Chronicles of the True Wizard

Felix continued onwards towards the fort on his map to the south, sitting right in the middle of a small peninsula. Checking the town's icon from his map, there were no requirements to enter nor was there any note.

Felix ran south, now starving his muscles of energy. At first he tried supplying them with no energy, and it went horribly, all his muscles were exhausted, he couldn't even move them. He felt like that should have been obvious. After that realization, he simply restricted the amount of energy his muscles pulled as much as he could without having them simply fail.

He was slower than he normally would be, but with his Traveler's set, it wasn't a huge deal. If his estimations were correct, he would still arrive in just under two hours.

Approaching the peninsula, the forest completely gave way to a sandy beach stretching to either side. Felix followed the edge of the water, which was much rougher than he was expecting, towards the village. The beach next to him being his by a barrage of massive waves at a semi regular interval with very little between them.

As Felix approached the town, he was surprised to see that the fort consisted of a single visible building in the center of the peninsula. The building appeared to be a massive tiki bar. All around the bar among the palm trees, were people laying in the sand, dancing and just generally vacationing. The tiki bar also emanated a cheerful song that fit in very well with the aesthetic. The entire place was lit up by a combination of luminescent bugs flying around, torches and the moon. Despite it being the middle of the night, it was well lit.

Felix approached the bar, at a semi normal pace, so as not to frighten anyone. He walked up to the bar and took a seat on one of the bar stools. The inside of the tiki bar was exactly what Felix expected with bottles on shelves spanning the entire visible interior. The only unexpected thing about it, was how massive it was. The tiki bar was the only building in sight and it looked like it might be able to serve a few thousand people.

Where did they get this much furniture and more importantly, this many bottles of alcohol? These can't all be from the profession dungeon can it?

Just a short minute after Felix had sat down, a man appeared in front of him so quickly, Felix didn't even see him coming until he was a few meters away. The man looked exactly like Felix expected, tall, tan, blond and blue eyes. He wore a short sleeve tropical button up, with none of the buttons attached, board shorts and flip flops.

[E - Common] Human (Lvl 30)

Woah, that is by far the highest level human I have seen yet. Wait, he's higher level than I am, what gives?.

"Hello, welcome to the Tiki Kahuna, what can I get for ya?"

"Uh, hi. Sorry I don't drink, I was just stopping by this fort to check it out and uh-"

"Woah dude, your level is insane, you must be like… suuuuuper strong."

He grabbed some bottles and started working on something under the counter that Felix couldn't see.

"Not really, actually kinda, I guess. I mean you're higher level than I am."

"Eh? Sorta, you have a class right? Some kinda monk with those arm wraps?"

"Caster actually, why?"

"Oh nice, magic is dope. I don't have a class at all. You said you are new here, let me show you 'round."

The man put a drink he was preparing on the counter and pushed it towards Felix. It was a colorful drink in a half coconut with a straw.

"It's virgin, I promise."

The man hopped over the bar and landed right next to Felix's stool, then started walking away. Felix grabbed the drink, stood up and followed as he continued, "When I got here I was offered a bunch of classes, as we all were. Thing is, I took an oath of peace back before the integration, I'm a pacifist, I refuse to harm any living being on purpose, no matter what."

He continued, "I refused all of the classes, many times, until eventually The System agreed to offer me an alternative. I get two profession slots, but I can't cause harm to any leveling creature, ever. Which was basically the oath I had already taken, so it was a no brainer. I picked up bar tending as my first profession then got dropped right next to the fort here. Before it was a series of shacks laid out around the beach. Someone else had already claimed the fort but then they gave it up for some reason. I claimed the fort and eventually, after some work managed to pickup my other profession, resort manager. So now I just hang out here all day and manage the resort. I tend the bar and I get levels and experience for both professions."

"Oh wow, that's awesome. Aren't you worried someone is just gonna kill you though? You know, because you can't fight back?"

"Nah, I'm not helpless. I get tools to defend myself and run away just for being a pacifist, The System will protect me somewhat, and I'm pretty fast. I got stacking skills to get places fast so I can keep everyone happy from both professions. I just can't do any harm to them no matter what. System even said if I try to find a loop hole, it'll smite me. Not too worried though, I am very happy with how it all turned out."

"Ah that makes sense I guess. So you turned all the shacks into one massive bar? Where did you get enough alcohol to fill the whole place up?"

Felix took a tentative sip from the glass, now that he was pretty sure it wasn't poisoned. It was delicious, a fruity concoction but not too sweet. It was all kinds of flavors, and Felix swore the taste changed every time he took a sip.

"Well, I hit the puzzle dungeon at some point, did pretty well and got rewarded a huge stockpile. Then I paid people to take the bartender profession temporarily and run the puzzle dungeon. Some of them kept the profession and they help me tend bar."

At this point they had walked along the edge of the water, on the same side Felix followed to get here. The massive waves crashed just as they had before, with one small difference. Felix saw from further north, they were being surfed.

"We also got a lot of surfers."

"I can see that, where are the waves coming from, they don't seem natural. Is it some crazy skill?"

"Hah, I wish. Nah, there's a world boss somewhere out that way that seems to just thrash around. Someone tried to swim out to figure it out one time, they saw the icon on their map and turned right around."

"Good to know."

"Anyways, what have you been up to. You must be some kind of killing machine, or did you max out your profession?"

This guy talks like we've been friends forever and are just catching up. I guess it's part of the whole resort manager thing, make everyone feel welcome. Honestly, I really like this guy, it definitely helps that it is literally impossible for him to stab me in the back, ever.

"I own the fort way over to the north west. Mostly just hit dungeons that's all, I'm gonna try to complete them all."

"Oh shit, going for all the achievements then? Well, if your fort decides to take out some world bosses, could you leave this one be? or at least save it for last. Hey you're that profession town, right? Any chance you guys have any brewers or something?"

"Yeah I can hold out on this one for you. I'm not sure- OH SHIT, one second."

Felix quickly opened his menus and pulled up the requests for withdrawals and payments from the fort. He quickly skimmed and approved them all seeing no red flags.

Shit, sorry Noah, I promise to open this at least once a day from now on. Or at least try to.

"Sorry, I'll ask when I head back. You should be able to buy things from the marketplace though, most of the people in my fort are selling to the auction house or, more commonly since there aren't many buyers, the market place."

"Yeah I've been buying a good bit from both, but taxes are rough, you know? I have the taxes set to 0, cause I make more than enough from the bar, plus everyone hates taxes. Man, some of these forts though, have their taxes set at 20%, there was one set at 50%, once I saw that, I refused to buy from them ever."

"That is ridiculous, I have mine at 5% since we need income."

"That's super reasonable though, especially if you use the money to improve the place and whatever."

"Well, I hope most people agree with you. What's with the people who live here, is it just a constant party? Do they even level?"

"Most don't level at all, just hang out and relax. Eat good food and chill. Everyone sleeps on the beach, under the stars and you get enough credits to feed yourself every day for about half the tutorial."

"That's wild, I wish there was an easy form of transportation. I am sure a lot of the people working on their professions over in my fort would love to come and chill here for a while."

"Well hey, you're the magic man, if you figure it out, you are definitely welcome to put a train station or a portal or whatever here. Everyone is welcome, most buildings aren't but I think I can make an exception for something like that. It would have to become part of the resort cause I have to own it for it to go on the land. If you don't want that it could go right on the edge of the resort to the north, then it would just be a short walk. We can figure it out later if it comes up."

"Sounds good, where are your auction house and market place nodes? I got some things I want to unload then I gotta get back to dungeon hunting."

"Oh sure sure, they're at the bar, come on. Oh I'm Mike by the way."

"Felix."

You know, I was kind of expecting Brody or something, Mike doesn't really feel like a surfer dude kind of name.

Mike led Felix back to the bar and took his coconut glass and insisted the drink would be free before pointing him to the nodes.

"Good luck, and if you need a vacation, we're always here."

Felix listed the jungle shield, dagger and shield on the auction house as well as the great-sword and the maul. He found the long sword more useable than the great-sword and figured he wouldn't be able to overcome his lack of stats with a bigger weapon. He had no use for the spear or shield and the daggers he had were enough. He figured he was better off with credits to buy something useful. He set all of the auctions at five days.

With that taken care of, Felix guiltily double checked the withdrawal requests again and found it empty, then headed out towards the north. The next dungeon was far, about the same distance from Quest Dunegon C back to Tripeak-Valley. Between Felix and his destination were four separate forts, requiring detours of varying lengths.

Felix was curious about the other towns but not curious enough to check them out. He would have stopped through one of them which was only a tiny detour, but it was listed as not accepting anyone, visitors or citizens. He would head directly by it anyways so he would get to check it out, just not from inside.

Felix headed back out of the peninsula into the forest. He ran at his energy starved speed, consistently checking to see if he could decrease the energy flow every ten minutes or so. He didn't end up decreasing it a single time, so he figured it would take a lot longer to increase his muscles' energy efficiency.

The forest was incredibly boring. It was exactly as he remembered it, except now it had the occasional wolf or bear at about level fifteen. He figured there were probably more animals around, they likely just avoided him either due to his speed or higher level. He did hear them sometimes, though it was difficult with the wind rushing by his ears at the speed he ran. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .