, etc. The most valuable of all were wolf’s leathers and I was pretty content that I had 5 of them. 

There was a strange greyed out option when I browsed through the items’ descriptions, the caption was in strange letters, probably rune letters made as the in-game language. Somehow, I felt like I’ve seen similar letters before in another place so I started searching on other menus. Voila! There was such letters in my character’s profile, it was beside the stat point “Unique skill”. Oh I should’ve noticed that before, turned out my unique skill was “Alchemy”.

My eyes widened and a little smile appeared on my face. I went back on the items menu and started to laid them in front of me physically one by one. Having different items side by side, the strange rune started to lit and excitingly I started to grabbed on the glowing letters. 

“Essense Reaction” the phrase suddenly appeared before my eyes. An option tree gave me two branches; one said “Consumables” and the other said “Equipment”, I tried the first option “Consumables”, suddenly a bright light appeared and the materials, bee honey and slime jelly merged into a lesser healing potion. 

“WOW!” I was ecstatic. Turned out the potion had about 1/5 of the regular potion’s power. That’s not enough for in battle use but I could probably use it post battle to help save up some of the regular potions. “Nice” I said audibly “Now I could get more items in one trip!”

I tried the second option “Equipment”, then the honey and the jelly merged together into a glassy ball with a honey like color. Checked the description it said that those that used the amulet would attract more bees. And true, soon enough I was chased by an unusually aggressive gang of bees coming out of the woods. 

With haste I threw the amulet as far as possible and ran back into the town. 

The item shop owner was a big muscular man but with a lot of belly. Seeing the items I offered him, he laughed and said “Where did you get these old potions? Hahaha I haven’t seen one of this ever since my father showed me!”. I decided to not tell him, so he offered up to buy just one with a special price. “Choose any equipment in this store” he said. I thanked him and asked why, “For the sake of my nostalgia” he said laughingly and then he added “As long as the equipment is not that expensive” and then he laughed again. 

So I wasn’t really complaining as this was beyond my expectation before, so I ended up getting a light armor and bought some health potions and cure potions as well. When I was done and upon exiting the store I wondered, “(The fact that these NPCs were so alive, there’s no way that these guys were just some A.Is that had been trained with lifeless words and responses. If they were just artificial intelligence then the artificials were living beings)”, so I thought. 

Back at the tavern people were especially engaged, they talked to each other like in the middle of some kind of legislative council trying to pass down a law. 

“When he came I’d like him to heal my daughter”

“My mother has been ill with this black blood disease for years; he should heal my mother first!”

“Hey hey hey you guys acted as if he’s your servant trying to decide what he’s supposed to do, relax”

“Yeah! Don’t get into a stupid fight now!”

“He should heal my boy first I’ll fight anyone who said otherwise!”

“Your boy was born that way there’s nothing to heal for him!”

“What do you say!”

Fights started to break here and there while the waitresses were running to the back. 

Soon a tall man appeared from inside alongside him was a woman with an intimidating appearance.

 “SHUT UP!!!"

I immidiately covered my ears for the shout was so overwhelming. 

People fell on the floor rolling, some already run outside while covering their ears. Seeing that “Roar” inflicted actual damage, I checked out my health… it was zero. 

When I opened my eyes I was in the slime meadow again, the sky was full of stars. I just got respawned…

---------------------------------------

The next morning I head to the Guild to find a quest or a team, I also was curious about this “healer” that caused such commotion. The streets were unusually packed with people, they were all lining up to the direction of the church, but some of the lines also were centering around the city gate.

When I entered the guild it was almost empty. There’s only the guild administrator and even she looked like she was waiting to leave.

“Hi Nina”

“Oh Bright! Great I’ve been waiting… ehm ehm. What I can do for you today?”

“(How strange)” I thought to myself, “I wanted to see the quest announcement as usual, by the way why the Guild is empty and what’s happening outside?”

“Oh Bright you don’t know? Benedict, a High Bishop from the Capital is going to visit our church today, he could arrive anytime soon! You know, he could heal almost every disease! In fact I haven’t seen him unable to heal any disease ever!”

“Wow, what a great man”

“Hee Hee” She laughed with a smug look on her face, “Say Bright, don’t you think this is your lucky day?”

I immidiately know what she was talking about “Maybe, but there were so many people I probably wouldn’t had the chance…”

“Hee, hee” She made that smug laugh again, while cutting my sentence. So I looked at her with asking for explanation look on my face

“You know, I probably could help you out with that…”

“Really?”

“Shhhhhhh… quietly” then she approached to whisper, and I gave her my left ear

“This afternoon go to the fountain in front of the library…”

I looked at her for another assurance

“This afternoon, go alone, the fountain… front of library” She whispered loudly

“Ok Ok” I said

She gave me tips of her fingers and I touched them approximately with tips of mine (this is how the people in this game do a high five).

“Alright Bright I’m off now” She seemed to be in a hurry

“Alright thank you Nina!”

“Yes, don’t be late ok!” before I could answer she covered her mouth and shook his head, she was telling me to shut up. And then off she went.

I went back outside, and the people had gone mad;

They flocked to a parade of knights and some of them tried to jumped through the barrier prepared by the city. Such action activated lightning magic and zapped them lightly but enough to make them run back in pain.

Between the knights there were a cart pulled by two lionlike horses, a white cart carved and plated with golden ornaments. Inside there’s a man wearing a tall white hat, seems to be having a long white beard but the face looked like a person who doesn’t have wrinkles.

Everyone was shouting at him mostly saying “Help me Bishop!” or “Please Heal my Family!”, something like that.

When the parade entered the church gate the Bishop got off his cart. From there he approached the now closed gate and started to chant a song and spread some holy water to the crowd.

People started jumping around and trampled each other just so that they could be touched by the water. But the Bishop was quick on the take and with his brush that looked almost like a whip he spread more and more holy water into the whole crowd.

Then I saw miracles, trampled people got up like nothing happened, those who had serious injuries were healed, their broken bones, their open wounds, their skin conditions. Some bald people even grew hairs.

The people from the back shouted to those at the front to give ways and they all keep on moving forward and squeezed those at the front at the railing of the gates. The Bishop shouted with discontentment telling them to be orderly, and the guards started to hit and kicked the people into passivity. Some of them got serious injuries.

Funnily some people had been waiting for this moment, when almost all of the crowd were wounded, beaten, and injured, bloody laid down on the streets… they appeared from the back one by one, and then tens, twenties, at last hundrends of them. They carried with them sick people who were too weak or disabled to move and they went as far as they could towards the church gates.

The Bishop kept on healing those at the front and after some time those who were waiting at the back got enough space to move forward.

When it was afternoon the lines of people still hadn’t ended. Remembering my promise to Nina, I left the compelling scene and went for the fountain. There I saw Nina walking with another woman…

“Hi Bright! Sister this is Bright the one I told you about”

“Oh Hi Bright” The woman smiled awfully warm and stared closedly at me

“Oh, he really does look like a level one person”

“Right sister?”

She was a tall woman, a head taller than Nina and a little taller than me. Her dirty blonde hair complimented her tanned skin well. Her voice is rather strong and low but also interesting and joyful.

“Bright, this is my sister in law Jeun. She works at the capital at the grand church’s library and now she’s here with the Bishop to attend to some businesses” Said Nina with a friendly tone

“Nice to meet you” I said

“Hey hey is it true that you cannot level up? Nina said”

“Ah yes, it’s been since… I mean ever since I got here I’ve never reached a higher level”

“Wow that’s very interesting! Hey Nina let’s go inside the library and look into it a little more”

She didn’t even consider my opinion on this, but well of course I’d like to go

“Yes, Bright you’d like to know more right?”

“Yeah of course” I answered

And with that Jeun went straight towards the library gate walking swiftly.

“Let’s go Bright!” Nina and me had to ran a little bit to catch up and we ended up kept on running. Her walk was as fast as a regular person’s running.  

---

The Library seemed like a typical boring white building in RPGs, pretty big but negligible. There were hardly any people walking around the front garden, and there were some girls in their teens walking down the corridor reading books close to their faces. Two of them bumped into each other, they looked up, didn’t say anything and continues on walk reading as if they had this unwritten understanding about each others’ lack of social interests. A little sad but funny

Further into the building I was surprised at the grandness of lobby we entered into. From the ceiling to my head it was as if I was looking at the clouds, the tiles was ordered in such sophistication I couldn’t make up its pattern but yet it felt logical and eye opening, the eye of the soul that is. There were sounds of waterfall and it was a spring of water, pouring towards an artificial duct heading underground.

There was a huge tree, so huge that the tip almost touched the ceiling. The wind flowing freely into the room, sometimes it was blowing, I bet there were windows at the higher parts of the walls but I couldn’t see any. Blinding rays of the sun pierced through and towards the top, rendering the details of the ceiling dome unseen, from the way the light was shining I suspected mirrors were used schemefully.

“Bright, here!” Jeun called me from the receptionist’s desk, “Write your name and then touch this”.

I wrote my name and then touched a giant pearly ball Jeun was holding. The pearl glowed for a second and then dimmed back off.

Nina also did the same and the giant pearl glowed and dimmed back off the same way.

“Ok we’re ready” Then Jeun went to the wooden door that seemed like a gate with two knocking rings attached to their handles. She preceded to knock the left one twice, the right one twice, then the gate opened by itself.

Inside shelves and shelves of books filled a giant room. Some were very tall, a lot were average sizes, there were visible the second floor and it was encircling the whole room. The place smelled strange, the smell of a kind of paper but the kind that I never smelled before. In this room lights were shining everywhere like the lobby, and I was right! At the top of the pillars and on some giant shelves, carvings or statues were attached with mirrors, taking lights from the outside shining everywhere in the library making it almost shadowless from where I stood. Of course there were lots of shadows further inside, but oh how it was an amazing first impression.

Jeun suddenly appeared with a cape, I didn’t see her wearing it. She climbed on to the second floor and Nina followed her from behind, she looked at me and signalled, I immidiately followed…

Behind the shelves there were a big wooden desk and there were no one around the viscinity. We sat down and Jeun opened up a book in front of me…

“Is this the cube that were attacking you?” She pointed at a picture in the book and it was spot on, the page even had drawings of the electronic place.

“Yes!, this picture even got the place right. What is this place and the cube? Do you know what happened to me?”

“Wooow” She said excitingly. “This place had never been seen for a thousand years, you lucky outsiders! This is where the great goddess resides, the controller of the wind, water, and forest… Siren”

“Wooow!” Nina now also appeared spiritful. “The Siren that bestowed her blessing to this land and transformed it from a barren desert to a rich fertile land! The Goddess that used to reveal herself to answer prayers in her shrine!”

“Exactly! It was said that the Ancient Heroes were required to complete her tests before being allowed to wield their power. It was a dangerous test inside the labyrinth of the Goddess and they almost died during the test”

“Oh so this place, is this the labyrinth?” I asked

“Yes, oh what a foolish man! If it were me I would never went out from there, now the place is missing again you fool!”

“Hey! I didn’t know and I could probably die in there!”

“That’s none of my business!”

“What!?”

“Hey hey hey” Said Nina laughingly, “Don’t fight! And be quiet we are at the library after all”

Both of us sat down while covering our mouths…

“So what happened to me? You haven’t answered what is that cube?”

“It said here that the cube is an experience fiend, if you got hit by it your experiences would be sapped and you’d became a weaker version of you”

“Oh no”

“Hey you’re a new person right? You came from the outside world and this body is new, right?” Jeun asked

“Yes, when it happened I wasn’t even a day in this realm”

“Come let me assess your level”

“I’ve looked into it, what do you mean Sister?” Nina asked

Jeun didn’t answer but walked quickly towards the first floor and went back up to the other side of the room on the side’s second floor.

Here there’s a chest that looked slim but long, it was a metal chest but I couldn’t make up what kind of metal that is. Jeun put a key into a key hole on its side and opened it. Inside was a staff, and I could see Nina gawked at the mere appearance of the item

“The Staff of Insight” Nina mumbled

Jeun lifted the staff higher than her head, she chanted something and then the tip of the staff glowed. She put the glowing part at the top of her nose in between her closed eyes, the glow got brighter. She opened her eyes and looked at me… 

She ritually placed back the staff into the chest and locked it. Her expression immediately changed and her eyes widened as wide as they could be

“Bright… you’re level minus 5555”

“HUUUH!” “WHHHAAAT!” Nina and I was audibly surprised.

Everyone was stunned for a bit and then Jeun said

“How come? Bright, what happened?”

“Like I said, I went in the Jungle and above the river there’s this portal or gate…” I retold them everything again and it felt like telling the story to new people since they were listening to it so intensely.

“What were the cubes like? Was it exactly like this? What were the colors?” Nina asked

“It was glowing white” I replied

“Did it really not hurt at all? What kind of sensation you felt when they attacked?” Jeun asked while having the book about the cubes opened right in front of her

“Like someone tapped my body that’s it”

“Did you felt weaker?” Nina asked

“No, not at all. While they attacked I even managed to kill some monsters, well weak monsters”

They continued on asking me questions until they started to talk between each other about the legends, the Gods, and some details about creatures and powers.

Somehow the conversation went on a different topic between them and Nina started to asked Jeun

“Jeun I always wanted to use the staff of insight”

“No, the staff is not to be used by a non-librarian”

“Oh” She looked disappointed for a second.

“What about the staff?” I asked

“The staff was made with the gem of the planet’s vein, and through magic it could tap into the planet’s own flow of magic, or information, or anything, basically you could become a part of the planet itself”

“Wow”

“But it’s dangerous” Nina said… “If you could not control it you could become lost and could not be yourself again”

“You’d die basically” Jeun added

“Oh” this was very interesting, I thought. “So why the librarians?”

“The librarians, one of their tasks is to uncover the knowledge of the universe, sometimes to know about some specific issues or to make an elemental material for study we had to use the staff. Therefore, we were trained to do so safely”

From here Jeun’s eyes wandered for a moment and she leaned back on her chair

“I guess, I could help guide you with the staff if our minds were connected Nina”

“Really? You don’t mind Jeun?”

“Yeah, there might be cases where a librarian would do this, if the person knew a location the librarian didn’t know about, or a memory that the librarians wanted to access, even to augment elemental affinities to treat the planet itself… but, I must do this for a reason Nina. You are a healer, aren’t you?”

“I’m a fighter but I specialize in supporting skills including some healings”

“Fine, Let us connect our minds and tried to heal Bright out of his status ailments”

“Oh Right!” I said

“Oh Right!” Nina also said the same thing, “Yay! That’s smart Sister, you’re so cool for doing this”

“Ah, I’m just doing this out of curiosity” she said with a satisfied smile on her face.

 

Jeun cleared all the books on the table and he called Nina…

“Sit on the table Nina”

“Oh ok, like this?”

“Right, oops I forgot the staff. Bright could you help and give the staff to Nina?”

So I went and took the staff from the chest, it was heavy, and I think this gem Jeun was talking about was inside the staff from tip to tip due to the heaviness and it’s like the staff was actually hollow and there’s something inside that’s moving when I picked it up, also because I didn’t see any gems attached on the outside. My interface picked up some status out of the staff though, and it said “Staff of Insight – small” and the interface also popped out an option button to “Disassemble”. Of course I didn’t and handed the staff over to Nina

“Right, now I’m going to put my hands on your back ok and let’s try to breathe in the same rhytm”

So they sat for a while in that position, slowly closing their eyes and breathed the same way. Not long after I started to see a string of smoke starting to appear and curled around Jeun’s right hand, it was heading towards Nina’s neck and curled around her head until it kind of stayed there floating and spinning around. Then there were two of them, then another two from Jeun’s left hand, and now both persons’ head starting to become like a tree where strings of smoke swirling around and dancing like birds playing around the branches of a couple of trees.

Suddenly Nina started shouting

“Hey! I can hear you!” with a loud voice…“Oh… oh sorry…” she said again while Jeun was just sitting there smiling making expressions on her face.

Seems like this linking had worked and now they were talking among each other inside their own minds.

After some time, Nina picked up the staff and opened her eyes. I was utterly surprised as her pupils were whiter than the whites of her eyes.

DISPEL!

---------------------------

The sun's color has darkened and now it's time for the High Bishop to go. The people have been healed and now they are lining in front of the fence for the parting prayer. 

Benedict: Lift your hands in the air... let's pray

Father in heaven, thank you for today, thank you for your blessings thank you for your protection thank you for your rejuvination. Your servant is parting with your children, sons and daughters... please keep them safe, forgive our sins, forgive our iniquity, our stupidity, our retardation... forgive us retarded people and show us your mercy, please show us that we don't need to be at church to be peaceful, we don't need the bishops to heal each other, and we certainly didn't need to hurt each other in front of your presense like a drunken ogre. 

O father, your servant is leaving the city, as our heart worry of this town's well being your servant believe in you. My stupid brain couldn't comprehend why is this magnificent city is not a shithole filled with rats and sick people still hitting each each other while in pain, your servant also could only leave this city under your only protection oh lord. 

Blessed be the major, the doctor association, and the guild. Blessed be all of the hard working people of the city, and their family. Specially blessed be the library, give the people the privilige of a hint of desire to actually go there and pick up some books occassionally (some people started mumbling...) and stop them from torturing their innocent children for entertainment (silence again). 

With that oh father, watch our lifted hands from the sky and bring down upon us your presence, your prosperity, and your strength, again forgive our sins and drive evil away for us. Keep us connected under your wide wings safe and snug. In your name we pray...

(Together:) Yosha!

-----------------------------------

"Father Father!"

"I haven't even put my hands down yet... what!"

"The Library... the Library!"

"What?" (There were no further answers needed, the pale face of the man told a lot), "Bring the horses now!"

"Yes Father!"

-------------------------------------

“Dispel” she chanted, with the voice that echoed around the library. Her face shone bright like an explosion of light but nothing happened to me, instead Nina collapsed down on the table.

The staff flew higher to the air and shook, it stayed after a bit and right there a celestial gate just like the one I saw on the river appeared and opened up like a giant eye but vertical.

Jeun shocked with what happened tried to examine Nina quickly,

“This doesn’t suppose to happen!” She shouted

Inside I saw the glowing white cubes floating about left and right, then they noticed the celestial gate, then they saw me… I felt like, then they started to head towards us in a visibly aggressive gesture I was dreadfully familiar with.

“Jeun run!” I shouted while jumping and climbing on the celestial gate

“Take Nina and run!”

Jeun saw what I was doing, blocking the celestial gate while the cubes were attacking me from the inside. She immidiately realized what happened and pulled Nina on her back. Just when she started to walked down the stairs…

“Who dare to open the gate!”

A massive female like creature with fish scales around her body started to descent from above. Simultaneously the air started to spin, creating a mini storm inside the library that took out almost all the books off of their shelves. (On the outside it looked like a swirling dark clouds dancing with thunders striking multiple times at the building)

“Oh my Goddess!” Jeun looked at her in shock and disbelief.

“Jeun! Run!” I shouted at her again, hanging on the gate as strong as I could while the cubes were attacking me vigorously. I was tickled vigorously. The main concentration I had was to keep my body from being blown away by the wind.

The creature lifted her hand and made a gesture, the gate was closed and then vanished.

I dropped down the ground, but I picked myself up and started to run towards Jeun to help carry Nina together.

The creature watched closely and started to point at Nina… “That Girl!” she said this with such terrifying voice we couldn’t help but to froze in place.

“She, opened the Gate”

“We didn’t mean to my Goddess, we were trying to cast a dispel on him and suddenly it came to this” Jeun tried to answer with a loud but humble voice

“Hmmmm” She watched with such a displeasant look on her expression.

“Die!” Then she lifted up her hand again and started to make some kind of writings on the air.

Seeing this Jeun’s face turned even more pale and she jumped at us and pulled us down laying on the ground.

An explosion of water filled the place and filled it to the brim. The building then exploded followed with a huge burst of water, scattered everything around the air and towards the outside. The chamber was totally destroyed.

Jeun was holding on to the both of us strongly not willing to let us go. I also grabbed Nina strongly hugging her with one arm and the other arm was around Jeun’s waist. Seemed like she casted a protective spell around us. Such powerful explosion would’ve, at least, dealt us injuries if not death, but we came out like we’ve been playing underwater of a water entertainment park ride.

“Bright! Take Nina and Run, I’ll face her!”

“No Jeun we go!”

“She’ll catch all of us easily idiot!” After saying this she uttered a spell and a wind magic blew both of us towards the entrance gate of the library.

“AAAAAAAAAA!” Siren made Jeun float to the sky and she seemed like being choked on the neck by magic

“WHAT HAPPENED!? WHAT is this?!” Benedict’s guard appeared at the front gate. Soon Benedict himself ran in and saw the disastrous scene

“Oh my Goddess!!” He fell kneeling on the floor.

“She’s going to kill us, she got Jeun already”

“No! what is this, why is the Goddess angry? Why is she here!?”

“Nina!” One of the guard showed extreme concern when he saw Nina laid motionless on the floor.

“These people are hopeless” I thought to myself seeing them not doing anything but staying there in place like it’s safe there.

Quickly I grabbed Nina and ran as far as I could. My plan is to get a safe place for her body and then back to safe Jeun.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” The guard got angry and tried to stop me.

“Nardel, stay here with me!” Benedict stood while making a sign with his hand. “The wind of Sylphid” Then a huge magical circle appeared in front of him while a concentrated swirling wind formed a shape of a pair of wings. The wings flew and snatched Jeun from Siren right before she was about to ripped her neck off of her body.

Siren watched with grim furious coldness at Benedict when he did this. Before Jeun’s body was delivered Siren casted a water explosion right at the center of them, if it weren’t for the guards’ double magical barriers, their bodies would’ve scattered all over the place. Still the barriers were destroyed and their bodies flung towards the walls.

I observed Nina’s body and noticed a text box appeared “Human Corpse”, and options “Mummy” “Preserve”, “Cremate”. I was sad with the kind of sadness I couldn’t describe, with anger and tear I shook her body and observed all over trying to find something wrong with the status. I noticed with the option “Mummy” some items in my bag were glowing, with the option “Preserve” other items were glowing. I remembered Nina said that failing to use the staff will make you lose yourself or something like that, “Indeed this is a weird way of losing one’s life”. I pondered intensely while still in a hurry, I ran back in order to save Jeun somehow, somewhere at the back of my mind, I was still hopeful about Nina. 

-----------------------------------

Benedict stationed the two guards near him, activating the healing apparition. When around the apparition their wounds would be quickly healed, but the healing won't continue outside. 

Siren saw Nina and with terrifying move blasted forward. Benedict couldn't do a thing but to cast protection upon both of them. Consumed with anger, I jumped straight at Siren with fist, somehow Siren did nothing to respond, I punched her face and predictably did nothing to her. So I thought but Benedict saw something.

Benedict: Hei! keep doing that!

So I kept on jumping and punching, jumping and punching. Siren caught me and squeezed me to death. 

Clear blue skies here I am again at the meadow. 

I ran as fast as I could, the townspeople had evacuated outside the gates, seeing me running they tried to stop me but the guards said no. So I went back straight towards the library. 

Benedict appeared to cast a lot of protection and healing magic everywhere, however Siren still flung them around like they were toys. Strangely such is above expectation and Nina's body is still fine as well. 

Benedict: Hei! how did you do it, we couldn't do it?

Me: What do you mean?

Siren blasted forward at the sight of me and this is the first time I was terrified like this. She picked me up and as she about to shout into my face I punched her. 

Clear blue skies I'm back at the meadow. 

This time Benedict appeared to manage to form a formation, and there are more knights came to help. 

I saw 2 knights were bing tossed around, but from a long range Benedict kept on healing them. 

Benedict: Hei! Punch Her!

Something seems to be working when I punched her so I ran swiftly, this time covertly as she was focusing on a knight. As I reached her feet and was about to jump, Benedict casted a light magic that made her daze, I punched her face repeatedly but nothing seems to happen, she's too strong. 

Benedict: Yes! Again!

When I landed back to the ground I understood, underneath her several rare item appeared, I knew this because the names appeared to me; Siren's feather, Siren's powder, Siren's threads, and copies. One of the knight used telekinesis and gave these items to Benedict. Then I realized that Benedict used some of these items to increase his power. 

Benedict: This is amazi... 

suddenly I'm back at the meadow again. 

------------------------------------

It appear that Siren had became frustrated at Benedict for she couldn't get to Nina at all now. When I was back I saw Benedict is now floating with electric sparks around him. 

Benedict: Goddess! Please consider us your followers, spare us from your anger

Siren lifted her hands again and casted even greater flood magic. Benedict quickly picked up Nina and floated onto the water, the guards were washed with the water, this time Jeun is around to protect everyone. 

Me: You're fine!

Jeun: Yes, now stay there I'm going to throw you forward. 

She picked me up like a baloon and started to chant agility buffs toward myself. She threw me at Siren, and this time she appeared concerned and tried to block. Sire feathers, and an very rare Item Siren's tears appeared. 

Benedict: Siren's tears!

Siren changed the weather again, the clouds gathered up in the sky forming a vortex, massive rain began to drop and thunderous noises everywhere. A tornado appear admist all of us and now we were really being punched into the walls. Before I died, I saw Nina was being picked up. 

Cloudy sky, I'm not at the meadow surprisingly. 

An Angelic figure came down from the sky and as result all of our wounds were healed. 

Angel: Benedict is that you? Wow didn't expect that its you yourself summoned me

Benedict: Oh thank God Cupid, please, please I can't anymore. 

Benedict passed out

Siren flew higher now face to face with the angel, with Nina in hand. 

Cupid: You're a realm God, I wouldn't do anything to you, but I'm summoned so that nobody is hurt.

Siren: SHUT UP

An incredible fight broke up in the sky, holy magic and weather magic wielded like weapons and buffs. This is a fight of pure elemental beings and it really looked amazing. 

The telekinesis Knight stood up and took a siren feather, he lifted his hand and snatched Nina away from Siren. 

Jeun: Nina! oh no Nina!

Cupid seemed to be frustrated already, he summoned what appears to be a shining gate in the sky and opened it, from within a loud sound of war trumpet was heard and outpours an army of baby angels. The babies hugged Siren rendering her unable to cast. She screamed eerily towards the sky and the eye like gate was opened, now the glowing cubes were out and each of them "man to man" against the baby angel, it was as if watching a TV Show's glitter effect but in 4 dimension, it was greatness. 

I saw Benedict's staff was also called "staff of insight"

I looked at Nina spontaneously, and I noticed at my peripheral a blink of notice that dissapeared instantly. I examined the staff again, and then Nina, here it goes again. I looked and there's an item on the floor called Angel's dust, but it or they were too small and too few to be seen and were dissipating. 

Oh, I taught. Heaven's luck. 

Me: Jeun!!

Jeun: Yes

Me: I may be able to try something on Nina! Throw me at the Angel

Jeun: What are you going to do

Me: Punch, 

Jeun: What?

Me: Yes...