He soon arrives at the market district, and goes straight to the large department store to sell his drops. The spine panthers had dropped panther spines unsurprisingly, the hobgoblins Ironwood clubs, and the other monsters had dropped various random items.
Sen earns ten F ranked hobgoblin crystals out of that, which are unsurprisingly the base crystal for F rank. Once he has gotten paid, he asks about the skill book, and learns he can buy any of the first level body skill manuals for a horribly expensive 100 F ranked crystals, or 5 E ranked crystals. As for G rank crystals, he will never get the two thousand of them required to buy it. Interestingly, body enhancement skills start at rank F, unlike most skills, which will start at rank G.
After learning that he can only sell the skill book for 50 F ranked crystals, he decides to try and trade it with another player who has the air version of it. Tir helpfully informs him that there is a trade kiosk in the center of the market district which is instanced, so there will never be any sort of line for it.
He walks over with a spring in his step. Once he arrives, he enters the booth, which is basically just a small building, and he searches for the different bone enhancement skill books. After looking through the different options, he frowns. He can not only sell all of his loot drops here, he can also buy all of the body skill enhancements up to C rank.
He wonders why he has wasted time at the department store like place for a bit, until he notices that the prices at the kiosk are slightly worse. Bones Like Copper, for example, sells for 110 F ranked cores, and he will only get a crystal of the same rank by selling four loot drops instead of three.
Slightly mollified that his time hasn't been wasted, he quickly leaves the store section, and navigates to the trade section. Unfortunately, nobody had posted an air bone skill method for an earth one, so he posts the trade himself.
Hoping that someone will answer his trade, Sen browses through the other trades, noting that the average price in crystals for an F ranked body skill is around 80 F rank energy crystals. The fire version bone enhancement skill is the most popular, as it actually gives a resistance to poisons, disease, and frost attacks, debuffs which will likely become more and more common as the people progress to later bosses. The air version is actually the least popular, selling for a bit under eighty F ranked cores.
Every time a fire element bone skill will get posted, even for eighty five crystals instead of the normal eighty, it sells in less than a minute. That is most likely being done by guilds, as he doubts any solo players will have enough crystals to buy them.
Closing the shop, he walks out of the instanced kiosk, and decides to log out again to satisfy the needs that come with far, far too much coffee. He quickly deals with them, and grabs another cup of coffee anyway, leaving a quick note to his sister to meet up at twelve am, thinks a moment, then scratches out the twelve and writes down fourteen am. He leaves the note on the coffee machine, as he was sure she will be looking for as much caffeine as he was.
Once he has finished his coffee, he hops back in game. The first thing he does is go back to the kiosk, and he is ecstatic that someone has accepted the trade he had posted, likely some guild trying to gear up their tank.
He quickly takes the skill book "Bones Like Air" into his inventory before asking Tir where he can go to to try and learn it. Tir quickly calls one of the automated vehicles, and this time Sen isn't so attached to his sword that he has to bring it with him, storing it in his inventory for convenience's sake.
They soon arrive at one of the massive skyscrapers, and Sen goes inside, Tir guiding him to enter the first room he sees. Tir informs him that it is instanced so he shouldn't bother trying to find an empty one.
"I'm really curious, if these rooms are instanced, why do they bother making the buildings actual skyscrapers? You'd think they would make you get an actual room"
"It's to balance realism with convenience. If you really feel like it you can pick one of the more out of the way rooms."
Deciding that he really doesn't want to bother doing that, Sen follows Tir's suggestion to enter the first room he sees. Once he is inside, he sees a wooden floor with plain decor. A straw dummy stands off to one side, and a rack of weapons to try out are on the other side, with a small desk at the back. The walls match the floor, being plain wood, and Sen wonders what will happen if he tried to chop through them for a bit.
Dismissing the thought, he goes over and sits in the amazingly comfortable chair in front of the desk, taking out his shiny Bones Like Air skillbook. As he opens it, he skims over the introduction, which basically states that as he practices it, his bones will become slightly more resilient, significantly lighter, and he will be able to control the air around him to a certain extent.
Sen blinks, the last bit hadn't been noted in the description in the store. He wonders for a moment if all the air body skill books will increase his control over air, before opening it to the next page, which makes him frown.
What is shown is a diagram of the human body, with the overall flow of energy that will be required to practice the skill. The next hundred plus pages are more detailed for each bone or set of bones, though thankfully it mentions that you can learn the flow of each bone individually before moving on to the next, and once you set up the flow for a certain bone, it will start to automatically follow the pattern.
"Tir, do I really have to do all of this?"
"Of course. Once you learn how it feels from the first bone however, it becomes much easier and more instinctual. While the first bone on average takes a week to learn, the second requires a day, and the tenth less than an hour."
Sen groans, it is going to take him a week just to get the first bone done? He would give up on this game if the rest of it wasn't as fantastic as it was. He quickly decides that he will spend a small portion of every day practicing his new skill, as the control over air bit calls to him, but he will spend the majority of his time hunting.
He decides to start with his spine, as he won't have any issues with balance from one side of his body becoming lighter than the other, and looks at the diagram for the spine. The spine is treated as one large bone in the skill book, instead of each vertebra having its own flow of energy.
The first thing he does is look at the guide very carefully, before asking Tir how he will even know when he got it right.
"If you manage to get the flow correct, it will lock in place and begin smoothly flowing on its own."
Frowning, Sen looks at the guide as he slowly attempts to force his energy into the same pattern he sees in the book. At parts, the energy will relaxedly flow, at others it is like a raging wind, and at yet others it will swirl in place. He slowly copies it, and as he does so, he feels that he can almost sense his bones, as if he is seeing without his eyes.
Sen gets lost in the sensation of moving his energy around as he continues. In a way, it is terribly calming, focusing on nothing but the flow of energy. His trance continues for an unknown amount of time, until he is called back due to biological needs, sensations carrying over from his physical body.
Before logging out, he checks the time on the menu, and is horrified to notice that he has somehow lost three hours, and hasn't even managed to get the basics of the flow correct. Logging out, he takes care of the needs caused by drinking copious amounts of coffee, but still goes to get more, as he is starting to get quite tired.
Once he arrives, he notes that Lynna has agreed to meet up in real life at fourteen am, an hour before noon. Checking the time, he sees that it is already ten AM, but figures he can get in a bit more hunting, though both his in-game and physical body are starting to get quite sore from all of the fighting he had been doing. He still finds it odd that they will stimulate your muscles as you play to imitate the motions you do in game, leading to your physical body and digital body both feeling tired.
Hopping back into his capsule, he is soon met with the familiar sights of Falan. He quickly has Tir call him one of the automated vehicles, and goes out to the field, deciding not to go into the forest, as he doesn't want to die and be unable to meet up with Lynna.
He picks on the poor G ranked creatures for quite some time, and soon gets far enough afield that he is once again seeing new monsters, a strange creature that looks like a walking mushroom with sharp teeth, and what seems to be a smaller version of the spine panther. After eating a few crystals from each of them, he hears a sound ding in his ears in a similar manner to how he hears Tir, and he checks his stats page, gratified to see his strength stat has finally leveled up to E.
He spends the rest of the hunt with a grin on his face, but isn't able to get any of his other stats to E by the time the alarm he had set to meet up with Lynna goes off. Quick traveling back to Falan, he logs off to arrange a place to meet up with his sister.
Once he is out, he heads to the kitchen, as he needs food as much as he needs to meet up with his sister. Pouring himself a bowl of cereal, Lynna soon stumbles into the kitchen, looking utterly exhausted.
"How do you not look like you're dying? I was hunting for a couple hours and now I feel like my muscles are going to fall off!"
Sen shrugs. He'd always kept in excellent shape ever since he remembered his previous life or taken over this body, he still isn't sure which, and hunting is more walking than actual fighting, not that the actual combat will last more than a couple minutes, even with groups of mobs. If he hadn't been using his full strength to fight each monster, he wouldn't even be particularly tired.
"Well if you keep playing, you may end up becoming a bit less round," he teases his sister.
"Hey, it's not my fault food is so delicious and exercise sucks so much."
"Well this game gives you a good workout while you're passed out, so at least you'll be enjoying the exercise now."
Lynna smiles, she is definitely enjoying this new form of exercise.
"So what is the point of joining a school anyway? You can buy all the body skills at the big store or the trading kiosk."
"Yeah you can get those, but they don't sell any active abilities. You'll need to join a school or buy from other players to get those, and right now the prices for active abilities are inflated like crazy. It takes me the equivalent of fifty crystals of the same rank for an active ability, while they're selling for over two hundred right now."
Sen nods in understanding, then he and Lynna soon agree to meet at the entrance of the Lotus school she had chosen.