Artificial Fantasy

Chapter 8: Training and Meetings

At first, I was worried that Kazu might lead us to circles in his attempt to find the training hall. Thankfully, there are many signs scattered around the city, so we were able to find it after a few minutes of walking. While the exterior resembled any other medieval buildings around here, the interior seems to resembled much of a dojo as we saw several players using swords, spears, and their bare fists on some training dummies and bamboo poles while some are using projectile weapons such as arrows, throwing knives, and stars and magic to some targets like a shooting gallery. In any case, it seems to be very crowded, which may be a little difficult for us to train.

Thankfully again, Kazu managed to grab a private room just for the two of us, which has some targets and dummies for us to train with our respective Masteries. To start off our training, Kazu told me some instructions to use my weapons and magic before he went off to train his magic Masteries. Well, considering we have to learn how to fight in <Isekai Online>, I feel the best way to start is the <Archery> mastery.

Like I said before, I don't know how to use bow and arrows, so learning about it as my first mastery might be the best way to do so before moving on to other skills. Much to my surprise, there were tutorials about real-life archery from the tutorial window just as I picked up a training bow and a quiver of arrows from the weapon rack. At least the devs did everything to help us fully immerse ourselves into this game world.

It only took a few seconds for me to prepare as I followed what the tutorial said. First off, I have to stand sideways as I turn half of my body to 60 degrees as I focused on the target before I grabbed an arrow from my quiver. Then, just by using my three fingers, I pulled the string right until my shoulder as I gripped the bow very tightly so I can aim my arrow at the target. Now, this is the hard part as I have to hold it in just as I can aim it very clearly with my bare eyes. Unfortunately, just by holding the string just made my arms ache a bit as I need a lot of strength just to power the strength of the arrow. Just as I can feel that this would be the right power, I released the string.

FWACK!

[MISS!]

My eyes widened as I looked down and saw the arrow was struck on the floor near through my foot. Clearly, I need more than strength, control, and aim just to shoot an arrow. When I looked to my left, I can see how Kazu was also struggling to hit the target with some kind of a magical ball that he conjured. Guess that guy wasn't kidding about the lack of a targeting system. If it was one, we would able to shoot the target in one shot now. Then again, what was a point of an immersive VRMMO if it has a targeting system like in those shooter games? At this rate, I better start practicing just to avoid that first shot.

Unfortunately, after an hour has passed, I gasped in exhaustion as I fell on the floor near Kazu. So far, I managed to hit the target while I made several misses. It wasn't on the bullseye, but at least I was improving. Though, I was too exhausted to continue as I turned to my brother. "H-How did you do with your magic?"

Kazu was also gasping for air just as he dropped his training staff. "I missed a lot... But I think I can manage."From the looks of it, he seems to be completely exhausted than I am. He did mention that magic in this game can deplete your <Mana Points>, or MP for short. And considering he plays as a magic user, he has a chance to deplete his MP faster. Well, I can't stop him from forging on despite his condition now. Besides, I still got a lot to do as well. "T-Terrific... Just give me a few seconds to breathe and I might head over to the dummies now."

After I gave myself a few minutes to rest, I head over to the mentioned dummies as I took out my training one-handed broadsword. While <Archery> practice was very brutal, it did manage to level it up to 4 levels. So at least I can use bow and arrows, right?