《The Casual》 Prologue: Intro My eyes periodically wavered towards the lower right corner of the screen in front of me, checking the time, 19:58... 19:59... 20:00. The moment the internal clock hit eight o''clock, dozens of seats around me suddenly became empty, my fellow coworkers instantly disappearing by logging off. No one could blame them, today was a big day after all, at least for anyone that liked gaming. And with so few alternatives for entertainment, almost everyone loved gaming these days. As for me? Still had to finish that damned report I was fighting with for the last half hour. Grumbling to myself I returned to the touchscreen in front of me and continued on. By the time I finally finished it and switched the VR gear off, returning me in the privacy of my home, the internal clock was reading 22:17. Just a bit higher than a twelve-hour shift... again. But at an age that you had to compete with machines for work, it was still in the acceptable range of work hours. I removed the VR helmet, unplugged my neural connection, and stood up from my chair. Rubbing my eyes to dispel the tiredness, I stood up and stretched. Even with an ergonomic chair worth hundreds of dollars, sitting still for such periods of time still took a toll on my 100% un-exercised body. Checking my clock, even after a thorough visit to the bathroom and a relaxing bath, there was still a bit of time left. Looking at the leftovers from the lunch break, I decided against takeout for dinner as well. The doctor had, either way, advised for some light daily exercise, and there was ample time left to enjoy a real meal. By the old standards, it should have been night time already, but the sheer number of huge screens in the air playing advertisements managed to keep the city lit bright as it was the middle of the day, their flickerings colors reflecting on the myriad mirror-like walls of the buildings around the trading center of the city. The walk to the nearest restaurant was just a bit less than half an hour from my apartment, and this gave me just enough time to breathe the cool winter air and regain my vigor. Obviously, even if I wasn''t interested already, almost every single advertisement, every single gigantic screen, was heralding the advent of the next generation of gaming, reminding people that in just a few hours, the next biggest online game would officially open its doors. It wasn''t something new, games that promised to break the mold, to bring the next gen, to overtake the old, were a dozen a dime. Every few months, another one would pop, and flocks of people would rush there, play, and abandon ship when the next one would launch. The biggest difference now was the scope of things. By all accounts, RealWorldII was one of the best immersive VRMMO that was ever launched, and it was the only one that always managed to stay on top. It was what every game strived to become, what every game tried to takedown, and in the last ten years since it launched, no one had ever managed to reach it. It had launched itself, using the previous biggest game in existence, a real pioneer in gaming and one of the three first real VRMMO ever launched, RealWorld, as a foothold, and never let go. And now, its servers closed, a week ago, to fuel all those players to the next gen, RealWorldIII. Promising to bring ¡°imagination back to gaming¡± as its motto. The systems revealed through the beta actually pointing that they may as well be true to their word. By the time I got back to my home there was just half an hour left till the game''s doors actually opened. A good time to actually hop into the system and go through the character creation. If this was the past me, even a minute would be enough to do so, since I would have been 100% sure of what and how to build, I would have playtested the hell out of the game, and I would have formed a plan in my head already. But, as with the last dozens of games I''ve played, this time I was only going in with a half-assed browsing of the forums as information. And the developers have pointed out that to fuel their dream of ¡°imagination back into gaming¡± there would be a great deal more options to choose in the actual release compared to the beta testing. I put on the VR set, plugged in the neuron connection on the slot on my wrist, and instantly I was transported into the white space that was my ¡°computer¡±. I extended my arm, willing the correct icon to come forth, and activated my account for RealWorldIII client. The next second, everything went black. *** In the distance, I could see a tiny dot of light fast approaching towards me. As the light grew, I found myself looking towards a huge world. The feeling wasn''t like falling towards there, but it was more like I was a third party, an observer, gravitating towards the continent, watching the scene of carnage unfolding underneath my feet.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The forests were on fire, the oceans raging, huge tsunamis rising and drowning the port cities. And in the center, a sea of people battling it out with gigantic creatures. Dragons as huge as a city were flying above, a single breath burning thousands of people, golems as big as skyscrapers trampling upon the horde of people, fantastical beings filling my field of view as far as I could look. The battle lasted for almost a quarter of an hour, till there was only a handful of people still left alive, and my viewpoint shifted even closer to them, to the point that I could hear their shouts over the rumble of the battle going on. They were concentrating their attacks on the biggest, baddest, dragon flying above them, a handful of them erecting barriers to keep the rest of the creatures away from their core, and another squadron of them focusing on the threats that managed to cross the barrier. ¡°Avron, a golem to the left passed over!¡± A blue skinned water nymph shouted towards a giant dressed in gold plate and carrying a sword that was even taller than him. The next second, with an inhuman speed the giant leaped and brought his sword down, forming a beautiful arc in the sky almost like tearing the world itself. Pure white ripples of energy expanded from the arc, hitting the golem straight in the torso, engraving a deep gash right in the middle. Simultaneously, violet and black chains made of energy shot up from the ground, grabbing both arms and legs of the golem, and making it kneel to the ground, making the earth itself ripple like an earthquake had hit the area. A shadow leaped on the kneeling golem, running upwards towards its head, throwing somethings inside the open gash as it run alongside it. When it reached the top of the head it stopped, the silhouette of a humanoid shadow holding a dagger clearly visible. With its free hand, it made a victory sign as a youthful, female voice left its lips. ¡°Blow up you ugly!¡± Almost like a signal, a series of chain explosions running the length of the scar, where the shadow had planted its bombs, rose up tearing the golem in half. It took another five minutes of fighting till the group of mages finished their spell, sending a lance of blue energy right on the underbelly of the dragon. It roared and let yet another breath engulf the area in flames, but the fires couldn''t pass through the water shield made by the nymph. Almost like a harpoon, the lance was sticking to the dragon, chaining him to the mages as it was tearing him from the inside. One, two, mages collapsed, their life energy spent to fuel the spell. The dark warlock wasn''t far off as he was holding off two lizard-like huge beasts by himself with his violet-black chains, and the giant swordsman was battling yet another golem, solo this time and having switched to a one handed sword since his left arm was missing. But in the end, the Dragon let his final death cry. The next second, the body of the dragon disappeared, replaced by a bright, searing energy, that exploded. Where the fires touched only ashes remained, and soon his flames covered the entire continent. By the time the flames stopped raging, there was nothing left. No beasts, no heroes, no forests, just ash. In the far corners of the charred lands, amidst the stone and the charcoal, the ghostly images of the heroes appeared, several times bigger this time and fully incorporeal. And with a wave of their hand, nature bloomed once more underneath the broken land. From ruins all across the continent, a few survivors emerged, almost like called to those places, they moved. Time was now moving in fast forwards, as the survivors made caravans of people, and guided by the ghostly heroes made their way to places where life was starting to bloom again, and slowly but surely, small villages started reappearing, and small animals started emerging from the forests. The intro cinematic ended as the first goblin appeared from a forest and hungrily looked towards a small village settlement. *** ¡°So... like RealWorld ending huh?¡± I remembered when RealWorld ended, in a huge cataclysm, as the energy of the world kept feeding into the earth, it would keep spawning harder and harder creatures. By the end of the game, the last week before the servers closed, such an event had happened as well. The goal was to kill one creature big enough to start the mana explosion to purge the land before it was completely overrun. The reward for the event completion was that, depending on contribution, the avatars of our characters would stay as Gods for RealWorldII, their names, and deeds engraved into the very history of the next game. My character back then, twenty years ago, was like those heroes I had just watched, and true to their word, he stayed on, known as ¡°GVAlex, God of Community and Patron of Guilds¡± That was back when I was fifteen, and the last time I had time to play any game seriously. But knowing that ¡°Avon, God of War¡±, one of my best friends, and second in command back then, managed to continue on and make a living out of playing games, and continued the legacy of my guild and even managed to become a God, as ¡°Avron¡± now, two times in a row, brought a smile on my face. I sighed just a bit depressed, knowing that those things were far away from me now. That now I was just a ¡°filthy casual¡±. With the end of the cinematic, the whole area around me became a blinding white room. Twenty minutes had already passed, something that I completely forgot to account for when I logged in. Now there were just a few minutes before the game launched, and ultimately, not enough time to make a proper character. ¡°I guess I have to half ass it again¡± I sighted... Chapter 1: Character creation Almost as if on cue, two black holes appeared in front of me, and like descending from the heavens, the figure of a blue nymph, dressed in actual water currents landed in between them. ¡°Greetings lost soul, I''m GVFerianess, Feria for short, Goddess of Life, and I''m here to guide you through your first trip to the lands of Ercen¡± Her voice sounded like something in between the calming sounds of a river and singing. But her appearance was exactly like someone I really knew back in the days of my playing binge. ¡°Mary?¡± ¡°I don''t know who that is, but if her appearance even slightly resembles this majestic me, she must be quite the beauty.¡± The nymph said while puffing her nonexistent chest in pride ¡°Ye ¨C heh- s, sorry for that Goddess¡± I managed to stifle my laughter. Those damned developers even managed to have the AIs copy the mannerisms and speech patterns of the original people they copied it seemed. ¡°A-Anyway, here is the place where your soul will take its first form. On my right, is the forge of the body, where you choose how you''ll look, and on my left is the forge of the soul, where your first abilities will be forged upon your very being. Where do you want to start?¡± ¡°So... that''s race on your right and starting skills on your left?¡± ¡°HAH! That''s a crude and blunt way to describe the very foundation of your genesis!¡± ¡°But...?¡± ¡°But... it''s true.¡± ¡°I''m running out of time here, so let''s go race first.¡± I said as I walked right into the right black hole. The scenery changed, and all around me dozens of humanoid figures were laid bare for me to pick. From the classic fantasy settings, like dwarves and elves, to some a bit more exotic like undines and elementals, to some outright grotesque like zombies, there were easily more than fifty races available. ¡°So... do you want your gender to be matched with your soul, or do you want to experiment with something... different?¡± She continued on in an almost mocking voice. Geez... gender equality organizations are going to have a fit if that''s what she says to everyone making a character...I thought as I stared at her with a dead pan gaze. ¡°Male is fine.¡± If I really wanted to experiment with a female body, there a hundred of virtual brothels that offer that option either way. ¡°And will you go for a boring regular race, a fantastic elemental race, a horrendous undead, or a construct?¡± ¡°Did you just blatantly discriminated against half the races and in favor of your own?¡± ¡°What?! No!...¡± She exclaimed as she turned her face away from me ¡°Isimplytoldthetruth¡± she muttered under her breath. ¡°So, disregarding that, cons and pros of the races? Do they come with abilities or are they only cosmetic differences?¡± ¡°Of course they come with abilities. But they come with upkeeps too. Undead as an example, apart from the horrible drawback that you''re a filthy undead, have some of the strongest racial abilities. Skeletons as an example lack internal organs, so they are completely immune to criticals. On the flipside, because there''s only soulsforce keeping their bodies together, it''s much easier to cripple them by breaking their limbs, so they are more vulnerable to brutal strikes. Their physiology also makes them immune to poisons and mind control, but they are more vulnerable to be taken under the control of a necromancer. Lastly, all undeads, don''t have a need to eat or drink or sleep, but because a portion of their soulforce is required to keep them together, they need more soulforce to awaken more of their abilities and potential.¡± ¡°You keep saying soulforce. That''s mana?¡± ¡°No. Soulforce is exactly what you hear, the power of your soul. As a lost soul, you''re not born into the world, rather you manifest into it like a monster. When you die, a part of this force is being absorbed into the earth, but the rest of your soulforce allows you to rematerialize in places where the veil of the god and human world is thin, like temples. Similarly, when you kill a monster, you can steal a portion of its soulforce and make yourself stronger. As monsters naturally die, or as you kill them, a portion of their soul will also be absorbed by the earth, and other monsters will use it to spawn, becoming stronger and stronger as soulforce keeps cycling.¡± ¡°So... that''s the rationale for EXP here...¡± ¡°Yes! EXP is the currency for soulforce! Did you know already and are just wasting my time?¡± ¡°...Whatever. Show me the normal races then, I never was one for too much weirdness.¡± ¡°Yes! There are humans, booooring. There are elves, pretty and nimble with a flair for the arcane and druidic arts, as well as excellent hunters. There are dwarves, stout and strong, masters of metal and stone, honorable to the point of stupidity. There are gnomes, which are.. weird, master tinkers and secretive. There are orcs, violent brutes with a short temper, ready to fly into destructive rages in a pinch. Goblins... disgusting, so I''ll skip those. Halflings, nasty little buggers, can''t get them to stop singing drunkenly in a tavern, but they can disappear the second you lose sight of them... which is usually used for mischief. Giants, self-explanatory, big and strong. Wildkins, short and slender with a natural camouflage. Dragonkin, which vary a lot depending on your ancestry, but all can fly, or at least hover, and all can utilize breath weapons. And lastly, celestials, either godly or devilish, half angels and half devils, both closer to the divine realms compared to other races, and like dragonkins, most can manage the ability to fly when they become strong enough. Of course, there also exist half-races, generally with humans who mate with whatever they find, there are half-orcs, half-elves, half-giants, even half-dwarves. Celestials are already halves of angelic and demonic beings, dragonkin are half breeds already as well, and wildkin are halves as well, the result of elves mating with dryads.¡± ¡°Really now, do you describe the races as such? What if I wanted to play a Goblin?¡± Somehow Feria looked at me in a way that it seemed like she was looking straight through my soul. Her light smile leaving her lips, replaced with a solemn expression. ¡°I''m Feria, Goddess of all life, ALL life. While I may have joked around, all of my children are equal to me and are to be judged by their actions and not their birthright.¡± For a second there, she truly seemed to be emitting a divine aura as light enveloped the AI. Seconds later, the light went out with a *poof* sound, like a balloon popping, and she was in her regular goofy smile as she continued. ¡°Despite that, I sensed an intimate connection to your soul and the lost soul that let me reach divinity, and let myself a bit freer, hehe¡± She giggled. ¡°Truth is, I can read your soul and your mind, and I can speak in a manner that lost souls brain patterns find comfortable.¡± So, the AI has developed so much in those thirty odd years it exists that it can now respond to our brainwaves through the VR? Are we certain we''re not heading for a domination from our machines overlords like so many novels and critics heralded ages ago? ¡°Ok, ok... I don''t want filthy goblins after all.¡± I winked back towards Feria. ¡°Show me the wildkins¡± ¡°Sure!¡± The various models around me vanished out of existence, and only one remained, which was promptly brought right in front of me. It was... short. Shorter than even elves, it was about a meter and a half, and really slim. The most defining feature was that its skin color was naturally a bit darker than what a caucasian would be, but looking it a bit closer, it was also textured like bark. Furthermore, there were patches of dark green skin that fluctuated on the skin, like camouflage clothing. ¡°You can further develop the appearance as you like, to see a finished body. Do you want me to tell you the detailed abilities or do you want to first customize the appearance?¡± Feria chirped from beside me. ¡°Hmm, let''s see if I can make it something that I''ll like first, and then we''ll see.¡± Looking around, I didn''t see any sliders and trying to touch the body, thinking that pop ups would appear failed. Seeing my confused gaze, she continued on. ¡°Just think what you want and I''ll take care of it. Think slimmer or fatter, taller, other colors, and etc.¡± I tried to make him a bit fatter since it was truly all bones with just a bit of muscle on top of them, but the fattest I could achieve barely registered as normal. With how the muscles were naturally toned, it reminded me of the body type of marathon runners or something. Next was the height, where to my dismay I realized that the 1,50 was already towards the high end, so I let it there. I couldn''t play with the skin-tone at all, and Feria explained that the skin-tone of Wildkins naturally changes compared to the locale they are at, from pure white at snow, to dark brown at deserts to deep gray underground. Furthermore, when the camouflage is active, it actually covers the entire skin, like a chameleon. To my pleasant surprise though, the face was modeled after my own already, so I only had to do minor tweaks there, mainly on the hair, where I gave myself wild looking, shoulder-length, brown hair. For eyes and hair colors, only brown and black were available for this race, so I went with brown. I gave a last look towards the body, nodding to myself in acceptance. Feria clapped delighted as she carried on. Well, now that you have chosen, let me tell you the detailed abilities of the race. ¡°As you see they are thin but have well developed muscles. That means that you''re not that resistant to damage, but you''re nimbler than the average. Wildkin strength, even with their thin build, is about average due to them being all muscle. You have better senses than most races, utilizing most senses like a beast, from really acute vision, to extraordinary hearing, even to the degree of your smell being almost good enough to track with. Furthermore, you can also see really good even in minimum light conditions. You can think of it like you have the natural senses of various predators found in a forest. Of course, all those abilities are directly linked to your soulstrength. The more you use and rely on them, the more they develop. You can activate your skin to match the surrounding terrain. This also applies to soulbound equipment, since that becomes part of you. The degree of the match depends, once more, to your soulforce, and doing so depletes your internal energy, mana. Your race has a naturally good disposition with both elves and fey, but, because they are few in number, there isn''t any community comprised from mainly wildkins. Since you''re regarded as a predator smaller animals may run in fear from you, and bigger animals may regard you as a threat in their territories. Similarly, when they feel threatened by an external force, they might run towards you for protection, since apart from a predator, you are also regarded as one of the nature guardian races, like dryads or nymphs. Your inherent talents make it easier for you to grow as a hunter, or with hunter related skills like archery and leatherworking, but harder to grow with industrial based skills like blacksmithing and gunner. Are you happy with your choices, or do you want to redo the race and appearance procedure?¡± ¡°No, that seems fine. A hunter type with natural stealth fits with what I have in mind.¡± ¡°Finally, you get to pick up a name. Do you want me to tell you suitable names for male Wildkins, do you want me to randomize a name out of that list, or do you want me to randomize a name disregarding wildkin customs?¡± ¡°No, it''s fine, I already know my name. It''s Alexin.¡± ¡°...The name Alexin is not available, another soul has already reserved it. Do you want to be called Alexin35?¡± ¡°What? No! Then... Alexian?¡± ¡°The name Alexian is not available, another soul has already reserved it. Do you want to be called Alexian35?¡± ¡°Alexus?¡± ¡°The name Alexus is not available, another soul has already reserved it. Do you want to be called Alexus35?¡± ¡°God fucking damn!¡± ¡°The name Godfuckingdamn is not available, another soul has already reserved it. Do you want to be called Godfuckingdamn35?¡± ¡°...Time is ticking... suggest me a wildkin name with Alex somewhere in it that is not taken!¡± ¡°Qualexys, Chalexric, Alexaris, Frale...¡± ¡°Qualex?¡± ¡°That just sounds weird! If you don''t mind sounding like a duck... it''s open.¡± ¡°Nevermind... let''s go with Qualexys.¡± ¡°Then onwards to skills!¡± Feria exclaimed as she striked a pose with her left hand extended and pointing towards... nowhere in particular. The place around me blinked for a second, and suddenly everything turned black, except a dropdown list starting exactly where her extended finger pointed. ¡°Do you know how skills work, or do you want a brief or a long explanation?¡± Quite some time has passed already even with me rushing through the races, but I also wasn''t all that certain about skills from my slight browse through the forums.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. ¡°Give me the brief version¡± ¡°Ok!¡± Feria gave me a thumbs up as she started. ¡°Skills are the very core of RealWorldIII. After the last cataclysm of RealWorldII, the greater gods pantheon, known as Developers, worked hard to give all of you a way to fully bring whatever your fantasy is to life! The building blocks of that are the base skills. Base skills can be acquired from various sources. Training in one, finding or buying a skillbook, asking for a trainer to embed their knowledge into your soul, and various other ways you get to find yourself while adventuring in the world. But the main three are those, training, skill books, and trainers. As you use your skills, they absorb soulforce from the world, getting better and better. As you kill monsters using a skill, a portion of its soul gets absorbed by you making the skill even stronger. And as you complete deeds, the emotions of the people move the soulforce of the world in a way that you can absorb a tiny bit of it. When you gain enough soulforce to get a higher power soul, when you level up, you can embed that soulforce to a skill to give it an artificial boost. But more importantly, the very soul of the skill system of RealWorldIII is the combination skills. From your second level and every two levels after that, you can combine two skills into one. This will either make a brand new skill or derive one of the combined ones into a new one. The exact result depends on a myriad of things. From how you have used the skills so far, to your general stats, to the disposition of your character, to your character knowledge, to the order you combine them, and etc. Apart from very few, specific, combinations which are set by the Gods, this allows you to customize your character in a way that no one else has. The Greater gods ensure that every single skill can be combined and that even if they combine in a way that they didn''t foresee, the system of the world itself will create a skill just for you. Naturally, combined skills can be further combined later on. As an example, for a swordsman with fire magic, combining sword mastery with fire magic may result in an art that allows him to incorporate a flaming blade into his moves, while for someone that mostly uses fire magic and uses his sword when something comes near, the same exact skills may alter his fire magic skill to a ranged magical attack skill that materializes flaming blades to assault his enemies with. As for combinations where things are set in stone, those are mostly for more mundane things, like combining light and medium armor mastery into a skill, would always result in hunter armor mastery, and then combining this with heavy armor mastery it would always result in "armor mastery". Lastly, some, but not all, skills have derived talents. So, the aforementioned armor mastery simply makes you move better in all armor and allows all types of armor to be used better. The higher the skill level, the better the result. But, something like sword mastery may come with some specific attack talents that unlock at specific levels and grow with the derived skill. The Gods have said that there will also be cases that lost souls, like you, will actually create talents where there were none. Like a specific attack turned into a talent. Lastly lastly, active skills use one of the three resources of your soul and body to be used. Mana, stamina, and rage. Those three resources are important because they also give passive benefits, so take care to not overspend them! Mana starts full and replenishes slowly, but there is a lot of it. It''s the power of your soul, and the more you have, the more your resistance to enemy magic is. It is mostly expended on magical skills or on skills that you imprint part of your soul on them. Stamina is, well, your stamina. It is used for vigorous activities like running or swinging your sword, it is replenished quickly, but running out of it will leave you out of breath. Rage is a combination of your body and soul. It starts empty and builds slowly while in combat, it passively grants a bonus to the strength of your attacks, but you can also spend it for burst. Finding the right balance of all three is important for mastery of the system. Using the previous swordsman, he could use his mana for long lasting buffs before the start of the battle, then use quick attacks with his sword using his stamina while he builds up rage, and at the end finishing his opponent with heavy attacks using his build up rage, giving time for his stamina to recover in the meantime. Lastly lastly lastly, mastering a skill gives further bonuses AND counts as a separate skill for combinations. So, two identical people, with identical everything, except one having blacksmith level 49, and the other one having blacksmith mastery (50), will derive a different skill when combined with another skill. Lastly lastly lastly lastly, skills get mastery rank at different levels.¡± ¡°..that was the short explanation?¡± ¡°Yes!¡± ¡°How much time do I have till servers launch?¡± ¡°1 minute and 37 seconds!¡± ¡°And how many starting skills are in this dropdown menu of yours?¡± ¡°1356 starting skills! You get to pick two for starting out.¡± ¡°...fuck...¡± ¡°Are you alright? You seem a bit agitated?¡± ¡°Let''s say a certain nymph managed to max my rage meter.¡± ¡°?¡± As Feria tilted her head with a puzzled look and blinked towards me, I felt my slowly rising anger dissipating. ¡°God damn cute things! I''ve been fatally wounded again!¡± ¡°What?¡±
Attention all players, 1 minute till servers launch
¡°Nevermind. I guess physical skills will be easier to pick up, like swinging the sword and firing a bow, so let''s go to magical ones. Are there any skills that summon stuff?¡± ¡°There is summoning, bringing monsters from other places, uses mana. Necrobind, using the soulforce of dead creatures to create short lived souls, uses stamina. Necromancy, binding the soul to dead creatures, animating them, uses mana. Elementalism, creating lesser elementals, uses mana. Conjuration, creating small monsters out of thin air, uses stamina. Blood magic, using your blood to create homunculi, uses rage. Animancy, dealing with golems and such, uses mana...¡± ¡°Ok, the clock is ticking, let''s stay in character, give me elementalism. And is there anything to enchant or augment stuff?¡±
Attention all players, 10 seconds till servers launch
¡°There is enchantment magic, short and medium time buffs on a living target, uses mana. There is inscribe, writing runes on equipment to give medium and long time buffs, uses mana. Enchant art, permanently alter a piece of equipment, uses mana and rage. Geomancy creates magical gems to socket into equipment, uses mana. There is...¡±
Attention all players, RealWorldIII is now officially open and running, we wish you all a fantastical journey!
¡°Give me inscribe!¡± ¡°Are you certain that you''re ok with your sele..¡± ¡°YES! Accept! Log in! Start!¡± The next time I blinked, I was inside a lush forest. And I was bombarded with system messages popping in blue screens in front of my eyes.
You have spawned in an environment suitable for your starting class The nearest elf village is 2 hours NW The nearest neutral settlement is 1 hour S
You can access your map bythinking clearlyShow map
You can access your inventory by thinking clearlyInventory
You can access your character screen by thinking clearlyCharacter screen
For the first hour enemies you face will be majorly disadvantaged by the system until you familiarize yourself with the combat system. They will do much less damage, take more damage, and will not initiate any attacks towards you. If the combat system detects that you''re familiar enough, the difficulty will rise to normal. As long as the difficulty is on easy, rewards from killing monsters, both EXP and items, will be equally penaltized. The developer team of RealWorldIII wishes you happy gaming!
Ok, so like that?Map
Your map only shows what you have already explored, since you lack the cartography skill it will be wildly inaccurate.
...Wildly inaccurate? It''s a fucking blinking dot! That''s not even a map! ...whatever... Then...Character screen.
Name: Qualexis Race: Wildkin Gender: Male
Level: 1 Experience: 0/1000
HP: 16 MP: 18 Rage: 0/100 Stamina: 100/100
HPregeneration: 0.06/sec MPregeneration: 0.1/sec - STregeneration: 10/sec
Strength: 8 Dexterity: 12 Agility: 12 Constitution: 6
Intelligence: 8 Wisdom: 10 - -
Physical attack: 20 Magical Attack: 18 Physical defense: 18 Magical defense: 28
Critical chance: +2% Critical damage: -2% Speed: +2%
Reputations: Elves: Favorable, Fey: Favorable
EXP%: 1x (0.01x ¨C new player tutorial debuff), +0.2x bonus for hunter related skills.
Skills: Talents:
Natural camouflage Lv1 -
Feral senses Lv1 -
Elementalism Lv1 Summon minor elemental,
Inscribe Lv1 Minor P.Att rune,
Ok... Thankfully there are tooltips. It seems HP is based on level and constitution. MP is based on level and Int. Regen is based on constitution and wisdom respectively. Physical attacks are based on Str and Dex while magical attacks on Int and Wis. Physical defense is based on Agi and Con. And the only slightly weird one is Magical defense which is based on current mp and wisdom. Which basically means that this will fluctuate a lot in a battle. For secondary stats it seems that Dex gives crit chance, Str gives crit damage, and Agi gives move and attack speed. Skill wise, natural camo eats 1 mana/1minute min 1, but I really need to test its effect since it says nothing. Similarly, I have no clue about the stats and controls of the elementals, and how minor is the buff to the attack damage from the rune. At least the durations match, with both being five minutes. Next,inventory. ...Ok, not much to see here. I guess that because I didn''t choose a weapon skill I don''t have any weapons. And because I didn''t choose an armor skill, I''m wearing just my clothes, which aren''t even clothes. Brown, semi-torn rags... At least I have my magic! Oh, there is a fountain pen and ink in the inventory, I guess that''s there for inscribing. E-Even with that, my master plan of having a stealther that summons stuff to fight for him, a solid solo player casual approach for someone that mostly wants to see the world, begins now! Let''s start testing. First, summon. Somehow, in my mind, there are actually four different incantations. I also know that I require a natural source of the element, so, since I lack water and fire at the moment, I could go with either wind or earth. Earth sounds sturdier, let''s go with that for a tank. Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate, I can already feel something moving inside me, that must be the mana, and... done! There is only a slight issue. My earth elemental is nowhere to be found... Hmm? Nope, there it is. The issue shifted a bit. Why is it only as tall as my knee! Give me my skill point back! Seriously, a vaguely humanoid shape, as tall as my knee comprised mainly of loose soil looks up to me. What is this thing supposed to do, annoy someone to death?! I can''t even see its stats! How will I know how much I''ll enhance him with inscribe? Whatever... Let''s see. I start inscribing the rune that''s in my head on the body of the elemental.... it''s actually quite hard to write on dirt... patience... patience... there!
Inscribe failed. Target was not an item.
¡­ Ok. I saw that coming from miles away. I can''t be pissed at that. The main reason I picked those two as my starting skills was that I could combine them immediately at level 2 to make a skill to inscribe elementals. ...why is my rage at 18/100? That''s purely coincidence I say! Second step. I still have some time with newbie protection on. Perfect time to make some weapons. ¡°Ok, you''re hereby known as Dirt-kun!¡± I declared to the mass of soil that''s still looking at me puzzled. Obviously, my naming sense is compromised from reading too much manga, but it''s ok for now. Heh?! Did Dirt-kun just made a guts pose?... he''s cute... ugly, but cute nevertheless! ¡°Onwards Dirt-kun let''s find some materials to make some weapons!¡± I could randomly pick up a stick, or break a branch to make something vaguely resembling a staff, but I have this inkling on the back of my mind, that using that as a weapon will eventually give me a ¡°staff combat¡± skill, and I don''t want to somehow turn into a staff wielding, dress wearing pansy. I would much prefer to become a stealthy coward that bypasses obstacles by throwing my expendable minions into the fray while I sneak away! So, light armor and throwing weapons it is! The last VRMMO I played, battle...something, boasted that it had environments that were super realistic. But even that paled towards RealWorldIII. Maybe it was my enhanced senses, but everything around me seemed alive. As I traversed the thick forest, the sounds of nature all around me were keeping me on my toes. From animal sounds in the distance, to the rustling of the leaves from above me, all combined with the tricks the light played as it pierced the thick foliage to transform a peaceful looking forest to one that I felt like I was a step away from making a misstep and getting randomly pummeled to death by a massive bear or something. By the time I found a large enough rock to work with, I was dripping with sweat from my paranoia, and my neck was starting to hurt from all the twitch reflexes as I turned to look towards every minute noise. Checking the clock... 5 minutes have passed... Dear god, I hope this passive doesn''t turn me into a pansy... Nonono it''s because I don''t have a weapon yet. And because my magic is... Dirt-kun. Yes, that is. Dirt-kun is to blame! If he was something like two meters tall I wouldn''t be half-scared to death already! So, back to business. Rock. First, we find a sturdy large piece of it, and we put a flat rock on top of it. Then, I pick a smaller piece of it, a bit bigger than my head, and slam it on the piece resting on the slab. And again, and again, and again. Making small rock flakes usually. And keep going. Put a smaller piece of rock into the slab, smash with my hammer-rock, pick up the flakes, repeat. Managed about 30 nice sharp flakes and a single bigger one, the size of my fist, till I was strangely out of breath. I say strangely, but more accurately, it is because each time I swing it was because it ate 20 of my stamina... that''s too much imho, but again, whatever. Since I was lucky enough to already get a big single piece that somehow resembled a blade, even if it was sharp only on one side, it is easier now. Just have to chip that, using a slightly smaller anvil stone, until it more or less resembles a knife edge, or a spear one, whatever happens first, it''s not that I have that much control over it with my limited knowledge. ...Turns out, that when you hit a rock to chip it, and you also happen to hold that stone with your bare hand, those razor sharp flakes have a tendency to stick, painfully, in your hand. At least it is presentable. I can surely say that at this point this thing can kill a monster made out of butter! The second step was way easier, vines were abundant all around me, and so were sticks small enough to break to make something that no one sane would call a hilt. For a second I thought of asking Dirt-kun to go gather the wood, but it seems his duration has long since expired. Oh well, Dirt-kun you shall be remembered! It was funny trying to tie a sharp rock to a lousy piece of wood using vines. Needless to say, it wasn''t going well. Truth was that I expected the system to kick in in the 5 minute mark or something to help me, usually that''s how VRMMO go, but now more than 20minutes have passed and I was still struggling. At this rate, I will be still in the forest even after newbie protection expires. That will be bad. But now it was more of a vanity issue. I WILL make that dagger no matter what... Took me a bit more, but in the end, I won! Take that system! And as if on cue...
You created Extremely crude and blunt stone dagger
You created and learned the skill Outdated Stonemanship Lv1 Lv1 Outdated Stonemanship recipes have been added to your recipe book
The system has judged that creating a unique skill shows enough system knowledge You''re no longer under newbie protection Once more, the Developers of RealWorldIII wish you a happy gaming experience!
Wait, what? Fuck! Chapter 2: The long march Suddenly, all those noises, that I had just started to adapt to, all that chirping and the innocent breaking of a branch just shy away from my field of view, once again became the things that made horror movies work! And I didn''t even have Dirt-kun now! At least he is easily replaceable. And this time I have a secret weapon, two secret weapons in fact! I started chanting the summoning spell, and by the time I finished, a solid body, knee-high, made out of rocks had formed. Yes! This time I wasn''t limited to soil, take that! ¡°I hereby name you Rock-kun! Let us vanquish our foes together my extremely tiny and inoffensive looking friend!¡± 3...2...1 And there''s the guts pose! Yes! Next, inscribing my stone dagger.... Or not. It seems that crafting takes mana in addition to stamina, so not enough for inscribing. That was 10 mana for the summon, 5 for the crafting, and inscribing takes 10 more. So let''s wait a few seconds, and a few seconds more, and juuuuuuust a few seconds more... and there. As I was saying, next, inscribing my dagger! I seem to have forgotten something... well, whatever, all that matters is surviving the long march to newbie village for now! Five minutes have passed already. Needless to say, I''m moving extreeeeemely slowly. From tree to bush to tree to bush. Trying my best to remain as unseen and as unheard as I can. Obviously stopping whenever I hear anything as much as creaking somewhere nearby. Simultaneously, Rock-kun valiantly marches about three meters ahead of me, hopefully drawing the attention of nasties in place of me. At least I have already unlocked the skill. And like a well-oiled clock, Rock-kun fell lifeless on the ground, five minutes are up. At least it''s just a three second cast to revive him. Aaaaaand done. Hmm? There was the sound of leaves getting stomped just a bit ahead. Staystill time. And there''s the leaves again, and again, and again. Something is walking towards here. Undoubtedly one of the legendary starting village animals is on its way. I hope it''s a rabbit. Rabbits aren''t scary. I could also hope for a slime, although I have no clue how it could make such sounds moving if it was one. Let''s hope it''s not a wolf though. Wolves would be a big no-no. Regardless, better safe than sorry, OP skill camouflage show your worth, activate! I should have tested that sooner... my skin tone barely changed to be a bit more the tree hunk I use for cover... Character creator you lied to me! What did you show me, lvl10 of the skill or something?! And heeeeere''s the nasty. And it''s sniffing the air, searching for me I think? Ok, it''s not a wolf. It also isn''t a rabbit. I want to know which sadistic bastard thought it would be a good idea to put wild boars next to a starting point! That thing is massive. Need I remind you that I''m at most a fifty kilo guy at the moment? That thing could crash me in a single charge. Let alone damage, I will surely die if I get hit. Rock-kun is also doing his best impersonation of a rock. You betrayed me Rock-kun!... Actually, he has done that every single time I stopped moving and taken cover, I wonder how he knew? But it doesn''t matter, I''ll say it again, you betray me Rock-kun! Go and valiantly charge at the nasty boar and take aggro! He...he... he actually charged! I''m so proud of you Rock-kun! Now, to run away... As the tiny elemental charged, the boar that was clearly walking towards me stopped for a brief second. Enough for Rock-kun to gap the distance and throw his tiny fist right into the stinky muzzle. From the outcome of it, it looks more like it annoyed it rather than actually damaged it, but that seems enough to stop looking at me. Now, camo and sneak around the battleground towards the exit, Rock-kun is made out of rocks, he should last that long, right? The boar just headbutted the lump of rocks, poor Rock-kun just learned how to fly! And now the boar is charging straight up to where the poor elemental landed. Come on! This is clearly elemental abuse! At least this time Rock-kun stood his ground as he retaliated with yet another (tiny) punch, on the leg this time since he couldn''t easily reach the head. Standing still for a moment to survey the, already decided, battle, it looked almost as if the elemental was getting angrier. Elementals didn''t have rage? Right? Regardless, sneaking away, sneaking away, this battle has nothing to do with me, sneaking away... My happy thoughts were interrupted by a lump of rock that crashed on the tree just next to me as it was, once again, launched by the boar, and theeeere comes the follow-up charge, right next to me. Crap, did the boar just turned its head and looked at me. And it suddenly cried in pain and turned its attention back to rock-kun who had finally managed to break the skin of the boar''s leg with his fists and made him bleed. But I''m seen, and with my current speed, I''m already dead. ¡°Nothing to lose except my pride. Let''s use the short route to the starting village then.¡± I sighed as I lunged forward, crappy stone dagger in hand. The blade easily slipped through the hide opening a huge wound on the back of the boar. No, I''m not kidding. I don''t know how, but the extremely blunt dagger somehow easily pierced the tough hide of the wild boar. As the boar roared in pain mister system decided it was a good time to pop blue screens in front of my eyes.
You have gained Dagger mastery Lv1 You have unlocked the Lv1 Dagger talent Stab
Stab: cost 20 energy,cooldown 3sec, +10%damage, +30% armor piercing
You''ve unlocked the sneak and dagger talent Backstab, damage is dependent on both Dagger and sneak levels Backstab: cost 40 energy, cooldown 0, requires stealth, +100% damage, +100% armor piercing
Ah... that''s how. Then, stab. I felt that I knew how to use the move the second I got the system update, and indeed, the second I thought of using it, I gripped the dagger slightly stronger as I delivered a quick thrust hitting right where the leg of the boar connected with its main body, and almost instantly pulled the dagger out. Certainly not a fancy move, but also certainly effective. The boar tried to maneuver, tried to turn around towards me, but it seems that Rock-kun had done a nasty work on its leg already as it obviously had trouble using it. Giving me enough time to madly flail about with my dagger, sadly, only one of the three strikes actually connected, leaving a really swallow cut on its hide. And now I was out of breath, figuring exactly how it felt to run out of stamina. And a mad wild boar was looking at me, ready to tear my guts out.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Well... at least I tried. Let''s see how much is the pain conversion in this game. The very next second, the boar roared once more in pain trying its best to maneuver once again away from us or to be more precise away from Rock-kun. The small elemental was radiating a bright red aura as it flailed his fists, continuously hitting the hind legs of the boar. With every tiny punch, the rock around its arms chipped away, turning the previous blunt pebbles to razors that easily sliced off chunks of flesh. ¡°Go Rock-kun! Rage your heart out!¡± I exclaimed as my dagger unerringly found its way towards another soft spot on the hide of the boar, courtesy of stab getting off cooldown. And I immediately regretted my decision to stick around as the boar''s eyes flashed red and he started to madly thrush around... there was the stereotypical death rage of wild boars that I''ve completely forgotten about... The first one that was sent flying was, of course, me, even with doing my utmost to jump out of the way, even if his attack just grazed me, I was still sent flying, accompanied with a nice red -15 message in front of my eyes. Which truth to be told, I found weird, since that was the first damage number I''ve seen so far. Nice, calculated survival at 1 hp. Seconds later, Rock-kun went flying towards the opposite direction. But he shall be remembered as a hero in my heart. Since the boar''s charge, with both of his hind legs and one of his front ones, crippled, was really more akin to boar-slowly-hobbles-towards-his-target. I had enough time to stand up. Clear the dirt off my tattered clothes, and... patiently wait for my doom. Seriously, I couldn''t feasibly make a ranged weapon at this time, summoning an elemental would just mean one hit at most before the new one went flying as well, there was no way in hell I was personally going next to the boar to land a stab, so... I could always run away, but it felt SO wrong, to be so close to victory and yet being stuck to the position of seeing my doom slowly hobbling towards me. ¡°There goes nothing...¡± Concentrate, concentrate, don''t look at the mad boar slowly making his way towards you, concentrate... And there, with a gust of wind, a misty air elemental appeared in front of my eyes, at least this one had the courtesy of flying at the height of my face so I immediately noticed it. ¡°Greetings Windy-chan¡± Air elementals are by default females right?! ¡°I entrust myself to you!¡± 3...2...1 Where''s the guts pose! Oh! It''s a curtsey this time! ¡°Just to be certain, how do you fight?¡± The small bundle of air made small punching motions, like air-boxing. Something that for a being comprised of air seemed like it would be hilariously inefficient. ¡°I see... let''s not do that. Could you instead launch those as projectiles towards the big nasty over there?¡± I said as I filled my palm with the razor sharp byproducts of my dagger, mainly sharp flakes of stone. Windy-chan, like the good girl she is, slowly levitated one of the stone flakes towards her, and when I say slowly I really mean slooooooowly, making me depressed on my choice of elemental. But before I even finished my bad, bad thoughts, the flake was launched with tremendous speed, as it embedded itself right in the moving mass of death that was crawling towards here! ¡°That''s it! You''re... the... best...?¡± My victorious speech was cut in the middle as I watched a deflated Windy-chan trying to breathe, not having enough power to even fly properly as she slowly gravitated towards the ground. Somehow, even though I was certain that I wouldn''t be able to do it, I picked her up and started the slow procedure of backpedaling until her stamina came back. Launching a shard. Backpedaling for 10seconds. Repeat. Some time, after a bit, enough mana had come back to also summon Windier-chan, doubling my DPS! And after all 30 shards were gone, and the boar was reduced to a pile of moving blood, with its rage and stamina all gone, I valiantly charged, stabbed, and randomly flailed one more time till that beautiful, beautiful, blue screen popped up.
Event complete Avon, God of War got seriously irritated at you, a member of a proud hunter race, when you decided to throw away the life of your valiant elemental and run away from your very first battle without even testing yourself! So, he decided to tinker with the odds of the wild boar finding you, all so that you would die together with your elemental that decided to sacrifice itself to give you a fighting chance. Against all odds, and reason, you actually won. Turning his initial irritation to admiration and even more irritation. Reward: +500xp, you gain Wargod''s blessing
¡°Oh yeah baby! We did it wind-chans!¡±
Wargod''s blessing: +15Patt, +15Pdef, 30 meter aura that attracts hostile enemies, lasts until you enter a safe space
¡°Oh fuck you Avon! I''m gonna punch that battleloving idiot the moment I see him IRL!¡± So... before we get brutally mutilated by whatever this forest has to throw at us, there are important things to do. First, looting! It seems RealWorldIII went the route of realistic disassembly instead of bodies vanishing and loot appearing, at least in the case of animals, since the bloody corpse is still in front of me. Let''s see how to put it into my inventory. Seeing it suddenly occupying six out of my 10 spaces in the inventory there was only one thing to do. Raise my fists and shout to the sky! ¡°Oh come on devs! Inventory limitations on 2132? That''s ridiculous! What else? Do you plan on...¡±
You''re extremely overweight. Moving speed reduced to 50%
¡°...of course you don''t plan to add weight limitations. You had it in already. Fuck!¡± Now that I think about it, there was this one topic on the beta forums on how dimensional storage magic was practically required for efficient farming. But I assumed that everyone had that and I casually skipped the rest of the forum rant. So, it seems we have to acquire said skill. But I couldn''t really abandon my spoils of war. Either way, I was sure that I would die and respawn to the village soon thereafter, so no problem. Next order of business was to bring Rock-kun back online. It took me a good 10 minutes to find where the mass of stones had landed, but at least he was launched towards the direction of the village, so no harm done. What WAS painful, was that the suicide rage attack that chipped his hands into razors, also meant that now there was not enough solid rock to resummon him. For a second, I thought about harvesting the chipped rocks for ammunition for Windy-chan, but I couldn''t bring myself to do it. Rock-kun lived and died as a hero. He deserved to rest as one. Those two minutes it took me to dig a shallow grave, bury him, and then cover him up with a bit of bark that was reading ¡°Here lies the hero of the battle against the demonic boar, Rock-kun¡± courtesy of the inscribe ink, were well spend. Windy-chan and Dirt-Kun even took a second to kneel in front of the grave. I''m so proud for them. And yes, I figured I was an idiot, since my natural mana regen was enough to keep 2 elementals and the inscription on the dagger going without any problem. I was regeining enough mana for each of them every 1:40, and they lasted 5 minutes each... If I was smarter, maybe Rock-kun wouldn''t have to pay with his life... After all was done, then started the period of my life that would be known as the long march... There is no need to further describe my battles with the three wolves, and no it doesn''t matter that they were killed one by one and not as a pack, nor with the vicious bloodcurling rabbits, or the bear that... ok, so there wasn''t a bear, that''s besides the point. Moving on, I''m sure bards will tell the tale of how I emerged victorious from the dreaded forest of doom, with a boar and a wolf in my inventory, and pulling two more dead wolves tied with vines on my back, and the three dead rabbits safely tied around my neck. As the rest newbies looked at me with eyes full of admiration, fear, and obvious pity, as I proudly, and slowly, reeeeeally slowly, walked towards the starting village, with my 10% moving speed, three hours since the start of the game, I had finally found civilization! What needs to be told, is that +15 Patt and +15 Pdef, when I originally only had 20 and 18, were actually more than helpful, and that a crappy dagger with an inscribe on it stops being so much crappy. Also, two elementals are actually better than one, and despite their tiny size, they were actually a strong skill. Also it seems like Windy-chans used stamina while Dirt and Rock-kuns used rage, so using one and one actually complimented their attack patterns. Lastly, outside of talent strikes, I seem to suck using the dagger... But as I was saying, I''m sure bards will sing of the epic of this tragic hero, which ends with him falling to his knees as he entered the village, kissing the soil, and then raising his fist towards the skies, extending his middle finger, and shouting ¡°Fuck you Avon! I survived!¡± Chapter 3: Newbietown I was seriously reaching the limit for my daily playtime at this point, but it couldn''t be helped, it was launch day! The only thing was that screaming voice inside of my head telling me that with half the office on leave for the week, greedy bastards, I could really use the rest before going to work, but I still had at least six hours till then. I''m sure that four hours was enough sleep. Needless to say, I had already leveled up once during the long march here. My status at this point was:
Name: Qualexis Race: Wildkin Gender: Male
Level: 2 Experience: 625/2000
HP: 23 MP: 28 Rage: 0/100 Stamina: 100/100
HPregeneration: 0.06/sec MPregeneration: 0.1/sec - STregeneration: 10/sec
Strength: 8 Dexterity: 12 Agility: 12 Constitution: 6
Intelligence: 9 Wisdom: 10 - -
Physical attack: 22 (25) Magical Attack: 19 Physical defense: 18 Magical defense: 38
Critical chance: +2% Critical damage: -2% Speed: +2%
Reputations: Elves: Favorable, Fey: Favorable
EXP%: 1x, +0.2x bonus for hunter related skills.
Skills: Talents:
Natural camouflage Lv3 -
Feral senses Lv3 -
Elementalism Lv3 Summon minor elemental,
Inscribe Lv2 Minor P.Att rune,
Dagger Mastery Lv2 Stab, Backstab
Sneak Lv2
Outdated Stonemanship Lv1
Toughness Lv1
Cloth armor mastery Lv1
Combination Points: 1
Regarding the skill point awarded, it seems you can''t hoard those, so naturally, I spent it on camouflage, where else? And yes, I kept trying to sneak and camo my way out, but it never worked due to the stupid aura, at least the system didn''t seem to care so they leveled up. Toughness was granted after I took a few hits, too easy to get, but it was a crappy skill after all, the only thing it did was adding a whopping 1 hp, as for Patt, I finally remembered to check it out, the dagger granted just 2, but the minor inscribe buffed that up to 5. Cloth armor mastery gave me 1% more defense using cloth armor, but 1% of 0 was still 0. And while Mdef seemed high, with my usual 20 points of mana missing due to the upkeep of my spells, more or less, that meant that it was usually 20 points down. Finally, I did spend my one stat point from the level up towards intelligence, more mana in the future will mean more elementals after all, but I was still hesitating to spend my combination point, at least until that whole Wargod curse was done with. And since now I''m in a village, and hopefully, I will pick up some more skills, maybe I''ll get more options on what to spend it on, although the plan of somehow inscribing my elementals is still in the lead. Standing up, with the safety of now being inside the village, and with the Wargod''s blessing gone, I could finally relax and take in the view... or the lack of one. The outskirts of the village were really just grass planes, a few clumps of rocks were spewed almost randomly, just so as to break the monotony of the green, knee high, blades of grass. From time to time, white furballs would appear jumping up, but almost instantly they would get surrounded by parties of people hacking and slashing their way to victory. Although how useful was to use a full party to kill a single rabbit was more than questionable. Regardless, the presence of actual people, after seeing no one in the forest, was actually refreshing, and if nothing else, the players WERE the most colorful thing on the planes, almost disturbingly so. Leaving alone the armors, which followed the usual fashion sense of adventurers, which was strapping every piece of equipment on you regardless how weird it all looked together, alongside stuff like bright purple hair, pink skin, and yellow and red tattoos, the amount of different races when put in such a perspective was indeed staggering. What confused me even more was that for some reason, there were even more people inside the village compared to outside. And if those were crafters, or merchants, or people moving around and actually doing stuff, then it would be ok. But no, there were droves of people just lazying around, sitting in the shade of the plain village huts, using the white plastered walls to lean upon. I hope this was what happened when we actually logged out, because if people became so quickly bored, not even leaving the starting village, then the future of the game wasn''t looking so bright. Regardless, before finding the answers for this thing, there was this slight issue of me moving at 10% moving speed and still having no way to actually get anything out of my well deserved spoils of war. I approached a bunny girl wearing leather armor, which put yet another issue to resolve, mainly WHY DIDN''T I SEE ANIMAL RACES IN THE SELECTION???, and decided it was finally time for me to let my social charisma and eloquence shine! ¡°Errm... hi?¡± The bunny girl slowly turned her head from watching the people slaying her smaller sized kin in the fields towards me, and graciously snapped at me like I was some kind of villain. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Ehh... you see... do you know where I can learn dismantling or something like that?¡± I said apologetically as I pointed to the stuff tied behind me back. And with her just raising her hand and pointing out a slightly bigger house down the road, my very first conversation on RealWorldIII was done. ¡°Thank you!¡± I shouted as I run towards the destination, well run is an overexagerration with my moving speed, but whatever. The moment I passed through the open door, a deep stench assaulted me. The sweet, sweet scent of a tannery, the place where I could turn the ugly wolves into fabulous armor was found. No more rags for this hero! There wasn''t a lot in the small shop, a counter, and three big wooden tables, probably a place to lay on raw pelts. But my acute sense of smell, which truthfully was a real problem at this time, pointed out that most of the stench, and thereby actual tanning process, was done somewhere behind the door that the burly, human, tanner stood. The moment his big, brown eyes fell on the carcasses of the wolves behind me, he shined me a bright smile, pushing his thick mustache upwards.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°Why, welcome friend! Can I assume that those animals are for sale?¡± ¡°Well... it depends. Do you only skin them yourself, or can you also teach me how to do that?¡± The tanner looked a bit troubled, as he lifted his left hand to rub his head, right on his recessing hairline. ¡°Tell you what. You don''t seem like a guy that willstick around for long, so it''s not like I will lose a permanent customer. But! I will lose a good chunk of money either way if I teach you my art. I guess two silvers is a fair price to ask to teach you.¡± Speaking of money, I just realized that the game had me starting with absolutely no money at all... ¡°That would be a slight problem dear Sir. I''m broke. Could I sell you some of those things and use this money instead?¡± ¡°I see, I see... Bring me twenty rabbits to somewhat alleviate the costs, and I''ll teach you. How does that sound?¡±
Quest received: Leox the tanner wants you to bring him 20 rabbits. Reward: Dismantling Lv1
I closed my eyes as I pictured the droves of players hunting the rabbits the second they spawn. Then I pictured myself running around like a chicken trying to somehow secure a whole seventeen of them. For some reason, my eye started twitching. ¡°So, look here Leox. You have how many people, fifty? more? bringing you rabbits. There should be a limit to how many of them you need. How about... I give you this sweet, sweet wolf corpse instead of the twenty rabbits?¡± I looked hopeful towards the tanner. Before I finished the sentence, with agility that didn''t match his age and build, Leox jumped over the counter and grabbed one of the wolves. ¡°Deal!¡±
Quest updated: You convinced(?) Leox to teach you Dismantling using a wolf corpse as payment
And for some reason I''ve been left feeling like I''ve somehow cheated myself... Sighing, I looked at the tanner that was absorbed checking out the condition of the dead wolf''s pelt. ¡°So? Will you teach me?¡± ¡°Hmm? Yes, yes, come here. Help me bring the wolf on the back. The first step is separating the skin from the bones, then you...¡± It took about ten minutes for the tanner to completely strip the fur from the animal, which frankly I don''t know if it''s fast or slow, and then another ten or so to explain what else I would need to do in order to bleed it and separate the meat and the bones, but at the end, I was rewarded with another system screen telling me that I''ve learned Dismantling Lv1. Fearing that it would take a good half an hour or even more just for one wolf, I immediately put the second one I was dragging around on the table, prayed, and used Dismantling. Thankfully, my prayers were answered, and almost instantly I found myself looking at a , a and two pieces of . Although I did feel cheated because there''s no way there was only one good bone and only enough meat for like a day''s worth of food in a whole wolf... But I''ll take the instant disassembly over a few bones and meats any time of the day. Dismantling the three rabbits, the last wolf and the boar in an instant, I finally had a normal looking inventory, with 12 pieces of , 2 pieces of , 1 piece of , 3 pieces of , 6 , and 2 , which basically were from the boar and were the size of my finger each. Best thing of all? I finally was again below the weight limit. Hooray for normal speed! Now, one last thing. ¡°Hey, Le...ox...?¡± The tanner that I''ve forgotten that was next to me, was just staring at the empty table where 6 bodies just disappeared, blinking at the spectacle. ¡°So, you''re one of the lost souls as well? Damn thing keeps getting me no matter how many times I see it.¡± He sighed and continued. ¡°You could have told me earlier, it would be much faster to teach you if I knew. Just keep in mind that even if it''s faster, your way is way inefficient, but I''ve heard that lost souls of the past had found ways to bring out almost as good products, or even better, compared to manual skinning, so... keep trying I guess?¡± Ahh yes, the lore is that we''re not even born in this world. We spawned from soulwhateverlike a monster and that''s why we revive and get stronger faster. But old souls of the past? He can''t possibly be talking about people from just those three or four hours. Well... whatever, there are much more pressing issues compared to Lore. Skills for one, and getting those dirty rags off me for second. And the best part, they are one and the same! ¡°So, Leox Sir, you don''t happen to also teach leatherworking, do you?¡± ¡°Normally no. Normally I would have sent you to my brother, a proper craftsman. Heh, this little brother of mine is enough to make our whole family filled with pride over the quality of his work. But for a lost soul...? I''m enough. Usually, just a thorough description is enough for you guys to pick up the starting steps of a craft, and then on you should just practice it till you''re good enough. Although, if you want more patterns than something really basic, you should really go to me brother''s shop at the center of the village.¡± ¡°Ok, ok your brother rocks. But for now, the basic skill should be good enough.¡± ¡°...¡± ¡°...¡± And here comes the awkward silence. I decided to be the one to break the staring contest as I pointed to my rags. ¡°So? When can you teach me? I''m dying to replace this crap!¡± ¡°Y-You... You really expected to be taught for free?!¡± Crap, found out. ¡°What would it take?¡± ¡°Well, leatherworking is inherently much more difficult compared to simply dismantling. That''s why I''m so proud of my brother. It''s also much more time consuming. Even just describing and guiding you through the process of the simplest thing will take an hour. To top it all, I would also have to charge you for the initial designs, since you can''t work on nothing after all. Normally, for teaching the skill and the designs for a basic leather chest and leggings I would charge a full gold coin, but seeing as you''re broke... I''ll take that boar pelt you got earlier.¡± ¡°You''re joking, right? Right? That''s my... my... Oh fuck it, you can have it.¡± By the time the tanner was done with explaining, showing, stitching, and whatever else he was trying to show me, I was already using his baritone voice as a lullaby, barely holding my eyes open. Work will be hell tomorrow. I didn''t even bother reading the system screen when he finished. Just thought System options and scrolled down to log out. It was greyed out... IT''S A DEATH GAME!!!!! Or... not. Through the history of VRMMOs, only one actually became a ¡°death¡± game, about twenty five years ago, and it had a whooping 2 casualties. But still, VRMMO''s, even in this age, especially on beta''s and launch often have synchronization errors, which usually disable the ability to log in and out of the game until resolved, for health and security reasons, or more simply, so as NOT to fry your brain. In fact, anything with less than 99.95% synchronization autamatically locks you in until it stabilizes. Knowing that, it suddenly makes sense why there''s so many people people half-bored to death inside the village, and only people going after rabbits even after so long after launch.While ¡°permadeath¡± chance is practically impossible, getting stuck in a death screen, unable to move, act, and feel, until they fix their error, is actually quite a propable thing to happen. Not always, but often enough that people won''t risk it. The only weird thing is that usually there would be a system announcement the second they found out that something is wrong, and judging from the state of the half-asleep people outside, it''s been going for quite some time, and no announcement. But I guess there will be a reason given later on. Only thing I can do, is sleep here then... And pray that they delay enough the fix to actually cut on my working hours, since then I will be both playing the game, AND they will be forced to pay me the percentage of the wage that I''ve lost! Now... let''s find an inn that accepts fluffy pelts for rent! Chapter 4: Co-Combination! ¡°...only chickens disconnect...¡± ¡°...THE END IS NEAR...¡± ¡°...Eflgaurd, competitive PVE guild looking for members!¡± ¡°...Looking for healer to duo wolves!...¡± ¡°...Looking for merchant ally!...¡± ¡°...look no further Aeternity PVE/PVP guild now recruits!...¡± ¡°...you''re an idiot...¡± ¡°...everyone disconnect NOW...¡± ¡°...get lost noob!...¡± ¡°...selling leather armors, buy while they''re hot...¡± ¡°...Leave while there''s still time!...¡± ¡°...Don''t join Eflgaurd, they are noobs!...¡± ¡°...look, mom, I made it in the pro scene!...¡± What woke me up was the incessant noise and shouting coming from outside of the cheap inn room, reminding me what great invention modern window frames actually are. Stretching my arms I felt oddly relaxed, like I had quite a few hours of sleep, and judging from the shouting outside, whatever synch problem existed had long now been fixed and I was late for worked and fucked... The clock on the top right was reading a quarter past sevenin the evening, which would mean that I had a full eight-hour rest, and was about two hours late for work. Thankfully, just before hitting the, now available, log out button I took the few seconds to read the system message that had popped while I was asleep.
Really important notice, do NOT just skim through it Greeting Players. As you have noticed we are having some synchronization issues. First and foremost, we want to express our sincerest apologies for any and all inconveniences caused by such issues. As for the delay from our part for an answer or an explanation, that''s deeply tied to the nature of the synch problems. At this point, we''ve verified that there are zero health issues with logging out, and as such we have re-enabled thelogoutbutton. Everyone can safely log out if they wish to do so. The bug that caused the issue happened only on this specific server shard, so, while you''ll be unable to log back into the same server shard, you can create a new character on a new shard to continue your adventures! As for what the issue is exactly, it''s maybe one of the most important modern discoveries of all times. The holy grail of VR advancement that kept eluding us. Time manipulation. To spare you the technicalities, one of the main difference of RealWorldIII was the coding that provides an extremely fast reception speed, allowing such a detailed world as the one you''re experiencing to be realized. For some unknown reason, a bug on a single shard of our servers somehow causes everyone inside to experience everything ten times faster than normal time. And the game has adapted itself by speeding up accordingly. To put it the most simple we can: For the first time since VR history, we''ve managed to accelerate Virtual time. Time passes ten times faster for all of you at this point. Hence why the delay of this message. What you''ve experienced as six hours of desynch is actually only just over half an hour for us. Our first priority at this point is making certain that this won''t cause any abnormality in your brain, and all tests so far on people, employees of the company, who have logged out, indicates that there is absolutely no reason to worry or panic. Everything is ok. Furthermore, since we still can''t manage to replicate the exact same bug an another shard, the United Scientific Community, alongside the World Wide Military has asked us to extend,ON THEIR BEHALF, the offer to stay in the game so that they can monitor your well-being. To put it simply, the moment the population reaches a low critical mass, the server is configured to merge you with a more populated shard to keep an enjoyable experience. If this happens, before we replicate the bug, there is a huge potential of losing our one chance for such a discovery to be made. They wish to extend a monetary offer to all of you to continue playing, alongside with monitoring your out of game vitals to ensure that you stay perfectly safe for this period of time. Unfortunately, due to the seriousness and the moral implications, they ask you for a day or two of good faith until they draft a suitable, legal, contract. Which for all of you translates to more than a week of game time. As a company, we remind you that your real life responsibilities, like family, should take priority. But if you can manage to stay online, apart from the monetary rewards, this is your chance to be part of a monumental discovery for the whole of humanity. Choose responsibly and carefully.
Well... yeah... that changes things a bit? For starters, I''m not actually late for work! As far as out of game responsibilities, there is my job and... that''s it? I''m pretty sure neither my father, or my mother, or my sister need me around, my job isn''t that critical either way, data analysts exist in droves after all... Actually, that''s the only problem. It''s damn hard to get a decent desk job these days, so maybe the safest bet would be to actually log out and go back there. It won''t be the first time I would have declined a chance to make money off a game instead of a normal job, I had such an offer extended to me twenty years ago, with the closure of RealWorld, back when I was leading GV. I was scared back then and didn''t actually have the economic support to chase after such a dream. The most harmless solution would be to stick to the game until I have to go to work, which should be in like two in-game days, and then deciding. Yup, let''s do that. It has nothing with pushing the decision for later, nonono this is for... erm... data collection! At the very least, that gives me two ¡°free¡± days of playing, and I''ve already spent most of the daylight stupidly sleeping. Well, stupidly from a player''s point of view, I DID start the game after a twelve-hour work shift... I already had liquidated half of the meat I had and all three rabbit pelts to pay for this room and get a tiny sum of money to feel more at ease, although, from what I gather, my 8 coppers that I have left shouldn''t even be considered money at this point, even the room was a full silver. And with the leather chest requiring three wolf pelts and a rabbit pelt to be crafted, plus two more wolves and one more rabbit for the leather leggings, I should do my utmost to farm those before the night falls. Not sure I can handle the dreaded forest of doom at night. And so... it finally came. The time for the game''s flagship. Time to spend the combination point. Although let''s be real, I can''t be the only person here that thought of temporal buffs on his summons. So, here we go.
Do you want to combine Elementalism Lv3 with Inscribe Lv2 Y/N?
Yes! Suddenly an extreme feeling of nausea hit me. I could feel stuff stirring inside of me like I''ve eaten some rotten food and it was running amok in my stomach. It was almost like the feeling I had when I used my mana to summon the elementals, like there was something inside me, both natural and unnatural, moving by its own will. Only this time there were two clear ¡°somethings¡± and they were mixing, and churning, and turning, and separating, and mixing again. Seconds later, the spell of dizziness passed, and I was really grateful that I hadn''t eaten anything in game yet because I wasn''t sure that it wouldn''t have left me alongside the nasty feeling. Yet, now that it was done, it almost felt right somehow. Like the internal ¡°somethings¡± inside me fit my body better.
Elementalism Lv3 and Inscribe Lv2 have successfully combined, creating the skill Inscribed Elementals Lv1
Inscribed Elementals By inscribing the proper runes on suitable materials, you can create a contract with a minor elemental. This allows you to call one favor/ability from each inscribed elemental before it leaves, permanently free, to the world. The elementals have minimum intelligence, allowing very slight freedom regarding their effects. The highest the compatibility of the elemental with its home, the more power it can draw out during its activation. As an example, using Inscribed Elementals on solidified magma to bind a fire elemental will produce greater results than using it on a burned charcoal which would, in turn, produce a greater effect compared to binding it to a stone pebble. The range offavors/abilities depends on the skill level. The size, and thus effect, of the favors/abilities, depends on both the size of the provided material and the level of the skill. Only the binder can call on thosefavors/abilities.
...what? Ok, that WAS unexpected. And weird. And totally NOT what I was going for. Hell! I can''t even completely understand what it does, but it seems like a consumable type of thing only the creator can use? Ok, ok, let''s see. It looks... limited. But at least the tooltip gave a hint of how to use it. For starters let''s find a stone to try to bind an earth elemental to actually see what this does. I walked down to the main hall of the inn, towards its exit, and immediately did a 180 turn towards the back as I noticed the inherent flaw of my plans: Why play with rocks, when you can play with fire! ¡°MUAHAHAHA...HA¡± Why is everyone looking at me so strangely? It was the perfect occasion for a manic laughter!Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! There''s the hearth, there''s a coal... ¡°AAAAShitFuck¡± -1 Listen well kids, never, ever, try to grab a searing coal with naked hands. Time for plan B. Pull a coal from the edge of the hearth even more out and wait for it to cooldown a bit... Five minutes later, the innkeeper probably took pity on my trying to test if the coal was cold enough and brought me a rusty coal clamp to pick it up. That works too. Now, let''s see. I picked up the coal with the clamp and inscribed the rune of fire that somehow I knew what it looked like. No reason to actually use ink, simply scratching it on the soft coal surface should work, according to knowledge I have no clue how I have. Then close my eyes and chant softly the incantation. Yes, there''s the familiar feeling of mana moving and slowly leaving my body, and.... done. Holy shit! I actually did it on the first try! Am I a genius or what?
Minor blast stone: Explodes on contact (except creator), Damage: 10-20 fire damage, Radius: 0.5m. Only usable by: Qualexys.
Ok. That was not what I expected. I expected that I had to talk and make a deal with an elemental and work out some kind of contract. This, this seems usable with not much hassle. I would have personally named it something simpler though, like ¡°elemental consumables¡± or something, but I guess this way they try to please the lore junkies. There are some slight problems with the skill though. It took 25 out of my 29 Mp just for one of those. It took about a minute for the chant, and another for the actual inscription. I have no clue how much is 10-20 damage, given that my dagger only says +2 Patt. I can at least say that if I was to eat two of those in the face, I would probably die, but on the other hand, it seems I''m made out of paper. Time for test number two. The second I walked out of the inn I saw the chaos that was going on in the streets. People were shouting to one another. People were running around like headless chicken, people were... grabbing me from my hand and pulling? Looking backwards, towards the one that was pulling my ragged clothes, there was an old dude staring fervently towards me. His long white hair and white beard gave him the stereotypical image of a great wizard or something, but his rags, which rivaled mine, and his raging eyes, made that image of the wizard crumble to something more like a raving lunatic. Spittle escaped his mouth as he shouted towards me. ¡°You! You can still leave! Run fool! Don''t throw your life inside a game! The real life is outside! They''re just telling us lies, they want us to be moved to clinics to study us. Us! Human beings! They want to chain us and monitor us!¡± ¡°Chill dude...¡± Before I had the chance to finish, another one pulled my rags. This one was a blonde elf with one green and one blue eye, wearing gloves that looked like made of rabbit fur, pants made from some form of brown leather, and a blindingly yellow, tattered blouse. He tried to shove the old man away but somehow it looked like he was trying to push an unmovable boulder until an expected message popped out.
No-pvp zone
Disgruntled, he resolved to the only way he knew how to be heard instead of the old man. Shouting even louder close to my ear. ¡°NOOOOO! Don''t listen to him. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, getting paid for playing a game! Err... I mean... Helping the scientists or something... Come join us! We''re the PlayForLife Guild. We accept everyone! I mean, we try to help new players like you!¡± ¡°Aren''t you new yourse...¡± ¡°We got gears! We even have two beta-testers on the guild! Join us and...¡± A few more people picked up on the words ¡°join¡± and ¡°me¡± and as if on cue, there were three more players surrounding me. ¡°Don''t listen to this noob! We''re far better and...¡± A beautiful brunette human female, dressed in a white robe started to speak but was interrupted by a fierce looking red-headed dwarf that was brandishing his battleaxe. ¡°Shut up, you swindle newbs out of their money! We...¡± The dwarf roared, and before he finished he was, in turn, interrupted by a huge looking zombie that somehow was the best dressed out of all of us, wearing some awesome buccaneer looking leather pants and a frilly white shirt. ¡°Gentlemen, relax, I''m sure you''re all too violent for our friend here. We, on the other hand, have a more casual appr...¡± ¡°¡±¡±SHUT UP STINKY¡±¡±¡± All of them shouted together ¡°Who called us a newb! Duel with me! One on one!¡± The blondie continued to shout unfazed as he had procured a crappy looking spear from somewhere and was waving it on the air. ¡°Put that thing away before I stick it where the sun doesn''t shine son!¡± The dwarf shouted back, defending the female he had himself interrupted and accused only seconds ago. ¡°The government is trying to control us I say! Leave now! Everyone logooooooooooooout!¡± The raving old man thundered above all of them. And as they thankfully focused on shouting on one another, I figured it was the best opportunity to slip away. Watching the open, player-less, fields in front of me, I was at least thankful that, apart from the morons inside the village, and for lazy asses like me, the newbie farming grounds were mostly devoid of players, most of them having out leveled this content while I was in the inn sleeping. Spotting a small rock outcropping, I picked up a stone that easily fit my palm, and tried my new skill again. This time it was much easier, given that I only needed to write the rune using my inscribe ink.
Minor stone burst pebble: Explodes on contact (except creator), Damage: 20-30 blunt and piercing physical damage, Radius: 1m (Damage greatly reduced depending on distance from the center). Only usable by: Qualexys.
So, this one did more damage, but physical, and reduced if you didn''t hit spot on. Fire one on the other hand probably could get higher damage with more appropriate material. Now I had 4 minutes to spare until my mana got back for the final test I wanted to do, so I spend those, using my awesome Lv1 Outdated Stonemanship recipe, Create stone arrowheads, that only cost 1 mana. The crafting took just one minute to complete, and it created five arrowheads, far better than the stone chips that I''ve previously used. Apart from being vastly superior time-wise, it also had the amazing effect of actually not getting my palms full of cuts like when I first made them. About four minutes and twenty arrow heads later, I''ve just enough mana for my last try. Writing the runes for air on one of them, and then chanting...
You failed Minor air dart recipe (Requires Infused Elemental Lv5)
...at least it''s possible later on. And the fail attempt refunded half of my mana back! Let''s go, Rock-kun, infused dagger! Time to slay some rabbits at last! ¡­ I won''t lie. Rabbits were like free xp. Rock-kun would draw them out, start the fight with a nice one-two punch of his, then I would sneak from behind with camo on, backstab, stab, and it was already half dead by that point. On the other hand, they gave next to nothing xp wise. I''ve gotten 400 out of the boar, 200 out of each wolf, but rabbits were just 25 each. 8 rabbits later my inventory was full. Thankfully, in between, when I got enough mana, I''ve tested it out and, yes, stone burst pebbles did correctly stack on my inventory. Since for what I needed I actually required 10 rabbits, and I was in no mood to go to all the trouble of hanging them around my neck once more, it was finally time to actually test those consumables. First one obviously had to be the fire one, since this was only one and it took a whole space on my inventory. I''ve spotted a rabbit that seemed relatively still, sneak to about 5m from it, weighed the coal in my hand, and... missed. At least it hit the ground next to it, getting the poor rabbit into the explosion, which then proceeded to charge towards me. Because why wouldn''t a rabbit charge towards an armed person that could throw fire?! Despite being a little disappointed I didn''t one shot it (let''s be honest here, that was what I was expecting), the rest of the fight went about the same way. One-two from Rock-kun, a stab from me, and a few wild hits from each of us, and it was down. So, without any knowledge about animal resistances, it seems that the blast stone did just a little less damage compared to the backstab I missed... could be worse. Stone bursts didn''t do better either. First one missed by just a bit and did almost nothing, making me believe that the dropoff damage was quite severe, something that didn''t seem to be the case for the fire one. That battle was actually quite a bit tougher. The second one managed to hit it dead on, and it did comparable damage to the fire one, making me believe that rabbits did, in fact, had horrendous Mdef. With ten dead rabbits on my inventory, the first step for my world conquest has begun. As I raised my head towards the village, it suddenly struck me. The sun was already setting, and yet, I could see and move almost as good as I did in the dark forest. It seems that I had, once again, really underestimated those racial skills. Acute senses were awesome! Running back to the village, I prayed that the leatherworker was still open. This hero had a job to do, and it would sting to have it delayed due to formalities like working hours! Just as the shop came into view, I saw a tall, sturdy man walking out, turning to lock the door. ¡°WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT!¡± ¡°Hmm, what do you want little one?¡± He asked with a deep, and deeply annoyed, voice. The tanner''s little brother was... well... not that little. Unlike the chubby elder brother, this one was a mass of muscle, a good two heads taller than my tiny self. In fact, the only family resemblance would be the thick mustache they shared. I bet you all know what was coming next though, right? What was holding back my path to victory? ¡°Backpack! Sell me a backpack recipe!¡± ¡°I was clos...¡± ¡°PLEEEASE! Here, 7 small pelts and 5 coppers, that should be the 4 silvers that it costs right? It''ll only take one second, we would have already finished the transaction if we weren''t talking!¡± ¡°Ok, ok, wait a second.¡± He said as he reopened the door, briefly disappearing into the darkness of the store. When he returned, he offered me a piece of paper that had some crude sketches and diagrams on it, which I promptly proceeded to snatch from his hand, handing him the 5 coppers and the 3 pelts I''ve already skinned. ¡°Wait, there are some missing?¡± ¡°Just a sec! I''m dismantling them as we speak now!¡± And a few minutes later, the long awaited system message appeared.
New Lv1 Leatherworking recipe added to your recipe book: Crude small backpack. Cost 3 tiny soft pelts. Crude small backpack: Adds 10 slots to the inventory.
Using my last three pelts, I finally doubled my inventory! Also, don''t ask me why I didn''t dismantle the rabbits while I was hunting, since pelts and meats stack. That''s a secret! A secret! Next in line would have been the wolves for my armor, but before that, there were preparations to make. First stop, the inn. Unfortunately, the innkeeper became increasingly annoying asking for money after the fifth coal, something about the hearth going out and rest nonsense, so I only managed to make five burst stones there. Next, stone, the rock outcropping. Half an hour later I marveled over my awesome stack of stone burst pebbles. And then there was training time. It took me about half an hour flinging stones at a nearby target till I finally managed to snatch the skill, which seemed wildly unfair considering I got the dagger mastery level with the first hit against the boar, but such is life... unfair, and it soon would be unfair for the poor wolves, Hehehehe, I let my inner self chuckle evilly while I was rubbing my hands. Of course, I also diligently kept creating more stone burst pebbles as I trained for the throwing skill, adding them to my treasure trove, increasing the stack to 18. And finally, with that done, in the middle of the night, it was time to see who was the superior night hunter... or not. I grabbed my empty stomach as its rumbling sounds disturbed the silence of the night, scaring a rabbit that was sleeping nearby. That also made me notice that hunger had also dropped my maximum stamina down to 90 out of 100. I started walking back towards the inn but stopped a few steps later. If I would indeed stay here instead of going back to the real world, I would eventually have to learn to cook something, especially if I pursued that hunter thing more. So, I gathered a few stray sticks from the edge of the forest, and wasted one of my precious (not really) flame burst stones, which to my surprise caused the sticks to light on fire and not actually explode into smithereens, which answered my last question about what the whole ¡°elementals have minimum intelligence¡± meant in the skill description. Now, let''s barbeque some , how hard can it be? Ten burnt stakes later, I finally managed to make something resembling the sole of a shoe, and by the fifteenth out of my original sixteen, I finally managed a that gave me Not wanting any more surprises, I walked back to the village well, stuffed myself full with water, and THEN it was finally time to challenge the forest. The only issue being that it was already four in the morning, it would dawn in a bit, and I was once again getting sleepy. So, since I was back already in the village, and I had a few more hours left from my daily rent of the room, I naturally went back to sleep. Chapter 5: Im finally an adventurer! This time I woke up because of the incessant heat pouring through the open windows. It took me a minute to reorient myself before I stopped searching for the A/C controller. But as I saw the familiar medieval and stark room, and saw that it was nearing midday, I immediately shot up from my bed and rushed down, scared that the innkeeper would charge me for the second day of using the room. The smell of something way better than my failed attempt at dinner last night assaulted me the second I was in the main hall. To my surprise, the yesterday commotion had died quite a bit, and apart from regular villagers, you could already see small groups of players gathering around tables, sharing lunch and whispering to each other. The players, easily recognizable by their poor choice of equipment and extravagant race choices, turned for a second, looking at me walking down the stairs, but almost immediately they returned to themselves, disinterested in a broke bloke that was just starting his day hours after the sun has risen. Judging my options, between stale half-burned meat, and whatever was giving that pretty good smell, I instantly rushed to the newbie fields, now renamed rabbit genocide fields, and pummeled at the poor fluffy critters. Seven hard earned victories later, I was back at the leatherworker. I sold four of the pelts there, earning me a good 2 silvers, and after buying a waterskin recipe for yet another silver, and using another pelt to actually craft said waterskin, I was back in the inn, ready to finally enjoy a decent meal. My last two rabbit pelts were hoarded for when I got a few more wolf pelts for my armor crafting. I immediately ordered what everyone was eating, and my last silver was gone. The menu had a suspicious looking grue, and an even more suspicious, white liquid for a drink. Flavor wise, they were quite decent though. The grue was obviously meat based, but with enough stuff inside to actually give it a decent taste and smell, and the drink, some kind of fermented milk with aromatic herbs in, was actually quite refreshing, and enough to finally open my eyes. Flavor-wise, I would have rated both something like 3 stars, but the weird and disgusting appearance actually lowered the overall enjoyment. Either way, they were both miles better than my half-assed attempt at cooking. I had ample time to browse the forums while eating, searching for information about our current situation. It seems the game launched with 50 shards initially to accommodate all the prospective players and was steadily adding more shards hour by the hour as the positive reviews kept pouring in. Only one of the shards, mine, had that time difference bug. The forums were even more of a mess compared to the people in-game. Hundreds of people were raving about how dangerous keeping us in-game was, others were threatening for lawsuits, others were shouting that it was unfair that they couldn''t transfer TO this shard, others were pleading people not to quit. The last camp obviously had two different viewpoints, the ones actually thinking that it is an amazing opportunity for mankind, artificially extending our active hours of the day, and the other was obvious players tempted by getting money while playing the game. The last group of people was in a manhunt for guild members, trying to establish strong in-game communities to make it easier for people to keep playing the game. Mechanics wise, since we were playing at a 10x speed compared to everyone else, it seemed that most of the information about the game was coming from our shard, but there was a Dev comment on that thread telling how, to keep things interesting, each shard had quite a few randomized aspects that differ from one another, which was what caused only our shard to be affected by the time bug, probably some sort of randomized parameters messing up our cognitive ability. There was a new player guide, posted from the beta forums, but that was over twenty pages long, so I casually skipped that. The one thing people seemed to agree on was that, for frontliners, it was worth it to spend their first few combination point to get at least the ¡°armor master¡± skill. That was because each monster gave a set number of skill xp. So, if you got 50 skill xp from a monster that you used your sword, a fireball, and got hit on your chain legs and on your breast plate while fighting, that xp would be distributed to 4 different skills, sword mastery, fire magic, medium armor mastery and heavy armor mastery. If on the other hand you only had ¡°armor mastery¡± to cover all types of different armor you wore, that would mean more individual xp on each of your used skill. And while the same effect would happen if someone only used one kind of armor, it seemed that the best overall gearing strategy was a mix of all of them, with heavy armor on chest and wrist and shin guards, and maybe helmets, light armor on legs, arms, and generally on stuff that you wanted to keep a bit of mobility, and cloth armor, to my surprise, as an underarmor since it seemed it stacked! There were even more broken, xp wise, combinations, like combining sword and shield for a ¡°sword and board¡± style, which further combined with ¡°armor master¡± for a ¡°defensive specialist¡±, which encompassed both armor and weapons and shields, giving you basically tons more skill xp for using the same skills. Although people were already whining that going this way didn''t have any good sword skills, and with sword skill merged, if they wanted a cool combination skill for sword, like flaming blades and whatever, they had to actively hunt down for sword skill books. That was because training with the sword only gave overall xp to the ¡°defensive specialist¡±, and trainers wouldn''t teach those people since ¡°they had enough expertise with the blade already!¡±. There was also a huge debate thread over races, because, unlike closed beta, races with strong racial abilities were given a universal lower xp coefficient, while races with weak racial bonuses got a bonus, with king of the hill being the human, who got nothing of importance and average stats, but was getting a whopping 1.5x xp coefficient. People kept arguing if it was better to have a few strong skills or much faster progression, and obviously, on our locked shard, everyone assumed that the opposite of what he had chosen was clearly unbalanced. Finishing my meal, I sent a quick email to my father and my mother, explaining what my situation was and asking for their input as well, also asking them to supervise the movement of my body to whatever place they would send us to monitor us if I did, in fact, choose to stay in game. As I stood up, I made a casual stroll towards the fireplace, but feeling a piercing, cold, gaze from the innkeeper, I slowly backed off, certain that I had enough flame burst ammunition for my second delve into the forest. Exiting the inn, I could already see that the situation outside has stabilized quite a bit. There were quite a bit of villagers walking around, making it look really alive, but only a handful of players still walking around. Most of those seemed to be going on to their business, either to various shops, or talking to villagers, or simply sitting down, with stuff in front of them, yelling prices for their merchandise. A familiar bunch of players, a blondie elf, a dwarf, a white dressed brunette human, a zombie dressed in extravagant clothes, and a raving wizard-looking old man, were right in the middle of the road, arguing and shouting to one another, so I immediately activated both stealth and camo and walked towards the exit, trying to evade them. One of the good things of the game was that it seemed to give xp for every small thing we actually did. So, apart from the rabbit hunt, I had gotten xp for stuff like skinning the animals, which gave 10 xp for each skin, to crafting my stuff, which gave from 1xp for stuff like the arrows and 5xp for the meal, up to 50 xp for the dagger, and I was even getting 10xp for each Infused elemental I was making. Which had all added up to 1580/2000. Which basically translated that with just two more wolves I would actually level up to lvl 3. Which seemed awesome, until you realized that there were people posting about 5 combination skills and such, which would mean at least level 10 at this point... Furthermore, judging from what I''ve read, since getting hit would give xp to both cloth armor mastery and toughness, both of which seemed really useless to me, I had to now take down the wolves without even getting hit if I wanted my attacking skills to rise up faster. It really seemed like an unfair advantage for the ranged characters. Leaving the village, there was a group of three wounded human hunters wielding spears and bows, that seemed to be talking to each other, that I haven''t noticed the when I went rabbit hunting earlier. Once more, I tried to circle around them, but one of them spotted me and yelled towards me. ¡°Hey, you! Wildkin. Stop!¡± I stopped and turned towards the advancing hunter, my hand resting on my dagger. Thinking that I really should have read what the PvP rules of the game were. ¡°What do you want?¡± ¡°You look like you are going towards the forest, which of course it''s natural for a wildkin to do. But I have to warn you, it seems that for some reason a bunch of people yesterday butchered a ton of wolves. And as a wildkin, you know what this means!¡± ¡°Errr... no? Something to do with respawns?¡± I answered confused as of why I should know stuff like that. ¡°What? No! What kind of wolf would respawn? They are animals, not monsters! You probably have lived your entire life in the forest what don''t you understand?!¡± He answered, equally confused. And suddenly it dawned me why he kept talking nonsense, he was an NPC! AN NPC! The first quest was here! I would finally be a REAL adventurer! Switching talking gears to quest acceptance mode, initialize, 3, 2, 1, go!You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. ¡°Oh certainly! It''s just that I''m not from around here, and didn''t know the forest. You say there is a problem with wolves dying?¡± I said as I simultaneously cursed myself for not gathering leather for my armors even sooner if wolves were becoming a rare mob or something, the sky-high prices of upwards of 1 gold for each piece that I saw in the village started making sense. ¡°Well yes. The wolves of this region were what was keeping the goblin population in check. With not enough of them around to hunt the greedy little bastards, they would swarm us. Those green fuckers multiply faster than even rabbits.¡± ¡°Well then, shouldn''t they after a bit, when the wolves repopulate a bit, be able to halt them then? You''re talking like it''s the end of the village for god''s sake!¡± ¡°It''s not that simple. If the goblins manage to overpopulate the forest, they will be able to overpower the wolves, even if new ones are born. They may even completely subjugate them and wolf rider goblins will start emerging then!¡± ¡°I see... I see... But what if some heroes kept the goblins in check until then? Wouldn''t it be enough?¡± ¡°Yes... but who would do that? Tell you what, halt their expansion a bit, and the village is sure to reward you for your troubles. Then we''ll see what we can do about the bigger problem.¡± ¡°Will do! See ya!¡± I shouted as I had already started sprinting towards the forest the second the blue system screen popped in front of my eyes.
Quest accepted: Hunt down the goblins. Kill 10 goblins and bring back proof of your deeds to the village hunters. Repeatable.
Area Event Initiated: Prevent the goblin tribes from overpowering the surrounding villages until the forest balance is restored. Event completion: 29days 23:59 hours left.
Heh! Quest get! Time to farm some goblins. Entering the forest this time the sense of dread seemed to have lessened quite a bit. I couldn''t tell if this was because this time it was I that actually challenged the area, or if it was because I was somehow getting comfortable with the super realistic environment, or if it was simply because I had grinded and honed my skills quite a bit compared to when I started. But whatever the reason, this time it was me feeling like the hunter, and not like the hunted. It took me five minutes to leave the light forest on the edge of the town until finally, it started getting thick and dark enough to notice that I was now in the deeper parts of it, in the parts where I''ve spotted the wolves on my first trip. Unfortunately, that also meant that the timer of Rock-kun was done, and without any solid stone in view, I had to replace him a Dirt-kun instead. I refreshed Windy-chan and the infusion on my dagger, reactivated stealth, and kept going forwards. After a few steps, I noticed Dirt-kun trying to get my attention, and when I looked at him, he pointed his clay fist towards something on the ground. Looking it closely, I understood that it was a wolf print. Way to go Dirt-kun! That''s awesome! Slowly, with the help of Dirt-kun (ok, mostly due to Dirt-kun) I managed to follow the tracks a bit deeper into the forest until I found a black and gray mass of xp and leather sitting underneath a tree. Somewhere along the way, a system notification had already informed me that I had gained the skill. The wolf looked towards here and it was sniffing the air like it was trying to pick up a smell, which made me a bit self-conscious that I haven''t bathed since I entered the game but whatever. Slowly, almost lazily, the wolf stood up and started cautiously approaching my location. Like he read my mind, Dirt-kun dashed towards the wolf and punched him right on the nose, earning a surprised yelp from the poor animal. Immediately afterward, Windy-chan flew directly over the wolf''s head and started a series of blinding fast punches, something that I''ve realized, after using her a bit, was some sort of stamina based skill attack. Meanwhile, I slowly circled towards the exposed back of the wolf, and I threw my usual combo, which basically was backstab followed by a stab. The wolf yelped once more, clearly injured, but before it had time to turn towards me, this time I had my secret weapon already in hand. From point blank distance I threw one of my stone burst pebbles right on his wounded back. Not only did the ensuing explosion seemed like it hurt a ton, but as expected out of my ¡°minimum intelligent¡± consumable it exploded in a pattern that not one of the shards were launched towards either me or my elementals. As the pain confused the wolf, I backpedaled out of his range, the goal still being not losing xp to armor and toughness bullshit, and let my elementals finish the job. The second the wolf turned around, still focused on rushing to me, Dirt-kun flashed red, and a tiny bit of the soil around the wolf''s paws suddenly enveloped them, holding him still long enough for me to retrieve and throw yet another stone burst pebble which this time hit the wolf right on his ugly mug. Unlike the suicidal bunnies, the wolf turned tail trying to escape us, but at this point, I just had to do a short dash and stab him again, before he fell flat on the ground. What is that you say? I should be hunting goblins and not wolves? Killing wolves will make the goblin population even harder to manage and the event even harder to complete? Like hell I''m going to fight goblins without armor! Also, who even cares about what happens a month in the future, I bet by that point a single high level character could wipe the floor with whatever goblin threat this starting forest could possibly throw against him! One wolf down, two more to go for my armor crafting! Or... actually, let''s see. Skinning the wolf, because this time I''m smart and won''t have to carry on all this weight, that''s 10 more xp, and then crafting the leather chest... which actually took 15 minutes to finish and made me a bit paranoid doing so in the middle of the forest, but granted me another 100xp! But now I feel a bit stupid because if I had killed and skinned just four more bunnies I would have leveled already... But it doesn''t matter, leather armor! Leather armor! Although I was disappointed that I couldn''t actually throw my rags away, it seems wearing the armor directly on top of my skin made me a bit itchy, my Pdef finally had shown a noticeable increase already. I resummoned my pets, inscribed my dagger once more, and off we go, let''s go find those pants... I mean wolves! I continued on, trying to use both mine and Dirt-kun''s skill to find more prints until suddenly I started hearing incomprehensible whisperings from somewhere on my left. Naturally, I approached, with camouflage on this time, and as slowly as I could towards the voices. In a tiny natural clearing, right in between the trunks of a few huge trees, three disgusting small humanoids were sitting. Even with my height, they would barely reach above my waist if they were to stand up. Their sickly green skin was spotted with patches of brownish skin and their eyes were a pale yellow with red irises. Each of them was grabbing some form of raw meat, using his dirty, razor sharp and pointy teeth to tear on the raw flesh, devouring it. The only thing covering their immodest appearance was a torn piece of rugged leather around their waists. Next to two of them, short sticks, like rough clubs, rested, while the third one had a crude and rusty looking dagger sloppily dropped next to him. I motioned my two pets to assault the dagger wielding goblin, and they instantly rushed out of the bush I was using for cover. One of the club using goblins shouted something while he pointed towards the advancing Dirt-kun, and as in sync, all three of them grabbed their weapons and jumped up from their spots, but not before Windy-chan had a chance to unload her punches on the goblin. Amidst the chaos of the screeching goblins, I sneaked towards the back of the dagger wielding one, and backstabbed and then stabbed it as per usual, readying the pebble on my left hand to be launched towards it. To my surprise, the goblin just fell down, dead before I even had the chance to throw the stone burst. At this point, a sharp and numbing pain invaded me right from my left knee, where the club of a goblin struck me, forcing me to kneel down to the ground, screaming in pain as a -10 number floated in front of my eyes, the swing of the second goblin landed squarely on my chest, where thankfully the leather armor helped to numb and redistribute the force of the blow equally on its surface, a -5 number appearing this time instead. Swearing in a hastily makeshift language, I tossed the pebble that was still in my hand towards the goblin that had struck my face, hitting him square in the face before it exploded into a million razor-sharp splinters. The goblin screamed as it dropped his club, backpedaling blinded as his hands moved to clutch his bloodied face. My two elementals were already on top of the other goblin, pummeling him with fists, Dirt-kun finally having an opponent that wasn''t like four time his size... this time it was just double! Before the goblin that had dropped his weapon had a chance to recover, I had already retrieved one of my blasting rocks from my inventory, which was promptly thrown right on his body, leaving a large black burn mark as the goblin fell down dead. Ignoring the blue screens that appeared in front of me, I quickly used stab which had come out of cooldown on the last goblin, dropped my dagger on the ground, taking two stone burst stones out of my inventory, one in each hand, and threw them, point blank, one after another on his chest. Looking at the scene of carnage that lay on my feet, I hastily recovered both my dagger as well as the rusty metal dagger of the goblin, and then stared at the three dead bodies, unsure how I was supposed to take proof of their killing back to their village. The whole ¡°cut an ear off¡±, when looking their disgusting bodies and vile blood, didn''t seem really appealing at the moment. About a minute after I started pondering and fighting with my inner self about cutting parts out of their bodies for proof, something that has never happened when fighting the rabbits and the wolves happened. The bodies of the goblins shined softly for a second and then they started disintegrating into motes of blue and green light that swiftly dived into the earth below them, leaving only the tattered leather they used as clothes, their sticks, and three tiny green crystals behind. The mechanics behind the lore about how monster''s energy feeds back into the earth, allowing even stronger monsters to be born becoming apparent. I just hoped that those tiny crystals, actually named , would be enough proof for the quest. But all this was trivial. One thing mattered way more. Level three baby! Oh yeah! The stat point going once again towards intelligence, and the skill point obviously towards Infused elementals. Chapter 6: Goblin killer So, goblins apparently just give 60xp each. They really look like the rabbits of this forest eh? Speaking of rabbits, looking at my status I get an urge to quickly go and butcher a hundred or so of them just to get my second combination point, but it would probably be way more time efficient to just finish off with the wolves and the goblins I guess.
Name: Qualexis Race: Wildkin Gender: Male
Level: 3 Experience: 70/3000
HP: 31 MP: 40 Rage: 0/100 Stamina: 100/100
HPregeneration: 0.06/sec MPregeneration: 0.1/sec - STregeneration: 10/sec
Strength: 8 Dexterity: 12 Agility: 12 Constitution: 6
Intelligence: 10 Wisdom: 10 - -
Physical attack: 23 (26) Magical Attack: 20 Physical defense:22(23) Magical defense: 50
Critical chance: +2% Critical damage: -2% Speed: +2%
Reputations: Elves: Favorable, Fey: Favorable, Avon: Noticed
EXP%: 1x, +0.2x bonus for hunter related skills.
Skills: Talents:
Natural camouflage Lv4 -
Feral senses Lv4 -
Elementalism Lv4 Summon minor elemental,
Inscribe Lv3 Minor P.Att rune, Minor P.Def rune,
Dagger Mastery Lv4 Stab, Backstab
Sneak Lv4
Outdated Stonemanship Lv1
Toughness Lv2
Cloth armor mastery Lv2
Cooking Lv1
Dissasembling Lv2
Leatherworking Lv1
Throwing Lv1
Tracking Lv1
Infused Elementals Lv4 Inscribe minor elemental,
Combination Points: 0
Some stuff looks really promising from what I can tell. The third level of inscribe which I got Immediately after inscribing the rusty dagger finally gave me a defense inscription, which I promptly applied to my chest armor, and will basically double my xp grind for this skill. Toughness, which I initially thought as useless may be of some use, because apparently, it gives hp equal to its level each time, so if you leveled it up from something like level 19 to level 20 you would get an additional 20 hp, which doesn''t seem that awful as I initially thought, still bad though. And infused elementals seems way too easy to level up. I''ve made what? 30 or so of those stones and it was already level 3, level 4 with the bonus skill point from the level up. It shouldn''t be that hard to let it reach level 5 so as to gain that Air Dart or whatever it was called. Due to the fact that elementalism keeps up with my stealth and camouflage skills, which are probably getting that xp bonus from my race, it seems almost certain that the skill gains xp when you are using the elementals in battle, and not just when you summon them, which seems pretty good considering it''s one of my two main damaging skills and I constantly use two elementals. Mana and mana regeneration seems to be the main issue though. With the second infusion, keeping two elementals and two infusions up would cost me 40 mana over that period of 5 minutes, while I would only regenerate 30 mana at the same time. So, for the time being, it seems that the Pdef infusion has to go, it only boosts my defense by one after all. But for the future, when I would probably want to infuse all my armor pieces, I would need to find a way to dramatically boost my mana regeneration, and boosting wisdom doesn''t seem sufficient enough. I should probably ask for the spellcasting teachers in the starting village about that, or even head towards the elven village in the woods, obviously after I''m done with the goblin quest. They will probably have an answer to my problem. I can''t believe that the devs have made such a blatant balancing oversight regarding magic. Now, onto business, let''s continue searching for those wolves. Onwards Dirt-kun! "Searching for tracks, searching for tracks, wolfie wolfie where are your tracks? searching for tracks, searching for tracks, leather armor where are your tracks?" I continued onwards, lightly humming a tune while my eyes were glued to the forest floor and my ears open for any more goblin speech and ten minutes later I was rewarded with a fresh looking pair of tracks leading to yet another wolf. I started following them but not even after a minute, from the direction I was heading to, my ears caught up sounds of battle. Rushing along, I was rewarded with a scene of carnage. Five goblins were desperately trying to kill a duo of wolves. Two goblins were already lying dead and both wolves seemed to be greatly injured as well. Obviously, I waited until a goblin was almost dead till I sneaked towards the battlefield and backstabbed it, instantly killing it. The wolf looked surprised for a second that its prey had been killed, unsure if it should attack me or turn its attention to one of the other goblins. I helped with his decision by taking out and throwing towards him one of my flame blast rocks, finishing his life and getting one more goblin that was rushing towards the wolf in the explosion. One more goblin tried to rush towards me but his path was instantly blocked by the pair of my elementals, giving me just the right time to sidestep, pull another flame blast stone, and hit both the other wolf and two of the goblins that were literally on top of him trying to bite him. Unfortunately, the blast didn''t kill the wolf, and fearing that I might lose the precious xp, I had to rush towards him, putting myself right in the middle of the goblins that were attacking the wolf and the one that was battling it out with my elementals, just so that I could use stab and finish off the wolf. Before entering the fray, I really wanted to kill equal amounts of goblins and wolves, but my greedy self just couldn''t resist that beautifully set up blast that hit all three... and ultimately left me in the middle of four goblins, all of their attention now only me. Not only that, having seen me throwing tiny fireballs to my targets, two of them broke from the trio in front of me and flanked me. At this point, I couldn''t afford to look back, and I had to pray that my elementals could keep the one directly on my back occupied.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Cursing my hastiness, I threw one more stone burst to the one on my left, since it seemed to be the most gravely injured, but the lucky bastard ducked and it flew right above him. The one in front of me rushed forward trying to smack me with his club with an overhead swing, but with a quick sidestep from my part it missed. His momentum carrying him forward, stopping at the spot I was standing seconds ago and blocking the path of the right goblin which was getting ready to attack. My own movement had pushed me just one step closer to my initial target, the leftmost goblin, which hadn''t yet recovered his balance from the dodge against my stone, allowing me to cleanly slash him with my dagger twice before he backed off. Almost immediately, a heavy bash on my back threw me completely off balance, almost making me fall, face first, on the ground. I clumsily turned, trying to slash at whatever was on my back, but my hand went wildly off target, slashing the empty air, way above the goblin''s head. With a quick glance I saw that the initial goblin that I had attacked was crawling on the ground, bloodied, trying to slowly get away from the battle, but before I had time to go and finish it, the rightmost goblin which was wielding a dagger similar to mine, finally managed to circle around and cut my path. The view from behind, the goblin against the elementals, seemed to be going in our favor at least, although I couldn''t tell how much more time would the elementals need to finish him off. Counting that side safe allowed me to focus my attention on the two remaining goblins in front of me. One was a stick wielding, quite injured one, while the other one was a dagger wielding and relatively unharmed. Attacking either one had its merits. If I went for the stick one, it would probably be easier and quicker to finish him off, allowing me to completely focus on the dagger one. But that would give more free time to the dagger one to attack me, and I feared that his attack would hurt a lot more than a stick. Cursing myself once more for lacking the patience to kill a few more goblins before I killed the second wolf, I lunged towards the stickgoblin, stabbing him once, before the cooldown of the actual stab finished and stabbing him with that as well, watching him fall backward, dead. At that time, a searing pain penetrated my left thigh as the other goblin''s blade dug its way into my leg. I jumped back, almost falling down due to the pain in my leg, and realizing that one more such hit and I''ll be dead since I was sitting at just 11/31 hp and that fucker had just stabbed me for 15. There was a crazy glint in the sickly yellow eyes of the goblin like it was watching his prey squirm, but seeing that my elementals were just short of clearing their side of the things, my morale rose once more. With a quick flick of my wrist, I threw the mostly unbalanced rusty dagger, betting on the stereotypical goblin stupidity. And watching him jumping, dodging out of the way of the dagger that would probably barely scratch him even if it hit, I felt rewarded. Before he regained his footing, I had already picked up two more stone burst pebbles out of my inventory, and I had launched them already. The goblin smirked, seeing as they would miss him, and seeing him still, I smirked as well. I had aimed them just in front of his feet, fearing that another full miss could cost me my life. And I was rewarded as the twin explosions burst in a million sharp fragments that embedded themselves into the naked legs of the goblin. The goblin screamed in pain as he tried to charge towards me, but his very first step just landed his naked feet right on top of razor sharp fragments left from the explosion, making him yelp and jump in pain backwards. And like on cue, my two elementals finished off their own goblin, and rushed towards the last remaining one, which was jumping on one leg while holding the other, and quickly finished him off. Casually, I walked to where my dagger has landed and then walked back towards the goblin crawling for his life was, just a few meters ahead. With a sadistic gleam in my eye, I immobilized him with my foot on his back, and then stabbed him right on the back. I felt alive. I WAS alive! For someone outside it may have seen like a cheap tactics battle against a bunch of the lowest possible opponents, but even with all my experience in quite a few VRMMO, it was one of the few times that it actually felt REAL. I couldn''t pinpoint out why. I had played games where the pain was even more realistic, or where battles were more gruesome. But there was always this feeling of disconnect. No matter how cool and nice the graphics, no matter how close to reality the settings, it always felt like you were controlling a character. This time it actually felt like you WERE the character. Maybe that mumbo jumbo about the cognitive ability that they said was the fuck up that caused the bug had something to do with it, but ultimately, that felt like one hell of a battle. And if a battle against goblins felt that way, it only helped to spark that itch wondering how would a real battle, against something awesome like a dragon, would feel like. Not to mention... PANTS! I quickly looted the dagger and the crystals that the goblins had dropped, getting pleasantly surprised that even the two dead goblins that I didn''t help kill had left a crystal drop, and then proceeded to loot and disassemble the two wolves, finally having enough materials to craft my leggings. Thankfully, even with my slow as hell health regeneration, by the time I was done crafting, my health and mana were back to full. My only problem was that I was running dangerously low on stone burst and blast pebbles. I could return back to the village, turn in my quest at this point and make some more, but it was still way too early, and I had finally enough with being constantly penniless. So it was an awesome opportunity to actually farm a bit more xp and materials. What the hell, there was bound to be a rock or something in this damn forest for me to replenish my supplies. Thinking back, I quickly opened my map just in case it noted where the stone I used to make Rock-kun for the very first time was, but to my dismay, I finally realized what it meant that my map would be crap without a cartographer skill. It was, indeed, crap. Looking on the nearly non-existent map, I could safely say that I was officially... lost. At least it had a working compass, so at the very least, I should land near the village if I follow that... Well, that''s a problem for another time. Now, farm. Dirt-kun help me with those tracks! I didn''t really have enough time to move away from the scene of my glorious battle until a very familiar sound reached my ears. Something like the crunching of leaves, slowly but surely coming this way. Something very, very, similar to my first fight in the game. I smiled thinking it was finally time to get my revenge for the scare that the wild boar had given me yesterday. Just to be certain, I activated camouflage and walked a bit closer, and there it was, a majestic, huge, wild boar, sniffing the air, searching for its next victim. Only this time, I was prepared. This time I would be... -35 For a split second, I felt a prickling sensation on my back, lowering my vision, I saw an arrowhead clearly extending out of my chest, and then I died. "GODFUCKINGDAMNEDPKERSONNEWBIEZONES!!!!!!!!!!!" Was the scream that echoed from inside the small rural church in the village. At least the system was on my side for once.
Due to dying to a Red player before you reach Level 10, you suffer no permanent penalty. Instead, your stats have a 1 hour 50% penalty. Death before this timer is up will greatly extend it.
Ehh... whatever. Since it''s just a one-hour penalty, I may as well see it as an opportunity to just finish my quest and figure out something to help with my mana regeneration. Chapter 7: Preparations Seeing me leave the small temple, the usual morons on the center of the street tried to move towards me, but after I shot them a glance they immediately paused, and then returned, nonchalantly, to argue with one another. I couldn''t really figure out why, I swear, I was perfectly CALM. I rushed back tothe hunters in the entrance of the village, where they made some troubled faces as well as they looked towards the direction of my appearance. "Oh... did the goblins... perhaps..." The one who has given me the quest started speaking slowly while scratching his cheek but paused when I shoved the ten tiny crystals in my fist towards his face. "Is this proof enough?" I snapped back towards him "Hmm, yes! Most definitelyyes! There shouldn''t be any other creatures with such tiny crystals apart from goblins." He replied as he extended his arm to take the crystals. I instinctivelyclosedmy fist, looking at his inquiringly. "Err, you see, we kinda need those to reward you, you see. I promise we''ll give you quite a bit higher compared to their value!" "...Ok then. Here you go." I reluctantly released the crystals to his hands, nodding satisfied. The poor hunter nodded back, thinking that I nodded to him as he fished two coins out of a small pouch at his waist and handed them to me. I, on the other hand, was just smiling and nodding at the absolutely magnificent blue window that had popped in front of my eyes.
Quest completed. Reward: 1000xp, 2 gold pieces, Slight favor with Grinea Village
There were 2 gold pieces in my hand. Gold! I was rich! "Say, hunter..." I woke up from my reverie while I hastily snug the coins comfortably on my inventory. "You can call me Mark, calling me hunter is a bit..." "Oh, yeah, is there something like a wizard in the village?" "Well, the village elder is a Witch, why?" "I see, I see, and where is that elder?" "Well, her house is at the edge of the village on the opposite side from here. Hey! Wait! Why..." I heard the hunter''s voice disappearing somewhere towards the back as I was already sprinting towards the other end of the village. A villager pointed me towards the exact house when I got near the exit of the village, which really was just a nondescriptsmall cabin, its walls plastered in white, with its small wooden windows opened, and a small little garden on the porch in front of it. The only difference I could point out was that the windows actually had glass panels on them. There was a chubby looking old lady gardener in the front, seemingly taking care of the plants, a dirtied shawl keeping her white hair in order. As I approached, she stood up and smiled towards me. "Yes?" Her voice was kinda soft, and she had a kind, slightly reddish(maybe from exertion?) face. She really looked like a stereotypicalmedieval midwife. "Ah, hey! Is the village elder inside?" I said while I semi-ignored her and walked towards the door. "...No? She is not inside?" Is she asking me?! "Well, then do you know where I can find her?" Why does nothing work as it should! "...You''re talking to her?" She said with a difficult voice as she stared at me like she was watching an amusing new toy. "Oh. Oops. Sorry." "Nevermind, I''ve heard worse. So, what can I do for you today Lost soul? Just to warn you, all of my potions are given to the general store, if you came to buy any of them, head down there instead." Good. General store, possible new location to check acquired! "Nono, it''s nothing so trivial. I was told you were a... witch?" "Yes. Out with it boy, I''ve got a garden to weed. Speak up!" "I am having troubles with my mana. Is there any way to actually hasten its regeneration. It''s bloody awful!" She sighed as she walked towards her door, opening and entering the house. Just as she entered the house, she turned towards the dumbfounded me and shouted back. "Well? What are you waiting for boy? Come inside. You don''t expect a full-blown conversation about magic out in a garden. Do you?" I entered the simple looking house, half-expecting a weird witch house with cauldrons and grotesque stuff lying around, but instead, I only found a tidy little kitchen with a simple wooden table in the middle of it. The witch planted herself on one of the chairs while she motioned me to sit on another as she started talking. "Well, there are five, depending on how you see it, ways to actually help with mana regeneration.For starters, there is your wisdom. But you probably know about that, and you find it inefficient by itself. But it really is the most important one, since almost every other method actually just builds upon this very basic regeneration which solely depends on your soul. Then you have the only other way that doesn''t really bother with wisdom. That''s mana potions. I sell some basic ones just down the street at the general store. But those, in my opinion, should only be for emergencies since they are kinda expensive to keep chugging down. And then there are the more permanent ones. For starters, losing that ugly armor you''re wearing. Armor heavier than cloth impedes the natural absorption of mana. When you get comfortable enough using just cloth, then that should give you a boost on your regeneration. Keep in mind though, that even a single piece of heavier armor would stop this effect." So, from what I can tell, cloth armor mastery at higher levels gives some form of mana regeneration. God damn those dress wearing hippies! "Anything else? I''m not too comfortable losing my armor." Like hell I''m walking down the street without some proper protection. That, cloth-only, propaganda of casters in MMOs has to stop someday! "Interrupt me one more time boy, and you''re out." She barked back, and it really looked like she would follow through with it... Let''s shut it for a moment, right? "So. As I was saying, cloth armor not only builds upon the base regeneration granted by wisdom, but it''s also ridiculously easy to further enchant with mana regeneration effects. That''s four. Magical enchants. And, of course, lastly, there are skills. For pure mana regeneration, there are two of them. One common, and one super rare. Find that one out yourself. As for the common one, it''s simply meditation. A series of specific resting techniques that disregard everything else and focus on absorbing mana from outside."The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. I waited a good one minute to be certain that she had finished talking before asking back. "So... can you teach me that meditation skill?" A bright smile, as cold as any merchant''s watching his prey, appeared on her face. "Of course I can!" She laughed, as she extended her hand and opened her palm, "That would be just 10 tiny crystals dear customer!" Crystals... like the ones I had JUST given to the hunters. The ones from the middle of the forest where the PKer was. The ones that I would have to go and chase down and find goblins to get... "You''re kidding right?" "Hmm? Why would I kid about something like that? It''s normal for a trainer to get paid for his time and trouble and knowledge. If anything, I''m quite cheap because I''ve taken a liking to you, you seem like a lost lamb or something." Hey! that''s not liking, that''s pity! But, since it suits me, it''s fine. "How about I give you some nice silver coins instead of crystals eh?" "What would I need the silver for?! In case you missed it, I am the village elder. I do have plenty of gold to go around. Crystals on the other hand... Crystals are useful. You need them for alchemy, you need them for enchant arts, you need them for a lot of things in general. Although, to be honest, the tiny ones are mostly valuable for those basic potions that the recent tide of Lost souls just obliterated from the general store''s stash." "And let me guess, the only source of them around here are the goblins?" I asked dejectedly. She spent a few seconds studying me, measuring me, before she continued. "There may be a second source... for wildkins. Tell you what, show me how good you are with this natural camouflage of your species." Didn''t take me more than a second to make up my mind, screaming on the inside QUESTQUESTQUEST before I turned on my ability. And I was rewarded with a gaze of 70% ridicule and 30% pity. "Wait! What good will it do for you to make your skin fit in when you''re wearing such obvious clothes and armor that don''t change accordingly! Don''t tell me you still haven''t figured out how to change your clothes as well!" She shouted towards me. "Erm... no?" I said showing her my best impression of puppy eyes, hoping that she would actually, you know, tell me instead of just shouting towards me! "Jeez... Look, it''s really simple really. It''s a skill that most Lost souls should master after a while, that is if they are any good. You have probably noticed so far that a part of your soul binds to your equipment right?" No, I haven''t noticed a thing. "It''s the main reason why when your soul reborn it still has the equipment you were wearing. But people still buy your stuff regardless. Haven''t you found that weird?" Still a nope, haven''t sold anything. "That is because such light soul tether doesn''t bother the natives of this place. THEY can still use the equipment that a Lost soul just used. It''s only other lost souls that can''t." So, equipment is bound only for players but not for NPCs, check. "But there is a way to even deeper bind such an equipment to yourself. To truly make it yours. To make it one with your soul. This makes it much easier to actually manifest the abilities that should only affect YOU, to also affect your stuff. So, an Ifrit that could ignite his body, could ignite such a bound sword of his as naturally as it was his own hand. And a wildkin could change the color of his armor as easily as he changes his face." Oh, finally... that seems actually useful. "Of course, doing so does make the equipment basically worthless for anyone else." Of course... so no selling. Damn. "But! I''ve also heard that with high enough mastery, one can actually unbind such stuff." Now you''re talking! Using gears and then selling them back? That''s the way for extra money! Err.. I mean recycling, yeah, for the good of the environment and whatnot. Again, waiting a full minute to make sure she didn''t have anything other to add, I carefully asked. "So, can you teach me that skill?" And there goes her hand, extending once more. "Of course! 10 tiny crystals and I''ll show you!" ...I was pretty certain that my gaze told her everything she needed to know. She smirked for a second as she continued. "I''m kidding. I''m kidding. I could teach you If you promise me two things. And take care boy, betray me, and you''ll see just how much an old Lost soul can hurt you." Wait... what? "Wait... what?" I asked unable to do anything but voice my inner thoughts exactly as they poured into my brain. "What what?" "You said an old lost soul didn''t you?" "... yes? What of it?" "You''re a player?!" "What? I don''t play around boy, I''ve been here for more than sixty years, honing my trade, polishing my skills and abilities, protecting the people, discovering recipes, butchering infidels, you know, the works." "You''re telling me there were... Lost souls before this, errr, wave of newcomers? And for starters, now that you''ve brought it up, how did you know I was one? The rest of the villagers couldn''t tell!" "Of course there were other lost souls! What? You think you discovered the wheel or something? A thousand years ago, during the last Grand cataclysm, when the Gods brought the last era to its end, the resulting soulforce was too thin for intelligent Lost souls to manifest. It took decades for even simpler monsters like slimes to start appearing. But for the last couple hundred years, let''s say five hundred or so, obviously soul energy would start to condense, sporadically, as Lost souls." She paused for a deep breath as she continued. "The recent influx only points out that the soulforce is going slowly amok, marking this time as one of unrest, as one of an imminent cataclysm. That is, boy, the ONLY reason you''ll find people like me so willing to help you. If a cataclysm is indeed coming, we''ll need everyone to be strong to stand a chance." I looked straight at her eyes, trying to look equally determined as her, as I was actually thinking that at some point, I really should read about the lore of the game. "As for how I knew you were a Lost soul, let''s say that if you manage to complete my request, I''ll tell you. Now, onto more important things. I do have one task for you. It is a trivial one, one that I could do at any time. But time is a valuable resource, and I rather waste yours, rather than waste mine. I''ll teach you the soulbind skill, because you''ll need it, and you WILL at least try to succeed this task. Or pay me back 10 crystals by the end of the day. You don''t want to do neither, trust me. And as if she wanted to sweeten the deal even more (I mean, it was already both a skill get! AND a quest!) she continued. "And IF you manage to actually complete this task, then I''ll also teach you Meditation. Deal?" She told me as she extended her hand for a handshake. Fearing that the offer might leave the table, I hastily grabbed her hand. Immediately, I felt something inside me moving violently about. But before I had time to break the contact, a blue screen informed me that I''ve gained the skill. "What? How did you do that?" I exclaimed. That was the proper method to teach stuff! Not stupid instructions you had to listen and practice over and over again! She smiled like a fiendish imp as she replied. "Well, that''s a secret. Go now. There are only a few hours before darkness falls. And you''ll need to practice that skill a bit to be comfortable enough... Also the rest of your skills. You are a bit weak. Come find me after the sun has set for good, and I''ll tell you what you need to do. Now go. The clock is ticking." Prompted by the witch (ok, actually pushed out of the house by her), I noticed there was still one major thing to do. Which obviously was to spend my newfound wealth. A quick stop to the leatherworker robbed me from a full gold piece just to get the recipe for the leather boots and the leather gloves. Followed that, I visited the blacksmith, where I sold my two crappy rusted daggers for a silver piece each, I was kinda pissed that he simply laughed and thought it was a joke when I tried to sell him my awesome handmade stone dagger though, and I spend another full gold piece to buy me a nice steel dagger. That one was actually sharp and could cut things even without an inscription on it! Lastly, there was this general store that I simply had to visit, even with just a little bit over 2 silvers on my pocket. That one was a real treasure trove. It was the size of three small houses stacked one next to another, and apart from the shopkeeper, there was even an employee! There were a ton of extremely useful stuff tightly packed on five big tables and a dozen or so shelves all around the building. For dungeoneering stuff like ropes and spikes, to general ammunition like arrows, to clothes, to potions, to really everything! Oh, more than half the shop was packed with useless stuff like hoes and farming equipment... what a waste of space... Of course, most of the stuff was far beyond my reach. I mean, each potion, mana or health, was priced a full gold piece each, even the simplest clothes were up to five silvers, and etc. I did manage to snag a few pieces of flint though, always useful, and just before leaving, in the useless corner, I spotted a hidden gem. A full bag of charcoal. Take that stingy innkeeper! For just a silver piece I now had materials for enough ammunition to last for days! There was still close to half an hour before the stat penalty expired. Which basically made it impossible for me to soulbind anything, since that cost 30 mana per pop, and at the moment my maximum mana was just 25. I could potentially just make some Inscribed ammunitions since those actually cost just enough mana, 25, but the halved wisdom meant that I would have to wait upwards to eight minutes for each of them. So, there really was only one thing I could do now. Try to see if I could still easily butcher the poor rabbits even with halved stats! Chapter 8: Power leveling (part 1) As I walked towards the rabbit cemetery, I found our friendly neighborhood hunters trying to steal my prey, as they hunted down the poor things as well, well, hunting is a very generous word, they were basically ganging up on them and annihilating them. Someone should really call PETA or something! Seeing me, one of them, vaguely familiar, which makes sense since I''ve talked to him half an hour ago waved towards me. "Hey! Back from the elder already? You left so hastily the last time I didn''t even catch your name." He shouted, as he over-enthusiastically stuffed a dead bunny into a bag that was slung over his shoulder. "Yeah, sorry for that, I was in a hurry. I''m Qualexys.So... erm... Hunter?" I swear to God he had told me his name, but you know how things are with those nameless NPCs right? Would it hurt them if they had something like nametags? "Do you really need to kill all those rabbits? I was kinda in the mood to hunt them myself you see." "...The name''s Mark" Ohhhh yeah, that was it. "And would you really bother with hunting down rabbits? I''m not the one to stop you. Hell! I''ll even enjoy the reduced workload. Those things reproduce like mad, each day we have to hunt like a million of them before they destroy everything in their path. Tell you what, since I know you enter the forest, kill 50 of them and I''ll throw you a bonus. A trick of the trade if you will, that''s bound to be of use to a hunter like you." Yes! Another quest!
Quest accepted: Mark, leader of the village hunters has asked you to eliminate 50 rabbits before the day is over. Rewards: 300xp, Basic hunter skill, Really minor reputation gain with Grinea village
"Anything for the wellbeing of the village!" I said rushing off to kill the white menaces. What do you know? It turns out that stats do matter! I nearly died fighting a damn rabbit! Thankfully, Rock-kun was there to save the day and tank it till the rabbit died. But even his damage seemed woefully low. So, probably, even he is affected by my stats. But a man has to do what a man has to do. That is, getting his ass kicked while waiting for a stupid debuff to wear off. At least I got like ten of those critters down, and the increased difficulty meant extra skill growth. That''s the key, positive thinking! After the debuff wore off, what happenedis a bit blurry in my memory. I rememberwhite fur, blood, and death. The rabbit reaper had descended upon the plains, sparing not one of the annoying, hoping disasters. There were scenes of violence, scenes of gore, but mostly scenes of me alternating between tanking the furballs, and completely evading them, as I tried to equally level up my defensive skills, the memory of an arrow sticking out of chest a dread reminder that, I too, regardless of my awesomeness, needed a bit of system help so as not to die. When I awoke from my trance, slightly overweight from all the meat and fur in my inventory, I was already level 4. And this time, I was serious. Cloth armor combined with light armor mastery in the blink of the eye, deleting both skills from my character sheet, and replacing them with . Which truth to be told, I found a bit unfair, since, while yes, my light armor mastery was Lv3, my cloth armor mastery was at Lv4! Give me back my lost skill xp damn system! Naturally, since I was promised an awesome (I hope) mana regeneration skill, the stat point naturally went to intelligence for even more mana. And the skill point brought Infused elementals up to Lv5, which gave me a weird talent, namely which I would probably have to experiment with. Later. The rest were more or less expected. I did gain an skill while jumping around dodging hits from the rabbits though, and a new attack talent from the dagger line, which basically was just a quick attack, doing just regular damage but being blinding fast, basically doubling my attack at that point at the cost of my stamina. Hobbling my way towards the trio of the hunters who were still busy ganging up to their own targets, I once more thanked the gods that apart from the NPCs, there was only one more player hunting rabbits, leaving enough targets free. The fact that this simply meant that most people had long since graduated from bunnyslaying was irrelevant. "Hey, Matt!" I shouted towards the one hunter I knew, which for some reason caused him to scowl towards me. "I''m done already!" I continued unfazed while pulling 50 tiny hides from my inventory, which mind you, when you actually pulled them all together out, where nothing tiny actually made a small hill. "It''s Mark, and it took you long enough! We were actually betting how many you had killed already. Dirk here was betting for a hundred!" Damn, yet another name to somehow remember. I wish this game had something like an in-game notepad. Or, I don''t know, GOD DAMNED NAMEPLATES! As for the betting part, I couldn''t tell if it was a good thing, like, did I look so awesome as to kill a 100 of them in this timeframe, or a bad one, like, do I suck? So I simply went the easy way and chose to ignore it. Thankfully, Matt had the decency to stop his own onslaught and started showing me how to... dig holes? Ohhhhh I see. He actually taught me how to put up snares and minor traps to capture game in the forest. Rewarding me with skill. Delighted, I took a quick look at my status screen.
Name: Qualexis Race: Wildkin Gender: Male
Level: 4 Experience: 940/4000
HP: 40 MP: 54 Rage: 0/100 Stamina: 100/100
HPregeneration: 0.06/sec MPregeneration: 0.1/sec - STregeneration: 10/sec
Strength: 8 Dexterity: 12 Agility: 12 Constitution: 6
Intelligence: 11 Wisdom: 10 - -
Physical attack: 26 (30) Magical Attack: 21 Physical defense:26 Magical defense: 64
Critical chance: +2% Critical damage: -2% Speed: +2%
Reputations: Elves: Favorable, Fey: Favorable, Grinea: Favorable, Avon: Noticed
EXP%: 1x, +0.2x bonus for hunter related skills.
Skills: Talents:
Natural camouflage Lv4 -
Feral senses Lv4 -
Elementalism Lv5 Summon minor elemental,
Inscribe Lv3 Minor P.Att rune, Minor P.Def rune,
Dagger Mastery Lv5 Stab, Backstab, Quick slash
Sneak Lv4
Outdated Stonemanship Lv1
Toughness Lv3
Hunter armor mastery Lv3
Cooking Lv1
Dissasembling Lv4
Leatherworking Lv1
Throwing Lv2
Tracking Lv2
Infused Elementals Lv5 Inscribe minor elemental, Double inscription,
Soulbind Lv1
Acrobatics Lv1
Trapping Lv1 Set minor snare
Combination Points: 0
It was getting late, giving me maybe two or three hours of daylight at most by this point, and I still needed two more wolf hides for my boots and gloves. So, naturally, I went to the leatherworker to unload my stash of useless tiny hides. I greeted the giant of a man as I unloaded my stash on one of his benches. For some reason, the second he saw that, his eyes opened wide, and a vein popped out on his forehead. Finally culminating into clenched teeth that suddenly opened, allowing him to shout "Go away!". Dubiously, I rechecked my status screen, making certain that I had indeed favorable reputation with the village before I turned back to him. "What''s the issue? Why are you mad?" "Why I''m mad? WHY I''M MAD? You keep coming here and selling me those worthless tiny pelts! I don''t NEED any more of those! Go hunt something useful for once, like a wolf or something! I''m running low on actual money! I really want to find and punch the idiot who taught you how to skin in the face!" "HEY!" This time it was MY turn to be angry. "You''re talking? You''re really complaining? I''ve paid you an arm and a leg for recipes! Most of my gold has come back to you! And because those recipes are just a piece of paper that you can write any time, you basically got all those pelts for free! Now buy the damned pelts before I get really angry!" I finished with a humph as I crossed my arms over my chest, trying my best to straighten my back, just so that I could gain a few centimeters of height against this giant.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. At least, that seemed to have put him back into his place, if only a bit. "I''ll buy 10 more of those and not one more." "20. And you''ll trade the rest for a recipe." "FINE!" Hey! If you''re agreeing why are you shouting? Stupid oaf. "Here''s a pouch recipe and a gold piece for forty of those. Keep the rest to make pouches or to stick them up your..." "Ok, ok, I got it." And with that, I snatched the piece of paper and the coin, while putting back ten pelts into my inventory. What is even this pouch, I''m pretty sure that I didn''t see it in the recipe list! At least it''s cheap, only 2 tiny hides to make. I quickly made one of them on the spot just to check what that was, and I got something really nice!
Small pouch: 1 inventory slot. Items stored here can be pulled a lot quicker compared to inventory.
Hey! That''s really great for someone that keeps pulling consumables out of his inventory! There''s only a slight problem. Where do I even put that? On my character panel there was a slot where I equipped my backpack, but nothing more. "Hey! Shopkeeper!" "What is it again? I told you, NO, I won''t buy any more rabbit stuff." "No, it has nothing to do with that! Where do I even put that pouch?" I called towards him, showing off the small sack that I had just crafted. "When did you even make it! God damned Lost souls, ruining the economy wherever you set foot!" "Yeah, yeah. Now, where do I even put it?" "Where do you put a pouch? In a belt obviously!" Well, yeah, I mean I had my dagger sheath hanging from a piece of string, which seemed kinda awful. "Belt? There wasn''t a recipe for..." I had checked those earlier. Maybe with the reputation gain it... "FOR A CHANGE BUY SOMETHING! HERE! Leather Belt, Cheap! just 5 silvers!" His face was so red at this point that I was worried he would have a stroke, "Give that here, you damned con-man" I said as I threw the gold piece back to him. ... "Give me my change back you con-man!" I yelled when he seemingly forgot to do so. I won''t even go to the fact that a huge backpack becomes invisible the moment you equip it, but the tiny pouches remained visible on my belt... God. Leaving the shop I already had a slight headache from all the shouting. But I think it worked out ok! I had 5 silvers to spare, and FINALLY, that meant I could get rid of those old rags I started the game with. I quickly run to the general store where I purchased a set of simple clothes, which was basically just a white blouse and some black trousers, and once again I lamented the clique that cloth armor users were. You see, the simple clothes, with just 5 silvers, gave +1 intelligence and +1 wisdom each piece, for overall +2 intelligence and +2 wisdom. For 5 silvers! Where''s the justice in that when my poor leather armor, which costs up to 1 gold per piece, just gave a bit of armor! Regardless, that meant more mana and more mana regeneration, so I shut up and quickly swapped my old rags. Throwing them somewhere away, ashamed to be found even wearing them. I also found the opportunity to unload thirty or so of the meat, getting 3 silvers, which were locked somewhere deep within my pockets never to be touched for frivolous things. That was my fund for the inn and the meals!Only one piece of starting equipment was left now to be changed, the badly torn shoes. And to make my cool boots, I needed wolves. With my weight under control now, It was finally time to gohunting. So, obviously, I run towards... a rock to make my consumables first. I quickly tried, once more, now that my skill level had risen to 5, to add an air elemental to one of my stone arrowheads, but after I done it, even though the system had said nothing, it actually felt wrong. Like something was missing. Pondering a bit, remembering the actual name of the talent I got for the level, I tried adding an earth elemental as well in the mix.
Minor Air Dart: The sharp stone will fly with great force and explode into stone shards when it embeds itself into the target. Combination of Air and Earth elementals on a sharp stone. Damage: 30-50 piercing physical, Radius: 0 Range: 10m
That seems ridiculously overpowered compared to the rest of them! And despite it basically requiring two times the inscription, and two chants, it is, once again, done in 2 minutes, same as the single version! And it only costs 35 mana each, when each single element costs 25. How does that even work? Devs.. do you even math? I really need to find some time to sit and check for other double combination if they are so powerful! But now, crafting. I spend a bit less than an hour, making just 10 of those. I really need to do something about that mana regeneration thing fast. At least I didn''t sit on my ass waiting for my mana to return. I contemplated for a second to go hunt some rabbits using just my dagger, but in the end, not wanting to overburden myself with stuff that the Con-man wouldn''t buy any more, I resigned myself to just basically run and jump like an idiot around. Thankfully, the trio of the hunters had left the area by now, because I couldn''t take the ridicule. But I was a man with a purpose. And that purpose required to actually raise the acrobatic skill at the moment since that looked like it directly tied to my dodge chance, which weirdly wasn''t shown anywhere on my status screen. And finally, with the sun having started to set, I rushed to the forest. Praying that I would find the two wolves I wanted before full nightfall. You didn''t really need to be a genius to know that it would be extremely harmful to one''s self to disregard a promise with that crazy old witch. It took me only 10 minutes to find the first set of tracks, and like the game was on my side, it was a double set! Although I had never fought two full-health wolves simultaneously, I was feeling pretty confident about my chances, or very stupid, only time would tell. To top it off, I was REALLY pressed for time at this moment, so, here we go! I followed the tracks until I finally caught up with the pair. They seemed to have picked up something as they were looking around nervously. And at this point I prayed that soulbound camouflage thingy actually worked. Slowly, I backtracked just a bit, just to be outside of their visual range, and hoping that I had a bit of time before they caught on my smell. There was this one thing that I really wanted to test. Carefully, I placed a stone burst pebble on a small hole I dug with my hands on the ground, then thinking a bit, I added a flaming burst stone as well... well, what the hell, I put my remaining second flame blast stone in as well as another two stone burst ones, covered the hole lightly, and used the set snare skill on the mass of consumables.
You''ve created a Trapping talent: Minor blasting earth deathtrap. Requires 2 stone burst pebbles and 2 flame blast stones
Hey, game choose: Either minor OR deathtrap, you can''t have both! I gave one Air Dart to Dirt-kun and moved even further back, and mentally thought the image of Dirt-kun finding the wolves ahead, throwing the dart towards one of them, and then running straight back here. As per usual, the tiny elemental started running towards the last seen location of the wolves. For a brief second, my heart stopped. That second was when Dirt-kun run straight over the trap. Thankfully, for whatever reason, it didn''t explode. I just hoped that this reason wasn''t that the trap simply didn''t work. Fingers crossed, I waited. A few seconds later I was rewarded with a loud yelp, followed by a cry from a wolf. After a few more seconds, Dirt-kun emerged, trying his best to run towards here. Revealing the critical error of my masterplan. Obviously, the stumpy Dirt-kun was way slower than the wolves, even if they were injured. In fact, the image that appeared in front of me was a poor elemental walking forward, getting mauled on his back by a wolf, standing up, taking two steps forward, getting mauled again, and repeat. I tried to encourage him, he was sooooooooo near the trap now, just a few more seconds! You can do it Dirt-kun, I believe in you! He took two more steps, raised his head towards me, almost as if he could hear my encouragement, and an amazingly loud noise shook the forest as the wolf touched the trap with his paw. Poor Dirt-kun flew in the air from the explosion, drawing a beautiful ark in the sky as he vanished from sight, probably blown to pieces. The explosion blasted the wolf into oblivion though, so at least his sacrifice wasn''t in vain. Unfortunately, the wolf that was mauling Dirt-kun, and was subsequently caught in the explosion, was the healthy one, since the other one was obviously slowed, a huge gaping wound on his side when he showed up. That meant that I still had two wolves to deal with, and no more Dirt-kun. I unleashed Windy-chan to this one, urging her to take revenge for the untimely death of Dirt-kun (he still had like 1 minute remaining on his duration!) while I circled around the one that was still reeling in from the explosion, which seemed more or less dead to me. I backstabbed and stabbed, unleashing a quick slash simultaneously, which left me with just 20/100 stamina in a matter of seconds but seemed enough to finish off the wolf as it dropped down dead. Testing the pouch, it really made a ton of a difference taking out one more Air Dart. If I was a betting man, I would bet that it cut the initial 1second delay to pull items down to 0.5seconds. And threw the Dart towards the last remaining wolf. It flew with tremendous speed, maybe even faster than even a crossbow bolt, and dug itself into the flesh of the poor wolf, before exploding and cutting a huge chunk out of him. Naturally, he tried to run away, but I jumped right in front of him, cutting his path of escape. By this point, the outcome of the battle was clear. He vainly tried to take a bite off me, but I simply dodged it, and the moment I hit 40 energy, I attacked with a normal attack and added a Quick slash, ending his misery. The hunt had, surprisingly, ended quite faster. And for a second I thought about searching for some more wolves. But in the end, the preservation instinct of not being even a second late for the village Elder kicked in, and I rushed back. Of course, I did spend half an hour the second I entered the village to actually craft my gloves and my boots. No more newbie gear for this hero! Chapter 9: Cozy little chat By the time the crafting was done, and a few more minutes making certain that my new items were comfortable enough (that is, running and jumping around playing), the sun had already set. There was still a hint of light though, or so I convinced myself, and I was quite hungry at this point, so I headed to the inn to fill my belly before departing for whatever the Elder had in store for me. Dinner was steak, not quite surprising considering the amount of meat I, and probably a ton more players, had deposited to the general store, a byproduct of the poor animal lynching that had befallen the surrounding animal life. Seeing as it was a waste to let my own cooking skill rot, I also tipped the lovely lady in the kitchen a few extra coppers, just enough to get a list of herbs that actually changed the poor excuse of food I cooked myself to that quite tasty piece of meat the inn actually served. During my short time eating, I finally had a little spare time to take another glance at the forums. Checking the "new player guide" that was copy pasted from the beta forums, the initial poster had the good manners of posting a huge red edit in its beginning stating that, according to the reports, the guide was now obsolete, since a ton of stuff has changed from beta to release. I rewarded myself by chuckling softly at all those unfortunate souls that had spent their time reading the 20+ pages guide only to find it useless, or even harmful. Next in line was a short browse, trying to find any information on skills, but it seems players either didn''t take the time to actually write that, and instead focused on playing (tsk tsk, shame on them!) or, even worse, they were being all secretive about those. Naturally, I didn''t post anything either, but that was to be expected, I was too bored and too underleveled to do so! The last thing that caught my attention was a huge thread, that had already exploded to more than a hundred pages, talking about PKs at newbie areas. The post that had actually managed to draw the attention of all those responseswas actually from a player who was righteous enough to report that someone had offered him a ridiculously high amount of real life money to PK and aggravate newcomers, with the ulterior motive to cause them to quit. Why this offer was made it was anyone guess, but most people seemed to think that it was either from a company that already had found time altering virtual programming and was trying to keep it hidden from the rest of the world, or stuff following this thought-line. Which frankly, didn''t seem impossible to me either. Finishing my meal, it was finally time to go back to the witch. She opened the door and ushered me inside while throwing a totally suspicious glance outside of her house for anyone watching. Totally creeped out, I followed her instructions and sat on the chair, while I had to keep up with her pacing around the room, mumbling to herself stuff about consequences, and stealing glances towards me. After five minutes, I was already of half a mind to just make a desperate dash towards the door, hoping that I could get out of there before being eaten alive. As I steeled myself, ready to get killed, or worse, by an NPC, she finally sat down opposite of me, sighed, and opened her mouth to start talking. Or not. She closed it immediately, like having second thoughts. And then opened it again. And then closed it. And then opened it. "How much do you know about monster spawning?" She finally asked. Easy question. It feels like high school all over. "Nothing at all!". Even the answers are similar! "Well, whoever says he knows a lot, is lying. Even after sages had spent hundreds of years, the exact mechanic is still not fully understood. BUT! One thing is for sure." She said with emphasis like she was about to divulge some deep esoteric knowledge. I, on the other hand, was thankful that I still wasn''t eaten alive by the witch. Remembering her previous warning, I let her continue without interrupting with some obvious banter that was itching to come out of my mouth. And continue she did. "The one thing we know is that it takes a tremendous amount of soul energy to form even a single one of them, even the simplest of them. That''s why the towns, the villages, our houses, are not overrun by them. That''s why we can safely open the door to our homes without first checking if something had spawned inside while we were out working." She took a deep breath, and slammed her palm right on the table, causing the cutlery, and mainly me, to jump. With my attention now split between her mouth and how close the door was, I saw her smile a wicked smile before continuing. "That is until the first monster is spawned. After that, everything, EVERYTHING, changes. Somehow, monsters act as catalysts for even more monsters, which act as a catalyst for even more monsters, and in the blink of the eye, they multiply. This is why keeping a village, a city, clean of monsters is actually easy. Kill all of them to make the first one ridiculously improbable to spawn. But on places like the forest? A single goblin left alive will cause more goblins to spawn which will cause even more goblins to spawn and etc. And when a critical mass is achieved, monsters with similar soul signatures, like orcs or ogres in the goblin case, will start spawning and the cycle goes on and on and on. Most common folk would argue that all monsters should perish. But on the flipside, monsters are our only source of actual, tangible, soul energy. Our only source of monster stones. And soul energy is soooo powerful, soooo beautiful. It''s like someone took mana and multiplied it by infinity. It makes US do wonders. And it is what keeps the world spinning, both figuratively, and literally. Now, I want to send you on a mission. But exactly because of what I explained, you need to be more than discreet about it. You need to actually be unseen. Because if not, You will cause panic, and you will cause me problems. And I dislike both panic AND problems. It is a mission so delicate, that for the past dozen or so years, I only undertook it myself. But, with a cataclysm on the horizon, I find myself running out of the most precious resource, time. And I rather waste your time, rather than waste my time. Ok? So, do you accept? Yes, or no?" "Of course I do!" I exclaimed instantly when I was finally given the chance to break her monologue. "Just like that? You won''t even inquire? What''s your game?!" I really couldn''t understand this NPC, even though I readily agreed, now she was glaring at me like I was some sort of planner! "Yup. Just like that. Tell me what needs to be done." Who cares about lore and stuff?! This is a quest. A QUEST! And with such a dramatic monologue, it seems like it would pay quite a bit. Well, I''ve already received a skill and promised a second, and that also happens to be the coveted meditation. Bring it on! "...I''ll trust you. Break that trust, and you''ll realize that not being able to die may at some cases be a curse rather than a blessing boy." She said trying to be menacing, but I couldn''t stop smiling like an invalidwhile thinking the sweet xp that was inbound.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Judging that her threat was enough, the elder continued, FINALLY, with the quest description. "As you have probably realized, I need monster stones for both the potions that keep the population safe, as well as for my own personal research, again, all for the prosperity and safeguarding of this place... and further. Hunting goblins is way time inefficient for that, let alone that due to the wolves, there aren''t even enough of them to cover my needs. But, as I explained, monsters won''t spawn where monsters aren''t in the first place. And the last thing I would want is a monster surge inside the village. So, I''ve taken the liberty of actually... planting... some seeds. Somewhere close enough for me to be able to easily farm them, but just far away that, if managed properly, won''t be a threat to the village. The thing is, those monsters require frequent pruning. Keeping their population in check, so that they won''t actually grow strong enough to start affecting a larger area. And the time to harvest them is near. So, your task is simple. After midnight, to minimize the chance of villagers actually seeing you, climb down the well. Follow the underwater stream north, and you shall come upon a small underground lake. It''s basically beneath the village, but deep enough to not cause monsters to spawn up here. At the edges of the lake there should be a variant of slimes, tiny sized ones, really weak on their own, but just barely big enough to actually produce a tiny monster core. Hunt them down, but not to extinction, leaving at least twenty of them alive, but bring me at least twenty of their crystals. The rest you''ll find, keep them as part of the reward. Keep in mind boy, that if you''re seen going down the well, or if people realize that there are monsters down the well, I''ll personally lead the lynching mob against you. And if you overhunt them, denying me my easy farm of crystals, then I will personally hunt you as well. Now, any questions?" Underground lakes, crystals, loot! Everything sounds awesome! Those are the real quests, not the stupid ''hunt 50 rabbits'' crap the hunters had! Not to mention, that the only important part of this wall of text was that I''m probably the first one going down there! Quest mode chat engaged! "Yes Elder! I''ll gladly sneak unnoticed and get you those precious materials without endangering your reputation! Just one thing, since you went to all this trouble to put a monster of your choice. What can you tell me about said slimes?" "They''re baby slimes. Probably just a tiny bit harder than the average goblin, but even more stupid. Actually, completely mindless. Even though it would be an awful idea to actually waste your dagger against them, since you know, slimes and metal don''t mix well, it should be even easier than the goblins for you if you use your fire elementals, since the kind that''s down there is a subspecies of a water based slime." "Stop, stop, stop. From the beginning! Why not use metal and how did you know about fire elementals!" "Obviously, slimes corrode metal, so your weapons are useless. Let alone highly resistant to everything except blunt physical damage and magical damage. As for elementals... let''s say that exactly how I knew you were a Lost soul and not a native, that''s how I know you can commands elementals. And as I told you before, I''ll tell you how I do that AFTER you finish the quest." She said as a matter of fact.
Quest accepted: Thin the population of the baby water slimes while remaining unseen. Reward: Soulbind,Meditation, Reputation with Grinea village. Penalties: Forced removal of Soulbind skill, Severe drop in Reputation with Grinea village, Humans, Ivory City
Ha! Who cares about penalties? It''s not that I will fail. Or to be more precise, with those penalties, I can''t AFFORD to fail! The elder, which I should probably ask her name at some point because it''s getting annoying to simply think her as a village elder, and those penalties indicate that she actually might be of some importance even later on, looked out of the window before shutting it close, and then turned towards me, her evil glare and intensity gone. And with a voice like a typical older villager, she smiled and beckoned. "Now, there are a few hours left till midnight, you will spend them inside here. Right? There''s soup in the pot on the fireplace, help yourself!" Damn! I wasted a whole silver for dinner when the quest came with free food?! But it was true. If I needed fire to kill those stuff, I had to craft some extra flame burst stones, since, after the last trap, I was left with exactly zero... Looking at the dim fire, I unceremoniously pulled out my bag of coals, and emptied one-third of it in the fireplace, accidentally filling the place with coal dust. And I started cooking my very own batch of coals for the next batch of flame bursts. It took a bit concentration to ignore the coughing and the searing glare of the old lady as I was doing my best not to initiate any kind of talk, especially since the whole part of the floor in front of the fireplace has been covered in black dust, and I really didn''t want to have to clean that... Alas, before the coals even lit, her gentle (but really scary) voice sounded directly over my shoulder. "Say, boy. How do you plan to create fire to summon your elementals down in the cave? Please tell me that you''re not actually going to use coals for that!" ...Ok, I''ll be honest. I''ve totally skipped that part. I slowly turned towards the woman looming over my shoulder, smiled as naturally as I could (that is, not at all), and then simply asked. "Wouldn''t flint work? I could gather some sticks..." At this point, she just closed her eyes, but I want to imagine that she was doing her best impression of a facepalm. Before she resigned to simply swing her head disappointed while murmuring "I''ll see what I can find..." I''m pretty sure I heard her murmuring something about flint as she retreated somewhere towards the back of the house. At least I could work in peace while she was gone! And then production started. Clamp, coal, scratch, chant, inventory, wait for mana, clamp, coal, scratch, chant, inventory, wait for mana, repeat add infinity, or, actually about thirty times. Keeping an eye on the game''s clock, I diligently stopped at about a quarter before midnight. As I took a breath and stretched my arms, my gaze fell on the elder who had shifted the chair next to me and was looking straight at the burning embers. Her eyes wereshiningand I could swear that if they could they would have long now transformed to look star shaped. Nodding cheerfully, she turned towards me. "Fascinating! So, just because you gave them life, they agree to be trapped into those tiny prisons for eternity. Just with the promise that at some point, you might actually use them and release them! Really fascinating, you''ll HAVE to show me how exactly you do that slave contract at some point!" It takes a certain kind of a person to turn a consumable creating skill to something akin to eternal slavery. The same exact kind of person you never want as an enemy. So, naturally, I smiled politely as I nodded my head. Better not put the answer to words, you never know when I could find myself bound under a slave contract just for saying yes to her... Still, she seemed satisfied as she procured a single log, about the length of my elbow to my palm, and shoved it towards me. "Here, this is an everburning wood. For starters, no matter how good your vision is, down there is pitch black. Say ''ignite'' while holding this log and pouring mana inside it to make it lit like a small fire. Not big enough to scare the slimes, but hopefully big enough that your keen vision would be enough to see the inside of the whole cave, and more importantly, a source of fire to summon fire elementals from. Now..." She turned towards the window, opening, and extending her hand towards the moonlighten night sky. I felt something like a fresh gentle gush of wind all around me, but somehow it felt different. It actually felt familiar, more like... the feeling I got when I summoned elementals! Only this time, instead of being inside me, it was all around me. Watching the witch, I realized that it wasn''t even around me, it was around HER, encompassing the whole room, and for a split second, I think I saw something like invisible currents flowing all around her.
You have gained skill Mana sense Lv1
What I could only quantify as ''huge'' amounts of mana seemed to swirl all around her, and slowly drifting from her hand towards the night sky. Slowly, a dark cover, like a huge, black, blanket, started covering the sky, slowly but surely blocking the stars and the moon from shedding their light. Like a huge cloud was gathering above the village. The witch turned towards me and smiled. "How lucky, there isn''t even moonlight. Truly, the best time to sneak around unseen! Now, GO!" And, obviously, I went. Chapter 10: Power Leveling (part 2) Activating my camo I stepped out in the refreshing night breeze. My skin and armor slowly getting darker, until they stopped when they reached a deep blue, almost black, color. Despite the spell that loomed overhead, the one that covered the whole sky, turning it in a moonless, starless abyss, there were still quite a few open windows that emitted light, as well as some oil lamps hanging out of some, house-height, poles, requiring at least some attention not to walk through one of them like an idiot. Despite that, the walk to the center of the village, where the well was, was quite easy. I did have to wait out when some random dudes burst out of the inn, and when a hunter decided to overstep his responsibilities and think of himself as a guard patrolling (badly) the streets, but overall, it was easy to simply reach my destination. What really took some effort and time was actually lowering the well-bucket down the black shaft slowly enough so as not to let the wood creak. When the rope had fully unwound, I gave it a quick tug, to make sure that it was fully secure and sturdy, and I slowly started to climb it down. A few meters down, and with several more to go, I was equally impressed by myself, and equally scared out of my mind. The impressed part was regarding my actual physical ability. I don''t know if it was the agility or the acrobatics skill, but it was seriously easy to climb down, a feat thatwould be all but impossible in my real body. The scared part was because of the darkness. Since creating the character I had never felt so much ''black''. Partly because of the game settings always allowing some sort of illumination, like the oil lamps in the night, and partly because my keen eyes could see perfectly fine even with just a bit of moonlight on all other occasions, I was spared this feeling. But now, it was exactly like I was blind. I kept lowering myself on the rope for what it seemed like an eternity, unable to tell how much I had descended or how much more I needed to go. Until, finally, I felt my toes getting wet. I strained myself to hold on to the rope with using only one hand and slowly extended the other hand, trying to feel around me. From what I could tell, it seemed I was still on a straight shaft. I had positioned myself so that my left hand would be pointing right towards the north, just to be certain, but due to the complete lack of vision and the wild swinging of the rope while I was descending, I wasn''t so sure that this was the case anymore. Thankfully, despite the total darkness, the (terrible) map function allowed me to see the compass points. Somehow, North was exactly on my right hand by now... I took a deep breath, and let myself drop, splashing down slightly on the water, and immediately regretted the decision. That damn water was freezing! Quickly, I dove underground, feeling with my hand, searching for a passage. The passage found me. In the blink of the eye, I felt an opening, followed by a really, REALLY, strong undercurrent, that pushed me down a rough (figured that by experience) natural stone passage. I was ''swimming'' with the grace of a paper plane caught in strong winds, while tumbling randomly, checking every wall that it was sturdy enough by bumping my head repeatedly on it. At this point, seeing the -1s that kept popping every time I bumped the walls, and for some reason, they kept happening with mathematical accuracy every single second, I felt as I had an insight on the brilliant sadistic mind of the one who designed this place. A few seconds later, the current suddenly broke, replaced by a much smoother one. And, flapping my hands and feet wildly like a four year old that for the first time touches the sea, I somehow managed to swim upwards, towards air. Naturally, I still couldn''t see anything. I kept swimming, choosing with the sure-fire method of a mental coinflip, towards my left. Just as a precaution, I made it my priority to always have one of my arms, alternating as I swam, in front of me. Naturally, after a bit, I still somehow managed to crush, face first, on solid rock. By this point, I prayed that the water was as sound insulating as I thought it was, because the string of profanities that left my mouth would be enough to scare the hell out of anything alive, plus there was this slight drawback of not being able to go to human lands and such If I was actually heard and found out by the villagers. As I stopped swearing to catch up my breath, the system showered me with messages.
You have gained the skill Hatred control Lv1 (consume stamina to make your attacks either more or less obvious to the target) You have gained the talent provoke. By insulting an intelligent opponent you force him momentarily to shift his attention towards you. Effectiveness depending on Hatred control level. Costs 20 Rage.
You have created the talent Abuse. You have raised profanity to an art. None can withstand your verbal abuse. Depending on your opponent, they will either fly into a mad rage against you or cower in fear. Costs 100 Rage.
...go me? Slowly, I extended my arm, searching for the end of the ledge, and after it was raised a bit over my elbow, I finally found it. Using my dissipating strength I pulled myself upwards, and let my body slam the floor deflated. In the darkness, I felt something soft touching my cheek, probing it. It took a few more seconds for my brain to catch up. But apparently, that just meant that it was, at this point, functioning even slower than the non-existent brain of a slime, since its brain had already given the input *food?*. I screamed in pain as I felt something burning my cheek where the slimy substance was touching it. I jumped up and madly flailed with my hands and legs, still blind in the total darkness. Needless to say, I managed to kick the solid stone wall of the cave, making me yelp in pain. Thankfully, this seemed enough to finally jump start my brain and forcing me to calm down before managing to kill myself somehow. Fishing the magical log out of my inventory, I channeled a bit of my mana in it as I whispered (yelled) "Ignite". I was pretty sure now, that if anyone was to see my terrifying glare, lit by the flickering flames, inside a dark cave, he would run as fast as he could away. Never the one to not appreciate good tropes, the moment that my eyes fell upon the dozens of tiny, knee high, piles of goo all around me, I let a slight smile form on my face. "Hehe...he...he... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..." My gentle chuckle echoed in the closed chamber as I observed the targets to fuel my unbridled rage. Ok, not gentle chuckle, more like creepily evil and culminating into manic laughter. Of course, holding the flaming log that illuminated my face, and laughing at the poor slimes, did slightly sidetracked me from what I should be doing. Which was NOT holding a burning log. I screamed as the adrenaline rush passed and the pain set in, seeing a -5 flash in front of my eyes as I felt my hand finally getting burned by the piece of wood that they were clutching. Thankfully, the second the log hit the floor, the surrounding slimes hurried away. Although hurried, is a relevant term here. In their case, it was more like very, VERY slowly edging away. Once more, even more spend, I let myself on the floor, mumbling silent curses towards existence in general. Slowly calming down and catching my breath, I had the opportunity of taking in the surrounding scenery. It was quite the spacious cave, about fifteen to twenty meters wide from one end to another. Despite it being obviously natural formed, someone had gone to the trouble of raising a tiny stone wall surrounding the circular underground lake, about sixty or so centimeters high, making it look more like a pool rather than a lake. Surrounding this pool of water there wasa small ledge, where I was sitting now.The ledge width fluctuated from only half a meter, to, much wider, three to four meter plateaus, before it hit the rough stone walls. The small flickering flame wasn''t enough to illuminate the whole place, but the light that was reflected from the wet, glistening with moisture, overhead stone dome, and the eerie muffled sound of the fierce underwater current, gave the impression that you were standing next to a river watching in the night sky a million stars twinkling in and out of existence. Breaking the beautiful view, dozens and dozens of small, bucket sized, slimes, were moving around. Some of them without any purpose, while some others, slightly larger, were clearly trying to go in the lake, but were completely blocked off by the little stone wall. So, it looked more like jelly flattening itself vertically on a wall.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Someone that was unable to appreciate the beauty of this calm place, would simply reduce it to something like ''a circular passage of tightly packed xp''. And as my clothes slowly dried, it was time for this someone to clear said pathway and level up! I focused my gaze towards the fire and moved my mana around my body as I have done hundred of times already. Taking extra care to not fumble the unused, so far, chant in the weird fake language the magic system used, I finished my fire elemental summoning. A small humanoid-shaped flame appeared from inside the small campfire. And naturally, I had to ask. "So, are you a kun or a chan?" The fire elemental surprised me when, instead of a guts pose or a curtsy, he did a strongman''s pose, flexing its non-existent muscles proudly. "Definitely a kun. So, flame-kun, shall we annihilate all opposition?" I swear to God the flames seemed like the raged hotter for a split second! Of course, even though my steel dagger was sealed from this battle, my whole life had led to this point. My trusty old stone dagger should be safe from the stupid slime corrosion! Seeing as slimes resisted physical damage regardless, it made my decision even easier. No need for Windy-chan, no need for Rock-kun, and no need for an infused dagger either. So, all my combat mana could safely be invested into Flame-kun, Fire-kun and... You-kun. What can I say, I run out of good names, and yelling "You! Over there!" Made me chuckle repeatedly for some reason. Probably not a GOOD reason, I would have to start talking with some real people soon I think... With battle preparations done, I charged at the first slime, three elementals following suit. The battle plan was simple really, I was useless in this fight, and fire elementals... weren''t. So I would try my best to tank for them, training my dodging and defensive skills in the way, using my stone dagger just because not wielding anything WAS weird, and let them do all the job. The hardest part was actually keeping the aggro on me, but the slimes were usually stupid enough to go towards the one who initiated the attack.... or the only one they could actually eat. I couldn''t tell. Obviously, I tried using my newly acquired provoke talent as well, but it kept failing due to slimes actually being mindless. Which was weird really, the gods of Providence, giving me a skill before an encounter? That sounded like a true main character! But then the skill actually being 100% useless for said encounter? That sounded like... me. I don''t need to go into a lot of detail regarding how the battle actually went. The tiny searing punches of the elementals were super effective, the slimes were usually trying a super slow tackle that was easy to dodge, really, disregarding their annoying tendency to spit some sort of sticky toxic slime every now and then, which obviously caused me to have burn marks all over my body where it either hit skin or it passed through the gaps of my armor, everything was going extremely smoothly. Unbelievably easy one could say. Of course, a certain someone was keep getting splashed by the goop he himself was scooping out with every second strike of his stone dagger, but that''s irrelevant. With a sense of foreboding, I kept watching all around me, waiting for something to go really wrong, like a hidden boss appearing, or the cave collapsing on my head, or the usual stuff that happens all the time, but the only thing that I noticed was that some of the slimes seemed to have tiny pieces of actual loot, besides the crystals, sometimes stuck inside their bodies. Those usually were either copper or silver coins, with one or two of them actually having silver rings. As time passed, I noticed that slowly all three of my elementals were starting to use a bit more complicated attacks. Doing stuff like tiny flamethrowers, or spitting flame on their targets, which then actually caught on fire. Since they only used them now and then, sporadically at best, and usually only when freshly summoned, I guessed they were probably mana based, as opposed to wind elementals which were stamina based, and earth elementals which were rage based. Their regular attacks also seemed to be getting stronger the second the skill level rose. One could say that it was mind-numbing boring to stay still in the same cavern, killing the same slimes over and over again for hours. But obviously, the one that would say that wouldn''t have been an office worker, doing the same thing for twelve hours per day, five days a week, for fifteen years... If anything, for me, the combat which was actually quite fluid, the dodges, the side steps, the random, non-skill based, attacks which were almost never the same and varied from mob to mob, was something actually quite refreshing. Not to mention the promise of loot. It was about the fifteenth slime, where I was casually singing a merry tune, something about slaughter and mayhem, when I bowed to pick up the loot it had dropped, a ring this time. Immediately, my eyes became a dollar sign when I saw that instead of the two simple silver rings that I had already acquired, and safely stashed in my inventory, this one was actually embedded with gemstones. But the second I actually picked it up, and read:
Ring of the initiate. All base stats +1. Soulbonds when equipped
Was the moment I felt that the God of fortune finally smiled on poor me. Or that the Gods were simply asleep and hence I was no longer plagued by their curses. I immediately equipped it, feeling a surge of power rushing in my body. 6 stats! That was like 6 levels! BEST. QUEST. EVER. Needless to say, my zeal was increased tenfold, as my eyes kept scanning for slimes that seemed to have rings inside them. Aside from loot, the other amazing thing about those slimes was the xp gain. They gave a 100xp each! Almost double the xp of a goblin! But the main difference was that they were ridiculously easier to kill compared to a goblin. Really, the one thing they had going for them it was the time it actually took to down one of them. Guessing from the difference of the damage between my, not that great, dagger skills and Windy-chan, which seems like a piercing physical type damage source as well, the difference of the damage of a player and an elemental was tremendous. Even with three fire elementals out it somehow felt WAY less damage compared to what a single fire using mage would be dealing. But since they were my only source of damage, it actually took me about three to four minutes to kill a single slime. Around the twentieth of them, I finally managed to level. And amidst the new stream of system messages, one of them actually caught my eye.
New achievement: Growing power I
Immediately I tried to think Achievements and I was rewarded with a never seen before screen.
Achievements
Name Requirements Rewards
Growing Power I Reach Level 5 4 Ability Points
Four ability points for reaching level 5? That was cheating!!! Briefly stopping myself from dumping them all to intelligence, I actually managed to constrain myself and put just two to intelligence and two to wisdom. The whole point of this quest was to somehow fix my horrendous mana regeneration after all. Alongside with the slight gain in wisdom from my ring, I could now barely sustain four elementals instead of three. So, Blast-kun was given life as well, increasing my overall clear speed a bit. After a while, not even my zeal for loot and xp could keep my eyes open and my mind focused. A quick glance at the in-game clock told me that I was here, butchering slimes for over three hours, a stash of forty-four tiny monster cores on my inventory was keeping the count of my rampage. But most importantly, it was over four in the morning, and even my maximum stamina had decreased, probably due to tiredness kicking in. I glanced over the last stretch of the xp passage, looking at the remaining slimes, when internal alarms started ringing like mad. I was to keep twenty of them alive, wasn''t I?FUCK! Very slowly, and very carefully, I started to count the remaining xp bags one by one, praying to not have majorly messed up in my bloodlust. The second I counted the last, as the twentieth fourth, a big, relieved, sigh escaped my mouth. And as my tension fully dissipated, and I could barely hold my eyes open, I decided that it was ok to finally leave. I loomed over the everburning log for a second, cursing myself for not asking how to make the damn thing quench itself, until I realized I could feel something familiar from inside it, the tiny mana I had given it when I ignited it. I tried to pull that away, and lo and behold, it actually went out, sinking the cave back into total darkness. With the final piece safely stashed away, I once more dove into the freezing waters following the mental picture I had before the lights went out, trying my best to swim towards the entrance of the cave. It took me some tries, moving along the wall, until I felt the undercurrent beneath me. One deep breath and in... I don''t go. Resurfacing, I immediately found the flaw of my plans this time. There was no way I could possibly swim against such a current, not even with my enhanced stats due to the ring... I want to say that it was my mind being clear after I woke up from the cold water, but it was more of my mind wandering on my previous discoveries about my skills (while being resigned to die and respawn in the temple), which naturally led to the inner dialogue of cataloging my skills and wondering that if earth was rage, air was stamina, and fire was mana, then what resource would poor water elementals use? that it finally dawned to me to try one last desperate thing. Spending 80 out of my 85 maximum mana to summon eightwater elementals, I mentally ordered them to pull me against the current if they could. Somehow, those two minutes it took to reach the rope, which thankfully the water elementals could pinpoint in the water, seemed like an eternity. With lungs burning from oxygen deprivation, muscles aching from desperate tries to actually swim against the current, and a status window that showed that even a rabbit could probably kill me now, I finally reached fresh air. I honestly don''t know how I manage to climb the rope and find my way towards the Elder''s house, but I''m truly grateful that not a single soul walked the streets at five o''clock in the morning, because I''m sure as hell that there were zero efforts in stealthing or camouflaging, or generally giving any consideration at all as I returned. Chapter 11: Its raining rewards It didn''t take more than two beats on the door to get the witch to open it up. Giving me a quick, complicated glance, she hurriedly pulled me in her home. All hope died the second I saw that the fireplace was long now extinguished, the burned wood cool, emitting no heat whatsoever. I was vaguely aware that she was telling me something, but at this time, I only had one goal. Get this fire started! I tried to lodge the magical log she had given me previously as far in the remains of the evening fire as I could before igniting it and dropped some more coals out of my inventory on top of it for good measure. Still freezing, I let myself flop down to the floor, as close to the newborn fire as I could. And it was about this time that my brain finally unfroze enough to actually comprehend her words. "You certainly look... terrible. I didn''t think that the baby slimes would have given you so much trouble. You DID get them didn''t you? Tell me that you didn''t run away without completing your task." Her tone was equal measures pity and irony, but at the very end, she showed a bit of concern as well. Of course, it was more of a concern about completing my task as opposed to my well-being, but, eeeeh, you can''t win them all. "The slimes... no. Those were easy. The god damned return was what nearly killed me. Wait... I AM alive, right?" I managed to feebly whisper back. "What do you mean? The downstream towards the river isn''t that bad, the return should have been a piece of cake!" Hmm? Why the surprise? Also, what river. I''m guessing my brain is still frozen because I seriously can''t follow what she''s saying. "Wait... what downstream?" There wasn''t one was there? Pretty sure there wasn''t... such a bad taste of humor this lady has... "The one in the cave obviously! You know how streams work right? Water goes in one end, water comes out the other end." And now she''s getting mad at me? I should be the one getting mad! Well, madder. "There was another exit from the cave?" I just can''t follow her. It''s like she wants me to believe that there was another exit, a very accessible one. This simply can''t be. IT.CANNOT.BE. "What do you mean ''another''? There is only one EXIT from the cave. Wait. You didn''t???" I really don''t like how her eyes almost popped out of her face right now... "...I did." It''s the end. That which could not be accepted, must, at some point, be accepted. "How? Why?!" WHY ARE YOU ANGRY? I AM ANGRY! ONCE I UNFREEZE MYSELF THERE WILL BE A RECKONING! "Are you fucking kidding me? Why didn''t you tell me there was an exit!" A RECKONING!!! "What? Of course I told you! I told you the same time I was describing the cave!" More jibberish! "You didn''t describe the cave at all!!!" By this point, my rage was enough to unfreeze me. The blood was rushing to my head, giving me enough energy to (almost) stand up and punch her in the face. "I did! You were making those stones and nodding as I was explaining!" That''s! That''s... possible. DAMN! "...Oh. Well... damn. I think I just ignored you then. Can''t multitask at all...."And just like that, all that rage dissipated. Because I''ve seen it happen a ton. In work. In family dinners. With girlfriends...well, exes. Stupid lizard brain that can''t hold more than one thought go die! "Can''t multiwhat now?" Bleh, whatever. "Nevermind. Low on energy right now. Goodnight." Energy spent. Preparing to shut down system. Bye-bye world. And simple as that, I felt my eyelids close, lying on the floor in front of a now pleasantry warm fireplace. With not nearly enough sleep, a sharp pain on my ribs jolted me awake. My face had taken the shape of the floor as a small puddle of drool had formed where my mouth laid. "What?" I murmured, still trying to uncramp my jaw. Looking at the clock, it still wasn''t even 6. She didn''t even let me rest for a single hour! "My crystals." She said, crossing her arms around her waist. "Also, this is not an inn. You''re nowdry enough to not raise questions. Give me my crystals and leave!" She exasperated. Still sleepy, I fished twenty monster stones from my inventory and handed them over. Like a stingy gold trader, she inspected them one by one before nodding satisfied. And, like a magical girl transformation, she instantly brimmed with a shining smile, her grumpy face disappearing. "Thank you very much for those! Now, as promised."
Quest completed. You gain 2000xp. Reputation with Grinea village increased to honored.
Congratulations! For completing 3 quests you gain a title, Beginner Adventurer. Only one title may be active at any single point.
Beginner Adventurer: Increase all stats by 1
For gaining your first title you unlocked the Achievement: Title holder I. You gain 1 combination point.
Before I even had time to read the messages she grabbed my, slow to respond, hand as I felt the familiar nauseating feeling in my guts.
You gained the skill Meditation Lv1 (Multiplies mana regeneration while resting)
...I somehow feel like I should have completed three quests much, MUCH, faster. But reading the coveted Meditation skill I couldn''t get myself angry... Looking at my stash of remaining crystals, I just had to ask. "What else can you teach me?" She seemed to stare hard into my eyes before nodding. "Usually I would charge 10 crystals for a skill, but... since you brought me plenty, and since you have been of great assistance to the village, I will drop the price to 8. I can only teach you the skills that I''ve kept in their basic form. Apart from what I''ve taught you so far, I can teach you any of the four elemental magics, nature magic, alchemy and light magic." Hahaha, Reputation discounts rules! But this really is a hard decision. Normally I wouldn''t go for any elemental magic, that''s for mages and that''s not what I''m going for. But the whole combination stuff may provide some interesting results. Alchemy is also my favorite type of crafting, but I already have Infused Elementals for consumable crafting. Nature magic could also work with the whole hunter/nature theme, but do I need more active abilities? The only one that I''m certain about is Light magic. Since I mostly play solo I need a healing skill. Ok! Let''s start with that, and we''ll see how it goes. "Teach me light magic!" I said confidentially.
You gained the skill Light magic Lv1. (Manipulate and create light) You gained the talent Minor light globe.
"What? What is that!!!" I shouted as I grabbed her by her shoulders shaking her. Or, at least, trying to shake her. Somehow she stood still, firm as a boulder resulting in the one rocking back and forth being me. She tilted her head sideways, partly amused by my jerking motions, partly confused. "What what? Why the distress?" She asks what! The scammer! Give me my crystals back! "Where is my healing skill? What''s with this control light skill!" She let a light chuckle. "Why would ''Light magic'' have ANYTHING to do with healing? That''s Restoration magic!" "But ''Light'' is usually just a low level spell tucked hastily with other stuff. Why would it need a whole skill tree? Never mind the fact that I can already see in near darkness! This skill is useless!" "IS NOT! And what do you mean with usually? Regardless, the skill is really strong! At higher mastery, not only you control the intensity, but you can also control the color, giving signals! With enough mastery, you can blind opponents or even light, or darken, areas as big as a whole village! Yesterday night you saw how powerful it can be." She finished with a humph sound as she dislodged me from herself. Still sounds useless to me I thought as I disappointed waved my hand goodbye to the scammer. No way I''ll give her even more of my hard earned (not really) crystals. "Ok, ok, bye" As I turned to leave, She grabbed me by the shoulder, rooting me to the ground. Where does an old lady get such strength?! "Wait." She said. "I''ve also told you that I''ll let you know how I knew you were a lost soul and an elementalist, right?" Oh yeah, there was that too. Probably another cheat NPC ability or something. "Have you noticed that you can somehow sense your own soul''s power and abilities?" Is she talking about character screen? "Newborn lost souls, like you, can barely see a rough approximation. But there is a skill called soulsight that basically allows you a much better view, and if trained enough, even allows to see the soul strength of others." Hey! That sounds like Appraisal or Analyze or something along this line of thought. That''s definitely a cheat skill! My anger (more like mild irritation) dissipated as I did a one eighty turn back towards the witch. "Hey! Teach me this skill!" She moved her head from side to side, in the universal motion of rejection. "I can''t. I''ve already merged it with another one. But I wouldn''t teach you either way. It''s one of the most common skills available for lost souls. Maybe THE most common. Every single one of us actually naturally develops this skill after some time. So, even you, you''ll get it eventually." She smiled kindly towards me, and then, like a mother ushering her kid away towards school, she gently pushed me towards the door. "Now, go rest before you collapse from exhaustion." If you''re that worried about that, then let me sleep here, you scammer! But it''s true, I was beat tired, and furthermore, in a few hours, I had to make the big decision of logging out to go to work or quitting and staying here. As I entered the inn, the morning customers were watching me a bit weirdly, but that much was natural if you think about my disheveled state. A few stray sentences entered my ears as I passed through the tables towards the wooden counter. "...he did come from the Elder''s house..." "He slept there?" "I wouldn''t call what he did sleeping, look at his state!" "But he looks like a kid!" "Hah, who knew the old Elder had such tastes." "I must warn my kids to not go alone to her house!" "Poor kid... I hope he recovers..." Ha? It seems the old crone had nightly visitors while I was in the cave. Furthermore, it sounds like it was a kid! I shuddered when I thought that I slept so unguarded in a pervert''s home! Whatever... what she does in her own life is not my business. I was just thankful that my (virtual) chastity was safe.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Dropping a silver to the counter, I tried to head to a room upstairs but the innkeeper stopped me and pushed the coin back into my palm. "Go rest... today it''s free of charge." He said, a look full of pity in his eyes. Hmm? That seems excessive for a Reputation discount but I''ll take it. Several hours afterwards, the internal alarm that I had set rung, waking me up. My, still tired, body couldn''t accept that I had slept like a log for eight hours already, but the internal clock was blinking 2:00 PM. Even if almost two and a half days have passed since I''ve logged in the game, only a bit more than five and a half hours have passed in real life. In just half an hour, real time, I would have to normally wake up and go to work. Forever losing the 10x time advantage in here. Else, I could opt out to quit my job and hope that there will actually be a deal with those scientist fellows and the military, giving us some form of recompense for staying logged in. But that seemed a bit random and unwise, given that the developers could crack the bug and manage to replicate it before we even begin to gain any sort of money, leaving me then just jobless... I walked down the stairs, sat on a table, and ordered something to eat. Didn''t really matter that I would eat lunch for breakfast, whatever it was, it was surely better than what I could make. Hell! It was usually better than what I would usually order as take away normally, almost as good as a good restaurant. Per usual, I skimmed through the forums as I was eating. The thing that caught my attention was a new guide, posted by a dude named Rrhnod746, at least in the forums. He had a screenshot with his character (with like half the information actually blurred), at level 26 already, to back up his claims, as well as a citation noting that all the information was provided not only by him but by a collaboration of all of his high level guild members. He made certain to actually mention the name of the guild, Red Riding Noobs, every second sentence, obviously going for a publicity stunt. The guide was split into two parts. The first one containing tips and general information, while the second one was a list of what they believe are static combination skills. A disclaimer saying that due to lack of enough information, they just went with what had produced the same results in three+ different characters. The very first tip was to rush to do three different quests for a power boost. But I claim that this guide is bogus! Because it continued by saying that this was extremely easy to do so by level 2 by completing cakewalk newbie quests like ''kill 10 bunnies''. I call bullshit! The second tip, which tied to the first one, was about quests. Quests seemed to be dynamic so far. By finding and identifying problems and situations, one could speak to the relevant NPCs to force the system to create an appropriatequest about that. The list continued forth, with tips and advice that ranged from ''duh'', like try to maximize all three resources in your build, to ''you''re batshit crazy'' like setting your internal alarm to sound every one second to allow you to time your skills with your regeneration easier. According to the guide, there were plenty of ability, skill and combination points that could be gotten outside of normal progression. A few quests offered them as rewards, usually quests from lost souls NPCs'', but there was also achievements that granted them. So far, stat boosts at level 5 and 25, and combination points at level 10 and 20. Skimming down the list, there were a few bits and pieces I kept in memory, like not keeping valuable stuff in external storages like the pouches because it was much easier to steal from there and etc. (Game mechanics below, you can safely skip those without any plot loss. Mechanics will end with another parenthesis to make it clear where they stop) Finally, I made it to the skill list. The very first one had a whole section dedicated to it. Soulsight, or appraisal''s fancy name. The gist of it was that the character sheet without it was crap. As an example, PAtt was just the system''s approximation of your physical capabilities, and like all system''s approximations, wildly inaccurate. Basically, the example PAtt, was a combination of damage, accuracy, damage penetration, critical chance, and etc. All of which became visible with the right soulsight levels. The basic consensus was that stats grew exponentially until 20, and afterwards linearly (that is, if 100 points raised dodge from 0 to 50%, another 100 would raise it to 75%, another 100 to 87.5% and etc) Lastly, there was the mention that it was extremely easy to acquire soulsight, you just had to keep swapping equipment and check your status for 6 hours straight. But since this was time inefficient, you could keep swapping equip and checking status in between you walking from mob to mob. ...Yeeeeeeah, not doing this. Since I do check my status when I actually have a reason to, I''ll probably gain the skill... eventually. The most interesting thing on the guide was actually the armor skills. It seems after the second combination they started giving some form of stance skills. Order of combination mattered because stances were retained even after you combined said skill further. In addition, combining skills with armor seemed to, so far, merge both skills. So you would stop getting talents from the lost skill. Although you would still get some of its passive boosts as the armor skill level rose. To put it simply, merging acrobatics meant that it would still help somewhat with dodge, but not as much as if you had let it unmerged, and you wouldn''t get any of its active talents, but you would keep any of them you had already unlocked. Similar for toughness. Furthermore, it seems that this was weighted, with toughness retaining most of its bonus when merged with heavy armor while retaining almost none of the acrobatics benefits. And the opposite for light armor. For cloth users, it was best to not combine it at all, since they would lose the increased mana regeneration talent if they did so. Looking at the light armor section, basically, everyone combined light with cloth for hunter armor. Afterwards, there were two paths. Acrobatics gave rogue armor mastery, which gave rogue stance and increased maximum stamina while reducing detection range of opponents. Toughness, on the other hand, gave slayer stance, which increased stamina regeneration and physical damage. Lastly, either way you went, combining both gave scout armor mastery, which reduced stamina costs of abilities and gave you increased perception. So basically rogue had greater burst, slayer better sustained damage, and scout... scout would depend on actual %. Logically either in between or just straight up better. (Mechanics nonsense ends about here) Given my playstyle so far and that future toughness talents seemed more useful as well, I immediately spent my spare combination point on merging hunter armor mastery and acrobatics for rogue armor mastery and stance. The whole guide had me thinking about my actual strengths and weaknesses. Elementalism in particular. It was surely lacking in power, but it seemed it excelled in versatility, especially with the new level 7 talent. And yes, Rock-kuns were worse than a real tanking skill, and fire magic would probably do more than Flame-kun, or an attacking skill compared to Windy-chan, or water magic compared to... compared to... OH MY GOD! I forgot to name my lifesavers, the water elementals! I immediately shot up, knocking the chair down in the process and gathering all the attention around me. Disregarding everything, I sprinted towards the dreaded well. As soon as the bucket of water emerged from the frightful hole, I started the chant. I was rewarded by a vaguely humanoid body composed of water that when emerged from the bucket performed a graceful rotation around her body, like a pirouette, and blew me an imaginary kiss. "Definitely a Chan!" I proclaimed, and bowing my head I continued "Thank you from saving me Liquid-Chan." The tiny elemental gave me a good look before pushing her chest forward, full with pride, as she patted it, like she was trying to tell me ''leave it to me''. Yeah... elementalism was certainly the correct skill choice. And... I was definitely procrastinating my decision about what to do with my actual life. It was unreasonable to actually expect an answer to my emails at this point either, it wasn''t even 7 in the morning in the real world now, my family was probably asleep throughout my whole gaming session. So, let''s do this scientifically. Heads log out, tails stay. Hmm, heads... Ok, two out of three. Tails! Heads... Waaaaait! Three out of five!!! ...Who am I kidding? I HAVE to stay. Let''s just hope that I won''t mess up my life. With the decision off my chest, it was finally the time to relax. I didn''t just quit my job to slave over a game. Officially, I declared today a no-combat let''s relax and maybe-raise-a-skill day. And since now I had some money to spare, I visited the general store. First thing in order was a mesh kit to help with cooking, then the herbs that had been suggested to me for flavoring, and finally a pickaxe and a chisel to help with the next step. Seeing as my ink was about halfway used, I also refilled that. All in all, it didn''t take more than a few silvers and coppers to resupply. Although I think I also had the usual reputation discount here as well. I walked towards the open fields and, locating a big enough cropping of rocks, I started my production. It turns out that actually using tools makes the statesmanship much faster, and its products much sharper! With a pile of stone arrowheads on my feet, I sat down and started. I initially started making a single Air dart and then meditated until my mana was full again, but this got boring fast. So I switched it up, making a dart, infusing the dagger, meditating, making a dart, infusing my chestpiece, meditate, and etc. But once more, after a bit, I got bored again. Finally, I found the ideal routine. I was basically like previously, darts plus inscribe, but this time my already leveled up meditation allowed me to also insert two elementals of my choice in the mix. And obviously, I made those elementals fight with each other to train them! No, really, from what I could tell, compared to the first time I''ve summoned them, the more I''ve used them, the more they seemed to actually diversify their moves. From unbelievably simple punches in the beginning to a semi-viable actual attack sequence now. When I hit level 7 in the elementalism skill back when I leveled in the cave, I had gained a new talent for it, called Single enhance. This allowed me to either severely increase their duration, up to one hour each, or to keep them at five minutes, but give them a 50% extra damage bonus. For the purpose of this shadow puppet theater that was unveiling in front of my eyes, I obviously went with duration, either way, they were just distractions to pass my time more enjoyably. And it worked! I had a blast seeing the four of them duking it out with each other. As time passed, it seems that all four of them had fully developed their ''fighting style''. It also gave me a bit more insight on how they actually worked. So far, it seems they were actually using two resources each. Rock-kun usually started the fight with a one-two punch, and then used punches in a boxing like style, until he had enough rage to unleash either that fists-flayed-to-sharp-points move or actually use another one that restored his damaged body to full. It looked like a stamina and rage style. Dirt-kun was exactly like Rock-kun, but instead of a damaging and a healing rage ability, it seemed that it could trap people in the loose soil. On the other hand, Windy-chan used a much more extensive martial repertoire with lighting fast kicks and punches, with somersaults and axe-kicks, but at times, she would actually float in the air and unleash some sort of ranged wind barrage skill, that my Mana sight actually caught. So, more like stamina plus mana. Then you got Flame kun. Flame-kun started with flame breaths and some touch like punches, that both used mana, and then, when he was ready, he was unleashing fire spits and small blasts, probably using rage. So that one was mana and rage. Last but not least, my savior, Liquid-chan, danced around the battlefield, with extreme mobility, and then snaked out in unbelievable patterns, throwing tiny parts of herself, little droplets, towards her enemy. For the most part, I didn''t actually see her using anything else except this stamina-based range style. But at some point, when she got cornered by Rock-kun, she dispersed herself in a puddle, and reformed behind him, while sending a high-speed water current that launched her backwards, and this whole set of movements used mana. So, stamina and mana, like Windy-chan. The sun had started to set by the time I had started to bore with my elementals as well. And since today was a free-day, I simply went to the woods, gathered a few pieces of broken branches, and using my flint, I made a small campfire and started cooking. It took some using to, to actually identify and taste-test the various herbs that I''ve bought, but in the end, after quite a few tries, I managed to find a taste that suited me. With all of my meats gone, either eaten, or thrown away, or eventually, stored in my inventory as completed meals, my training for the day had finally reached its end. Looking at my status, which I didn''t neglect actually checking every time I heard the sound of a skill raising, I nodded to myself for a very productive day, even if it didn''t have any sort of battles.
Name: Qualexis Race: Wildkin Gender: Male
Title: Beginner adventurer
Level: 5 Experience: 4910/5000
HP: 65 MP: 105 Rage: 0/100 Stamina: 150/150
HPregeneration: 0.08/sec MPregeneration: 0.16/sec - STregeneration: 10/sec
Strength: 10 Dexterity: 14 Agility: 14 Constitution: 8
Intelligence: 19 Wisdom: 16 - -
Physical attack: 30 (35) Magical Attack: 35 Physical defense: 35 Magical defense: 121
Critical chance: +4% Critical damage: 0% Speed: +4%
Reputations: Elves: Favorable, Fey: Favorable, Grinea: Honored, Avon: Noticed
EXP%: 1x, +0.2x bonus for hunter related skills.
Skills: Talents:
Natural camouflage Lv4 -
Feral senses Lv4 -
Elementalism Lv8 Summon minor elemental, Single enhance
Inscribe Lv6 Minor P.Att rune, Minor P.Def rune, Minor M.Att rune, Minor M.Def rune,
Dagger Mastery Lv6 Stab, Backstab, Quick slash
Sneak Lv4 -
Outdated Stonemanship Lv3 -
Toughness Lv5 Reduce pain,
Rogue armor mastery Lv4 Rogue stance,
Cooking Lv3 -
Dissasembling Lv4 -
Leatherworking Lv1 -
Throwing Lv2 -
Tracking Lv2 -
Infused Elementals Lv8 Inscribe minor elemental, Double inscription,
Soulbind Lv1 -
Mana sense Lv1 -
Trapping Lv1 Set minor snare, minor blasting-earth deathtrap
Hatred control Lv1 Provoke, Abuse
Light magic Lv1 Minor light,
Meditation Lv4 -
Combination Points: 0
The night was still young, and I was already stuffed from eating way too much, but regardless the fact I had woken up at 2 pm, and now it wasn''t even 2 am, I still went back to the inn to sleep. My first "free" day after a very long time ended with the very pleasant dreams of my departure from the village and the adventures that were to follow. Of course, the next morning, I would regret that I had forgotten to actually send the relevant emails, like to my boss informing him I quit, or to my parents to ask them to take care of my home and probably my body while I was stuck in here. But, oh well, such is the life of an adventurer. Chapter 12: Bonus stage As expected from the bountiful rest of the previous day I woke up with the soft light of the dawn feeling refreshed and full of energy. "Nothing beats an early rise." I said to myself as I yawned and stretched. It WAS getting kinda tiring always waking up at noon, missing most of the daylight. I took one last, good, look at the village from the vantage point of my second-floor inn room, watching the people sluggishly leaving their homes and heading for their jobs. Ha! Suckers, I no longer have to go to work every morning, take that! Although, I''m not sure that this is something to be proud about. Whatever... Like a man preparing for vacations, I checked the items in my inventory one by one, making certain that everything required was there. I had enough burst and blast stones for nine traps, another thirty six darts, ten cooked steaks, a waterskin, a full ink bottle, and then my miscellaneous gear like the mess kit, the flint, the pickaxe alongside with chisel, eight more rabbit pelts, fourteen monster crystals, the two silver rings, the remaining bag of coals, my cooking herbs, the boar tusks and its pelt, and there was even my stone dagger tossed in for emergencies. Looking over the list, it seemed that I was running out of inventory space already just with those core items, having only three open slots out of twenty one. And there seemed to be one thing missing, enough water for a trip. Seeing no reason to keep them, I used six of my rabbit pelts to make three more pouches and fill up my belt slots, having now one for each inscribed stone, an empty pouch, and two more waterskins. Those few last pieces even raised my leatherworkingto level 2! I thought about selling the rings and the tusks, but as I was usually a hoarder, and as I still had 7 silvers and 6 coppers, I didn''t seem to be in an immediate need for cash. If I needed more space than my 6 current open slots, I could always throw away the stone dagger and my last rabbit pelts, bringing my available slots up to 8. The last thing to take care of, to be done with logistics, was to get my armor repaired. It kinda irked me that the last two pieces I made and wore, the gloves and the boots, were the ones most in need for treatment... stupid slimes. Going down, I paid another 4 coppers for a hearty breakfast, which was actually priced exactly half compared to the lunches and dinners I was having for breakfast all this time... Exiting the inn, I looked with nostalgia at the five idiots that were still arguing in the center of the main street. Even though it was just three days, it had become almost a daily ritual to dodge their recruiting attempts. Waving them goodbye (from a distance) I headed towards the abominable leatherworker. My steps were tons lighter now that the decision to stay has been made. Everything looked so much better now that the urge to rush, to see everything I could,had passed. Except for the thing that was coming straight towards me. That smile, from the Elder, just looked so much scarier as she approached. "You just had to be seen coming out of my house early in the morning, didn''t you?" Unable to actually answer that chilling smile I just smiled back like a moron while scratching my head in awkwardness. Wondering what was she pissed about this time. Unfazed, she continued. "Since you''re leaving, I have one more small task for you, come." Stunned, I saw her walking by me, heading back towards her house. A few steps later she halted. Turning her head to look at my, still motionless, body her eyes narrowed. "I said, come." And, like the good and obedient kid I am, I followed... while scanning the surrounding areas for possible escape routes. Alas, we passed through the sturdy, windowed, door, and all hope vanished. "Stay" She ordered as she disappeared in the inner rooms, only to reappear a minute later with a parchment in hand. "What do you know about the Ivory tower?" Hmm? That was the thing I would lose reputation with if I failed her last quest, right? "Nothing at all!" "Well, it''s simple really. Stuck towards the center of a continent is a huge white spire, piercing the sky, several dozens of meters high. Really, a breathtaking sight. The blasted tower is a relic of ages gone, having survived even the last cataclysm. Obviously, such a place has gathered scholars and mages from all over the continent. And that has evolved in the splendid mage''s city of Ivory tower." "Sounds... cool?" I answered, lacking the motivation to match her enthusiasm. It sounded like a way higher level place compared to me afterall... "You''re an elementalist, right?" She asked absentmindedly, her eyes glued to the thing in her hand. "Ehh, yeah..." "Good, good. I have just the thing for you. You seemed disappointed the other day over the skills I could teach you. It''s understandable, none of them are good for someone staying back and making his summons do his work. But if you promise me to deliver something to a friend of mine, I can refer you to another teacher that has just the skill for you. What do you say, deal?"
Quest: Deliver a copy of Elder Shannon''s document to her acquaintance. Accept? Y/N
I contemplated for a second which decisions had led me to become an NPC''s errand boy but, obviously, I still accepted the quest. "Yeah, sure. Whatever." She nodded satisfied, and then she flashed yet another smile that spelled only trouble. "Ok! You need to copy and soulbind this thing here, and then deliver it to a skeleton called Difrag in Ivory tower." "Copy?" "Obviously. My copy is soulbonded to me afterall. Don''t worry, I''ve seen your inscription runes, you''ll manage it... somehow." She finished while muttering the last part under her breath. Hey! I heard that! "Just give me that." I almost shouted back as I snatched the parchment from her hand.
Quest accepted: Copy Elder Shannon''s key piece.
Heh, free quest! Key piece? I looked at the piece of parchment that I had on my hands. It consisted of numerous runes and glyphs connected by some lines. It looked like some sort of kinda, but not really, circle, made of smaller circles of runes, that all of them interweaved in the middle. Simply put, confusing. I felt a bit of discomfort looking at it, like a slight feeling that I was missing something, like there was something just beyond my perception that kept dancing away when I tried to look at it. Pushing the weird feeling aside, I sat on the table and pulled my dip pen and bottle of ink out, looking a bit confused at the whole stack of empty papers the Elder laid before me. I was sure that I could fit the whole thing in just one of them. A bad premonition was edging near... As I dipped my pen in the ink, her cheerful voice sounded just above my left shoulder. "I think you better use magic ink for that." "Magic what now?" "Ink. The one you use for your inscriptions." "..." "What are you looking at? Take out the magic ink!" "...This is the ink I use for the inscriptions..." She lightly covered her mouth her hand, but I could still hear her chuckle regardless. "Oh, poor dear... Just grind some monster crystals in the ink. For this little quantity, just three or four should be enough for the whole bottle." "What magic crystals have to do with ink?! That doesn''t even make sense!" "Boy... didn''t you hear me when I told you earlier that we need the monsters because everything rotates around their soul stones? EVERYTHING becomes better with them. Although those you have, and can acquire, at this point are too small for anything else except maybe consumables like your inscriptions, your infusions, your elementals, alchemy and etc The bigger ones are the most useful ones, used in the more permanent things like crafting, enchant arts, rituals, and such." How can you drop such a bomb like it''s nothing?! Using monster stones for elementals? For infusions? For inscriptions?And I gave you eight of those for the worthless Light magic? Give me my crystals back you scammer! Of course, none of the above ever left my lips. What was actually said was. "How do I grind them?" "You can use my mortar and pestle for now, but buy one of your own when you''re done. Actually, let me just show you how to make the ink." Three tiny crystals later, the system kindly informed me.
You gained the Inscribe talent Magic ink
Magic ink: Inscriptions made with magic ink last longer and the runes remain after the inscription fades, allowing you to instantly reapply them. But, since the runes are permanent, you can''t switch the inscriptions on an item nor can you apply your own inscriptions on an item that another person has used magic ink on.
Sooooo good. With a smile plastered on my face, I started copying the intricate conglomeration of symbols on a piece of paper. It took me a bit more time, putting extreme effort to make it as accurate as I could, but half an hour later, I was done. I took a good look at it, comparing it to the original to see if I had missed something, and... THEY WEREN''T EVEN SIMILAR! I kept staring at the two pieces in disbelief. I had copied it rune to rune, glyph to glyph, line to line. I took extra care to be as accurate as I could. And yet, the result was undoubtedly two completely different things. I heard the, familiar now, voice above my shoulder. "It seems you''ve yet to grasp it." "Grasp what?" "Try to empty your mind. Then focus all of your senses, Mana sense as well, to my copy of the parchment. " Well, duh! How else can you see something if you don''t look at it? Stop spouting sage''s nonsense and actually tell me! Nonetheless, I still tried to relax. I exhaled and tried to focus on the parchment. Obviously, nothing happened. "You''re still not focusing boy. Again." She whispered as I felt something hard hitting me on the back of my head. Needless to say, a few minutes, and slaps, later, my eyes bulged out. "The runes... the runes are moving!" Like the parchment was the sea, and the runes tiny boats, they were slowly moving alongside the etched lines like they were following a predetermined and inked sea-route, shifting and changing as they did so. "Good, you can see it now. Now, copy it." "How???" "You just have to grasp its essence and copy that! Don''t fret, just stay focused on the feeling of the runes and not their forms, and eventually, you''ll get it. Now, practice." She told me as she gently patted me on my head. More sage''s mumbo jumbo! For some reason I felt like I was back in elementary school, getting taught how to write... It took me several failed attempts, and one third of the stack of papers, until I managed to get something like a flow in the runes'' movement. And then another third to be able to actually follow it. There was a symmetry in the way they moved, almost natural. Like their movement was the obvious thing they should be doing. Unlike the first time I''ve watched them, it looked like an intricate dance... no, like a painting coming to life.
You''ve gained the skillArtistry Lv1
Their movements felt familiar, like something I should know, it seemed to linger in the tip of my tongue, just a breath away from calling it. This turning, this shifting, this mixing and combining...! That was it! I could feel the stuff inside me shifting, following the runes, exactly like it felt when I was combining skills! Of course, the momentary distraction caused me to lose focus and ruin the copy, as it has happened so many times before. Adding the ruined paper in the growing pile of them, I picked a fresh one from the stack of papers and started from the beginning once more. Only this time I had my own gut feeling, literally, as a guide. And finally, it was done. Checking my clock, six hours had passed in the blink of the eye, but it was finally over. Watching the original and the copy side by side, they didn''t really look alike. The runes were different, the movements different, and yet, side by side, they matched. Like two partners in a dance. And despite all their differences, I could tell, they WERE the same. I felt a pat on my shoulder as the Elder pointed towards my copy. "You should hurry and soulbind it now before it is ruined." My focus shifting from the runes to the actual paper, I saw creases slowly forming, as the edges started to turn yellow-ey and charred. It felt as if the movement of the runes was eating the paper. Panicking, I quickly soulbonded thepaper like a piece of equipment, and I''ve felt it becoming mine. Stabilizing itself as my inner power counterbalanced the movements of the runes.
For understanding a fragment of the World Chains you gain 2 combination points.
Quest completed. Rewards: 1000xp
Level up! You reached level 6. You gain 1 ability, 1skill, and 1 combination point.
That-that-that cheat like reward! I need to find more of those! "What was that?" My curiosity finally burst out in amazement. But was instantly squashed the moment I saw the Witch shrug her shoulders. "Hell if I know... That''s why I use you to send it to an old colleague, maybe he can make heads or tails of what this thing actually is. Now, off you go. Although I don''t think it''s THAT urgent, I don''t really like to delay it any more than I have to. Not with a cataclysm looming around the corner. If you pass by the elven village of Aerlinth that''s nearby, don''t forget to tell the herbalist, Heslithiana, that I ask her to teach you THAT skill."This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. "Which skill?" "She''ll know. Now, go. Out!"
You have gained Favor with the area BOSS, Level 72 Witch Shannon, some special encounters in the area may be triggered now.
Heh... heh... heh... Stupid devs... making such a typo... level 72... what a typo... yeah, a typo!... heh... I better be going now... And with that, I let her usher me out the door. She twitched, like getting repeatedly hit, as some villagers glanced over at me exiting her house and waved their heads in shock. Was it that rare for the Elder to have visitors that they were shocked that I''ve been here twice? That must be it... Regardless, the quest window had been updated, telling me that the time limit for the quest was 6 months. So, nothing urgent it seems. Time for it to go to the backlog, I''ll probably have to go to this Ivory time at some point either way... Finally reaching my destination, the shop where the first scammer, the leatherworker, was, I counted my money carefully before entering. He just raised a single eyebrow, looking me all over, and sighed. "Dear God, what have you done to the poor armor! Look at those gloves! Look at those burn marks! Did you grabbed a flaming log or something, or was it a quick dip in acid?!" His intuition was uncanny! I put on my busy face (which was exactly the same as my non-busy face) and talked to him like I was in a hurry. The less time spent in here, the better. "Enough chit-chat old man! Can you fix them or not?" "...I won''t accept payment in rabbit pelts you know." "Who cares! I have money!" "Why didn''t you say the important stuff first! I can most certainly patch it up, the whole set for the puny amount of two and a half silvers!" Oi! Where''s my damned reputation discount! Regardless, wanting to get this over with, I removed the armor and gave it to him. I waited for like half an hour, browsing his stuff, making certain that almost everything was a class better than my own handmade ones before he returned. "Here you go! brand as new!" There were some leather patches where the burn marks from the goo and the tears from the goblins were. Patches that were made using some very familiar leather. "...Do you use rabbit pelt for the repairs?" "..." "It IS rabbit pelt isn''t it?" "Enough of that! I heard you''re leaving! *cough* good riddance *cough*." He was THAT subtle, yes. "Let me give you a final parting gift! You''re obviously too weak and poor to teach you the whole set, but since you''re still in children''s armor, I could give you the recipe for a real man''s helmet, since you''re lacking one!" Of course I''m lacking a helmet, you don''t sell helmet recipes you-you-you nice fellow that gives me free stuff! God bless NPCs! I snatched the piece of paper that came along my repaired armor and gave it a glance.
You learned a new Leatherworking recipe. Boar hide helmet.
Don''t tell me that I will now have to grind boars to get a new set of armor! Jesus, would it hurt to skip to the next mob or something? Looking at the recipe, there really was just one thing remaining before leaving the village, for real this time. My time here will end as gloriously as it started, with a rabbit kill. Obviously, the poor rabbit didn''t even give xp at this point, it just gave a tiny hide and some meat, but with that, I reached the quota of three tiny hides and a single boar hide that the helmet recipe required. Making it, I saw that the system even had a ''hide helmet'' option pop up! Naturally, I went with helmet off. With all the armor pieces now in my possession, it was time to try the magic ink. Looking at my stats, and my abnormally high M.Def, it was obvious to me to raise my physical defense, although something told me that this number in the M.Def section was completely arbitrary and exactly what the guide had described as ''wildly inaccurate system approximation''. Regardless, I could only go through what I knew. I now had plenty of mana to spare, as well as I could always rest for a minute or two to massively boost my regeneration five-fold! That''s right, Meditation was beyond broken, as long as you did nothing but sit, it multiplied your mana regeneration by its level. So, at level 4, it gave +400% mana regeneration as long as you stood still, resting. With that in mind, I first inscribed every single piece of my armor with M.Def runes using my magic ink. Getting cocky, I tried to pour mana in all of them simultaneously instead of one by one, wanting to see if I could save even more time than the time saved by not having to continuously inscribe the actual runes. As my mana poured into the runes, there was this feeling that there was the capacity for even more mana to go in, and so, I poured. I felt a massive amount of mana leaving my body. An extreme feeling of sleepiness came over me, almost knocking me unconscious. But the magic actually succeeded.
You''ve gained the inscribe talent Mass inscription You can inscribe multiple items with the same inscription simultaneously as long as the runes have been written already on each one of them.
You''ve gained the inscribe talent Resonant Inscription When inscribing a cluster of runes with the same effect simultaneously you can make them resonate with each other, increasing their overall effect. Consumes 100% more mana to give a 50% boost to the inscription. Requires 5+ simultaneous inscriptions of the same type. Requires magic ink.
Holy... Taking apart the massive boost that magic ink actually gave, which was the doubling of the inscription duration, that thing was a massive boost! It did take a full hundred and twenty mana, almost my entire supply of mana, to inscribe all six armor pieces, but it increased the P.Def gain from 3 to 4.5 each. With that, my runes boosted my P.Def from 36 to 63. Almost doubling my defense. I was invincible! If I went with hour long elementals, I should be able to keep that up, alongside my regular dagger infusion, with just a single minute of rest every ten minutes of walking. Maybe a bit more rest to actually have a supply of mana to actually use the rest of my skills, but still... With my final pieces of equipment in place, the only thing left was for me to spend my combination points. One of the things that copying that weird cluster of symbols gave me was the memory of how it felt when I combined skills. It was like the things that were inside me were circling around, trying to mix and match, and how it always made me felt better when they did so. And then I remembered the company''s motto. A build to fit your playstyle.By extension, combining things that I feel are useless, should provide me with things that are useful for the way I play, things that are right for me, at least as the game sees it. My list of skills at this point had become incredibly big, at least for my standards, and it certainly had skills that I found unyielding, or simply useless. So, the real difficulty wasn''t to find which skill I wanted to try combining, but more like, which skills out of all those useless ones I had I should kick out first.And, looking at my skills, the two most useless skills were wildly apparent. There was even one that I had no recollection of actually getting. How and when the fuck did I even acquired an art skill!
Combining Artistry Lv1 and Light magic Lv1 will merge them into a new skill. Continue? Y/N
Initially, I hesitated a bit. How could those pieces of junk even combine? But then, a memory of something I read a long time ago, about a hero using works of art made out of light that would inspire others. Yes! that''s what art does, it inspires! I would finally be able to get buffs for my cute little pets! So, YES! A thousand times YES! Almost immediately, I felt the expected turning and churning of my insides, as the pieces inside me started to shift and move. And as expected, when they finally stopped, when they matched, it did indeed feel like something much more comfortable was now inside my body.
Artistry Lv1 and Light magic Lv1 have successfully combined, merging in the skill Glamour Lv1
Glamour By skillfully manipulating light you can create visual illusions limited only by your imagination. Details, range of motion, and size of this illusion depend on skill level. Unlike true illusion magic, you can only affect the visual sense, creatures using other senses can bypass the Glamour. Unlike true illusion which is a mind attack skill, Glamour is a visual type effect, and thus it works on mindless creatures and isn''t resisted by mind resistance.
Well... let''s start with the obvious. This is NOT a buff type magic... yet again. At least it looks kinda usable, unlike its parent skills. It still feels like a bad version of an actual illusion though... only visual is a big limitation. Well, what the hell, you only live once! BUT I do have a slight paranoia that the system is watching me and deliberately switches the outcomes away from the ones that I''m thinking! So, this time I won''t jinx it. Let''s focus our mind somewhere far, far away from what I WANT this time.
Combining Glamour Lv1 and Infused Elementals Lv8 will replace Glamour with a new skill. Continue? Y/N
YES! So far so good! Now if only the new skill I''m-not-thinking-about-it,I''m-not-thinking-about-it,I''m-not-thinking-about-free-willed-illusions,I''m-not-thinking-about-free-willed-illusions,I''m-not-thinking-about-... SHIT!
Glamour Lv1 and Infused Elementals Lv8 have successfully combined, Glamour Lv1 was combined into Elemental Playground Lv1
Elemental playground You can create visual images where, inside them, elementals reside. The images can be manipulated by their corresponding elemental. Elements can replicate corresponding senses and physical properties, but don''t really have physical substance. An illusionary fire can cause someone to feel burned, but not actually catch on fire, an illusionary boulder has weight and tactile sense, but, with enough force, one can pass through it, and etc Higher mastery of Elemental playground allows for more complex patterns, with more than one elemental inside. Details and size of the illusion depend on the Elemental Playground level. This is a visual (like Glamour) and elemental (depending on the elemental) effect.
You''ve gained the talent Single element Glamour Cost: 40mp per cubic meter (minimum 1 cubic meter) You can create a glamour with a maximum of 1 elemental residing inside. Maximum size and quality depend on Base skill.
I-I got it right! FINALLY! Well... somewhat at least. It still sounds like a weird skill, but closer to something I can use. Now, if this thing was worth TWO combination points... we''ll see. Well, easy come, easy go. One more remaining. Now I had an armor stance skill, some stealth and detection skills, my summons and my dagger for damage, some crafting skills... the only ones that didn''t really see some use were throwing and trapping. But that was more like ''didn''t get the chance to use them'' rather than ''they are useless''. Let''s keep the point for now, maybe that new skill reward or something else in the elven village will click. And finally, I left the village. With a slight stop at the edge of it, seeing three familiar faces, there was just something I HAD to do. I approached the hunter that was busy ganging up on rabbits, and as he killed his current target, I let my hand rest on his shoulder. It was kinda awkwardly looking considering that he was a whole head taller than me, and that I had to stretch my arm to do so, but who cares. The hunter looked at me puzzled, but I had my speech ready. "Listen, Matt..." I started my speech in my most serious voice "It''s Mark." He interrupted me while frowning "Don''t interrupt me! The time for me to go has come. I trust you with those..." And with that, I used my free hand to point towards the rabbits. But before I could continue with my speech, he found my little pause as an excuse to interrupt me once more. "But I''ve been hunting them long bef..." "Doesn''t matter" "But there were also some other people that killed much more than y..." "Doesn''t matter either" "But there..." "WILL YOU SHUT UP AND LET ME HAVE MY DRAMATIC EXIT!" And, with my speech ruined, I took a sharp turn and started walking, head held high, towards the forest. The annoying thing with walking with your head held high though, is that you don''t see the ground. Or more precisely, you don''t see the Rock-kun that decided to try to stare down Matt and stood still. Making me trip on him. "Dammit, Rock-kun!" My yell was kinda muffled from the fact that my face was planted in the dirt. I heard a hearty chuckle as my body was easily picked up by the hunter as he helped me to stand up, forever ruining whatever chances I had for my awesome exit from the village. Matt was looking me full of amusement, as he let his eyes wander towards the forest. "You''re leaving little one? Where to?" Humph, stupid hunter, you''ll never have my adventures! You''re an NPC afterall! "Towards the elves for now, and then, only the Gods know!" Yeah, that should teach him! "You''ve been to the elves before? It can get a bit tricky to navigate the forest." "No need to worry, I know they are somewhere towards there," I said as I pointed towards the northwest, trying to encompass as much of the forest as I could with my hand. "and I DO have a map with all the places in the forest I''ve been through so far." Heh! take that, I''ve got system assistance you damned NPC! "Oh... a map? Show me, and I''ll mark the elf village for you in it." Damned... busted. How do I show the map to an NPC? "..." "Well?" "The map is in my head, so I..." "Well, of course it would be in your head, where else would it be? It''s a map afterall!" Wait... what? How does the natural place for a map be the head? Or... do all the NPC have systems assistance as well? "Then how would I ever show it to you!!!" "You just open it and share it with me?" Wait... I opened the map, which truth to be told was now just more dots and lines, and thought, as hard as I could, share. I was rewarded with a sour expression as Matt stumbled backwards a few steps. "Gah! What''s this! This map... this map... SUCKS!" He shouted, his hands covering his eyes in an exaggerated motion. "Nonono little one. You''ll definitely get lost and eaten by wolves if you go in the forest with this kind of... rubbish. Here..." And with that, without someone even asking him, he started to tell me how to accurately mark things on my map. How to add visual input, how to think to actually draw them on the system assisted translucent screen in front of my eyes.
You have gained skill Cartographer Lv1
"Now, because even with the knowledge of how to make a map, you still only have that piece of crap in your possession, let me share you the route to the elven village."
The leader of Grinea''s hunters, Mark, wants to overwrite your map with his. Do you accept? Y/N
Well, obviously yes. The second I thought of this, my map vanished, instantly replaced with an overly detailed map of the village and the whole surrounding forest, up until the elven village. It even had color! Little trees marked heavy and light vegetation, there were color-coded forest paths, there were hunting locales for wolves, boars, and small game. There were even markings on the places where goblins had been sighted. There were evendifferent markings for soil, swamp, and rocky terrain, there was... everything.
Your Cartographer skill has gained a level
Your Cartographer skill has gained a level
"Matt... How high is your Cartographer skill?" "For god''s sake it''s MARK, it''s almost as if you do it on purpose!" Well, duh.... it''s just so funny seeing his repeating reaction each time! And why am I suddenly feeling like a six-year old... "And my skill is just at level 14." Just he says. JUST! "...Thank you for your patronage." I said, slightly bowing my head. To which he just chuckled as he used his hand to mess up my hair. "Haha, we can''t have such a bunny slayer leave the village for his grant adventure unprepared now, do we? Come drink a beer with me when you''ll be famous! Now, go, do great stuff!" Mark... who do you think you are making me all emotional and shit! Stupid Matt! I will certainly surpass you and come gloat back at you! Having an urge to instantly grow, there was no point in me holding back. Having a sudden desire to share a map of the whole world with the hunter, there was a combination that seemed obvious to me.
Combining Cartographer Lv3 and Feral senses Lv4 will merge them into a new skill. Continue? Y/N
Cartographer Lv3 and Feral senses Lv4 have successfully combined, merging into Pathfinder Lv3
Pathfinder Your sensesare attuned to your surroundings in an uncanny degree. You have an exceptional sense of vision, hearing, touch, taste and even smell. Your senses exceed the natural limits, allowing you to see in near darkness, track by scent, hear beyond stone walls, and etc You can note minute details in the surrounding environment, giving you heighten awareness of an area. You can find the most optimal routes, make paths, and discover hidden passages. All those are automatically recorded in a separate, more detailed map. Where you tread, others can follow. Gives slight advantageous reactions from NPCs who know of your skill, especially travelers and wanderers.
I looked at my character screen, nodded determined towards the hunter, and vanished into the woods. For REALLY REAL this time.
Name: Qualexis Race: Wildkin Gender: Male
Title: Beginner adventurer
Level: 6 Experience: 1000/6000
HP: 73 MP: 130 Rage: 0/100 Stamina: 150/150
HPregeneration: 0.08/sec MPregeneration: 0.16/sec - STregeneration: 10/sec
Strength: 10 Dexterity: 14 Agility: 14 Constitution: 8
Intelligence: 20 Wisdom: 16 - -
Physical attack: 30 (35) Magical Attack: 36 Physical defense: 36 (63) Magical defense: 146
Critical chance: +4% Critical damage: 0% Speed: +4%
Reputations: Elves: Favorable, Fey: Favorable, Grinea: Allied, Avon: Noticed,
EXP%: 1x, +0.2x bonus for hunter related skills.
Skills: Talents:
Natural camouflage Lv4 -
Elementalism Lv9 Summon minor elemental, Single enhance
Inscribe Lv7 Minor P.Att rune, Minor P.Def rune, Minor M.Att rune, Minor M.Def rune, magic ink, mass inscription, resonant inscription
Dagger Mastery Lv6 Stab, Backstab, Quick slash
Sneak Lv4 -
Outdated Stonemanship Lv3 -
Toughness Lv5 Reduce pain,
Rogue armor mastery Lv4 Rogue stance,
Cooking Lv3 -
Dissasembling Lv4 -
Leatherworking Lv2 -
Throwing Lv2 -
Tracking Lv2 -
Infused Elementals Lv8 Inscribe minor elemental, Double inscription,
Soulbind Lv2 -
Mana sense Lv1 -
Trapping Lv1 Set minor snare, minor blasting-earth deathtrap
Hatred control Lv1 Provoke, Abuse
Elemental Playground Lv1 single element glamour,
Meditation Lv4 -
Pathfinder Lv3 -
Combination Points: 0
Equipment
Simple Leather chest +4(8.5) P.Def Simple Leather pants +3(7.5) P.Def Simple Leather boots +2(6.5) P.Def Simple Leather gloves +2(6.5) P.Def
Simple Leather belt +1(5.5) P.Def, +5 belt slots Boar Hide Helmet +2(6.5) P.Def, +10% critical protection Steel dagger +5(10) P.Att Simple leather backpack +10 Inventory slots, +20% weight limit
Inventory 15/20 Steak (10), Waterskin (3), Beginner grade magic ink (0.5) & dip pen, mesh kit, boar tusks (2), flint&steel, coal sack (0.4), pickaxe, chisel&hammer, silver ring (2), tiny monster core (11), mortar&pestle, cooking herbs, raw meat, crude and blunt stone dagger (P.Att 2),
Money 4 silver pieces, 4 copper pieces
Belt 5/5 Dagger sheath, Pouch1,Pouch2,Pouch3,Pouch4
Pouch1 1/1 Stone burst pebble (18)
Pouch2 1/1 Flame blast pebble (18)
Pouch3 1/1 Air Dart (36)
Pouch4 0/1 -
Chapter 13: Dammit Tolkien! Have I told you that I hate developers not saying everything on the tooltips? Well, I do. My brilliant plan to command an army of kuns and chans and trample through all opposition on the forest failed miserably the second I tried to summon my fifth elemental. Stupid, arbitrary, restrictions only allowed four simultaneous elementals, which cost me a whole waterskin worth of water just to get back the poor Liquid-chan who was the unlucky fellow that transformed into a puddle of water when I tried to summon a Dirt-kun. So, now, my army consisted of a Dirt-kun, a Flame-kun, a Windy-chan and a Liquid-chan. I don''t know if it is the elementalism skill level, my M.Att, or the time I had them train against each other until they had completed their individual ''styles'', but whatever the reason, they can pretty much solo a wolf at this point. Speaking of wolves, the map is amazing! Soooo easy to simply navigate towards their marked locale, and then track them down with the assistance of Dirt-kun. Alas, if only I had that thing before, when I was desperately in need of wolves. Now, they more or less played the part of the rabbits. For the purposes of the test, I actually picked a pack of four roaming wolves. Stealth, camouflageand rogue stance were enough to get me a breath away and plant a trap just a few meter away. I created an illusion of a bleeding copy of a smaller me, using a water elemental as my element of choice, which made for some pretty realistic ''blood'' that trickled down my wounds. Well, that bit was mostly a failure, the actual image could hardly be seen as humanoid, the degree of lack of my expertise in the skill showing. Despite that, the bloody image was enough for the wolves and got them rushing towards it, which of course was positioned right above a certain thing that I''ve planted. The deathtrap killed one by itself and wounded the one directly behind it. I waited for the rest to pass by me as they spotted the elementals and then I jumped and backstabbed the last one, leaving my elementals to deal with the other two. As the wolf howled in pain, a quick slash grazed over the same spot that his fur had split, I reversed the grip on my dagger, bringing it down forcibly right between two ribs, and I continued to slash upwards, freeing my dagger from the flesh of the wolf. In the blink of the eye, two large, gaping, wounds were bleeding profusely. Almost painstakingly slowly, the wolf managed to turn and face me, and with a burst of movement, he lunged towards my dagger-hand, grabbing it into his mouth, but not even managing to break the leather handguards, let alone skin. With my free hand, I pulled an air dart which flew right onto his exposed neck, creating another massive wound. And taking the opportunity of another yelp, which freed my hand, I brought down the dagger, stabbing and slashing once more, killing the wolf. Looking over, all the elementals except Dirt-kun had focused down the already wounded by the trap wolf. Meanwhile, Dirt-kun was valiantly standing his ground against the full-health wolf, although I could easily see that the poor elemental had taken quite some damage already. Never the heartless one, I decided to help Dirt-kun with his struggle, and test Elemental Playground again. This time, creating the visual image of a flame directly on top of the wolf. It was spectacular, and even a bit too brutal for my tastes, but as the illusionary flames embraced the poor animal, inflicting him the pain of being burned, he immediately started rolling to the ground and running frantically around. Unfortunately for him, for the full 10 seconds, that was the duration of the illusion, the flames never died or stopped hurting as hell. Even after they magically disappeared, the mental damage seemed to have been way too high for the poor wolf, it was panting for breath, his mind focused on only one thing, escaping. Which I actually let him do. No matter if it was VR or not, the spectacle of the wolf howling in pain and thrashing wildly about was a bit too much. It seemed wolves were actually farmable now if I wished to do so. But wolves lacked the main thing that made a target appealing at this point, monster stones. I only had eleven of them, and there were so many applications for them that I wanted to try. But the fear that the elven trainers might, like the Witch, only accept those stones for payment, was making me hold on to them for dear life. So, even though the wolves still gave me full xp and some materials, they had to be spared... for now. Checking my map again, I decided to head towards the elven village using a quite substantial detour, just so that I could pass by the points Mark had marked as goblin sighting spots. The first two spots were empty, But on my way to the third one, I actually managed to hear their squeaking little voices from some place towards my right. I carefully stealthed my way towards there, and after a while, while pushing some undergrowth away, I was rewarded with a splendid sight. A full camp of six goblins was busy squeaking to each other. Two of them seemed to be arguing about something, pushing each other. One of them was keeping guard, and by that I mean he was staring towards infinity, a blank gaze etched into his stupid yellow eyes. Another one was picking his teeth with his rusted dagger. And one was going about his business. The last one was a special case of his own, apparently trying to pick up a fight with a tree, as he yelled at it and repeatedly smacked his club at the massive trunk. Using my fight with the wolves as a basis, I started planting a bomb on the ground, but as I was finishing, the ''guard'' goblin yelled in pain, an arrow stuck on its chest. And then it simply dropped dead. Almost in sync, the goblins let whatever they were doing, and turned towards the point of origin, some place opposite to me in regards to the clearing. I was still stunned in place, a cold shiver running through my back from the second I saw the arrow, but as I slowly turned towards the place the goblins were looking at, I couldn''t see anything. Sitting still, praying to not be noticed, I watched as another arrow flew through the canopy, striking another goblin, this time on his arm. Slowly, I realized that unlike the arrow that had killed me before, those arrows looked distinctively different. Instead of a straight shaft with a steel head, those looked like raw, fresh, twigs. As the goblins started running towards the direction the arrow had come from, the twig on the goblin''s arm twitched as it started rapidly growing. Before the goblins even managed to get out of the tiny clearing, two more had growing twigs on their bodies, and almost simultaneously, the twigs violently moved towards the ground, where they started growing roots, planting the three goblins firm on the ground. Always brave, one of the two goblins that were still able to run, turned tail and started running for his life, towards the opposite direction the arrows had come. Which incidentally, put him right on the path for me and my trap. Panicking, I jumped backwards, trying my best to keep my cover intact, but I still managed to see the shadow of a humanoid jumping from above one tree right on top of the charging goblin, dropping it prone. Holding the goblin still under his boot, the archer calmly pulled his bow fully, and planted a twig arrow right on the goblin''s head, executing it. Then he turned towards the fleeing goblin and once more pulled his bowstring back, but before he could release, a grand explosion, signifying that the goblin had reached the trap, forced him to jump for cover behind one of the trees on his right. Meanwhile, the three rooted goblins were still struggling to break the vines that had them, face first, planted on the ground. From somewhere towards where the archer had disappeared, a youthful, full of energy voice sounded "Who''s there?" Obviously, I wasn''t stupid enough to answer. I simply slowly tried to circle around, as silently as I could, trying to get to a point where I could get at least some visual confirmation on him. The thing that worried me the most was that I could definitely hear some muffled chanting noises from behind the tree he was hidden. All of the sudden,a knob in a tree in front of me opened up. The wooden rings looking uncannily like an eye. "Oh! Hey! It''s a natural brother!" The archer''s voice sounded once more, only this time much more cheerful. "Worry not brother, I''ll slay the goblins that plague our forest and then we can chat, after all, obviously you''re on the same sacred mission as me!" And, without a care in the world, I saw him moving, fully exposed towards the center of the clearing, decapitating the, still struggling, goblins using a thin, long, knife. He was quite tall for an elf, almost a meter and eighty centimeters high. And through the leaf-shaped scales of his armor, you could see muscles bulging, making him look more like an athletic bodied human rather than the usually lanky elves. From the distance, you could only describe him as... green. Each leaf on his scale chest was painted a different shade of green, he had, long, laurel green, braided hair, and the rest of his leather armor was a very dark moss green shade, textured like the bark of the trees. His unexpectantly unguarded stance short circuited my brain. Baffled, and thinking that he either was a genius assassin or a moron, I walked out of my hiding spot and moved towards the macho elf. Afterall, I was pretty sure that through the creepy knob-eye he had seen perfectly where I was already.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. From close up, you could really see his elvencharacteristics having a deadly struggle with the rest of his body. It was like an elf having taken steroids, where muscles were fighting with the elegant and sharp bone structure of the race, the usually thin pointy ears appearing weirdly sized on his massive head, and the usually soft hair being micro braided just looked... wrong. As I approached, he finished pocketing the monster core from the dirt and turned towards me, smiling. For some unknown reason, while the rest of him was... green... his eyes were a dazzling shade of bright, almost translucent, blue. Which was painfully miss-matched and made him appear like an alien. "Hello natural brother!" He, over-enthusiastically, almost-shouted from point-blank range. "Yeah, you said that before. What makes us ''natural brothers''?" I said, one eye still glued on the bow that was resting behind his back, and looked more like it was grown instead of made, and the other on the very sharp, and very pointy, elegant silvery long dagger he had on his hand. "Well, we''re both on the side of nature, so natural brothers!" He exclaimed, apparently with the whole overly-enthusiast theme going strong still. "Wouldn''t that makes us nature''s brothers?" "...Oh. Maybe? Not sure. Regardless, I''m happy to see you!" Yeah, I can see that. Tone down the sunlight would you?"My name is xXLegolassXx13. What''s your name brother?" Oh, a user! And such a name... "...What happened to the other twelve?" I said as I smirked "What?" "Nevermind, explaining a joke makes it bad. Name''s Alex by the way." "What was the joke about? It''s been a long time since I''ve heard a good one!" "And it''ll be more time still.My joke was lame as fuck. It was about your name." "What about my name? When I descended above those lands, a Goddess proposed it to me after my old name was taken." Wait... the AI suggested me names that ended with 35. Don'' tell me... "Hey! Don''t tell me you''re thirteen!" With that, his eyes popped out of his face, looking me with eyes gleaming with amazement. "Brother! You have skills that can see through the veil of the worlds?" Seriously, what''s with his way of speaking... Ohhhh, fuck me, it''s a role player! A child role player! "No, it was your name, once more." "My name? What abou... oh. OOOOOH. As expected from a wildkin. You''re very perceptive." "Seriously, stop it with the rp. Are you fine being on this server at your age? Do your parents know about what''s going on here?" "Alas, I met no parents. As a lost soul, I am but a fragment given life by the very earth itself. BUT beyond the veil, I know that in my past lives, my mother was a greater God, and she has given me her blessings." "Seriously, cut it with the rp, I can only understand half of what you''re saying. You basically said that your mom said it''s ok for you to be here?" "As one of the greater Gods, the ones even the minor deities call reverently as Devs, she whispered in my dreams that she can look after me in here." "Waitwaitwait. Your mother is a developer? For RealLifeIII? Answer with a simple yes or no!" He seemed to struggle a bit like something was trying to force its way out of his mouth and eventually he answered "This Lost soul has memories of many lives. One from before this world even existed, from beyond the veil, one before the second cataclysm, and even one that mirrored this world exactly but was reset. But in all of them, his mother is a developer here, yes." "Once more, because you keep spouting nonsense. You are a living human being, using a virtual reality console, and your mother is a developer for ReaLifeIII, and she said it''s ok for you to stay here? If you answer with anything other than a yes or no I''m gonna smack you in the head." "...yes." He said dejected, his eyes gluedon the ground. "THANK YOU!" Ok, finally I felt a bit better about leaving him to his business. "Ok, sorry for hiding earlier butI had a bad run with an archer around those parts earlier. See ya" I said as I turned to leave. "Wait! I''ve heard about it from other elves. A trespasser on our holy forest that uses man-made arrows to kill Lost souls. I''ve been hunting him as Nature''s guardian, but I had no luck finding him out." Hmm? What''s with the title? Is there an achievement I should aim for in the elven village? "Nature''s guardian? That''s a thing? Like a title or something?" "No. I''m guarding the forest against all threats, goblins, trespassers, stuff like that. Hence, nature''s guardian! The goblins may not be rewarding me with soul strength anymore, but they are a threat to the balance, and they must be hunted down!" "Yeah... Now that you mentioned it, I was wondering about that. You really look like you have a cheat skill with that root on your arrows. What level are you?" He pulled his bow with a fast and fluid motion. It really was a single piece of wood that seemed to naturally curve out like a hunting bow. It was covered in several thin vines that formed an intricate pattern along its surface, almost as delicate as lacework. The moment he grabbed the bow from its handle, one of the vines shot up from one of the edges of the bow and tied itself on the other, stringing it by itself. He casually pulled the vine string back, and from the handle, where his hand was, an unmistakably sharp and straight twig grew backwards, towards him. As the twig naturally reached and rested upon the string, he released it, launching the arrow towards a tree. The arrow penetrated lightly the tree, and then the twig started growing, becoming one with the tree, as it changed into a tiny little branch. He DEFINATELY looked smug as he turned towards me. "When I look into my soul, it says that I''m eleven. And I don''t understand why you think that my leaf sniper skill is a cheat. I''ve forged my soul over and over to get it. The energies of the magic of nature, my mastery of the bow, even my technique of hiding, all helped to evolve my ability to wield living plants as ammunition and command them." "So, a combination skill of sneak, bow and nature magic?" "...amongst others. I tried to replicate the skills of an old memory, a memoryfrom before the world got reset, but it came out as something different, and maybe a bit weaker than what I had before. Still, yes, I can command my arrows to entrap my foes, or to poison them, or to restrict them, and in the future, I can even make the twigs blossom inside the flesh of my enemies! Cool right?" Hey! That ''cool'' was definitely out of character! "Ok, whatever. I''m not really into PvP, so good luck on your hunt." "Wait! The archer you faced before. Did he hit you squarely on the back, between the shoulder blades?" "...He did hit me on my back, hell if I know if it was on my shoulder blades or whatever. Why?" "Damn! So, it''s true..." "What''s true?" "Everyone reports the same. It seems he has some skill of his own, where his arrows snake around cover and always land on your back. Maybe... I''m not strong enough to face him alone. PLEASE! Help!" "If you are afraid of dying then level someplace else? From what I gather, goblins shouldn''t even give you any xp afterall." "I can''t... I''m on a sacred mission. I need to go to where those vile abominations have spawned in great numbers and defeat their warlord. I''ve neglected this mission for a very long time, two whole days, and now I''m running out of time. And despite me growing so much in power those two days, I heard that their warlord grows much faster than any Lost soul can muster. If we don''t kill him fast, he''ll be able to raise an army to sent to the village!" "Wait... by abominations spawning in numbers, you mean those goblins?" "Yes! The blights upon our fair garden!" "...It seems, afterall, that I''ll be joining you... nature''s brother, on this, ehm, sacred hunt! Lead the way!" The macho elf raised his hands towards the sky, and with a deep voice, completely different than the usual high pitched enthusiastic one that he was talking so far, he started praying. "Oh mother earth, old oak, and wise owl, please grant this brother of mine the vision of the rough path we must follow in order to save this little garden."
xXLegolassXx13 wants to share the quest "The ruler of Goblins" with you. Do you accept? Y/N
Dear God... what am I getting myself into? Yes.
xXLegolasXx13 invites you to a party. Accept? Y/N
Yes. "Ok, to start, there''s no way I''m calling you that. What''s your actual name?" "xXLegol..." "Nope. Not gonna happen. Try again." "Why?!" "Your fault for picking that name. Now choose another." "But in the classic literature he was a..." "I know who he was. Still a nope." "...How about Keros?" "I can work with that." Finally, a normal sounding name. "It comes from..." Almost reflexively I raised my hand to stop him. "Don''t care." Did he seriously just pouted because I didn''t let him tell his story?! I feel like I''m bullying a kid here! It''s going to be a long quest... Happy thoughts. Goblins, goblins goblins, goblins, goblins, goblins. "Brother... your smile is creeping me out." Waking up from my happy vision of endless monster cores on little green feet, I noticed that there was a translucent tiny party screen on the top left of my vision. The moment I tried to focus on it, it smoothly moved in front of me, magnifying itself as it did so. Three names and health bars, one of which was greyed out were clearly visible on it. "So... who''s Spitha?" "She''s a temporal ally back in the village. She assisted me in subjugating some filthy lizardmen." "We''re waiting for her?" "Nah, unlike us who are bound by our morals to protect the forest, she''s just a human. She can''t understand the importance of our cause." "..." "She also thinks that goblins are too weak to test her mettle." "..." "She refused to come because she doesn''t get xp from the goblins." "There! Was it so hard? Whatever, let''s go before someone steals our prey!" "May the Gods grant us steady aim and swift death to our enemies!" Chapter 14: Its a Boss! No matter how annoying Keros was with his RP stuff, at least he had the decency to allow me to kill the goblins on our way towards the goblin warlord. He did whine a bit about how it would endanger the poor village if we delay, but he still went along with it. And, oh boy, there were goblins! In just an hour trek through the forest, we had already encountered four different groups of six goblins each! We did try to see if I''ll be getting any xp if he killed them, and he did actually intervene one or two times so as to minimize the damage and the downtime, but all in all, I had already killed twenty goblins! Killing creatures was really the premiere way to xp it seems. Injust that hour I had already gained more xp than the reward from the six-hour long quest to copy that damned parchment. Plus, I had literally doubled my stash of crystals, having twenty three now. Alas, sacrifices had to be made eventually... "Brother!!! What did that poor branch ever did to you?" "What could POSSIBLY a branch do to me?" "Then why did you break it?" "...to light a fire?" "YOU''RE GOING TO LIGHT A FIRE IN THE FOREST? Using its very own branches?!" "Yes, that''s what firewood is used for usually." "I cannot allow it. We''re here doing nature''s work, cleansing the forest. We''re not here to burn the forest down ourselves!" "Look, firstly, I''m not THAT incompetent to light a forest on fire with just a tiny little fire. Secondly, no matter your rp bs, I do need a fire to bring Flame-kun back to life. So... deal with it." "With a flint?!" "You have a better way?" "Look brother... I did take you under my wing, and together we will vanquish this plague from our forest. But... with all this delay with you killing the goblins, we can''t also afford to wait for you to gather wood, and start a fire with flint. It''ll just take too long." "Nah, I can do it in like five minutes, tops. Don''t worry." "Brother... choose, goblins or fire?" So, he really was just bored just slowly following me around as I cleared the goblins and wanted the quest to finish quickly... I could get behind that, I''m not THAT unreasonable. "...They seem to have good magic defense, don''t they? Dirt-kun is fine afterall!" And simply as that, I was relegated to run three Dirt-kuns and a Rock-kun. Liquid-chan? That will leave me with only one full waterskin! Killing goblins was a man''s job afterall, chans had no reason to be here! It took another ten minutes or so, and another group of goblins, before we noticed a cacophony of squeaking voices up ahead. The good thing with our composition was that both of us could sneak closer to take a look. The bad thing with our compositions was... we both could sneak, ergo we lacked either a tank or a healer. In front of us laid a huge, thirty or more meters wide, area of complete devastation. A horde of filthy goblins was scurrying along huge, chopped, trunks of trees. We were in the deep part of the forest, with pines reaching upwards to ten, fifteen, meters high blocking the sky, lush undergrowth full of color and life, animal sounds echoing all around us. And like someone had pulled a curtain, the scenery changed. It wasn''t like someone had cut the trees and cleared the place. It was more like a bomb had dropped right in the middle of the clearing. All sounds of life replaced by the annoying, continuous, high pitched screaming of the goblins. Shrubs laid upside down, the trees were messilychopped down, falling one on top of the other, the flowers and the rest of the low vegetation trampled down, being reduced to muddy piles of waste. The very ground was riddled with holes, merging with the fallen trunks to make sloppy residences for the horde. Right in front of our eyes, the devastation was evolving. The goblins were digging more holes using their hands. Breaking branches to make clubs. Using rusty hatchets to further mutilate the trees surrounding the area. And right in the middle a huge, two meters high, brute, was sitting on top of an uneven stump which was at least a meter in diameter, surveying his army with his left hand resting on a rusted fireman''s axe that was even bigger than my total height. Unlike the normal goblins, he was wearing a patchwork of furs and badly cut, thick, leather covering his whole body except his face. And what a face that was. His hairless mug was distorted even worse than the goblins. So much that in fact, I doubted it counted as one of them anymore. What''s worse was that it was altered in a way that goblins were rare beauties compared to him. A scar crossed his face just below his uneven eyes. Without eyebrows, his forehead looked huge. A very strong, and very square, jaw was extending from his face, making him look like a chimpanzee or something. From there, two large tusks were sprouting upwards, so crooked that it made you wonder if he could even eat. The rest, extremely pointy and long, teeth were equally warped, accentuating the visage of ugliness itself. But the thing that really drew you in was his eyes. Unlike the goblins'' sickly yellow color, his were deep, glowing, and red, like someone had stuck two embers right into the sockets. I took a breath to calm down, and turned towards Keros, right in time to snatch the loaded arrow from the bow. That was a lucky save. Keros shot me an angry glare, but I pointed towards the back, my eyes making clear that I won''t accept no for an answer. I walked a good two minutes away from the clearing before I let my anger explode, making certain that my voice didn''t exceed that of a whisper of course. "Are you insane??? We can''t kill that!" His solemn face momentarily caused me to forget I was speaking to a thirteen-year-old. "We have to brother. You saw what he has done already. It''ll only get worse." "Yes. Yes, we need to kill him. But you see, there is this slight issue. WE CAN''T. What did you do to deserve such an impossible quest?!" "Well... we were a six man war-party when we did so." "AND WHERE ARE THEY?!" "One left for the human lands, the other is Spitha, and the other three, when the Gods told us that we could no longer freely cross the veil to the other world, chose to leave, and stay beyond this world." "That''s it! Message Spitha to come!" I saw him concentrate, probably messaging her, before he once more turned towards me, making a difficult face. "What?" "Err, you see, she said she''s... she''s..." He seemed stuck, trying to figure out what to say. "Use her words, you''re just delivering a message after all" Obviously relieved by the simple excuse for breaking his persona, he spoke in a single breath, like trying to be done as quickly as possible. "She said that she found the perfect grinding spot and there''s no way in hell to leave it before she grinds at least a level." Dammit! "Then we''ll go the elven village and recruit more people to come and help us." "Impossible, the village is about two hours from here, it''ll take us at least four hours." "So??? He waited for two days, he can surely wait for four hours more." "He didn''t wait... The druid that gave us the quest told us that we should hurry because the stronger he gets, the faster he''ll continue to grow and attract allies. In three days time, he would be strong enough to subjugate the whole forest. And more than two days have already passed." Checking my map I could see that I was far closer to Grinea, maybe just an hour away. But I somehow doubted that the game would casually allow me to use an obviously OP NPC to clear a starting area boss. "Why did you even come solo then?!" "Well, when the druid first warned us we were still newborn Lost souls, our soul strength barely level 3. I thought that now that I''ve grown..." "Well, you thought wrong, it''s impossible. We don''t even have some form of big aoes to deal with minions, there were around fifty goblins there." "I have." "What?" "They did the mistake of butchering nature. Nature will now arise against them! I don''t care if I die. I''ll use all my strength to take as many as I can to the grave with me!" He does like big words, doesn''t he? "You have aoe? Some way to kill multiple goblins by yourself?" "Yes, if I use their own power against them." "Their own power? You can make them fight each other? Like a confusion or something?" "What? No! I meant the pieces of their soul they leave behind when we kill them." "Crystals eh... maybe... well whatever, yolo." "Brother? I can''t understand you." "Don''t mind me, it''s a battlecry. " "Then?..." "Let''s give it a try. BUT, we''re doing this properly. This skill of yours, do you use magic attack or physical attack?" "Both. The initial hit is physical. Then, if the arrow penetrates the target, I use magic for the rest of the stuff like the roots and the poison." "And the aoe yore talking about?" "That''s magical." "Gotsa, give me your bow for a second." If I had a mana potion I could also inscribed his armor like mine, but apparently, he only had 4 healing potions, which obviously I took one of. With the inscription done, all that was left was experimentation. Even with having given half the crystals we gathered from the goblins to Keros, I still had twenty six of them. I used magic ink to make an air dart, but nothing extra happened. Then I tried making another while I had a crystal next to it, again nothing. Remembering how magic ink was made, I pulverized it and sprinkled it above another air dart. That failed once more, but I noticed that the ink glowed a bit before the inscription took place. I grounded one more crystal and slowly sprinkled it just above the ink. Seeing the reaction, I slowly continued to do so until the ink was more like a paste.
You''ve gained the Infused Elementals talent Soul-infused inscriptions.
Soul-infused inscriptions By directly using monster stones your inscribed elementals become stronger. Requires magic paste. Purity of the paste required depends on infusion tier.
Alright! Step one done. Since those don''t have duration I made four more infusions, enough for one more trap, bringing me up to four traps, 3 normal, and 1 soul-inscribed. I also made another 3 such darts, reaching 4 and leaving me with a stack of 16 crystals. There was one last thing to do. I checked again the skill tooltip to make certain that it indeed said that the size of the infused item affected its effect and took out my trusty old stone dagger, my very first weapon since I started playing. Obviously, I had to fake the emotional part since it was actually a crappy weapon that only led me to trouble, but whatever. I used magic ink for a permanent physical attack inscription on it, and then infused a stone burst, using yet another crystal, into it, making the runes glow momentarily before they faded inside the dagger. Now, elementals time. Given the encounter, I had to decide between Rock-kunfor more defense or Dirt-kun for that root skill they did. But since I was positive that the only one who could do meaningful damage was Keros, I decided for Dirt-kun for easier kiting.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. I mentally apologized to whichever Dirt-kun would die as I crushed another monster stone on a patch of the ground and summoned an earth elemental there, choosing the extra strength option instead of the longer duration this time. The only thing that happened was that a normal looking Dirt-kun rose, bringing me up to four and a single Rock-kun. WAIT A MINUTE! Why there were five elementals now??? I paused momentarily and started searching the forums about elementalism. The new guide had nothing on it, but on the old, now antiquated, beta guide, it clearly pointed to the source of my misunderstanding. It seemed that elementals were area based. Depending on the surrounding locale, the strength and amount could wildly change. Deep in their element, like a volcano for fire, underwater for water, high in the air for air and lastly, deep underground for earth, you could control up to twelve of that kind but severely less, up to zero in some cases, from the others. And then, the rest of the regions were somewhere in between, with examples like high mountain topsfor air and earth, frozen tundras for air and water, and earth and fire for desert. Here, in a forest, earth was the dominant element. Returning my senses back to my previous work, and seeing that this time the powdered crystal had failed me, I just put another one crystal on top of the earthen soil and resummoned. As the elemental rose, the crystal melted inside his form. A Dirt-kun covered with translucent, radiating, blue-green veins of energy running his length appeared.
You''ve gained the Elementalism talent Soul-infused elementals.
Soul-infused elementals By directly using monster stones your elementals become stronger and last longer. Requires monster stone. Size of the monster stone required depends on the elemental tier.
Congratulations! For acquiring three different soul-infusion talents, you gain the skill Soulstone enhancement mastery
Soulstone enhancement mastery Your expertise in using monster stone shows. Increasesthe power of all of your soul enhancements by a % equal to the skill level.
Nice! I even got a new skill! Although it does looks kinda crappy given that it only gives me a 1% boost on a consumable source of power... but whatever, I''m not one to complain about free stuff! The downside was that I was now at thirteen stones left, and with a duration of only ten minutes, I don''t think that this particular Rad-kun would last that long given the preparations I still had to do. That meant that I would be left with just five stones after all this was done, and all for something that smelled like a failed attempt and a quick way back to the village... There used to be a time where I would consider the pros and the cons, the expenditure of resources to the potential rewards, the risk vs the rewards. But that time had long passed, now I just focused on the immediate goals, and the immediate goal now was to have Keros stop glaring me and pressuring me that the time passes. "Keros, add me as a friend and follow me." "You''re done? Finally! Now let''s show those filthy goblins what it means to mess with our forest!" "Yeah, slow your horses. Add me as a friend and then we''ll communicate through messaging because we''ll split up later on."
xXLegolassXx13 wants to add you to his friendslist. Accept? Y/N
"Good, now follow me and wait." I messaged him, trying to get comfortable with the whole ''type what you think'' system that messaging used. As soon as I had visual contact with the clearing, I saw something weird going on. For starters, there seemed to be even more goblins now, maybe ten or so more, and secondly, even though it only took me half an hour for all of my experiments, the monstrosity''s skin had a distinctive grayish tone now. The goblin warlord was standing and pacing around a place where motes of energy, similar to what returns to earth when you kill a monster, were floating. In the blink of the eye, the motes settled, transforming into a freshly formed pack of six goblins. The warlord gave them a good look, and with a sneer, he instantly chopped down the four weakest-looking ones, strands of energy floating towards him this time instead of disappearing into the earth. The other two started running panicked, grabbing whatever branch was around as a makeshift club, and disappearing into the chaos of the rest of the horde that was cheering as their warlord''s skin turned a bit more gray, and his muscles rippled a tiny bit giving him a few extra kilos of mass. It seems we indeed were running out of time. I planted my three regular deathtraps in a roughly triangular formation with some distance in between them, trying to put them in between trees that would somehow force the goblins in tighter formations to pass through. Keros was quick on the uptake on how he should kite the mass of goblins towards the traps sequentially. "Iprobably won''tbe strong enough to do any serious damage to the boss. What I''ll try to do is buy you some time to clear the horde of goblins by drawing the attention of the boss while you clear them. If you manage that, and he''s the only one left in the clearing, there is a slight possibility that we''ll actually manage to kite him around and actually beat him. But while there is a horde around him, that''s practically impossible." I renewed the inscriptions on his bow and immediately started sneaking around the camp while still messaging him. "Now, whatever you do, DO NOT, for ANY reason, attack before I give you the signal." With the corner of my eyes, I saw him nodding before I was already too far away. Time was of the essence here with the duration of his inscription ticking and the boss getting stronger by the moment. I circled the clearing, as fast as I could without drawing any attention to myself, thank god for the stupidity of the goblins, until I was about the opposite of where Keros was. Approaching as much as I dared, I planted the last trap, the soul-infused one, and then instantly spend all my mana on renewing my own inscriptions. I plopped down, activating meditation for three minutes, getting my mana back, and summoned eight Rad-kuns as I messaged to Keros. "Go" One, I started counting the seconds inside my head. I saw a single arrow rising up in the air, making a beautiful curve as it gained height and started falling towards the mass of goblins. It flew perfectly up, and, unreasonably, started to pick up more speed as it fell, straight into the ground, piercing it and staying stuck in a small mound of dirt. He missed??? A second later, another arrow rose to the air, and as I was lamenting the epic failure, suddenly, the area surrounding the first arrow burst from vines violently sprouting from beneath the loose soil, growing rapidly and grasping the goblins around it. The second arrow was already planted a few meters away, and a third one was already in the sky before the goblins even knew what hit them, as one by one, the arrows planted themselves and then grew the vines directly underneath them. Panic fell on the mass of goblins, but a single high pitched scream from one of them standing near the edge, where he pointed towards the general direction of Keros, changed the mindless horde to a force with a single purpose: rush the intruder. As Keros position was revealed, I saw him jump down the tree he had previously taken residence on and shooting another twig arrow to the nearest goblin. What I initially thought was the arrow piercing through the goblin, turned out to be a single, slim, pole-like branch extending from the actual arrow, piercing three more goblins before it stopped. Five The boss was already on the move, rushing towards Keros alongside his minions. Or, to be more precise, rushing above his minions, without a care in the world if he trampled them or not. Another arrow flew towards the goblins as I finally lost visual contact with Keros, as he probably was moving in position to have the goblins walk over the first trap. Six I jumped out of hiding, soul-infused air dart on hand, praying that my aim won''t suck. Seven The dart flew perfectly straight with incredible speed, but just before it connected, a goblin jumped in front of its path. It dug into the monster''s flesh and exploded, blowing it up in pieces. The advancing boss paused for a second, looking back, towards me, and sneered. Eight. Rage in this game wasn''t anything special mechanics wise, it builds up slowly from the second a battle starts, and then again in chunks when you were hit, or you hit stuff. Eight seconds of battle and a single successful attack were all I needed to reach 21 rage, one more than the amount required. "Hiding behind others? What ARE you, AN ELF?" I shouted as hard as I could so as to be heard above the screaming goblins.
Your provoke was super effective!
The boss'' eyes flared red as he instantly changed directions and started running towards me. I don''t know if it was an ability or my perception since now he was charging me, but he seemed quite faster than what he was a few seconds ago. I quickly retreated towards the back, barely managing to cross over my trap and gain a few meters of safety before the huge explosion threw me to the ground. Before I even stood up, my own army of Rad-kuns was already rushing towards the goblin giant. The moment I stood up, I had to drop prone once more just to dodge a flying Rad-kun, courtesy of the boss'' boot, but thankfully the little guy was somehow still alive and well, it rushed back to his position as a sound of an explosion from Keros side echoed.
You feel a presence watching you.
It seemed that the trap was actually quite effective, with one of his legs being shred all over, black blood gushing out as he hobbled. The warlord tried to simply pass over the tiny elementals in his efforts to reach me but, like one, they all used their ability and a pair of giant earthen hands rose from the ground, grabbing the boss by its boots and keeping him still as the little ones started pummeling. I immediately dismissed the incomprehensible system screen that distracted me from the battle and stood up once more. As his attention wavered, I found the perfect opportunity to hide behind a tree and slowly circled my way towards its back. Despite being as fast as I could without exposing myself, I saw two of my elementals being dead already, their bodies hacked into pieces with just two or three slashes of his giant axeeach. No matter my expertise, it really seemed that he was far superior level wise compared to me. Despite that, I could do only what I could do. Steeling myself I activated the Hatred control skill for reduced aggro generation and I walked directly behind the distracted boss. I planted my dagger right between his shoulder blades, backstabbing and slashing as I always did so many times already. A second explosion could be heard in the distance. I don''t know if it was my skill or if the stronger, and soul-infused elementals, were so much better than me, but he didn''t even seem to mind me as he continued to slash at my poor money... I meant elementals. Two more attacks, a stab, and a slash later I could already see blood dripping from his back, seeping into the rugged fur he wore. All of the sudden, the boss spun around, slashing a full circle around him while holding his axe with both of his hands. For a split second I saw the four remaining elementals being flung to the air, and then I could only see the clear blue sky as I too joined the flying squad. A deep red -50 flashing in front of my eyes. It was the first time that I actually had managed to reach a full rage bar while in combat, giving me a 10% bonus on all damage but, more importantly and more confusing, also making me actually seethe with rage against the damned boss, making me really want to kill it. With the elementals out of his way, he casually walked towards my prone body, raised his axe single-handedly overhead, and violently brought it down while yelling an incomprehensible warcry of his own. I barely managed to dodge by rolling towards my right, and seeing as the axe had cut deep into the ground, rooting it there, I found the opportunity to stand up and retrieve a soul-infused air-dart. From point blank, against a target that huge, it would have been embarrassing if I missed. As the dart exploded it dug a fist sized hole into his already shredded leg. Almost in sync with the goblin''s pained yell, a third explosion from Keros side sounded. The warlord unlodged his axe, and tried to rush to me once more. And again, an earthen hand raised itself from the ground, grabbing his injured leg, and forcing him to fall, face first, on the ground, as four really angry elementals surrounded him and started punching at wherever they could find an open wound. Glancing over the clearing behind me, it was devoid of life, but the sounds of battle somewhere inside the forest could still be heard. Before the giant goblin could react, I was already running as much as my stamina allowed towards the clearing, jumping over fallen logs and dirt pits. As expected, the elementals could not hold him down as he tried to rush towards me, his crippled leg making him much slower than me. I fished another dart, a normal one this time, from my pouch and launched it towards him, but he easily deflected it with the broad side of his axe. Despite that, I could already see the path to victory ahead, that is, as long as Keros actually managed to kill the horde of goblins. Running around the battlefield, I picked up another dart and threw it at him, this time actually managing to hit him squarely in the chest and blowing a piece of his leather armor away. Despite having four elementals on his toes following him and punching him, he was completely disregarding them as he slowly marched towards me. In disbelief, I saw that he was slowly gaining speed instead of losing. His eyes were flaming red now, the embers inside them burning with extreme hatred. I continued to kite around, using another three darts when itfinally becameapparent that his wounds were slowly, but surely, closing. As I was about to curse my luck, a twig arrow passed right above my head and lodged itself right on one of the open wounds of the goblin, making it scream in pain once more. Keros was slowly walking towards us, in a state even worse than the warlord, but with an evil grin etched into his face as he started unloading arrow after arrow towards the hobbled boss. Every arrow that hit an armored part of the boss was simply deflected, as if the leather armor was made out of steel, but thankfully, the bomb, the darts, my stabs, and the Rad-kuns had stripped and shredded enough parts of the armor to actually allow plenty of the arrows to stick, and soon, from most of the lodged arrows a green liquid was oozing out. It was a done deal by now. He obviously had switched his attention to the elf, but with a mostly gone leg, and poison rushing through all of his body, he could only slowly crawl towards his death. And finally, the system screen we longed for, appeared.
Quest successful. You vanquished the Goblin Warlord. The forest is once again safe. Rewards: 4000xp, Big increase in reputation with Aerlinth, enchant of your choice from Druid Ermianth.
Congratulation for defeating an enemy at least 8 levels higher than you. You unlocked Achievement Duelist I. You gain 1 skill point. Now, that was easy wasn''t it? Let''s see you try tier II and III.
Level up! You gain 1 ability and 1 skill point.
Skill points were a bit trickier. Elementalism was my highest skill, so a full free level on it should be the maximum xp gain. Plus, getting level 10 would probably have a talent. Infused Elemental was also awesome it seems, what you would expect from a combined skill. Alongside trapping, it gave us the battle basically, by destroying the boss''s leg. Let alone that the darts could blow the boss'' armor which not even Keros arrows pierced. I also liked Elemental playground. In theory. My nonexistent artistic capabilities made it mostly useless since it was just an illusion skill that couldn''t fool anyone. Higher level meant more believable, but it was too expensive to grind it, so it made sense to artificially boost it first with level ups, at least until the details became believable enough. Lastly, Dagger mastery, even though it just leveled on this battle and gave me one more nice attack, was my most disappointing attack skill at the moment. It could certainly use the boost. My thoughts were interrupted by a loud rumbling noise followed by repeatingthunderclaps from behind me. I instinctively dodged forward, rolling to the ground before looking at the source of the noise. A gigantic, four-meters high, spectral dwarf was standing right next to us, clapping and laughing heartily. The only part that wasn''t covered by the juggernaut''s bulky, full plated, armor was a well woven braided beard that fell over his engraved chestpiece till it reached, and was tucked in, his belt. The belt buckle covered the lower part of his belly, shaped as a big, round, oni head, matching his fearsome oni mask greathelmet. He single handedly held a huge double battleaxe that''s head he let resting on the single shoulder spike that protruded from his right, skull shaped, pauldron. I knew that fatass! "Avon!" I shouted in rage remembering all the trouble he caused me back in the forest. His voice, loud as a storm, interrupted me as it rung in my ears. Almost immediatelyKeros dropped to his knees like praying. "Haha! That was a great battle. As expected from the one I have taken notice of! BUT!" And his voice dropped an octave as I thought that, if the AI was indeed tailored after the real person, he was certainly scowling beneath his helmet. "But I was unlucky, and didn''t get to properly see it from the beginning. So... Let''s have a do over!" And with a snap of his fingers the wounds of the boss closed as its armor repaired itself. The first to recover from the shock was the goblin. Jumping up he raised his axe, and with an uppercut motion, he sent the still kneeling Keros flying. I watched in horror as the already beat up body of the elf disintegrated into motes of energy. Turning my head back towards the towering dwarf-god I found him sitting cross legged on the edge of the clearing. Eating what could only be described as spectral popcorn. Chapter 15: Boss battle, Redux Instantly I spent my skill points towards Elementalism, my most effective battle skill, making it reach level 11 and, as expected, I unlocked a new talent.
Advanced options You add the options of extra intelligence and extra skills to your available pool of elementals'' modifications. You can now have up to two modifications. Advanced options cost more than basic.
And then, naturally, I started running towards the forest. Putting all my effort in escaping. What''s that you say? Your resources are full from the level up?There are no goblins you say? Yeah, there''s also no Keros, no traps, only 2 minutes remaining on the inscriptions and only 5 minutes for the elementals.I judge I have a whopping 0.05% chance of actually winning. Looking over my shoulder I noticed a slight problem with my choice. The boss was faster than me, closing the distance by the second. I jumped to my left, dodging the axe that swiftly swooped downwards. Landing with a tumble, I instantly shot up again in a single, fluid, motion as I slightly changed my direction so as to slowly end towards the devastated clearing. Since the boss was faster plan A had failed miserably. But with his size and bulging muscles, I doubted that it was more agile. After all, I did usually manage to dodge His attacks when I put my stamina to it. Ergo, his mobility should, in theory, be much worse than me in this place full of holes, fallen trunks, and natural traps. I jumped on top of one of the fallen trees and turned to look towards the boss. While he was crossing the ruined terrain much easier compared to what his appearance would lead you to believe, he was still slower than me. And more importantly, much slower than the Rad-kuns. Which seemed to cross the upheaved soil like it was a natural part of them, allowing them to keep up with the goblin and even find the time to strike some blows. As the brute turned towards the Rad-kuns, exposing his back to me, I finally found the opportunity to set plan B into motion. Thankfully my aim was true as the dart buried itself directly behind the boss''s knee. From the total absence of any reaction I could easily tell that it actually didn''t do any damage, but at least, part of the armor there broke off in pieces. If I couldn''t escape him due to his speed, I would make certain to lower his speed first. Plan B, commence! It took nine darts, well six that actually hit, to strip the leather armor from his leg, and in the meantime, he had already decimated three out of the four Rad-kuns. But now, with his actual flesh exposed, it was time for the big guns, the three remaining soul-infused ones. I threw the second one even before the first one exploded, and the two consecutive blasts did indeed manage to, finally, do some real damage to him. As the boss turned to start to chase me, I was already running towards the forest. Plan B was proving a success! The goblin slowly hobbled through the clearing when he let loose a bloodcurdlingscream. And then I literally froze. A fear that I had never experienced before rooted me on the ground, just a few meters away from salvation, as the giant monstrosity, with its face twisted in rage, slowly hobbled towards me while dragging his axe behind. I never signed for a horror game devs! Where''s my fantasy genre! I was already panicking as I was looking over my options, till my eyes stuck on one of them. Praying that it''ll work, I enveloped the boss with the same illusionary fires I had used on the wolf before. Goblins don''t deserve animal rights after all. His scream of pain once more echoed loudly in my ears, but it took him only a few seconds before turning his stupid eyes towards his flesh to realize that he wasn''t actually being burned. His scream echoed once more as his eyes shone red now, full of rage. "Ahhhh, now I see! You wanted him to be fully enraged before you gave it your all. To fight him like a true man! Truly admirable!" Avon shouted excited, his voice echoing even above the screaming goblin. Unfortunately, his and the goblin''s voices were too loud for my own, quite vile, curse towards Avon to be actually heard. The boss lowered his shoulders as he started charging towards me now, his leg wound rapidly closing as he was radiating a full red aura by this point. And finally, the fear broke. All too late for me to now actually survive. Splinters erupted from his axe when it landed on the trunk I was standing one second ago, just before I jumped away. And brand new craters started appearing on the loose soil wherever his axe landed as I was now desperately trying to not get hit. The good thing was that, at least, the pain from the flames that were still raging on his body actually made him flail madly with no consideration for actually aiming those attacks properly. It took everything I had to actually dodge the direct attack, and yet, my actual health kept dropping even from the stray splinters and stone shards that kept spraying from wherever his attacks hit, making me pretty sure that a single attack as enraged as he was at this point, would actually kill me. I lost track of the time, all my attention focused on rolling, jumping, and tumbling, all with my life on the line. And as predicted, the flames died much before the actual rage. And suddenly his attacks were not only vicious but accurate as well. Two of them just glanced me slightly, and just like that sixty of my hp were already gone. I''m bloody gonna kill you, you ugly mutt.Damn! The more I fought, the more I actually wanted to kill that thing instead of escaping. It made no sense! Finally, the red aura subsided, and with that, the boss stood still, trying to catch up his ragged breath. Which proved to be the best opportunity for me to actually fish the healing potion from my inventory, drink it, and throw my last soul-infused dart on his leg once more. To my dismay, it seems potions didn''t instantly restore your health, just massively enhanced your actual regeneration for a short amount of time. Seeing the much swallower wound this time, with him constantly regenerating, the only solution that could come in my mind was actually having a ranged attacker to slowly wilt him down as I tried to kite him in the clearing like before. But my only ranged elemental was the water one, and I could see no water around. Or... I pulled one of the few remaining monster stones I had and pressed it on the blood that was covering almost all of my armor by this point, choosing extra power and extra skills as the options for a water elemental. -15 I felt even more blood being drained from my chest, bleeding out of my open wounds, as it was added to the growing, huge, blood drop. "Nintytwopercent-chan GO!" I shouted as I let my own scream join the chorus of a roaring goblin and a cheering dwarf. And as soon as the blood-red water elemental fully formed, I felt a massive amount of energy leaving me. Something even more than the substantial 25 mana cost of it.
You''ve gained the Soulstone enhancement mastery Talent: Soul infusion
Soul infusion By adding your own soul to a soul-infusion talent you align it perfectly with your self, making it much more potent, at the cost of the provided soul. Requires your own blood as a catalyst. Costs 20% of level''s xp, grants bonuses comparable to the xp provided. Current xp cost: 1400, Current surplus xp: 1490
What? No! Go away wasteful talent, give me my xp back! I''m gonna stab you and stab you and stab you till you''ll... Crap! Why the stray thoughts again! Judging from the fact that the goblin was once more running towards me, I calculated that it had aboutfive seconds downtime after his rage ends and started running towards the clearing once more. Each step was harder and harder, not only because fatigue was slowly creeping in, but also my own impulse to just go and duke it out with the boss, or actually do some damage to it, kept increasing. Looking at my character screen while running, trying to find out any debuff or something like that, I suddenly paused and blinked in disbelief. The urges were coming every time my own rage meter ticked up, reaching nearly 90/100 by now. Well, system, thank you! You''re so helpful trying to get me killed! Meanwhile, 92%-chan, which was promptly renamed to Vampy-chan, was throwing blood drops to the goblin. Or, looking closer, the blood drops were actually flying from the goblin towards the elemental, and she absorbed them through her outstretched tiny hand. The boss seemed to keep ignoring her, and frankly speaking, her attacks didn''t seem to do much either way. At least I''ve found an easy way to clean my armor, which was now completely blood free! But seeing as I actually managed to form her from blood, another, potentially equally useless, idea popped into my head.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I run towards the edge of the clearing, close to where Keros had butchered the minions, until my eyes found what I was looking for. And I started dashing through the pits and the holes, picking up the stray rusty daggers that had been left by the dead goblins. But before I even had enough, the boss''s roar once more rooted me in fear. Watching my dead once more marching towards me, I was finally pleasantly surprised as Vampy chan stretched her arm and pointed towards him. He screamed in pain as blood started gushing out his open wound, actually falling on the ground as the blood kept pouring out. With the fear broken, and the boss still on the ground, I finally managed to gather enough daggers to actually try to summon an elemental out of them, not forgetting to use yet another of my monster stones. Thinking briefly, and remembering that death actually resets you to the start of the level, I even dipped the stone into one of my open wounds, knowingly this time activating my new talent. Obviously, once more, I went with extra power and skills, which seemed like the best combat options by far. A lump of shining silvery, almost illuminating, metal, with brown patches of rust animated from the small pile of daggers as it charged towards the boss. Before the giant goblin could even stand up, Rusty-kun was already on his face, having transformed one of his hands into a metal spike and the other into a metal shield. The boss finally stood up and tried to bypass the elemental, but it emitted a shrieking noise, like metal grinding on metal, forcing the brute to turn and face him. Seeing as, finally, the boss allowed me a breather, I reinscribed my dagger and lamented the fact that I had nowhere near enough mana to actually renew the, void now, inscription on my armor as well. Even though Vampy-chan had plenty of time remaining, she seemed to have slowed down considerably after her last attack. But instead of looking tired, she looked more like... full? In the blink of the eye, she transformed into a big blob of blood that flew right on to me, entering me through my numerous open wounds. I felt the impulse to slay the boss finally managing to win over, as untold strength rushed into my veins and my wounds started closing.
Blood elemental used Transfusion. You heal 70hp over 10 secs. You gained Hobgoblin''s blood. +10 Strength, +10 Constitution, -10 Intelligence, -10 Wisdom, increased damage with heavy weapons, +4 natural armor, unable to use mana, unable to retreat, unable to refuse challenges. Duration remaining: 8:12
I rushed towards his turned back and plunged the stone dagger right in its middle, making both armor and flesh explode as I activated it. I stabbed and slashed at the exposed flesh, and as he spun around, using the same move as he had used in the previous battle to swipe all enemies around him, I finally got to use my new dagger attack, Retreating strike, which was exactly what the name said. A quick attack with a 10sec cd, that launched me a few meters backwards in a tumble. Kill, kill, kill, kill Still, my attacks were enough to draw its attention once more. Watching his pale, from blood loss, face and his pained expression, I activated yet another talent I had never played before with, Resist Pain from Toughness, which would theoretically massively reduce the damage I would suffer, but also deplete half of my, now full, rage bar and it had a full day cooldown. And for the first time since I''ve seen the boss, I actually started to fight him for real, trading blow for blow, axe swing for dagger stab, blood for blood. Even with Resist pain, each of his hits still rewarded me with a fancy -15 number popping in front of my eyes. I could tell that Rusty-kun, mercilessly hitting with both his hands as spikes at the unarmored leg was actually hurting him as well, and with my newfound power, I could feel even my own attacks connecting with his flesh, managing to break through his armor relatively easily. The thrill of the battle, the urge to win, the concentration to give it your all for this single moment, all of them had shut the rest of the world outside. Now, there was only the duel. As soon as Resist pain ended, the only difference was the -15s were replaced with -31s. But for the most part, My mind disregarded that. I could feel his motions before they began, I remembered his patterns as I dodged, and jumped backwards to avoid his strikes, and I could remember where I had hit last, weakening his armor, to aim for the same spot. My field of vision encompassing the terrain slights, to avoid, the elemental''s strikes, to provide opportunities, my resources, to maximize my abilities. There was not a single stray thought, my mind completely focused. It was refreshing. It was exhilarating. It was... nostalgic. A feeling from eras long past, when I was fighting dragons, when I was clearing valleys full of enemies that should have trampled me, when I was... having fun. I watched his axe falling towards me, and I dodged towards the back, having already seen the slight bump in the soil that I should avoid. But my body didn''t move as my brain told it, maybe lacking energy, maybe lacking skill, making lacking something else, or simply due to my luck, my foot scraped the soil, causing me to lose my balance, and stumble for a split second, just enough to see the shiny edge of the axe coming down.
You have died. The energy that has not yet been incorporated to your soul leaves you. Your xp resets to the start of the level. Skill xp resets to the start of their level. Your bonded equipment takes damage. Your soulbonded equipment takes heavy damage.
When I opened my eyes, instead of the church, I found myself in the same clearing; with a towering dwarf looming over me this time instead of the Hobgoblin. Every single speck of the elation I felt before had left me. I was feeling like a deflated balloon, simply tired, almost devoid of any emotion, not even rage towards the stupid frowning God in front of me. Scratch that, a single look at his stupid face was all it took to flare up my anger once more. "AHHHHH! Congratulations! That finale was worth your early embarrassing attempts to flee. You were disappointing you know. I wonder how a spineless chicken like you managed to grab my attention previously... But as I said, that grand finale was like someone else was fighting. Those moves, those strikes back and forth, a true battle! A real thriller! Maybeif you had fought like that from the beginning you would have been the one to land the final blow, the Hobgoblin didn''t have much left in him when he killed you either way." "You! You giant midget! I''m going to fucking kill you!" Unexpectantly, the dwarf removed his helmet and looked me straight in the eyes. His smile fading as he looked over me. "Hmm? I would have ended it there. A bad miscalculation of my poor judgment. Not enough to warrant any punishment, since you did fight in the end, but not nearly worthy of any reward either. But..." And he suddenly burst out into thunderous laughter. "BUT I WAS RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING! You challenge me, the God of War to a duel to the death?! As expected of the one I noticed! Truly worthy!" Eh? What was the fatass talking about? "I ACCEPT! Obviously, not now, since you are getting run over by a hobgoblin and all, but come again when you''re like a hundred or some more levels and I''ll duel you anytime! Don''t chicken out when you''re ready. I don''t accept people running away from issued duels!"
Event Completed. Completion 30%. You managed to satisfy Avon''s battlethirst but failed to win the battle. Rewards: 500xp, Reputation gain with Avon
"I''M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU IDIOT!!!" I shouted towards nothing, as he had already disappeared, leaving only his laughter echoing in the clearing.
You''ve gained the Hatred control Talent: Deep hatred
Deep hatred You have something that you truly hate. By focusing on it and summoning his image in your mind, you can draw up your anger at will. Gain 100rage. Cooldown 10minutes.
With nothing to focus my rage on, I quickly snatched the bright, fist sized, stone of the boss that laid close to where Avon stood previously, its body neatly cut in half, and then started searching the woods for where the crystals of the minion goblins were. Even with tracking and eight Dirt-kuns assisting, we only managed to find fifty-two monster stones even after searching for nearly half an hour. And at that point, I actually got a message from Keros. "Do not worry friend. I''m almost done marshaling the troops over here. I assume you did the same with the people on the human lands as well, right?" "Err... what?" "We need to take the new warlord down before he summons more goblins or everything will be for naught!" "Naught? Really now? Couldn''t you use a different word? Also, Warlord''s dead. No need." "What??? You managed to kill him by yourself? You''re awesome!" "...I died. Avon killed him." "Ah! As expected from the War god. Swift justice!" "What the fuck are you talking about??? Justice? HE SUMMONED HIM!" "We probably can''t see the bigger picture. A God wouldn''t move for nothing. There is always a reason." "Preeeeetty sure he was just bored. Anyways, gathering stuff here and will come find you at the elven village if you''re still there to give you your share." "What share? Oh! The goblin stones. I totally forgot about those. Thanks dude!" Heh, it seems his excitement forced him to drop the persona. The main problem was actually the daggers, which seemed to be the only thing of monetary value that those goblins had left behind. Even with those I destroyed to make Rusty-kun, there were still over forty daggers left, and with each of them actually taking an inventory space, it was impossible to stick them there. Hoping that the elven blacksmith would at least buy the raw rusted iron, I replaced my eight Dirt-kuns with four Rusty-kunswith what I would call the exploration mode, which obviously was hour long and 50% power boost. That took care of about half of the daggers. For the rest, I just removed my shirt and made a very crude bag and dropped them in, obviously destroying the poor shirt in the process. But if they sold at the same price as Grinea, that would still be a massive profit even with that cost. With the gathering done, there was only one thing left to do on my way to the elves. That was to take revenge and my blood back from all the filthy goblins that I would encounter. This time, feeling the need to physically inflict harm on the critters, and to actually train myself more, I didn''t even use any consumables. Raw force (always paired with inscriptions cause I was actually weak) and the trusty Rusty-kuns,who unfortunately only had that spike hand and not the shield one or the taunt, was all that was needed to dispatch the green menaces, at least the four packs that I''ve found on my two hour trip towards the elves. Chapter 16: Aerlinth I first heard the elven village rather than saw it. From far ahead, the noise and clutter of a busy city could clearly echo in my ears far louder than any natural sound. Following the sound, I was rewarded with a breathtaking sight. Even though I was still in the deep part of the forest, dominated by enormous trees and thick vegetation, the village put all that to shame. Gigantic trees dozens of meters high, with trunks big enough that could easily fit an elevator in, were sprawled over a vast, clear area. Beneath them, all the high vegetation was either cleared out, giving way to clean, earthen streets, or was meticulously gardened to create bushes and flower bedsthat filled your eyes with an endless cascade of colors and shapes. Looking upwards, the massive branches of the ancient trees opened up like hands that tightly grasped woodenhouses, from which rope bridges hang, connectingone massive structure to another. Even higher than the rooftops, the thinner branches of the trees continued upwards, creating a massive dome of green leaves that covered the entire vast area like a blanket. As the sprigs interweaved in the canopy, they left gaping holes towards the evening sky, from which rays of light pierced through like spears stabbed in the ground. And where the rays landed, huge crystal formations, about two-three meters high, reflected them in multicolored hues that eventually filled the whole place with a very gentle light. Around the crystals, there were wider patches of soil and flowers, like round plazas, where throngs of people stood, forming groups chatting, selling gears, or even sparring and dueling. There were all kinds of races present, from humans to dwarves, to even wilder things like golems. But the crushing majority was of races related to nature, like elves, undines, wildkins like me, and even some beastkin. Looking over the races, and especially the female wildkins, I was suddenly shocked by a harsh realization, I WAS THE LOLI RACE? CRAP! The momentary distraction was broken as the sounds of the village entered my ears. Everyone was shouting, recruiting for clans, for parties, for quests, advertising their wares or simply arguing about prices and mechanics. On the actual paths, you could see people walking hurriedfrom one place to another, others riding horses, boars, huge lizards, and even a few small carriages. But the most prominent were the elven guards, dressed in shining metallic armor decorated with leaves and vines and painted a very light green, and carrying the same exact spears and longbows. For a starting village, the place looked like a metropolis, way different, and way larger than Grinea. It actually made you wonder if the starting areas were balanced at all! On the flip side, I was havingtrouble imagining a newbie here going off to hunt rabbits, so I guess it all evened out in the end. I was probably looking like a moron, mouth agape and all, a purebred tourist, as a guard actually stopped by me and asked me if he could help me with anything. After getting directions for all kinds of npc driven stores, like the blacksmith, the leatherworker, and the herbalist, I thanked the lean elven guard and decided it was about time to actually contact Keros. Unfortunately, it seemed he was out of the village, alongside with that Spitha, doing a quest. He would be back by nightfall from what I gathered, giving me plenty of time to actually focus on some of my immediate concerns. First things first, I really had to get rid of the ugly bundle of daggers and my Rusty-kuns, because they were quite cumbersome, so the blacksmith was my first destination. Unlike the rest of the tree houses, the blacksmith was actually located on the edge of the village inside a low wooden house by a tree trunk. From outside, the only thing indicating it was a blacksmith at all was a weird looking stone chimney on the outside wall. On top of the chimney, pulsating magic runes absorbed the smog as it came out, preserving the clear atmosphere of the forest dome. I pushed the elegantly carved wooden door and entered. Inside, all sorts of stands held different, heavy, armors, and a plethora of weapons, with a clear favoritism towards spears and thin, delicate, longswords. Most of the armors were colored in different shades of green and decorated with golden or silver flairs, but the weapons looked more minimalistic than them, with as little flair as possible and made following thin lines, relying more on their slick style rather than decorations for their splendid image. From the back of the store, behind a closed door, banging noises could be clearly heard. A slender elven lady wearing a blue long summer dress approached me. Deep wrinkles surrounded her eyes and gray streaks appeared amidst her long brown hair, making her one of the oldest looking elves I''ve seen since I entered the village. Despite that, her eyes were sharp and clear, and her voice smooth and soothing. "Greetings little one, how can I help you?" Really? I know my race is short, but being continuously addressed as "little one" will get annoying. "Greetings to you lady as well. I want to sell a few goblin daggers, as well as these lumps of iron. Also I want to browse your daggers." She looked at the tiny Rusty-kuns making a surprised expression as she kneeled towards them. "Oh my! You guys look so dirty and rusted. I bet my husband will clear you up in no time!" The poor Rusty-kuns tried to threaten the old lady with their lance-hands, but she simply laughted it away as she hugged them and stood up, with the elementals still struggling on her hands. "So, undo the spell to let the elementals free from their bodies, so I can take them to be evaluated." ...I didn''t know I could do that. But apparently it was quite easy as the second I thought about it, it happened. And with the raw rusted iron in her hands, the old lady disappeared behind the closed door. Browsing the store, I finally found the daggers. There were two types, one exactly like the one Keros had, long and slick, like a slightly wider and longer stilleto, and one shorter, even wider, and curved, like a very short scimitar. "So, how''d you like them?" Her abrupt voice from right behind me made me jump surprised. I hadn''t even heard the door, let alone her walking right behind me. She nonchalantly grabbed two daggers, one of each type, and she twirled them between her fingers. "I can guarantee that both are excellent quality. You can gut whatever you need to with either." She said and there was a very disconcerting glint in her eyes as she looked at the deadly weapons in her hands. "Frankly, the stabber is better than the slasher, more efficient. But it''s quite harder to use, requiring precision. On the other hand, with the slasher, even if you madly thrash around, you''re bound to chop your enemies eventually. OUCH!" She grabbed the top of her head as a rugged old elf who had crept behind her smacked her lightly. "Stop giving my weapons weird names!" The, black from coal, elf turned then towards me. "Forgive me wildkin. She gets over-enthusiastic with all kinds of weapons. Name''s Erthian, I''m the local blacksmith." The blacksmith looked even older than his wife, but he was quite easy to talk with. He suggested the curved dagger for starters, but despite that, I went with the long one. Basically, the game didn''t have level restrictions on the basic equipment, but skill proficiency restrictions. If I grinded dagger mastery a few more levels, I should be able to fully utilize the next tier, which was the long stiletto. He was also kind enough to buy the iron, the daggers, and even sold me a bar of steel, which I planned to use as a source for a metal elemental. Unfortunately, because my old dagger was soulbinded I could only sell it as material instead of a weapon, since he would have to smelt it from the start. After the blacksmith, after I subtracted the silvers I had to give to Keros, and the nearly two gold pieces that the dagger costed as well as the raw steel cost, I barely had over two gold pieces left. Still I decided to check the leather armor recipes. The first thing that caught my eye as I climbed the tree house was an armor stand displaying the fancy leaf armor Keros wore. It was actually made from thin overlapping metal leaves, colored in a way to blend in the forest, linked with magic on top of a very flexible thick leather layer. Disregarding that, like the blacksmith, normal leather armor had two proficiency tiers available. It seemed wolf leather armor, like mine, was the beginner''s grade. Wolf leather was mostly used as soft leather for boots, gloves, and such. For actual armor, the two available were simply boar leather, which consisted of a thick layer of hardened boar leather, and composite leather, which consisted of two distinct layers of much thinner boar hides, and in between there were iron fillings sewed in. Obviously, I went with the composite one. Unfortunately, even with the ten percent discount I was getting due to my reputation, I could only barely buy one recipe out of the six required to have a complete set. What''s more, after looking at the pattern I bought, I realized I could not learn it yet. My crafting proficiency was still too low! Leaving disappointed, I took a look towards the leaf armor, which was obviously miles better than what I could make. And then I noticed it''s price. The chest alone was 20 gold!!! The little shit was rich! In light of the recent development, his share of two gold pieces I was hoarding were used for a higher purpose. That was buying ten more wolf hides from a player who apparently had went berserk on the wolf population, flooding the market with their hides, and basically forcing himself to sell just an idea more than their shop price of two silvers. Alongside my own three hides, I made some leather pants, then broke them down back to leather, losing half of it, rinse and repeat till I was all out of leather. But at least, the composite leather recipe appeared usable now with my new skill level. And with that, I was totally broke, save for the crystals. Last stops were of course the quest rewards. As I entered the herbalist shop I was invaded with a thick, scented atmosphere. The countless jars that lined the shelves could barely contain the aroma of the bottled leaves and powders. And in the middle of the room, an elderly human woman was busy grinding even more of them in a mortar. Her white hair was caught in a bun in the back of her head, but stray tufts had escaped, giving her a much wilder appearance. That mess was amplified by the random twigs and leaves that were caught in her rough garments which consisted of a long, brown, skirt and a leather vest. She turned and looked towards me without stopping the rotating motion of her hands moving the pestle. "Yes? What is is boy?" She called with a voicejust a bit louder than normal. Just enough to annoy people when talking to her. "Eh, sorry for the intrusion. I was searching forHeslithiana." I hoped that the elven herbalist would be a tad better than the annoying mess in front of me. "Yes? I told you, What do you need?" She repeated, raising her voice a bit higher. Great... she shouted because her hearing was failing. "I SAID I''M SEARCHING FOR HESLITHIANA" There, this should be enough for her to hear. She finally stopped playing with the herbs, put down the pestle and stood up. Even her eyes looked a bit crazy as she tried, in vain, to straighten up her skirt as she rose. "Are you an idiot or something? I''m Heslithiana, and I already asked what you wanted, why the fuck do you shout repeating yourself?!" "Eh? But isn''t that an elven name?" "So? Am I not elf enough for you? Aren''t my ears pointy enough? Or is it that I''m not as pretty? Eh? ANSWER ME!" She approached me step by step, raising her voice as she bombarded me with her questions. Her eyes were opened wide, staring daggers at me as her finger started punching her questions right on my chest, one by one. I was at a total loss. Certainly not prepared to deal with crazy old women. "What?... But..." "Heh, just kidding boy. Relax" And like a balloon, she deflated as she smiled mischievously towards me. "I''m adopted, but this never gets old. This always gets humans and lost souls off guard. Mind you, only them for some reason, every other race responds normally. So, I guess you''re either the exception or a lost soul. My bet is on the last. So, what did you want with me?" What''s wrong with those npcs! Why can''t they be normal people! Geez. "Well, I''m here to teach me that skill." I said carefully, trying to put as much emphasis as I could to the word that, exactly like the first crazy witch did.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. "What skill?" ...I knew that was going to happen... stupid witches and their stupid rewards! "Errrr, you see, witchShannon over at Grinea told me to ask you to teach me a skill, but she never mentioned which skill in particular, just that it would be helpful for me." At the mention of the witch''s name, she suddenly got serious instantly, her smile disappearing as she frowned. A second later, she started pushing me towards the exit. "I have no clue what you''re talking about boy. Leave." "What? Why?" Hey! my reward! "I said LEAVE." And she suddenly started exerting quite a bit of strength, actually pushing me towards the exit, which frankly speaking, I wasn''t too fond of being pushed out, given that there was just a small balcony and afterwards a fifteen meter drop. As I tried to resist, I felt something inside me swirl and move, and a blue screen popped up.
You gained the skill Curse Lv1
You learned the Curse Talent: Evil eye
Curse By focusing your rage and intentions on a target you can severely thwart him with pure magical curses and debuffs. Some races consider even the knowledge of this skill as malicious and evil. Uses rage.
Evil eye You curse the target to suffer more. Increases his damage taken (degree depends on base skill level) for a short amount of time (amount depends on skill level). Requires visual contact. Costs: 30rage
As I was reading the messages, the herbalist''s voice once more rung as she continued to push me towards the exit. "Now, go. As I said, I have no clue whatsoever about what you''re asking me. And don''t ever come back!"So... that''s THAT skill eh? Seems... familiar. As I left the tree house, willingly this time, and reached the ground floor once more, I had this nagging feeling that I''ve seen this skill somewhere before. As I was planning from the start to play a summoner and buff type of character, I had obviously looked over both buffs and debuffs to decide which path to follow, so maybe that''s why it seemed like I''ve heard about such a skill. Browsing the forums gave me an answer pretty quickly, the skill was indeed in the old beta thread. Apparently, it was a rare type base skill, which meant base skill that you could only get from specific trainers via quests, or via skillbooks. But it was rated pretty averagely. The main problem was, in fact, the rage usage instead of the more traditional mana. While rage skills for casters were deemed pretty good in general, since this one was a debuff type of skill, and you usually want to start with debuffs and not end, rage usage was counterintuitive. You wanted rage as finishers, debuffs were much better as openers. Still, it wasn''t a useless skill, in much longer boss fights and such, you could reliably use it. It just sucked for general gameplay. Hence, average. Ok, ok, better than nothing. One down, one more to go. This one should be more straightforward. The druid was quite easy to find. Around the center tree of the village, which was three times as thick as the rest of them, there was a huge round garden with massive bushes and patches of herbs and flowers that befuddled your senses with their hues and scents. There were three elves, all dressed in thick furs covering their whole bodies, and hoods that had intricate antlers on them covering their faces. Asking around, one of the guards pointed towards one of those, which I really don''t get how he was different from the other two, and there I was. "Hello Sir, I''m..." I tried to politely introduce myself, but he instantly halted me by raising his hand. "I know who you are my child. We''re all very grateful for your assistance in this grave matter. You''re here for the reward right?" "You do? Keros told you?" "Keros?" "...xXLegolassXx13" "Ah, I didn''t know he went by Keros, that sounds better than his actual name indeed! But no, it wasn''t him that told me. It was the spirits." "Spirits?" "Hm? Yes. Spirits. That''s how most nature magic works. By manipulating, animating, empowering, or killing the spirits that reside on natural things like plants and animals. In your case, it was the spirit of a bird that watched your fight and came back to report to me that all was fine. If you had failed, I would need to know immediately to actually mobilize a force to take the hobgoblin down." You''re telling me that this guy could have sent reinforcements this time? I obviously made a sour face as he continued. "No. I couldn''t help you instantly. It would take quite some time to move the forces here. And more importantly, it''s always better if Lost souls kill monsters compared to us mere mortals. When you kill them, you steal some of their essence, so they don''t grow stronger. When we kill them, all of their energy returns back to earth, effectively making a hole in the water, since they will eventually respawn, maybe even stronger." That... makes sense within the context of the lore. A convenient little reason for quests it seems. But more importantly, I think I found a way to make my elementalism even stronger! "So, you mean nature magic is like elementalism? Not actual magic but more like summoning?" "Hmm... That''s a strange way to put it. I would have to go with... no. You can vaguely say that elementals are the spirits of forces rather than the spirits of actual beings, and thus much simpler. One represents a single force, the other a whole life. Plant spirits, which are basically the simplest form of nature spirits, and they are still much more complicated than an elemental. So, nature magic resembles normal magic, but relies on coaxing, or strengthening, or slightly altering spirits to give an instantaneous effect. But in order to fully control it like an elemental, it would be much harder. And that''s for plants. For animals, one would need to reach the realm of shamans to actually affect them, and for higher beings than animals, like fully sentient races, it would be even harder." Still... What I had in mind could actually work. "Can you teach me nature magic? I''ve got some monster stones to pay you." Let''s not mention that we basically have zero gold. "I could. Normally I would charge one about a gold for that, or someone of your status a little bit less than that. But since I''ve already half-explained it to you, and since you decided to help out of the good of your heart rather than being sent by us, and it was a severe fight for your limited ability. I''ll let you learn this one for free. Now..." Indeed, most of the stuff he told me were basically extensions of what he had already explained. The big difference this time were the actual chants to utilize those manipulations.
You learned the skill Nature magic Lv1
You learned the Nature magic Talent Entangle
Nature Magic By manipulating the natural spirits you can force nature itself to obey you. Nature racesreact more favorably to you if they know you have high ranks of this skill. Uses mana.
Entangle By rapidly raising the undergrowth under a foe''s feet, you can cause him to stumble and become immobile. Strength and duration of the vines depend on the base skill. Uses 10 mana.
And right when I was finally managing to reduce the number of active skills I was using, two more popped up. But at least this one could really help, in the future. For now, let''s put it somewhere in the back of my mind that it actually exists altogether. Other stuff has more priority. "Now, that should be it for Nature magic. What about your enchant? You have any idea what you want? Although, to be honest, your armor looks bad enough that I think it would be a waste to use an enchant on it." "About that... I understand that I''ve eaten up a bit of your time already. But... how does enchant works? Like my inscriptions but more permanent? So, you make some stuff better, right?" "Wrong. Inscriptions base the effect on the runeyou draw. Soul-infusions augment something by using the raw power of the souls. But, enchant is much more majestic than that. Enchant arts, not to be confused with enchantment magic, actually fully utilize the soul of a monster stone to draw its characteristics. Using the hobgoblin as an example, an enchant with its stone, would result in either increased strength or increased rage generation. If we had a flame salamander monster stone, we could make an enchant that reflected or generated heat and fire. A naturally invisible monster? We could potentially bring out an invisibility effect. And etc." "So, basically, we take the abilities of the monsterwho''s stone we use? As for equipment, I do have this dagger, is that good enough in your opinion?" "Yeah, and that seems... adequate. You will probably use this for some time. Actually, since you seem like a caster type, but also you wear leather and use weapons, and since you already told me you know how to inscribe" As he was talking, an iridescent stone appeared in his palm "then how about that?" "That is...?" "You couldn''t tell by the color? Tsk tsk tsk, education those days... This is a chameleon monster stone. I can use the color shifting property to create an enchant that will alter color and paint properties on the item. While it sounds useless, and it directly adds zero offensive, defensive, or utility capabilities, it has the unique property of allowing you to actually shift your painted runes on the item without disrupting them." "Err... what?" "Usually inscribers are stuck with whatever rune they''ve painted with that permanent ink of theirs. This enchant changes that. Let''s say you use a physical damage inscription normally. Suddenly, an ice golem appears, which is quite resistant to physical damage. You change the inscription with the enchant to something like fire damage, use your mana to empower the new inscription, and now you can obliterate your foe! If you don''t like it, I also have some orc stones for more brutal strikes and some giant lynx stones for faster attacks. Or, you could always give me the stone you got from the hobgoblin to make you a rage or a power enchant." "No... actually, it does sound useful. I shall be in your care." I said as I bowed and handed him my dagger. Enchant actually sounded quite intriguing, hunting specific monsters for specific abilities could actually be a fun minigame on its own. But at this point, I was feeling like I simply had too many skills already. Nevertheless, it got into my "maybe" list as well. As I got the dagger back, which now had a cool glint into it, like it slightly reflected light in different colors, I instantly marked it with a P.Att rune and tried to switch it. Surprisingly, it was quite fluid to do so, taking just a thought and a moment. But if you changed it while the inscription was active, it forcibly canceled it. On the plus side, I could also freely switch the color of the dagger as a whole, which obviously meant that now I had a black matte one. You can never go wrong with black. There were still a few more hours before nightfall, and I had a new toy to test. Checking my map, I navigated through the forest rapidly, searching for the marked location of the boars. This time, since I had to forcibly level up my dagger skills to remove my penalty with my new dagger, I decided to actually not use elementals at all. Which basically, nearly got me killed on the very first boar. Those things both took and gave a beating! Lowering my standards a bit, I actually summoned the newly anointed Knight-kun. My shiny, steel, board and lance arms, elemental. I had to go with the extra skills options to get the shield and the taunt, but since I only needed him to hold aggro and not die, I chose to try the new extra intelligence option to see what it''ll net me. "Now, Knight-kun, let''s see what you can do!" I shouted towards the military saluting pile of steel. "SIR! YES SIR! As your knight, I''m excellent in defense, and I can draw their ire. If someone decides to run, I can elongate and thin my lance to pierce up to two meters away SIR! If I drop my defense, I can change my shield arm to a second lance and pummel them, Sir!" What? What just happened?! I looked dumbfounded towards the, still saluting, elemental. "You can talk?!" "Yes, Sir! Obviously Sir!" "Since when?!!!" "Sir! Since you created me, Sir!" "Cut it out with the Sir shouts!" "Sir! I can''t comply, Sir!" "...Whatever. Let''s go kill some boars then!" "Sir! Yes, sir!" With Knight-kun the fights went more smoothly. Though, he lost aggro quite a few times. Apart from annoying me, increased intelligence seemed way worse than extra power for such uses. It mainly allowed him to talk and to make decisions by himself instead of relying on instincts and my own mental commands. Which could be great on other occasions, granted, but not when it''s just him, me, and a boar; I can handle that much. Regardless, actually talking with someone, even if that someone was hellbent on referring to me as sir and replying in a military tone to everything, was better than the silent hunting I was getting used to. Time actually flew quite easily, and slowly but surely, so did my grip on the slim dagger. The main difficulty was that because it would get in too deep with stab, when I tried to slash immediately afterwards, it basically got stuck. But after some practice, and a skill level, I actually managed to control the slashing motion to occur just as I was pulling the dagger out, resulting in a wider, bleeding, wound. The second I reached level ten on my dagger skills, and got a new attack, Execute, which dealt damage based on the amount of damage the enemy had already received, was when I finally felt comfortable enough to say that I''ve mastered the dagger. By that time, night had fallen and I had already killed fifteen boars and leveled up.
Name: Qualexis Race: Wildkin Gender: Male
Title: Beginner adventurer
Level: 8 Experience: 1990/8000
HP: 95 MP: 170 Rage: 0/100 Stamina: 150/150
HPregeneration: 0.08/sec MPregeneration: 0.17/sec - STregeneration: 10/sec
Strength: 10 Dexterity: 14 Agility: 14 Constitution: 8
Intelligence: 20 Wisdom: 17 - -
Physical attack: 40 (45) Magical Attack: 37 Physical defense: 36 (63) Magical defense: 187
Critical chance: +4% Critical damage: 0% Speed: +4%
Reputations: Elves: Favorable, Fey: Favorable, Grinea: Allied, Avon: Interested, Aerlinth: Liked
EXP%: 1x, +0.2x bonus for hunter related skills.
Skills: Talents:
Natural camouflage Lv5 -
Elementalism Lv12 Summon minor elemental, Single enhance, Double enhance, Advanced options,
Inscribe Lv9 Minor P.Att rune, Minor P.Def rune, Minor M.Att rune, Minor M.Def rune, Magic ink, Mass inscription, Resonant inscription,
Dagger Mastery Lv10 Stab, Backstab, Quick slash, Retreating strike, Execute,
Sneak Lv5 -
Outdated Stonemanship Lv4 -
Toughness Lv6 Reduce pain,
Rogue armor mastery Lv6 Rogue stance,
Cooking Lv3 -
Dissasembling Lv6 -
Leatherworking Lv5 -
Throwing Lv3 -
Tracking Lv3 -
Infused Elementals Lv8 Inscribe minor elemental, Double inscription,
Soulbind Lv2 -
Mana sense Lv1 -
Trapping Lv3 Set minor snare, Minor blasting-earth deathtrap,
Hatred control Lv2 Provoke, Abuse, Deep hatred,
Elemental Playground Lv1 Single element glamour,
Meditation Lv5 -
Pathfinder Lv3 -
Curse Lv1 Evil eye,
Nature magic Lv1 Entangle,
Combination Points: 1
Chapter 17: Spitha The way back was monopolized by my mumbling, cursing myself for my lousy memory. The reason for my foul mood was simple; once more, I was overweight. I had totally forgotten about the dimensional storage skill. My mood was dispelled as I reached the village. The moonlight fell into the wide, open space, and then refracted on the crystal formations, bathing the whole village into a silvery, blue, soft light. Golden lights trembled from within the windows on the tree houses far above me, resembling fireflies hidden in a canopy. From one big house near the entrance to the village, soft music accompanied a soothing voice who was singing a slow ballad. Almost mesmerized, following the voice as a guide, I climbed up and entered the inn. The inside was much simpler. Small, round, wooden tables took most of the space, with a small raised area where an elf was singing a ballad accompanied by another one playing something like a lute. Oil lamps kept the whole place illuminated in a soft, yellow light, and another elf was standing behind a wooden counter, serving wine to a few patrons that lined that area. Most of the tables were empty by this time. Keros was nowhere to be found, probably long now asleep. Fishing in my pocket I realized the second major problem. I only had four coppers... I approached the innkeeper looking dejected already. Today it had been quite a tiring day with all the hunting, the walking around, and the bosses, I would hate to have to sleep in the cold soil below. "Hello." He gave me a good look before he shrugged. "Evening to you as well. Now, out with it. Your face tells me that there''s something you want." "Do you accept meat as payment?" "...Normally, no. But scratch my back, and I''ll scratch yours. And since you''ve helped us already, I suppose I can make an exception. " Selling the sixty-six pieces netted me three gold and three silvers. I WAS RICH! And more importantly, no longer overweight, since most of my encumbrance was from the raw weight of the meat. I happily spend two silvers for a room and dinner, ate a herbal scented roasted pig, and dropped to bed like lead. By the time I actually woke up and contacted Keros, they were already on their way towards Grinea to grab the rewards of the chain quest they completed yesterday evening. Seeing as the round trip was almost five hours, that gave me plenty of time to do some serious work. According to the guards, dimensional magic was the providence of the gods, and indeed, my problems were finally answered by a gray-robed elf in a tree church. All for the minimal price of nine silvers.
You''ve gained the skill Dimensional storage Lv1. You can putnon-soulbounditems in a safe place in another dimension. Time will be suspended in there. Costs 1 maximum mana/ inventory slot, +1 maximum mana/2Kg. Higher levels allow better mana to storage conversion and allow more maximum slots. Current: 5 maximum inventory slots.
FINALLY! I thanked the priest from the bottom of my heart, disregarding the confused face he was making while I was jumping and shouting from joy. I sold the excess hides and ultimately decided that I had to sacrifice the boar tusks as well to the altar of capitalism. Gold. So much gold flowed into my pouch, over twelve gold pieces lined my pockets, and as easy as they appeared, they were gone again, as I picked up the full recipe set for the composite armor. I also took the opportunity to ask how you can use soul-infusion on leatherworking. It seemed that you could only use larger monster stones and you had to mix them in during the tanning process.
You learned the Leatherworking Talent Soul-infused leather
Looking at the plans and the remaining materials, I calculated that if I had sold everything I would have gained close to 20 gold. Enough to actually buy a slick armor like the one Keros used... Maybe leatherworking wasn''t useful in the end if you never actually sold gear and just used it for yourself... Whatever. As I tanned and thinned the leather, preparing it for the composite armor, I summoned Knight-kun. Unfortunately, I only had one large monster crystal, the hobgoblin one, so I could only soul-infuse the chest piece''s leather. Now, it was time to actually try something that one of my conversations with the steel elemental in the forest yesterday had inspired me. "So, Knight-kun, you said that similarly to how you stretch and thin your lance, you actually have control over the shape, right?" "Sir, yes Sir!" "Can you then stretch your arms and weave the strands like a loose mesh?" "...I think so, Sir. Why?" "See those layers of leather? I would normally put lumps of iron in-between them, and then secure them all together with iron studs." "Pff, iron is weak Sir, I''m so much better!" He replied as he puffed his chest forward. "Exactly! So, can you weave a steel mesh instead, securing the leather layers together? " Knight-kun gave me a good look like he was measuring me, and then he started elongating his arms and weaving them. He started from the chest area, creating a tightly woven mesh, which switched to a more loose one as he moved towards the areas that needed some mobility. As he was weaving, the steel thread kept piercing through the two leather layers, alternating between them, securing them and shaping them as he did so. From time to time he would look at me, measure me with his eyes, and adjust the shape accordingly. As time passed, and more and more of his body was actually invested in the armor, he kept growing smaller. By the end of the process, all that was left was a palm sized elemental. I carefully picked the miniature Knight-kun on my hand and raised him to my eye level. "I hope that''s adequate Sir" He shouted, with a very high-pitched voice, as he saluted me last time before the tiny amount of materialcrumbled lifeless in my hand.
You have Created a Leatherworking recipe: Mesh leather armor. The threaded metal is not as sturdy as the lumps of metal in Composite armor, but Mesh leather armor is much lighter and allows higher mobility.
You have learned a Leatherworking Talent, Personalize Armor. Using measurements, you can create leather armors that fit a person exactly, enhancing their performance.
I bowed my head slightly towards the tiny lump of steel on my hand and immediately rushed to the blacksmith to buy some more, enough to thread the rest armor pieces and still have enough steel afterwards to summon Knight-kun, blowing another gold piece and a half. The elemental went out of his way to even put solid strips of steel on the arm and shin guards, as well a ring of metal, like an inlaid circlet, on the helm. To finalize my work, I used magic ink to permanently inscribe P.Def runes on it. Wearing my new set, and holding my enchanted dagger, I finally felt geared enough for the first time ever. Unfortunately, since my old armor was soulbound, I simply broke it down to base materials for a tiny more skill xp. And with that, leatherworking was done. Since there was still a ton of time left, it was finally the moment to experiment with infused elementals. I ended up spending two hours just to find a few more recipes. Apart from some obvious ones, finding the right base material proved to be much harder, and quite more enjoyable, than anticipated. I used the rest of the time to actually craft soul-infused ones from those I thought they were the most useful. Those were the quicksand one, which was simply water and earth elementals on a mudball; Napalm, which produced a sticky flame that wouldn''t extinguish, and was created by using fire and water elementals on a small vial containing oil; High explosives, producing a great blast of fire in a big area, solving my aoe problems by infusing air and fire on the material that took me the most time to find, a tiny piece of coal inside a glass tube; and finally, my trusted Air darts. I made five of each of those, as well as five soul-infused burst daggers, and enough materials for ten deathtraps, albeit without using crystals on those since each one would take four of them and I wanted to keep my last eight for emergency infused summonings. By the time I was done crafting five hours have passed already, but at least I''ve gained quite a bit of xp, just a bit higher than three thousand. Looking satisfied at my character screen and my improved skills, there was only one thing that really didn''t sit right with me. Due to me continuously raising intelligence and wisdom, my magic attack rivaled my physical one, even when using such an awesome, purely physical, dagger. But on the other hand, I really didn''t want to turn to staff or wand for a weapon. Inspired by Keros'' bow skill, I thought that it would be awesome if I, too, gained a magic based dagger skill. This would combine the best of the two worlds, my stats, and a decent weapon. Looking over my magic based skills, there was obviously Elementalism, Nature magic, Curse, and Elemental playground. The illusion one was instantly discarded. Elementalism also seemed kinda redundant since, according to the druid, inscription, later on, would allow me to put elemental effects on the runes. That left Nature magic and Curse.
Combining Dagger mastery Lv10and Nature magic Lv1 will result in Nature magic combining into a new skill. Accept? Y/N
So... Dagger mastery will remain and instead Nature magic will change. Apart from this being not what I wanted, I would also like to keep Nature magic as is, for a future combination I had in my mind. No.
Combining Dagger mastery Lv10 with Curse Lv1 will merge both skills into a new skill. Accept? Y/N
Damn... I actually liked curse for its potential against bosses. The hatred talent that instantly gave you rage also seemed to pair well with it... Whatever. Yes.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Dagger mastery Lv10 and Curse Lv1 have successfully merged into the skill Dread blade Lv8
Dread blade Evil intentions seep through your cursed strikes. Combining lethal martial prowess and hatred, Dread blade dagger techniques automatically consume Rage, if available, for extra, detrimental effects.
Dagger mastery talents have been adjusted to Dread blade talents
Old New
Stab: +10% damage, +30% armor piercing. Costs 20 stamina. 3sec CD Cursed strike: +30% armor piercing. Consume an additional 10 Rage to afflict an accuracy debuff. Costs 20 stamina. 3sec CD
Backstab: +100% Damage, +100% armor piercing, requires stealth. Costs 40 stamina. 0 sec CD Mark target: +100% armor piercing, increases Rage generation of all strikes against the target, requires stealth, costs 40 stamina. 0 sec CD
Quick slash: Additional attack during a dagger attack. Costs 20 stamina. 0 sec CD Malice: Dagger attacks cause additional Magic damage by consuming Rage. Costs 5 rage per strike. Toggle.
Retreating strike: +50% damage, +30% armor piercing, tumble backwards 5m. Costs 20 stamina. 10sec CD Vanishing strike: +30% armor piercing, tumble backwards 5m. Consume an additional 30 Rage to momentarily confuse your target''s senses, causing him to lose you. Costs 20 stamina. 20 sec CD
Execute: +(50+X)% Damage, +100% armor piercing. X is equal to target''s missing health %. Costs: 40 stamina. 10sec CD Sentence: Consume Mark to cause target 20% of total damage suffered while Marked as Magic damage. Range 10m. Costs 50 rage. 10sec CD (Currently unavailable, requires Skill Level 10)
That... turned out better than expected! Keros messaged me that they''ll be arriving in the village in about half an hour, which gave me just enough time to try and practice my new toys with the help of a not-so-lucky tree just outside the village. As I''d expected, from the tooltips, it seemed my original burst damage had taken quite a blow. Especially the removal of the massive backstab bonus was quite severe. But on the flip side, Mark did give plenty of rage, and it seemed like that would apply to everyone hitting the target, not just me. And rage, either indirectly through skills, or even directly, through percentage bonuses, added to damage the higher you got. Plus, it was kinda necessary for allowing me to chain my skills. From what I could tell watching my bar, the original 2 per second and 5 per hit, rage was amplified to 2 per second and 10 per hit, which basically meant that the rest of people would get a big boost, while I could use Malice without a care in the world. Vanishing strike, if I understood what it did, since the poor tree wasn''t really conducive to this aspect of the test, would be awesome to allow me to enter stealth again, but unlike Retreating strike, it had quite a bit longer cooldown. Malice, on the other hand, was awesome. For starters, it was much more fluid compared to the double strike, secondly, the fact that I didn''t have to waste another 20 stamina for each hit, basically meant that my sustained damage was quite higher. I had a feeling that it would suck if I had procs, but who cares. Similarly, I couldn''t really tell if the accuracy debuff of cursed strikes was better than the slight damage boost of stab and the additional damage those 10 rage points represented. Lastly, Sentence sounded like it would be the actual big boost to my damage, at least compared to execute, which was basically another backstab or slightly higher than that. Plus, it was finally a ranged skill, AND it seemed to feed on all damage suffered, so elementals, or the occasional party member, should actually amplify that quite a bit. Sadly, that meant I would have to grind my teeth for two more skill levels to get it. All in all, it seemed like a decent upgrade. Lower burst but higher sustain, would help with either elementals or party members, and more importantly, it also dealt some magic damage that I assume was based on my Magic attack as I hoped. The only thing was that Rogue armor mastery''s stamina bonus, now seemed superfluous, so that kinda locked my next combination. I continued to shadow box, trying to get the feel on the new moves that the skills twisted my body and form, until Keros, finally, messaged me that they had arrived at the village. It was quite easy to find his extravagant figure waiting at the edge of the village. He was accompanied by a slightly shorter companion who was equally flamboyant. The woman next to him was wearing some sort of white harem pants which, due to her tight, knee high, laced, black boots, sagged at her knees and, alongside a deep red sash wrapped tightly around her slim waist, made her look like a female corsair right out of a movie. Above the sashher fit, white, buttoned shirt with a wide, open collar had the top buttons popped open drawing one''s eyes towards her small bosom. And what I originally saw as weirdly-red, thin, vines embroidered on the shirt, were actually super-thin, stylized, flames. She had a bit darker complexion, almost, but not quite, tanned, which somehow simultaneously contradicted and fit her vivid, dark red with golden highlights, shoulder length, slightly curled, hair. Two bright green eyes completed the fully exotic image of the, currently laughing, human female. An engraved staff, slightly taller than her, that started thin, and ended as thick as my arms and finished on a beautiful fist sized red crystal, completed her appearance. I approached the duo waving my hand. "Sup." "Greetings brother!We finally managed to meet up! How did my brethren here in the village treated you?" He over-enthusiastically started moving his hands as he was talking, trying to somehow embrace the whole village. On the other hand, the woman''s smile had disappeared, replaced by a sharp gaze like she was judging me. "Hello." "Oh, yes! Brother this is Spitha. She may be only a human, but she shows equal zeal to cleanse the forest as any one of us! Spitha, this is Qualexis." She raised her hand to stop the elf as she frowned. "For starters, do not, even for an instant, assume that I''m like the kid here. As long as something gives good xp and skills and gold, I''m in. Secondly, kid, I can read. His name is right there on the party screen, as is mine." "Also, Keros, I told you to call me Alex." Raising her eyebrow, she looked towards me. "Keros?" "I''m not calling him his actual nick, since he''s ok with that, it works for both of us." "Meh, I simply call him kid..." "I''m not a kid! I''m a nature''s guardian! Even the elder said so after we cleared the goblin warlord!" "Yeah, yeah. Speaking of that..." I reached in my inventory to pull the twenty-odd crystals that were his share of the boss fight, and I noticed that I barely had two gold pieces remaining. About as much as his actual share from the daggers were... Easy come, easy go, I guess. Adding quickly all the money that had passed through my hands, it was just shy of twenty gold pieces in the span of one and a half day. And now, giving the last gold to Keros, I was left with two silvers and four coppers. A vast fortune lost in a day... "Here," I said as I handed the gold and the crystals. "That''s your share." Let''s not mention the actual monster stone from the hobgoblin that now resided in my leather chest... Since I knew that the elf was reliable, and I''ve just gotten my hands on some skills that could work well in a party, the next part was only natural. "So, what are you guys going to do now? You mind if I join you?" "Absolutely brother! You''re alwa..." "What''s your current quests?" "I don''t have any. We can always go fight some monsters." Meh, quests are bothersome. "You don''t have quests??? Why?!" She somehow seemed genuinely surprised. "I don''t usually get them, I just farm stuff I guess?" Wait, was it that weird that I didn''t have any? "..." There was some form of pity in her eyes as she looked at me. "That''s weird and completely inefficient. You can grab quests everywhere by speaking to the npcs afterall..." "...I see." I knew I was missing something when I saw those weirdly high levels on the forums! "You simply can''t level without quests, and they are easy to get as well." And then she turned towards Keros, "Kid, go find us some quests." "Why me again?! And I''ve told you not to call me that! At least call me like brother does, or at least Nature''s guardian!" "Tell you what. If you find us an awesome quest chain, I''ll stop calling you a kid." "Deal!" And like that, he simply turned and started running. I shot a sideways glance towards Spitha as Keros moved away. "If ''quests are easy to get'' why don''t you go to find some and sent Keros instead?" "...NPCs are annoying. At least the kid has fun talking to them." She replied turning her own gaze away from mine. "I thought so..." "Hey! At least I''m not a leech like you." "What?! I''m not a leech! I even properly gave him our shared spoils that I could have easily pocketed!" She crossed her arms below her chest as she looked me straight in the eyes. "That''s the sole reason I agreed to let you in the party in the first place. But if I see you only leeching, you''re out." "You seem pretty determined that I''ll just be leeching." "Obviously! Why else would you party with us with your crappy level." "How do you even know my level?" "Oh god... You''re also a noob? Soulsight, soulsight! At my current level, I can see your average strength from this close. It''s even easy to train, just keep swapping weapons and looking at your status." Oh... she was one of those people. "...Pass. By the way, what''s your level actually?" "Fourteen, and the kid is twelve." Damn... she was right. With my level 8 it would be almost like I was leeching from someone with nearly double my level. "...I see. I can at least try to support you two. Speaking of which, you''re a spellcaster, right?" Suddenly there were sparks shining in her eyes. "Obviously! Finally, a game where fire magic is also top dps! Unlike earth which is more defensive, air which is more about mobility, and water which is more supportive and flexible, fire magic is just pure damage!" She was giggling like a teenage girl talking about her first love. "Let me guess, you always play fire mages?" "What? No! There are a ton of games where I am forced to play stupid things like archers because they do more damage. But this time I get to play what I like the most as well!" "So, ranged dps?" "Duh! The best way to farm xp, blast them before they reach you. Not that a slow-poke like a stealthy dagger user that wastes most of his time to even get to his prey would understand." Hey! Stop spreading your superiority aura over me! Daggers are awesome! We kept talking like that for a little less than half an hour. She was actually a fountain of knowledge regarding some mechanics, knowledge gained by continuously browsing the forums for any little parcel of information. From just this short talk there were two apparent obsessions, fire damage and being on the top. The fact that the whole time the conversation lasted she kept swapping her staff with a wand was slightly disconcerting though. Keros approached with a hasty pace and a frown on his face. "What''s wrong?" "You didn''t find a quest?" Our voices greeted him. "That''s not it! There''s trouble... I was speaking with the Druids about the lizardmen. It seems that it''s weird that the came so close to the village after all. Like something chased them away from their habitat. Naturally, I promised to investigate." "So? What''s the problem? That sounds like a quest alright." Spitha interjected. "The problem is that as I was leaving, I chatted with a guard. He told me that his son hasn''t returned from when he went to the lizardmen to scout and begged me to search for him." "So, double quest. Still not seeing any problem." "I''ve promised the druid that I would report about what chased the lizardmen out by nightfall. And the guard told me that through a magic item he knows his son is still alive but injured! We can''t search the whole lizardmen area for him and still investigate what lies beyond them before nightfall!" "Wait... BOTH QUESTS ARE TIMED?! Crap!" "And I don''t know which to do! The druid gave me that time limit due to his foresight skill, implying that something bad may happen if we don''t act quickly. The guard''s son, on the other hand, may die till tomorrow! " So, it was like that, eh... The answer was obvious. "We should help the guard." "Brother! I knew you had a big heart!" "No... He''s just the closest so we don''t have to run far away..." "Cut the crap both of you. We obviously need to go to the druid quest." "Spitha... I knew you''ll come around and start liking the village!" "What the fuck are you talking about? Obviously whatever chased the damned lizards is higher level and more xp. Plus, it may lead to a chain quest!" "I still say the closest. " "You don''t get to vote leecher. We go to the furthest." "As expected from my trusted allies! You agree to push ourselves and aim for both!" Oh god... We''re screwed. Chapter 18: This party sucks! "Look, I will do this concession. We''ll go past the lizardmen, trying to find out what drove them away, and we''ll keep an eye open for the guard''s quest on our way. No delays, no wide searches, no stirring off our path, but if we happen to run near something suspicious, we give it a look." "I still don''t see why we don''t do the quicker and easier one first, and then see if we have time and energy to do the more troublesome one." "That''s out of the question altogether! We really need to farm xp as fast as possible if we need to survive. Especially you who suck and are still even below level 10!" "Wait... I lost you. It''s not like we''ll die if we''re not on the top. It''s. Just. A. Game." "What? What are YOU talking about? We need to level up hardcore for the cataclysm." "Meh, cataclysms happen when RealWorld ends, I''m pretty sure we have plenty of years ahead of..." "YOU! You haven''t read ANYTHING on the forums?" Forums? Pretty sure there wasn''t anything about cataclysms when I looked there the last time... "Like what?" Spitha covered her face with both hands, taking big breaths, like trying to calm down, before she removed them and looked straight at me. "Listen, later, after we''re done rushing the quests, take a minute to go over to the forums and read what the developers posted. For now, just accept that the whole server is in countdown mode." "Wait, what? If anything that dire happened they would have made an announcement or something." "THEY CAN''T! It''s all in their post. Seriously, Keros, back me up on this!" "Erm, brother... she''s right. But more importantly, we are wasting so much time arguing instead of rushing to save our village and the poor boy!" "Whatever guys... Let''s grab something to eat and then let''s go with whatever route you guys decide." I had the feeling that Spitha''s gaze would pierce my skull the way she looked at me. "You''re... you''re serious?!" "Well, I haven''t eaten yet and it''s lunch time! I''ll even have time to check the forums while we''re at it!" "...Keros, share the quests and let''s go. If the leecher wants to come, so be it, if not, who cares? We''ve wasted a ton of time already." And with that, she turned on the spot and started walking away. How rude!The elf looked at me for a bit, unsure what to do, but ultimately, the quest sharing window popped up and, he too, turned and rushed to catch up with her. Damn... There goes my lunch time. Naturally, I jogged to catch up with them. "Heeeey! Guys? Wait for me!" Thankfully for me, the fast pace we used to cross the forest close to the village wasn''t conducive to small talk. I had to move in silence just to keep up with their, almost running, speed. For half an hour, the only words we exchanged were me asking for her staff to inscribe it. Slowly, the terrain changed. The trees gradually got shorter, but the forest in general much thicker, with almost no open space in between them. The colors grew darker, and the flowers started giving way to more woody, thick shrubs blocking our advance and dropping our speed. The humidity rose to a frightening degree, which, paired with our speed and exertion, caused our clothes to start clinging, full of sweat, on our bodies. "We''re entering the lizardmen territory," Keros muttered as he came to a halt. "I''ll be searching for the guard''s son, so I''ll be half blind from now on." "Eh?" "I''ll be giving my sight to mother nature to scout areas a bit further away." "Oh! You mean those creepy tree eyes?" "Yeah." I wonder... "Give me a second to try something as well." And with that, I summoned Windy-chan using extra skills and intelligence as her options. Her tiny and cheerful voice accompanied her curtsy. "Hiya master! Thanks for setting me free!" "Hello to you too Windy-chan. Do you mind telling me your abilities?" "I can fly, I can play, I can spin and I can tumble! I can talk, I can sing, I can cheer and I can..." "I meant the more useful ones, like attacks, magic, and such." "Boo! Master, you''re no fun. But OK!" And she gave me a tiny thumbs up. "I can attack suuuuuper fast, I can evade even arrows in mid-flight, I can turn invisible, even incorporeal for a tiny amount of time, and due to my flight I have excellent mobility!" "Ok, ok, nice. Can you track me?" "I always know towards where you are, yes!" "Good... Now, listen. I will summon a few more of your sisters, and all of you will canvas the area to my left for a wounded elf. Turn invisible to avoid combat. And return to me if you find him. Can you do that?" "...Master?" "Yes?" "What is an elf?" I facepalmed as I turned towards the rest of the party, only to see Keros staring at me with his mouth agape and Spitha with her eyes wide open. "That''s... THAT''S CHEATING! Nice!" "Brother..." "Ok Windy-chan, what am I?" "You are master!" "And what are they?" I asked pointing towards the other two. "Monsters!" "Ok... How about that then. This one," and I pointed towards Keros "Is an elf. Two hands and legs and pointy ears. Can you search for a wounded one?" "Yes master!" I instructed Keros to focus on our right, and the four elementals to search on our left as we moved. And then resumed our march, ignoring Spitha''s comments about cheating. Our pace had dropped noticeably, not only due to the terrain getting rougher to navigate but also because Keros kept stumbling on logs and branches as he walked like he was half-blind, with his perception switched to the wooden eyes. At least pathfinder helped with actually finding the easiest forest paths to navigate through. Which obviously put me in the front of our formation, allowing me to set the pace to a more comfortable one. And ultimately, after a bit more trudging through, my ears picked up weird noises ahead of us. I notified the other two with the universal hand sign for silence and started sneaking towards the noise. I had to prove that I wasn''t just a leech. I had shown my utility with the elementals, and my support with the inscriptions. It was time to also show my actual fighting capabilities. I moved closer, finally seeing two large figures in front of me. The lizardmen were quite big, about two meters high, and full of muscles. Their thick, oily, gray skin glistened with moisture as their long, meaty, tails, lazily wavered left and right behind them, almost like sweeping the forest floor in the process.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Apart from their tail, the second distinct feature was their crocodile-like head. As the lizardmen were arguing about something in their weird language, their huge muzzle kept opening, revealing a row of dagger sharp teeth. In their hands, long tridents were being waved around. I took a big breath as I readied myself to sneak closer to use my opener when a loud, crystal clear, voice sounded behind me. "Burn baby burn, DOUBLE!" The moment Spitha finished shouting, both monsters were engulfed in flames. They instantly turned and charged towards us letting out a gurgling shout. "Fwoosh, boom! Fwoosh, boom! Fwoosh boom! Fwoosh..." Every time the word boom echoed next to me, a slim flaming arrow was launched towards the advancing lizardmen, exploding with a small flash on contact. Before I could correct the grip of the dagger on my hand, securing it to be ready to intercept the monsters, a twig arrow flew above my head. Vines erupted around them, rooting them in place, as flame and wooden arrows kept flying, bringing both poor targets down. It wasn''t even ten seconds from the start when the lizardmen finally collapsed... I haven''t even landed a single blow! Spitha shot me a look full of contempt, making me really feel like a leecher, but didn''t push further. Although there was one thing I was unsure of... "You don''t even have to chant for your spells? How is that fair?!" "What are you talking about! I properly chanted, I said so many Fwoosh booms!" "...that''s nothing like the game''s chants?" "Well duh! That''s my unique skill, gained through many trials and combinations! Instead of using the retarded game chants, I make my own. The length and the intensity regulate the casting speed, the mana cost, and the power of the actual spell. Plus, I don''t need to memorize gibberish." "And the game actually recognizes something as retarded as Fwoosh boom as a chant?!!!" "Of course, it has crappy intensity though, but excellent speed and ridiculously low cost." "...Still doesn''t sound like a chant." "Oh yeah? Then let me show you on the next group what a ''proper'' chant sounds like." She finished with a hrumph as she put her hands on her waist. The next group wasn''t that far away. The three lizardmen were too busy digging a hole to notice us as we approached. I stealthed once more and instantly started moving towards them, determined to at least put a hit in before the real monsters behind me butchered them. This time, I listened to something resembling an actual chant. "Flames of the abyss obey me. Douse my foes in my pure hatred. Let the raging inferno devour their flesh like..." By this time, the lizardmen were already almost next to me as they were rushing towards the, almost screaming, mage behind me. I jumped out of stealth, pouncing on one of them using my opener, trying to block their advance, and almost getting trampled by them as they ignored me. Keros managed to root one of them, and I had to burn my provoke on the last one who broke through the elf''s vines. I switched hatred control to produce more aggro as I tried to keep their attention on me while Spitha kept sprouting nonsense. A trident pierced my thigh, almost knocking me over as the pain surged. Dodging and blocking like my life depended on it, I finally heard Spitha finishing her yell. "...unending torment. LET. THEM. BURN." The next second, all three of them screamed as they become enveloped in a sheath of white-hot flames, almost a full meter thick. Despite me jumping away as fast as I could, the mere presence of the flames seared my hair and my skin almost burst into flames as well. Seconds later, all three lizardmen were reduced to an ashen dust, their steel tridents warped from the heat. Spitha was still panting for breath as she smugly sneered towards me. "Is this a proper enough chant for you?" "...what was that?! You almost burned ME alive!" "Nah, it would only deal lethal damage to those I considered enemies. And that was the same exact, level 3 Burn talent, that I used before. Although this one took 300 mana and the last one 20..." "...You actually managed to turn chuuni into an actual skill!" "It''s not chuuni! " "Yeah... right." "By the way guys, you two take care of the next pack, I''m all out of mana..." Sigh... At least I''ll get to actually fight this time. We kept going forward, but after that little show-off incident, she returned to her normal self, vaporizing enemies before I could even get two good hits off. I did feel exactly like I was carried, apart from a few occasions I actually had to fight as she was conserving her mana, and while yes, I was getting free xp, it also felt like my skills would start to lag behind from leveling up without using them. I was quite sure that at this point I was relegated to just be the guy who finds an easier moving path for the party and occasionally sends wind elementals out in vain searches for a quest. My battle potential nowhere near those two. At least, a good one hour later, one Windy-chan returned with news of having found some wounded elves. We followed her to a small clearing, where three elves were left dead, pierced by tridents all over their bodies. According to Keros, none of them was the guard''s son though. We got ready to leave when I noticed something weird with the ground. Almost as if someone tried to erase a path. Obviously, I started tracking down the path, and I got rewarded a few meters away when the one erasing it had failed to clear a few solid drops of blood. I looked over my shoulders, towards the others, and they both nodded to continue on. I moved on, slowly tracking, until in the distance I could clearly see a weird looking tree, all withered and dry, but on it''s sloped trunk, it was almost as if someone had thrown an upended bush right on top of it. I pointed to the other two to get in fighting positions as I slowly advanced. Carefully, I removed the bush and instantly rolledbackwards, gaining as much distance as I could, and giving clear shots to my party simultaneously. Obviously, both were equally useless. Yes, the bushes covered a hole that revealed the hollow of the trunk, but inside, the only thing visible was an unconscious elf. We managed to pull the elf out, and Keros identified him as our target. His wounds were sloppily dressed, and he was cold to the touch, but somehow, still living. Keros proceeded to pour two healing potions into the elf''s mouth before he finally regained his senses, his wounds miraculously closing rapidly as the potion took effect. His first instincts, as he opened his eyes, were to try to jump away, but thankfully, Keros'' grip was much stronger than his, holding him in place until his brain finally caught up with what he was seeing. "What... what happened? Who are you people?" "The cavalry." "Huh?" "Nevermind her, we were sent by your father to get you out of here alive. Seems we actually did it!" "Young one, are you ok? Are you still feeling unwell? I still have some poti..." Keros'' speech was interrupted as Spitha blocked his mouth with her hand, resulting in a tiny brawl in between them, and giving me time to actually speak with the elf. "So, you''re feeling ok now? Do you need to be escorted back?" Please say no! I HATE escort quests! "My father sent you? What about my friends, my party... anyone made it alive in the village?" "Not that I know off... three guys were dead where we picked up your trail..." "Yeah, we four tried to give time to the rest of the party, I was the last man standing, and crawled away from there. But we did manage to give them enough time! No one else made it back to the village?!" "..." "Shit! Fuck! Tell you what, I can handle myself, and I need to hurry back and report what we found, but if you promise to get revenge for us, by butchering as many of these beasts as you can, I promise to give you something good."
Quest: Lizardmen hunt Kill at least twenty lizardmen warriors and bring proof back to Kfadish. Accept? Y/N
Looking backwards, Spitha was giving me a thumbs up with one hand, while she was still using the second one to block Keros'' mouth. Simultaneously, my own hand grabbed the elf that was getting ready to leave. "Waitwaitwait!" "What?! I really need to hurry and report back into the village." "Yeah, it''s about that. What was so crucial that you four had to die to give time for others to go to the village and report?" "...that''s confidential." "Bullshit confidential!" He still seemed to struggle to tell me. "Look here kid, you may die BEFORE you reach the village. You''re the last of your group. Do you really want your knowledge to die with you? Will you risk that?" Finally! He sighed as he started speaking. "We were sent by the elders to check on the undines. The water spirits were always the natural border between our territory and lizardfolk. Somehow managing to keep a neutral relationship with those beasts. With the lizardmen invading, we were sent to see why the undines allowed that." "And?" "And there were none. All undines have disappeared. There isn''t a single one of them. Moreover, there isn''t a single evidence of a battle happening. It''s like they simply, *poof*, disappeared." "First of all, it''s retarded to think that''s confidential. Anyone walking towards the lizardfolk would have noticed that. Secondly, wait a minute." He tilted his head puzzled as I summoned four new, hour long and smart, Windy-chansand instructed them to accompany the elf back towards the village. "Basically, use them to scout and safely move around. They should last long enough to get out of the spooky-forest and into the happy-elf-forest." I finished my instructions to the young elf. As the elf left, Spitha looked at me with a puzzled look. "Why you do this? You keep using your offensive skill for stuff like scouting, even granting him an escort now?! What if we need those elementals for, oh I don''t know, BATTLE?" "What are you saying sister?! We should have helped the young one even more! I still don''t get why you didn''t let me give him my potions!" "Shut up Keros, if you want to give the potions somewhere, I''ll gladly take them instead of the elf. As for you Spitha, THINK! Did you get xp for finding the elf?" "No?" "And why was that? We needed to get him back home, not just find him. Now, I''m all for going back, escorting him, and then having a good, hot lunch in the inn. But you guys went all crazy with quest this, xp that, forums, and etc. So, isn''t it faster to just sacrifice ONE offensive skill, of the worst dps of the party, to not have to walk BACK to the village and BACK here again and basically fail our second quest?" "..." She stared at me blankly. I mean, how could she NOT have figured it out? "...We could still give him some potions." ""Shut up Keros!"" "Now, guys, obviously, we not only got an extra quest, but I assume that whatever we''re looking for has also something to do with the Undine disappearing. Maybe we can score a bit extra xp finding that out too. BUT..." And this time I slowly and purposefully sat down. "First we eat! Not only I''m starving, but we also managed to somehow do one of the quests without losing that much time! I. EARNED. MY. LUNCH!" Not a chapter Sorry for the extended absence. I went through renovating my house and had all sorts of troubles doing so, leaving me close to a month without a proper home till I was done. But all this is over now, and finally, I had time to write a bit. And I wrote the next chapter. And then deleted it. And then wrote it again. And then deleted it again. Since I couldn''t find WHAT wasn''t right on either iteration of the chapter, I sat down and reread the whole thing, just to get me back in the "feeling" of the story. And then it clicked. I do have planned how the story will evolve, how the character will grow, what are the unique things that will happen, as well as what the motivation of the protagonist will be. BUT. I messed up. The way I have planned the story to continue, and the way I have sketched the character to grow... don''t match. To be honest, the way he is set up, I don''t see a single reason why he would actually CARE enough and not simply take the least effort approach. THAT was what was hindering me in writing this chapter (since this+the next were supposed to introduce the drive) I''m putting this story on Hiatus for now. Maybe I''ll rewrite it better in the future, or maybe I''ll figure a way to fix the story (in my head) and then I''ll pick it up again. Sorry. And thank all of you who read so far, who commented, who joined me in this journey to writing which was a first for me. (we even temporarily managed to break top 500 which was astonishing for me!) So, THANK YOU again guys and girls, and SORRY (again) (Below is part of the 3rd iteration of the chapter to complete the word count.) -------------------------- I tried to phase out the incessant buzzing of Spitha nagging me to finish as I gulped down the food as fast as I could, exterminating any and all enjoyment I would otherwise get out of eating and just going for sating my hunger. In the meantime, I made a dozen or so mental notes to never, ever, go on a quest spree without having enjoyed a plate of food beforehand. In the meantime, I did manage to check out my new level 10 inscription talent, elemental inscription. To my surprise, it seemed that it was a ten-in-the-box talent. Basically, there were four different inscriptions, one for each element, and if you put them on a piece of armor, it would increase the resistance to the relevant elements, and if you put it on a weapon, it would add an element component to each attack corresponding to the inscription. Fire one seemed to be the most damaging one, but all others had some extra form of utility. Water did ice damage and slowed opponents reflexes, earth did acid damage and damaged metallic and organic armors, and air did lightning and had increased chance to interrupt an opponent. Without even the chance for an after-meal nap, I was forced to stand up and continue forward. The humidity kept rising as we marched deeper until, eventually, puddles of stale water started to appear, and with them, the familiar stink that usually accompanies them. The stench of the mire, the thinning vegetation, the low underbrush, all making it painfully obvious that we were deep in the swamp by now. As we moved, a few lizardmen warriors started taking the place of the normal ones, until we reached the point where the whole squad of 3-4 we comprised of just them. Unlike the normal lizardmen, their warriors had even darker hides, sturdy enough to cause half of Keros'' arrows bounce harmlessly off it. Despite their muscles being quite bigger than their lesser counterparts they had amazing agility and speed, easily surpassing even me as they beelined towards Spitha. Our fights stopped being the cakewalk they were just an hour ago, requiring proper positioning, strategy, and even consumable usage. I usually opened on the group from stealth, drawing initial aggro and using the acid inscription on my dagger to lower their armor so that Keros could immobilize them before Spitha started her bombardment.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The good thing was that an hour had passed since I''ve sent the elf away with my elementals, meaning their duration over there had expired and allowing me to summon them for my use. Unfortunately, Knight-kun could only keep one of them occupied, which didn''t really helped much, and so I''ve chosen to instead go with a full pack composed out of four Aqua-chans and four Dirt-kuns for maximum damage output. Since I lacked any aoe skill, I had to resort to making normal firebombs with infusion to try to keep aggro on me, since I was the only one who had even a miniscule amount of defense in between the three of us. Dirt-kuns'' immobilizes and provoke were almost spammed to try to keep them grouped on me. The biggest problem seemed to be our total lack of healing support. Even with ample usage of CC, my new armor, and my high dodge chance, every hit that managed to land left a gaping wound, forcing us to spend extended time resting. Of course, this gave the opportunity to both me and Spitha to go overboard with our mana usage, since we were usually forced to rest every two packs or so either way. Of course, all those troublesome stuff came alongside plenty of blessings as well. Experience, both soul and skill, was pouring like rain. In addition, not only did the lizardmen warriors carried huge steel greatswords instead of tridents, but they also carried pouches filled with copper and silver. And last but not least, I seemed to be able to harvest their thick hide after we killed them, producing both a much sturdier base material, but also a few of their tail scales I''m the process. The most annoying thing was that the time was ticking against us. Since there was also a return trip we had to make before the end of the day to actually complete the quest. Slowly, the swamp gave way to greener plains, and the stale puddles of water started to be replaced by thin streams, moving lazily towards the east. And soon, the soft sound of a river echoed from somewhere in front, the old area of the Undines, and the border that separated the lizardmen and the elves, clearly being just in front of us. Like the scout had already told us, the river was devoid of Undines. Usually, the water spirits would play and dance above the slow-moving surface of the river, but now, the only thing with life nearby seemed to be some sort of jumping fishes that disrupted the calm water and caused ripples to splash here and there. We spent quite a few minutes with me scanning the banks of the river for anything out of order, but even with Dirt-kuns helping with the tracking, we couldn''t find anything except scarce footprints of small packs of lizardmen. Certainly, nothing large enough that could have caused such widescale disappearance. As we were getting ready to move forwards, towards the other side of the river and the marsh that was the original lizardmen territory, I finally caught something on my minimap. Unexpectedly, it wasn''t something that procc-ed through tracking, but rather through pathfinder.I would have never given a second glance on the tiny path that started on the edge of the river and winded towards the mountains in the distance if it wasn''t clearly shown on my map as a road. Looking closer, it suddenly dawned on me that the stray, white, stones that dotted the path were not actually simple rocks. Examining one over it became painfully obvious that those, at some point in the past, were actually carved flat to pave a road. Now, randomly scattered around and half-buried, they were hard to notice. But at some point, those faded white rocks were part of something grand, something like an antiquated highway traveling towards the mountains in the far distance. The most curious thing was that, according to my map, there wasn''t a road on the opposite side of the riverbed. Like it ended here. Just to be certain, I dived in it once more to swim back and check closely for signs of the ancient road. But as I passed beneath the water surface my extraordinary senses picked where the road used to lead towards. An intricate stairway was carved on the side of the rock deep within the river. While in general the river wasn''t that deep, maybe just a few meters, on that particular spot where the steps ended, a deep black, seemingly bottomless pit, laid. Spitha''s shout interrupted my thoughts "Are you done? We don''t have that much time to spare. It''s ok if you haven''t found anything..." She shouted from the back while impatiently tapping her foot. "Shut your mouth! The amazing me found an underwater tunnel!" "What?! No way. Show me!" As the three of us mulled over the hole, trying to find a way to circumvent the fact that no one had a way to breathe underwater, I sent two aqua-chans to investigate further in and report back to me. After a few short minutes, the little elementals came back with cheat-like news. The passage leveled and curved towards the side, and after just a bit it raised enough to enter a space that was filled with air. Not wanting to take a chance with mine, and I guess Spitha''s, crappy strength stat, I had the water elementals ferry us through the tunnel, using the same trick that had saved my life once already in the well, and after a few more minutes, we were standing, dripping wet, inside a dry tunnel. Spitha summoned a fiery little ball in her hand, shedding plenty of light around, and all of us took a deep breath as we found ourselves not in a cave, but in a beautiful, marble, corridor, filled with faded murals.