章 7: To the domain

After all the time he spent reading the explanation of the system leaving the book he received as a reward for beginners under his foot, he finally received the next mini-quest. The system mentioned to him to move forward and keep walking, widening the distance between him and Valtrar. He was still in the woods; it felt as if those woods were endless and without apparent beginning. He raised his head contemplating the trees and how the forest unfolded before him. He was too busy arguing with the girl that he didn't notice how things around him weren't like the Earth. The whole forest had giant trees without any leaves on the branches. Everything looked so dead.

"What a place! To think my room was better than this. At least, it looked lively with all those colours. I had a mouse that shifted colours continuously and a keyboard that glowed neon. These woods don't even have a normal colouring shade; everything looks black."

As he progressed deeper into the forest, the shadow of a building rose from the dark and became visible to his eyes. Thus began the story of his thoughts battling inside his head. His guts and instinct told him to not go there and ignore the system while his head told him there was nothing to be afraid of; he had the system and his experience as a veteran player with him.

Stephan reached a giant portal that had two wands cross-shapely carved. There were statues of maidens broken and misshaped put in different positions. The whole looked like cut from a building that existed somewhere else.

He saw something glowing not far from the door and moved to it, taken by curiosity. There was a broken statue around its neck a pendant and the glow came from it. He examined it with his eyes then finally grabbed it.

He put it inside his pocket and moved in front of the door. He used one hand to push it but the door didn't budge. Therefore, he had to put down his scepter. With each hand carefully put on one part of the door, he pushed it using all the strength he had. His face distorted creating a grimace. He cursed but the door opened. He removed his hands from the door and bent down to take his scepter but the door closed again hitting his butt and pushing him, falling head first into the ground.

"Seriously," he said his mouth full of dirt. "This isn't fair, how am I supposed to open this door," he returned his gaze towards the floating window where the quest was. "She is certainly making this tutorial hard on purpose. She is certainly laughing at me," he got up bringing his sleeves above his elbows, his eyes full of determination. "Let's see!"

He put his sceptre inside his pants while letting the first half of it outside. It was too long to put it anywhere. He repeated the same act and pushed the door open. Since it threatened to close, he jumped outside and fell again on his face, this time he made sure to protect his mouth but his eyes caught the dirt instead.

"Seriously!"

He adjusted his stance and looked around, his eyes opening wide and his mouth gap open at the sight. In the meantime, his head was playing a war again; his mind protecting the father land and his heart with his instinct protecting the mother land. A book that he had read popped into his mind suddenly. He recalled reading about a floating piece of land built by ancient civilizations.

When he played Legend of the Past, the game had so many books and parchments that it was annoying but he certainly read some of them. If he had known he would one day travel to a place inside the game, he would have read everything.

"Tch!" he snapped his finger with regret.

Inside the building, it was only a floating land. It was like a domain. However, Legend of the Past didn't have domains. Furthermore, the tutorial was slightly different. How was it possible to keep a piece of land floating kilometres high? He moved to the edge and looked down, there were only clouds, he must have been above the clouds.

He returned to the gate and tried to open it but it didn't budge. It was a gate that only opened from the outside. Was it a teleportation gate?

Anyway!

This quest felt like it would be a long one. Tutorials were always annoying but something inside him warned him of a possible prank or a joke. He narrowed his eyes and followed the giant tree root that took him to higher ground. The floating islands were connected by tree roots. Stephan had an eye for details. He observed each place and searched everything for a possible object that could be stacked for future use. The pendant he found earlier would be of great use in case of extreme danger. It could save him from a prominent death.

"Everything can be a clue for future quests. The mistake a newbie would do would be to ignore those foreshadowing," he said while studying the ground of the second island he was in.

There were a total of three islands and gazing up, he could see the head of a statue with joining hands that seemed to be praying to some unknown deity. The words carved on the grounds were in the form of a drawing, supposedly made by a toddler. It reminded him of the children book he cursed a while ago.

"Great! I wasted time in children drawing," he said getting up from his crouching and tried to move on to the next island but a strange statue caught his eye.

Unlike others, this one had the shape of a black dog. He moved to it and placed a hand over its head.

<Congratulations! You found a hidden object.>

He was happy for a few moments until her voice cut through it.

[Completely useless!]

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