by Sergei Katz
Hearing the words she wanted to hear, the High Fairy waved her magic wand, and the whole hall fell silent.
— Please tell me your suggestions, my dear fairies.
A fairy in cornflower colored clothes came forward.
— I'm listening to you, Tirelel, — Tsi said, addressing her.
— I think we need to write down all the knowledge that we are obliged to convey to every Newcomer and give it to him.
— Great idea, — the High one agreed. — Organize the creation of a textbook for him. As you know, you only have nine days: use as many fairy helpers as you require.
Tirelel bowed and disappeared into the crowd.
— Are there any more suggestions?
A middle-aged fairy in cobalt colored clothes came forward:
— My name is Neurel. I'm Leah's mentor and I think that her mistake is my fault.
Tsi nodded in agreement, confirming what the fairy had said, indicating that she wanted to hear the rest of his proposal.
Neurel seemed to shrink under her gaze:
— I want to watch over the Newcomer’s safety along with my student until he has all the strength that he needs and feels confident in the forest.
— Great idea, — the High Fairy smiled. — I was waiting to hear the suggestions like this. I think it's also worth thinking about some sort of a compensation for him, perhaps some useful gift from the Celestial Fairies, but we can do so later. I declare the Council closed!
Having said this, Tsi disappeared from the hall.
Gradually, all the Celestial Fairies left the hall. Neurel sighed, and was the last one to leave.
CHAPTER 5:
THE MEADOW IN
THE FOREST
I woke up suddenly. Dawn had not broken yet, but the night was already receding. It was strange; I had never woken up like this in the middle of the night in the real world. An inner confidence grew within me, and I knew that it had happened for a reason.
The trees were guarding the forest like grey giants, but I didn’t feel threatened. On the contrary, somehow, I was sure that I was safe. My curiosity was my scourge though. I put down the burdocks that covered me, and deftly got down from the tree. Without taking any risks and paying maximum attention to where I was putting my feet, I tried to make as little sound as possible. I circled the place where I had lodged for the night around. A few minutes later I noticed a small clearing, which for some reason was strangely illuminated.
I still did not feel any danger, so I moved in that direction confidently and without concealing my movements. Approaching the clearing, I realized that the glow was moonlight: while I was sleeping, a greenish-blue moon and a multitude of stars had appeared in the sky. It was so beautiful, it took my breath away for a moment.
Absorbed in the moment, I ran my eyes from star to star, mentally combining them into pictures. There was a hamster dragging a sack, and there was a unicorn jumping, and elsewhere, a huge demon was fighting with a knight of light. Looking at the stars, I saw a huge picture against which the story of my life was taking place.
You have opened the “Star Reader” ability. Beginner level (1%).
“Intellect”: +1 (2).
The message, as always, distracted me from my thoughts: I needed to come up with a way of making them less obtrusive, or learn not to pay attention to them at all.
I looked at the clearing once again. It was nothing special, just lots of grass and different flowers. However, one of the flowers seemed to have a life of its own. Its movements did not coincide with the direction of the wind, and sometimes it seemed that it was doing the very opposite. I went closer and sat down right beside it.
At first the flower froze for a second, like it was scared, and then, as if deciding something for itself, started to move even more rapidly. The leaves increased in size, a fresh flower bud appeared, and all the old buds and flowers on the stem fell, leaving the fresh one by itself. Everything stopped for a few minutes, creating the impression that the flower was gaining some courage. Frozen in place, and trying not to breathe, I was sitting and waiting. I couldn’t get rid of a feeling that something both magical and poignant at the same time was about to happen. My legs became numb, and I could hardly restrain my breath, but I still kept sitting and waiting. As if deciding the time was right, the flower shook its leaves, and the bud opened with a quick and incredibly elegant movement of the petals. Without thinking about what I was doing, I exhaled and stretched my hand out to the flower. I had no plans to pick it up, and I couldn’t understand why I did it. At first, the flower slightly recoiled from my hand, and then seemed to change its mind and reached out to meet me, until it was in the palm of my hand.
And then the messages started pouring down:
You have completed “Moon Dawn-I” hidden quest. Each Moon Flower opens its bud only once a year, for exactly 15 seconds, then fades for a whole year. By linking yourself to the Moon Flower at the time of its blooming, you have prolonged its life. Now the Flower will live at the expense of your energy.
You are allowed to undertake the “Moonlight-II” quest. The Moon Flower should reach stage III of its development. The reward for this is variable.
You have received a rare “Extended Life” achievement. This achievement gives you the opportunity to study (unavailable). This achievement can be improved upon.
“Attentiveness”: +2 (7).
“Intellect”: +3 (5).
You now have the “Reflexes” ability: +1.
You now have the “Luck” ability: +25.
The “Luck” ability has reached the value of 25 points. You have received the following bonuses:
The chance of finding items of a “Unique” level or higher: +10%;
The chance of getting a job of a “Unique” level or higher: +10%.
“Luck” was your first ability to reach a value of 25 points. You have received the following bonuses:
+15% to “Critical blow”;
+15% to defend against a “Critical blow”.
You are the first Newcomer to reach the value of 25 points in the “Luck” ability. You have received the following additional bonuses:
5% chance to meet someone who you will need, even if you are unaware of it;
5% chance to get an item that you will need, even if you are unaware of it.
You have discovered the “Intuition” ability. Beginner level (1%).
Your “Herbalist” ability has increased: +50% (52.5%).
What happened? All I did was go to the clearing and bond with a flower. If you were talking about rhymes, then there was no chance that I would ever become a poet or a bard. I definitely didn’t have a musical ear – you could say that I was completely tone deaf.
So, I analyzed what had just happened. I didn’t even pick the flower; it just decided to lie on the palm of my hand by itself. Had this really happened? I gently used my other hand to raise the flower by the stem into the light of the moon, so that I could see it more clearly. Somehow it reminded me of the Alamania orchid, only more elegant and, most importantly, it had a life of its own. All this time the flower lived its life right in the palm of my hand. The colors of its petals were almost identical to the color of this world’s moon, and they seemed to have absorbed the moonlight. The stalk, on the contrary, was covered with a sky- and navy-blue glow that was pouring into it from my hands. I was fascinated by this course of events. The creators of this game were geniuses! In that moment, I was hoping that I would never take such beauty for granted, and that it would continue to surprise me. A moment later all the glow had gone out, but the flower grew by about a couple of centimeters, and its petals became even more saturated in color.
The moon confirms your right to communicate. From now on, the Moon Flower will be fueled by your energy, taking 10% of the maximum value of your mana.
Well, regarding the mana, the news was quite unpleasant, but apart from that there were plenty of advantages gained as well.
— Where should I put you? It is hardly worth
putting you in the bag, so perhaps it’s better this way.
As soon as I placed the Moon Flower into my jacket pocket, the flower weaved its stem and fastened itself inside. Not even: the flower literally rooted inside my shirt, piercing it with a stem in a couple of places and covering all this mess with its leaves. I hoped that this specimen of flora would not object if I suddenly wanted to change clothes into something else.
— You have no objection if I decide to change clothes then? — I asked, looking at the flower.
I did not expect an answer, of course, but for a moment it seemed to me that the petals were moving about, as if saying “Yes.”
— Lord, help me! Not only am I talking to a flower, but I even see it answering me back!
I suddenly felt terribly sleepy: I wondered what time it was. My internal body clock told me that it was still night time, and that an hour had gone by. I should had used it more often, but so far it had been of little use. It seemed that I had already accomplished everything that could have been done today, good or bad, so I could go back to sleep with a peace of mind. I dragged myself back to my tree almost on autopilot, climbed into my homemade bed and fell into a deep sleep.
The morning greeted me with a smell of foliage and a warm light that poured through the trees. Having eaten yesterday's fruit, I decided that it was pointless to waste room in my bag for the bed, so I left it on the tree. Instead, I thought it was a good idea to collect as many yellow fruits as I could for the road. After collecting twenty-one yellow fruits, my abilities improved: “Strength”: +3 (7); “Agility”: +5 (10); “Stamina”: +1 (6); “Attentiveness”: +4 (11); “Accuracy”: +6 (10). It seemed that the “Attentiveness” ability was increasing much more slowly after 10 points. The “Herbalist” ability also rose, but only by 1.5%, however the “Throwing Weapon” ability improved by another 8 points, and like many of my abilities at the time, had reached 10 points. After I found the last fruit, I spent another fifteen minutes searching for more, but to no avail. Maybe there were no more fruits to collect, or maybe my “Attentiveness” just wasn’t high enough. An unexpected benefit of hunting for yellow fruit was finding seven more acorns. At this moment, I had seventeen acorns for ammunition. This heavy fruit really was a type of acorn, or, as it was described more precisely:
The “Lead Acorn” is an incredibly heavy fruit, and absolutely inedible; used in blacksmithing and as a throwing weapon.
It seemed that by mere chance I had used it for just the right purpose. When I picked the first acorn up in my hand in the morning, and was preparing to throw it at the yellow fruit, I came across its simple description. Right afterwards there was a message about a 1% increase in “Intuition”.
Having finished robbing the surrounding trees of the fruits that interested me, I continued my journey through the Fairy Forest. It just so happened that my path was laying not far from the clearing that I had visited the night before, so I decided to pop in once again and see how it looked in the daylight.
To my surprise, the clearing wasn’t empty: there was a beige-red creature in the clearing, resembling a cross between a puma and a Pomeranian Spitz. It had incredibly pointy ears that ended with cute tassels, and as many as three long tails, with a tip of the one in the middle ending in a fluffy hammer shape. The creature was playing in the grass, running around the clearing. Looking more closely at the creature, I noticed an inscription above its head in white: “Alphiner Cub”. As far as I remembered from being a gamer, the color of the inscription was always very important. White in most cases meant that the creature was quite harmless.
Your “Intuition” ability has increased: +1% (3%).
It seemed that I had guessed the meaning of the color correctly: as they said, nothing special, but I was pleased nonetheless. Let's hope that the rest of my gaming knowledge would help considerably more.
Very carefully, I tried to hide behind the trees and move quieter than usual. Since there was a gap of about seventy meters between the forest and the clearing, I decided to watch for a while before I showed myself. I chose a huge tree for this purpose, something similar to a weeping willow: its branches bent down and seemed to hide the trunk from sight. As quietly as possible, I crawled in under the canopy of foliage. The branches parted slightly, and created a perfectly acceptable observation point.
You have discovered the “Camouflage” ability. Beginner level (1).
The effectiveness of your disguise is 60%.
I was focused on doing everything quietly and imperceptibly, and then a message appeared right in front of my gaze! Not able to control my movements any longer, I jerked back and bumped my back against the tree. That would have been okay in principle, but there was one small problem! The collision was accompanied by an incredible racket, resembling creaking cart wheels.
The effectiveness of your camouflage has fallen: -20%.
Obviously, the little creature could not help but hear such a noise. It froze in its tracks, but literally a second later it continued its game, completely ignoring me. I asked myself, why was I hiding? It was either sure that nobody would upset it, because it was under the protection of the Fairies, or it was strong and confident, and feared nothing. I decided that the cub wasn’t going anywhere, so I wanted to find out where all that racket that had so suddenly spoiled my disguise had come from.
I spread the branches back to form an arch, and the daylight lit up the tree trunk. I took a closer look. The tree was defined as the following:
Bramble - a deciduous tree growing in many forests in this world, used for… (Information unavailable).
It seemed my “Herbalist” ability did not allow me to define everything just yet. Okay, what's next? The trunk was hung with garlands, and lumps of different shades of green and black. Carefully, so as not to cause damage, I removed one of them from the trunk and peered at it more closely.
Fiddle is a variety of noisy mushroom. It grows on the tree barks, and can be used for cooking, alchemy and as a magical ingredient. Edible fresh, it replenishes magical energy by +15.
It looked like a very useful mushroom. I put the one that I had already picked in my bag, and carefully picked a second one. These mushrooms occupied only one compartment in the bag. As the saying went, I had to drink for this. Unfortunately, there was absolutely nothing to drink, so I started collecting all the mushrooms that my greedy hands could reach. The result of my mushroom robbery was one hundred and eight Fiddle mushrooms of different shades. My “Herbalist” ability increased by +4.5% and reached 60%. My “Stamina” increased by +2, to become 8. My fun was over, so I returned my attention to the creature in the clearing.
I decided to resort to the traditional way of domesticating non-aggressive animals. When I was within a couple of meters of the place where the creature was having fun, I pulled out a yellow fruit and offered it to the beast in the open palm of my hand. Then I kept completely still, and began to wait with my heart stopping beating for a moment. At first the creature pretended that it was alone in the clearing. Hey, it didn’t know who it was dealing with! I was very patient, and such an interesting pet would be indispensable to an unarmed person like me. So, sorry creature, but I would have to tame you.
The creature’s smooth movements kept breaking off whenever its nose detected the seductive aroma of the fruit. Eventually, unable to withstand such torture, the creature stopped and looked at the fruit enviously. It sighed, sucked in the air, and approached the treat with small crouching steps. My legs had gone numb, and my outstretched arm had also gone stiff and felt incredibly heavy, but I endured patiently and waited for my future pet to try the fruit.
The youngster had already made up its mind so, pretending that I wasn’t even there, it took the fruit in its teeth and carried it away, after which it started eating the delicacy. I stood up, and while the youngster finished eating the fruit, I stretched out my arm and legs. Then I took out another fruit and sat down cross-legged.
Now that the Alphiner knew how delicious the fruit w
as, it definitely wanted to try another one. It was clear from its fascinated gaze, which was glued to the fruit in my palm. However, I had no intention of giving it the fruit just like that.
— Come on then! — I wiggled my arm slightly, letting the fruit move around my palm a little.
The creature, still not trusting me, came up and tried to steal the fruit again. I gently closed my hand over the fruit so as not to allow this to happen, showing that this time it would have to come for it. Pretending not to be interested in a second fruit, the creature wandered to the middle of the clearing and started to play again without much enthusiasm: its gaze kept coming back to the delicacy.
Its desire for the delicious food overcame its distrust. The cub approached me once again and, trying to keep as far from my hand as possible, took a bite after bite from the fruit. I fed the fruit after fruit to it, and eventually I managed to win its trust, and it even allowed itself to be stroked while eating. After eating five more fruits, the Alphiner was full to bursting. Its movements started resembling the movements of a pregnant cat. It looked at the next fruit in my hand without too much enthusiasm: the desire was still there, but it couldn’t eat any more. The youngster rubbed against my leg and then headed for the forest.
What a bummer! I had hoped that I could tame it, but all I managed to do was to earn its trust. Okay, I promised myself that I would try to come back here in a couple of days. You never know, maybe I would manage to tame it then. As soon as the creature disappeared from my field of vision, the system issued new messages:
“Stamina”: +3 (11).
“Attentiveness”: +1 (12).
Relations with the Alphiner pack in the Forest of the Fairies: Good – 150 points. Points required to reach Trust - 1 850.
Not wasting any more time, I left the clearing and headed in the direction I had chosen the day before.
CHAPTER 5.1:
THE FAIRIES – WORK
AND PLEASURE
— Leah! Come here quickly!
Neurel was standing in the middle of the meadow, ready for training, and his mood left much to be desired: “How could his pupil have messed up so badly? This was the first independent task that I had given to her. Simple: greet the Newcomer, explain the most basic rules to him and give him an easy quest to collect grasses in the meadow! After that task was completed, give him a basic “Vorto” and send him to me for the next quest. Really, what could have been more basic? But she couldn’t even complete such a simple task! I had to acknowledge my mistake before all the Council of the Celestial Fairies! Now for the next nine days I had to watch over and protect this Newcomer, who had not yet adapted to living in this cruel world. Fortunately, the enchanted forest could be described as something of a safe haven, but even in this safe haven there are many hidden dangers for the unprepared creatures...”
