The next morning, global chat was abuzz with too many messages to count.
Across tens of thousands of layers and at least a thousand guilds, almost everyone wanted to get here first.
It took me a long while to figure out how I, we, were going to be first.
"What am I on about? I can teleport. I'll teleport." I hit myself in the back of the head, aggravated at the slip-up.
While teleportation was dangerous, there were many ways to do it safely.
I had spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I would teleport, because there were a few requirements.
The biggest being I needed to know where to teleport, in near exact locations.
I had snuck past this requirement with the friends system before, friending someone for a few moments and using that to find them, but this time I had a very fun idea.
After walking outside the bathhouse, I looked into the sky, sighing before using Mana Push on myself to go straight up.
The force simply wasn't enough to lift me in one cast, but that wasn't a problem for me.
Since the beginning of being a mage, I trained in multicasting, the ability to cast multiple spells at once.
There of course was math involved, and that ended with the idea I would need to cast the spell around six times a second to hover, or use thirty mana per second.
It was a steep price, and it only went higher if I wanted to move, but right now I didn't need to fight.
After formulating twenty magic circles, I used them to propel myself into the sky at a stunning rate.
It only took another second before I was able to form twenty more and shoot up at an even greater speed.
As the world around me became clear, I couldn't help but see it in all its terrible design.
Every region we came across was nearly a perfect square, mountains covering the areas with nothing in them.
"What a fucking disappointment," I say, looking around even more.
It looked like a rushed mess of a game, but that's what it felt like at times as well.
It was something I thought about a bit.
Second wave?
A map that seems incomplete?
And an MMORPG style of existence...
Once we beat the raid, I could only assume there would be an "update."
Something that changed the world fundamentally.
Just like how doing the sewer dungeon changed so much about the NPCs.
With all that boiling inside my head, it took me a second to snap back to reality and start looking for my target.
Tracing the path to the Leviathan Coast, then around the coast, I could see the faint outline of tents and movement, I could even see a flag flying.
I was almost in awe for a moment, the idea that maybe, maybe this was where my family was.
I couldn't escape my own hope.
Thankfully my next step was simple enough, I just needed to extend a leyline to the ground near the city, a vast green plain.
Once it extended there, I started forming a leyanchor around a mile away, then let myself fall.
It was a good distance to fall, and it was an experience like no other.
In life I was a mix of too young and too afraid to skydive, so I could only thank this world for giving me the opportunity.
Once I was close enough to the ground, I slowed myself, looking to see that only one person in the guild was standing there.
"Heyo, looks like I'm the only one, Mr. Guildmaster," Jane said, laughing a bit.
"Yah..." It was the last thing I needed to have her go with me, but I wasn't going to tell her no. "You look good in your new gear."
"Thanks! Took a while, but it's nice." She responds, the conversation reminding me to equip my new gear.
She looks at me for a moment, then smiles.
"How are we getting there?" she asks. "Walking?"
"No, no. I'll teleport us about a half mile out from what I think is their village. It's in an adjacent region to the coast."
"Ohhh, big shot," she says with a smile.
"Hm hm," I fake laugh, nervousness taking over as I close my eyes and shut her out.
Forming the portal was relatively easy, only taking a few minutes.
Once the portal was opened and I could see the other end, I was impressed.
It almost reminded me of the Fields of Peace, but without all the extra mind-numbing.
"Well, ladies first," I say.
"Yah right, you're not holding a door," she says, pushing me forward and into the portal.
The breeze was the first thing I noticed as it calmly waved through the region.
In the distance I could see the small tent city and hear chanting and music.
"This is nice," Jane says, looking around and starting to walk ahead of me.
"Yah..." I say, trailing behind.
In my head I was dusting off memories of almost every language I heard on Earth, trying to catalog every way I knew to say "hello" so I could try to find one that worked.
As we grew closer, the music coming from the village grew louder as the rhythmic chanting nearly enchanted me.
That was something I missed, music.
I loved music, but there seemed to be a lackluster amount of bards and even fewer that bothered performing in the street.
Over every tent I could see elaborate patterns and designs, and as we got closer, I could see two people standing guard.
They were tall humanoids, one with the body of a tiger and the other with the body of a lion.
It was intimidating walking up to them, but there really wasn't any choice.
Preparing for a bit of hostility, I put my hands up. It was clear they had seen us from a while away, and I tried to remember to smile when I finally said,
"Can you understand me?" I say quietly.
"You should say it louder, Tero," Jane said, now firmly behind me.
"Yah well you do it then," I quip back, trying my best to hold the glare of the men.
"Atnsd itlsl," the lion said in a language that I couldn't begin to understand.
It was unlike anything on Earth, and used sounds I wasn't even very sure I could make.
Still, I stopped just in case and looked at them for a while before the tiger turned his back.
"Lil egt hte ihecf," he said, using completely different phonetic tones.
"Do you understand this at all, Jane?"
"They told us to stay still, then went to get, like, a leader," she says, a bit unsure.
"How do you know?"
"I'm a druid, I can sorta understand animals."