Age of Gods - A VRMMO Story

Thomas stared at the barrage of notifications for a moment, it took him some time to absorb all of it. Once he got to the end he frowned, he wasn't sure how he felt about five professions all being rolled into a single one. On one hand, it was excellent because it meant any experience he earned for any of the five professions would be rolled into a single skill and allow it to rank up at a much more significant rate. On the other hand, he'd lost 25% of his hard work in a single moment. He wasn't entirely sure how he should feel about it, but at least his Magitech Engineering had skyrocketed to a decent rank.

Hekrin watched Thomas closely and smirked, "I know what you're going through. If it helps, it's worth it to lose that fifty percent experience from your other professions to help rank up Magitech Engineering in the beginning. It makes creating items a lot easier."

Thomas tilted his head in confusion, "I only lost 25% of all my experience though."

Hekrin froze as he stared at Thomas for a full minute until his brain began to work again, "How the hell did you pull that off?! Even my master and all my fellow apprentices all lost 50% of their experience when becoming Magitech Engineers!"

Thomas shrugged his shoulders, though he expected it had something to do with the quest. Though Thomas couldn't confirm it, he was starting to believe that NPC's didn't get quests. If that was true then the quest is what allowed him to retain more experience than an NPC would. Thomas had the perfect excuse for Hekrin though, "Maybe it's because I am an otherworlder?"

Hekrin stroked his beard and then nodded eventually, "You might be right." He shrugged his shoulders, "Well, that doesn't really matter." Hekrin hefted the grenade up and smiled, the first time Thomas had ever seen him smile, "Time to test this and see how you did. Follow me outside the city, the guards don't like it when I test things inside the city walls."

Thomas chuckled, "I can understand that."

What government would want people testing explosives near civilians? Hekrin led Thomas out of the shop, locking the door behind him. It was still a couple of hours before the store would normally close, but Hekrin didn't seem to care in the least as he locked up, "Alright, follow me, kid."

Thomas and Hekrin made their way out of the city and headed toward a small cluster of trees that stood apart from any of the fields around the city. Once they arrived at the treeline, Hekrin held out the grenade to Thomas, "Go ahead and use it. Let's see how well you did."

Thomas accepted the grenade from Hekrin and looked it over.