Artificial Fantasy

Chapter 135: Through Peritus

Here we are again. The town of beginnings, <Initio>... Although we're not going to be here for long.

According to the official site, we can get to <Lucidus> by heading west of town while passing behind <Tested Wilds>. Instant teleportation between cities exists in [Isekai], but you can only use the portals for it when you reach another major city or town that has one. It kind of makes sense. The developers don't want every player to breeze through the travel system through portals. Especially since there's a chance they might miss out on the sights and beauty of the game's carefully constructed fantasy world.

Luckily, there's a special wagon transportation offered to the players who want to get to <Lucidus> a bit faster, and to our delight, we are able to reserve a few seats for me and Kazu. While it only lets us pass some dangerous monsters and drop us outside the <Initio> territory of the <Peritus> continent, it's a good head start for us, since we might be able to travel through undiscovered landmarks that we weren't able to during the initial release of the game. The only downside is that Arthur and Razul aren't in the same wagon as us. Besides the full booking, Arthur proposed a challenge to see which pair would arrive in <Lucidus> first. Obviously, Kazu and I opted to take the scenic route while Arthur still wanted to do the challenge and dragged poor Razul with him as soon as their wagon departed from town.

Despite this, we're not exactly alone as we find a familiar face right in front of us.

"Oh, guys! I guess you two also took some time preparing for the next city," Yur1 greets.

"You could say that," I answer. "How about you? We haven't seen you in the game since the [Sign Creation Ceremony]."

"I've been logging into the game after the expansion release. Though I mostly spent my time outside <Initio> testing some new [Advanced Masteries] along with the [Sign Creation Mastery]," Yur1 explains. "Thanks to trial and error, I learned a few things about the latter. What about you two?"

"I did use my first [Sign], but that's a secret!" Kazu answers. "As for Wind, he's still learning."

"Hey! If I want to learn about [Sign Creation], I would have to learn [Scribe] and unfortunately, I already used one of my slots on that [Dual Wielding Mastery]," I defended.

"Well, you'll be surprised to learn you don't need the [Scribe Mastery] to learn it."

I drop my annoyance as my eyes widen at this revelation. "Wait, seriously?!"

"Sure, you do need it to improve your writing skills in [Isekai]. But as long as you have an [Insignis] race and participated in one of those [Sign Creation Ceremonies], you can learn how to create [Signs] without the need of that [Mastery]," Yur1 explained. "I talked with my online friends who are also [Insignis] in-game and even though they don't have [Scribe] like Kazu and I, they were still able to learn [Sign Mastery] after completing their ceremonies."

I didn't know that before. "Well, I was assigned as a [Half-Insignis] thanks to my special [Hidden Quest] and I was given the right to learn it with Kazu's help," I recall. "I'll give it some thought once we reach <Lucidus>."

Just then, the carriage we were in started to move and we heard the wagoner's voice yell along with the horses neighing. Then, we look out the window and see the wagon passing through the gate as we watch the town we called home since the initial release of the game grows smaller and smaller in our view.

[NOTICE]

[You are now departing from <Initio>.]