Chronicles of the True Wizard

For his own tutorial, Felix let Benjamin and Noah describe the events. Noah started and talked about how they had established an open town which resulted in a heavy profession focus given the class level requirements of the other settlements in the tutorial. Their city had grown from there and quickly became the richest and largest with all of the food and gear they were selling. Once the taxes increased, they set out to establish trade routes with caravans and ships which was when Benjamin joined and about when the raiding really kicked off. They described how two of the forts in the tutorial slowly took out the others around them one by one until it was only those two and their city left. The other two banded together and declared war on their city, bringing with them an army of about half the remaining population and dozens of siege engines. They talked briefly about the battle, mentioning Felix and his efforts more times than Felix would have liked to have the attention on him, then talked about the victory and aftermath.

"So uh… What about world bosses? You didn't even try for them?" Jack asked and Amani leaned in.

Benjamin shrugged, "Didn't bother, someone killed them all and our city ended up with the upgrades."

"What do you mean someone killed them all? All nine of them?" Amani immediately said.

"All ten." Benjamin looked at Noah to back him up but Amani cut in immediately, "Wait, you killed the final boss?"

"No, but someone did. We captured both of the leaders of the invading forces and shortly after the battle, the final boss died. We all saw the stats from the battle. We had thought it was some group of 200 or so elite warriors that just banded together and ignored everything else, until we saw the battle stats from the final boss." Benjamin explained.

"What are battle stats?" Amani asked.

"There was a final boss?" Jack cut in, clearly still one step behind. Though Amani hadn't mentioned it, she clearly knew about the final boss given that she had killed all 9 of the standard world bosses in her tutorial. It seemed that simply knowing about the final boss was enough for her to at least partially believe the tall tale Benjamin was spinning.

Benjamin just shrugged, "Yeah so like I said, we thought it was a team, a small army. The battle stats showed number of deaths, participants in the battle and damage dealt from each side."

Both Jack and Amani leaned in further waiting for Benjamin to reveal the numbers. He continued the story and decided to stretch the tension just a little more, "A few hours after the war, in the middle of the thunderstorm that shook the air, a massive flash of white light that blinded all who looked signaled the end. We opened our eyes and read, 0 deaths, 58 million damage dealt, 22 damage taken, 1 participant."

Amani recoiled, frowned and shook her head. Jack sat back up and raised an eyebrow, "So who the hell was it? Who went out and dealt, what was it, 58 million damage?"

Benjamin just shrugged so Jack turned to Felix, "What about you, you ever meet them?"

Felix just shook his head, pouncing on the conversational escape Jack had just unintentionally given him, "No, I was fighting in the war. Never met anyone like that, but I would love to personally thank whoever they are for using all of the upgrades on my city. I spent most of my time enchanting items and practicing with my spells and whatnot."

"You're an enchanter?" Amani leaned in, interested again.

He turned to her and nodded before Jack cut in, "Wait hold on. So some mysterious individual ran through and killed all of the world bosses that The System recommends 250 people for, by themself?"

"25,000 for the final boss." Amani added.

"I don't know what to tell you. We don't know them, all we know is what we saw and read. I can tell you some of the rumors and theories? Most of the people thought it was him," He gestured at Felix, "before the war, then the final boss died shortly after it. They spun some stories about how he finished the war then snapped his fingers and killed it but… those were campfire stories. Amani, you know it had to be engaged from the start so that battle lasted longer than ours did and started at the same time so it wasn't him. All that leaves is some rogue agent no one really knows."

"I'm not sure I'm buying it." Jack said and Amani nodded in agreement.

Benjamin shrugged, "System, can you show them the final boss slain announcement?"

Felix was certain that wouldn't work until he looked at Jack and saw his eyes focus on something close to his face that Felix couldn't see. He looked over and Amani was reading it too with a growing frown on her face. Benjamin continued as they read, "We figure they happened to find some ancient relic or item that let them kill it in a single blow."

The oddest part to Felix about the entire story, was that his earrings told him Benjamin was being entirely truthful. It seemed that the city had changed their minds, or the tale of him smiting the Kraken never caught on. He resolved himself to ask Noah about it later.

"We had been calling them the Stormbringer, but that name seems to be taken. Not that we had ever met them, for all we know they're one in the same."

"We could go ask them, they should be right over there in that room, right?" Jack gestured over to the room labeled as the Stormbringer's.

"I think, if they haven't opened it yet, they likely won't. That or they got the option to skip the meeting. Either way, I think we should respect their choice to remain anonymous and leave them be." Noah cut in.

Jack shrugged, "Alright, just a thought. Speaking of respecting choices, I'm going to go invade someone's privacy. I'll be right back." Jack got up and lightly jogged over to the panel labeled, Snowvale, the city just south of his on the same continent. He knocked on the panel and waved into it.

After a few moments, it opened and Jack talked with the person inside for a few moments. Then, they walked back over to Atalus' room together and Jack introduced the newcomer, "This is Martin. He's the leader of Snowvale and a little shy. We actually met just after the tutorial ended and we've been working together ever since. The distance makes it kind of a pain though so he's been talking about setting up a train to connect the cities. I want to call it the polar expr-"

"We are not calling it that. I already said no." Martin interrupted.

[E - Common] Human (Lvl 81)

"It's your project, you get to choose the name. I was just offering a suggestion, that's all." Jack smirked.

Martin rolled his eyes, then seemed to notice all of the people looking at him all at once. He looked like a deer caught in headlights for a few seconds before he awkwardly nodded to everyone. Jack sat back down and Martin sat next to him, with his back facing the wall. Noah addressed him as soon as Martin got comfortable, "So, tell us about your tutorial. We heard about everyone else's already."

Martin's tutorial was by far the most interesting to Felix. Martin had started out, much like Felix. He was dropped in and had to run from wolves, taking refuge in a puzzle dungeon. Unlike Felix though, he had already chosen his class, engineer. He was offered the class because he worked on robotics and was a professional engineer before the integration, he loved his job so he took the profession. Coming out of the dungeon almost a month later, he had adapted his previous skill set to incorporate magic and enchanting. He had even managed to upgrade his profession, though he didn't specify to what. From there, he built magical weapons and machines to solve any problems he encountered. He needed heat as he was stuck in an arctic biome so, he constructed a magical furnace. He needed to take out some enemies so, he constructed magical weapons in the form of traps for the most part.

From there, the leader of the settlement he had joined died to hubris, trying to fight a world boss. Martin was elected as the new leader as he had brought warmth and safety to the people, though he tried many times to refuse the position. Over the next month he constructed magical siege weapons and used them to take out the world bosses one by one. In doing so, his settlement built a fairly large following and most of the others simply asked to be vassal towns under his city. He didn't even need to ask. By the end of the tutorial, he owned all 9 of the settlements and had taken out all of the world bosses through the use of hundreds of siege weapons and large scale traps. The most intriguing part to Felix was that he was also a caster, and just like Felix, he didn't use his spell list at all for combat. He kept simple utility spells like light on it but otherwise ignored it. He mentioned he only took the class for the synergistic stats with his profession.

"Felix here mentioned that he wanted to establish trade and transportation routes with the other cities. He was talking about maybe a train, but otherwise portals if possible."

"Portals? Can you do that?" Martin leaned in towards Felix with wide eyes, instantly shattering his rather meek and awkward demeanor.

"I mean, I'm sure you can. I have no idea how right now. I just don't see why not, given all the other things that are now possible."

"Damn, guess we're stuck with trains for now then. The biggest issue I've come across is just producing enough tracks for the trains. Just to connect my city with Jack's would take just over tens of thousands of kilometers. That's a ridiculous amount of metal, not to mention the clearing of the land."

"I mean, we could go in the other direction and try to make a plane." Felix offered.

"A plane?"

"Yeah, then we don't need to clear nearly as much land and we don't need as much metal either."

"Yeah, but it's way more complicated."

"We could try to make a blimp instead? It would be much slower though."

"Not sure I'm fully bought into creating a flying vehicle. What if it crashes or something?"

"Into a bird? It seems fine to me, we could make it just carry cargo for now then we can see about passengers later."

"How the hell are we refining oil for the engines though?"

"Don't bother. Just use mana."

"It would be a ridiculous amount of mana, something like…" Martin trailed off and closed his eyes, his fingers twitching rapidly for a few seconds before he continued, "7200 mana a second, 8000 to be safe."

"That's it?"

"Well, mana to energy conversion is essentially perfectly efficient, jet engines aren't even close."

"How big of a plane would that be?"

"I only know the approximate numbers for a 737 from a stupid ‘Environmental Consideration' course I took back during my undergrad."

"We could also enchant the entire plane to be lighter."

"That would take a decent amount of mana on it's own."

"It would. Wouldn't that make it more efficient though?"

"Maybe? I honestly have no idea, I guess it depends on how good the enchantment is."

"You could then also go straight to each city, no need to go around the coast."

"It would be great, would cut the journey by about 30% but… Not sure I want to be responsible…"

"I think there is a good chance we could find a pilot that could survive a plane crash. Maybe not an explosion, but that risk is much smaller with mana."

"Near 0, I would think… still…"

"We can talk about it more later. Just think about it." Felix was just happy to plant the seed. He was willing to help, but he didn't exactly have the time to create or manage the entire project himself. Or frankly, the expertise. With Martin designing and managing it though, it should come out being much more efficient as well as saving him a ton of time. The biggest hurdle Felix could see was finding the right material. He figured they should probably use something in the D grade, incase they encountered bird monsters or something, but the only ones he had seen so far were extraordinarily heavy.

Amani and Jack were having their own conversation, Jack having swapped seats sometime earlier, about combat techniques, their classes and favorite fights. Benjamin and Noah had gotten up and seemed to be making friends with anyone who was available. Noticing the lull in Felix and Martin's conversation, Jack turned to them, "So Felix, I've been meaning to ask… What's with the absolutely shredded cat?" He asked gesturing to Nova sprawled out in a pool on the table, napping, completely unbothered by anything happening around them.

"Oh that's my familiar, Nova."

"Your familiar? Are you a caster?"

"Yup."

Amani, Martin and Jack all frowned and looked at each-other causing Felix to ask, "What?"

"Just odd, that's all. Caster's have seemed rather weak so far. The only strong one I know is Martin over here who doesn't even use the class at all. I don't think I've met a caster that wasn't… well… useless in a fight. Benjamin and Noah mentioned you had helped tremendously in the war, but they didn't exactly mention how."

Felix shrugged, "I didn't really meet any other casters, just one focused on healing."

"Oh yeah, healers are the complete opposite. The only ones in my city are too valuable to have in a fight, and not useful enough to justify bringing out yet. They get stronger every day though and it does seem like they will be ready soon."

"I mean, we had caster's fighting in our war. Standing a top the walls, defending the city. They aren't that useless in a fight."

"Yeah but they need a wall and cast so slowly. I tried having a caster with me once, got flanked and almost died. Had no answer to the baby wolf that attacked them because their spells were on ‘cooldown'."

"That and spells telegraph their position with all the words and hand movements they need to make." Amani added.

Felix shrugged. He didn't really have a satisfying answer for them and wasn't up for coming up with a lie at the moment. After a few awkward moments Martin, surprisingly, was the one who spoke up, "So Nova, that a male or female cat?"

"Not sure." Felix said after thinking for a few minutes.

"What do you mean?" Jack said.

"I never asked." Felix said simply. Jack looked over to the cat who was lying on its back, completely exposing it's underside. He inspected it closely for a few minutes then furrowed his brows, "Huh." Was all he said after a few moments.

Hey Nova, you male or female? Felix quickly sent over. He knew the sprite wasn't actually napping, just focused on it's soul space, breaking down and processing matter. All he got in response was a feeling of confusion. Felix tried to explain but gave up when he couldn't really figure out where the line was and how to explain it to something that didn't even have a real body.

His attempts did rouse the cat though as it quickly flipped onto it's legs so it could look at Felix with a cocked head full of confusion. After a few moments, it realized there were other people around and it's head darted to each of them in turn. When it's eyes landed on Martin, it walked over to him and meowed right into his face.

Martin jumped back a little, his chair squeaking across the ground as his head darted to Felix for support. He just shrugged in response and Jack giggled at the whole situation. Nova seemed to get bored when Martin wouldn't give him any attention so it instead walked over to Amani on the opposite end of the table and meowed at her. Her reaction was less abrupt as she reached forwards carefully to pet them. Nova immediately fell into her and allowed her to pet it as it nuzzled into her stomach.

Jack turned back to Felix, "So are cats just sexless in the multiverse? Are all animals sexless?"

"I don't think so? It's not a cat. Didn't you identify it?"

"Yeah I did. I just saw cat, wait… Now I just see familiar…"

"Oh… huh."

I keep forgetting. I don't know why I have so much trouble remembering how identify works.

It's possible you can upgrade it like a skill to be more useful later on. Grim responded.

I hope so. I really liked seeing the actual names of things in the tutorial. The real world is gonna suck if everything is ‘creature' when I don't know what it is.

Noticing Felix zone out, Jack shifted the conversation and asked the table "So uh… How are we all feeling about the vote?"

"I don't know why I would want the restricted period to continue. Honestly though, not sure I have much of an opinion either way, just figure we might as well let people do what they want." Felix shrugged.

"Does make it harder for an offensive force to build strength." Jack offered.

Felix just shrugged, "So? I figure if they're going to attack, it's going to happen no matter what."

"We'll be voting to keep it for now." Amani said, "We'd like to be a little more established before we have to deal with countless towns popping up around us."

They continued to discuss the vote for a little while until eventually Nova wandered off and then about a half hour later Jack, Amani and Martin wandered off as well. Martin returned to Snowvale's room and shut the panel while Jack and Amani wandered around to speak with anyone who was available. Felix didn't bother getting up as there wasn't really anyone he was interested in talking to that had opened their rooms.

Looking around, it seemed like just one other room had been opened, Lav'Gur. Noah was already talking with someone inside so Felix figured there was no need for him to do so as well. He was also a little exhausted from all the social interaction so he was more than happy to just sit still and wait for the meeting to continue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .