《World Fragment Online》 Prologue: Something New Sitting on the sofa in the living room of my tiny apartment with a bowl of chips to my left and TV remote in my right hand, I flicker through the TV channels gazing at each for merely a few seconds before moving on to the next. There was nothing exciting on television today and the internet was likewise boring with most news being centered on celebrities and idiotic rumors. I eventually stopped flicking through the channels and eventually settled on a random channel that conveniently happened to be a news report channel. With my dead eyes, I was not all that much concerned about what the reporter on screen was talking about and as such, nothing of what they said was registered on my mind. ¡®Nothing again today, already prepared for work tomorrow. Maybe I should find myself a wife? ¡­Not that it¡¯d do anything, I¡¯d probably have to deal with the incessant nagging¡­¡¯ Sighing at the thought, I flickered through the channels once more only to chance upon a rather intriguing commercial. This commercial was advertising one of those new virtual reality mmorpgs and had apparently booked a 30 minute slot on the channel to do so. ¡®Another one of these huh?¡¯ In my room there was a VR helmet connected to my desktop computer but it was a really impractical device as it was only a screen in a helmet with gyroscope sensors. Something the average smart phone can do with processing power to spare. Sighing, I paid attention to the commercial which had two persons discussing the device between them on a stage setting. ¡°So Roger, this is the new Virtual Reality helmet that your company Solia has partnered with Frag Corp to develop?¡± said the guy in the shirt and tie to whom I shall refer to as suit guy until his name comes up. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m really excited about the release myself¡± responded the guy in a white lab coat and stylish glasses whose name is apparently Roger. Suit guy approached the helmet at the center of the stage and examined it at all angles, even picking it up and putting it back down before looking towards Roger and asking the very obvious question, ¡°What¡¯s so special about this helmet that has your company so hyped up for it¡¯s release? It looks like any other VR helmet to me.¡± ¡°It does indeed which is the design we were aiming for when we designed this helmet.¡± responded Roger. ¡°Oh? Then what makes it so different? I¡¯m not sure if your company is aware of this but there are 100¡¯s of VR helmets in the market these days. Your company isn¡¯t really doing the world of technology any favors by producing yet another one of these.¡± ¡°Well Sam, that¡¯s where I¡¯ll have to stop you. See, this isn¡¯t just another VR helmet, it¡¯s an aVR helmet. Quite advancement upon these so called ¡®VR helmets¡¯ as you put it.¡± ¡°You say it¡¯s quite the advancement but we still haven¡¯t heard what makes it so special? I doubt anyone is interested in the back story of yet another VR helmet or aVR helmet as you put it.¡± fired off Sam who immediately cut off Roger¡¯s back story. ¡°Haha, yes I also doubt that.¡± responded Roger a little shakily before continuing, ¡°To get to the point, this helmet is completely independent of any further attachments. It makes use of the wearer¡¯s brain itself as the controller and whilst in use, the body is completely immobilized so there¡¯s no movement restriction while it is in use.¡±Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. It is an interesting twist to the VR helmet but like that, aren¡¯t there risks associated with it? The guy in the suit, Sam, thought so too as he dropped a question on Roger. ¡°That seems really cool Roger but there¡¯s something bothering me about that and I¡¯m no expert on the brain but isn¡¯t that dangerous? What if someone gets permanently paralyzed using that helmet?¡± ¡°Well Sam.¡± said Roger with a slight chuckle and quickly assuming a serious expression said, ¡°that¡¯s impossible. The helmet itself only stops nerve signals from travelling through the spinal cord. There is no invasive interaction with the body what so ever.¡± The two of them continued their question and answer session on the stage before finally arriving at the important part of the program, the game it was designed to be used for. ¡°Tell me more about this game called World Fragment Roger.¡± ¡°Yes, whilst we at Solia Tech worked on the aVR helmet, Frag Corp was the one working on the aVRMMORPG which is expected to be ready for open beta on the 22nd of July.¡± ¡®Let¡¯s see¡­ that¡¯s next week I guess.¡¯ ¡°An aVRMMORPG? I was expecting something along the lines of a single player game given how complex developers generally claim an MMORPG is in its design.¡± ¡°Well those developers certainly are right but unlike those developers, we didn¡¯t let complexity hold back our partnered ambition and instead, used it to motivate us to complete this project.¡± ¡°Fascinating! So what can you tell us about the game itself?¡± said Sam who seemed to be putting forward professionalism over the obvious personal excitement. The program then showed a video of the game and over it, Roger¡¯s voice could be heard. ¡°The game itself allows you to be the ruler of your own world which is called a shard and is about 1,000 square kilometers. In all shards you¡¯d find a portal connecting to the main shard world, Zera which is 100,000 square kilometers. All shards are initially empty and as such, it is up to the players to use code resources to design their own private shards.¡± ¡°Sounds a lot like one of those sandbox games Roger but I¡¯ll hold off on that for now, what¡¯s this code resource that you¡¯d have to collect?¡± ¡°To put it quite simply, in World Fragment Online, everything is made up of codes. The more complex something is, the bigger and more complex it¡¯s code is going to be. Take for example, a strain of grass vs a an entire grass plain. The code for the strain of grass is going to be extremely short holding information like texture, length and color whilst the field is going to have that data but repeated and in some cases even varied in some parts depending on the grass strain, where it is located and how it is influenced by the other surrounding grass strains at that particular time the code was taken.¡± ¡°That sounds like a lot of work Roger. Is coding expected to be a requirement to be able to play this game?¡± ¡°Not at all, as soon as you enter the main shard of the game, Zera, you¡¯ll be given a faerie companion that is able to ¡®scan¡¯ this code for you and compile it into a node for you to install in your shard.¡± ¡°Faerie, codes and nodes? What kind of a game is this?¡± asked Sam with a shocked expression. ¡°The theme is cyberpunk high fantasy, you can find out more on our website.¡± The website that popped up on the screen, I immediately memorize it and jump on the internet to find out more about the game. When the website loaded, information was separated into two tabs; WFO and aVR + Tech. Naturally I chose WFO as the technology behind the game wasn¡¯t that interesting to me. From there, the tab moved to the left of the screen and several other tabs expanded downwards on the lore behind the game, some skill examples and even a few screenshots which put me in awe. Digging through the site, I was able to find the link to take me to the pre-order screen for the helmet which would allow free access to the game. I quickly put in my purchase information and waited until the helmet¡¯s arrival which was due on the 21st. As it was late, I went to bed to get ready for the boring task that was work the next day. Chapter 1: Before Entering The Game For the past week since learning of the existence of World Fragment Online, abbreviated as WFO, I spent a lot of time looking it up on the internet in an effort to obtain an informative head start. No one was too interested in the game when I brought it up with peers at work saying that it wasn''t all too different from all the other VR games currently on the market and my immediate family wasn''t in contact much after I moved out and as such, the only person truly interested in WFO was me, Jason. ''Twenty one years old and still playing video games like I was five. No wonder the folks looked down upon me so much." I mused to myself while holding the helmet in my hands before me that had arrived this morning. According to the manual the helmet came with, the only thing that was required was a constant power source, a stable internet connection and a normal working brain. I felt pity for those who may not be able to play WFO due to brain issues but I''m not the developer so it wasn''t like I could do anything about it. Connecting the helmet to the power source beside my bed and laying down after putting it on my head, I was greeted with a computerized voice instructing me to say ''Shard Link'' to start the calibration process. With me doing nothing but observing various scenary, this process took a little over an hour to complete as was stated by the timer to the bottom right of my vision. After this, the helmet created a 3-D version of myself as a skin head then listed three different character customization options: [Basic], [Advanced] and [Detailed]. Basic option allowed for selections of developer presets which I thought was to cater to the lazy so I immediately considered it non-viable. Advanced allowed for customization of multiple areas of the character model by making use of sliders and hair options. I played around with some of these by giving my 3-D model a bobble head, arms that extend all the way to my toes and a tiny torso before cancelling it and checking out the detailed option. The detailed option allowed for free design, similar to how 3-D model programs worked, but with a limitation being set. There was a boundary outline which surrounded the character preventing insane modifications like changing your character into a walking penis. Since detailed wasn''t all that useful for me, I went with the advanced option and adjusted some of the sliders to give my character a toned build. As for the hair, I went with a wavy high fade style and changed my eye color to a bright yellow. After customization, my 3-D model character disappeared and a slight vertigo which lasted for a few seconds over took me. Following this a monotone voice said, "Synchronization complete. No changes in height detected. Beginning second calibration, please try to walk." I noticed that the 3-D model body, now equipped with a tight fitting armor, was me and the scenery had changed from a black space to a grass plains with a spot highlighted. After some difficultly and the continuous re-calibrations by the system, I managed to arrive at the designated spot. Next were a series of other actions like running, jumping, swimming in various forms, throwing an object, lifting a box and so on. Finally, there were strange tests like focusing on an object to keep it from disappearing, levitating an object within a certain range and making an object disappear. The last one was particularly difficult and took me a while before I could figure it out. The tests finally ended and the monotone voice then spoke. "Character data saved. Would you like to log on now?"Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. "Eh, sure. Why not?" "Please note that since official service has not started yet, you would not be able to access the main shard, Zera." After that, the scenery broke and I fell through tunnel which had blue illuminated words written along the walls. Though I say words, they appeared to be gibberish to me and the letters themselves appeared to be constantly changing. Eventually, I could see the end of the tunnel but what appeared was an ocean which looked like it was illuminated by a blue light. In this ocean, it looked there were several spots which had some unidentifiable thing in it that had it''s color gradation deepen then sharply cut off at the thing''s edges. I then touched down onto the ocean or rather a translucent blue platform that expanded outwards in all directions and a short distance ahead of me, I could see an arch which had the words [World Gate - Inactive] in a 2-D name plate above it. "Welcome to your shard." sounded the monotone voice, "You may modify this area as you wish. A character ID has been assigned, please verify details by checking your status screen. Access to Zera is allowed after twelve hours." "Well with that out of the way, I should log out and prepare myself in the real world." I said to no one in particular before drawing a light circle with my finger by focusing on it and placing my palm in the center of it. This brought up a circular menu which had a slider area and a selection area. According to the manual, with the finger I used to draw the circle, I can select an option and with any other finger I can cancel the selection or return from a sub menu. While this might convenient, it would take some time to get used to it but, the gameplay benefits would be enormous once it was done. Logging out, I pulled the helmet off of my head and immediately went to the game website and forums to do some information digging. By now more information had been released about the game such as the absence of defined classes and instead, skills can be learned from trainers, performing certain actions or obtaining a skill book. To level up a skill, simply using it is enough. Following that strangely enough, the only thing that can level up in this game were skills. Players didn''t level up in this game and instead the only factors influencing their abilities were skills, equipment, items and their personal dexterity. Magic in the game takes after the code system the game has in place in which if you want to create fire, you must code the details for it in either voice command or append it to a gesture. The developers game out the code to make a match flame as an example and to be honest, it wasn''t all that complex: > Source: Right index finger, hover Effect: Ignite, Domain < What this code would do would do is create a match flame effect that would hover above your right index finger. The flame could still cause self damage as there is no part in the code which tells it not to harm the user and since no source is defined, it would be automatically defaulted to the player''s own mana pool. The good thing about the code system is, once you have successfully compiled a code three times on your own with no assistance from the game''s systems, the game considers the code to be memorized and from there, you are able to name your own code and call it into existence by either uttering the name or using a gesture. The gesture feature lets you do a defined movement with each of your fingers to activate certain memorized codes. Up to ten gestures can be saved and their length can be adjusted based on the number of individual codes a player wishes to append to a gesture. Of course, appending more complex codes to gestures means a higher efficiency. Afterwards, I looked over the various features like PvE which would include stuff like raiding, world bossing, mini bosses and dungeons which are referred to as ruined shards. PvP didn''t have much as all it had to it was PK and dueling. I think the developers probably didn''t care much for it. Oh well. After looking up all there was to know on the website and browsing future player commentary on the forums for five hours, I decided to take a six hour nap, which felt like days, to wake up before the main service started. Chapter 2: The Game Begins ''Less than one hour to go before the game truly starts'' I thought to myself as I observe the the arch inside my shard space slowly becoming illuminated with a blue light. As I sit cross legged in front of the arch, I play around with a tiny match flame that hovers just above my right index finger. Moving my hand left and right, the flame follows with its burner tail fading off into the opposite direction. The match flame consumed a total of 10 MP a minute which was low compared to my starter pool of 100MP. This meant I could use the match flame for 11 minutes before going dry if I considered the MP regeneration. Extinguishing the flame, I checked my status, they look something like this:
The ID is unchangeable and is basically a server assigned number to your character. The game does not allow you to change this unless some extreme circumstance happens in which case the company is fully prepared to reimburse you. Names could be changed only once monthly or as much as you got the item called a [Rename Ticket]. Next is HP and MP which show much much damage I can take and how much magic I can use before running out. The regeneration rates, HPR and MPR, are pretty low at a value of per minute but I suppose that in the game there would be things available to increase it. KI is a funny stat being represented as a percentage rather than a flat value and when I was browsing through the website and forum posts and speculations, I gathered that it would change based on how often the player received damage, performed actions and things like that. At 100% KI, external damage is reduced to 10% of its normal value whilst at 0% KI you take 150% damage. I''m guessing KI is some sort of guard percentage stat to help balance off high damage players might do later in the game in both PvP and PvE. Lastly it was the common RPG stats in which there were only four: STR, DEX, INT and PER. STR influences how physically strong my character is as well as how tough it is. DEX refers to my nimbleness, INT to intelligence and magic ability and PER is my perceptivity which determines how frequent I land a critical hit as well as the monster drop rate. All four stats have hidden effects to them that both operate in sync between each other and awaken at intervals of 10s up to a maximum of 100 in each. After a while, the countdown had now reached into the seconds. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... The arch itself emitted a powerful pulse of blue light after which a few seconds later, a swirling vortex could be seen in the center of it. As I got up to make my way through it, the vortex rippled and something small popped out of it and was harshly ejected onto the translucent floor. It got up a few seconds after, shook its head and then looked around before noticing me observing it and approached.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. "Excuse me mister." said the tiny glowing humanoid thing hovering in front my face in a child-like voice, "are you A15479C - Jason?" "Eh? Oh yeah I am." I responded a little slow because I still wasn''t used to the ID number yet. "I''m Novir, nice to meet you!" replied the tiny floating human "Nice to meet you too I guess." said me to this thing of which after thinking for a few seconds back to that commercial I saw last week, I asked, "you''re one of those faerie things right?" "Yup, I''ve been assigned to watch over you by the faerie queen." I see, this is the faerie that guy on the commercial was talking about. As I stood there thinking idle thoughts, the faerie waved its tiny hands in front of my face to try to get my attention. "Jason? Are you there? Hellooooo?" "Annoying..." I really disliked having my thoughts disrupted like that. It was one of the reasons I''m currently living alone. "You can''t just space out on others when they''re talking to you Jason. That''s wrong..." "So what are we supposed to be doing then? Seeing as you''re my guide and all that." I said trying to progress things as quickly as possible. The faerie thing put it''s left hand on it''s chin and right hand on it''s elbow, assuming a thoughtful pose before getting surprised and continuing, "I''m supposed to guide you along with the other shard-h to Zera so let''s go." It said as it flew behind me and began pushing me, much to it''s hilarious failure, towards the arch portal. I helped by simply walking. After passing through the portal, I found myself standing on a landing platform with several other silhouettes and their accompanying faerie. Voices could be heard from some of them whilst at the bottom right corner of my vision I could see a dialogue bubble that if focused on would open up a text chat box commonly in chat rooms. Eventually their character models loaded and the silhouettes progressively became identifiable. "C''mon!" Said Novir who then proceeded to fly ahead of me whilst I moved forward calmly examining the surroundings. The wide central pathway leading from the arch into the city ahead of me was constructed with translucent luminous blue hexagonal plates that rippled with pulses of light as I walked across them. The sides of the pathway were lined with vegetation such as trees and shrubs but was not so dense that the daylight sky adorned with auroras could not be seen. As we neared the city, I took note of the players who were discussing various skill builds and few others who had developed codes other than the simple match flame which the developers had previously released. Nothing eventful really happened other than that. The city walls that grew larger as we got nearer looked modular in its solid black hexagonal plate design with the grooves that separate each plate giving off the same blue light as the light of the central pathway. The walls extended far above our heads and at certain points on the walls, watch towers which made the whole thing seem militaristic could be seen. The central pathway appeared to continue through the city walls and as I was contemplating how to enter, Novir flew closer to me. "Why did Jason stop?" "No matter how I look at it, there''s no way I''m going through a wall." "You can do it, look over there!" said Novir who proceeded to direct my attention towards another player who approached the wall and to my surprise, the wall molded away from the player whilst at the same time enclosed behind her. "You can do it too!" said Novir whom I can guess was feeling proud for pointing that out. "I guess I can..." I replied as I, alongside the other players moved towards entering the city. Chapter 3: Hysteria Inside the city was awe inspiring. The translucent hexagonal pathway that I used to reach this place had morphed into a theme matching that of the city walls but was separated from each other by having the inner city wall colors be lighter than the pathways. The city buildings were aligned in a manner which allowed for ease of mass movement in a single direction whilst the buildings themselves were stylish in design as they had a glossy exterior that softly reflected the light from the city pathways and not make it obtrusive to the eyes. Over head, there were flying vehicles of futuristic design moving at moderate pace with some preparing for vertical landing at designated areas. Some of the buildings had display screens advertising several item shops or just had the developer logo on it whilst others had holographic display areas showing simulated duels, store logos and the rest were simply being unused at the moment. From this point, the players scattered in multiple directions muttering things about equipment and items for adventure. Some were even planning to venture back out of the city they spend time to get to. My plan was to simply stroll within the city and observe a few things whilst I had Novir help out with identification of certain places and items. The NPCs of this game are almost life-like in their interactions and if they were human, I''m afraid that I may not have been able to tell the difference so easily. Thankfully, they were not. The NPCs were a mixture of fantasy races such as dwarves, elves and beastkin which managed stores, simply walked around blabbering flavor text or gave out quests by hailing out to any one of us. As I moved through the city, I got called by one of those quest NPCs who with long, pointed ears and was dressed in a robe, an elf, beckoned to me. "Greetings sir, are you perhaps one of those that come from outside the main shard?" "I am." "Then if you can, would you be willing to go to the city''s central auditorium? The city is going to hold a welcoming ceremony soon and those who are present should receive a gift." "Sounds good. Where is the auditorium?"
First Request Accepted! [You can view details of current requests by selecting the status option of the menu.]
After receiving instructions from the elf, I moved towards the auditorium. On the way, I saw several other players who appeared to be going in the same direction as well with them discussing with their peers about how they received the same request from different NPCs. It is a nice way to increase immersion but I wondered why the faerie Novir didn''t guide me there in the first place. When I asked, I got this reply. "We were supposed to guide you to the city is all." With that kind of answer I gave up. The developers probably wanted to allow players some form of exploration freedom which I quite liked but some of the other players thought it was slowing them down. Inside the auditorium, players began to pool and seats began to fill up. I was in the central area engaged in conversation with some other players to pass the time whilst Novir sat on top of my head.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. "Hey, I''m Nicky, You all here for the request reward too?" asked the Hispanic looking female player on my left. So far in this game world, although the ratio of male to female players was large, it wasn''t like in other MMORPGs where it was something like 5 to 1 or 10 to 1. "Yup, hope the reward is good. I''m Jason by the way" "It should be for wasting our time like this!" said the Caucasian dude on my right. I agreed with him though, this was extremely boring to just sit here doing nothing whilst we wait. "You two want to see something awesome?" he asked drawing the attention of Nicky and I. After which he made a ''Z'' gesture with his finger and opened his palm to reveal a blue flame hovering within a semi-transparent white sphere shooting off electrical bolts and was shrinking rapidly. It was a surreal sight and ours plus some other surround players'' expressions had the guy grinning like an idiot and he continued saying. "I spent all day yesterday and the day before working on this in the shard before they game opened up. It''s a really efficient magic that only I can use!" after saying that, the sphere completely dissipated. "Unfortunately, the mana consumption is HUGE so I haven''t had the chance to really try it out yet..." "That''s really amazing to achieve something like that though. I still can''t do anything other than the match flame right now..." Nicky lamented. "Hey, looks like it''s starting!" said one of the players from behind me drawing all of our attention to the stage to see a player walk out? In this game, players apparently had green nameplates which popped up when you focus on them whilst NPCs had blue and objects had grey. To see a player walk out on the stage was shocking but I guess I can expect the game developers to want to address the players on the first day of the game''s public opening. The other factor which contributed to the shock was that this player''s face was hidden behind an opera mask which had one side smiling with the color black and the other side frowning with the color white. The mask didn''t hide any other features of the player which showed they were wearing clothes with a color scheme much like the mask with one half being white and the other, black. The player, possibly game developer, walked to the center of the auditorium stage and then began speaking. "Welcome players in the central auditorium and those outside who view this presentation on the city display screens. I am the chief developer, Wayne Frag, and I would like to welcome you all to your new permanent home." Permanent home? Beside me, Nicky opened the menu only to have a confused expression whilst the Caucasian guy next to me was glaring at the developer, Wayne, as if his eyes could bore holes in the guy. I figured I''d just listen to the guy but eventually murmurs began escalating until some others began swearing out loud. The figure raised their hand and a flash was emitted followed afterwards with a loud metal screeching sound. Seeing that everyone quieted after that scene, Wayne continued, "I am sure by now you would have noticed that the [Log Out] option has been disabled and a new option, [Home Shard], has been added as a substitute. Another thing that has changed is the addition of a new rule to the game. Should your die, your home shard shall be destroyed and your connection towards the game''s main shard, Zera, will be severed and, those who have their connection severed for longer than 12 hours will be, deleted both in reality and in this world." After saying this, one of the auditorium chairs, which were hovering in flew towards Wayne only to be stopped by a barrier. Several other players followed suit with various objects and magic only to have the same result whilst man ignored them and continued. Noises could be heard coming from outside the auditorium which meant that this was being broadcast even outside and being here only had the benefit of the reward most likely. "Do not concern yourselves with what occurs in the outside world, we have prepared for this beforehand. If you still wish to [Log Out], you may do so after the [Fragmentor] has fallen." said Wayne with a wave of his hand and the next thing I knew, I was inside my shard once more with the faerie Novir.
Request Complete! Reward: Random Skill [Mana Vision] has been learnt!
Chapter 4: The Real Game Begins Sitting down inside my shard space, I see auroras in the pitch black sky. This is probably due to the [Mana Sight] skill I obtained.
Mana Sight
The skill increases my PER stat, however, I didn''t consider that too deeply as I had other information to consider from what happened today. The first was that we aren''t able to [Log Out] as I myself had recently tried to do. If I were to remain like this for three days, it wouldn''t be surprising if I, along with the entire player base, simply fall dead. Of course, that Wayne guy said he would take care of it which left the next problem. If we die, according to the game''s website, our personal shard becomes inaccessible and after 12 hours, it reconstructs. I guess I can take that as a bald faced lie now. ''How do I get stronger in this game?'' The first was to develop codes but, I''m not a coder and code language is a completely foreign concept to me. The next was to raise my stats, something the developers weren''t too keen on releasing. I tried asking Novir but the faerie wasn''t too sure either. Speaking of the faerie... I noticed that the light-shaped body of the faerie started becoming a bit more defined. The faerie began to appear more like a living being. Looking at the blue name tag hovering above Novir, I saw a percentage next to it.
Novir - 30%
I can guess that when this value became 100%, I''d be able to see Novir as a definite being. Pushing that to the back, I started doing some push ups, sit-ups and running within the shard space until a notification came up.
Strenous activity beyond limits causes a rise in STR and slightly in DEX.
Fatigue status added, further activity may result in status decline.
After cooling off a bit, I quickly opened my status screen and looked at the STR and DEX values.
If what I see is correct, it looks like I''d have to go through that whole exercise montage 79 times to gain a point of STR. Now that I thought of it, there was another way to increase your stats but it escapes me at the moment with this current situation. Considering that I''m not going to gain any information here, I decided to go through the still active arch and back towards the city. Novir followed behind me, not that I cared too much for the fae right now. As I exit the arch onto the landing platform, I notice how empty the surroundings were compared to the first time I was here. As I walk towards the city again, I turn towards Novir who is flying beside my head and begin a new conversation.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. "Hey Novir, who is this queen of yours?" "Dunno, haven''t met them before..." "So you follow the instructions of someone you don''t know?" "Yeah, why?" "Is the queen that big a push over that they''re afraid to show their face? "Queen isn''t a ''push over''!" said Novir reaching a shout towards the end. It made me realise something but for now I''ll push it to my ''list of things to consider later'' in the back of my head. At the end of the day, Novir is basically an AI so I suppose there would be limitations to the amount of available information now. "What about the city, what can you tell me about it?" I asked "Well, Seed City is the biggest city in Zera so you can find almost anything you need there." "Almost? So what isn''t in Seed City?" Novir became quiet for a while and then replied, "Fragment Beasts." There it was, the names they give to monsters in this game and as the faerie said it, I remembered the game website that this game had a total of 10 Shatter Beasts which were scattered on the numerous ruined shards of the game and a final boss, the [Fragmentor] I assume, that appears after all 10 beasts had fallen. Finally back at the city, since I already made a mental note of all the locations, I started by heading towards the equipment store, not that I expected to buy anything as my current money was absolute zero. There were some players moving about here and there but not that much otherwise. They''re probably holed up inside their personal shards after that stupid announcement. As I got closer to the equipment store, I saw some of the other players had a bracer equipped on their arm which had two glowing spots on them moving away from it, towards the exit of the city. As I entered the equipment store, I could see that the NPC had just become free so I approached and asked about cheap, possibly free, weapons. The beastkin NPC looked at me with such soul crushing pity that I almost started nervously laughing. "I have a set of spare weapon bracers that I''m lending out to adventurers like you for a fee, if you can do me a favor, I''ll even let you keep one for free." "What''s the favor?" "I need a the skin of a fragment wolf, I heard they make great armor for newbies." "Where can I find this, ''fragment wolf''?" "There should be a few of them roaming around beyond the transport arch just outside the city. Are you going to do it?" "Sure, why not."
Request accepted Reward: Weapon Bracer <> Note: If you abandon the request, you must return the weapon or you would be placed on a wanted list.
The NPC brought out the same kind of bracer that I had seen on the other players when coming here and sent me off. Along the way, I took the time to examine the weapon currently resting on my hand.
Weapon Bracer <> An weapon capable of assuming two different forms. Unable to store own charge, relies on user as source.
It was an energy weapon. First, to activate either one of the weapons, you have to tap one of the buttons which is the glowing spot on the bracer. After tapping the button, a one meter long energy blade which encases your hand or a circular transforming letter formation appears expanding to the diameter of your open palm. The blade was self explanatory but the circle formation, I don''t think I should do that so in the city and as such, I put it off until I reached outside. Once I moved past the arch, the hexagonal floor changed to vegetation and the surrounding vegetation became thicker. Eventually, I began to see small forest lifeforms like birds, rabbits, mice and some chimps. The vegetation had wonderful diversity with the tree leaves appearing as they do in autumn. Some of the bushes had Rejuv berries which I picked and placed into my item inventory after I looked over their information.
Rejuv Berry
The recovery effect wasn''t all that good but when I taste tested one, I found that it made for a good snack. Not that I''m truly eating this thing considering it was a game world. With a sigh, I continued through until I chanced upon a lone fragment wolf consuming a fluffy, near decapitated but very dead, rabbit. I cautiously approached whilst I made Novir stay back. Chapter 5: Progression (1) As I focussed on the wolf, it''s red name plate showed a drop down menu of it''s level and type.
Fragment Wolf
The monster level was a way of letting players know the total value of stats required for equal combat. Right now my stats are 8, 8, 8, 9 which would be lv33 as a monster. I wasn''t sure if everyone began with the same amount of stats but the monster before me should be a good match for my current amount of stats. The [Fragment Wolf] had a brown fur coat with a line of black that begun from its snout all the way to the tip of it''s tail which swayed happily as it enjoyed it''s meal. As the wolf took bites from the dead rabbit, I saw the missing parts of the rabbit, where one would expect to be smeared in blood and gore to be a luminous red instead with light particle dust rising from the area as it faded away eventually. As I moved to point my weapons bracer''s circular formation towards the wolf, it''s ears perked up and it turned towards my location and started growling whilst assuming a low, pounce stance. Eventually the thing started to bark, not that I cared much as I twitched my opened hand to open a bit more, releasing a magic bolt from my palm that hit the wolf squarely on it''s face causing it to stumble a little and shave off a third of it''s name plate revealing a red outline encasing a transparent space. The wolf shook it''s head whilst I, my arm, as that bolt made my arm sting a little and drained over half my mana pool. After that, the wolf pounced towards my location as I rolled out of the way, skated on the grass and chased. I switched the weapon bracer mode to the sword arm and tried making some stabs at the wolf, sometimes missing, sometimes making some graze cuts shaving off a bit of it''s HP bar whilst it did the same with its bites and claws when I failed to perfectly dodge. Eventually, I hit 60 HP as I lost 20 HP from its graze attacks and another 20 from when it scored a solid bite on my ankle. With only a third of it''s HP left, the wolf raised its head and let out a howl and continued attacking. By now I had memorized its attack patterns and was able to dodge better and attack more scoring more direct stabs.
Critical Hit!
The fight ended when I was able to shave off the last of its HP with the sword arm through its skull and a pop-up showing critical hit appearing as a circular band around the attack site. The wolf collapsed onto the grass floor and eventually started fading away into red particle dust. Placing my hand on the wolf corpse before it disappeared, a menu showed up with the list of loot-able items which included the [Fragment Wolf Skin].
Available Items:
Combat ended. Successfully absorbed the fracture essence. Your status rises!The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
As I stood up, consuming two of the [Rejuv Berry] to restore my HP, I notice Novir flying over and the faerie, a her I guess, now that the features were now a bit more definite, landed on top of my head and lay down. I took a deep breath and started heading towards the city when I heard some rusting in the bushes shortly followed by some growls. Approaching me from the shadows of the trees were more fragment wolves baring their teeth at me. There were 12 of them though thankfully, none of them had cut off my path back to the city. I started running and they gave hot pursuit. One of the wolves were probably an agile type as they could catch up to me and kept nipping on my heels. It wasn''t until the arch became visible that the wolf group began to fall back. After all the wolves left, I stopped to catch my breath only to be berated by a very untimely notification.
Strenous activity beyond limits causes a rise in STR and slightly in DEX. Fatigue status added, further activity may result in status decline.
I found a nearby tree and slumped down with my back towards the trunk. I almost died. That recent reality was a resounding slap and I had to let that sink in for a few moments. After that, I got up and headed towards the city, singing a rather pleasant tune about the developers in my mind. "Thank you very much! This [Fragment Wolf Skin] is going to help me out greatly." "Sure." "The [Weapon Bracer] should''ve helped you out a lot. You can keep it!" said the NPC with a sickeningly cheerful voice and wide smile. I felt like pushing his teeth out but a deal was a deal. He probably thought it wasn''t a big deal.
Request Complete! Reward: Weapon Bracer <> (Already Obtained)
I immediately left the store in a sour mood and headed towards the item store which had a big display screen showing advertisements of their products on top of the three building. Though the wolf incident was frightening, I kept telling myself that I have to get stronger in this game to prevent stuff like that and as such, I chose to visit the item shop next. Hopefully the other items I looted from the wolf, [Fragment Wolf Fang] and [Fragment Wolf Claw] can be sold here. Inside the item store was like a shopping mall. There were a few players here, most being female who were browsing despite the circumstances. Maybe they didn''t take this situation seriously? I don''t know, won''t know or even care right now. Everyone is entitled to do as they want and face their own consequence. There was a kiosk located at the center of the store which allowed you to look up the store information and at the same time, the location of the kiosk itself allowed you to look up at the other floors in the store as the central area was enpty I began browsing through the various stores until I landed on one called [Magick Runix] which should deal in items related to magic coding. The shop was located on the second floor which I headed to by using the rising escalator to the left side of the ground floor and going past some weird potion store. Upon entering, I met someone whom I had met in the auditorium. They had circular formations hovering adjacent to their shoulders, glowing a powerful blue with lightening tracing it at certain intervals. With the appearance of a Caucasian male you can find anywhere, they turned around. "Hey you''re that guy..." he said as he noticed me entering. "I''m Jason. You?" "Karl. So what brings you here Jason?" Chapter 6: Progression (2)
Player [Karl] wishes to add you to their Browser. Do you accept?
We added each other to our [Browser] which was basically a friend list in this game. Afterwards, we caught up on the events that followed. Karl talked about his side of the story since that whole commotion at the auditorium which involved the mass transport of all players there back to their own home shard. Immediately, Karl tried heading back to the auditorium only to find it locked. Other players had the same idea as Karl as well as he said they began pooling after a while and started banging on the doors. Seeing as the doors wouldn''t budge, Karl teleported back to the home shard and tried something using the magic code system only to have it fail repeatedly. The log out procedure was a hard coded function of the game and helmet. Eventually, Karl gave up and decided to learn more about the game, choosing the item store as a first stop. About those players making a ruckus at the auditorium? They were scattered by the city guard and some players now try to take revenge by wrecking stuff every now and then. My gut feeling tells me to go along with the game for now and that''s what I intend to do. As I finished telling Karl my side of the story, he laughed then asked. "So what do you hope to find in a place like this?" "I was hoping to find out more about the magic system of this game. Don''t want to have to experience something like that again." I said frowning as I recalled it. "The magic system huh... that''s basically scripting. Once I got the terms down I was able to make my own magic in a flash. I''m a coder in real you see." said the showoff. I''m still agitated a little with the wolf incident but I didn''t lose pacing with the conversation. "Hahaha... well I wasn''t so fortunate so as to had have the opportunity to learn programming." "That sucks. There''s a book here you can buy to learn the magic code system that I picked up... over there!" Karl said pointing towards a manuscript on one of the shop''s shelves. Picking up the book titled [Magic Code For The Unenlightened], I say a 2-D price tag hover above the book in my vision with a cost of 100 credits. Apparently the book couldn''t be opened before purchasing it so I thanked Karl and headed towards the counter to trade in my item drops for the book only to learn that I can''t sell those drops in this store. The shop NPC mistress redirected me towards another shop on the ground floor which dealt with those items and allowed me to earn 250 credits. I didn''t want to sell off the berries I had obtained as I had nothing else to recover with should things get bad. After buying the book, I teleported back to my home shard only to be greeted by a system notification after the light of the translucent floor pulsed becoming temporarily brighter.
You have fully synchronized with the faerie [Novir].A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
I checked the details of the new skills by selecting skills from the menu.
Call (20% MP) Cooldown: 5 minutes
I think by efficiency it meant reduced mana cost. I tested this using the match flame magic after using the [Call] skill after having Novir, who looked nothing of the light-shaped body that I initial saw, stay a little ways away from me. When I said the name of the faerie, Novir, the green haired faerie disappeared in a burst of luminescent green particles and reappeared just over my head, shrouded in a green aura coat that was linked to me by a green light thread. The match flame magic cost me about 6 mana per minute instead of the usual 10. I could see how useful this ability would be for high cost magic later but I thought the cost would have been around 7 mana until I looked at Mana Manipulation.
Mana Manipulation
Seeing this, I understood that why my match flame had a higher efficiency. As for Mana sight, it was now level 2, raising my PER stat to 10 and resetting value needed to increase it to zero.
With this, I now switched my focus back to the book, the [Magic Code For The Unenlightened] and began the process of learning the various terms I neglected to do when it was freely available on the game''s website. After a few hours of committing several terms to memory, I began to feel sleepy due to boredom. Yawning, I closed the book, stood up and tried making a new magic code from what I learned. > Source: Self Domain: Right Palm, hover Effect: Ignite, Center, Domain < First is the source which, according to the book, is safest if the self is used as doing something like ''not self'' can create many complications. An example of that would be immediate Mana depletion followed by the creation of a vacuum centered on the caster. By having the source as myself, the Mana would be used from me only my reserve of Mana would be used allowing for a safe end point of the magic. Next is the domain. Designating an area for the magic to form relates to its maintenance cost. The closer to you it is, the easier it is to form whilst as you designate the domain further away, the cost rises. Finally, the effect part was simply what the magic does. In this case, if you take everything as is, I''d get a fire that start at the center of of my declared domain which would expand into a ball of fire, provided I supply the adequate Mana. The problem with this was that it only hovered above my hand and not much else. If I wanted to deal damage with this, I''d have to get in close range. Sighing, I stopped the magic practice after I completed the spell three times to grant it a name. With my new abilities confirmed, I decided to go back to the forest where I met the wolf. If I were to give up now, I would have to remain a permanent prisoner inside my shard space and that wasn''t happening as long as I can see a path forward.
Learning magic code has increased your INT status. Magic: [Flame Sphere] has been registered.
Chapter 7: Is That...? The forest was the same as it were a few hours a go with the exception that I could see a bit more players going in, probably to do the weapon request. We all looked the same however with only the minute few of them standing out as they went to buy a change of clothes. There were some players in groups taking on the wolves with some of them using kiting strategies to deal with the wolves that came in groups and others who were soloing were doing some risky moves to take them out quickly which earned them a few deaths here and there. I wasn''t in the mood to hunt wolves or kill steal from one of the hunting groups so I continued deeper into the forest. As the sky turned to evening, I made it towards the deep part of the forest which blocked out most of the sky with the colorful tree leaves. It was quiet and the wisping mists of mana I could see due to [Mana Sight] was not helping me in easing this building tension. Thud for thud I heard something approaching my location. It''s presence heavy as it was aided by the environment and its occasional grunts becoming louder. Finally, I could see the creature. The quadruped beast approached within 12 meters of me and then stood on it''s hind legs. Despite it being a little shorter than I was, it made my heart skip a beat before the adrenaline kicked in making it bear faster. I that despite the dark brown fur coat there was a lighter colored ''V''-pattern on its chest area which could be seen only when it stood up. I thought I saw a light dot on that patterned area but it was probably my imagination.
Fragment Seed Bear
The bear dropped down and rushed towards me with a speed that would be difficult to outrun but not so much to react to, which I did dodging the claw swipe it did with a grunt of emphasis. although I dodged it, I could still feel the wind brush upon my skin. Instinctively, I knew that if I got a direct hit by that, it wouldn''t be good. "Flame Sphere" I shouted rushing towards the bear, summoning a ball of fire that expanded the diameter of my palm and consumed 10 mana per second to maintain. The bear stood on it''s hind legs to receive my charge and then made a downwards diagonal swipe which was predictable given how I saw it pull back its paw a little before attacking. After angling my charge a little, I shoved the fire sphere, after flaring it with a burst of 50 mana, into the bear''s torso jolting the creature which made the thing do a pained cry, jumped back and then activated the energy sword on my bracer whilst strafing the bear that was shaking it''s head. Only a quarter of the beast''s HP bar had been shaved off whilst my mana was almost empty at about 30 points remaining. The bear did some sort of challenging gesture I suppose by thrumping its fore feet, shaking its head and puffing up its fur coat. After that, it charged, predictably towards me again. It''s pattern was easy to see through as it kept trying to charge and body slam or swipe at me. Learning from when I fought the wolf before, it wasn''t a challenge to face the much slower bear capable of carving out tree trunk sections. Eventually, by stabbing and slashing, I was able to bring it down to a fifth of its HP which from there, a faint red aura could be seen surrounding the bear as it presented to me its clenched triangular teeth and and blood red eyes. It then charged towards me yet again with its attacks seemingly stronger but everything else was more or less the same as the bear fell to the floor heavily, 3 minutes since the whole thing started.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Touching the fading corpse, I collected the drop items and welcomed the notification screen that followed.
Combat ended. Successfully absorbed the fracture essence. Your status rises! Credits: 150
The status growth for hunting bears was huge compared to the lowly wolf. After this I continued hunting through the forest for two more bears, getting injured on the last one which made me had to rely on the call skill that put Novir out of commision for the rest of the day when they fell asleep after on top of my head. Following an uncomfortable sleep on the hard floor of the shard space, I moved towards the item store the next day to sell off the monster drops and get at least a pillow. The city was more packed with players this time around. Although not as much as there were initially, its still a lot better having more people out and running. Some had quite the look of despair on their faces however. Seeing that made me wonder just how many other players were stuck in this game. At the item store, I sold off the bear drops occupying 8/50 of my inventory space for 2344 Credits and headed towards tailor shop where I purchased a casual set of clothes; a white cotton undershirt, a blue jeans and a plain brown shirt for a cheap 350 Credits, bought a [Pillow] Code for 50 Credits, yes code as that has to be restructured in your shard. This game was starting to make my head hurt with so many mentions of code every where. Thankfully, Novir is able to deal with structures in my place so that''s one less headache to deal with. The clothes though weren''t suitable for combat situations and as such I needed to acquire an armor set if I wanted to completely get rid of the developer''s joke of a newbie''s wear. Approaching the store kiosk, I say another familiar face with her hair in ponytail that reached her shoulders and equipped with a weapon bracer on her left arm yet still in that newbie wear which suited her in my opinion. Nicky was looking up the various shops inside the item store as I approached her. "Hey Nicky" "Oh, hello again..." she responded a bit despondent. "You don''t seem to be fully here right now." "You try being happy when you can''t see your family again." "..." I couldn''t relate to that so I didn''t really know how to respond to that and probably noticing this, she gave me a small smile before returning to the kiosk. After she found what she was looking for we added each other to our browsers and she headed towards the shop waving me good-bye as I turned towards the exit to head towards the armor store in the city. It was one of those buildings with one of those fancy hologram displays. Side Story 1: Real World Events (1) My name is Allison Grey, a 20 year old certified ethical hacker and programmer employed by the government for network related crimes. Though I say I am a certified ethical hacker, I''ve only just gotten the certification in time to deal with a rather hellish incident. World Fragment Online just so happened to be this hellish incident which was driving the department I was working in crazy as the developers of the aVR helmet and the game had trapped some 125,000 players in a virtual space and according to the threat, any attempts to forcefully remove the helmet would immediately send an electronic pulse through the wearer''s brain, frying it. The developers were at least nice enough to send us a list of locations of those who had purchased the helmet so we were able to move the majority of those persons into hospitals whilst for some, we had to set up wards within their own residence. If you''re wondering how they managed to move the helmet despite it needing a power source, apparently the helmet could remain powered on for one hour after being unplugged so it was a simple manner of equipping the ambulances and other vehicles used in moving the gamers with a portable power supply. Solving the issue of moving and protecting the gamers, the government had to deal with the drop in the country''s productivity whilst we had to figure out a way to crack this monstrosity via remote access through an unused aVR helmet as the game''s servers were very well protected by the developers using electrical, chemical and biological traps and weapons. The media was having a field day with this current situation and in return the higher ups breathed down our necks harder everyday.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. The game''s code itself appeared to be perfectly impenetrable as it changed in real time with not a single part of the code remaining the same for even a second and there was no system priority in the game which meant that everything had to be hard coded. Honestly speaking, that should be impossible as normally, in a computer program, there should be fixed variables for the embedded scripts to call upon. It wasn''t beyond our team but we did lose a great deal hours of sleep. One person, a 30-something guy, was responsible for observing the network packets and intercepting where needed. Another person, a middle-aged woman, was observing the game''s code to find any patterns with the changing along with me and another aged guy who was an engineer. Yawning, I scrolled through the several 1000''s of line of code that was changing in real time on my work computer. This was after three days when everything stabilized a bit more though even then, there were reports of some of those gamers dying due to the same brain frying pulse the developers threatened to use if the helmets were forcibly removed. Many relatives of the victims were worried and it was understandable as the conditions for the release of the players was for them to clear the game. A game no one out here knew what it was like. The companies involved, Frag Corp and Solia, were both owned by the same person, a man named Wayne Frag, who had gone incognito since this incident had started. Apparently, his last public appearance is was one year ago when the game was first announced. If I had to guess, I''d say he''s probably holed up in his company building, laughing as we bust our backs out here. Finally, Martha, the older woman in our little group had a small breakthrough with the code patterns almost knocking over her coffee in the process. We gathered around her to listen to what she had to say. Chapter 8: The Announcement The inside of the store which had a shield with an armor emblazoned on it was really high tech looking. There were lights which outlined the store edges as well as the counters and display racks. Some players were having fun with their group buddies by trying on the high grade armors the store had to offer. Unfortunately, the prices of those armors were something which I wouldn''t be able to afford for a long time at my current hunting rate. Looking at the cheaper end of products, I saw a moss green [Combat Jacket] going for 500 Credits and black [Combat Trousers] for 450 Credits.
Combat Jacket [500 Credits] Standard combat wear item.
Combat Trousers [450 Credits] Standard combat wear item.
4% damage reduction. I''m not sure if that was good or not but it should be sufficient for now. After purchasing the items, I equipped them and then left the store making my way towards the forest again following which I hunted until it was the evening for this day and the next. During the hunt, I noticed that the bears and wolves don''t get along too well as they prioritized each other over the other players which made it a lot easier for me. What I would do is attack the wolf and get it down to a third of its life and hope it uses its howl to call for help. Afterwards, I would lure the wolves deeper into the forest and into the nearest bear I could find, sneaking a few kills and damage before killing the weakened bear myself to quickly build up my status. The results of my co-operative hunt was well reflected in my status.
Combat ended. Successfully absorbed the fracture essence. Your status rises! Credits: 1144
It was the third day of playing that Novir issued a request to me from the supposed Faerie Queen when I got up from my pillow.
Request Received: Reward: Shard Space structure codes.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Failure: Seed City''s Fountain Area Breached, personal shard space encroachment. Note: It is advised to wait until the queen makes the first move.
The request had Novir acting all jittery but to me, I still considered this a game at its core so I thought that it was just some pre-programmed behavior. It was not until I left the shard space that I understood the true gravity of that request when I, along with the other players on the landing platform saw the behemoth of a wolf approaching from the depths of the forest. Although it was far away, we could see it towering above the trees as it made its way towards Seed City. With luminescent red eyes peeking out from its massive head covered in dark-red fur that spanned its entire body the quadruped matched forward baring it''s jagged triangular teeth. On it''s limbs which ended with massive gray claws and bushy tail which swung freely in the air, there were pitch black transforming letters running along them with black particle dust fading off of it. Seeing that, most players immediately chose to return to their home shard. I couldn''t blame them really. Not after taking a glimpse at its gold colored name tag which showed the monster''s ability rating.
Fracture Fenrir
Unfortunately, the boss didn''t allow anyone to take the easy way out. When it howled, several pulses of mana rippled through space mass summoning all players who were hiding inside their shards until now. A significant number of these players were players who had never left the shard space since the day the developer Wayne made that announcement. Screaming, most of the players ran towards the city whilst a few, more heroic players banded together to stand vanguard. As for myself, I moved back a little and checked my Browser to see the status on my only two friends in this game so far.
Both of them had went towards Seed City with the rest of the players. It would have been the best move if the Fenrir wasn''t heading towards that location. Closing the window, I looked towards the players who had began to charge towards the Fenrir. The group of 30 players had split into three teams of 10. One circled towards the left of the wolf and another to its right whilst the last team slowly approached its front. As the central group approached, the wolf narrowed its eyes and focused on them, it''s back leg muscles tensing before it sprung forward and swiped with its massive claws, gouging out some tree trunks in the process and critically damaging two players who failed to dodge in time. The Fenrir leaping forward had thrown the heroic players'' ambush strategy in to disarray and now the beast was savagely tearing through the group. At that moment, I received a message from Karl.
From Karl Recipients (All Registered): Hey, if you get this message, come to Seed City now. The fountain at the city center is accessible and the status buff it gives is amazing!
Looking back at the players once more who had now began to panic and some even atempting to flee, I turned towards the city and began my jog. I learned nothing of the wolf''s abilities and it''s HP did not fall below 90% despite taking numerous attacks from players in their death throes. The 30 ''hero'' players were completely wiped out by the world boss and I wasn''t going to try to do some sort of impossible last stand. After 12 hours I suppose they would be permanently removed from the game and something is going to happen to them in real life. Chapter 9: Planning Phase At the center of the city, there was a gathering of players who had come to receive the Faerie Queen''s buff in addition to the effects of staying at the fountain itself.
The Faerie Fountain boosts your status for 3 hours. Credits: 6555
The queen, whose name was Isaine according to the name plate hovering above her head, could be seen standing inside a transforming letter circle on top of a podium at the center of the fountain with her eyes closed in deep focus.
Faerie Queen Isaine
With her one hand clasped around the other which was made into a fist, the queen''s gradated silver hair swayed silently sometimes curling between her semi-transparent wings and ending at her tail bone. Her sky blue robe fluttered projecting an air of elegance towards which a significant amount of male players and a minor amount of female players were gawking and shouting out towards her to ''show her tits'' and other obscenities, likely forgetting the large wolf marching over here at the moment. I found Karl and Nicky discussing something with a three other players away from that spectacle and quietly moved towards them. "I don''t think any of us could take a level 100 world boss face to face. If any of us try to stand in front of that thing, we''d probably die instantly given our status rating. Without knowing the method to revive, no one''s going to agree to that." said one of them before continuing, "The best option is still to lay out traps and with how fast that thing is approaching the city, we probably have about an hour till it reaches the walls." "But what can we use as a trap? The bloody monster towers above the trees. We can''t exactly make a pitfall in one hour." retorted Karl. "Why not just let it hit the city wall and see what happens then?" said Nicky only to be rebutted by another member of their circle who said, "And what if the thing gets stronger when it enters the city?" "We don''t have any other options do we?" said Nicky as one of the others in the group turned towards me.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. "Hey, who are you?" asked one of them to me as I approached. "Jason, I''m acquainted with this two." I said motioning to Karl and Nicky. "Alright Jason, gonna pitch in an idea or two? As you can see, the majority of players here aren''t too keen on taking down the Fenrir." the woman said to me with her expression a bit sour. Thinking back to what I had seen when those players charged at the wolf, I don''t think you could fight something like that head on which meant direct combat was a no-go. I wondered if there was a way to do remote bombardment but the prices of the weapons in the weapon store made me toss away that idea too. The only remaining options were to set up traps or wait for something to happen therefore... "I think we should wait and see what happens when the Fenrir nears the city. After all, we can''t really face that thing right now no matter how we look at it and it looks like the queen is doing something" motioning towards the glowing queen who now had transforming letter circles rotating using her as an axis. "Yeah and what if it gets stronger?" said the man who suggested using traps earlier, "I don''t think we should be idling around when we could be doing something!" "And what exactly is that something?" I asked resulting in him having an expression of taking a mental dump. "Guess we''ll have to wait and see then." said Karl who along with the others had agreed with the proposal to ''wait and see''. The group dispersed and went about their own business. Nicky observed the queen with another person of the group whilst Karl made several gestures with his hands, activating various magic codes most probably. As for me, I went did a quick look through the item store to look for combat assist items like smoke bombs and pepper gas canisters, if they had any whilst that trap guy when towards the city walls. After an hour, the place began to rumble, shocking the players within the city. Some of them even began to panic and cry saying things like ''I don''t want to die'' and ''I''m only x years old''. At the entrance of the item store, I could see a ball of light, the queen enshrouded in a thick aura of light, hovering a significant deal above the fountain with her arms extended outwards. The queen coldly looked at the Fenrir which was now battering on the city walls before clapping her hands together, releasing a magical shockwave, and extending her right index forward towards the beast. With her finger as the axis, the queen''s aura condensed into a series of rotating circular formations which then unleashed a devastatingly powerful blast of magic, pulsing all the way with luminescent halos as it railed the beast. "GUUUUOOOOAAARR!!" roared the Fenrir as it stumbled backwards, it''s fur changing to a shade of white. At the same time, I focused on the Fenrir''s name plate and saw something unbelievable.
Fracture Fenrir
The boss''s level had been spectacularly nuked. With this, us players should stand more of a chance in a direct confrontation. Chapter 10: Onslaught Even though the Fenrir was weakened, it apparently still had enough strength to break down the remainder of the wall between it and the city. The Fenrir let out a roar which shook the area and the queen, she began to fall out of the sky, her form turning into white light particles as she disappeared. From that, I knew that it was now up to us players to take down the beast which had now entered the city and began attacking the NPC guard beast-men and elves. As for me, I observed the Fenrir''s attacks on the NPCs which, even if weakened, was still particularly strong but, it was lacking a lot in speed and precision. There were even some players who joined the fray and began attacking the Fenrir too. I tossed a few pepper bombs into it''s eyes from a distance which at best caused it''s eyes to twitch sometimes but never fully blink. My bombs were useless and I subconsciously expected it to be given that this was a monster type of world boss. The boss''s HP fell to 75% from which then it leapt high into the sky and came crashing, slamming down onto the street making a crater and emitting a high density dark wave of mana which pushed back all the attackers. Looking towards one poor group of scattered players and NPCs, the wolf opened it''s mouth and out came a focused breath of darkness which transformed the group into dark silhoutes. The transformed group then chased after other players and NPCs to attack them. Thankfully at my distance, I was safe from the brunt of the boss''s counter attack and lost only 20 HP as opposed to the other players who were in critical condition and were now trying to run away. Some players joined the fray to replace the ones running away, seeing that the breath attack the wolf used caused it to stagger a little and that it wasn''t attacking as frequently as before. I remained at a safe distance firing off mana bolts from the weapon bracer until it''s HP began nearing to 50% at which point I made sure to secure myself to observe the wolf again. Sure enough, at 50% HP, the wolf leaped into the air only to smash down and send out a dark mana wave pushing back all who didn''t notice the pattern. Eventually, Karl, Nicky and the rest of their group made it to the battle ground and I called them over and explained the situation. "I knew we should''ve had traps ready!" said Jack whom I thought of as trap guy, "If we had some traps like bombs ready we would''ve downed it faster than this rate." It took about three quarters of an hour to get the wolf beyond the 50% mark. Even if we currently have the help of NPCs, this isn''t as bad as I thought it would be initially and so our group made a plan to assault the Fracture Fenrir with me along with Rhand as the vanguard, Nicky and Jack as mid-guard and Karl acting as the rear with his circular magic formations, as he explained loudly or rather, shouted, when I called them transforming letter circles. We then attacked the boss together with the other players dodging the ripping claws and savage bites which came our way at which sometimes I or Rhand would get caught up in losing quite a bit of HP when we do and the amount increases as our KI went down from doing battle activity. When the Fenrir was going to hit 25% HP, we were prepared as we quickly made some distance, along with other players who had caught up with the boss''s pattern, before we were caught in range to be severely damaged by the counter attack. The beast let out a world shaking howl as its claws and eyes began to glow red and emit particle dust and its attacks began to sped up. It''s status became berserk and it also had the added benefit of becoming super armored, although it''s defense was more or less the same. It''s claws left luminous red traces in space and even that was enough to cause damage as a player carelessly jumped right into it and died. Seeing this state, players began backing off after more and more of their allies fell until it was down to the three remaining members of our group Nicky, Karl and I or two if you count the fact that Karl was now out of MP as his magic circles disappeared and he was forced to sit on the sidelines and wait for his MP to recover.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. With 3% of its HP remaining, the beast seemed to be unsteady and its mouth hung open as it took deep breaths. The transformed players and NPCs had long since corroded at this point as they were put down due to the additional danger they brought to the battle. Nicky took it upon herself to charge straight at the beast whilst I circled to a position out of it''s sight. With the sword arm function of the weapon bracer, Nicky moved towards the Fenrir as she counter struck its attacking claws and head when it tried to bite at her. Meanwhile, at it''s back, I struck at its hind leg joints which scored me a few critical hit notifications. Eventually, the thing hit 1% and immediately leapt back, out of the city, and landed in front of the transport arch. Lowering its stance and opening its mouth at the same time, it aimed towards the city and began charging a ball of mana which was white yet had a black core. The charging created gusts of wind the made its tail We could both see that it was a last ditch effort meant to bring us down with it as it''s HP was falling as well. Running away would have been the best option as even if the wolf fired off that thing, it most likely wouldn''t be able to get through the multiple city structures surrounding the fountain but, it would most likely kill all the players currently not dead which included Karl who had now regained some MP to assist us. With Karl making several gestures, he lagged behind us as we ran towards the wolf at our top speed as it wasn''t on either of our conscious minds to abandon the others who helped us get this far. At the wolf, we tried making jabs at it''s head with our energy blade but it didn''t flinch, no rather, it was being protected by magic circles which shielded it. The energy ball was now the half the size of the wolf''s head and the earth was now beginning to shake with growing intensity. Karl arrived moments after with a sleeve of magic circles on his right arm and a fae on top of his head. He had used call to get a boost in magic efficiency as was evidenced by the aura he now had on him. "What''s that?" Nicky asked pointing to his arm. "A magic rail gun." replied Karl, a big grin on his face and continued,"How come you two aren''t attacking it?" "It''s got some kind of shield." I said. "Does it fade right after?" "Yeah only created on the point of impact and then fades away." "That kind of shield huh?" The Fenrir''s face was now covered entirely by the energy ball and the dark core inside it was now expanding. It''s HP had now hit the lowest point it possibly could as it''s HP bar looked completely empty if you ignored the tiny sliver that remained. "I''ll create the opening, you two see if you can put it down right after." said Karl as he aimed a fist at the wolf resulting in the circles running along his arm to compress on top of each other right in front of his fist followed by a sonic boom and a loud shattering sound. Nicky and I followed up by jumping and stabbing the center of its head, a feat which was accomplished due to the wolf''s lowered form as for which.
Request Complete! Reward: Miniature power fountain structure code.
Current Status: Credits: 6555
With 20 STR, you have learnt the skill: Power Boost With 20 PER, you have learnt the skill: Weak Point Perception (Passive) Current Skills:
Chapter 11: What comes afterwards With the fall of the Fenrir, the NPCs cheered whilst the players were more or less remaining silent. The shock incurred by the deaths caused was large and considering that there were ten more battles like this one past, no one was in a cheery mood. Karl, Nicky and I walked through the city towards Rhand and Jack who had received critical damage. An hour later, a notification from the system rang out.
Faerie Fountain''s Favor is now accessible.
Following this, the players, some with wide crazed eyes and others with tears rushed towards the fountain. I didn''t know anyone that had died so it was of little interest to me or Karl. Nicky had went ahead with he rush to check it out though whilst I returned to my home shard to check out the fountain and Karl went towards the weapon store to buy something he had his eyes on for a while. Landing inside my shard space once more, I had Novir construct the miniature fountain that when finished, constantly emitted a pillar of light that appeared to pierce the bleakness of my blank space. The fountain boosted all stats by 1 for one hour after leaving its proximity and boosted recovery rates by 200%. After learning nothing else about the fountain, I left to return to my hunting ground in the forest to try to get my DEX up to 20 at least before the day ended in a few hours. In the forest, there wasn''t much activity going on owing to the recent world boss attack. I did not mind however, it made my hunting strategy a lot easier without having to risk dealing with potential kill stealers. The mana in the forest was a bit strange however as the wisping mana that usually curled around the tree trunks was being siphoned towards a certain location. I followed it, defeating the fragment monsters along the way and gaining some essence points towards boosting my stat essence points.
Current Status: Credits: 6555
I arrived in the depths of the forest where the sky was completely covered in autumn colored leaves that seemed to continuously fall. There, I could see a hovering, swirling silver vortex which drew in the mana of the forest. As I approached, a system notification popped up in front of me stalling my step.
Entrance to Ruined Shard [Nox Marsh] discovered. Will you enter?
Curious, I tapped the [Yes] and was instantly transported into a whole different world. With grey clouds hovering over head and an infinite mist expanding over a dreary purple marsh which obscures vision, an pronounced eerie feeling was added on top of that produced by the monster cries which were sometimes heard.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. I trudged through the viscous marsh water as I couldn''t see any solid land to walk upon. With each step, the marsh water clung to my pants foot slowing down my movement ability. Moving slowly through the marsh wasn''t that big a problem but what followed, the fragment beast, was.
Fragment Snapper
The snapper that peeked its long neck out of the marsh water began firing stinging water magic bullets at me as it approached to try to bite at me. I dodged by strafing them but with the marsh water slowing down my movements, I was bound to be hit by a few which brought my HP down to two-thirds its maximum value. I fired off two magic bolts at the monster which lowered it''s HP to one-tenth after which it ducked under the marsh water and remained there for an unknown time. Unknown because I had already started to exit this ruined shard. My current equipment wasn''t suited to move around in this location much less fight in it. I was lucky that it was only one fragment beast rather than an ambush. After leaving the ruined shard, I notice that the forest at once again resumed activity, not as much as it was before the wolf but the players had resumed activity. Listening in on some of the conversations between them allowed me to find out that some of the players had chosen to go in a direction other than the forest which I had made as my hunting ground. I considered going as well when I upgraded my current equipment and finish exploring that ruined shard so I returned to town and checked out the weapon store after selling off my useless item drops to gain an additional 8222 Credits.
Blade Katar (13,000 Credits) A fist type melee weapon with three dagger attachments. Suitable for rapid attacks.
Modular Dagger (11,000 Credits) A dagger in which the blade can be slightly remodeled through magic code.
Mana Orbitals (20,000 Credits) A pair of magic orbs hover around the owner attacking enemies subject to the owner''s malicious intent. Boosts magic abilities by optimizing code in real time.
Ion Crossbow (14,000 Credits A crossbow which fires off magically charged bolts. Automatically stores mana from the environment.
Those were the weapons that I was currently looking at inside the weapon store upon after careful consideration, I decided to go with the [Ion Crossbow] being that I have enough credits for it currently and that my preference was to not take any damage. After this, I was moving out of the city again when an NPC guard called out to me. "Excuse me sir, are you thinking of heading to the Arik Plains in the south by chance?" "Why do you ask?" "There have been strange reports coming from that area. It''s probably monsters but I can''t feel at ease not knowing." "In other words you want me to check it out?" "If you will?" "Sure but not right now." "It''s not an urgent request so I don''t mind when you can so as long as you do. I''ll be sure to prepare proper compensation for this" "Ok."
Request Accepted Reward: ''Proper compensation''
Having ''proper compensation'' for a reward doesn''t really seem too enticing. Afterwards, I headed back towards the ruined shard space to explore in more depth. Chapter 12: Nox Marsh The Snapper monsters didn''t prove to be that big a threat after I had gotten my hands on my new crossbow weapon. That said, movement was still a pain which got me blasted by water magic occasionally. Nothing significant dropped from the Snappers as they were mostly material drops like [Shell Carapce] and [Snapper Meat]. My inventory eventually reached it''s capacity after I had traveled through a good portion of the marsh in which nothing particularly interesting had occurred. Exhaling an empty breath in disappointment, I continued onwards until I finally reached a space where there was solid land and the mana in the shard began to condense into a whirlwind. Inside the gust I could see a pair of luminous yellow eyes tracking my approach, the mana surrounding it appeared to become more solid as I neared it.
Ruined Marsh Spirit
Becoming transparent, the boss started the battle by unleashing a deadly mist into the area, inflicting the [Miasma Bleed] status that reduced by HP recover to -1 per minute and started manipulating the environment to create black tainted wind blades which I strafed to the side to dodge after analyzing their trajectory. The boss was relentless however and continuously fired off wind blade after wind blade with the few I couldn''t dodge shaving off 65 of my HP. Firing three crossbow bolts at the eyes did nothing to harm it as its HP bar was still completely full. Eventually it provided an opportunity when it stopped shooting off wind blades and it became solid once more. Using such an opportunity, I fired my two bolts at it causing it to slightly distort with each impact and inflicting 10% HP of damage in total. After repeating this pattern for a few times, the boss''s HP hit 50% and its attacks changed. The spirit started fading in and out as it tried to get near me and had stopped solidifying to allow me to reduce its HP beyond the 50% mark. After running around for three minutes to accumulate some bolts, I let the spirit approach whilst making sure not to take my aim off it. When it reached approximately 3 metres, it solidified and transformed into a paw following which it swiped at me. I dodged and let go of 2 bolts with only one of them hitting and the other phasing through it as it cancelled its solidification. Charging towards it, I used the gesture for flame sphere which began draining my MP but it still affected the boss by continuously damaging it even when it wasn''t in it''s solid state bringing down its HP my 10% before my MP exhausted. Finally, after an hour with my HP left at 33 from counter attacks and MP completely empty, the boss died as I took a shot at it with my crossbow during solidification. It wailed as it faded out of existence and then a rough black gem fell in its place which turned out to be the boss''s corpse after touching it. There were five drop items with three being material items that I will be selling later, one ring and a dagger.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Nox''s Ring
Marsh Dagger
The close range weapon, the dagger, was a nice get in addition to the ring. Afterwards, my status increased owing to the fall of a boss type monster.
Current Status: Credits: 777 With 20 DEX you have learnt the skill: Reflex Boost [Passive] With 20 INT you have learnt the skill: Magic Boost
The gains from this shard exploration were excellent but the follow up to go through the marsh again to leave was not something I was looking forward to. After exiting the marsh and moving towards the exit of the forest, I came upon three players in a 2vs1 situation. The two players had bright red letters for their names [Livette] and [Duran] whilst the other, [Grey], was fending off the two to the best of her abilities whilst bare-handed. It didn''t look like she would last long like that. From what I remember when I was checking up on the game, the bright red name letters signify PKers (Player Killers). Because of the nature of the game as it is now, what those players were doing is real murder, laughing all the while they attack with their freebie weapon bracer swords. I fired a crossbow bolt at the head of the player Duran blowing it off completely as it was a weak point. As his body turned into fading blue particles, the other players, Livette and Grey became alert but as I had chosen to hide and with the [Nox Ring] Equipped, they could not locate me. I fired a next bolt at the head of the other PKer who accidentally dodged it by a lucky sway of the head. Following that the PKer turned to my general location and fired off a magic bolt which impacted on the trunk of my cover tree before running away towards the forest exit at full speed. Not letting him get off so easily, I fired my remaining bolts in his direction earning me a scream of pain. With that out of the way, I moved out of my hiding place towards the player Grey. "You ok?" "Yeah, thanks for the help Jason." "Why are you unarmed?" "I can''t afford the weapons that go for over 10,000 Credits." "Want me to show you where you can get a free weapon?" "You can!? Oh well sure then." And after than, I escorted the lady to the weapon store where she was able to take the request and we split ways after adding each other to our browsers. With me going towards the Arik Plains south of the forest. Announcement [Bad] Hey everyone, I tried this writing thing as a hobby with Ex Machina and again with World Fragment Online. The thing is, although I can put out chapter after chapter, it won''t make for good writing if I simply rush through it to get a chapter out as quickly as possible which is what I feel I''m doing. That and the fact that my other hobbies hold more interest than writing (which is completely new to me) at the moment.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Again, really, REALLY, sorry about this and thank you for supporting me so far.