Her blunt words made him chuckle. “…yeah, yeah I do.” He tried to brush his messy hair back. “Yeah…” Igna sighed. “I get that you don’t visit the city often, or at all, but we need to get you some new clothes.” She pointed at his tattered clothing. “Something with defensive enchantments perhaps?” She suggested. “Those are expensive, Igna. I don’t have much gold yet. I haven’t been grinding for it at all.” Igna smirked. “Don’t worry about that!” Her bright, cheerful smile was almost blinding. “My treat!”   Despite Kyle’s best attempts to refuse, he soon found himself being dragged towards Arceum, the city where nearly all players resided in. The trade capital of this world. “But Igna!” He tried to refuse for the tenth time within the last hour, only for her to shut him up, and point straight ahead as they climbed a hill. The city of Arceum entered their view as they reached the top of the hill. Surrounded by tall and thick

  Sitting on the soft cushions of the couch on the balcony overlooking the auction hall, Kyle couldn’t help but feel very much out of place. Until now, the most luxury he had anywhere within this game had been his fur covered bed in Cacophus’ cave. “There’s still some time before the first items are shown.” Igna cheerfully said. She fitted right in here. She had immediately gotten a glass of some kind of juice and was drinking it while sitting comfortably. She didn’t out of place at all. Not one bit. “Right,” Kyle muttered. He simply couldn’t relax. “Oh, by the way,” Igna placed her glass of juice on the table beside her. “Kyle, a week from now, the patch I talked about will happen.” The young man flinched. “Oh, right.” He had completely forgotten about that. “Yeah, that’s next week, isn’t it?” Igna nodded. She leaned forward, her intense gaze on him. “I’m worried. What if you don’t survive the maintenance?”

The wealthy side of the city of Arceum was about as breath taking as one would expect. The white marble villas and mansions on either side of the road look almost unreal. Everything was incredibly clean, spotless even. Not a single fallen leaf on the ground, not a single weird or overgrown patch of grass in the lawns. “Is this where the player houses are?” Kyle asked as he looked around. The more he looked, the less real all of this seemed. Being too perfect was a thing, and this place was exactly that. Too perfect. Too clean, too symmetrical, too orderly. Igna nodded. “Most of the wealthy buy these villas. Me and my friend bought one of the smaller mansions at the very end of the street together, it’s mostly pointless to spend too much gold on these places since the housing and land claiming system will soon be put in place.” Kyle fell silent. She was right, it made no sense to spend money on any of these, even if they looked fairly nice. Too nice. He shook

Dinner was delicious. Caille had quickly proven herself to be an amazing cook, though why they ate, or even bothered cooking anything was beyond Kyle. Did normal players also feel hunger? “What do you know about attunement?” Caille’s voice startled him. He shrugged. “Nothing, actually.” He admitted. He had never come across an item that required attunement to be used, nor did Cacophus ever talk about such items. “I see,” The eldritch witch pursed her lips. “Alright, I’ll give a very basic explanation since this is somewhat important.” She leaned back on her chair as she started to explain. “When you attune to an item, you and the item get bound to one another. It’s a magical bond that no outside force can break.” She tapped her finger on the wooden surface of the table rhythmically as she spoke. “The number of attunement slots you have changes from class to class though. To begin with, all characters, regardless of class, gain one new slot every twenty five l

Cacophus’ report was surprising extensive. He had an answer to each of Kyle’s questions, and by the time he finished speaking, Kyle felt he already knew everything he needed to know. He almost didn’t feel the need to visit the two groups. But what if there was a quest? That possibility alone prompted him to hop off the bone throne, and head out. “I’ll be back… probably some time tomorrow.” He let the Lich know before he left. Once he was outside, he summoned the Raven first. “Go,” he said with a smile on his lips. “Towards the elves, scout for me.” The large raven cawed, it stretched its wings wide before taking off. Kyle hesitated for a moment before speaking again. “Come forth,” He said softly. “Fallen Knight Aoris.” From the magical mist, the armoured knight appeared. “I see no enemies,” She stated coldly. “And I sense the raven is scouting already. Why have you called for me, Summoner?” Kyle started walking, gesturing her to follow him. “K