Level 1 Fallen

Given the demerits to my crystal weaponry plan, I begrudgingly gave up on that experiment, content not to finish creating that skill. Instead, I just sat myself down with a sigh, pulled out my new wand, and began repeatedly casting the Create Bread skill. Was it a worthwhile combat skill to level up? No. No it was not.

However! There was the chance that the evolved version of the skill would be significantly better. Even if it was only better for Diane, since I couldn't channel the skill to create different types of food without using more enchantment slots.

Either way, I spent the next hour just filling up my inventory with… oh wow. Over three thousand pieces of bread. If they had a sell value, this would be an easy way to just endlessly create money. Unfortunately for me, their sale value was shown as zero copper, likely due to them being created from nothing.

In the end, I dumped all of the bread out on the ground, and released a fire snake from the Ring of Bonds that Ella gave me. There was no need to clutter my inventory with that much bread. While I did manage to get the skill up to level fourteen, I needed to get back to the city before the sun fully set.

With that in mind, I quickly returned, making my way to the inn that Diane had reserved for us. After asking at the front desk, I learned that Diane had booked us a pair of adjacent rooms, and made my way up to knock on her door. "Drake?" She called out at the sound.

"It's me. Mind if I come in?" I asked, opening the door when I received an affirmative answer. Inside the room, Diane seemed to be tinkering with her alchemy kit. "Learned something from those books, I take it?"

"Kind of. I splurged a little and bought some local ingredients. Also, apparently this Alchemy skill is more of a big deal than I initially thought." She said, focused on her work. "This isn't the standard alchemy that creates the potions you typically find in shops."

"Oh?" I arched a brow, curious what she was talking about.

"Yeah, I hadn't really thought about it before. However, normal potions are made mostly through enchanting a healing spell onto a mixture created from compatible herbs. From what I can tell, the skill that I got from that tower dungeon doesn't follow that logic. It's a pure concoction created through refining various herbs."

"For that matter, I had never heard of a Scroll Crafting skill. There's always been the ability to enchant skills onto scrolls, but this seems different. I think that tower dungeon was more special than we initially understood."

I hesitated a bit at that, thinking back. "It was released a week before the big patch. Maybe the developers were using it as a way to quietly release new crafting skills in advance?"

The greater beings behind the players could be generally classified into two groups. The first were the game masters, those who directly supervised the players and ensured that they did not directly harm the balance of the world. The second, and more powerful, were the developers. Their decisions could rewrite the very laws of the world in the form of patches.

Diane hesitated, but gave a small nod. "That's possible. I'm mostly just fumbling around in the dark right now, since neither of these skills have proper records. I'm sure that there were some in the library of that tower, but to read them, we'd have to go all the way back to Slitherhold. And while that may not be a problem for you, I'm sure our time would be better spent continuing forward."

I couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Probably. Maybe your player can find some information when she wakes up. If they released those new skills, then it was probably more than just Slitherhold that got them. There might be other players that have shared some discoveries."

Diane smiled, clearly having thought of the same thing. However, she seemed confused when I continued. "Speaking of new skills, I took the liberty of using one of our Enchantment Skill Books earlier. Ennolf learned a new skill that seemed like it would be useful for us on the road."

"Ennolf… that's the foxfolk chef friend of yours, right?" She asked, her brow twitching when she learned that one of the books had been used. "What skill did he teach you?"

I retrieved the wand I had just enchanted, aiming it at the desktop of Diane's alchemy kit, and activated the enchantment. Suddenly, a thin, round loaf of bread appeared there, surprising the halfling girl. "A spell to create food?"

"The skill is called Create Bread." I clarified. "By default, the bread is fairly tasteless, but he said you could channel it to customize it. I spent the last hour training it in the field outside town, but I haven't gotten it to evolve yet. I'm hoping that it turns into some more appetizing food once it evolves."

Diane thought about that for a moment. "I imagine so. I think it would even be worth you relearning the Create Water spell, and fusing the two together. You might be able to create a full meal with that combination."

"I'm planning to share the skill with you, too." I spoke up, and Diane nodded as if it were expected. "I can't customize the result, so it would quickly get stale if I were to use the enchantment to make our meals, but that's not the case for you."

"Sure. Go ahead and give me the quest, and I'll let my player know." That made sense. It wasn't like she was pushing the quest off to her player. Rather, the quest for a skill like this was bound to be something like cooking a meal, and we wouldn't have a chance to cook until after we set off from Pike City, by which point Diane would be logged back in.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Nodding my head, I issued the cooking quest for her. "As for the Create Water skill, that might be a little difficult. I checked the skill tower earlier, and all of the basic skills have been bought up by players. I'll probably have to rely on you for the fusion evolution."

Diane simply sighed, nodding her head in resignation. "I'll add it to the memo. Anything else? We should probably turn in early today. My player's probably going to get on a little earlier than usual tomorrow, since she slept so early today."

I smiled slightly, agreeing with her decision. "I'll see you tomorrow, then. Try not to blow up the inn with your experiments."

To be fair, neither of us had gotten much sleep the prior night, so we were both fairly tired to begin with. This was just a proper excuse to sleep, so I walked to my room with the sound of Diane's disgruntled groan behind me.

The next morning, I awoke to find Diane already in my room, sitting on a chair next to the bed. Going by the stoic look on her face, I could tell that her player had already logged on. "You're awake. Let's go." She said with a nod, standing up and making her way to the door.

"...Why were you sitting in my room?" I asked hesitantly, and Diane turned her head to look back at me.

"I got on a little bit ago. Let's go. Don't you want to see the surprise?" When she said that, something clicked in my head, and I remembered that she had been waiting to show me something. "Don't worry about the new skills I learned. I looked up information on them earlier when I woke up, and it's still being explored. Karlson seems pretty eager to experiment."

Wow, that name took me back, recalling the nearly encyclopedic-level halfling I met back in Brita. Apparently, he was a big name in gathering information among players.

With a nod, I stood up, dressed in only my normal clothes. Diane hesitated for a moment, before realizing. "Right, your armor wouldn't do you much good in Ilsan. Are you sure that you're fine without any?"

"It's fine. If it comes to it, I'll just equip it for a fight." I said, following her out of the room. "Though, we do need to stop and get a compass on our way out of town."

To my surprise, Diane shook her head. "That won't be necessary." She said, confusing me. She led me to the mailbox, where she retrieved her mysterious package that had been waiting, and the two of us took the western gate out of town. I wasn't sure where she was planning to show me this surprise, but I was guessing it would be something to help with navigation, if we wouldn't be needing a compass.

Finally, over half an hour after walking west out of town, she glanced back towards the distant walls. "This should be far enough." She said, before opening her inventory.

My eyes widened when, with a thud, a large device landed in front of Diane. It looked like a metal carriage, but had only two wheels. There were also strange pipes connecting it and leading out the back, two handlebars at the front, and two seats on the top, one in front of the other. Between the handlebars was a compass, and next to the front tire was a pair of barrels aiming forward.

"What… is this?" I asked in shock, and Diane nodded her head.

"Travel has been more and more of an issue for players lately. They either have to spend a whole week walking, or pay high prices to use the teleportation system. To combat this, a few players with engineering skills began working together to create different types of vehicles. This is a two-seater motorcycle, one of their more popular creations." Diane said in an almost proud tone.

"The game registers it as an enchanted piece of equipment, with all of its functions operating as enchantments. The main benefit of this is that various skills can be cast through it, such as a stealth skill to hide the bike and its riders, or an offensive skill that fires out of the forward guns. However, only the driver of the bike can use it this way, as they are the one that is 'equipping' it."

I nodded my head slowly, listening to her explanation. "And you know how to drive this… motorcycle?" I asked, and she nodded her head.

"I do. But, I'm not going to be the one driving it. You are." She said, and I could feel the cocky smirk beneath her mask. "The bike won't even move without consuming the user's mana to power its enchantments. According to their calculations, I'd only be able to drive it for an hour with my abilities, assuming that I drive at a normal speed and don't use any extra skills. But, since these all count as enchantments, you should be able to drive it at no cost."

I couldn't help but gulp as I listened to her. Admittedly, her words made logical sense. However, how was I supposed to drive something that, until five minutes ago, I didn't even know existed?!

"As for its cruising speed…" Diane did a quick bit of math in her head. "It could make the journey between Slitherhold and Pike City in about two hours, following the road. One if you really pushed it" My eyes widened further, as that journey had taken us a full week to complete on foot.

"Fine… I'll learn how to drive it." I said, and Diane pumped her fist triumphantly. "How long should it take?"

"Honestly?" Diane thought about that, crossing her arms and tilting her head. "You don't need to worry about learning traffic laws, just the fundamental operation of riding the bike and not crashing. And there aren't any roads to worry about in Ilsan anyways, so you'll have our entire journey through that country to get the hang of it. By the time we board the ship to Evergreen, you should be competent enough with it."

"Speaking of… do we really need this?" I asked, looking at the bike. "In terms of speed, my Glancing Steps-X is probably at least a dozen times faster. And we don't even know where we're going after we get to Evergreen yet."

Diane propped her hands on her hips, walking over to the bike and climbing sidesaddle onto the back seat. "Bikes are cool." She said simply. "Besides, with your skills, we might even be able to take advantage of this thing on the water. You can create ki platforms to drive on, after all. As long as we reach somewhere to settle before we have to rest, there's nothing stopping us from using this in any terrain."

"...You just wanted a bike, didn't you?" I asked, and she turned her head to the side, avoiding my gaze. With a sigh, I climbed onto the bike, briefly appraising it to try to get some understanding of its functions. My eyes went wide when I saw the price tag associated with it. One hundred platinum pieces? How much did she have to spend in her player currency to get this item?! My hands felt numb just touching such an expensive item. What if I crashed it, and it got damaged?!