End Online: Volume 1 (15 page)

Once ‘Advanced Military
Arts’ had reached level twenty it gave more bonus points to stats. ‘Speed Up’
also did the same at level ten. It appears to me that every ten levels a stat
will get stronger.

‘Perceptual Sight’ also
got stronger. Instead of enhancing my sense so the world moved at ninety
percent speed now it was around seventy percent. I could not say exactly due to
there was no indication as to how powerful it was, but that is how it feels.

The effects on my body
however are even more severe, being slowed down even more from the sacred art
leaves me feeling like I’m in limbo.

All my training paid
off however, I was ready for the great white wolf.

***************************************************

I take a step into the
den,
it was early afternoon with a light snow falling.

Taking a look around my
surroundings, I begin to feel a little uneasy. The wolf hasn’t appeared yet. It
usually would
attacking
me the moment I stepped inside
of here.

Scanning in between the
trees a quick glance causes alarm bells rang in my head. The trees don’t
have a single fruit on them. Even if I was here a little early a few of the
apples should have regrown at least. It can’t be someone that else beat me
here. Firstly, to my knowledge nobody has knowledge of this place, and secondly
all the wolves were on the path. But where was the great white wolf.

Creeping up to and
inside the outcrop of trees I wander around for a while, no wolf, and no
apples. I simply cannot understand what is going on in this place, it is eerily
quiet.

Circling the cavern to
avoid ambushes from behind, I reach the waterfall and small lake that is
located at the other end of the cavern. Might as well sit down
and have a break.

Removing the tools for
making potions I currently have about sixty medicinal herbs and just as
many antidote roots. Firstly I line up the empty vials and fill them with water
from the lake, most people have to melt snow or cut into an ice river to make
potions down in the south due to the lack of a normal river, how lucky am I.

My ‘Potion Creation’
skill provides a menu of recipes that I have learnt. A minor health potion
consisted of two green medicinal herbs, ground up in the mortar and pestle, and
mixed into a vial of water.

After making twenty
minor health potions, unlike the red health potions in the store, these
are not only considerably weaker but also a sickly green colour. It is
grotesque enough to turn anyone off potion making.

It is a horrible
potion, but considering the appearance I am at least glad it did not come with
negative side effects.

I no longer need the
potions as I will never consume these but I need the empty vials, so I tip
the contents of the potions out back into the lake. Refilling the vials with
water, this time I plan to use the antidote roots, two per potion, exactly the
same as the medicinal herbs.

The
antidote potions are just as bad, turning out the vile colour of a light brown mushroom.
It also was giving of faint toxic fumes, the description says that in five
seconds it can cure minor poisons but I have no doubts this potion must be
poison all on its own!

Without a second
thought these potions also returned to the lake, I feel a little bad for
tainting the lake with such vileness but it had to go somewhere. With a final
trial of twenty vials of water I closed my recipe window and decided to
improvise. Each potion so far has taken two herbs, so following that principle
this time I will use one of each to follow the two herbs rule and create
something new.

I mixed one green
medicinal herb and one antidote root together and then placing it in a vial,
put the stopper on the top and gave it a good shake. Slowly it started changing
colours, settling on a mix between brown and green, kind of like a swamp.

Yes, this is probably
the most revolting one of them all!

A message appears in
front of me with the completion of the potion.

Incredibly enough as I
created these potions my skill rises faster than before, I must remember to
continue being creative in the future with my skills.

However, once again I
have no need for these potions so I pour them back into the lake. My potion
creation reached level 5 from all those potions. For some reason though the
vials started to shine less and one was cracked.

I head to the centre of
the cavern where I recalled the clearing that had a view of the sky.
Soon it should be night, providing an excellent view of the stars.

Walking up to the
clearing I took two steps in before stopping, dumbfounded.

On the apex of the
small hill was an enormous pile of apples, the apples I had considered to be
gone. But even more astonishingly was a great white wolf trotting circles
around the pile guarding it.

Was it fond of the
apples and protecting them from me, the thief who kept taking them? No, wolves
are carnivorous so I don’t see why it would. Slowly events in my mind began to
click into place.

Starting
from my constant collecting of the apples.
Ending with the wolf seemingly studying
the apples it knocked out of a tree.

With the knowledge of
my goal and new found method of collecting the apples, the wolf collected them
all into a pile and guarded them, waiting for my return. Especially considering
there was no point in escaping to the trees as right now my goal is on the
grounds.

The wolf didn’t make
any noise, just stood there looking at me, tail wagging slightly...

‘
How proud can you be?!’
 
I shouted in my head.

“Excuse me, Mr Wolf.
Would you please let me have those apples?” I had never tried speaking to the
wolf before, but I believe right now I need to somehow get those apples. They are
my source of income at the moment after all.

The wolf glances at the
apples then emanates a low growl facing back towards me, clearly a no.

“Surely there must be
some way for you to let me have the apples. Is there anything I can do for
you?”

The wolf stopped as if
giving it some consideration before giving a short bark. That must be a yes.

“Hmm what could you
possibly want?
A scratch behind the ear?”

The beast is
stunned at first, but gives a more ferocious growl shortly after, clearly
a little angry. If only it could see how much my face was sweating from the
pressure.

“Can I give you
anything?” I feel the wolf becoming more and more menacing with my incorrect
questions. This is incredibly frustrating!

“Well what do you want?!
Do you want me to waste my time and play with you or something??” Uh oh, I
think I was a bit rash for the situation, I prepare myself for the attack.

The wolf however didn’t
bother to make a response, nor did it attack either. It simply lay down on its
belly, its massive head between its two front paws, tail gently swaying to and
fro.

Unbelievable, that’s
what this wolf wants, someone to play with? Well, this could definitely work to
my favour, I need to train speed and so far it appears fighting an extremely
fast enemy is currently the only way to gain that experience.

“Very well, but I have
one condition,” Hold up a finger at the wolf only meters away I would be lying
if I said I wasn’t afraid of it biting the finger off, “No claws, and no
teeth!”

The wolf brought its
nose towards my hips and started growling. Clearly indicating my weapons, I had
no problems putting them away in my inventory, but just so the wolf knew I
didn’t have them I place them on the ground next to a tree.

Turning around all I saw
was a wall of white, and being hit by it I flew backwards, tumbling about five
meters from where I started. As I sit up I see the wolf casually licking its
paw, at least there were no claws involved and I only lost two percent of my
health.

“Hey that was a dirty
sneak attack!
Tch
, striking me when I wasn’t expecting it!”
The wolf gave a
glare accusing me of being just as sneaky.

“Fine,
fine.
I did it once in the past too, no need to incriminate me any further,” it was
the truth to say that I probably deserved a little bit, I did after all launch
that surprise attack from the trees the first time we fought.

To return the favour I
dashed at the wolf and threw a fist square with its nose. I nearly hit it too,
until a paw came down and flattened me into the ground, squashing my lungs and
leaving me gasping for air.

‘Calm, I need a calm
mind’ 
I speak in my head to clear myself of stray thoughts and stop
being careless.

A few paws came at me
horizontally, even a couple vertically. Calculating each strike in a split
second it took all of my agility to dodge them. Under, to the left, backwards,
over, these we the only thoughts I have at the moment, nothing else mattered
except for this.

Then it came, a slight
crouch and it activated its high end speed technique. By focusing my eyes
on the wolf and calling “Perceptual Sight” its movements slowed down to seventy
percent speed.

There are two ways to
activate sacred arts in End. One is to do the action related to the move, like
the beginning of a sword’s sacred art. This became a lot harder trying to
figure out the action that triggered a sacred art based on sight. The second
was just to call out the name, the system although will not activate the
skill unless you are intending to activate it, how the VL interpreted the
mind to be able to do this only the creators would know.

The wolf, no longer a
blur, has a paw swiping down diagonally at me from my right. My movements
are incredibly dull due to the side effects of the art, but I spot a small gap
underneath the strike, throwing my legs out from under me
drop flat on my stomach and narrowly escape the attack.

Getting up however, I
was far too slow
on,
I receive a full twenty two
hundred pound pounds of wolf using the momentum of its attack to throw itself
shoulder first into the me as I try to get up.

This didn’t do a small
amount of damage, it near killed me.

Rolling over the wolf
was once again lying down on its stomach, tail wagging even more quickly than ever.
Clearly a one sided beat down has put it in a fantastic mood.

Even if our battle was
short I had actually managed to improve my agility by one point, proving the
theory at the very least of training against harder opponents.

“Okay
wolf, that
is enough for today. Do you feel like giving me
the apples
yet.
”

No complaints, but the
wolf did shuffle sideways to block me from getting to them. Tail still
wagging,
clearly it wanted to play more before it gave up
the payment for my time.

“Come on, I can’t do any
more today! Look, I will come tomorrow to play, okay?”

Giving it a little
thought, the wolf moved aside and let me by to collect the pile of apples,
putting on a sad expression.

“Don’t get like that,”
Honestly I was afraid if it got depressed it would just decide to kill me
anyway, which would not be good at all, “I will see you tomorrow and we will
play more.”

Its tail wagged a few
times, showing a slight improvement in mood.

Collecting the apples I
wasn’t quite daring enough to get any closer the wolf, but when not in a
battle of life and death with it I can admire its magnificent fur. The wolf is
whiter than fresh snow and has electric blue eyes that sent shivers up my spine
every time I look at them.

For a week in real life
I repeated the process of returning to play with the wolf every day, twenty one
contests of strength and speed. I could never match the wolf’s strength but
each battle I increased my agility, getting a little faster and a
little better at dodging attacks. Recently I can last about half an hour
before I take too much damage and have to stop, not just due to my total
agility being a little over 150 but I have gotten much better at reading the
wolves movements and dodging them, even half of its high speed manoeuvres.

When I wasn’t training
myself under the pretence of playing with the wolf I often hunted around the
city and trained up most of my skills. I got my throwing skill up to level 6 by
throwing rocks at wolves, but they were completely useless in terms of dealing
any major damage, I could deal a maximum damage equalling twenty percent
of their health with a critical strike, but most of the time however I missed
altogether.

I spent a nearly all my
gold I had saved up on a small portable smelter standing at the height of my
knees, it weighs a grand total of 180lbs so once I took it out of my inventory
there was no moving it. Smithing in this game was incredibly simple, all the
equipment required is smelters of different sizes and grades, an
anvil where you selected or design the weapon shape and a hammer to hit the hot
ingots until they form the desired product.

All I had to do still
was buy the anvil and hammer.

I also purchased a
cheap pick but unsurprisingly I had nowhere to mine any ores. They boast you
can mine anywhere you like but if you choose the wrong spot you can dig for
days and receive nothing.

‘Potion Creation’ and
‘Herbalism’ both reached level 9, whilst I didn’t have any fresh running water
I could use some low quality sticks lying around to start a little fire in the
furnace and melt snow into water.

***************************************************

“You’re pretty good, I
am possibly right now the fastest player in the game, nobody has trained their
speed as well as I have.”

The wolf snorted as if
making fun of me and my speed.
Its
true, if I was to remove this hood my speed would double. Even right now my
speed is quite monstrous, I can cover a hundred meter distance in about four
seconds,
even
running along walls for short distances
of up to seven meters was possible.

The issue though, is
that the wolf also appeared to be getting stronger as well. The speed gap
between us was rapidly closing, but there is no changing the fact the wolf is
becoming more powerful. I almost feel sorry for the next player to discover
this cave.

To begin today’s battle
I decide to make the first strike, closing the distance in a second I send a
kick into the side of one of its legs, hindering its movements momentarily.

Half a second later it
return
an attack with its other leg, but I am easily fast
enough to jump back and avoid the blow. What came next was new though, two
large icicles, each the size of one of my arms, crackle through the air
directly at me.

I dodge one of them,
but the second icicle pierces through my shoulder, throwing me off balance and
taking a good third of my health away. This damage was with the forty percent
ice resistance my cloak gives me, showing me just how powerful of an attack it
was.

Throwing my eyesight along
the tree line I look for the interloper, someone else finding this cave isn’t
so farfetched so it is the natural conclusion.