Martial Online.

While Anna was cleaning his room, Jesse grabbed the mouse and browsed Martial Online forums.

Using his free left hand, he typed on the keyboard the keyword 'Class Upgrade' and then pressed enter.

Instantly, thousands of posts, some new and some old, appeared on the page. Most were inquiring about token locations, while others wanted to purchase them for a lot of crowns.

'Is there anything about levels…' Jesse curiously rolled the mouse wheel down and only glimpsed at the posts.

If he read all the posts, it would take him a week alone to reach the bottom. Therefore, to stop himself from wasting time, he simply glanced at them briefly. If he didn't notice anything mentioning unlocking or levels, he simply ignored them.

As the time moved by and Anna finished cleaning the floors, Jesse finally found a post that captured his attention.

He double-clicked on the mouse and entered the post.

The creator of the past inquired about not being able to upgrade his class, and he seemed very upset over it, calling it a bug and wanting the game developers to fix it as soon as possible.

Apparently, he had a friend who had already upgraded the class two times, but he couldn't do it a second time even though he had a token.

He included a few of his stats, including his name and level.

[Name: SoupWarrior]

[Level: 48]

"Hmm…" Jesse quickly checked the comment section, and it didn't have a lot of comments.

The people commenting seemed clueless, with some calling out the creator of the post for lying to get some clout, as there had been a big influx of fake posts that called out the game developers for the bugs.

Martial Online had one impressive thing about it—the lack of bugs.

There weren't any, and therefore, bug report posts have become very famous lately.

The rest of the comments wondered whether it was really a bug, and a few wanted to purchase the token if it didn't work for the creator of the post.

"I doubt it's a bug." Jesse spoke to himself.

"Did you say something?" Anna was using a wet rag to clean the edges of the door, but then she heard him mutter something.

"Ah, it's nothing." Jesse shook his head and turned his focus on the computer.

'He is below level 50. I think my conclusion might have been correct. Let's see whether this user has any new recent posts.'

Jesse, using the mouse, clicked on the name 'SoupWarrior' and went to his page, searching for his new posts.

According to his 'bug report', there was another post created two days ago.

It was a strange rant post, and even the title had a lot of cursing.

[This game is dogsh*t!]

With a curious look, Jesse pressed on the post and started reading inside his mind.

'This game is dogshit.

'This fucking bug needs to be fixed; I lost a lot of money because of that. Since the token didn't work for me, I sold it to my friend.

'However, my friend knew about the issues I had with the token, so I had to sell it for a discount because there was a high chance it wouldn't work with him as well.

'He had also upgraded his class once beforehand, so this was his second time.

'I wanted to be there when he updates his class to see whether it worked, and it fucking did!

'Why the hell do tokens work for some, and some players drew a short straw and it didn't work for them?!

'Fix this, Martial Company, and you guys owe me a Class Upgrade Token!'

Jesse scratched his neck and checked the comments. It was empty, as it seemed like the post didn't gain any attention.

'This pretty much proved it.' He thought. 'His friend must've been above level 50, allowing him to upgrade his class.

'What a shame that the creator of the post was so impatient. He was perhaps two levels away from increasing his strength by a big margin.'

Jesse left the post, returned to the front page, and tapped his finger against the mouse.

'There is only one way to be sure. I'll be trying to upgrade my class every level from now on. I'll do that until level 100.

'I'll have to start grinding levels soon, but for now, I'll have to focus on creating new skills and the soul healing.'

'This time, I try not to create any suicidal skills. Those suicidal skills were fitting for the Suicide Swordsman class, which might be one of the reasons why my class upgraded to that one.

'Now, since my class is Blade Master, I'll focus on true sword skills that complement my style. I'll also need more skills to teach my students.'

Jesse looked at his computer's monitor and wondered how things were in ForeverStream. It had been some time since he had visited that website.

After typing its name in the search bar, he pressed enter and entered the website.

As usual, the most popular streams occupied the front page, and the viewer count seemed to have increased as the popularity of Martial Online continued to rise astronomically.

'I wonder if Atlantis is streaming.' Jesse curiously went to check his followed streams, and to his surprise, he was currently online with 5 viewers watching him.

He entered the stream and picked up his headphones from next to the computer, then put them on and increased the volume a little bit.

…

In a small forest near the edge of the island, Atlantis, with his upper body bare, lifted his axe and hacked it down, splitting a log in two.

"I didn't think creating a village would be so… exhausting!" Atlantis thought out loud with sweat falling down his face, then went to pick up the logs and walked out of the forest.

At that moment, crude-looking buildings appeared in sight that were built near the edge of the island. It looked like a village was currently being built.

However, it was very slow work, especially alone.

"Argh…" Atlantis dumped the logs next to another pile and stretched his arms with an exhausted look.

In that moment, another message appeared in his chat with a ding.

[Ambrose: You should become a fisherman. Sell the fish, then pay for some architects and construction workers to build the village for you. This will take forever otherwise, and the buildings look a little shaky, not going to lie]

Atlantis' eyes bulged in shock as he saw the name in the chat. It was a name that had visited his chat before, but now it's completely different.

In the chat, several messages appeared.

[KieFish: It's really him! Atlantis, you weren't lying!]

[Wetherman: It's really Ambrose!]

"Ahaha, what a surprise…" Atlantis chuckled nervously and made the floating camera point at his face. "Haha, a few days ago, I saw your name on one of the bounty posters, and I remembered it.

"Then, I searched for you, and it looks like you were quite popular. Haha, I didn't expect someone of your status would be visiting my measly stream."

[Ambrose: Oh :P]

"A-anyway, thanks for the tip. I might try, but my last sailboat sank!" Atlantis scratched his hair in frustration. "I can't really leave this place without removing my temporary spawn, but I don't want to leave.

"So, my only way is to build a new ship. Luckily, I found some blueprints from a nearby cave!" Atlantis brought out some blueprints, some with ships and some with huts.

"I don't know how to use these, but in the top corner of the blueprint, there are a number of things I need. I am still lacking the materials, but when I have gathered them all, I am sure I might be able to create these!

"This might be another undiscovered game mechanic that would help players create stuff. I am super excited to find out!"

[Ambrose: Oh, even I haven't heard about that before. Anyway, good luck]

"Thank you, sir!" Atlantis saluted and resumed working with the village while occasionally talking with his chat.

At this point in time, the village looked crude, and it wouldn't survive a single storm. However, in the future, this island would be called the Player Hub, the most important place for the players in Dark Waters.