Obelisk

Pilar

Matheus was still smiling and this made Paul increasingly uncomfortable, as he didn't understand why the man had challenged him, so he tried to talk to him.

"If you know I'm a gambler, why are you attacking me?"

"I wanted to see how strong you are, I see that you had to live something difficult in this place and I wanted to know how strong you were despite your level, look at me. I'm level fifty, and I've already finished all the missions."

"But how? That's impossible!"

"Let's say I'm a broken player who hacked the system. I got so much money legally and bought all kinds of stuff."

Paul was shocked to hear his story and wanted to know if that man could help him get a book.

"Can you help me get money?"

"I'm sorry, the game won't let me. I'm locked in here. Although I don't want to go out either, and that prevents me from giving items to other players, but I can teach you, we'd better go, some merchants don't like our presence and even less that we would use magic in this place. The game created all of you as people who avoid problems, but that doesn't mean that they won't attack us. Don't ever do that, or you'll be sent to a level fifty dungeon."

Paul chuckled internally at hearing that. He had been through a similar situation before, and he knew how difficult it was to be in a dungeon of that level.

[...]

The two players went out to the main street and Matheus continued to talk about the game.

"You just have to do the main quests and the side quests that the game puts you on, but don't delay because you'll lose the reward, so you can level up."

"Hey, for me, it's not that easy, I didn't follow the rules and lost three lives. Now I only have one left, and if I die I will stay here forever."

The player remained serious and could not believe it. He didn't understand what he was hearing, so with simple words he gave him his opinion.

"Mmm, I see, well, for now take advantage of your social position, you have a good reputation and a good level, you could save up and buy advanced books. With those you can improve yourself."

Paul wondered what that man was doing here. Since he wasn't doing missions or anything like that, so he asked him about it. Interesting that you're still alive after skipping the rules.

"What do you do in the game since you don't have quests?"

"I just explore the game, there are always new things. Since you must always give incoming players a task."

Paul could see that smirk on Bill's face, so long playing, and he thought this was fun.

"Well, just be careful not all the people in this town are good here there are several that had to do with the incident, even if you want to catch them the game won't let you. It's still too early for that, everything must be done little by little."

[...]

Paul went to a remote place to train. This time, a deserted place near the city limits. There he opened the books he bought and began to practice magic.

He learned another kind of spells, this time to build objects and not simply strange shaped things, so he tried to do the first tests.

"Double wall of ice"

From one moment to the next, two walls of ice were created, quite thick. Paul was struck by this. He could make an ice house if he wanted to, but he had to imagine it and say the right words, but that was the beginning of the training. He had not yet started properly.

He continued with what he learned in the books, but this time to give objects durability, however. It was not easy for him. Being a few books, he began to feel discomfort when it came to doing magic. One of the spells he tried to cast was quite complicated, it was a type of black magic, with which he could restore objects that had been destroyed. 

He tried to restore part of the forest of this place, but being part of one of the defined places of the game, he had some problems for Paul. His hands started to get a little black from spending so much energy on it. He tried to rest a bit and looked at what little he could do. There was very little vegetation there. The game had prevented him from changing the scenery. He needed more power to do something like that.

The only thing Paul managed to do in that attempt was to understand the game more. He couldn't change everything in that city. He was limited to being a simple player, no matter how much he tried to do something else. 

[...]

Paul went back to Fischer's town, he still had black hands for trying to alter an area of the game. Some people started to look at him and gave him dirty looks. Apparently, many already knew what that meant.

Immediately, Paul's stats went down.

<<Reputation 10>>

<<Family 15>>

He was not happy about that, even though he knew he had broken the rules, he was not happy to see his stats go down. He assumed his responsibility and walked away as if nothing had happened. 

Unfortunately for him, many people saw it, and kept dropping his stats suddenly.

<<Reputation -9>>>

<<Family -5>>>

Paul seeing that from one moment to the next, his stats were dropping so fast. He decided to rush home and try to get rid of the black marks that started to appear on his hands.

When he got home, Paul climbed up on the roof and avoided his family to see him so that his stats would not drop any further. So he simply used restoration magic that he learned from the books. 

"Total Restoration."

But nothing happened, the marks didn't disappear, they were still there on his skin. So he wanted to keep trying to remove them with other spells, but the game sent him a warning.

<<Access denied, player tampering with the game>>.

<<Player sent dungeon>>>

Paul was worried, but now with the strengthening magic he had learned, he felt calmer. He could now make his magic stronger, no matter the level of his opponent.

Out of nowhere, he was taken to a level 30 dungeon. This time it was a deserted place. The sun was too strong. Paul suddenly felt very tired. The confidence he had just now disappeared completely. He could only grab his wand and waited for some monster to appear.

Suddenly he felt the ground start to move and something started to come out of it. At first, he thought it was a centipede or a snake, but he was surprised to see the creature that had come out of there. It was a type of snake-bodied woman, green and purple in color, holding a type of sword.

It was a rather strange hybrid animal, but it was not stupid. Just coming out of the ground, it lunged towards Paul, and it looked like it would attack him with that weapon, but it slithered so fast that it caught him. With its body, it imprisoned him and wrapped itself around him. Poor Paul was scared he couldn't do magic and that monster squeezed him in a horrible way little by little his health points were dropping rapidly. Until he let go of the wand and was completely unprotected.

<<Health 45>>

Paul had no choice but to use one of his fingers to press each of the options and look for the books he had not read. Since he could not cast any spells without a wand and for now he had no weapon to attack this creature, meanwhile his health continued to drop.

<<Health 40>>

In the inventory there were dozens of somewhat basic books and others a bit more complex with spell information. Paul with his one finger picked the rarest ones, and little by little he learned everything. Until he found the right book. There was a spell that did not need a wand that could be used by the player.

"Flower garden gradual regeneration."

Paul's body started to regain his health little by little.

<<Health 50>>

<<Health 64>>>

<<Health 75>>>

While that was happening he tried to loosen up a bit, but he couldn't, so he used his teeth and bit the creature, from one moment to the next he tore a chunk out of it.

The monster moved somewhat desperately and tried to uncoil itself to prevent Paul from tearing off another piece of skin. The black-haired boy spat on the ground, what he had taken from that creature.

"Gross!"

He tried to get up from the ground, but crawled to his wand and grabbed it. At once, he said a spell.

"Ice needles!"

Dozens of ice needles immediately emerged from the ground and pierced the creature to death. This reassured Paul, as he had a bad taste in his mouth. 

He had a bad taste in his mouth and various discomforts from being trapped in the monster's body.

He looked at the creature again and noticed that it was not yet dead. It was still alive, so he cast another fire spell.

"Firestorm."

Immediately, the monster turned to ash and disappeared completely. 

The game at once informed him of the level up.

<<Congratulations, you have leveled up>>.

<<Level 22>>

Paul was quite calm, but he was still bothered by the taste in his mouth and kept spitting on the ground. Until he started walking and slowly made his way back to the city.

[...]

Paul returned to the second floor of his house

And he got up from the floor. He was quite tired after the battle. He had used too much energy in those spells. He got up from the floor and looked at his hands. They were back to normal again.

The black-haired boy knew from that moment on that gambling punishments were not so bad, but it was best to avoid them, since anything could happen to him.

It was just getting dark. Unbeknownst to him, he had been in that place for quite some time. His stats were almost the same as when he went to the dungeon. So again he had to raise them, but he didn't know where to practice since the game was too protective of the places he had created. Paul started to think about where he should train and decided to choose a specific place. He could only think of the Jared Ackerman school, there were coliseums there and probably these places were made to withstand all kinds of magic and restore themselves after a short time, the problem was that he had to ask permission to use it.

Paul decided to go down from the roof and went towards the school, he wanted to train in that place. It was the most suitable for what he wanted to do.

Unfortunately, at that hour. Many people were heading home. Several of them due to the change in reputation and family statistics gave him a dirty look. So Paul decided to move faster. He wanted to avoid a fight with someone from that place.

He walked towards the school and avoided looking people in the eye.

[...]

When he arrived at the school he noticed that there was almost no one there, most of the teachers had left, there were only a few workers, since classes had been suspended because of everything that had happened at the festival. 

He saw the teacher who taught him in one of his classes and spoke to him.

"Uh... hello teach, tell me can I use one of the coliseums for training?"

"Yes, no problem, but it's best to ask the principal for permission. He is a pretty understanding person."

"I see, thank you."

Paul kept walking, but this time faster. He wanted to catch up with that man and be able to train in the coliseum.

Unfortunately for the boy, however, it wasn't that easy. When he passed through the corridor that led to one of the parks, he saw several strange men around. There he remembered that he had seen them the day of the incident, and felt a chill. He knew he should pass quickly and avoid talking to them, but it was not as easy as he thought. 

One of them looked him in the eye even though Paul tried to avoid it. The feeling of fear and discomfort grew stronger. Until all of a sudden. The boy saw the school principal. He tried to walk faster until he reached the man who managed the school.

"Hi, I'm Paul."

"Uh... Hi, yes I know, you are the son of a blacksmith who died in the incident. My condolences on the death of your father."

"Thank you, can I train at the coliseum"?

"At this hour?"

"Yes, no one will bother me and I know they have a there is a type of spell that restores it hours after a battle."

"Interesting, what kind of magic will you be doing there? If it's dark or forbidden magic, you won't be able to use that there. There's a type of protection that prevents that kind of thing."

Paul was a little worried about that, but he wanted to try the magic he had already learned regardless.

"Never mind, I'm not going to do any complicated magic."

As they speak, the two mysterious men standing there approached them without hesitation. They didn't seem to have good intentions at that moment. 

The black-haired boy turned to look at them and was quite dismayed to see what was going on. He knew that next to him was the school principal, but the people in front of him looked pretty strong. Maybe they were level 50 or more.