Age of Gods - A VRMMO Story

It didn't take Thomas too long to come across another boar. He really seemed to have entered into the territory of a community of boars. Spotting the boar, Thomas flexed his hands and arms while smiling. He needed to do some experimenting just to see what he was actually capable of. Cleaving that boars skull in a single hit had shown him he was powerful, but how powerful? Thomas stepped into the boar's sight and let it once again charge at him.

The boar came barreling at Thomas while letting out aggressive squeals to try and intimidate him, it did not work. Thomas set his stance with his feet spread shoulder width and his knees slightly bent while clenching both hands into tight fists. Just before the boar impacted him with its charge, Thomas thrust his right fist out and slammed it into the wide forehead of the animal. A scene from a nightmare took place.

Thomas's fist crashed into the skull of the boar and immediately shattered it. The force of the blow didn't dissipate much and continued to propagate forward into the body of the boar causing bones to fracture, muscles to rip, and blood vessels to rupture. In short... the boar exploded into a gory mess of body parts. The impact of Thomas's fist combined with the built up momentum of the heavy animal running at full speed had caused a massive release of power that the boar's body simply couldn't endure.

Once again, Thomas stood dumbfounded for a few moments before letting out a groan of pain. His body didn't hurt, it was his mind! Thomas looked at the explosion of blood and animal parts and shook his head, "What a goddamn waste! How am I supposed to skin it or find tusks now?!"

Paying zero attention to the blood and bits of boar that had managed to splash onto his clothing and armor, Thomas started to stomp his way through the woods to look for more boars. He unsheathed his kukri once again and held it firmly. He had learned his lesson, barehanded melee was NOT the answer. It every boar were to explode after a single punch he would never complete his quests!

It didn't take long for Thomas to find another boar and get it to charge at him. This time Thomas just braced himself and let the boars charge connect with his body. It might seem stupid to let the enemy hit him, but he wanted to know just how tough he was. The boar slammed its thick skull into Thomas. The full weight of nearly 100 kilos slammed into Thomas's braced body forcing Thomas to take a single step back. To Thomas the blow wasn't very strong, in fact, getting slapped on the back by Rock felt stronger than the boar's charge.

The boar, momentarily stopped in confusion at its failed charge, didn't have very much time to ponder why the human didn't fall before Thomas stabbed the kukri into its brain. Thomas yanked the blade out of the boar's skull and let its body fall to the ground. Thomas immediately went to work skinning it and claiming its tusks for his quests. He sighed as he pondered over the situation. It was pretty clear at this point that he was much stronger than the boars and that they were unlikely to pose any real threat to him. That just took a lot of the fun out of it!

Thomas hunted boars until lunchtime and managed to bring another five of them down and collected their tusks and pelts. Thomas found a nice tree to sit beneath and pulled out the rations he'd bought back at the general goods store. It wasn't even remotely good tasting, but it was filling and kept him from going hungry. As Thomas munched on his lunch he looked around the woods and thought about what he should do. He only needed to kill three more boars to finish collecting enough tusks, he already had more than enough hides. He could stay in the woods and hunt a few more boars to collect a few more hides, as well as rank up his weapon mastery a bit. Or he could head back to the city and figure out something else to do.

After contemplating a bit, Thomas decided to continue to hunt boars. He could increase the rank of his knife ability and collect some spare hides that he could use later. Since he intended to learn leatherworking it would be best to have some extra leather tucked away and ready for use in the future. With his decision made and lunch over, Thomas collected any orange or white flowers as he continued his hunt for boars.

Over the next five hours, Thomas hunted and skinned an additional twelve boars while making his way back towards the city slowly. With the day quickly heading for a close, Thomas made sure his bag was secure with all his spoils and immediately found his way out of the woods and started sprinting towards the city. He could not get enough of the feeling he gained from running so fast. He was once again tempted to dump all of his experience into Agility and Endurance.

After returning to the city, Thomas glanced into the Adventurers Guild but saw it was too busy for the moment. If he went in now he could be late to Hekrins. Instead of risking that he started to move directly towards the grumpy dwarf. It didn't take long for Thomas to step into the shop and greet Hekrin, "I've learned Tailoring as you directed."

Hekrin looked at Thomas and let out a very long and very annoyed sigh, "Yur like a damned roach kid. No matter what I do, ya jus' keep comin' back here and pesterin' me! Git yur self over here an' show me yur hands."

Thomas walked over to Hekrin and presented his hands like he had done several times previously. Hekrin grabbed his wrists and looked at his hands for a bit before letting out a despondent sigh and releasing them, "Dammit kid! Are ya a glutton fer punishment or somthin'?"

Thomas laughed lightly and shook his head, "Not at all. I just happen to like doing the things you've sent me to do. I don't see it as a waste of time or anything like that. Regardless of what professions you ask me to learn I'm not going to complain in the least. I'll even be happy to learn them!"

Thomas had spent some time thinking about how to deal with Hekrin while he was busy slaughtering boars. He had realized it was Hekrin's 'hope' that pushing Thomas into various professions would convince Thomas to quit or get Thomas in trouble with people like Zella. Thomas decided the best way to deal with Hekrin would be to crush that hope. To let Hekrin know that the more professions he made Thomas learn, the happier he was making Thomas. The exact opposite of Hekrin's desire! Yes, this was the conviction Thomas had made to mess with Hekrin and push back against him. As long as Hekrin didn't ask him to do anything against his morals, Thomas was going to do it, and do it with a smile!

Hearing how happily Thomas claimed he was, Hekrin couldn't help letting out a groan and rubbing his forehead, "If'n ya say so kid. Ya learned tailorin' like I asked."