Versatile: Alternate World

With the help of [Silent Sprint] and [Breathless Running], I managed to arrive at the tavern barely. I wouldn't have taken this long to finish the quest if the Elite Pure White Wolf didn't appear in the scene. Thankfully, with the usage of the two skills, I managed to reach here without running out of stamina. Still, this body of mine is too underdeveloped as it gets tired too easily. Even if I was in the game, if you are lanky in the real life, you are also lanky in the game. That is a simple way to know that even if you are playing a game, you still needed to move your muscles to properly function in the game too.

Perhaps I should train this body using some spartan training I used back then? Maybe in the future but for now, let's turn in this quest before it expires and disappoint Lily in the process, failing the secret quest as a result. That would be disastrous for me if that happened.

I opened the door and saw Lily currently packing some of the utensils displayed on the counter. Despite the sign open, there are no people around even players. I didn't expect this place to be desolate with customers since, in the past timeline, the inn and tavern of Lily is quite packed with players and NPCs alike. No wonder she wanted to move to a bigger place where the business will boom.

"Oh? It seems you barely arrived but since you are still on time, I won't fail you. But based on how badly shaped you are right now, it seems like you are the one who managed to meet the Elite Monster and faced against it? Let me guess, you are that person who managed to kill an Elite Monster in the announcement right?" Lily grinned.

"You guessed it right and I am here to turn the quest in. I will put the Pure White Wolf as a bonus."

"Let me see the carcasses of those Gray Wolves I ordered you to bring then, follow me," Lily wiped her hands before she beckons me to follow her.

I waited for her to go out from the counter before following her. There was an empty warehouse on the far end of the place where I can put out the carcasses. If I put it out near the counter, it will smell and will give a bad reputation to her. The warehouse would allow the smell to be contained only in the warehouse without spreading to the other rooms due to the unique design of the room. With a click, all of the carcasses from the Gray Wolves and the Pure White Wolf came out.

"Ooh, impressive.  I know I am just guessing earlier but you really did kill the Elite Monster. From the looks of it, it's an adult male so this must be the leader of the Gray Wolves pack that has been on the prowl in the forests lately. And from the looks of it, you didn't ask other people to take down this monster since the damage does seem consistent enough and it didn't seem to have any weird wounds that would affect its quality. Does that mean you killed it alone?" Lily looked at me with surprise.

"Yes... it was indeed the leader of the wolf pack. It appeared when I killed half of the wolves that you asked me to kill. It took me quite some time to take it down since it was much tougher than the normal Gray Wolf and to top it off, it was an Elite Monster."

"Well, that exceeded my expectation. Congrats you landed on the escort job. An adventurer capable of felling a monster this big is enough proof you are worthy enough for this."

"Thank you. I thought I have failed in turning on the quest since it took me extra time to kill this guy. He was a tough cookie so I thought it would cause me to be late in turning the quest as a result."

"Hahaha, if you have arrived late and only turned in Gray Wolves, I would immediately reject your application to my request as an escort as you are already having trouble with normal wolves. But if you indeed arrived late but you turned in this Pure White Wolf, I would be recruiting you without fail still. After all, there are only a few people capable of killing an elite monster all by themselves. Alright. Since you are looking tired from that quest, I shall give you a free rest here in the inn, with a free meal and free stay plus your reward. It's not much but that is just the first payment for now since the full payment would be once you successfully escorted us to the Capital."

Then, the quest panel appeared and the confirmation message appeared.

-[Moving Out] Quest 1 out of 3 is completed!

-Got 10,000 EXP (Overachievement achieved. Rewarding 10,000 EXP for finishing the quest with perfect performance!)(Title Effects Activated, 20,000 EXP acquired)

-Got 200 Gold

- Congratulations for leveling up from 6 to 7.

-Got 10 AP (Title Effects Activated, 3 Bonus AP acquired.)

-Got 10 SP.

Noice. 200 gold is not a small amount and getting it as a first payment before the actual quest means the rewards will get better soon. This amount will surely help me build up my fortune and since I still don't have a lot of gold, getting this much is quite generous already.

As for the experience I received, it's not surprising and you can say that the leveling up was a bonus. Well, if not for the [Memento Mori] I won't have been able to level up like this. Although my class is the slowest and hardest to level class, There is no way you would remain low leveled player if you just do some good management with your EXP gain and exploit some quests. Challenging for greater heights would reward you more than give you a burden. Still, the reward came at the right time, using this body that lacked training a little too much only strains my body more. A good rest is all I needed.

After giving me the key to my room, I went to the bed immediately. The soreness of my muscles would be terrible for my joints and I always tend to use some movements that my current body can barely handle. Next time, I have to train and make sure this body of mine can keep up and return to tiptop shape just like how in the past timeline works.

Ahhh~ The bed in the game is still as soft and comfortable as a real bed too. But I don't want to keep on staying in the game for too long. After securing the room, I allowed my avatar to enter [Rest Mode] so that it can recover and logged out of the game. My consciousness felt like it was sucked by force before I returned to reality.

...

I opened my eyes and saw the familiar ceiling.

"I am back..." I stretched my arm in the air and sighed.

I tried standing up but I felt my legs trembling. It is too tired and my fatigue might have accumulated already. Despite playing a VR game, it was like I have entered the game itself rather than my avatar. Still, it's pretty normal especially since I have the 100% synchro rate with my avatar and my real body. Whatever I feel in the game would also surely affect me in real life though not physically like wounds and cut limbs. Thankfully, that didn't happen at all, or else, there would be an uproar of that happening especially since that is part of the game life. The players would either be dead or lacking limbs in the end if that was the real case and people would start protesting that the game is "TOO REAL" and it posed too much danger.

It would pose real trouble for me in the game if I don't train my body so I need to quickly develop this body of mine to be more capable than ever.

Since my legs are still sore, I didn't force myself to get up and I don't plan to since I am too tired to do so. Instead, I decided to awaken my mana while resting. It won't affect my rest and I can at least progress on recovering my previous strength. Yes, it is time to awaken my latent powers and to get the ability to use magic and special powers again.

According to the study, as long as a normal human entered the Alternate World, their mana that remains dormant will suddenly stir out causing the phenomenon of "Overleak" in which the mana in the body that humans never used and remained dormant to awaken, causing its phenomenon. To control it, humans have to "meditate" to control the mana.

It was kinda weird at first since most of the time, humans didn't have magic, and according to some theories why Earth cannot use magic, it was due to how the mana was nonexistent in this world.

However, that was broken when the Alternate World invoked the sleeping mana in humans, causing the mana to manifest allowing people to finally use magic.

Due to my knowledge about the mana awakening, there is no need for me to wait for the mana discovery. Since I already entered Alternate World, that only means I am now applicable in awakening my latent mana. The sooner I awaken my mana, the better control I will have with it before the discovery of usage of magic in the real world. Taking advantage of my knowledge might put me on the advantage but if I want to change the outcome of my future, I will use every variable I can get.

Meditation can be done in every position, you can just stand, or maybe you can just lie down on your back or maybe on your belly, sit cross-legged, or sit normally, it doesn't really matter as long as you are comfortable with your position and you are in a relaxed state. With my sore legs, my option is to either lay on my back or my belly but the latter is not so comfortable in awakening my mana so the former method works better. I closed my eyes and focused everything on my whole body.

When I first started, it took me a few days to master the way to sense the mana properly in your body. Due to the dormant mana being hidden on the human body, it is hard to detect if you are not familiar with it and you don't know where the usual points mana gathers. But since I already did this in the past timeline, I just have to go back to the usual area where I detected my mana in the past timeline. This way, I can just eliminate it as a possible place if I didn't find it. Thankfully, the dormant mana in my body is still the same area.

Knowing where it was, it is time to awaken the mana. I quickly fueled my whole control towards the mana focused in one place. The mana started to fluctuate and it is getting a bit wild. However, I didn't let go and stop the control. Instead, I intensify the method and before I knew it, the mana started to flow in my body. The familiar warm feeling is now flowing around my body.

Seeing the slow flow of mana, I revolved the mana around my body and let it familiarize me with my hands, eyes, legs, and ears to enhance them.  These four areas are the most basic places to allow the mana to flow freely. If these places are already fine with the mana, certain magic and skills can now be used in the real world using these areas. And it was a success. It might be too early and my mana ran out after the "familiarization" process but that was enough for the day. Because of the "shallow" mana pool of mine, I will just exhaust it if I continue to practice and that will lead to serious consequences if I continue doing so.

With the mana awakening a success, it is time for a real rest. Tomorrow might be the day of the escort quest to continue. I needed to continue this pace and earn enough money to at least be able to save a lot of gold which I can now exchange for real money in the real world after it crosses a certain amount. I don't want to exchange all of my gold as I needed to also invest in the game to make the money flow better.

...

After waking up, I felt my body a bit energized. Sure, I can still feel a bit sore but it is not as bad as when I felt it last night. I took my breakfast for the day and while I am at it, I contacted my parents in Nagoya to ask about their situation over there and after making sure that they are still fine. Of course, they said they are fine but I know deep down they are not but I pretended not to know. I am still powerless and poor to help them. Now is not yet the right time.

...

[Welcome Back, Bladeheart]

With me logging in to my account, it means it is grind time. I have a few SP I didn't spend and some AP too. Distributing them would be a good idea in increasing my stats for the upcoming quest.

Name: Bladeheart

Level 7

EXP: 1000/ 64000

HP: 440/440

MP: 260/260

Attributes:

STR: Very Poor

[ap bar: 27/100]

AGI: Very Poor

[ap bar: 41/100]

DEX: Very Poor

[ap bar: 36/100]

END: Very Poor

[ap bar: 31/100]

INT: Very Poor

[ap bar: 38/100]

AP left to spend: 75

Title: Memento Mori

Skills: Click to Open the Skill Trees

SP left to spend: 58

Equipment:

Head: Beginner Hood

Face: White Fur Wolf Mask

Upper Body: Beginner Shirt

Lower Body: Beginner Pants

Shoes: Beginner Boots

Gloves: Beginner Gloves

Necklace: None

Left Arm: None

Right Arm: None

Ring: None

Weapon: Versatile Weapon

There are many things I did not manage to do when I rushed out. Due to my panic, I did not manage to equip the [Green Armor] that I got from the last time. However, its still a good thing I did not equip it yet in the battle against the wolves. The [Beginner Shirt] is running out of durability due to the skirmishes that we have done last time and since I don't need to repair it since I will be replacing them soon, I can just let the Versatile Weapon eat it. Then, I swap it out with the [Green Armor].

Then, I opened the new title that I acquired, [Elite Killer]. Unlike [Memento Mori] and [Death's Favorite] which are both Unique Titles, [Elite Killer] will not stack up against its effects if not equipped and since the other two stack their effects even when not equipped, it is only natural to equip the [Elite Killer].

[Elite Killer]

Type: Rare Title

Method to Achieve: Kill an Elite

Info: +500 damage against Elite Monsters

Note: You achieved the achievement most adventurers only dream. One step toward becoming a strong and legendary figure in history.

It's not too bad, but not too great either. But it's a bonus if I meet another Elite. Still, this is not what I am worried about. The amount of experience I needed to level up is getting bigger and bigger. It was only a matter of time before I needed to acquire other ways to earn more experience.