Entering the village, Starter looked around curiously

“Did you grow up here?”

“I was born here, in the smithing palace!”

Exclaimed Chester, turning himself with his back to the gathering of homes and a massive palace behind all.

The palace was around twenty meters high, colored in a pale-purple, with a set of long and thin windows.

Starter stared at it in a confused manner, pointing towards it

“How did we not see that from the sky?”

“It has a special pattern drawn on it, see the stripes at the sides? That is so that thieves and other people who might have in their mind to steal, would not come here. Who would rob a few houses, right?”

“Right”

Continued Starter.

At that time, there were still people out, walking on the path between houses, and chatting in the middle of the road.

“They really have small open-shops, open at this time of the day?”
Asked Starter, looking left and right

“Since it’s a small place, but very wealthy, people just do whatever they want. Everyone you see, is getting paid even if they sleep because of their second or third job”

“They get paid to sleep?! That’s how you are too?”
Asked Starter, amazed by what Chester told him

“Hahaha… no… I am actually the only one whose parents live in a massive purple tower”

“You mean… that tower over there?”
Asked Starter, pointing at the long tower

“Forget it I told you, I don’t know why did I even tell you”
Replied Chester with an upset look on his face, opening the door of a home and sitting near the door, while looking inside it

“Well… this is where you’ll sleep”

“Neat!”

They both went inside the home, with Starter being the first one and Chester following afterwards.

It was a small place with a wooden table, a two meter terracotta, one small and white bed, with white pillow, blanked and bedding.

“It’s not much but I hope it will do for one night”

Chester loosened his senses and looked around, with an almost upset reaction on his face, lowering his look afterwards.

He turned around and headed towards the exit door which was still open

“Get some sleep, you’ll need it for your adventures yet to come”

Starter narrowed his eyes in a confused manner, not understanding why Chester did not offer himself to come with him.

“Aren’t you coming with me?”

Chester quickly turned around, forcing his eyebrows downwards, checking out his left forearm, with his own Progression.

“My Progression effect is too high, and yours is too low. And since you have a debt at me, for 700 gold coins, I would suggest coming back whenever you get to my Progression and take me with you, in our next quests”

Said Chester, with a large smile on his face

“SEVEN HUNDRED?! What did I do?!”
Exclaimed Starter, with an upset and shocked reaction.

“Well… first of all… Iron chestplate, Iron boots, four wooden swords, seven wooden helmets, three metal rings, nine metal knives…”

Hearing all that, Starter stopped him with the extent of his palm, telling Chester that he gets it.

“If it means you will come with me, you have yourself a bet”

Smiled Starter, extending his hand for a handshake.

Chester accepted the handshake and turned himself in to leave the home.

He stopped right in front of the door

“Are you the Starter?”

“Yes. I am”
Replied Starter, thinking if he got taken in Chester’s home because of that. He had this theory that Chester would already know who he was.

“Maybe that’s why you stand out so much, hah!”

Chester blew the candle from the glass container which was sitting on top of the wooden table, casting a group of shadows mixed with hopes of light, flickering across the room. After it was blown out, the whole room turned to an eternal shadow, welcoming in the bright Moon which was protecting its citizens underneath him.

He left, closing the room behind him, but not before throwing him a heavy ring, tossing it to him like a coin flip

“Keep it, it’ll bring you luck”

After Chester left, Starter kept staring at the bright shadow of the moon, brightly casted in his room, thinking about his story until now.

Numerous questions ran around his mind, troubling him before trying to take some good rest.

“What if I don’t make it? What if I’m too weak, what if I—...”

Tens of minutes of deep thoughts later, Starter succeeded in taking a good night sleep in.

It was tomorrow morning. The birds were chirping outside his room, singing their daily morning routines.

Starter woke up with a pair of sleepy eyes, he couldn’t take a good night because his thoughts kept biting his mind.

He left the house, and that was the moment that the bright sunlights semi-blinded him, needing to block the hot coming rays of the sun.

Heading towards the exit of Chester’s parent’s place, he saw him in a small place that had a rooftop and was made out of stone and stone brick. Smashing a piece of red metal with his unusual size hammer, which took out loud sparks by the second. A lot of people were surrounding him, looking at Chester do his thing

“He’s pretty popular here”

Said Starter, nodding his head in approvement, following it up with a slight smile.

Starter wanted to make himself seen, heading himself out, but Chester dropped down the hammer and waved his hand in goodbye, over the crowd of people that was carefully watching him, giving out a quick smirk, then pointing his forearm out, showing him the Progression effect.

Starter extended his arm and formed his thumb upwards while his fist was closed, giving out a quick nod again.

Starter left Chester’s place and continued his Quests.

Right when he left, the floating notebook attached to the thin chain, took  out the same sound as before.

“A quest!”
Exclaimed Starter, happily

From that moment, a whole lot of adventures continued in Starter’s way, and even seeing places he couldn’t even dream in his wildest dreams, and meeting creatures he couldn’t even fathom that they could exist.

The three year, constant quest solving path has Started, and Starter is motivated and ready for what is about to come.

Many of the quests contained slaying different shapes and sized monsters, for example

The scene changes to the face expression of Starter meeting monsters bigger and tougher looking than him

“A bunch of gnomes?!”

“AAAAH! Get away, red-honey bees!”

“Why are the bat-winged fairies so rabid?!”

“AAAAAAAA ANTS ANTS ANTS! Stop going in where you shouldn’t!”

“Why does this pond have so many ducks with human teeth in it? OF COURSE THEY HAVE BAT WINGS AND CAN FLY!”

Of course it was a joke, at Starter’s level he can get only monsters that are around his Progression or one-two Progressions higher, but he was still scared of them because of how dangerous and how many of them there were. But even if he was scared or not, he kept continuing, even if he got damaged in many places, it hurt him so bad that he wanted to quit, Starter continued. The fear and damage taken inside his body wouldn’t hurt him as bad as if he would quit permanently, there was no way he would quit, not now, not close to the end, neither.

But the quests started to vary. Once he got a quest at Progression 10, to protect a very small home, on top of a green hill, from bright-blue mushrooms, which were throwing tiny spears towards him, but each spear hit on his skin, would numb his senses on that part. If he wasn’t careful enough, the house in which someone surely lived would go down, destroyed, and he couldn’t let that happen, no matter what. Even if he was bigger than everything there, he still had a hard time protecting the home, which only got a window broken into, by the push of a mushroom’s spear.

Starter also acquired items, just like he acquired his stick in the first place, through a letter falling down from the sky, but this time it was a stronger weapon, and faster, it was a hammer with three ends, instead of one, very light but made out of entire black metal material.

And even had the chance to get the “Tear of Faith” from a quest, where he eliminated two monsters that were the exact same, but one of them laughing and the other one crying, they were two flying demons. The chances for that item to drop were one to a billion, but he still didn’t know what he could do with it, so he just kept it in his Inventory.

After he acquired Progression 41, exactly three years later, it was time for Starter to head back to the place where he parted with Chester, but the only thing was that he didn’t know how to go back to that place, that’s how much he traveled. But suddenly, something happened. His notebook was thrown to the ground by itself, and the pages started to light to a very bright yellow color.

A loud scream was heard from the sky, like someone was falling. Starter looked up and narrowed his eyes, trying to understand who or what it was. It was Chester, screaming like a girl, trying to grab onto something but there was only the air.

“Chester! I can catch you, I can catch you!”
Exclaimed Starter joyfully, standing underneath him, having his arms open wide

“Go away, idiot, do you want to become a pancake?”
Replied Chester, with a yell

Chester reached out for his pants pocket and threw a blue cube on the ground, from which a dark-blue goo emerged, covering the ground on a height of five meters.

Chester got out and shook the rest of the goo off him.

“This is really convenient, I was just about to come for you. Also, how did you get up there?”

“So… there was this girl… and… forget it, good to see you again, Starter”
Said Chester, smilingly, being out of breath, with his helmet almost falling off.

“Shall we go?”

Asked Starter, showing his Progression level

“Haha, you really did it, eh?”

Both of their notebooks lit up with bright colors and harmonic sounds.

“A quest!”
Shouted both of them, excitedly