Restarting From Genesis

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[09:45:07] Nora: We'll meet you at the temple when we're ready.

[09:45:34] Nora: Ty, Snow and Alvi just went to the mercenary guild to see if there were any related quests.

[09:45:59] Merlin: I'll go meet them there then, and we'll meet up at the temple after.

[09:46:04] Nora: Alright.

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Merlin closed the chatbox with Nora before turning his attention back to the large plot of farmland before him.

Once again he could hear fighting in the distance as groups of players fought against the wild boars, but seeing as nobody was getting trampled by the giant boar variant, and Kyle's group wasn't anywhere in sight, he made his way down the road, through the large plots of farmland.

He quickly swapped his clothing around, making sure to wear the usual disguise of his old cloak and uninteresting daggers before entering the city.

Merlin greeted the guards as he made his way through Macedonia's western gate. He walked past several groups of players who were going about their day as he traversed the streets on his way to the local soul forge. He decided to swap his soul out before meeting his friends at the mercenary guild.

Merlin slipped into a less crowded street before making a beeline towards a large building not too far from the main road.

After entering this building, Merlin saw the usual interior of a soul forge. The massive obsidian obelisk and the various gold-encrusted stations for soul manipulation.

"Good day," A man standing around in the building greeted Merlin.

Merlin smiled and nodded, "Good day to you as well."

He quickly noticed that a couple of the soul forges in this establishment were being used by other players, but fortunately, there were more than enough forges, so he didn't have to wait.

Merlin approached one of the gold-encrusted pedestals and rested his hand on the plate sitting atop it. A window appeared before him, showcasing the various features he could access.

Merlin picked the option to move his souls around, when the window opened, it showcased that he had a few souls stored in his soul receptacle, namely his ranger, wizard and cleric souls. 

Merlin decided to swap out his fighter soul for his cleric soul after deciding that thief and rose wight were both far too important to his build.

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Origin Soul: Rose Wight

Soul Slots: 3

1: ★★ Race Soul: Rose Wight

2: Class Soul: Thief

3: Class Soul: Cleric

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After closing down the window, he pulled up his character's stats, just to see how much he had lost.

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• Vitality = 10 (+8 Base, +1 Title, +1 Soul, +0 Equip, +0 Bonus)

• Constitution = 17 (+8 Base, +0 Title, +9 Soul, +0 Equip, +0 Bonus)

• Strength = 16 (+8 Base, +2 Title, +2 Soul, +0 Equip, +4 Bonus)

• Dexterity = 17 (+8 Base, +0 Title, +4 Soul, +1 Equip, +4 Bonus)

• Agility = 12 (+8 Base, +0 Title, +0 Soul, +0 Equip, +4 Bonus)

• Intelligence = 12 (+8 Base, +0 Title, +0 Soul, +0 Equip, +4 Bonus)

• Wisdom = 15 (+8 Base, +1 Title, +2 Soul, +0 Equip, +4 Bonus)

• Charisma = 10 (+8 Base, +1 Title, +0 Soul, +0 Equip, +1 Bonus)

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'Right, so my vitality went up by one, but I lost four strength and two agility.' Merlin thought to himself, 'Oh, and I also gained two wisdom.'

'What other bonuses did I pick up?' Merlin wondered to himself, he had a vague idea, but it had been quite a long time since he even looked at the base cleric class. He decided to pull up his class information, causing a window to appear.

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Class Soul: Cleric • Level 1

Bonus Stats: +2 Wisdom, +1 Vitality

Abilities: ⟪God's Blessing⟫, ⟪Blessed Weapon⟫

God's Blessing:

Origin Soul Bonuses: +1 Vitality, +2 Wisdom, ⟪Holy Smite⟫

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'Right, so god's blessing is self-explanatory. That'll differ based on which god I pick.' Merlin thought to himself before clicking on the blessed weapon tab, opening it up in a new information window.

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⟪Blessed Weapon⟫

The unholy and tarnished shall be purified in holy light.

• All melee damage against basic undead will be increased by 200%.

• All melee damage against elite and boss level undead will be increased by 150%.

• All melee damage against demonic creatures will be increased by 130%.

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'Right, I remembered it correctly.' Merlin thought to himself, 'God damn that's an overpowered passive ability.'

He closed the information windows and placed his hand back on the pedestal. He quickly utilised the option to access his soul receptacle and chose to store the goblin soul that he had been carrying around in his inventory this whole time. Once that was done, he closed the window and made his way out of the building.

Merlin slipped back onto the main road as he made his way towards the mercenary guild building where some of his friends were apparently in.

He made his way into the building, finding it somewhat more crowded than the previous times he had visited. But within the crowd of players and NPCs, he saw the familiar faces of Typhoeus, Snowbunny and Alvira standing around the desk where one would receive quests.

Merlin made his way through the crowd as his friends turned to walk out of the building, and at that point they noticed eachother.

"Oh hey, you finally showed up," Snowbunny said with a cheeky grin, "Nora mentioned you were going to appear at some point, but you took your time so we were just about to head to the temple."

"I had to go swap my souls out, then came for an extra quest," Merlin said, "Were there any relevant quests?"

The group all shook their heads, and then Typhoeus spoke up. "No luck. The receptionist said that we'd have better luck paying a visit to the temple outpost in Hysia if we wanted a quest for that region."

"Oh well," Merlin sighed.

The group all made their way out of the mercenary guild before walking through the main road towards the temple.

Finally escaping the traffic, the group made their way through the spacious parkland that surrounded the temple, where they saw yet another familiar face. A certain tall, nerdy-looking katana-wielding man, Zankoku.

"There's Liam, I don't think the other two are here yet," Alvira said before running over to her cousin.

The trio followed slowly behind her, each of them greeting Zankoku as they approached. The group of five spent several minutes talking to each other while waiting for Nora and Tiny to appear.

"Excited?" Snowbunny asked.

"Worried actually, I took a hit to my stats by equipping the cleric soul, I hope it'll be worth it," Zankoku said.

"The two times damage modifier should help with closing the gap, even with the loss of stats," Merlin said. "We just have to be careful and not take on too many enemies at once."

The group continued their conversation until Alvira pointed out that Nora and Tiny were approaching, the rest of the group turned in time to see them push through the traffic and finally enter the parkland.

"Alright, looks like we're all here, let's go to Hysia!" Alvira immediately yelled out before Tiny and Nora even had the opportunity to greet the group.

Putting a halt to Alvira's enthusiasm temporarily, Merlin spoke up to greet them both.

"Are you both ready?" He asked.

Nora briefly asked about any quests from the mercenary guild but mentioned that she was prepared to set off after being told that there weren't any relevant quests. Tiny heard this and announced that he didn't have anything else to prepare on his end either.

"Oh right, whose making the party?" Merlin asked.

As he finished the sentence, Snowbunny quickly slapped what everyone who was currently present quickly assumed to be an inventory window, although they couldn't see it due to her privacy settings.

He promptly received a notification window moments later.

「You have been invited to "Snowbunny's" party, would you like to join?」

Upon Merlin clicking accept, everyone's previously white names started turning green, indicating that they were all allies.

"Hey look, our karma isn't evil this time," Typhoeus said in a joking manner.

Snowbunny looked at him with a confused expression before remembering, "Oh right, the wolves den."

The group finally began to move towards the northern gate on their adventure to Hysia. Making their way through the street traffic as a collective group of eight people seemed to be somewhat intimidating for certain players who seemed to steer clear of their path. Some of which Merlin could quickly identify as members of Kyle's group, but he wasn't sure why a couple of other players were reacting in similar ways, perhaps they had bad experiences with the roleplayers at some point in time.

After giving their greetings to the town guards who were standing by the northern gate, they all stepped out into the vast plain that was the road to Hysia.

What was once a lonely path to travel only a couple of sessions ago was now a relatively amusing trip with friends. At the very least, the trip wasn't going to be quiet.

They made their way over the various small bridges that dotted the landscape, each stretching over one of many streams that broke up the empty plains.

"I was kind of hoping Kyle's group would follow us," Snowbunny said with a sigh.

"Oh, you noticed them too?" Alvira said, "They looked pretty scared."

Alvira and Snowbunny started taunting Kyle and his group, both knowing full well that Merlin was streaming and that the likelihood of Kyle's group seeing a recording of the stream was more than likely.

Merlin shook his head as he continued walking, and eventually, the group had finally arrived at the village of Hysia.