*Date: 33,477 Second Quarter - Isles of Selqua*
More than one year had passed since the coup. Aris stayed with the old man, taking refuge under his wings, becoming his helper. He cleaned the house, sowed plants, took care of the garden, grew the plants they ate, and when locals needed a healer, he helped his master.
Master Nebu was a gentle old man who tried to help everyone. The black fox had disappeared after the first day, and Aris only saw it running around the forest at night, leaving dead rabbits at their gate. As a fourteen-year-old with zero stats, he didn't look for any adventure that might get him killed.
Aris had left a couple of notes with locals who came for treatment: "If a teenager named Demir asks about me or describes me, please send him this way." He'd left this message with locals coming there for treatment, but for fifteen months, no one had come.
Aris watered the garden and pulled some carrots and green onions. He entered the cottage with the vegetables, dirt still clinging to his fingers.
"I pulled some carrots. They're excellent for today's stew," he called out.
Old man Nebu was overdressed even though winter had started fully. The layers of patched robes made him look like a walking bundle of fabric. "I skinned the rabbit your friend left and added it to the pot. You only need to add the carrots and onions. It's salted perfectly."
"Yes, master," Aris said.
He stepped inside to chop the vegetables. When he was dumping them into the pot, he heard his master call from outside.
"Aris, we have a patient. Prepare the chamber."
Aris quickly washed his hands and entered the chamber where they treated patients. He pulled fresh sheets onto the bed and went outside.
A seafolk man was approaching with a mule pulling a wooden cart. The seafolk was crying, his scaled face wet with tears.
"Eloa, what happened? Why are you crying?" Nebu asked.
"Shark bit off Iloa's leg. The bleeding wouldn't stop." Eloa's voice shook with panic and exhaustion.
Aris rushed to the cart's side. Together, they lifted the unfortunate seafolk child onto the bed. The boy's leg was a mangled mess below the knee, blood seeping through makeshift bandages.
"I can't regrow limbs, but he'll be fine," Nebu said, trying to comfort the child. "He can still dive and catch fish like his father."
Nebu turned to Aris. "Just like I taught you. This time, you can do it."
Aris placed his hands on top of each other and started saying the words Nebu had taught him. At first, he hadn't bothered with casting or healing, but as months went by, he realized that without at least trying, he was dead meat in Aethyros. So for the last couple of months, he'd been eager to try casting the healing touch spell.
Aris prayed to every god he could think of, imitating what Nebu had taught him. But nothing came out. His hands remained cold and lifeless.
"All right, let me do it. Watch closely," Nebu said. He gathered his hands together and started applying healing touch. Aris watched carefully, memorizing every gesture, every word.
**[Bzzt!]**
A small interference flickered across Aris's vision. He couldn't understand what had happened. Was it a glitch in the system? Were the nanites dying? Was the game opening again? He looked around to see if anything else was happening, but nothing seemed different.
"All healed," Nebu announced. The child's leg hadn't regrown, but the wound had closed as if months had passed. When the pain dissolved, the boy started sleeping peacefully.
"Thank you so much, great healer," Eloa said, tears of relief replacing those of panic. "You are our savior. I wish you lived close to our city."
"No need to thank me. I'm good where I live," Nebu replied.
Aris went outside, still confused. "What was that? Was it a game thing?" he thought. He tried the old commands: "System open. Inventory open." Nothing happened.
"The game's not working, hard work's not working. How am I gonna survive in this place?" He got furious and kicked the side of the cottage door. His toenail flew off, and his toe turned red with blood. "Ow!" he squeaked.
He immediately crouched down and, without thinking, cast healing touch. Green light poured from his hand to his wounded foot, healing it instantly.
It worked! He couldn't believe it. He'd done it. He'd learned a spell - the first step in surviving in Aethyros.
But the timing nagged at him. Right after seeing that strange interference during Nebu's healing, his own magic had suddenly worked. There had to be a connection.
---
*Date: 33,477 Fourth Quarter - Iron Confederacy*
Demir, almost eighteen, walked with a dead deer slung over his shoulder. He passed through the ruins' gates and entered the inn where he'd been living for the past twenty months.
The ancient amphitheater stretched before him, its broken marble pillars patched with timber and scavenged cloth. Near the pillars stood one of the few remaining buildings - an inn cobbled together from half-broken marble, half sealed with wood, and fitted with a makeshift door.
He entered the inn he'd helped repair. A giant saloon welcomed him. In the corner, a fire was going, with two people huddled around it cooking. An old woman stood behind the counter, chopping vegetables.
"Give me that - you'll ruin the food," a short old man, possibly a dwarf, said as soon as the door opened.
"Welcome back, Demir," the old woman said.
"Hi, Selene! I caught a deer," Demir answered.
The dwarf immediately left his station and came to Demir's side. It was Moradin.
"I want the leather of that deer. I'll give you two whetstones. I saw your blade - you weren't taking care of it."
"Come on, it's worth more. Why are you here anyway? Are you hitting the road for trade again?"
"No, I'm too old for that. Just enjoying my years."
"Then why are you underselling me?"
"That's the enjoyment," Moradin started laughing.
"All right, at least repair the sword. I can't use whetstones."
"We dwarves aren't all blacksmiths. I'm a trader."
"All right then, take the old sword and the pelt, give me a new sword."
Selene cut in. "Come on, old coot, give something to the kid. He's our only hunter. We'll starve without him."
"Fine, fine. I'll send the sword with my kid. You're turning these ruins into a refugee camp. Be careful though - more people attract more trouble."
Demir laid the deer on one of the tables he'd made and started skinning it. "All right, all right, but send some salt too. We're running low."
---
*Date: 33,478 Second Quarter - Iron Confederacy*
The amphitheater ruins, once hollow and echoing, now showed signs of real habitation. Broken marble pillars were patched with timber frames, hides, and scavenged cloth. Smoke curled steadily from two chimneys lashed together from brick rubble. The makeshift inn had grown into the settlement's beating heart.
Demir's "room" was nothing more than a corner cordoned off with old banners and stone slabs, but he called it home.
His armor, once respectable, now bore cracks along the pauldrons and rust around the greaves. A dent in his breastplate served as a reminder of his last skirmish on the forest road.
His sword was freshly sharpened - Moradin's boy had changed and repaired it as promised - but the handle wrapping was frayed, patched with strips of leather from Demir's own hunts.
What had been three souls around Selene's hearth was now ten. A man with two fifteen-year-old twins. A scarred paladin who refused to speak of his past. An herbalist, a cobbler, a woodcutter. Each had staked out corners of the ruins, weaving the place into a fragile community.
At night, the inn saloon became a mess hall where mismatched bowls, salvaged stools, and firelit shadows gave the illusion of a village.
He remained the only hunter worth relying on. Deer, boar, and the occasional wolf pelt provided food and trade. The others saw him as both provider and defender, even though he still felt like "just a level twelve kid." Strange thing happened yesterday while hunting - interference passed in front of his eyes. A glitch.
He carried quiet doubts: without Realmforge's stat system, was he growing stronger, or simply wearing himself thin?
Demir stood outside the inn, looking across at what had started as a tent but was now becoming a shed. Slowly transforming into their community's first shop. He walked over to Usahn.
"You know, I didn't think the first shop in our town would be a cobbler. Even herbalist Lia is still operating at the inn."
Usahn wouldn't take his eyes off his craft. Cranky old man. Demir didn't knew him well enough, but he seemed local - no one from the real world would enter the game as a cobbler and stay as one, he thought.
"Maybe she should work harder. You need new shoes?"
Demir looked at his worn-out plate boots. Even in their current state, they were better than common leather shoes, he thought. "Maybe later." Before going in, he turned to Usahn. "Have you ever had interference pass before your eyes?"
"No," Usahn replied curtly.
Demir nodded and went into the inn.
The inn was buzzing with sound. Rather than just a shop, it was the heartbeat of their small community.
Demir took a bowl of stew from the pot Selene had cooked and sat at their communal table. Alexious and his twins were also eating the overcooked stew. Alexious was maybe forty years old, and the twins were fifteen. They looked like their father - medium height, wide chin, and blonde hair.
"Ah, Demir! Welcome back," Alexious said. "We were talking with the kids about starting a mining expedition."
"Not this again. Dwarves have all the good sites. We'll only kill ourselves digging random places."
"Big Bro Demir, it's been two years. All our gear has become trash," Timmy said.
"And no monsters or animals are dropping any gear," Sin added.
"Yes, yes, I know. How do we get gear without money or raw materials? You're right. But is it worth dying for?"
"If dwarves won't employ us, what choice do we have here?" Alexious said bitterly. "We're gonna die in this stupid world anyway. Our family trip turned to hell."
"Dad, don't worry. I'm gonna get us out of here," Timmy said.
"I'll ask around about where to mine. But most importantly, we need a blacksmith. How can we craft weapons or armor ourselves? Do any of you have crafting classes?"
"I had novice blacksmith," Alexious replied. "But I did everything through the inventory and with NPCs. The real version took too long. Only roleplaying freaks spent years on it."
Demir finished his stew, left a note for Selene, and went hunting.
As he walked into the forest, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was changing. The world felt different lately, like currents were shifting beneath the surface of their trapped existence.
He just hoped Aris was still alive out there, somewhere in this vast, dangerous world.
---
*Date: 33,479 First Quarter - Isles of Selqua*
A shed sat near the cliff above the sea, where a river flowed into the ocean, creating a small waterfall. Aris sat on a rock, watching the endless expanse of water.
It had been more than a year since Aris had used healing touch, but he couldn't master it. Some days he could cast it, but most days he couldn't. Without mastering this basic skill, he had no idea how to advance to the next spell in Nebu's books.
"Is it my mana that takes too long to charge? But no, sometimes it takes six days, sometimes it takes two days to cast," he muttered to himself.
Nebu stepped outside from the cabin and waved his hands toward Aris. Aris noticed him.
"Yes, Master Nebu. Do you need anything?"
"I'm afraid I got a raven from the city chief. They have an outbreak. We need to create cure disease potions. What we have isn't enough."
"Oh no. I'll look for more Greenbile Moss and Bitterroot," Aris said, remembering the ingredients. He had too much time and only two things he could do besides farming their small plot: reading his master's books and gathering herbs.
"I'll look for the moss along the river. You head into the forest and look for bitterroot."
"All right, master." Alchemy wasn't Nebu's specialty, but like every healer, he could make low-tier potions. Aris thought, "Even if I can't master my spell, I can master alchemy," and went into the woods to look for bitterroot.
It took him three days to gather enough for the city. But he and his master collected nearly enough for a thousand people.
Nebu was preparing the mixture in a comically big giant pot while Aris worked with two small pots - one for regular alchemy, one for cooking. He juggled both pots, trying to match his master's speed while also trying to do it correctly.
"All right, mine's consistency and color have changed. Yours should turn like this about now. We'll start cooling after five minutes."
Right after Nebu gave the instruction, both of Aris's pots started to change color and consistency. "It's happening, master!"
At that second, **[Bzzt!]** - interference passed across Aris's eyes again. "Now this can't be a coincidence," Aris thought.
"What can't be a coincidence?" Nebu asked.
Aris tried to process the situation, picking his words carefully. As far as he knew, his master was a local, an NPC. How could he talk about game stuff?
"Every skill I learned and grasped... it sparked something in me."
"That generally happens. Why are you so surprised?"
"No, not like that. Anyway, thank you, master, for teaching me and letting me live here."
"Aris, don't talk like that. You're the most helpful to me and this city."
Aris had to learn about these interferences and what they meant. Was the system still working? If not, how was spellcasting working? It was still human tech making it possible, running this place. He took the pots from the fire and left them to cool, just like the questions in his head. Years were passing by, but his progress was at a snail's pace.