Chapter 7: Keeper’s Descent

For now, I had less than a hundred points to spend, so there wasn’t much I could do in the Admin Room. Instead, I had a different idea, one which would only be possible while the development of this world is still early. I began making preparations by looking over my map, and searching for the perfect area. What I wanted was a wide space with only low level monsters.

The stronger monsters were all being centered around the budding civilizations, so it wasn’t a very hard request. After all, the planet was basically the size of Jupiter, by my best guess. And, with only a few small colonies on the planet, the vast majority was uninhabited. Once I had the perfect area picked out, I decided to wait for a while, at least until Terra woke up.

Roughly an hour later, Terra began stirring, rolling around in the bed before slowly rising with a yawn. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long for her nap to finish, because I wanted to ask her some questions. “Terra, mind if I ask you a few things real quick, again?”

She looked over to me with sleepy eyes, but gave a small smile and a nod. “Sure, what is it Dale?”

“Well, first of all, I learned how to see the ‘innate talent’ of someone, but I don’t know what the aura size and colors mean. Could you clear that up?”

She gave a long yawn while stretching her arms, followed by a light shrug. “The color represents their greatest talent, and the size is how good they are at it.” Closing her eyes for a few moments, she gave a small smile. “Looks like you looked at Ardra and Riyon, so let’s use those two as an example. Ardra’s aura is a dense green, meaning that her talent lies with nature. That could mean hunting, agriculture, anything like that.”

“Now, on the other hand, Riyon’s aura is a brilliant gold. That means that she is a natural born leader. You could say she was born to be a queen. Red auras mark battle ability, blue auras mark magic, yellow auras mark crafting or creativity, and so on. If you come across one later that you don’t understand, just ask me and I’ll let you know.” She says with a happy smile, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and moving over to walk to me.

“I see… what is my aura like?” I asked, curious. I doubted that I had any special auras like Ardra or the elf queen.

Terra tilted her head curiously, before shrugging her shoulders and stepping back. Next, she seemed to squint in my direction, before looking off to either side. “Hmm, yellow aura, about five feet thick? You could be a really good idea man if you tried.” She finished with a satisfied nod. Well, that definitely wasn’t the worst evaluation, I suppose. At least it wasn’t only a small battle aura or something.

“Well, anyways. Next question, after descending, how long does it take to come back to the Admin Room?” This was the question that I really needed an answer to. The last Keeper died because he couldn’t ascend fast enough, so I needed to know how long it took.

Terra blinked a bit in surprise, before smiling. “It doesn’t take long. You just have to pull up the system menu and select the ‘Return to Administration Room’ option. Most people can do that in just a couple of seconds, so there isn’t much of a problem.”

That surprised me, I was expecting it to be a bit longer of a process than that. Was the previous Keeper just panicking and unable to find the button, then? Well… no use really worrying about it. “Alright. Well, I plan to go down to the world so that I can get a feel for the combat and properly earn the classes. Wanted to wait until you were awake, so that you could watch out for me.” Never hurts to have a goddess watching over your shoulder.

Terra froze for a long moment, furrowing her brows. Eventually, she nodded her head slowly, but her body was visibly more stiff now. “Just… be careful. I’ll keep an eye on things from up here, and if things get too bad, I can go down and buy you some time to ascend.”

I nodded with a smile, reaching out to gently grab her hand and placed my lips against it to comfort her. “I’ll be careful. I chose an area with only weak monsters, so I should be able to farm a few levels without worry. If I understand the system right, I can unlock classes and spells that my people don’t know, as long as I properly earn them through the system.” She nodded her head at my assumption, confirming it. And, since I assigned the conditions for unlocking the classes, I naturally knew what they were. Even the ones that hadn’t been unlocked yet. Well, granted I forgot a few, but there were really a lot!

“Okay… but really, be careful. The world is too new, there isn’t anyone capable of crafting weapons yet, so we can’t give you any equipment. You’ll only be able to equip yourself with rags. If you want anything better, you’ll have to make it yourself after you descend.”

I nodded again, having already taken that into account. “I know. That’s why I wanted to wait until you were up.” I gave a light chuckle, before turning to the screen. There, I right clicked on the bookmarked location.

I moved my mouse over the bottom option, and chose it.

Naturally, I just chose the body I was already using, though maybe with a little more muscle mass. I was going to be fighting, so I didn’t want to be unfit, after all. Also, like Terra said, I did give myself some rags to cover up with.

I felt my body being bathed in a warm blue light, before I felt the warm breeze on my skin. Opening my eyes, I saw that I was standing on a wide grassland. In the distance to the east and north, I could see a long mountain range, while to the west there was a large lake just beyond the horizon. Everything in between was grassland, with the occasional tall tree. Giving a small nod, I opened up my character window. Status.

I furrowed my brow as I looked at the information, particularly the bits in parenthesis. It was at this time that I heard a soft voice whispering into my mind, one that I was very familiar with. Your personal stats are marked normally. Everything in parenthesis is what you get as a Keeper. If you want to get stronger than your Keeper status, you’ll need to raise your levels beyond the rest of the world.

I gave a small smile hearing Terra’s voice again. Since she was a goddess, it was an easy matter for her to speak to me like she could any other citizen. So.. first mission. I got down on one knee and closed my eyes. “Oh Terra, Goddess of Fate, I seek guidance to learn your ways.” This was one of the requirements for the Priest class, to commune with a deity and receive a quest.

I heard a small giggle in my ear, followed by the same voice as before. Very well, traveller. Place my image into the world, so that others may know it. Do this, and be rewarded.

I nodded my head to accept the quest. At the same time, a vivid image appeared in my mind of Terra standing proudly among the clouds. Her usually nude frame wrapped in a white toga, the sun directly behind her to make her red hair and furry ears appear as if they are glowing. I’d need to work on this quest later, once I had the ability to create something in her image.

Next up, the easiest class to get, the Mage class. For this one, all I needed to do was detect my mana. I had already done this once before in the Admin Room, so I was familiar with the process. Closing my eyes, I directed my senses inward, searching for that warm energy. It took me a considerable amount of time to actually find it, because what was once a bright glow of blue light within me had become little more than a spark. This is likely because of me no longer having the large mana pools of the Admin Room. However, I was eventually able to detect it.

Smiling slightly, I opened my character window, and saw that both my mana and health had improved. For my mana, it went from 10 to 17 when I unlocked the class. And for health, it went up to 15. The calculations for the stats were a bit… different compared to most game systems. With this one, health, mana, and ki were based on relevant classes.

For example, health is based on your class levels and your Stamina stat. Ki and mana each require certain classes to unlock and advance, so they are naturally harder to do so. Furthermore, stats are awarded based on class levels, but you don’t get to choose what stats you earn. The strongest class, the Hero, gains one point in everything every five levels. On the other hand, the Mage class only gains one point in Intelligence every two levels, and one in Wisdom every five levels. Of course, stats could also be raised manually, by training them.

Now, I could probably tackle a monster way above my level and earn the Hero class, thanks to my Keeper powers. However… I wasn’t quite ready to take on the stronger monsters yet, when I hadn’t even tested myself against the small fry. And besides… leveling up the Hero class is way more trouble than it’s worth, since you have to constantly fight enemies higher level than yourself.

Anyways, the next class I want to get for myself is Warrior, which just requires me to defeat something in melee. For this reason, I looked around the grassland I deposited myself into. There shouldn’t be any monsters higher than level three within a few miles, so I wasn’t worried about my own safety.

After roughly ten minutes of searching, I found a small, white, adorable ball of fluffness. This was, no matter how you looked at it, a rabbit. The only thing different about this rabbit was that it had a small, sharp horn on its forehead. This was the lowest level monster on the planet, a level 1 Horned Rabbit. Their only specialty was speed, and using their horn as a spear to charge at people.

Seeing that this was the perfect chance for me to get the Warrior class, I walked towards the rabbit carefully. Unlike normal rabbits, the Horned Rabbit is aggressive. It won’t hesitate to attack anyone that approaches it, and will only flee if it feels its life is in danger. As such, as soon as it heard me walking over, it turned and glared at me.

Now, with my Keeper levels, there is no way that the Horned Rabbit would willingly challenge me. However, the only thing that could be sensed from my body was my normal level. Otherwise, forget this rabbit, there wouldn’t be a single monster on the planet right now that would let me fight it. So, it did what it naturally would… it charged at me.

With its head lowered, its spear-like horn was aimed directly towards me. Although I knew it was moving fast, it did not seem to be a speed I was incapable of following. Again, this was most likely because of my Keeper boost to Dexterity, however small it was. That did not mean I was able to get out of the way in time, though.

-2

I felt a sharp sting in my leg as the red number appeared over my head, followed by a large red bar displaying my overall health. Yeowch! I winced when I looked down, seeing a shallow gash where the rabbit had scraped me. I had managed to turn my body slightly, but not enough to fully evade.

Looking behind me, the rabbit was already turning back towards me for a second run, apparently oblivious to the health bar over my head that would have showed it I was far stronger than it could sense. Thankfully, it did not possess that level of intelligence. Instead of dodging this time, I shot my hand down lower, aiming to grab at the rabbit’s horn before it could pierce me.

-4

Another damage number appeared over my head as I latched onto something. Unfortunately, my hand had been just a bit slow, and what I grabbed was the rabbit’s neck instead of its horn. This meant that its horn managed to cleanly pierce into my leg. I tried my best to keep my pain off my face while the red bar above my head shrank slightly. Instead, I strengthened my grip, taking advantage of my Keeper Strength to crush the rabbit’s spine.

-15

This time, the red number appeared over the rabbit, and the health bar that appeared depleted itself almost instantly. Knowing what was about to happen, I quickly pulled the dead rabbit’s horn out of my leg just in time for the wound to close.