The first thing to do before a long journey was gather the supplies needed to survive it.
Even with a flying mount, it would take a few hours to reach their destination. Water, food, warm clothes to handle the cold and wind — all necessary.
Bram wandered through his shop, then up to the floor above where he lived, digging through his things for something Arthur could wear.
It took him a while to find anything useful.
"Unfortunately I don’t have anything a level 1 can equip, but I’ve got a cloak that should do the job," he said.
The cloak was solid black, long enough to cover his whole body, with a hood attached. The fabric itself was something else.
"This fabric adjusts to the environment, warmer or colder depending on what you need. Works for any climate."
[Cloak of the Four Seasons (Legendary)]
[Level requirement: 1]
[Defense: 10]
[Bonuses: +20% to all elemental defenses]
The cloak was ridiculously strong. The defense stat wasn’t much, but that was normal for any cloak. The elemental resistance, though, that was the real prize.
Arthur took the gift with a grin.
"You just hand out legendary items like it’s nothing," he said. "That’s insane."
Bram frowned.
"To me, this stuff is common. Give it time, you’ll get there too."
Once the supplies were sorted, Arthur and Bram left the city through the front gate. It was the middle of the night, an odd hour for anyone to be heading out, but the guards had no authority to stop someone who wanted to leave.
On the way, Arthur pulled up the system to check how things stood. The current rank 1 on the server, by level, was sitting at level 3, under the name Ignite.
’Leveling fast. Don’t remember that name, though.’
Something else caught his attention too, something he’d missed before. Watching Bram forge, he still hadn’t unlocked his Fire Mastery.
’Guess I need to watch a few more times.’
Still, every crafting profession sat unlocked in his menu already. For any normal player, that shouldn’t even be possible.
In Chronos Online, a player could only hold 1 crafting profession and 2 gathering professions. That limit was what kept trade and cooperation between players alive.
Arthur, because of his Soul Artisan class, had every single profession open to him from the start. All he needed now were the right tools to actually craft something.
He ran a quick check on his passives and active skills. Every class usually started with at least one. His had nothing.
That got him thinking.
’Maybe I need to craft something first? That would make sense.’
It was just a guess, the first one that came to mind. No way to test it yet, but he’d try the second he could.
"Our destination is the Frozen Kingdom of Aldora."
"Seriously?"
That caught Arthur off guard. Aldora was one of the starting kingdoms players could pick, but it was also the least populated of them all.
Before launch, anyone planning to play had already read up and watched hours of footage on every kingdom.
Aldora, gorgeous under all that snow, was also brutal. At the start of the game, players had zero resistance to the cold, forcing them to fight under debuffs that gutted their combat stats.
That meant everyone in that kingdom leveled painfully slow, especially in the early game.
So while the other kingdoms were flooded with players — practically raining from the sky — Aldora stayed close to empty.
Arthur had barely touched that kingdom in his last life, but he’d read enough about it. From what people said on the forums, Aldora held the most quests, hidden locations, and secret items out of any kingdom in the game.
Plenty of players made a point of exploring it later, once they had the level and gear to actually survive the cold.
"You know Aldora?" Bram asked, glancing over at him.
"Never been. Just heard stories," Arthur said. "Speaking of which, I’m Arthur. Never got around to saying that."
Bram barked out an awkward laugh. "Fair enough. Some master I am, don’t even know my own disciple’s name."
He clapped Arthur on the back hard enough to send him stumbling forward, nearly face-first into the dirt.
"Don’t know your name, but I’m already handing you legendary gear. That’s what counts, right kid?"
He had a point. Arthur wasn’t about to complain about the help, even if some part of him still wondered what favor Bram would eventually ask for in return.
"We’re here," Bram said.
They’d stopped in the middle of a forest not far from the city. Arthur looked around. Nothing.
"What exactly am I supposed to be looking at?"
Bram grinned. "Bob, come on out."
Arthur froze. Right in front of them, something was there.
The creature faded into view slowly, shedding whatever camouflage had kept it completely invisible a second ago.
It was some kind of chameleon, huge, with four wings folded against its back. Arthur had never seen anything like it.
"Wait. Bob? That’s actually its name?"
"You like it?"
"...Sure. Yeah."
Strange name for a creature like that, but hey, not his place to judge.
"With him we can stay hidden while we fly, skip any fights with flying monsters. Cuts our travel time down a lot."
They climbed onto the chameleon’s back and took off, leaving the floating island behind, flying toward the Frozen Kingdom of Aldora.
Arthur could barely sit still. He couldn’t wait to meet the other players.