A/N: Sword Art Online is owned by A-1 Pictures, Aniplex USA, and Reki Kawahara and I am in no way affiliated with any of the afore mentioned parties.

Meditation

December 29th, 2022 8:15 pm

The sixth floor was modeled after what the players could only assume was Chinese countryside, there were large fields of rice paddies, wide rivers the meandered lazily around hills and reflected the setting suns orange glow. Then there were the trees, Bonsai trees, only much, much larger. It was under one such tree that the players discovered a man sitting in a meditative position.

They had come across him by complete accident as the party wandered the floor, searching for quests. Quests were very important to a player's survival; it was where players got the most experience, Col and items. Unfortunately the sixth floor seemed almost devoid of them, there were barely any repeatable quests, which was the most abundant type of quest.

So they were forced to explore and hopefully find some NPC that needed help somewhere and that was when the group had discovered the man.

"Um, hello?" Sky said quietly. The man did not respond, simply sat, meditating. "Hello? Excuse me?" She tried for several more minutes to get the NPC to speak, but he never did and Sky reluctantly abandoned the task, thinking that perhaps he didn't have any script.

Nearby sat a small field of rice paddies with several NPCs working them and the players hoped one of them had a quest. As they approached the group saw that none of them possessed a quest indicator.

"Jeez!" Cronan blew out a sigh of frustration. "There's like nothing to do here."

"We could always go to the labyrinth." Sky suggested and Vlinn immediately shut her down with a glare. If he could help it they would not be going anywhere near those death traps. Sky sighed and glanced around the rice paddies one more time hoping to see an indicator that they may have missed. In the closest paddy stood a young man, staring at the tree that the man was sitting under, the swordswoman waved her hand to catch her party's attention and then jerked her head at the man. Slowly, the group approached the NPC.

"Excuse me?" Vlinn said quietly and the NPC turned to him unhurriedly.

"Can I help you with something?" He asked as Sky and Cronan watched curiously.

"What can you tell me about that man?" The player gestured toward the Bonsai tree that the man was sitting under. As soon as the words left his mouth a golden exclamation point appeared over the young man's head.

"That is my father; five years ago he took a vow that he would meditate until this day." The NPC stared seriously at Vlinn. "In fact, he should be coming out right now, unfortunately I cannot leave these farmers by themselves, perhaps you could go and retrieve him for me?"

"Yes!" Cronan and Sky shouted simultaneously, even though it was a single player quest, it was still the only action the players had seen in a few days. Vlinn smiled and accepted the quest and then led the way back up the hill. As the group approached the man under the tree he stretched and stood up.

"Hello," Vlinn said to the man, smiling. "Your son sent us to bring you to him."

"Ah, did he now? Too busy to come himself I suppose." The lanky man rolled his neck in a circle.

"Ask him why he was meditating for five years." Sky whispered to the slightly taller player quietly, Vlinn relayed the question to the man and he smiled in response.

"Mastering meditation has more benefits than you can imagine son, even in combat."

"In combat?"

"Aye, I could show you if you wanted, only thing is, you have to prove yourself to me."

"How?" The player licked his lips and rubbed his hands together excitedly, maybe this would be another awesome skill like Cronan's Martial Arts, which were pretty devastating. Sky and Vlinn had been witness to Cronan impaling a monster with his hand, it sent a shiver down Vlinn's spine just thinking about it.

"You have to show me you have the patience, son. I want you to meditate for twelve hours; I'll come and get you when it is time." And with that the man turned and walked toward the rice paddies, where his son awaited him.

"What the hell are we supposed to do?" Cronan complained.

"We waited for you," Sky pointed out, raising an eyebrow pointedly. The tall warrior raised his hands in a placating gesture.

"You guys can go back to the main city if you want; it's not that far from here." Vlinn said, sitting down under the tree. "There aren't any monsters around so I should be safe, no reason for you guys to be bored." Eventually his friends would agree and after they left he assumed the meditating pose and closed his eyes.

It didn't take them long to get back to the main city, Hong Zhin. It also didn't take them long to realize that they had absolutely nothing to do, they found their way to a small restaurant that sold ramen in large bowls and ate an early dinner. Afterwards they strolled quietly around the city, not many players were there as they had already moved on to the seventh floor which had been opened that day.

"Well this has been a rather boring day." Cronan grumbled as they stalked along a back alley, Sky simply grunted in agreement. She stopped as something caught her eye, a small glint that appeared on the roof top nearer them. She glanced back at Cronan before quietly stealing away, up the walls and on to the roof. "I don't know about you but I think I'm going to go to bed- I guess you're not." The warrior said as he realized that the swords-woman was gone. "Well fine then," he grumbled.

Sky bounced from roof top to roof top, thankfully the city had been built in a very cramped setting. In front of her a young player raced over the buildings, Sky grit her teeth together and pushed forward.

"Go away!" The player shouted at her.

"Slow down!" She countered. The player, a young man dressed in tight black leather armor, lowered his head and attempted to jump a large gap between buildings. Unfortunately for the young man he only made it about halfway before he started to fall into empty space. Sky leaped off of the building, somersaulted in midair and snatched the player's hand. She grabbed the edge of the adjacent building by the tips of her fingers.

"Hang on!" She growled attempting to lift them onto the roof; she struggled for a few seconds but they didn't move. Her strength stat was too low to pull both of them up. "How's your acrobatics skill?"

"Apparently not as high as yours." The player, Shoran as his name read, grumbled. Sky rolled her eyes and gripped his hand tighter as she started swinging him towards the wall.

"Once your feet touch the wall back flip onto the building behind us." Shoran nodded grimly and let her swing him, once his feet hit the wall he let go of Sky's hand and propelled himself backwards flipping elegantly and landing safely on the building they had occupied previously.

With the dead weight gone, Sky was free to pull herself on top of the building and then leap back to land next to the young man.

"I guess I owe you." Shoran grumbled, scratching his head.

"You can repay me with an explanation." Sky said seriously. "Why are you running on roof tops at night? Do you think you're Batman or something?"

"I'm just doing what I was paid to do."

"Which is?" Sky crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot impatiently. Shoran looked away and scratched his head, before turning back toward her, a sly smile painted across his face.

"Hey, you're actually pretty cute." Sky felt her face tinge red. "You know there aren't that many girls around." The player took a step toward her and she felt her face flare an even deeper shade of red. He took another step and found himself at the end of Gobelpierce.

"I think that's close enough." Sky growled, trying to keep her face from flushing even more. "Now what exactly were you doing out here?" Shoran scoffed at her rapier.

"Come on honey, we both know you can't hurt me in a city." The player cockily raised an eyebrow."

"You owe me…" After a moment Shoran blew out a pent up sigh.

"Yeah I guess I do. I'm a thief." The black clad player shrugged.

"Your color cursor is green though." Sky said, referring to the green diamond that floated above player's heads, next to their names and health bars. The cursor would only turn orange if a player caused an infraction in the game, such as stealing, hurting or even killing another player.

"I didn't actually steal anything, I was just doing a little eaves dropping."

"On whom and for whom?" Sky raised Gobelpierce again, just to accent her point.

"Getting a little specific are we?" He said with a smile. "The leader of the Aincrad Liberation Squad guild asked me to spy on another guild. MMO Today. I don't know what he's planning so don't ask me."

"Kibaou, that bastard." Sky muttered, pondering over what that man could have wanted. Finally she turned to the man. "You shouldn't get mixed up with players like that, especially him."

"You're worried about me," The man said with a grin. "How nice, but you don't have anything to worry about honey, I'll be fine." Sky rolled her eyes and sheathed her rapier with a flourish.

"All I'm saying is, every action like that hurts somebody and if we want to clear this game we have to help each other, not hurt each other." The young man's cocky look melted away for a moment.

"Maybe…" In an instant his haughtiness returned. "So, can I take you for dinner?"

"No." She answered quickly, then after a slight pause "But a walk around the square would be nice."

"How about a run on the roof tops?"

"You're on!" Sky smiled.

Cronan wandered the dark streets quietly with not much else to do. Vlinn was "meditating", Sky had up and disappeared and this city was dull! There wasn't even a game of some kind; most floors had at least a small casino type building, not Hong Zhin. The warrior-blacksmith kicked at the ground and grumbled loudly too himself. He blew a pent up breathe and thought to himself, at least they didn't leave me outside alone anyway…although we did leave Vlinn by himself…I'm sure he'll be fine.

As he continued to stalk down some of the back streets a loud banging drifted through the air, curious, the warrior followed the sounds around several turns. As he rounded another corner sparks danced into his vision, he yelped and jumped back. Before him was a slim brown haired girl slamming a hammer onto a sword, Cronan glanced around and realized that he had found his way back to the city's main street.

"Can I help you?" Cronan turned to find the female blacksmith staring at him, an eyebrow raised.

"Oh, sorry!" The warrior brought his hands up as if to ward away a verbal attack. "I just heard the sound so I came to investigate. Why are you working so late?"

"I have some orders that couldn't be filled without people getting impatient." The girl continued to watch Cronan carefully. "So people just left some of their weapons here for me to enhance and repair. There are quite a few to do." She smashed her hammer down onto the weapon again.

"People trusted you enough to leave their weapons?" Cronan whistled appreciatively, examining the girls stall. It was just a large blanket with several anvils laying on it.

"Well, I have a bit of a reputation."

"Oh? What's your name, maybe I've heard of you." The woman eyed Cronan with disinterest.

"It's Lisbeth." Her face blushed red as Cronan burst out laughing. "What? What's wrong with my name!?" She demanded angrily, wielding her hammer in a threatening gesture.

"Nothing! Nothing is wrong with it!" Cronan held up a hand to ward her away, still laughing. "It's just…I had a friend with that name and we used to joke about how it was the only one in the world. Evidently we were wrong." He held up his hands in a peaceful gesture and smiled. Lisbeth snorted and smashed her hammer onto the sword, probably with a little more force than was necessary. "How long have you been doing this?"

"About three hours," She grunted as she smashed the sword again.

"Three hours?!" Cronan sighed and glanced at one of the anvils. Grumbling he opened his menu and materialized his blacksmith hammer and sat himself in front of the anvil. "Give me one of the weapons that need to get repaired." He said holding his hand out toward Lisbeth.

"What?"

"I wouldn't want to be out here for three hours, I'll help you. You do the enhancements, I'll do the repairs and hopefully we'll get done relatively soon."

"You're a blacksmith? What's your skill level; I can't just let any random player try to interfere with my business!"

"One hundred and ninety eight." Cronan raised an eyebrow expectantly. Lisbeth stared at him for a moment before relenting.

"Alright, you'll do. The weapons that need to be repaired are in the chest behind you, it's unlocked."

"Whoa, you have a chest?" Until the sun was just beginning to peak onto the sixth floor the pair worked over a large amount of weapons. Every time he came across a weapon or material he wasn't familiar with Cronan would interrupt their conversation to confer with Liz (as she asked him to call her). By the end of the weapons he was more confident than he had ever been in his blacksmithing skill, which had gone up a level during the job.

"Thank you," Liz said, stretching. "What do I owe you?"

"Nothing," Cronan said, smiling. "You taught me quite a bit that I didn't know about blacksmithing, so we'll call it even." The woman chuckled and started manipulating her menu. "Well it was nice meeting you; perhaps we'll see each other again." Cronan waved and then turned to leave.

"Perhaps we will." The blacksmith smiled as a friend request popped up in front of Cronan. He glanced back, confused and she supplied him with a friendly wink before stalking down the street. The warrior chuckled and hit the accept button and as the window disappeared he saw a player just turning the corner and going out of view, but he had enough time to see the man's face.

Even with new armor Cronan couldn't forget that face, Kibaou.