《A Fantasy in G Minor》 Chapter 1 Once again, Mihel logged into his favorite game, a massive multiplayer online role playing game called Magic Fantasy Online, better known as MFO. During its initial release, the game quickly gained popularity. Multiple servers were placed to accommodate the massive amount of users who played the game. However, a decade later the game lost its popularity. Technology advanced and so did games. People got tired of MFO and began to try out the new generation of games on the market. The publishing company behind MFO announced that a major update would be released within a few days sparking the return of thousands of players and a new generation of MFO. (Please enter your PIN.) Mihel swiftly typed his six digit PIN number in an all too familiar fashion. As the pin registered, a light sound was made and a loading screen appeared. A tip was written below the loading bar. (Please be polite to others. Toxic behavior will be reviewed by the tribunal system and punishments will be handed out accordingly.) Background music began to play as the game finished loading. Mihel hummed to the melody of the music as he moved his mouse around and clicked the icons at the bottom of his screen. (You¡¯ve got mail) Mihel clicked on his inbox button and opened the most recent mail. (You¡¯re item ¡®Wooden Planks (x10,000)¡¯ has sold for 15,000 gold at the marketplace.) Mihel proceeded to click retrieve, and deleted the mail. He grinned with a satisfied smile. ¡°With the new updates coming, the wooden planks sure are selling well.¡± Mihel directed his character toward dungeons to complete his daily quests. MFO has daily quests that can be completed to receive a small sum of random rewards and experience points. Special rewards are given out to players who complete every daily quest for a week. Although the experience points did not significantly affect high leveled characters, the one week consecutive completion rewards were highly regarded for the ¡®end game¡¯ progression. After completing all the daily quests, Mihel began to hunt monsters for certain items and drops. Killing monsters for their drops and items was a viable way to make gold in the game. Some of the items and drops could be sold for high amounts of gold at the marketplace. These items can potentially be materials required by certain crafting jobs like alchemy or blacksmithing. They can also be used to enchant and/or enhance equipments. ¡°Finally, I have five million units of every drop in the game. Damn, these drop rates sure are bad. I popped four drop rate coupons the past few hours and I barely managed to get sixteen drops of this ¡®Legendary Weapon Shard¡¯,¡± Mihel rejoiced at his achievement. After reaching the so called ¡®end game¡¯, MFO didn¡¯t have much content besides PVP, Raids, and role playing. Participating in those events got boring, so Mihel decided to do something different while waiting for the new update. The sound of clicking spread throughout Mihel¡¯s room and he furiously typed in his in-game chat. Eleanor : LOOOOOOLL Guys I did it! Eleanor : I have five million of every single item and drop in the game. (^_^)If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. xxwarlord18xx : 1v1 me xxwarlord18xx : if I win you give me half of everything you own :))))) Eleanor : LOOOL wtf SIKEE Touchmesenpai : ffffffff I died reading the chat... Eleanor : hehe mb Touchmesenpai : brb muting chat Blood : Gratz Blood : can¡¯t wait for the new update!!!!! Finally new class upgrades and skill balances. MuffinLord : they better nerf Eleanor¡¯s class. Her parry skill is bs. When will I get a legendary class... Eleanor : PayPal the devs xdd Mihel continued to chat with his friends and guild members for awhile before logging off. Eleanor : I gtg Blood : bye bye Tank4lyfe : see ya! Anyone want to party up? (Would you like to log off?) Mihel clicked ''Yes'', and heaved a sigh. He got up from his chair and glanced towards his half open window. The sun had already set, and the street lamps were on. The occasional sound of cars driving by could be heard. He continued to stare outside for awhile before finally moving his gaze away. He headed towards the kitchen to prepare some food. Mihel wasn¡¯t a great cook. He usually made the same food everyday, changing it up once in awhile. As he got used to cooking the same food, he also learned some tricks and techniques. As Mihel was sat down on the dining table to eat his food, his gaze drifted toward the other two empty seats that his parents would sit in. A huge sigh left him as he chewed on his seasoned meat. Ever since he finished elementary school, his parents barely came home. He didn¡¯t know the specific reasons. He only knew that his parents constantly fought behind the scenes, which he only discovered during a fateful day when he came home early from school. It was a ¡®half day¡¯ at school, students were able to leave earlier than usual. Mihel forgot to inform his parents about it, but he thought his parents would find out when reading the school announcement paper that he had left upon the dining table. When Mihel was in elementary school, he was tall compared to the other kids at school, but he was rather slim. He had slightly long, blonde hair that barely reached his ears. His eyes were a shade of brown, not too dark. Other blonde haired children at his school had blue eyes, but he didn¡¯t. He didn¡¯t think much of it, but the other kids would tease him about it. During the fateful day, Mihel headed straight home after class ended. The bright rays of sunlight pressing against his skin caused sweat to drip down his forehead and arms. Mihel raised his keys to unlock his apartment door, but he halted after hearing loud noises from behind the door. He heard his parents hysterically yelling and screaming at each other. Expressing regrets about their marriage, wanting a better life, and complaining about money. "We can''t pay the bills! This is your fifth time getting fired from your job!" Mihels mother yelled in her drunken stupor. "Why are you like this? You can''t even find a stable job and pay the bills, you can''t do anything! What are you doing with your life?!" "Shut up! You''re the same! You fucking skank! All you ever do is waste away your life drinking with your friends and lose all your money gambling, yet you dare blame me?!" His father furiously retorted. "I regret it! I regret everything!" Mental exhaustion was evident in his fathers cracking voice as he tried to vent his frustration out. Mihel was shocked. It was the first time that he heard his parents arguing with each other. Especially in that manner. He felt slightly frightened. He decided not to enter and leaned against the door as he sat down. He continued to listen to the things his parents were saying, only entering after two hours. Ever since that day, his parents rarely came home. Both of them spent their times outside. At most, they took turns coming home. The three of them were never home at the same time. Every so often his father would unleash his anger upon him, leaving him covered in tears and bruises. Mihel often found himself avoiding his father, but he had nowhere to hide in his house. When middle school started, he frequently hung out with his friends or wandered around the nearest public park and didn¡¯t go home until late at night. It was a way for him to avoid his parents. At first his parents got mad, but as time passed they stopped caring. It became of a habit of his. Much like his parents, Mihel also stopped caring. He failed classes, didn¡¯t study, and didn¡¯t do anything. All he did was play games. As Mihel grew up, he realized that nobody really cared about him or his problems. A loud sigh interrupted his thoughts, as Mihel began to wash his empty dishes before heading off to bed. Mihel¡¯s thoughts went wild as he closed his eyes trying to sleep. He couldn¡¯t wait for the new updates. At the same time, he also could not wait for his parents to come home. Although he had bad experiences with his parents, he hoped that one day they would get along once more and come home. Chapter 2 Days passed and the new updates finally went live. MFO had a huge increase in players during this time. Players from around the world once again logged into MFO to experience the new updates for themselves. The forums were flooded with positive reactions and information regarding the new bosses and monsters, new items and drops, and the class updates. ¡®Mage classes are dead: All hail assassins!¡¯ Posted by InvisibleDragon TrueWizaddd : ??? Noob assassins r still shit. One aoe spell and ur pathetic defense stats and invisibility won¡¯t save you. xxicemage2xx : ^ assassins always die if they can¡¯t dodge the cc. The new skills for ice mages are super OP 5000% scaling, massive aoe, and perma slow xxicemage2xx : it ignores 30% of your defense for the whole duration. InvisibleDragon : fools assassins now have i-frames. Haha. . . . ¡®The new boss is impossible to kill¡¯ Posted by Leo. . . . ¡®The new graphics are amazing¡¯ Posted by Queen. Queen : Everything looks so much better! If only it was like all those years ago. . . . . . Mihel updated his client and logged in. The first thing that popped up was an announcement about the new updates and patch notes regarding the changes. Mihel quickly scrolled through the patch notes. He stopped when he arrived at the warrior section. Under the list of legendary classes, he found his class name.. ¡®Grand Duelist¡¯ Master Parry can now be upgraded to Perfect Parry. Perfect Parry : The chance to parry has significantly increased. Cooldown will be lowered from 20 seconds to 15 seconds. Follow up attacks after a parry now deals 100% more damage. Chance to stun, knock back, disarm, or cripple an enemy has slightly increased. Chance will further increase as Sword Mastery increases. Sword Mastery 9 can now be upgraded into Sword Mastery 10. Sword Mastery 10 : The damage of all sword related skills improve by 15%. Armor penetration increases by 15%. Warrior exceed skill can now be learned. Supreme Body(EX) : You have reached unbelievable heights in the path of a warrior. You¡¯re body has surpassed its natural boundaries after strenuous training. Character stat points are no longer capped. All stats increased by 10%. Damage increased by 15%. Damage and speed of all sword related skills increased by 5%. Blade Waltz(EX) : (Active) Attack speed and movement speed will increase by 100% for 5 seconds. The cooldown of Lunge will reduced to half a second and deal 50% bonus damage while this skill is active. Upon successfully damaging an enemy, the cooldown of all skills will be reduced by 5%. Upon successfully blocking incoming attack(s), counter attacks can be cast instantaneously. Can not be slowed during the duration of the skill. 120 second cooldown. (Passive effect) Attacks have a 5% chance to hit a vital area. Attacks on vital areas deal 5% of the target¡¯s current health as bonus damage. Sword Aura : A powerful field of energy will surround the user. The effect of the field will depend on the user''s element. Mihel rejoiced. His legendary class , Grand Duelist, didn¡¯t have the greatest offensive skills compared to other classes. It is actually a defense oriented class designed to be highly mobile support class with burst damage. However, the class was anything but reliable. Every skill had very high cool down periods and the main skills were too reliant on correct timing, resulting in very inconsistent damage output and benefit as a support role. The game developers realized such a concept made the class impossibly hard to defeat many of the nuclear bomb like classes that dealt incredibly high damage, and unlimited varieties of skill rotations. In fact, it was also hard for the class to fight tanks because Grand Duelist¡¯s could not survive after being caught out by crowd control spells, due to low defensive stats, health, and long cool downs made evasive skills very unreliable. Despite these concerns, the game developers did very little to improve the class. Balancing out the pros and cons of the class is very difficult, because fixing the problems would make it very difficult for all other classes to compete. The new skills were highly compatible with the already existing skills and allowed more options for a Grand Duelist during combat. Legendary classes could only be owned by one user. It was a pleasant surprise for Mihel, as he didn¡¯t think the game developers would care so much about a rare class that could only be played by one person. Especially when there existed plenty of other classes that could be played by any and every player in the game. Legendary classes could only be owned by one user. It was a pleasant surprise for Mihel, as he didn¡¯t think the game developers would care so much about a rare class that could only be played by one person. Especially when there existed plenty of other classes that could be played by any and every player in the game. A smug smile spread across Mihel¡¯s tired face. He fantasized about decimating everyone in pvp, solo killing bosses, and how he would brag to his friends and guild members. But his fantasies were cut short by a series of messages in his game¡¯s chat box. Blood : Huh? My class barely got anything good. Slight buffs to attack speed and life steal... Blood : atleast by exceed skill is useful. Steals 30% of the enemies¡¯ health instantly. Touchmesenpai : wtf that is an aoe skill! You can steal 30% of everyone¡¯s health, doesn¡¯t that make you immortal? Tank4lyfe : 30% of my health is more than your entire health bar... Mihel couldn¡¯t help but chuckle at the conversation. To him it didn¡¯t matter if Blood could heal back all his health instantly. You can¡¯t heal if you can¡¯t successfully select a target. He could use one of his class¡¯s unique skills and simply block the skill. MuffinLord : I can¡¯t tell if my exceed skill is good or not. It¡¯s basically an endless storm of arrows. It¡¯s a powerful skill... but I can¡¯t move while I¡¯m casting it. MuffinLord : geez! The new boss just one shot me while I couldn¡¯t move! Stupid exceed skill! Tank4lyfe : invite me to your party! I can aggro the boss. My new skill pretty much turns me into an invincible super man for awhile. Hehe Touchmesenpai : MuffinLord!? Is MuffinBoss2.0 your stream? MuffinLord : ye Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Tank4lyfe : ?? Tfti Tank4lyfe : what the? You¡¯re a female gamer? MuffinLord : ye Touchmesenpai : lul Tank4lyfe : is Eleanor a girl too? MuffinLord : maybe Touchmesenpai : ?? Eleanor : lol Eleanor : I¡¯m a dude Tank4lyfe : oh Touchmesenpai : ;( Eleanor : can I join the party? MuffinLord : sure thing Eleanor: btw Eleanor : what is the new element thing? MuffinLord: ahh it¡¯s a new system the devs implemented into the game Blood: ya u gotta kill the new boss for a chance to unlock a random element affinity. Two affinities max. MuffinLord : ^ ya basically. You¡¯re skills will also get additional effects based on ur elemental affinity. Eleanor : ty ty!! Touchmesenpai: The developer Q&A stream said you can swap out your existing elemental affinity for a new one if you want. They also said elemental affinities will not be a ¡®consumable item drops¡¯ Touchmesenpai : instead u will just get a random pop up after picking up the elemental affinity drop. You press yes , replace, or no. Touchmesenpai : if you press no it just disappears forever lol Blood : they also have certain tiers Blood : the tiers are from 1-9, strongest to weakest. We don¡¯t know which elemental affinity is best or worst. I guess it depends on what u like or need for your class. The devs haven¡¯t revealed what kind of bonus affect our skills would gain tho Tank4lyfe : ahh, I hope I can get a tier 1 affinity that gives be bonus damage over time on skills Eleanor : thanks for the info MuffinLord : any kind of debuff bonus would be good for me MuffinLord : imagine if my arrows could apply a silence effect to cancel others from using any skills hahaha Touchmesenpai : ?? Chill, we mages don¡¯t need that kind of doodoo in our precious game Eleanor : that¡¯s the most broken thing ever Eleanor : I hope that is not even a possible bonus affect LOL Tank4lyfe : ^ true Mihel accepted the party invite. The new boss was significantly harder to defeat compared to the other endgame bosses. Although max leveled players like Mihel can solo the other end game bosses, it took a significant amount of time. The more difficult ones took an average of 1 hour and 16 minutes, and the easier bosses took an average of 26 minutes. Players have speculated that it might be impossible for anyone to solo the new end game boss. The game developers did not reveal the exact details and stats of the new boss. However, they hinted that the boss was at least ten times harder to kill than any of the other end game bosses. While Mihel and his party members were clearing the mobs outside the boss room, Mihel fiddled with his skill list and assigned skill points to his new skills. Tank4lyfe : easy af Touchmesenpai : I¡¯ve never seen a tank run around spamming health potions before the boss battle. Eleanor : LOOL MuffinLord : use all your buffs. MuffinLord : don¡¯t forget to use your stat potions and food buffs. Tank4lyfe : lol I forgot to buy them. Mihel shrugged. It didn¡¯t matter if the tank was missing his potion and food buffs. He was quite confident in killing the boss with his new skills. As long as the boss didn¡¯t one shot him or MuffinLord, it was as good as dead. Lulu, the Goddess of the Temple of Time : May the Goddess of Mercy bless your souls... A loud rumble and the voice of the boss blasted out of the speakers. Tank4lyfe quickly cast a debuff on the boss before rushing forward in an attempt gain the boss¡¯s attention. Everyone else quickly maneuvered around the boss¡¯s area of effect skills and bombarded the boss with whatever they could use. The boss¡¯s health steadily dropped. Eventually it reached the mid point of the health bar. As Lulu¡¯s health bar finally dipped past the mid point, a dialogue played out of the speakers. Lulu : I shall never fall. Following the dialogue, Lulu instantly recovered most of her lost health. Her health recovered up to 85% of her max health. Eighty minutes of hard work gone with a single sentence. Everyone sighed behind their monitor, but didn¡¯t dare to type anything in chat. It would be bad if they got caught in the bosses attack and instantly die. Two hours later, Lulu¡¯s health once again tipped past the mid point, dropping down to 49% from 50%. Lulu didn¡¯t heal herself up like the previous five times. Tank4lyfe took this chance to crazily spam his debuff and taunt skills. He also activated all of his new exceed skills. Freezing the boss for a short duration and turning everyone in the party invulnerable to damage for 15 minutes. Touchmesenpai crazily stacked his burn stacks onto the boss and spammed all of his combos. MuffinLord shot out her debuff skill before activating her exceed skill, letting out a curtain of arrows and blotting out part of the screen. The sound of arrows flying and hitting the boss roared out of everyone¡¯s speaker. Tank4lyfe : I¡¯m lagging Tank4lyfe : I think my client froze Tank4lyfe : did my message send? Tank4lyfe: hello Tank4lyfe¡¯s avatar stopped moving and stood still next to Lulu¡¯s gigantic body. The animation and sound of the MuffinLord¡¯s exceed skill caused the party members¡¯ computers to lag tremendously. Tank4lyfe¡¯s client froze and he remained standing still. A moment later, Touchmesenpai¡¯s client completely crashed and was forcefully disconnected from the game. Mihel¡¯s frames dropped down to 10-19 fps. MuffinLord¡¯s client seemed to have froze, as she didn¡¯t continue to activate mana potions to sustain her exceed skill. Fortunately, the skill continued to work after her client froze. Only 50% of her mana remained, and it steadily decreased. Lulu only had 24% of her health remaining. Mihel crazily spammed all of his skills and constantly attacked using his regular attacks while dodging attacks. Mihel proceeded to simply let go of his mouse and focused all his energy into spamming the button for his exceed skill, not willing to miss a single second to delay his attack. Each strike dealt massive amounts of damage. Every three strikes the Lulu¡¯s health bar went down by 1%. Mihel completely forgot that MuffinLord¡¯s skill was still shooting arrows. When Lulu¡¯s health reached a pitiful 4%, MuffinLords rain of arrows stopped as all her mana was spent. First hit! Second hit! Third hit! 3% health left. By this time, Tank4lyfe¡¯s stun wore off and Lulu began her counter attack. Lulu: Impossible! I cannot fall! I am immortal! Dialogue after dialogue appeared one after another. The sudden text boxes and sound was the final straw for MuffinLord¡¯s client as it finally forcibly disconnected her from the game. Fourth hit! Fifth hit! Sixth hit! 2% health remaining. At this point Lulu unleashed an attack on Tank4lyfe, as she was still affected by his taunt skill. He immediately lost all his health and died, but not before reflecting a staggering 70% of the damage dealt with a passive damage reflecting skill. The damage was enough to reduce Lulu¡¯s health down to 1%. Mihel was inwardly shocked. What skill was that? To be able to reflect 70% of a bosses damage, was it his new skill? A new item effect? Lulu began to unleash a final wave of area of effect skills all across the room. Mihel tightened his grip on his mouse and clicked all around the floor to move his character away from the hit boxes. When he got the chance, he would run up and smack the boss with a random skill with fast cast time and animation. After the hitting the boss, he would immediately run away and continue to dodge the hit boxes around him. Seventh hit! Eight hit! By now, Lulu¡¯s health was but a smudge of red lingering on the left most corner of her health bar. ¡°One more hit!¡± Mihel whispered to himself. One more hit and Lulu will die. A sense of pressure enveloped him, his breathing became heavier and his chest got a little tighter. Nervousness spread across his mind and body as the pressure of landing the final hit dawned upon him. If he got hit by a single skill of Lulu¡¯s, he would undoubtedly die within one hit. But if he could dodge all the attacks and land one final hit upon her, she would die. An attack almost hit Mihel¡¯s avatar. He managed to quickly parry it away, but the insignificant damage of parry barely moved Lulu¡¯s hp. The sudden rush of adrenaline caused Mihel to panic even more. Lulu¡¯s attacks were getting faster and faster. Impatient and nervous, Mihel chose to run up and attack Lulu to deal the final blow after the next volley of Lulu¡¯s attack stopped. Mihel¡¯s avatar followed after his mouse cursor and ran towards Lulu. Lulu raised her arms and hit boxes began to appear right on top of his avatar. His mind blanked out as Lulu¡¯s attack animation was about to land upon his avatar, but his muscles repeatedly moved his finger to slam down against his keyboard to activate Blade Waltz. It was too late. Lulu¡¯s attack arrived and completely enveloped his avatar. ¡®Due to Tank4lyfe¡¯s death, the exceed skill of the Guardian skill, Soul Guard, has activated. Soul Guard affects all party members after the death of a Guardian in the party. Each party member can survive one fatal attack.¡¯ Right after the text popped up, the sound of Mihel¡¯s attack hitting Lulu drifted out of his speaker. Lulu : A mere mortal. . . The yells of misery and the last words of Lulu were shown in a text box. Mihel stares at his screen in disbelief. ¡°Soul Guard? A new skill? How many new skills did he get?¡± He muttered under his breath. ¡®Congratulations, your party has successfully defeated The Goddess of The Temple of Time!¡¯ ¡®Your party has a set a new record : 3 hours and 40 minutes.¡¯ ¡®As the first party to defeat the Boss, a special item will be dropped by the boss.¡¯ Mihel directed his avatar towards the glowing loot animation below the disappearing figure of Lulu. He tapped the loot pick up button several times to quickly gather everything. Since his party members were all dead, he decided to collect everything and distribute the loot with everyone else after they log back in. ¡®Skill Book¡¯ has been obtained. The item¡¯s name glowed black. Mihel guessed the skill book contained something special. Normal spell books were of three color groups. Each color representing a different rank. Green (rare), purple(unique), and gold (legendary). Depending on the rarity, the worth of the skill differed greatly. However some lower ranked skill books were very valuable due to the importance of specific skill that could only be obtained through a skill book. ¡®Myth ranked weapon box has been obtained.¡¯ ¡®Myth ranked armor box has been obtained. ¡®Myth ranked accessory box has been obtained¡¯ (3) ¡®Fragment of Time has been obtained¡¯ (52) ¡®Magic Tool Kit has been obtained¡¯ (562) ¡®Mythological Weapon Shard has been obtained¡¯ (14) ¡°A myth ranked weapon? Will these items become the next end game equipment?¡± Mihel couldn¡¯t help but laugh out loud. Although he did not get any elemental affinity drops, he could not wait to open his inventory and check out the new items. But before he opened his inventory, an inbox window abruptly popped open. Above the stack of old mail he didn¡¯t open, a golden glow outlined a mail he received just now. ¡®Congratulations, Eleanor! You are one of the first to defeat Lulu, the Goddess of the Temple of Time. Your reward(s) awaits inside.¡¯ Mehil opened the mail and hovered his mouse over the items to reveal the items¡¯ name and description. ¡®Tier 1 elemental affinity stone : Lightning¡¯ ¡®Tier 1 elemental affinity stone : Water¡¯ ¡®Ancient Scroll of Teleportation.¡¯ An ancient teleportation scroll created by a being who held great power. Activating this scroll will lead you to the designated location. This item can only be used once. Mihel read the contents aloud in his mind. He concluded that the scroll will probably take him to a newly added area for end game content. The game developers didn¡¯t mentioned anything regarding a new end game area. The patch notes only included the release of new skills, a new boss, several other dungeons, and new items. Mihel¡¯s curiosity grew the more he thought about it. Perhaps the game developers created this scroll and intentionally left out information about the scroll and the new area it would take him to. ¡°I might be over thinking it. It might just take me to some random place in the game.¡± Mihel wrecked his brain thinking of possible explanations for the mysterious scroll. Information about the Teleportation Scroll being left out of the patch notes was definitely suspicious. Is this scroll an Easter egg? The only logical explanation Mihel could think of was the existence of an Easter egg. Many games have their own hidden Easter eggs that the game developers keep secret. They wait until the players find the Easter eggs and post about it online. Which usually caused many other players to enthusiastically search for other possible Easter eggs. It definitely made sense, if it was an Easter egg. It was also very strange. Mihel had played MFO since it¡¯s release, and no player has ever found an Easter egg. The corner of lips curved up. If this was actually an Easter egg, he would be the first person in the game to actually find anything like it in the history of MFO. Mihel drooled at the thought of such a possibility. He received the items from his mailbox and deleted the mail. He hovered his mouse over the ¡®Scroll of Teleportation¡¯ in his inventory and double clicked it. A window popped up. ¡®Would you like to use the Scroll of Teleportation?¡¯ Two buttons were glowing green under the text box. Mihel clicked the upper edge of the text box and dragged it around his monitor. He drew a few circles with the text box. Mihel chuckled a few times to himself before setting the text box back to the middle of his screen. With a light click, he pressed ¡®Yes¡¯. Then everything went dark.