Demil was sitting cross-legged on the stone-floor of an incredibly hot, steam-room; her long and thick tail was slowly squirming around, behind her back. The walls and ceiling were made out of concrete that was mixed with black-mithril powder, to create an environment of intense mana-density within that enclosed space.

The moisture in the air was kept at such a high temperature, that even the tigress with an extremely high fire-affinity was a little uncomfortable. However, the water was the main trick, to create an artificial level-three mana-zone.

Every breath that she took, quickly refilled her constantly draining power, and allowed her to continue charging the various runic bullets surrounding her body. While she didn’t have the technical knowledge or understanding of magic required to manufacture her favorite ammunition, as long as she had enough money, and an adventurer’s badge, it only took a bit of effort for her to do the rest.

It was possible for Demil to simply hire a mage, or buy the fully charged versions directly… but she would have had to spend more than twice as much gold, and there was a much higher chance of misfiring, or have other compatibility issues. She had heard far too many horror stories about malfunctions during the activation sequence, because there were dramatic differences between the auras involved.

The white-furred tigress had her eyelids closed, and was making a serious expression; within that special hotel suite, it was impossible for her to telepathically communicate with anyone who was outside. Even if that wasn’t the case, Coffee had gone above-ground, and would have been out of her range anyway; Rachael and Alexis never returned, but she wasn’t too worried about them.

Demil could feel that something was wrong, though she had no way of knowing what could have possibly happened. Her boyfriend was incredibly reckless and didn’t take any kind of supplies with him, because he was just doing some basic training outside; unfortunately, the third-ring, especially so close to The Forest of Corruption, was an immensely dangerous place.

It wasn’t strange for a girl to worry about the person she was in love with, especially if she believed that he was an idiot. Coffee had only been gone for a few hours, so she was struggling to concentrate on channeling her fiery mana into the huge assortment of cartridge-less bullets: It was a process that was going to take her several days to finish, but she did take short breaks every now and then.
Lorthon was a massive circular forest, which appeared similar to an enormous eye or target, if one were looking down upon it from the sky; it was two-thousand miles in diameter, with each ring from the outermost being the first, to the innermost being the fourth, had nearly a thousand times more mana in the atmosphere, than the previous one.

A relatively small blue female figure, was soaring through the clouds, traveling from around Angren, past Ael Tol, and continuing to travel eastward at a ridiculous pace. She had colossal black-feathered wings spread from behind her shoulder-blades, and long, straight, pink hair; from her waist to her hooves, was covered in thick azure fur, and she even had a long, cobalt-scaled, snake-like tail connected to her spine.

The only clothing that the woman was wearing, included highly reflective mithril nipple-rings that connected both of her breasts together by decorative chain. There was a faint smile on her full lips, as she gazed at the massive brown, bear-man in her arms, with her golden irises glowing brightly.

A large red spiral horn was protruding from each side of her head, and they almost hid her medium-length pointed ears. Her immensely powerful aura was becoming weaker by the second, because she was traveling so high above the ground, that the atmospheric mana was practically non-existent.

It had been eons since the last time she had been down to Earth, but there was no way that she wouldn’t have remembered; her mana-control was at the level, where she could have floated around outside the stratosphere without any issues. Not to mention the fact that her aura was nothing compared to the power that was being contained within her body, yet she was still losing speed and altitude constantly.

Once she flew nearly a thousand miles past Alfirin’s easternmost city, White Mithril, the massive wings seemed to be sucked into her shoulder-blades; then the girl dropped the semi-conscious Kodiak-tribe man, along with his mithril-glaive, before turning back around. Before leaving, she whispered into his dreaming mind “This is The Endless Desert, you should be able to find the dungeon pretty easily… Don’t worry about your friends, they will be able to make it here, eventually. Oh, by the way, you really should have brought armor and some supplies… well, whatever, try not to die.”

Coffee regained his senses, as he was gracelessly diving feet-first into an ocean of orange sand, breaking both of his legs and nearly impaling himself on a certain metal pole. After the massive plume of sand settled down, and he managed to crawl out of the relatively large pit that he landed in, the first thing he did was roar “Owwww! What the hell is your problem lady?!” furiously at the sunny sky.

He couldn’t stand, even when he tried to use his glaive as a walking-stick, but he was able to sit upright. With such a huge body, he was still able to see pretty far in every direction, but there was nothing but dunes.

Both of his shins were busted pretty badly; there were no exposed bones, just a lot of internal bleeding and intense swelling. He was used to pain, and managed to suppress his anger long enough to realize how terrible his situation truly was.

It was actually the first time that Coffee had ever been to a level-zero mana-zone, and his rather impressive mana-pool had vanished the moment he left that mysterious woman’s overwhelming aura. There wasn’t even a cactus within several miles of his location, the air was incredibly dry, and he couldn’t use magic to heal himself or create water to prevent himself from dehydrating or overheating.

Unfortunately, even with his high nature affinity, his automatic regeneration speed was incredibly slow, due to the lack of mana. He cursed “Fuck my life! Gah, Terra, you said we had a whole week! This is bullshit!” in an extremely loud voice, as he crawled up a steep hill, with a glaive strapped to his back.

Once he reached the top of that sand-dune, he was able to fully comprehend, exactly how screwed he had become. Even if he could only see orange sand as far as the hazy horizon in every direction, his sensitive nostrils did pick up a hint of water… at least a hundred miles to the north.

While the thirsty bear crawled across the desert on his hands and knees, two-thousand miles to the west, and a few miles under-ground, the rest of his party was suffering as well. A certain tigress was simply bored, and focusing on charging her runic bullets, but the other two were struggling to survive.

For a day and a half, Rachael and Alexis had been binging on exotic celestial meals; they were intoxicated on alcohol, various narcotics, poisons, and most of all: Mana. Out of the dozens of other customers who had been there the night before, they were the only ones left.

Plenty of people entered that mysterious restaurant, but none were able to leave; it was a testing site, and the only adventurers who had managed to make it past the third course, were a squirrel-woman and a deer-centaur. The girls were in a delirious state, and neither of them was fully conscious, yet they continued to eat and drink nonstop.

The seven blue-skinned and scaled lamia waitresses, were quietly whispering to each-other. Towards the eastern side of the room, one of the least luminescent servers asked “They passed the trial yesterday… why hasn’t Mother allowed them to ascend?”

The hostess, who was only a few feet away from her, muttered “Three others had succeeded as well, but alas… perhaps Luna has decided to make the test more challenging? More importantly, if those two keep eating and drinking so much, we’re going to run out of food.”

At the table, Alexis was laughing hysterically, while guzzling glowing green foamy liquid, from a mug that was larger than her head. Rachael had taken off all of her clothes, and was lazily lying on her couch-sized chair, while holding several squirming, orange, vibrating worms in each hand; her skin and fur was emitting a blindly bright, white light, which illuminated the entire room.

As the doe opened her mouth, thousands of tiny, pink, tendrils launched into the defenseless creatures. Her eyes were squinting slightly, and once she finished draining the life, mana, and blood from the demonic beasts, she began singing in a shrill and horrible voice: It sounded like a thousand kittens were crying out in pain, combined with a chorus of out-of-tune violins.

Even the ancient and extraordinarily powerful Lunar-Elves were appalled and horrified, while they slithered away from the source of their discomfort. The celestial snakes and rabbits that were floating around in the air, hissed and screeched at the terrible sound.

However, Alexis immediately jumped onto the table, pulled out her favorite black-mithril bullwhip, and shouted “No! Bad horsie!” as she cracked it across her friend’s throat. There was a dull thud, and then one awful noise started to be replaced by another; in full-on dominatrix-mode, the leather-clad squirrel girl began relentlessly assaulting Rachael.

She didn’t just use a whip, there was a thin steel barbed-wire that she used to hogtie the centaur; then she used one of the dinner-knives to begin carving her tender, glowing flesh. With such a high nature affinity, and having her mana-pool practically ready to burst, the doe was nearly immortal.

When Alexis finally used her favorite, mithril katana, to slash at Rachael’s Elven abdomen, instead of intestines, thick, luminescent vines spilled out. The strike was powerful enough to sever a few of the incredibly durable innards, and a thick milky fluid sprayed all over the ninja’s black clothes.

Fortunately, it only took a moment for the terrible injuries to heal themselves; in a few seconds, her skin seemed pristine and flawless. She wasn’t a dryad, but Yuri had enlightened her on the merits of ‘self-improvement’ and incredibly dangerous experimentation methods.

Out of the four party members, only Demil had managed to avoid being wounded severely enough, that she would need to have organs or limbs replaced. Although, the tigress did succumb to peer pressure, and had received some mild genetic alteration; her fur was originally mostly orange, but she had it replaced by silver and white.

Rachael snickered at the irritated squirrel, then turned towards the frightened hostess and asked “I’m getting kinda hungry again, do you girls have anymore of that Angelic-Beef Stew?” There was still barbed-wire coiled around her body, but she didn’t need to use her hands to eat anyway.
Alexis sighed and sat back down on her crystalline chair, she was covered in blood and sweet-smelling white sap; after a few seconds of listlessly staring at the extremely high ceiling, she turned to a waitress and commanded “Miscellaneous Snake-Girl Number-Five! Bring me more Celestial-Rose Wine!” in a stern, but high-pitched, voice.

All of the lamias were grimacing, and praying “Please Luna, have mercy upon your daughters!” as they continued to put up with the incredibly annoying customers. Rather than a test, the two girls had been treating it more like training; the more they consumed, the more powerful they would become… plus, it was a free buffet: They were planning to keep eating until they were thrown out of the restaurant.

At the end of the day that Coffee had been abducted, Demil had finally decided that something was definitely wrong; she had also finished charging a hundred or so assorted runic bullets, and needed some fresh air anyway. After gearing up, with her mithril-bikini, a backpack stuffed with important supplies, a gun-belt filled with ammunition, her two semi-automatic black-mithril pistols, her sniper-rifle, and even some white, scaled, dragon-hide boots; she finally left the hotel-building, and was immediately confronted with a teary-eyed, completely naked, Wood-Elven woman.

Maeleth yelled “Frowny-Cat! I’ve been trying to contact you all fucking day! Brownie-Bear’s been kidnapped!” but the tigress completely ignored her, and calmly continued walking down the street which was filled with many Rat-Tribe, some Dwarves, plus a handful of cat-eared and tailed Humans.

Demil telepathically responded “Calm down Mae, tell me what happened…” while picking up the pace and heading towards the custom firearms store.

The elf was whimpering as she frantically explained “I was just talking to Coffee, and he was jogging back to Angren, but then he stopped and noticed a hostile presence. Since I was so far away, I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late; it was a spirit! At first, I thought that it kinda felt like Michael for some reason, so I let my guard down; then my mind was hit by a ridiculously powerful illusion… for at least half a day, I was trapped in the most amazing sex-dream I’ve ever had.

“Anyway, when that was finally over, I got in contact with… ‘Her’ and she told me the spirit that I was looking for, traveled at least a thousand miles into The Endless Desert, before disappearing. Frowny-Cat, I spread my aura out to the absolute limit in that direction, and was able to find him… but Brownie-Bear is stranded in the middle of the desert, with no supplies! It’s a damn mana-less hellhole! Even the wyverns can’t fly out there; I tried to convince some friends to go out and rescue him, but most people are afraid of leaving Lorthon Forest… I heard that Raelin and Ethir were out there testing runic bombs, so the area a few hundred miles east of White Mithril are off-limits.”

Demil sighed as she finally reached the gun-shop, and muttered “Stop crying, I need a day or so to prepare for the trip, but there’s no point in rushing things. My boyfriend isn’t so weak, that he would die from something silly like dehydration; besides, there are plenty of things to eat and drink in the desert… probably? If you get in touch with Rachael and Lexi, tell em to meet us um, wherever the hell we end up.”

Unlike Coffee, his girlfriend wasn’t very impulsive, and never went anywhere without preparing for every situation that she could possibly imagine. Aside from picking up the thousands of black-mithril rounds that she ordered, along with the customized, bear-sized shotgun, and her brand-new assault-rifle; the cautious tigress needed to pay a visit to the ‘Beast District’ and find a proper mount.

Before she entered the firearms shop, Maeleth told her “Make sure to buy some proper clothing before you leave; if you go there looking like that, you’ll be just as screwed as Brownie-Bear.”

Demil immediately retorted “Seriously, you’re complaining about my attire, when you can’t even be bothered to give your illusory form some undergarments? Besides, what kind of idiot would travel to a level-zero mana-zone without the proper equipment? That’s basically suicide.” as she sneered at the imaginary wood-elf who was blocking her path.
Midnight in The Endless Desert was surprisingly hot, but the fur-covered brown-bearman didn’t really have to worry about the temperature too much; Coffee had lived in a tropical rain-forest for most of his life, and even the underground cities in Lorthon were fairly warm, so it would have been more uncomfortable for him if he had been stranded in a tundra. However, if there had been ice, at least he wouldn’t have been so thirsty.

The previously white, dryad-bark on his abdomen, had actually turned a sickly grey color, and it was on the verge of breaking apart. His skin was in a similar situation, and his black gums, nostrils, everything that was normally moist, was dry and cracking open.

His huge body weighed at least a thousand pounds, so the extra three-hundred from the mithril-glaive wouldn’t have normally been that noticeable; unfortunately, his knees and palms were so torn apart from constantly rubbing against the sand for nearly two days, that he was simply laying on his back and staring up at the bright, blue Moon. For some strange reason, he felt as if it had been taunting him… of course, he was also in a mildly delirious state.

Coffee was laughing with a hoarse voice, then growled “You did this, didn’t you? It’s hilarious, right? Thank you so~ much for ‘guiding’ me to the fucking dungeon! You could have just drawn up a map, but no, you went out of your way to drop me within… oh I don’t know, a couple hundred miles of the general location?! Is this some kind of test? Cause it sucks! Do you hear me Luna?! You’re an asshole!”

It wasn’t very surprising that he was a little angry, he had only been able to crawl a few dozen miles in nearly forty-hours, minus what little sleep he was able to get. If he had been human, he most likely would have died from the initial fall, but even if he was a normal Kodiak-tribesman, he probably would have dehydrated without being able to get a whiff of water.

As he was yelling at Luna, wasting the small amount of energy he had left, he noticed an incredibly bright, beam of light, firing from somewhere west of himself, up into the sky; with his excellent eyesight, he was able to actually see it reach a huge crater on the northeastern edge of The Moon. Suddenly, he noticed an unfamiliar scent wafting through the air, it was accompanied by a minute trace of mana though, which made him subconsciously smirk: causing his cracked lips to start bleeding slightly.

Coffee quickly grabbed the glaive, that was laying in the sand to his right, and somehow managed to sit upright; even if he couldn’t stand or kneel, at least he could do that much. His palms and fingers were in a horrible state, but he still lifted that giant weapon regardless of the pain, and prepared for a fight to the death.

Even in a place that seemed barren and lifeless, there were still plenty of creatures that were able to survive and some even thrived in such a desolate environment. A small, light-orange, spiny-scaled snake was slithering across the sand, and would have been able to easily avoid him under normal circumstances; yet, with an eleven-foot long pole-arm, he was able to use both hands to slice the creature in half.

While laughing hysterically, he quickly crawled over to the two squirming pieces of surprisingly juicy meat, and after crushing its head with his left hand, he began to flay it. Once the incredibly painful barbed skin was removed, he started eating everything else, even the bones; he wasn’t too worried about the venom, because with the tiny amount of mana that he was able to absorb from the serpent, he would have been able to detoxify himself: if it had been necessary.

Considering his massive body, the little snake simply didn’t have enough water-content to sate his thirst. On the other hand, he was able to use that tiny bit of power, to slowly regenerate his broken tibiae; it was all done unconsciously that night, as he slept with a happy smile on his face.

Throughout the entire desert there were only a few dozen villages, and a singular city, but most of them existed by the massive rivers far to the southwest of Coffee’s general vicinity. Fortunately, Luna had dropped him ‘only’ a hundred or so miles to the southwest of “The Five Fox-Tribe Clans.” Several of their mystics received visions, showing them a strange creature that they had only heard about in legends: a man, with the head of a beast.

Their ancient ancestors were from a similar race, which were more vulpine than humanoid; but after hundreds or thousands of generations in a place nearly devoid of mana, all they had left were the large triangular ears situated towards the tops of their heads, cat-like vertically-slit pupils, and fluffy dog-like tails. Of course, each clan had their own distinct features, which made them slightly different from the others: It was typically only skin-tone, hair and eye color, or facial structuring.

The westernmost village of Qena, along with the four others, was surrounded by plant and animal life; they were right by the ocean, and actually received a decent amount of rain, so there were plenty of fruit-trees, edible cacti, wild game, colorful birds, and an endless supply of fresh-fish. They lacked any kind of industry, and all of their tools were made out of wood or stone, which meant that they had little to no military might; the best they could fabricate were simple spears, bows and arrows, or leather slings.

In Quena, the three patriarchs from the eastern villages, the two matriarchs from the western ones, and five mystics had gathered together in an extremely spacious underground cavern. Both the men and women wore simple furs, that barely covered their groins, exposing the majority of their bronze, obsidian, brown, or light-orange skin; they lacked wool, cotton, linen, or silk, so they didn’t have the means to create anything too complex.

There were colossal, white, selenite crystals in the shape of pillars, which covered the ceiling, walls and floor; pure spring-water flowed around in small streams, and was filled with potent mana… It was only about as dense as the first ring of Lorthon’s atmosphere though. However, the temperature within that cave was so extreme, that even the desert-dwelling Fox-Tribe couldn’t withstand the environment for more than an hour, so it was impossible for them to live in such a place.

They only entered that sacred cavern during times when they needed to seek out their goddess for guidance. The five level-six mages, known as mystics, were all female and had a very small amount of Wood-Elven DNA; each of them was over a hundred years old, yet they all seemed to be in their twenties.

Their stature was only a few inches smaller than the average for their race: six-feet. When they gathered around a mysterious black egg, large enough that an adult human or a baby dragon could have been living within, they each encircled it; all ten hands were placed together, near the top of the shell, and a strange vibration began to course throughout their bodies.

A white-haired, middle-aged woman, with a slim figure, and a dark-bronze skin-tone, who was standing among the other matriarchs and patriarchs behind the mystics, called out “Oh great ancestor, Goddess Maat, please bless us with your divine guidance!” The fox-tribe language was very different from the Elven Lorthon, which was commonly used throughout the country of Alfirin.

The three men began chanting “Grant us your grace, show us your truth, deliver upon us your judgement!” incessantly, as the five mystics were channeling what little magical power that they could muster, into that strange obsidian egg.

Finally, the second matriarch stepped forward; her skin and hair were both incredibly dark, and she was barely even an adult. She knelt down on the scorching hot crystalline floor, and placed her hands on the ground, burning her palms; then she yelled “Goddess Maat, your servants beseech you! We have received revelation from an unknown source, and wish to ask for clarity! The visions that our mystics experienced were of a mysterious God, with features unlike any creature that we know of! He seems to have been injured in a divine conflict, and is currently crawling across the sands, towards the sea! Please grace us with your wisdom!”

Suddenly the whole cave began rumbling loudly, and the large black egg began to crack apart. It wasn’t random, in-fact, the top half simply lifted up, and separated from the bottom very cleanly; all of the mystics jumped backwards in confusion, and quickly kowtowed to the emerging figure.

Typically, they would simply receive a few words of guidance, or a ‘feeling’ of what they were supposed to do. However, for Maat to have actually emerged from her seemingly eternal slumber… everyone in the room was filled with awe and dread.

Covered completely in obsidian fur, with four raven-like wings protruding from her back, a humanoid fox was holding the top-half of a giant egg above above her head with both arms. Unfortunately, it was made completely out of black-mithril, and her atrophied muscles weren’t nearly strong enough to lift something that heavy; she quietly muttered “Help me, please?” in a voice that was quiet, but carried surprisingly well in that crystalline cavern.

Without hesitation, every single one of the men and women immediately rushed over to assist their ‘Goddess’ but they were a bit underwhelmed with her current appearance. They didn’t seem to comprehend, their deity was merely an ageless cherubim, whose ancestors were simply celestial foxes that magically evolved into a humanoid form; since she had been born in the nearly mana-less desert, and spent her entire life there, she didn’t have any real power.

She had sealed herself up in that strange prison, so that she could avoid interfering in the lives of her descendants. Even if she was technically ancient, and relatively immortal, she still didn’t possess the magical or physical prowess to have been considered a spirit; yet, to the weak and naive desert-dwelling Fox-Tribe, she was their Goddess.

It took all of them to barely lift that large chunk of black-mithril, and carefully set it down on the crystalline floor. Then they eagerly carried the dehydrated, emaciated, and panting, fox-headed girl.

Maat was still covered in a glowing blue, sticky, liquid; it was a miraculous substance that the egg seemed to naturally create on its own. Without that disgusting goop, she obviously would have suffocated and starved to death. Before entering that prison, she was a six-foot tall, fully grown and matured woman… yet, spending thousands of years in that viscous fluid had seemed to transmogrify her body a bit; she had reverted to a child-like body, which was little more than half the size of her original form.

The five mystics were holding the frail fox-girl in their arms, away from the scalding floor, and one of them asked “Goddess, please give your servants directions, do you wish for us to carry you out of the sacred caverns?”

However, without speaking a word to them, she gave them telepathic directions: Her voice was far too hoarse to speak. As they received their instructions, they each showed perplexed expressions; yet, they didn’t dare to disobey the being that they had worshiped their entire lives.

With a wry smile, the spiritualist with the darkest skin and hair, gazed into Maat’s luminous silver eyes, which had small, vertical-slit pupils; then she turned to the entourage of matriarchs and patriarchs, while announcing “Our Goddess has proclaimed… that you shall send an envoy to the foreign God. It is of the utmost importance that he makes it to Quena, and does not become our enemy! Now go! We must take The Goddess to her ancestral temple… she will require many offerings, make sure that it is known throughout your villages that The First Mother has returned!”

The old fox sighed, and murmured “As long as there’s only one of them… I should be able to deal with it somehow.” in an ancient Lorthon dialect; it was such a common language in Central Alfirin, but none of the other people gathered in that cave could understand what their deity was saying.

As soon as they all left the sacred cavern, an immense magnitude-nine earthquake, along with three incredibly loud, volcanic eruptions occurred on the relatively small island, twenty-five miles off the coast; it was at least three times that distance, to the northeast of Quena, but for such a massive tremor, they could still feel that terrifying rumbling. Those giant crystals within the cave began glowing with a bright, white-light, and a deep ‘humming’ noise could be heard very clearly from the rather large entrance.

Even Maat had no idea what was happening, but she knew that it was imperative for her to recover as quickly as possible… the world was changing, literally. Terra had begun creating of her first new ‘dungeon’ and she didn’t care about a couple thousand fox-tribe, living dangerously close to that construction-site.

Within that cavern, there were hundreds of complex and winding tunnels, some of which went on for hundreds of miles. For thousands of years, that little Goddess had been hiding with that black egg, so not even she had any knowledge of what was lying several kilometers beneath her.

An ancient crystalline triangular pyramid, which had remained unused for eons, finally began to activate. It was completely submerged in mana-rich water, which had plenty of aquatic life swimming around outside of it; the inside however, was completely dry… at least it was, until two strange creatures emerged out of the bright white teleportation light.

One of the small, black-slime covered, monsters, was humanoid; it had a tail, and the head was similar to that of a rodent, but there was too much oil for any more distinctions than that to have been made from a glance. The other appeared to have been the top half of an elf, attached to the body of a deer.

Across the room from the two unconscious, nude, female forms, dripping with inky fluid, was a pile of clean weapons, armor, clothing, and a relatively large satchel. After binge drinking and eating for nearly three days, Rachael and Alexis had finally passed their test, and were promptly removed from that shady restaurant, by a teleportation gate in the building’s basement.

The proof of their success, were the crescent-moon shaped, runic tattoos that appeared on the back of their right hands. A similar blue mark was placed on a certain bear, though it was difficult to notice under the brown fur.

A loud ringing noise, accompanied by the deep roaring of a sandstorm in the distance, roused Coffee from his slumber; however, before he could even worry about the impending danger, an intense burning sensation caused him to quickly look at his right palm. There were translucent, holographic letters floating above it, they were in basic Lorthon so he was able to just barely read them.

“Congratulations! Your party has completed the quest ‘Lunar Guidance’ and has now become eligible to enter level-one starting dungeons! Your current genetic and biological data will be transmitted and saved automatically every night; however, if you are deep underground, or within a dead-zone, there may be difficulty contacting your personal server.

“Default re-spawn point is set to Portal-193; to set a new location, you must discover and activate an unclaimed gateway. To prevent camping, only one party, raid, or guild may own a re-spawn point: trading, buying, or selling the rights may only be done between members of the same faction. Player-versus-player combat is allowed, but murdering non-chaotic NPCs will result in severe penalties.

“The pet and mount system is only usable with ‘soulless’ lifeforms; if you attempt to bind a creature’s consciousness to your own, and they have a soul, you will be charged with first-degree slavery and receive up to a thousand years in hell as punishment. Non-consensual sex is prohibited, and if you seriously try to commit that crime, then you may be subject to tortures so terrible that you will wish that you were allowed to die.

“You currently have three skill-points, which you can use to purchase information regarding anything from spells and martial-arts techniques, or a myriad of various non-combat related knowledge. However, you will have to learn them based on the data that will be downloaded into your brain, don’t expect to automatically understand everything.

“At the moment you have one free life; your first death will not cost any favor, but afterwards you must complete quests and earn achievements to gain Luna’s blessings. By conquering dungeons, labyrinths, or raids, you can gain favor with Terra, which can be used to buy land: further details on this subject will be available later.

“If you wish to access the map, party chat, help, settings, status-screen, skills menu, shop, or other functions, simply vocalize the word, while staring at your right palm. Most importantly, have fun!”

By the time Coffee read the entire thing, he was already engulfed in a violent sandstorm and it was still the middle of the night. Yet, he didn’t stop staring at the illusory holographic projection, because he saw something pop-up after the two pages of introductory text “Demil: Honey-Bear, not sure if you can see this, but if you can… I’m sorry but I spent the twenty-thousand gold we had saved up in our bank-account. Well, it was your fault for getting stranded in the desert, and making me worry so much! Anyway, even if it says that you can revive or whatever, please try not to die… I don’t know what I would do without you; besides, I already bought a bunch of armor your size, and I doubt that the store would give me a refund.”

Next Chapter