"I’ll introduce you to someone!"
Tessa said, grabbed Fang Raon’s hand, and pulled him into the backyard, where players were swinging their swords against wooden totems.
While walking, Tessa’s cheeks dyed pink as she realized that she might’ve been too bold to suddenly hold hands with him.
She let go, trying to make it look casual, and quickly pretended to look at something off to the side.
"?"
Fang Raon confusingly looked at where she was looking and thought she was looking at the birds flying by.
"Hey, Lionel!"
In that moment, Tessa approached a muscular man, who was shouting orders at several players, who flinched after getting yelled at by such a menacing-looking man.
"Oh, Tessa. How’s it been? Need help in training?"
Lionel put his hands on his hips and asked.
He had broad shoulders, axe-like elbows, and arms so thick that they could be mistaken for small tree trunks.
"No, but I am here to introduce you to my friend—Fang Raon!"
She pointed at Fang Raon, who bowed, and greeted him with a simple, "hello."
"Hmm."
Lionel circled around Fang Raon, occasionally touching his arms, shoulders, and legs, trying to determine what he was made of.
"You haven’t been exercising much, right?"
Lionel said.
"...Correct."
Fang Raon said.
Black Online copied the exact attributes of his real body—looks, muscle structure, and even weight—and while he wasn’t actually in good shape, he still looked pretty good.
"That’s not good, boy. Exercising makes you strong. You came here to learn, correct? What do you want to learn about?"
Lionel asked.
"I’d like to start to learn more about skills, like how I can improve the mastery of them."
Fang Raon said.
"Okay!"
Lionel took him and Tessa to one of the vacant training spaces, where there was a wooden sword resting against straw dummies.
"...Is he an NPC?"
Fang Raon leaned close to Tessa and asked.
It was really hard for him to tell, as Lionel acted like a human, but since he was in charge of something like the Training Hall, he must be an NPC.
"Yes, but they’d prefer if we call them as locals. They don’t really know what "NPC" means, and they might think it’s a derogatory term."
Tessa whispered back.
"Ah, got you."
Fang Raon said back.
"Pick up the wooden sword."
Lionel instructed.
Fang Raon picked it up, and it wasn’t exactly the same as the Warrior’s Wooden Broadsword and was more so made for training purposes.
"You are Warrior, correct?"
Lionel said.
"Yes, I am."
Fang Raon said.
"You then have two ’Warrior Skills’ in your possession—Basic Parry and Basic Slash—they are both Tier I skills. If you want to check information on your skills, say Information Skills. If you want to just check one of them, add the skill name at the end."
Lionel said.
"Information Skills."
***
[SKILL STATUS]
[Name: Basic Slash]
[Tier: I]
[Level: 1]
[Type: Warrior]
[Attack: 4]
[Speed: 3]
[Cooldown: 5 seconds]
[Mastery: 0%]
***
[SKILL STATUS]
[Name: Basic Parry]
[Tier: I]
[Level: 1]
[Type: Warrior]
[Defense: 4]
[Speed: 5]
[Cooldown: 5 seconds]
[Mastery: 0%]
***
"Okay, I see them."
Fang Raon said.
The two holographic windows were hovering before him.
"Now—how to increase mastery—you have knowledge of those skills in your head, and with a ’skill spell,’ you can activate it."
Lionel said.
"What is skill spell?"
Fang Raon asked.
"It is when you shout out the skill’s name to use it!"
Tessa excitedly answered, as she wanted to brag a little bit about her own knowledge as well, even though it wasn’t much better than Fang Raon’s.
"You can increase your mastery by learning those skills without using the skill spell. You know how to use Basic Slash, so do that without using the spell."
Lionel said.
Fang Raon nodded as he understood.
"You can also only use Warrior skills. You cannot use, let’s say, Assassin’s skills even if you get your hands on their skill scroll."
Lionel said.
"Got it."
Fang Raon said, looked at the wooden sword, and then at the straw dummy.
The straw dummy was dual-wielding swords, but it of course wasn’t moving, but it did have the same symmetry as a human body.
’Let’s try Basic Slash.’
Fang Raon imagined the feeling yesterday when he performed Basic Slash and swung his sword down.
The sword passed the straw dummy’s weak defenses and slashed across its torso with ease.
[Mastery: 0 → 1%]
"It worked. I increased my mastery slightly."
Fang Raon said in surprise.
"Good, but I need to remind you that no one tries to master these basic skills. They are only Tier I skills. It is a waste of time.
"It is better for you to earn some money, purchase stronger skills, and focus on them instead."
Lionel said.
"...That makes sense."
Fang Raon said.
’I think it is easier to master these weak Tier I skills. I think learning these easy skills also doesn’t have much effect on increasing level, which makes learning these skills worthless.’
Swoosh!
In that moment, a bird fell from the sky and landed on the ground with a loud thud. It fell right in front of Tessa.
"Ah!"
Tessa screamed and jumped backwards in shock.
There was an arrow sticking out of the bird’s chest, and they then heard some laughter coming from the backyard.
"What the hell do you think you are doing?"
Lionel asked as he looked at the group of young men—one of them was holding a bow and arrow—he had copper skin with short brown hair and a mischievous grin on his face.
"Target practice!"
Malik, the copper-skinned young man, said with a smirk.
"You could’ve hit someone, and why shoot an innocent bird when there are many other non-living targets here?"
Tessa asked with a frown.
"Don’t tell me you are a sympathizer for these fakers?"
Malik said with mocking laughter, and his friends joined in to laugh with them, and Tessa felt anger building up inside her.
"This bird... This muscle-brained fool... Are not real. Why should I care whether I kill them or not?"
Malik said.
"..."
Lionel squinted his eyes, and his eyes flashed with numbers—it was the code that was used to create him.
The dead bird on the ground disappeared and turned into a measly three feathers.