SEO vol 1 ch 1.5

Chapter 1.5 - An offline meeting

I had a text from John was waiting for me saying some people who didn't have work were going to a restaurant. I hop into my car and drive to the restaurant; it wasn't a long drive which was good as the message was 30 minutes old. I get there and find that they had already ordered a bunch of wings for the table and drinks. It looks like John, Yuki, Belle, Kelly, Jessica, Chelsea, and Cory. I'm always amazed by how many girls John can bring and I know three of them are aiming for him for sure. That would be Yuki, Belle, and Kelly. Our ongoing joke is that he's the harem king. This is due to the fact that John used to be really fat and made fun of by girls and he said to watch has he makes a harem. 120 pounds less later and girls swarmed him; this makes us laugh so hard especially because he's really a one woman type of guy. Truthfully I envy him sometimes; he's got three different types of girls with him right now! You've got the petite Japanese girl Yuki, buxom southern redhead Belle, and then you're atypical girl next door with an average height blonde hair and eyes that were a mix of blue and green. Jessica was Kelly's younger sister a waif of a girl, most people thought her less attractive than her sister because of the lack of curves. Her face though was beautiful; whatever curves she lacked her face more than made up for if she was competing with her sister. You'd think she didn't eat much with her figure, but she sometimes even out ate me when she was hungry, which was a great quality in a girl if she were trying to go out with any cooks. John and I always agreed that a big appetite on a girl especially when it was the food we cooked was attractive as long as they weren’t too overweight. John was sitting right next to the window as always and the three girls were trying to sit as close to him as possible. Jessica of course was sitting beside her sister. That left the Chelsea and Cory the couple sitting next to Yuki who was right beside Belle. Chelsea and Cory was an odd couple if you didn't know them. Chelsea Singh was a first generation American who still held onto Hindi beliefs from her country of India. Cory Silberstein on the other hand was raised a traditional Jew, but now went to a more modern temple. Their engagement gave both their families a shock. Such a motley crew, it'd I took the only open seat next to Jessica and across from Cory.

"Chris, you're here!" Jess said as she gave me a quick hug.

"Hey, I see you got my water with no ice already, thanks!" (Me)

"Glad you made it didn't know if you were going to be here before the entrees arrived." (John)

"Yeah sorry about that I forgot to reply, I was in game when you sent it and didn't log out until 30 minutes after. Mind if I grab some wings?" (Me)

"Well unless you think we could finish the 50 wings and our entree without you eating some...." (Belle)

"Depends how hungry Jess is," I replied as I put some wings onto a plate."

"Hey!" Jess punches me on the shoulder, as everyone laughs.

“Geez relax that was a compliment.” (Me)

"Oh so you haven't customized your notifications yet, been too busy with other things? How are you like the game?" (Yuki)

"Yeah it's fun, but I don't know what to do next. Usually I go follow the beginning quest line, but I haven't seen any yet. Now I don't have a weapon yet or a class even though I have three skills at level 4, and one at 5. Then of course because of all the work at the restaurant knife and cooking skills at 9 and 10 respectively." (Me)

"Wow that's quite a bit, so -Unarmed Mastery- and -Martial Arts-? You must have gone hunting in the plains quite a bit to level up so much or did you go and challenge some wolves in the forest or something?" (Chelsea)

"Unarmed route huh? I thought you'd go the magic route. Or did you not change your class yet? If you haven't you can still do so, or at least take a basic course and get some basic skills. -Meditation- is particularly helpful and most people go to the mages' guild just for that skill. A free mana regen skill you can use whenever you're resting really helps." (Yuki)

"Going unarmed against wolves? Pretty impressive for a level 1 going against level 3 mobs."(Cory)

"Wolves are level 3? What level are rabbits?" Hey that can't be right those wolves were definitely higher than 4. Wait the monster leveling system, is it because nobody has been hunting them that the mobs have been leveling up? Well aren't I in a pickle if everything is going to be that much harder if I'm going behind all these β testers.

"Did you not get the -Analysis- skill from the adventurers' guild? Geez you're doing everything backwards Chris. You get quests there too." (John)

"You get used to shouting the skill names yet? It feels so weird like we're in an anime or something. I attack you with my skill muahaha. I activate skill, now you know what's coming." (Jess)

"I know right? I know you didn't play the old games, but it used to you clicked it or hit a button. They can't very well do that, so vocal activation works." (Cory)

"Yeah screaming something like -Speed Boost- in town is embarrassing, I wish you'd get experience from it for doing such embarrassing things." (Belle)

"Well you have to think about the game balance, if you could level up a skill without having to battle out mobs wouldn't you just spam certain skills in town?" (Kelly)

You can activate skills by just saying them? Man that's a lot easier than concentrating where mana is going, but they don't level up outside of combat? Does that mean I get experience for manual activation? So it's worthwhile to know the basis of the skill so that you can activate it manually huh. Guess learning from the library books may be slower, but because I have a foundation on the skill I know how to level it up. I wonder?

"Hey have you guys ever tried using a skill without saying it?"

Everyone just laughs, "Sorry Chris it's just a well known story in β. Someone wanted to do the same thing and spent time in the mages' guild reading books, all he got were the chants for the skills. It takes so much longer to do that, but he did stumble across a fact that you could create new spells that way. Most people think it's just not worth it, I mean you don't even know if the chant will work or if you're creating a high leveled spell or not. Too much trial and error and the mages' guild have NPCs that try to create new spells all the time. You can always hope the master you chose will have necessary spells to level, but usually you can get them through a quest or paying them to teach you. Anyways the head of the mages' guild is level 119 so everyone is set to learning spells until that level."(John)

Well then I think I'll keep that bit of information to myself then if they're just going to laugh.

"Well I'm progressing without a class, what's the benefit of choosing a class anyways? Do you have to join the guild?" (Me)

"Well the novice class only has skills up to level 10 and it's all through quests in the adventurers' guild. You get stat boosts and if you join the guild you can apprentice yourself to a master. When you do the master will guide you to whatever skill is next that they know. They'll tell you to train certain skills in order to unlock the new skill. It's much easier to level that way rather than questing for skill books or randomly leveling up skills." (Yuki)

"Hey what class are you thinking of becoming?" (Jess)

"I don't know yet, but enough about me what about you guys? What are you guys doing in the game?" (Me)

"Well we just got enough materials and money to expand the guild, and now we're recruiting a lot more members. As we do so we're going to try and make a new town. It'll be to the southeast following the river, it's a great spot. There's a water source, a mine nearby, and it's in the middle of the woods. The only problem will be clearing out the space, and getting some of the NPC members to move so that we have some support staff and residents. We've already gone to the capital and bought the title to that area." (John)

"Yeah I can't wait hopefully we can do it soon so that we can start using the gold to pay for our subscription fees!" (Chelsea)

"Wait you can pay the subscription fee with gold?"

"Wait you don't know? That's why so many people play the game! The game company actually has an in game to real world currency trading system. You can actually make a living off playing the game. The company actually makes most of its money from broadcasts not subscriptions. Companies pay to broadcast the game; there are 3 whole networks in Japan that do nothing but in game news. Which is probably one reason the Asian demi-human servers have the most progress. 2 players have already gotten to be the lords of a pre-developed town; they have all of those connected by a portal network already too. Then they have 3 towns developing rapidly too. You should watch the Second Earth Network some time." (John)

"I don't have a TV, you know that. Been too busy working and with college to have had time to watch TV. I'll get one soon though classes have been easy lately. Where's our waiter? We're almost out of wings and I haven't even gotten to order yet." (Me)

"We already got you your usual from here." (John)

"Brian is cooking, so we got you the tacos with lengua (beef tongue) meal with black beans, extra rice and molé." (Jess)

"And you're going to ask to for a bite of molé and the beef tongue again?" (Me)

"Yup I’ll give you a bit of tamale?" (Jess)

*Sigh* "I guess why don't you just get my usual instead of asking for some all the time?" (Me)

"Because I want tamales and some of the food you're getting. Quit complaining you know you like having some of my food. (Jess)

"You two act like an old married couple, you sure you're not dating?" (Chelsea)

"Who would want to go out with this ugly mug?" I point to my face, “Then there's my schedule with work and school, a girl would have to be really patient to go out with me. Jessica's only here is tagging along with Kelly anyways right?" (Me)

"Right...."(Jess)

"When the hell are you going to clear things up with him? You know the guy is thick," Kelly whispers to her sister.

"Concentrate on your own battle," Jessica whispers back.

"Well I've at least told John I wanted to go out, but he said he wants to get to know a girl before he goes out with him. So I'm working on it, how about you? You know a lot of girls in the restaurant like Chris, he's just a little too thick to figure that out and makes comments like he just did. You never know though, one of them might actually get through to him," Kelly whispers back.

"Are you two whispering about Chris? It's obvious you like him you know Jess, just tell him straight out already or ask him out on a date. I wholeheartedly support you dating my best friend, “John whispers.

Of course I didn't catch all this and I was chatting with Chelsea about how she doesn't do the same shtick with Cory, when they're so obviously in-love with each other. They laughed at my face because they said they do so a lot. I did catch John saying Chris, so I turned to them and asked "What are you three whispering about?"

"Nothing in particular just wondering if you're going to figure out that the food is on the window." (Jess)

"What food's here?"(Chris)

The rest of the time we talked about work and food. They talked about guild stuff and when I was going to join. We also went to a movie afterwards, but Yuki and Belle decided to go home saying were tired from working earlier. I felt so awkward it was like I was with two couples on a double date, and I was tagging along as a friend and then there was Jessica tagging along with her sister. As I watched the movie all I could think about was how I couldn't wait to put into use some of the things I learned!

The rest of the time we talked about work and food. They talked about guild stuff and when I was going to join. We also went to a movie afterwards, but Yuki and Belle decided to go home saying were tired from working earlier. I felt so awkward it was like I was with two couples on a double date, and I was tagging along as a friend and then there was Jessica tagging along with her sister. As I watched the movie all I could think about was how I couldn't wait to put into use some of the things I learned!