Free Web NovelChapter 8: First Light
–Chapter 8–
Title >> First Light
"Let’s see," a calm, even voice drifted across the damp grass.
The radiant green of each blade of grass, the cool sensation from their surfaces, all of it pressed softly against her skin.
Grace Hunt lay very still, taking in the first sensations her body had registered in six years.
Too afraid to move, she lay on the ground, avoiding the need that hung in her chest. The urge to move. The need to test if this was indeed real or just another one of her dreams.
The fear of waking up from this dream stayed with her but even in her bid not to be disappointed, she summoned courage.
Taking a deep breath, her fingers curled tensely around the grass. She felt that too... the resistance of the blades, the sharp texture. Her eyes widened and tears began pouring uncontrollably from them even before she attempted sitting up.
Her silent whimper continued for a few seconds while steady tears ran down her cheeks and into her hair.
Everything felt completely unreal... or was it otherwise? The virtual grass caressed the same fingers that had ignored her for six years. The earthy scent of wet grass filled her nose.
’This is it,’ she thought. This was the moment of truth.
’Get up, you have been waiting for this,’ she said inwardly.
And without another moment of doubt, she tensed the muscles in her arms and pulled herself into a sitting position.
However, her attempt was everything but graceful and easy. Her body might have recalled the shape and angle of sitting up, but it had completely forgotten the process behind it.
"Hahahaha," Grace giggled softly as she pulled herself up again after falling sideways for the tenth time.
Unlike what others would expect, she wasn’t frustrated by her trial and failure. Instead, every failure only convinced her it was real.
"Now legs," she said loudly, her voice cracking with excitement. "It’s your time to shine. Let’s do this."
Getting to her feet was even more difficult than she expected but after her seventh attempt and a few minutes of considerable cursing...
She finally stood. Her hands swayed in the air left and right like the sails of a ship, desperately doing their best to help her balance.
Immediately after, she took a single step forward, then another. Left and right, her legs obeyed.
And by the sixth step, she wasn’t thinking about the mechanics of walking anymore. Her body was simply doing it, recalling the early years of her childhood where all this just felt right. As right as whatever this world had built her complete body from.
It wasn’t long now... when she broke into a run without thinking anymore. The muscle memory of years of running surfaced as she broke through a few layers of grass.
Ahead, the field opened up in front of her. The jade blades of grass gave way to scattered trees and a sky that shone ocean blue. Everything looked and felt real as she continued running.
Grace ran until her lungs burned with satisfaction. Her hands rested on her knees as sweat covered her face.
Her heart was pounding, her gasps grew sharper but all of this was behind a grin that spread from ear to ear across her face.
"I did it," she said to nobody in particular. "Xavier, I did it."
She looked around for him out of pure reflex.
But... he wasn’t there.
***
Twenty minutes later, she arrived at the occupied area of the novice spawn village. It looked exactly like every other fantasy game village her parents had created, but it was also somewhat different.
The roofs were still thatched, and the wells were still built entirely from stone, with NPCs that moved with a rhythm that told anyone who paid attention that there were background characters running in a loop.
Everything seemed fine, standard as she could remember from every game she had either played or watched Xavier play.
But this level of fine... was also genuinely surprising. Because when she paid closer attention, even the smoke escaping from the chimneys smelled like burnt wood.
The echoes from the blacksmith’s hammer carried weight, something real rather than a mere sound effect.
Grace’s eyes widened as she watched a young human girl running after a chicken with resolute determination.
It all felt lived in, like an actual physical space.
"This is incredible," Grace muttered, stretching her leg forward again, almost to confirm that it still worked.
She couldn’t help but wonder what the bigger cities looked like. If the village was this convincing, what happened when you reached somewhere that had actually been built for hundreds of years instead of just existing as a tutorial zone?
***
Over the next few minutes, Grace went through the player menu while she watched other new players running around.
Some were jumping, others were crawling and some tried dipping themselves in a nearby lake. All in a bid to enjoy the full experience of a VRMMO game as realistic as Arillion Online.
Although Grace understood their excitement completely. After all, the grin on her face had failed to disappear even as she approached the notice board in the town hall with her own two legs.
But she also knew better than to remain dormant at the beginning of Arillion Online or any game at all. She wanted to start making her moves even before Xavier eventually found her or their location got adjusted by Marco.
This was the first time since the accident that she had the chance to stand side by side with him and not behind him like the last six years.
’Let’s get this on the road,’ she said inwardly as a purple block of text appeared in front of her eyes.
[Welcome, Traveler]
[You have not yet bound your essence to a class]
[Choose your foundation]
The options presented themselves in a flash of blue. The categories laid out in front of her.
[COMBATANT – A class blessed with frontline strength and steadfast defense]
[RANGER – A class known for precision, distance, and survival instinct]
[MAGE — A class blessed with elemental command and raw magical force]
[PRIEST — The class that all others need for support, protection, and healing]
[ROGUE — Speed, subtlety, secrecy]
[BEASTMASTER – A class blessed with the will for bonds, companionship, and shared strength]
Grace’s dark eyes moved up, down, then across the interface, reading through the short introductions of each class.
A small chuckle escaped her lips. To think they were still using the same starter classes her father had input from the initial design even now in a VRMMO version.
She was unable to tell if it was out of respect for her father or just laziness by the new developers who had taken over the project.
Either way, it didn’t matter. She’d watched her brother play this game long enough. It had been six years of watching Xavier play.
She thought about the hundreds of hours she’d spent in the backseat, away from the camera and strategizing from a chair she couldn’t move out of, learning the systems because learning them was the only way she got to participate in something she physically couldn’t touch.
But now she could finally be useful, really and truly useful. Not as someone fragile that everyone protected but as someone who could also protect and support those who had done the same for years and at the same time grow in the game.
The choice immediately crystallized in her mind and she simply clicked the [Enter] prompt beside the Priest option.
[Path Selected: Priest]
[Status confirmed: Regular (Beginner)]
[Launch gift is being assigned]
[Talent Allocation: Processing...]
The interface paused longer than she expected or had ever seen before. Then a short display of multicolored confetti appeared and disappeared from her vision.
[Talent granted: Beacon of Protection]
[Rank: A]
[Type: Special]
[Description: Those who receive your aid become protected by your light. The source of their suffering and their enemies receive a special mark.
Effects:
- Marked enemies deal 20% less damage to protected targets.
- Protected targets gain 20% increased damage against marked enemies.
- The user gains 40% increased damage against marked enemies as well for the duration of the battle.]
[Cooldown: 24 hours]
Grace read through the launch gift twice and the grin on her face never disappeared. Instead, it grew wider.
Who would have thought it would be this satisfying? Who was she kidding? It was perfect.
With something like this, she would be able to truly help and protect her brother and anyone lucky enough to be in their party while still being a force in her own right.
"All I need now is to..." Grace didn’t finish when she spotted something on the board she was approaching.
She immediately pulled down the flyer and it wasn’t her first mission. No... it was the first step of her journey in a world that had given her new life.
But that journey only made sense with her brother by her side or preferably in front of her.
The party interface appeared in front of her again as she searched for any sign of her brother. Her grin slowly waning by the second.
But his cursor still wasn’t there. She didn’t know Xavier for being late. If he wasn’t here yet, then something had happened.
"C’mon X... where are you?" she muttered as she arrived in front of a low desk, turning to an NPC.
[NPC interaction initialized]
–End of Chapter–
