Everyone has that game that draws them in like a second life. For me that game was Cursed Kingdoms.

It was an older text based game that came out long before I was born, before VR games were even a concept, and before developers focused more on graphics than they did story.

The setting was that you would be given a random character, with random stats and talents, and your goal is to purge all the kingdoms of the curses that were cast upon them. Along the way you would gather allies, upgrade your abilities, and discover unique items that could dramatically change your playing experience.

It was a text based game so you would have to imagine everything, but because of the lack of graphics there was an incredible depth to the story. The characters were rich with personality and their individual motivations made them all different. I loved it so much that even while my peers were playing VR games where they could emulate the feeling of actually being in the game world I was still playing Cursed Kingdoms while relying solely on my imagination for my experiences.

However I didn't feel jealous. Instead I felt somewhat sorry that they would never give this incredible game a chance just because it was old.

I felt even more sure of that choice now, more than ever, as I was standing at the edge of a boat deck staring out at the water.

It had only been a couple hours since I woke up on an unfamiliar boat but I quickly accepted the situation as I realized that I was not on Earth anymore.

"Sigh... It's still incredible to me that I am in the world of Cursed Kingdoms."

I turned around and looked at the crew of sailors busily preparing to dock.

I knew this was the game world from the conversation I overheard when I woke up in a panic on the boat. They had mentioned the port of New Visca.

New Visca was the starting point of the game. You would always be coming to New Visca in some way.

On a boat. On a train. A born citizen. By plane. There were many unique ways to find yourself there.

"Character."

I said quietly to myself.

Immediately a character screen appeared before me. This was obviously not in the original game, since the original game was a text based game you would just click on the Character Screen tab, but I had heard this was common for VR games.

I tried it since I was curious and thankfully it worked.

I looked at my character screen to get a better understanding of how I should start. The world would only get more dangerous as time went on so it was prudent that I get strong and start cleansing the curses in each of the kingdoms.

I didn't think I was destined for greatness in this world, since there were a lot of allies you would find in the game who were incredibly powerful, but I had beaten the game hundreds of times. I knew the best strategies for a lot of situations and I knew not using that knowledge because I was afraid would only lead to innocent people dying.

However my start wasn't too promising this time. 

[Name: Dorian Toxbane]

[Title: None]

[Stats - 

Strength : 3

Constitution : 3

Agility : 5

Dexterity : 8

Intelligence : 17

Wisdom : 10

Faith : 0

Charm : 10

Luck : 10]

[Skills: Hide (F-Rank)]

[Talents: Upgrade (F-Rank)

My physical stats were incredibly low, with my Intelligence only being slightly higher than an average persons, and my Faith was literally 0.

The average person's stats were 10, with variations here and there, but I had several that were less than some I had ever seen.

As someone with no physical handicaps my low stats couldn't be explained other than bad luck. The only upside was that my starting stats were low, but nothing held me back from improving them later on.

Other than my stats I was also without any incredibly useful skills. Hide was okay, being able to hide from danger was incredibly useful, but having no other skills meant that my first objective would be to find a way to get some combat skills.

"PREPARE TO LAND!"

I turned my gaze away from the screen and towards the helm of the ship. Past the head of the ship I could see that the once distant shore was now directly ahead of us. I heard a splash from the stern, or the back, of the ship which must have been the anchor dropping. I felt the ship halt for a brief moment before slowly coming to a stop.

The sailors quickly got busy with securing the ship to the dock while the passengers began to file off the ship via the plank.

I followed quietly behind them and looked around in awe.

'I've never been outside of my hometown.. This is all sort of exciting.'

I took in the lively atmosphere of the port town. Fishermen were shouting prices for their catches for the day while locals bartered with them. As I left the dock I had to walk through a busting market where all sorts of goods were being traded. I looked around absentmindedly but I continued to make my way out of the market.

As much as I would have liked to stay and look for treasures, my focus was on finding a place to stay first.

I only had ten silver with me so I didn't exactly have the funds to spare on anything that wasn't immediately necessary.

The downside of Cursed Kingdoms having been a text based game was that I didn't know where I was in the town at all. I knew however that the best place to stay in the beginning of the game was an inn called "The Boar".

So I spent the next hour walking through the town in search of this one inn.

When I was about to give in and ask for directions I happened to turn a corner before running straight into the chest of someone. Because of my 3 Strength I was easily knocked over.

"Ow..."

My butt was hurting from falling directly onto the stone road. I slowly turned my head up before making eye contact with the person I had run into.

'Beautiful.'

I thought to myself.

"Watch where you're going shit stain."

Immediately I was pulled out of my stupor by the words spoken by this beautiful woman. She had short brown hair, which wasn't uncommon but she definitely wore it better than many women I had seen before who tried pulling off the short hair look.

"I'm sorry. I will watch where I am going better next time."

I quickly stood up and bowed slightly towards the woman.

She didn't say anything. Instead she just grunted and walked inside the building next to us with the rest of her group.

'If only her mouth wasn't so dirty she could easily be mistaken for a nobl-'

My thoughts stopped as I noticed the sign above the building she had just entered.

[The Boar]

[Tavern & Inn]

I slowly smiled to myself.

"What a coincidence. Hope she doesn't get the wrong idea of me following her inside."

I dusted myself off and headed inside. As if I took off earmuffs I was immediately assaulted by the loud noise coming from inside the building.

There was a bard on a small stage performing a song about an epic story from a distant land while he played a simple tune on his guitar. Drunk sailors and mercenaries cheered happily while listening to his performance.

Further from the stage was a bar. Behind the counter was a small woman. The first feature that caught my attention was her somewhat disproportionately large bust.

Out of embarrassment I quickly looked away and coughed into my fist. I collected myself and walked up to the bar. I saw the barkeep was busy so I sat and patiently waited for her to get to me.

Finally after servings a group of five men with large mugs of liquor she walked towards me while wiping her hands with a rag that she stuffed back into her front apron pocket.

"Hey there youngin'. Welcome to The Boar, how can I help you?"

Now that she was up close I could see that she was quite a beauty. She gave off a homely vibe with her simple looks and round features.

Smiling I politely responded.

"How much for a room?"

"2 silver for the night, 5 for three days and 10 for a week."

I nodded while thinking about what offer I should take.

After a while I reached into my coin purse and took out five smooth silver coins. I handed them to the barkeep who quickly turned around, grabbed a key off the wall, and turned back to me while holding it out.

"There you go. Room 2 upstairs. Second door on the right. If you decide to stay it'll be the same price."

I smiled and took the key from her while thanking her. I stood up and quickly made my way up the stairs to the left of the bar.

Once upstairs I let myself into Room number 2 and closed the door gently behind me. I took a quick glance around the room.

A small wooden bed, a small table, and a wooden chair. I took off my cloak and put it on the back of the chair. I would have liked to take the deal to stay a whole week for only 10 silver but I couldn't spend all my money right now.

As the saying goes: "You have to spend money to make money."

It seemed that in all worlds this was true.

I decided to not eat anything tonight and instead I was feeling tired so I laid down. Although I had woken up on the boat less than ten hours ago, my mind was tired from the new situation and I fell asleep only a few minutes after laying down.

****

I breathed in the fresh cold morning air as I walked towards the market I had passed through yesterday.

I had woken up feeling a little sore, since the wooden bed was not that comfortable, but I didn't care much about that compared to the grumbling my stomach was making.

I had walked by a lot of restaurants but I didn't want to waste my money on overpriced meals. Instead I was going to make my own meal for two reasons.

First I would save myself some money by making my own food which was going to be really helpful.

Second I wanted to sell some of the food to try and make some money.

I walked around the market and picked up simple ingredients. I bought two loaves of bread for ten copper, a dozen eggs for one silver, and another silver for simple seasonings.

With that I took the ingredients back with me to The Boar. Since it was so early the barkeep was sleeping at the counter, and when I woke her up to ask if I could use the kitchen in the back real quick she relented just to get me to leave her alone so she could sleep.

I smiled and walked into the back. If this was like other games I would probably be able to gain a cooking skill if I were to just try cooking, but Cursed Kingdoms was more conventional than that.

I wouldn't gain a skill by just blindly jumping into practicing, because you don't really learn anything from that unless you have a gift for something.

Cooking was one of those things. I would have to either study recipe books or learn from a mentor. However that didn't mean you wouldn't be able to produce anything edible just because you didn't have the skill.

I quickly made six egg sandwiches with salt and pepper. It was a meal I had many times on Earth. It was a fulfilling breakfast that was hard to mess up.

I quickly ate one, brought one out to the barkeep to eat, and then made my way to the pier with my four sandwiches. I quickly sold them for 50 copper and left. The crew of the ship told me that if I came back tomorrow they would buy my sandwiches again.

I would have to set aside 1 silver and 50 copper for enough eggs for the eight sailors. I then set aside another 30 copper to have enough for the bread. I had left over spices so I wouldn't have to worry about buying some more of those, which I was thankful for since spices were a luxury in this world so they were more expensive than other ingredients.

With that I had 3 silver and 10 copper to use for myself. I looked at my talent.

[Upgrade (F-Rank)]

[You are unable to level up, however in return your experience can be applied to skills, items, or talents to change them into something potentially better.]

"I guess that explains why I don't have a level. I thought maybe that wouldn't appear until I got some experience but I guess it won't appear at all. This is good news though. I've never seen this talent before but it sounds really broken."

I knew that I could go down any path I wanted with this talent so it was now a matter of what I wanted to do. This was now my life so I would prefer to not take unnecessary risks. I didn't know if I could start over when I died but I wasn't going to move with the presumption that I would.

The most important thing for me would be to get my hands on as many skills as I could. Typically you wouldn't waste your time with useless skills but if I could upgrade them then there was no telling what I might get.

I made my way towards the apothecary.

This time I decided to ask around since I couldn't just waste my day like I did yesterday. The apothecary would only be open for a certain amount of time, and it wasn't a guarantee I would be able to learn a skill in a day.

The apothecary was an inconspicuous building tucked between other shops on the main street through the city. The sign above the building had a picture of two potions next to each other with the words [Potions Potions Potions].

It wasn't the best place to learn potion making in the town but it was the only one I could potentially learn from.

I walked inside the store while a bell dinged to announce my arrival.

An old man came from the back of the shop to stand behind the counter with a soft smile on his face.

"What can I help you with young man?"

I bowed slightly in greeting since the man was much older than me.

"Hello sir. I wanted to ask if there was any chance I could just spend time in your shop and try my luck at learning something useful? I won't ask questions or interrupt your business. I just want to watch."

The old man furrowed his brow slightly, but it didn't look like he was annoyed at my request. Instead it was more of a look of skepticism. After a couple minutes of silence the old man's expression softened.

"I won't say no. It doesn't matter to me if you don't bother me or my business... But can I ask you something?"

I smiled brightly.

"Of course, sir, feel free to ask anything you would like."

Nodding seemingly to my respectful attitude the old man smiled while asking me a question.

"Why do you want to learn alchemy?"

Without hesitating I responded honestly.

"To make money."

*cough cough cough*

The old man began choking and I quickly began to step forward to help him. However he held his hand up to signal that he didn't need any help. After he finally passed his coughing fit he looked at me with an incredulous expression.

"That's it?!"

I nodded. I wasn't going to lie to the old man. Many people might lie to impress the old man, but that was the wrong approach.

This old man's name was Ivan Propysal. He was a junior alchemist with little talent, making him unable to teach advanced alchemy recipes but that wasn't why he was important. Instead it was because he was an easy to get along with person, but only if you were honest with him.

In the game he had an uncanny intuition if you were lying to him. This was explained by the dialogue choices you made at the beginning of the game but since this was real life I figured I just needed to tell the truth.

Ivan smiled and broke into laughter.

"Hah ha! That is perfectly understandable. A man has to eat somehow. With your frail frame I doubt that you could make money as a mercenary without some special skills. Alright, you can come into the back but ONLY when I am back there. If I catch you sneaking back there when I am not there I will kick you out immediately and you'll be banned from the shop."

I nodded showing my understanding. I would never dream of stealing from Ivan. Not only because I wanted to learn how to make potions but also because there was nothing in the store that was worth the trouble.

He was only a junior alchemist. At best I would be able to make a couple gold from selling something I stole. Which was a lot but not enough to make it worth it.

I then spent the rest of the day sitting in Ivan's shop watching him sell potions to mercenaries and watching as he made potions in the back.

As promised I didn't say a word as I watched him, instead I took mental notes on what items looked like in real life, and the amounts he would use for potions. I knew the ingredients by heart already. The game had a crafting system and I even knew the ingredients that went into legendary potions.

However it didn't say the amount of each ingredient or the way to process the ingredients in detail.

So I tried my best to really learn from Ivan. He didn't explain anything either and when it started getting dark he told me he was closing for the day. He said I can keep coming back as much as I want. I thanked him before leaving the main street to head back to The Boar.

When I got there I was about to head to bed hungry when the barkeep stopped me as I walked by.

"Hey kid!"

I turned to look at the barkeep, slightly startled by her sudden call. I knew she was talking to me because I was the only child in the place.

"Uh, yeah what do you need?"

"The chef is getting swamped with the amount of requests there are. You were in here earlier making eggs, do you think you can go back there and make eggs to help him? We'll pay you."

I thought about it for a second before agreeing. This wasn't just because I wanted to forge a good relationship with the inn, but also because I could potentially learn the cooking skill from the chef.

The barkeep smiled and lifted the folding counter to let me walk behind the bar.

"My name is Izzy by the way. The chef is my dad who owns The Boar, his name is Mike. As long as you listen and work hard he will reward you fairly."

I cautiously squeezed past her in the limited area behind the bar while introducing myself.

"My name is Dorian. I just came to New Visca yesterday."

Izzy smiled and patted me on the back as I walked by. I made my way to the kitchen and began working. Who knew I would be so happy to work in a fantasy world.