Time Skip: A month

I walked around a large town, staring down at that map that I had of the continent, and was zoomed in on a town named Hargeon. I was walking down the street trying to find a shop that was somewhere around here.

I turned the corner and looked up past the side of my hood to see the sign that I was looking for. I put my map away and pulled my hood farther over my head to make sure that it wouldn't fall off before walking in and seeing an old man behind the counter, he was wearing a hat and had squinting eyes, with a long skinny neck.

"Hello, how can I help you today?" He asked me as I approached the counter.

"I'm looking for magic shops." I told him. "And this seems to be the only one that's listed on my map."

"Oh, well that would be because this is the only magic shop." He smiled at me happily.

"The only magic shop in town?" I asked him, not believing that such a large town would only have one magic shop.

"That's right" He said. "And don't be mistaken for its size, not many people here in Hargeon actually use magic often."

"How could that be if this is a magic-based game?" I asked him.

"Well not everyone is put out to be a wizard." The old man said. "I mean look at me, I'm old and frail anymore these days. The game's system could see that and didn't assign me to a magical roll because I'm not strong enough to be able to defend myself."

"You're real?" I asked, and he nodded. "So far I've only met AI shop keepers." I told him, and I couldn't help but ask. "Why are you here?"

"My grandchildren were the ones that got me interested in games. Especially since I'm old and can't travel very easily anymore. So they got me the nerve gear system so I could still go places." He told me smiling at me.

"And are your grandkids in the game as well?" I asked him.

"Thankfully no." He told me. "They don't have a nerve gear system yet, they're too young to be using it. And after this, I don't think my son will let them even touch it." He looked down at the counter and laughed to himself for a moment. "Now." He looked up to look at me and put on his working smile. "How can I help you?"

"I'm looking for some Celestial Spirit keys." I told him straight out. "I heard that this shop might have some."

"Well let me check." He waved his hand down and started searching through the store's inventory. After about a minute he hit an item on the list and a small display box showed up on the counter. "Is this what you're looking for?" He slid it towards me and there was a silver key, with what looked like a blue dog on it.

"Yes, that is a celestial key!" I said, trying not to get too excited about it in case he was going to up the price on me. "How much?"

"Twenty-thousand jewel."

"I'm sorry?" I said and felt like I just had an aneurysm. "I thought I heard you say twenty-thousand?"

"That's right." He told me with a nod. "Even though this key isn't the most powerful, it is still a powerful magic. And therefore gives you expensive magic."

"But twenty-thousand jewels?" I questioned. How was this key so expensive when I bought probably stronger silver keys just a few weeks ago, nowhere near even half of that. And that's including golden keys.

"If you don't want it, then I'll sell it to someone else who does." He told me and went to put it back into the inventory.

"No!" I yelled and grabbed the box before it went back into the inventory. He looked at me, and I huffed out a sigh. "I'll take it."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I can't believe that old man, just made me spend twenty-thousand jewels on one silver key." I complained as I walked down the sidewalk. As I turned the corner there was a large group of girls screaming and cheering in the middle of the road.

"Salamander!" Was the only thing I heard coming from the large group of girls other than some fangirl screams. I rolled my eyes not wanting to know why a bunch of girls were fangirling over a lizard.

But when I turned around, I suddenly stopped in my tracks as I heard a laugh. It was so, enchanting. Hearts appeared in my HUD and I turned back around and couldn't help but walk towards the laugh. Something was definitely wrong and I couldn't stop. I could feel my heart was racing and I couldn't tell if I was panicking or not.

"Ladies, ladies." The source of the laugh called out to the girls surrounding him. "There's plenty of me to go around." I walked up to him and I couldn't help but want to touch him. My hand had a mind of its own and reached out to try to touch him, and he met me halfway. He grabbed my hand and pulled me towards him. As he wrapped his arms around my waist he pulled me close, before whispering. "Where have you been all my life?" Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that my temperature was rising. He was tall with spikey dark blue hair and had a tattoo above his eye. He started leaning in towards me with a smirk on his face and I tried everything to resist, but I couldn't move.

"Igneel! It's me!" A voice cried out as the man in front of me backed up and looked towards the voice, and so did I. A pink-haired boy and a flying blue cat had pushed their way towards the center of the group and after sounding so excited, he was now disappointed.

He took, just half a second, to glance at me. And when our eyes met, something happened to my eyes. My HUD glitched around and it was like I heard static directly in my ear. The glitching stopped and the hearts in my HUD shattered and I could now look at the man from before without going crazy, and my temperature finely went back to normal. I ripped my hand away from him and pulled my hood securely back over my head. Thankfully it didn't fall too far back from this apparent celebrity. I could see that he was looking at me when I turned away from him to get myself away from the center of the attention that had a choke hold on half the town's female population.

"Who the heck are you?" I heard the pink haired boy ask as I reached the outer edge of the group. I walked over to a bakery and stood on the steps to get a better look and to try and blend back into the background.

"Who am I?" The man said as he got startled and apparently offended. He held up his hand to show off his rings and strike a pose, I squinted at his rings trying to use my elf eyes to see a little clearer view of his rings. A notification popped up on my HUD after I could see one of the rings clearly before he moved. "I am Salamander, surely you've heard of me before." But the pink-haired boy was already making his way down the street. "Hey! Wait a second!" He got offended again.

Suddenly girls started tackling him and hitting him and saying something about disrespecting Salamander. I swiped down on my menu and quickly went to my index, I had discovered a new magic.

'Ring Magic'

One of the rings that this Salamander was wearing had a heart on it, but the other one I hadn't been able to make out completely. The small image on the unknown ring had looked like something I had seen before, but without a clear view of it I had no idea. Doubt a smudge could be very important.

I looked back at my index to read what I had to learn about Ring Magic.

'Ring Magic is a type of magic that allows the caster to cast different Magics and spells with special rings. The rings are meant to enhance the wielder's magic power, granting them the ability to cast various spells for different purposes; some can be used for everyday use or for combat. The properties in each ring are completely varied. In addition, while there are various types of Ring Magic that can be used, some are simply spells without a proper Magic for them to back it up.'

I looked up at Salamander pissed as I realized what happened. Salamander was using that heart ring of his to cast a spell on every girl in the city and had them all wrapped around his creepy little fingers.

I closed my menu and crossed my arms before leaning up against the door frame, waiting to see what happened next in the crap show.

"Now, now my lovelies. Take it easy, I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it." The creep called out to the girls that were in a pile beating the crap out of the pink-haired boy. Suddenly hearing his voice again, they stopped and went back to drooling over him. "Here kid have my autograph, go ahead and brag to all your friends."

"Yeah, no thanks." The pink-haired boy said and this time it was the girls that got offended as they looked like they were really going to rip his head off this time. And in no time, he was thrown in my direction and landed upside down in the trash a few feet away from me. Stong ladies. "Definitely not him." I heard him mumble into the trash heap he was now a part of.

"Well ladies, it's time for me to go." Salamander said and snapped his fingers, and he started floating on what looked like purple fire. Must be his real magic. "I'm having a party on my yacht tonight. And you're all invited!" He said as he flew away from the screaming and crying girls, who only chased him down the road. I rolled my eyes and looked over at the pink-haired boy as he was finally crawling out of the trash. 

I took a deep breath as I really didn't want to talk to him, I didn't think I was going to be able to trust him. Ever since I learned about what being an Elf meant, I was reluctant to trust or even talk to anybody. But I at least had to thank him.

"Who was that guy?" He said as he looked in the direction of where Salamander had flown off too.

"I don't know, but he was definitely a creep." I piped up, I think this had to be the first time I've spoken to someone in the game that had nothing to do with a quest. He and his blue cat looked at me. "Thanks for saving me." He looked at me confused and I looked up at my hunger level and it looked like I was getting low. "Could you guys use some food?" I asked and they lit up like a Christmas tree.