《Chronicles of Mana》 Prologue: Trailer of CoM ???: ¡°In the beginning there was only a dream. The dream of a world so different from our own. Born from that dream, a world came into existence. In the dream this world was vast and boundless, many oceans filled with crystal clear blue water stretched about the surface of this world, inhabited by creatures never seen before, full of mysteries never heard before. But there wasn''t only the sea, continents existed too. land as far as could possibly be imagined with green grass embracing the earth. Countless species competing with each other for the right to call this vast land there own. These creatures thought to only exist in fiction were countless in numbers and limitless in variation. From small boars to fierce dragons hunted by humans, dwarfs and elves. This vast land was filled with the seeds of danger, grown with the thirst for adventure and reaped were the heroes of legend. Begin as one of the five big races, the humans, elves, dwarfs, beastman or orcs, the choice is yours. Awaiting you is a world filled with countless challenges that can be faced in every imaginable way. As a powerful mage blasting your enemies to smithereens, freezing entire armies leaving behind only an arctic wasteland. Or choose the way of the sword and train till you can split apart mountains in a single strike. Or why not become a traveling merchant and enjoy the beautiful scenery in every corner of the world, be a blacksmith and create legendary weapons. Learn arts such as sculpting and discover the infinite possibilities of crafting that may challenge your imagination. Join guilds and fight large-scale battles in dungeon raids, against other players, guilds, local clans, kingdoms or even empires and become the number one of all. Conquer the world and it shall conquer your heart! Discover hidden areas where no one has ever set foot into, epic dungeons filled with treasures of unknown origin, secret races only you have the opportunity to play, countless skills to increase your power. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. However the world, also known as chijo is also stained with evil, awaiting a savior who rids it of its parasites, who wish to use this world for there own schemes. Fight them alongside the forces of light and make your name immortal by saving the world. Uncover the secrets, forgotten over the course of centuries... the rumored egg of light, protected by the church of light and worshiped by it followers... the castle of death, that has never seen an adventurer returning alive.. the tournament arena where legends are born... forbidden methods that can defy common sense... weapons and armor that are the source of envy and admiration for every master-crafter... treasures whose function remain unknown... This is the world of CoM, where nothing is impossible and everything can be achieved. Now it is finally time for you to start your own adventure. starting on 01.01.3060 00:00:00 UTC¡± ----------- A/N: since this is my first time writing a story in English there might be a lot of errors and stuff, though I hope that I can improve while writing updates will be slow... its really hard to get into writing mood and stay in it for me for some reason. edit reason: I accidentally posted the raw version and so I changed a few parts, but not really the content. I did move the dream to a different chapter tho, kinda didn''t fit into the prologue well edit2: screw this i notized a month later now that it would be better if the mc doesn'' talk so much nonsense right from the beginning this is now significantly shorter, but i think better as a plolouge glossary and random stuff (not up to date) glossary and random stuff (chapter 2): ----------------------- Chronicles of Mana: ¡­ map: WIP, not important for first arc anyway places: Makoto: starting location. Big town in elven territory stuff for calculation O.o https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R_fBqg6WxPdX7qY269Bx5DN2z003tOmF5a2LSaJE8dk level-stuff: (ignore this :P) Spoiler : xp per level: 10000*(1,4^(1/10))^lvl for all those that don''t understand math this means that at lvl 0 you need 10000 xp for one level and every 10 level you need 1.4x the amount, so at lvl10: 14000, 20: 19600 and so on and so forth. Xp gained from monsters: (Elvl/Plvl)*10*(1,38^(1/10))^Elvl/LOG(10*(1,38^(1/10))^Elvl) Elvl: enemy level Plvl: player level ok this formula doesn''t make much sense... lol, basically the higher level the enemy the more bonus one gets and the lower level the lower... or something like this. As long as I know whats going on then its ok :P at lvl 10 you would need 1156 enemy¡¯s to level up once when killing same lvl lvl 100: 2770 lvl 200: 5074 lvl 500: 16414 note: the higher the level, the harder it gets to kill same lvl monster, so it is more difficult then the number shows, since I am still in the lvl 0-arc I have no clue how this will work out tho O.o starting lvl: 10 (why 10? dunno, but had this idea even before I decided to level down O.o) lowest lvl: 0 max lvl: don''t think there is one, but lvling past 500 is really slow stats: (not too sure, but close enough) Spoiler : str: the strength of your characters. Slightly influenced by weight and difference from average height(if you choose tall setting ¡ú better strength) agi: describes how fast you can move and influences your reaction time greatly dex: describes how accurate you can move and decreases the amount of trembling. Important for archers who have to aim accurately or if you want to hit extremely precise with a sword. Really important is this stat for crafting. Vit: describes how ''healthy'' you are. (sounds stupid) Greatly influences max-HP and HP-reg as well as the max-MANA/sec use. Int: describes how knowledgeable you are. by learning things and understanding how to use them you can increase this stat. (simply reading a book won''t help, you actually have to understand it.) Greatly influences max-MANA. Greatly influences max-MANA/sec use. Wis: describes how good you can make logical decisions. By thinking logically you can rise this stat (playing chess). Greatly influences MANA-reg Increase in mana-mastery easier, mana control concentration: wis*10 describes how much you can concentrate. By concentrating you can rise this stat. Important is this stat for using difficult techniques, such as using complicated skills, but mainly for casting spells you need high concentration, if you want to use more spells at once like maintaining a shield while casting offensive spell, then there concentration use adds up. Most spell-skills have a set amount of concentration they require to be casted. But having a high concentration requirement doesn''t necessarily mean that the spell is more powerful, just more complicated. Stamina: used up for physical activity. Propaby important for ki, but not sure yet vit*10 mostly increased though training. HP: this is a bit complicated... and more like a WIP atm vit*lvl*(race multiplicator/10)+10 should probably be called life-force instead of hit-points... when you receive damage, you receive a wound. with the passiv skill battle-healing you use hp at a fast rate to heal your wound (normally takes ~1s-20s for minor wounds to severed limps) Goes especially fast down with poison and blood-loss. light-spells are mostly for hp-regeneration nature-spells for increased healing rate mana: int*10*(race multiplicator/10) thing you need for magic(any other question? no?, NO! Good) secondary increased by int, mainly by using meditation max mana/sec: (this is something that I absolutely wanted in my story! I totally dislike the idea that after using a single skill your entire mana-pool would be empty... so I decided to limit the amount of mana one can use per time-interval) influenced by vit,int,training(thinking about numbers later too tired atm) a mage need about 30 minutes of constantly outputting mana to empty his pool, this doesn''t mean casting spells 24/7 tho, since a little mana can be stored in staff, for example. This needs more detailed explanation later I guess, but not at chapter 1 anyway... soul-energy: (also somewhat of a WIP, not important right now) lvl x 100 the more ''experienced'' a soul is the more energy it has. When your hp drop to 0 and you are dead, your soul-energy will decrease and once it hits 0 your soul will fly to the nearest re-spawn area to revive there. To revive you have to lose a set amount of energy. Normally 1 lvl. With death-magic or special types of weapons this can be changed. a NPC loses 50 lvl per death. Some debuff spells attack the soul by decreasing or changing it. When your soul-energy decreases the soul loses connection to the body and this results in a debuff that effects every stat by the %amount you lost. For example if you have 50% soul-energy left then your stats get halved. This stat can be ignored by most players, since gaining skills that influence the soul are extremely rare. Races: height can differ +/- 10% of average height upon character creation different height can only be achieved with real setting(look like RL) for human race, or maybe a witch sells you a potion with unknown effect lol Spoiler : Human: height: 1,80/1,70 (m/f) weight: normal str: 10 agi: 10 dex: 10 vit: 10 int: 10 wis: 10 hp: 10 mana: 10 ki: 10 senses: 10 Orc: height: 2,20/2,10 weight: heavy str: 16 agi: 8 dex: 5 vit: 17 int: 3 wis: 3 hp: 19 mana: 4 ki: 10 senses: 6 Dwarf: height: 1,30/1,25 weight: normal str: 12 agi: 7 dex: 13 vit: 11 int: 8 wis: 7 hp: 12 mana: 8 ki: 10 senses: 8 hobbit: height: 1,15/1,10 weight: normal str: 6 agi: 9 dex: 11 vit: 6 int: 10 wis: 10 hp: 8 mana: 13 ki: 14 If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.senses: 12 Elf: height: 1,85/1,80 weight: light str: 6 agi: 11 dex: 13 vit: 7 int: 11 wis: 12 hp: 8 mana: 12 ki: 12 senses: 13 High elf(helf): height: 1,60/1,55 weight: ultra-light str: 2 agi: 11 dex: 12 vit: 5 int: 12 wis: 13 hp: 5 mana: 20 ki: 20 senses: 20 Beastman: appearance mostly like humans, with animal traits such as ears, tail and fur, only upon transformation will structure undergo major changes height: 1,80/1,70 weight: normal Type: cat str: 11 agi: 21 dex: 19 vit: 13 int: 5 wis: 4 hp: 14 mana: 5 ki: 6 senses: 17 Type: bird str: 12 agi: 19 dex: 18 vit: 14 int: 4 wis: 4 hp: 15 mana: 4 ki: 5 senses: 18 Type: lion str: 20 agi: 12 dex: 15 vit: 19 int: 5 wis: 5 hp: 18 mana: 5 ki: 6 senses: 13 Type: wolf str: 15 agi: 16 dex: 17 vit: 15 int: 6 wis: 5 hp: 16 mana: 6 ki: 7 senses: 16 ¡­ more races come in the future. Note: these numbers are open to changes, this is a general guideline when comparing races with one another. Characters: Spoiler : MC:
Name: RadiTitle: death Veteran
Level: 10/00%Fame: 20Race: High ElfRank: 9/42.630.854
Health: 35Mana: 240
Stamina: 50Concentration: 130
Strength: 2Agility: 11
Dexterity: 12Vitality: 5
Intelligent: 12Wisdom: 13
Name: RadiTitle: death Veteran, The last will be the first
Level: 0/00%Fame: 20Race: High ElfRank: 132.463.743/132.463.743
Health: 10Mana: 120
Stamina: 20Concentration: 60
Strength: 1Agility: 5
Dexterity: 5Vitality: 2
Intelligent: 6Wisdom: 6
edits: prologue: 8/10/15: made a little shorter, since some things were unnecassery. moved dream to chapter 2 exp: 8/14/15 lol i had a real brainfart there... multiplied xp needed to level up by 10(hope this works now) dreams: (i like this shit O.o) Spoiler : dream1 ch2: ''yellow, blue. A world with two halves. Below the yellow, above the blue. A lone man standing on the yellow. The yellow was sand. The blue was sky. The man looking at the sky as if longing for something. The man had no thoughts, yet he longed for something unknown. White. A lonely cloud. Somewhere in the blue. The man looked at the white. His eyes glittering upon seeing what he longed for. Subconsciously reaching out with his hand towards his hope. Enjoying the short moment of cooling the shadow of the white brought the man. The white disappearing behind the horizon. The man standing alone. Returning to his task. Digging a hole. In the heat. Forever.'' a few general words: 1. updates will be irregular and most likely slow, I don''t plan to quit any time soon tho 2. English is my second language, but I would say its on par with my first, so if you think its bad, then that is because I suck at languages in general and not English :( 3. I(the great me) will try to use lots of tables and show how stats and stuff work, I have most of the game-mechanics figured out quite well. In fact I spend more time on this than I should... but this is more fun than actual writing so yeah... 4. there won''t be any kind of OPness for a long time, but there will be eventually. Hehehe, cant wait for that, this might be my biggest encouragement for the time being ¨C to reach THAT point in the story. Gonna be epic, bwhahahaha 5. speak your mind, even if u don''t have one(my motto) 6. no harem and no romance whatsoever planed... yeah! At least not for the mc, its not fundamentally impossible for either of them to appear in the story, but not with radi as mc I never understood why people cry for those totally unrealistic harem stories O.o not that I have anything against someone having multiple relationships with other people, but it should at least be realistic... witch is too difficult for most authors... 7. some dark tune from time to time, so if u like more the happy stories this might not be something for you. Well, personally I don''t think its all that bad, but different people have different views, this is main reason why its mature rated, though later there should be blood-bath and stuff too random section: things I say here have nothing to so with my fic and are purely the authors own useless words, but you are welcome to read further~ to be honest I wasn''t sure whether or not I should post the prologue as it was, but I kinda started to panic that someone might use the same name for there fic O.o so I just went ahead and posted it anyway. I don''t know if it was just me, but after I posted it there were 2 more chronicles of ¡­ and now there is even a Tales of Mana! Would have been my second choice.Wtf... I might go crazy... chronicles of is actually quite popular, so this is just me being crazy, but still ;) (btw... I am pretty sure this didn''t sound like that, but I don''t accuse anyone of stealing anyone¡¯s ideas, since no one did. I guess. Well in the first place using ideas isn''t actually a bad thing as long as you don''t just copy everything, but change it into your own thing O.o) read: ''ID ¨C the greatest fusion fantasy'' Best manga ever! Seriously! If you don''t, then... X.x(died trying to imagine the torture those that don''t read shall be killed with) the ln is only translated for 3 chapters so yeah... (someone continued after japtem, but they aren''t far yet) r-chapter 1: re-spawn Start Chronicles of Mana Imagine 1,55m high elf with kinda my look and 00 00 30 RGB dark-blue hair and black eyes... name is Radi... spawn in Makoto... skip tutorial and unnecessary stuff... work, please work! chanting this phrase like a mantra I wait for some reaction to happen. Around me I see the darkness of the loading sequence, but there are no panels or other things so I guess it worked? Well nothing to do so lets just wait patiently... I just started the new game Chronicles of Mana in Unicorn''s VR-headgear. This thing has only been around for a month, but it is really amazing, an astonishing time acceleration of 12x. Compared to the old version of 4x it''s even faster. However, CoM is the first VRmmorpg developed by Unicorn themselves, all the over games I played before felt more like 3D-versions of a 2D game. Kinda the same logic that applies to all games: newer isn''t always better. So 3D isn''t necessarily better than 2D. At least that''s how I feel about all those VR-games. So what is CoM? In my world it is a new area of gaming. In yours it''s just another VRmmorpg just like in all those novels, but for me this is definitely a new beginning, the beginning of an interesting life. CoM was released just now and I was going though char creation in blitz mode so to say. My goal is to be the first on the server, hehehe. Really, there is no reason to this. Well maybe it is to see how the results for experiment #1 are. E#1: are there achievements for world-first? The guide said that there are bit and bite loads of achievements one can obtain and I want to find out for what kind of useless actions there are achievements. So I wait for the loading to finish and after what might or might not have been a minute it slowly becomes brighter around me... really slowly... you could say it is too slow, as otherwise I wouldn''t be able to think so much nonsense... As my eyes get used to the environment, I discover that there isn''t really much to look at besides mist. Because of said mist I can see little around me, but that is of no importance anyway. I imagine the beginner dagger, that everyone has at the start in there inventory in my hand. That''s at least how the guide said that the inventory works. Without looking at any kind of system window, I get the dagger after about 2 seconds and stab my heart, normally I don''t think I could do this kind of suicide, but in the rush and the blurry environment, while still not being used to my new body this is not that hard. I manage to pierce my no-resistance skin and my no-resistance-whatsoever heart without trouble and thus instantly die after 3 seconds. Guess helves aren''t as bad as they say, bwhahaha But I really shouldn''t get so exited at my new world record for suicide, should I? First of all let''s see the results for E#1.
You have died! Time till re-spawn: 24:19:36
Achievement
Tier: UniqueWorld first
You are the 9th player who has arrived on chijo the first 10 players get this achievement
+0,2 stat +20fame
Titel
Veteran
anyone seeing this title has great respect towards you
+5000 fame
Achievement
Tier: UniqueWorld first
You are the 1st player who has died the first player gets this achievement
+5% soul-magic affinity
Titel
death Veteran
death is not the end for you, but a stepping stone... the first, to be precise
+20% re-spawn-affinity(-20% re-spawn penalty)
This is... holy shit I was only the 9th? Guess there were other people with similar thought. Well I must say this 5000 fame boost is quite something, but its only in the title, hmm. ''Meanwhile somewhere else: Random Person POV:
Achievement
Tier: UniqueWorld first
You are the 1th player who has arrived on chijo the first 10 players get this achievement
+1 stat +100fame
Titel
Veteran
anyone seeing this title has great respect towards you
+5000 fame
¡°How can this be? I didn''t get first death? As soon as I could, I stabbed myself in the heart and 4 seconds later I was dead, I am sure I would be the first, so how? I didn''t change my appearance and chose random start location, who could be faster? Hmm... Don''t tell me a high elf with there shitty health died faster, darn it! I shall kill all those high elves that dare to show there face in front of me! Well can''t be helped right now and I can''t do anything for this day so better log out... but in the future I will be known as the ruthless veteran. fear me, oh worthless mortals ¡±'' Radi POV: But to get 2 achievements. I must say my luck really is not bad at all. These titles are rather interesting as well 20% re-spawn affinity? Whats that? Aren''t we supposed to have a 24h time penalty, but I haven''t got the system message to log out yet... so how does this work exactly... time for E#2: exploiting the death-penalty, bwahahaha.
Equip title: death Veteran cooldown: 23:59:59
oh, by the way I haven''t talked about how titles work yet, right? As far as I know every achievement has a title, while the bonus from the achievement itself is permanent and stacks with others, you can have only one title at a time. Once equipped there is a 24h cool-down, before you can choose a new one, this is to make sure, that people can''t change there titles during a fight all the time, since titles are also where the class-system is located at so to say. There are titles like warrior, mage and such, that give great boost to guess what? Warrior. mage related things, whohoo. Like swords and armor, spells... but also grant you access to class-restricted skills. Normally you would want to go to training center or mage guild to get yourself a nice title and whip the floor with monsters more easily. However using skills to fight is not the only way. You can just fight normally. With real skill. In other words, casuals want to use skills and hardcore players real skill. Unless it comes to unique skills such as identification or inventory who can''t really be learned otherwise. But seriously who needs a skill like ''fireball'' or ''strike'' if a little training can do the same? Then again who wants to train stupid things if a skill can do the same O.o Well, since the game is only out for a few minutes we have yet to see what is actually the better play-style. Hardcore ought to be more interesting though. Hence my play-style. ¡­
19:13:24
this counter is rather slow... just looking at it all day is quite boring. ''Yawn'' hmm.. why is it that it was more than 24 hours? Shouldn''t the time to re-spawn only be that? Well, I don''t really have anything else to do right now anyway so might as well enjoy the floor. Nice and cozy indeed. From up close this marble like stone floor has a rather nice feel to it.. huh? You can still feel things when you are dead? Hoh, interesting. Even though the feeling is extremely numb as if you are stunned it is still there and my vision is also there, extremely blurry though, but nevertheless I can see violet-colored mist all around me. Quite the unusual re-spawn mechanism if you ask me. I just hope I don''t have to lie around the floor all day, if so I really am better just logging out. Should I look at my stats? ''status''
Name: RadiTitle: death Veteran
Level: 10/00%Fame: 20Race: High ElfRank: 9/42.630.854
Health: 35Mana: 240
Stamina: 50Concentration: 130
Strength: 2Agility: 11
Dexterity: 12Vitality: 5
Intelligent: 12Wisdom: 13
sight this is... too damn underpowered! I mean, I knew that already beforehand from the guide, but seeing this in person is still an entirely different thing. 2str? 5Vit? Are you joking? Glass cannon doesn''t even begin to describe this totally unbalancedness, whatshallmacallit. The other stats are fine, but 35HP and 240MP? Who designed this game? This is beyond specialization.
19:12:00
19:12:00? this should be the time when 20% re-spawn affinity are applied to 24. time to re-spawn!!! whoa, what is this? My body is slowly disintegrating? Well its not like I can feel my body disappearing, since I gradually lost all connection to my body after I died and the only thing we had in common now was the location. But I can see it slowly disappearing with my non-existing eyes. The body falls apart, like what you might expect from a game and after only 10 seconds its completely gone while I float about 2m from the ground in the air, or rather mist. This mist looks somewhat strange. It has a eerie feeling to it and is violet in color while it is thicker than any fog I ever saw. It gives of a dim light and there seems to be no end in any direction, not that one can see very far here, maybe about 3m? Anyway, having no body is a fun new experience. After all my body just disintegrated a moment ago and now I am bodiless floating around, though floating might be a bit of an exaggeration, since I can''t actually move around and it feels like I am bound to something here. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Since I have nothing to do I should just enjoy this rare truly peaceful moment to its fullest. yes, that''s it, this is truly a magnificent moment, doing nothing has always been my dream~ normally when you try to do nothing and you lie on your bed for example, then try to relax as much as you can and calm down to the limit then you still do things. No matter what you do there will always be things your body does without you doing anything. For instance breathing... ok, you can hold your breath for a few dozens of seconds, but that''s it, you can''t go without air indefinitely long after all. But then there is something even more annoying than breathing. Your heartbeat! Gosh, how often I wished for that loudmouth to shut up! When you try to do nothing and that annoying sound of your heart resounds inside your ears... this drives me mad! Breath calmly, there is nothing wrong here... oh, wait there is, I can''t breath, bwahahaha. This is pure bliss. The art of doing nothing at its best. Simply for this reason I should go here more often. hmpf, what''s a death or two in front of ultimate joy, the little pain one has to suffer while dieing is nothing, I tell you nothing at all! Hahaha I like this. Seriously, no annoying body, no itching, nothing. Only the mind. A calm and translucent state of the mind is easy to attain here. My dream has been fulfilled, after 19 years of living I have found a place where I truly belong. This is the one and only place I always longed for, where I should stay till the day I die, until death do us part... 5 minutes later~ this is boring, who designed this shit! Re-spawn? More like wait-spawn... 19 more hours? This isn''t something an ordinary being could endure. Only an idiot would be a subtitle candidate for this shit... oh darn, I totally forgot, my true form is certainly that of an idiot... guess I have no choice in this matter. Let''s launch E#3 E#3: how does the re-spawn mechanism work? I mean it is rather strange that the game doesn''t automatically log one out upon death, right? So they either want to troll one or maybe there is still something to do, even though it doesn''t look like it. only one way to find out I guess. endure... zZz... 1 hour later~
18:00:00
??? what is this feeling, just when I was finally able to bear with this nothingness I get this itchy feeling all over my body, just that there shouldn''t be a body right? Looking around my non-existing self I can see something. It''s like my body is transparent, but there definitely is something where my body should be... strange
12:00:00
now I am certain, this transparent lump of bones, organs, muscles and blood vessels looks really interesting, after all you can see everything inside me, like I have x-ray view or something, this is too cool. By now, the transparency is already almost gone and I can at most see half trough my body, but between 2 and 5 hours the view is definitely magnificent, seeing your own heart surly is a new experience that can''t be called ordinary at all. Anyway, the important part is that this is not boring after all and I definitely could spent hours upon hours in this state. The gradually returning feeling of being alive is quite refreshing, if I do say so myself.
00:00:05
finally done, 19 hours are not to be underestimated, but since I am trained in waiting this is no problem at all. I mean all these useless lessons in school that you could just sleep though were good for something at last. Well it is not like there happened nothing. The human or helf in my case anatomy, which isn''t really different is quite interesting and what was the saying? Know thy self and you shall emerge victorious, or something. So as I congratulate my genius the re-spawn timer finally hits 0 and I should be the first player in CoM that has successfully died and revived, bwahaha. At 00:00:00 I get my clothes back and gently glide to the ground. Only, where do I have to go now, everything looks the same after all... But first, there are a few system-messages I got.
Achievement
Tier: Unique; TemporaryThe Last
You are the last ranked player in terms of level the last player gets this achievement, if multiple players are last the one who was first at this level will have this achievement
out of pity, NPC are more likely to be friendly to you
Titel
Title: The last will be the first
This title is automatically equipped, can be used alongside another title
+10% to everything
wtf?
You have died! Time till re-spawn: 16:59:34
Aarghhh... this didn''t hurt so much last time... and there I died again... I should probably say, as expected or something, but I really didn''t plan to kill myself a second time like this, but did u see this achievement? OP! This is the only thing I will say. This time I really stroke it rich, this time I will be the most powerful player in the universe, muhahaha. ...now that I think about it I never really played seriously before, you could say I was one of these many casuals that every game was infected with... but this time with this cheat like boost I shall conquer the world! Wait, why did I pick helf then? I can''t conquer anything with this race... NOOOOOO! Too damn weak. Weak, useless, pathetic, helfs are just4fun race after all... ok, I decided: casual it is :''( but casual doesn''t mean no fun, hehehe. Time for E#4: is it possible to manipulate the re-spawn mechanism? But first lets see the other system-messages.
Proficiency: re-spawnrank: t1, lvl 1
decreases time to re-spawn by 5 min, decreased xp needed to re-spawn by 0.1%
oh, so there is a way to decrease re-spawn time? Nice, while doing my experiment I guess I might as well grind this a little bit. The world shall know my name as the lowest ranked player of all! From this day onward the legendary radi will show you who''s boss! A world boss! No, universal boss monster it is, bwahahaha. ¡­ my thoughts get messy, it feels like even my sanity can''t keep up with this epicness. So to calm down I look at my stats and remember that I once picked the wrong race. Mistakes of the past are too cruel to the present and future and it would be best to not commit any more grave mistakes.
Name: RadiTitle: death Veteran, The last will be the first
Level: 9/20%Fame: 20Race: High ElfRank: 122.634.254/122.634.254
Health: 33Mana: 220
Stamina: 50Concentration: 120
Strength: 2Agility: 11
Dexterity: 11Vitality: 5
Intelligent: 11Wisdom: 12
well, it''s as I thought, the glory of helfs is unfathomably deep... hahahaha glory, that was a good one. But seriously, a mere 5vit seems really low... sounds like I said that before, huh. At any rate, grieving about this won''t help, so let''s continue with E#4. ¡­ immersing myself into the unknown, the new, the unexplored. As a pioneer of men I shall reveal the mysteries of life and death, of the very circle of rebirth itself. That is my mission, my purpose, my duty, my quest. Ignorant of the dangers hidden within the dark I will uncover the truth that lies beyond the curtain of profound knowledge. Is what I would like to say, but all I am doing is floating in this mist... while enjoying the feeling of getting slowly build up again. Ah, even vacation at a beach is nothing in front of this truly beautiful feeling of ultimate peace. All I can do is trying to speed this up for now. seriously trying to manipulate this is harder than I thought. Tho I am not sure whether or not I actually think at all. However thinking isn''t really important, which might be the reason why I am an idiot... Anyway, enough of this bs and back to more important things. ¡­ after my second time re-spawning:
Proficiency: re-spawnrank: t2, lvl 1
decreases time to re-spawn by 10 min, decreases amount of xp needed for re-spawn by 0.2%
my improvements aren''t bad compared to last time, it even decreases the amount of xp needed by quite a bit. If I grind this now at the beginning then dieing later on will have much less penalties. Well, I guess not dieing at all would be better, but having too much pressure to not die sounds boring. I still have little more than 8 days left in this gaming session, maybe I can reach the lowest level possible, I wonder what that would be, 1? hmm... probably, I guess I will find out soon enough. so like this I continue my existence as a guinea pig for experiment#4 for the next 8~ days with a not so clear goal in mind... no goal at all actually... wait! what in the world am I even doing??? A/N: ¡°sensei...?¡± ¡°yes?¡± ¡°...¡± ¡°what answer is the pitiful you seeking from the great me? How can I enlighten you?¡± ¡°ehm... why is it that the mc''s first action in the new world is suicide?¡± ¡°hmm... what do you not understand about that? Isn''t it perfectly clear? Humans have to die one day, every human has to. It is the very nature of a human being to die one day. This principal also applies to the mc. Sooner or later everyone has to return to dust¡± ¡°eh? Sensei, that doesn''t make any sense¡± ¡°of course not, how could you possible understand the reasoning of the great me? If a mere mortal were to understand this, how could I possibly call myself a god?¡± ¡°...¡± chapter 7 is basically the best chapter so far, if you want to find out whether you will like my story in the future or not. so please don''t judge my story before reading it :) r-chapter 2: penalty?
Name: RadiTitle: death Veteran, The last will be the first
Level: 0/70%Fame: 20Race: High ElfRank: 132.463.743/132.463.743
Health: 10Mana: 120
Stamina: 20Concentration: 60
Strength: 1Agility: 5
Dexterity: 5Vitality: 2
Intelligent: 6Wisdom: 6
hehehe, now this is what I call UP. Uber powered! Wait, no! Under powered? Useless powered? Ultimate failure powered? I wonder why I even picked high elf as my race. In other RPGs I used to play as a high elf all the time, now that I think about it I wonder why? Probably because of the awesome magic they could use. So I thought it would work out one way or another, but seeing this with my own two eyes makes me wonder whether or not this was the wrong decision after all. In the end what high elves are normally best at ''magic'', now they are below average in that department... Well, can''t be helped right now anyway, so no use thinking about this any further. You can only make a new character every month anyway, so I would have to wait, which I don''t really want to. All I have to do now is work hard... I mean do nothing and exploit the re-spawn mechanism, muahahaha. But first I want to see the world. Since the first day, that is almost 10 days ago, I was always inside this violet-colored mist and did absolutely nothing, I like doing nothing so this wasn''t a problem, rather you could call it heaven, still doing nothing is only fun as a breather and can''t be done indefinitely long, so I will have to go outside and see a bit of the world. The world of CoM, a fantasy world that a novel loving idiot like myself always dreams of getting reincarnated into, a world filled with magic, swords and might. Having already re-spawn 13 times I have enough for now and take my first step outside, to the city of Makoto. It is an average sized city in the elven territory, located somewhere at the center. To the south and east of the elves there are mountain-ranges that form a natural border to the humans while in the east there is a small valley connecting the elves with the rest of the continent. To the west there are also mountains, but behind them there is the wild, where orcs and the likes do there evil things. Lastly to the north is the ocean, that no one knows what lies beyond. Trying to remember what I know from the guide about the elven territory, that has a size of about 1000km in diameter, I slowly exit the mist. As the vision around me slowly clears I can hear a lot of noise... how troublesome. Merchants praising there ware and people who think they are important shouting unimportant things. A lot of busy people running around doing various things, like shopping, trying to figure out where the instructor is or complaining that the drop rates are too freaking low. amongst those people it is quite easy to distinguish who is player and who npc. This game is after all not even 10 days old and all players are still in the ''hyped'' phase. Warriors, mages, archers and all kind of other crazy people walking around, but most still have only basic equipment. However, this city, despite being in the elven territory is filled with every race and not just elves, its only called elven territory, because the majority are elves, but there are a lot of other races, like dwarfes and humans. The place I am currently looking at is the central plaza that is located in the middle of the city and has this re-spawn mist at its center. The violet mist has a diameter of only 10m. Must be some kind of dimensional thing that lets so many people use it at the same time, while not seeing each other... after all there are almost 150 million players and only so many spawn-cities. Whatever, looking around I must say there are a lot of players that look surprisingly normal, considering the fact that there are almost no limitations in character creation, even gender can be changed. Though I don''t know why I would do something like that on a main and I wouldn''t want to be stuck a whole month being unable to play properly. Sure everyone changes one or two things, who doesn''t want to have a few more muscles or simply less fat. However there is one thing I don''t understand. Why would you give yourself a penalty? Looking around I can see quite a few people that have E-grade, some even F-grade and a few crazy people G-grade penalties... geez, these definitely aren''t natural and now they are stuck with a shitty created character, hahaha, sucks to be you! Well, its not like there is no way to lessen that penalty and being a mage wouldn''t really impact your performance as well, but there is no way these people can go melee without having to spent a lot of money for the countermeasure... let''s just leave these unfortunate people to there misery and do some more interesting things. While I look around for a certain shop in this medieval themed city I see a fountain with fresh water, a few armor and weapon shops, some shops for clothes and last but not least the accessory store. While walking around the plaza there are quite a few people that I pass that look surprised at the top of my head, where I have 2 titles floating around. Most people have either non or one title, but never has anyone heard about 2 titles that can be equipped at the same time. But this doesn''t create a big commotion, we are still only 10 days into the game and there are a lot of things that have yet to be found out. To begin with my titles ''death Veteran'' and ''the last will be the first'' are both unheard of so they couldn''t know what these mean, I guess someone will post this on the forums, but this isn''t some world shaking thing, hopefully. Entering the store for rings, bracelets, diadems, necklaces and other stuff that might be useful. t1 cobalt ring: amplifier: 0.4 capacity: t0 5C t2 cobalt ring: amplifier: 0.7 capacity: t4 1S t3 cobalt ring: amplifier: 0.8 capacity: t8 10S t4 cobalt ring: amplifier: 0.9 capacity: t12 1G taking 10 of t1 rings I look for the second component to create a ring that serves a purpose. The crystal. By combining a ring with a crystal the ring gets a special effect. t0 gravi-gem: +0.5G 1C t1 gravi-gem: +0.57G 1S t2 gravi-gem: +0.66G 2S t3 gravi-gem: +0.76G 5S t4 gravi-gem: +0.87G 10S I take 10 t0 gems and take my leave from the shop. What I just bough is seriously low quality, but who cares, no need for better stuff at the moment and later on I will have enough money to buy better stuff. To combine rings and gems you just have to hold them together and they magical merge without you doing anything, even an idiot could perform such an easy task. As for my second destination inside the city there is still the library. A magician needs books! No, he thirsts for knowledge and the library is the best place to go in such a case. Only 5 minutes later I arrive at the library and enter that place, for free. Really convenient if you ask me, but free is only for a small part, where books are that can be considered basic knowledge. For everything else you need to buy a library card, but I am a beginner mage so basic stuff will be sufficient. The library also functions as a book-store and since there is magic in this world, it is not surprising that there is a way to easily copy books, so prices are generally affordable. Theory of Mana: 1S Beginner guide for basic elements: 1S Beginner guide for nature magic: 1S Intermediate guide for nature magic: 4S Magic in Theory and Practice: 2S since I want to learn nature magic, with is the obvious choice as an elf, I buy a few more books for that, but now I am seriously broke. Every player starts with 10S with is already a generous amount if you ask me, but the 50C from the rings and the 9S from the books leave me with only 50C. Not having the money to buy anything useful and not having the nerve to be around so many humans.. or rather people I quickly head outside the city towards the next village, as fast as my 5agi can let me travel. At the gate I am truly relieved that I can exit this ~100.000 people city. Leaving the 10m high walls behind me I am finally free! I... right, ''I''. I don''t think I have introduced the great me yet... so, who am I? That idiot you are already listening to for 2 chapters. Well then, let me announce myself, before I depart onto my grand adventure. ¡­ name is radi, helf otherwise high elf, 1,55m high, ultra-ligh about 15kg, thus extremely thin, but not skinny, almost no muscles and no fat, which is normal for helfs... short black-blue hair... I didn''t want those I wanted at least shoulder long, dang it. pointy ears and otherwise quite normal appearance, though I am a little saddened that my handsome facial features didn''t make it into the game... just kidding, but I do look slightly different than in real, maybe even a bit feminine, though that might come from the way too thin frame. But there is no need to worry about confusing boys and girls when it comes to helfs, those usually have at least C-grade penalty. anyway, I plan to become a magic-swordsman or something like that, as long as I don''t have to hide behind the front-line I am fine with anything, but since helfs are basically the definition of glass cannon this might be a bit more difficult than I would like it to be. Other than that I don''t think there is anything noteworthy to say about me, so let''s watch players outside the city, while I walk on the main road. 1, 2, 3... 24, 25 hoho, this must be the famous rabbit-raid, a phenomenon that first occurred in EoA, where a huge number of players, otherwise known as a raid, teams up to fight the most basic of monsters. Though the original version was a boar-raid if I remember correctly. But seriously 25 people vs. 1 rabbit? Well they mostly look quite young, with no coordination and no individual skill and the leader is no better than your average thug... to be fair this is the only raid I saw today and most players do rather well. Further ahead I spot some E-grade melee fighter, who seem to really struggle against the forces of gravity and inertia, probably some youth that try to extreme role-play and make this into a gender-bender or something. Though they seem to have a lot of fun, but they won''t get a lot of loot at there hunting speed... they must have spend there last 9 days in character creation for them to have such noobish gameplay. Looking away before my sigh count hits over 9000 I continue struggling to move forward. No agi, no str, no stamina this is the truth behind the race called high elf and only I myself am to blame for this matter. Choosing a race that is as useless as this is stupid, especially since I want to be a swordsman and not a mage... I should kill whomever had this idea. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. First of all I have no strength whatsoever, using a normal sword is close to impossible with these small hands of mine and anything that weights more than 1kg would be too heavy to use in the first place. So there is obviously the path of magic-swordsman, light sword with magic enhanced, but there is still the problem that I have zero defense. A single hit would let me fly to the other end of the universe and break all my bones... they are really thin by the way. Oh, I just moved off topic again, so where was I? Right, E-grade... wait not that! I mean I was traveling to the next village. Around most spawn-cities there are plains where newbies can farm weak mobs and further away there is normally some kind of forest with slightly higher leveled monsters. I currently walk along a river that flows outside the city towards the west, the riverbed is cutting a path through the forest and a few adventures as well as random people using caravans and such travel either towards the city or to other locations and obviously even here in the forest are players hunting wild monsters like a bunch of headless chicken. However my stamina has long since hit rock bottom and my traveling speed could only be called pitiful, but that is not really a problem. I can endure the heat, that comes from the sun on my back, since it is still before noon. And even though I sweet profoundly, which is a result of low stamina my biggest problem right now is that I already gained a few stat points.
you gained: 6agi, 1str, 3vit
what a pain... after all there are 2 ways to level up. One is obviously by killing mobs and gaining experience, like in every other RPG. The other way is by training stats, every 12 stats you gain one level and I currently have gained 10 stats and I don''t want to level up, so if I am unlucky enough o get 2 stats at the same time then it''s gg... by dieing you lose both lvl and stats, so I have to kill myself before its too late, hehehe this sounds so stupid. Oh well, can''t be helped. Thinking that, I jump, fall into the the river and swim on my back closing my eyes as to not look into the sun above me, trying to think up a way to die... seriously gaining stats at lvl0 is too fast, I just traveled for about 5 hours and so many stats... the speed at which I traveled couldn''t even be considered walking it was more like sneaking. probably half to blame is my OP-title. Why didn''t I think of this sooner, even though this river flows at about half the speed you have while walking it is much easier and not so stressful like walking without stamina... in the first place walking wouldn''t actually consume stamina like it did with me... guess why! Walking is an extremely easy task, but with half the stats of a lvl10 helf I am simply too weak, so even something as mundane as moving around is considered difficult... I really don''t know whether to lough or to cry. Oh, maybe I should transform myself into Linley and gain his broken training talent then I wouldn''t be stuck in this misery, kukuku sounds like a great plan. Only I don''t think there are any transformation potions like that. Hmm... I know I could try becoming an alchemist... Nonono, stop thinking before you get any more strange ideas. After another half an hour floating on the surface of the river, while listening to birds singing and players chatting I finally gather my courage to conduct E#5 while it is still noon. E#5: how long does it take for status effects to disappear. Since it is indeed noon this is the perfect time and I open my eyes to look directly into the sky where the sun is.
you are blinded
seeing nothing but a bright light in my vision I struggle to keep my eyes open for as long as possible while feeling the sun dry up my pupils and at the same time tears wetting them. Gosh this hurts... if I find the idiot that decided to play at 100% pain I''m gonna kill him. While trying to focus on my eyes so that I wouldn''t accidentally close them I keep telling myself that this pain isn''t dangerous and can be accepted as it is. After all pain is simply an indicator that there is something wrong with your body and by feeling pain you would know that you should avoid doing whatever you are doing. But unlike iRL where looking into the sun truly is a stupid idea, here in-game there is no such thing as a permanent injury. Either go to a healer or in worst case scenarios just re-spawn and everything should be back to normal. Enduring this level of short term pain is easy enough, at least compared to that time when I ate too much chilly and though my belly would burst open... internal pain is really worst of all. Even though my vision was filled with a dazzling white at first, where the sun is supposed to be there forms a darkening sphere and turns slowly darker, till it finally reaches a point where it can be considered black.
-1HP you are blind
finally allowing myself to close my eyes, which now doesn''t make much of a difference anyway, I just drift along the river, having no energy left to do anything and consider sleeping. Thankfully the stream is steady and there are no chute things nor waves so there isn''t a problem with getting water into my lungs or anything. I don''t think drowning is a nice way to die... falling asleep on the river I start to dream... ''yellow, blue. A world with two halves. Below the yellow, above the blue. A lone man standing on the yellow. The yellow was sand. The blue was sky. The man looking at the sky as if longing for something. The man had no thoughts, yet he longed for something unknown. White. A lonely cloud. Somewhere in the blue. The man looked at the white. His eyes glittering upon seeing what he longed for. Subconsciously reaching out with his hand towards his hope. Enjoying the short moment of cooling the shadow of the white brought the man. The white disappearing behind the horizon. The man standing alone. Returning to his task. Digging a hole. In the heat. Forever.'' huh? Whats all this loud noise? Waking a sleeping man is the worst crime on earth! Though I can''t remember what I just dreamed about... like always, even though I have that feeling that I dreamed something I can''t remember anything after waking up. ¡°whoa, is that a quail? I never saw one before. To think we would encounter one here. Quick, shoot it with your arrow, before someone else gets it! These birds bring an enormous fortune and can be hunted even at our low level!¡± ¡°pretty high up, but with my skill this shouldn''t be a problem¡± ¡°...¡± I can''t see anything, I really want to see this delicacy of a bird. ''drool'' ¡°yosh, got it!¡± I can only imagine that sweet aroma of a quail, the soft flesh, the juicy meat, that unique texture, hehehe. I am really hungry all of a sudden. ''Pock''
-9 HP you have died to a falling bird Time till re-spawn: 16:41:34
??? ¡°huh? What is that high elf trying to do with my prey? Stop chewing on my birdy!¡± ¡°ehm, I think he isn''t intentionally chewing your money bag, he might be unconscious drifting in the river for all you know, hahaha¡± ¡°hmpf, does this slacker have nothing else to do all day? Some people truly are lazy¡± hey, those guys have no right to say something like that, do they know how much I am suffering? They even killed me... though I suppose that''s actually a good thing, isn''t it? But to think that a bird as small as this is able to kill me, I feel sad... why are high elves so damn weak? Maybe this is really the fitting picture of a helf, a dead corpse rotting in a river while a bunch of adventures laugh loud with there fingers pointing at me. This humiliating feeling of despair, helplessness and sorrow. As a wuxia MC I would probably vow to annihilate there families and not even leaf chickens and dogs alive. Humiliating me like this, laughing while I can''t even fight back not considering my feelings at all! Just kidding, someone that thinks like that should just go back to kindergarten. This situation is truly funny after all no matter what you say. A high elf getting killed by a bird falling from the sky landing perfectly in his mouth, while the water from the river creates special effects by splashing all around me. It didn''t even hurt, since the bird was flying fairly high, I must say that archer was really lucky to hit with the first try. But thanks to the height I died in one hit without having to suffer any more pain. Thank you, my anonymous redeemer for ending this weak ones suffering, shall the gods bless your kind soul. Eh? why did I feel like thinking that? Hmm... at any rate, I hope I am close enough to the village already, since you always re-spawn at the closest location I needed to make it at least halfway there, but I have no clue how far I have traveled so far. All I can do now is pray to the gods of fortune and wait. Well its time to log out anyway... A/N: MiTaP ftw... haven''t actually read it yet. I read book 4 meditation, but not the other two parts... ¡°ehm... sensei, what are you talking about?¡± ¡°are my enigmatic words too complicated?¡± ¡°huh? What means enig-ma-thing?¡± ¡°that is something the old greeks already knew... wait, don''t tell me you are even older than the greeks and that''s why you don''t know? And I always thought you were just a cute loli, but it turns out you were an old hag all along, buhuhuhu¡± ¡°huh? Sensei? What do you mean?¡± ¡°...¡± ¡°ehm... sensei? Don''t cry...¡± I am talking about(Magick in Theory and Practice), which is a real book O.o something like 100? years old tho, but you can read it somewhere, just google if you want. Only that magick is not magic(kinda), but that is for another time :P(not important) r-chapter 3: moving
logging out...
I put the headgear away and lie on my bed. I can''t help but grin at what happened so far in the game CoM. Probably first player with dual achievement, reaching level 0 in record time and being the weakest player of all... this is what I call an exiting start. Or you might say interesting. Normally I think of things as either boring or interesting and this game is definitely of the later category, no doubt about that. Since you can only use that helmet for 20 hours a day at max I have to do things in this boring reality as well... so what shall i do in these 4 hours granted to me by the almighty headgear? sleeping? - interesting, but i can do that later in game... taking a bathroom break? - boring, but no other choice... next? eating? - boring, but its something this body of mine needs so i guess i have to do it... cooking? - boring, a wast of time, unnecessary masturbating? - boring, a wast of time. Nothing more to it... taking a shower? - boring and i already took one yesterday, no need to do something this tedious every day... jogging? - interesting, I also live close to the park so yeah... exiting the apartment I live in, which by the way is located on the 5th floor of a house and has barely enough furniture for a 19 year young healthy man like me to live in. I walk towards the park in the late afternoon sun in my rather normal clothes, wearing a black shirt and black shorts, I guess I like black. In real I am just your average high school graduate with grades that can''t be boasted about, but I never really put any effort into studying, so it can''t be helped. I have average high of 1,75m with average European looks, brown hair, gray-blue eyes, maybe a little thin, but I never studied myself in the mirror so that is all I can tell you about me... well I usually prefer to do as little as possible, so my eyes are only about half-open and some classmates said that I look stoned because of that... My parents decided to go on vacation for a rather long time. Last year they suddenly decided that they would go make a world tour and went of, well can''t blame them, living in a city is boring as hell, but I didn''t feel like accompanying them, since I think traveling isn''t much better... ok, I admit it I am just too lazy. So I decided to rent a small apartment that costs almost nothing and play games with the new headgear all day, which has been out for a month already, but since the time acceleration is 12x real its more like 10 month already... good times indeed. But enough rambling... where was I? Oh, right I wanted to run a little bit to make sure I get enough exercise while being immersed most of the time in the game. Yet, I ended up walking all the way instead of running... why does this always happen to me!? Yep, this isn''t the first time I start thinking useless things and end up walking instead of running and the amount of exercise walking provides is incomparable lower than running... too bad I already arrived at my favorite spot. Seeing the familiar hill in front of me I hesitate not even a moment and lie down under a big tree and make sure that the spot I pick is in the shadow and calm down. Kinda weird how I can lie on the green grass after pretty much doing nothing for the past 10 days in the game. Even I am not quite sure how this is possible, but I don''t dislike this kind of relaxed attitude. The sky is entirely blue without a single cloud today. Nice warm weather and no wind whatsoever... couldn''t be worse if you ask me. I like rain much more than the sun, or at least a cloudy sky. Luckily it is already quite late, otherwise the temperature might also be too high for me to endure. ¡°yo Ike, sup¡± Ike? I guess that''s me... ¡°oi Michi, you are already the second person today that wakes me up from my sleep!¡± ¡°hahahaha, the amount of sleep you consume is so immense, no wonder that people would have to wake you up¡± ¡°consume? I ain''t some kind of drug addict!¡± ¡°not? Hmm... I think I have to reevaluate your status then...¡± ¡°...¡± ¡°oh, right, anyway. How are you doing?¡± he probably means ingame, he wouldn''t ask me how I do in real... ¡°couldn''t be better, I bet I am far ahead of you already! High elves really live up to there reputation¡± ¡°wa? Don''t tell me you found a secret cheat code that that transforms helfs into OP beings¡± ¡°indeed I found the ultimate cheat code. The key... is to die!¡± ¡°...¡± ¡°eh? Don''t believe me? Bwahahaha I shall beat your stupid human stats in no time, give me a few decades and we might become even in strength!¡± ¡°right... you are unusually talkative today, got owned already, right?¡± I really can''t hide anything from him... ¡°yeah sure, you got me. And you?¡± ¡°I am already leveling like crazy, only buying equipment is rather expensive and monsters drop almost nothing, but I already killed a few kobolts¡± ¡°well I didn''t get to kill anything yet...¡± and so we continue our conversation a little longer and he eventually takes off while I remain there for as long as possible before returning myself to get into the game again. Oh, by the way, Michi and I are classmates and we graduated together, we normally meet here during the 4 hour break you have to take from the headgear every day and talk about random stuff. It is a really great system, that you have to take a 4 hours break every day, so that your brain could regenerate a little and during that break the servers for CoM are also down, so after the break it''s like there was never a break and you can be 24/7 in-game without using the headgear 24/7... if you get what I mean. Anyway, back at my home that is really small I get back to my bed and lie down while equipping the helmet. Back in CoM I find myself where I left, dead at the surface of the river, waiting to re-spawn. But I don''t have anything to do right now, so I decide to check the forums for anything interesting. [STICKY]Interview with Head designer/chief Aizen oh wow, this is the first time I see him say anything, he normally refuses to give interviews no matter what, but now he actually appears in one? Clicking on the video there is a middle aged man ¡­ Host:¡°today''s guest is a taicho aizen, he has been unicorn''s chief as well as head designer for 10 years now and never once gave any statements himself, but today he was so generous as to initiate a interview himself. Why is it that you never before answered any questions regarding the future of unicorn yourself?¡± Aizen:¡°oh, I was a little nervous that I would have to answer difficult questions right from the beginning, but this is truly easy. I simply had no time for trivial things like interviews in the past, because there were more important things to do. Namely developing the new headgear as well as Chronicles of Mana. If I had given interviews in the past the release might have been delayed by a day of two. Tell me, would you be able to shoulder such a huge responsibility?¡± Host:¡°as expected of the most mysterious man on earth, his train of thought can''t be compared to a normal human like me. Anyway on to the next question, the price you are selling the new headgear at is extremely low, it is hard to believe that you will make any significant profit with a price at a mere 200$ for a headgear and the game costs only 50$ as well with no monthly fee, some people even say you are doing charity work?¡± Aizen:¡°hahahaha... you are right the profit will be extremely low and we will only barley be able to write black numbers, since 200$ can only cover the development and production cost so there won''t be any profit left, and the 50$ for CoM cover the development costs as well. The main source of income will be the auction house, where every transaction will have a 1% fee, laughable when compared to taxes, but we expect enough players to use this function to easily sustain our maintenance costs. However money isn''t really a problem and I was never interested in trivial things, so being rich would do nothing more than bore me, so even though we could sell these products at a far higher price, there is no need. These politics have caused a lot of people to believe that we are doing charity work here at unicorn, rumors go as far as saying that the chief is a selfless person, a saint, a hero... hahahaha, to bad I never had time to listen to more of these rumors and only a few reached my ears by chance. Selfless? A hero? I haven''t laughed that good in a long time. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Let me tell you one thing, humans are selfish creatures, from the first day they are born they only think about what''s best for themselves and trample over other people ambitions and dreams. Did you lot watch the trailer? In the trailer there is the talk about a dream, a dream that created the world, if not for that dream there would be no CoM. My dream was it to create a world with lots of people in which there are endless adventures and challenges one has to overcome, ever since I was a little kid that did nothing else but read web-novels did I have this dream and now 30 years later that dream has finally become reality. What I did was only for myself and fulfilling that dream of mine, I did that to enjoy myself, so how could I call myself selfless? Using nearly every human on earth for my selfish desire to create my dreamworld, roughly 150.000.000 soon to be players in CoM, all for the sake of my selfish desire. I am not the most selfless, but the most selfish man in human history. For that I want to thank you, thank you for participating in this old man''s dream and making it possible. ''bow'' that being said you can start praying that you may never cross path with my blade. ''grin''¡± Host:¡±hahaha, I knew my brain wouldn''t be able to keep up with your reasoning. What was the saying? One for all, all for one? Anyway, I thank you for taking your time to answer my questions and with this I wish everyone good luck with there leveling¡± he... ha... hahaha. This guy is good, heheehee. Selfish, selfless? Indeed he is the most selfish man on earth, yet everyone sees him as the most selfless man. Two opposite things that are harmoniously combined into one in the same person. Truly a dragon amongst man. While he uses every human that plays the game, witch is about 99%, he uses them for his dream, for he wishes to live in a world with no boundaries, where everything is possible, a world where over 100 million players struggle to be the best, a world full of competition, confrontations, challenges, a world where you can truly be free. ''cough'' that sounded really cheese... seeing that guy''s personality, this place really might be the place I too have longed for, for a long time. At any rate I have to re-spawn now, no time for useless thought. Let''s pray that I have made it far enough that I can re-spawn at the village and not back at Makoto where I first spawned. While thinking that I can feel the connection to my body disappearing and see how it slowly disintegrates into dust and vanishes before my blurry vision. Huh? Whats this strange feeling, before I always died inside that strange violet mist, but now that I am outside there should happen something right? But I just hover there in mid-air directly above the river not moving at all. Without a body and without a clue what to do... they say that in extraordinary situations humans are capable of performing extraordinary things. And I would say this is quite the situation I found myself in, so let''s try something that no human would ever think of. Move! When I was still a human of flesh and blood I would have never thought that there would come the day I would willingly decide to perform movement, the act of bringing your body from point A to B. A truly outstanding thing that only a selected few have ever though of and fewer made possible. Today I try to step into the short chain of humans that could only be called legendary and attempt to take my first step, metaphorically speaking of course, since I have lost my legs just a few minutes ago. Willing myself to move forward against all odds and instincts a human is born with I use my willpower to overcome this great challenge. Channeling all my thought to move towards the village, the location I desire to be at, the destination I set for myself for this first journey of mine. Like a newborn taking the first step I feel my body shifting from its original location forward as if drawn by a fine string. That is when I had an idea, you may call it a stroke of genius if you want to, I wouldn''t even blame you for worshiping the great me for this master plan I decided upon this very instance. An idea that may shake the heaven and split apart the earth. A method never heard before, descendent into my brain this very moment. Shocked by the enlightenment I just received I stopped moving forward and stood still, directly above the surface of the river, hovering in mid-air. Not moving and not daring to breath at all... wait I can''t breath. Anyway, I concentrate on the spot and try to feel my surrounding, myself, the breathing of the world around me. Entering a meditative state while doing nothing is really easy, when you have no senses that disrupt your thinking then even a novice like me can empty his brain and stop all thoughts. Ok, screw this, this won''t work like this... so on to the second phase of my plan. Even though I don''t really know what is going on I will just take a risk and guess. I am directly between Makoto and the village I wanted to go to, so the logical conclusion is that these violet mist things where you re-spawn are exactly the same distance away from me and so I just remain in between. I already discovered that I can move around, although slow, I can. If I follow a path between these mist things where I will be never close to any single one, then I might be able to move forward without having to walk around, bwahahahhahaha. Having found a new idea to exploit I can''t remain calm at all and full of excitement I move along where I believe the path to be. Too slow... this is really too damn slow, at first I thought the speed would rise significantly with more training, but after an hour I still move not one bit faster than a snail! I made it about 10m, well I guess the snail radi isn''t all that slow, but walking is definitely faster... well, I don''t have anything else to do, so I decide to continue this anyways, but with much less vigor and my expectations are pretty much nonexistent now. Another 5 hours later I get much better at this and my speed has increased to 1 m/s. If I get any faster I might not be able to slow down ever again and continue my adventure though the whole universe... just kidding, but I made it about 10km, not an insignificant distance if you ask me and before me I see a hill, neither small nor big, about 50m high and it''s blocking my path. Well, I am not so sure about the blocking part, since I am some sort of ghost-type thing right now, so I might just slip thought the earth for all I know. Thus without knowing whether or not this is a good idea I continue forward without hesitation and enter the hill... I might see a dungeon for all I know, hohohoho, gimme adventure! A/N: ¡°what are you doing there?¡± ¡°oh its you sensei, I noticed that your fiction doesn''t have many average views, so I am helping you!¡± ¡°oh, that''s nice of you, but how could you possible help me, I will only write better with praise and cookies¡± ¡°i am rating every singe fiction that is better rated with 0.5!¡± ¡°...¡± ¡°that way others don''t want to read them and all will come to your fiction, you don''t have to thanks me~¡± ¡°ehm, that won''t to, you can''t just rate someone low without even reading the first few chapters, just because you want someone elses story to be higher ranked¡± ¡°but, that I mean...¡± ¡°let me make this clear, if every single person would rate stories that aren''t his favorite with 0.5 and hate them in the comments or reviews, then all that will do is that every author will lose interest in writing or at least posting on this site and then no one will be left here. The greatest thing in the internet are communities, and we the novel-otaku community can''t just hate each other! By doing so we would self-destruct and do you want that?¡± ¡°no... I only wanted that sensei''s fiction is more popular¡± ¡°then the best way would be to earnestly read and review other fictions and don''t just 5/5 everything, then tell other people about this awesome site and the community will blossom. Even a novice writer like myself will eventually receive more views that way, as long as people like it of course¡± ¡°ok, sensei I am glad you are my sensei, that way I won''t stay stupid all my life¡± ¡°hmm... that''s only natural, the older generation has to show the junior generation the way of the world, by carefully explaining things to them and not just randomly hating naive infants that know no better, because there parents told them that they are special snowflakes and have to be dicks to everyone else.¡± ¡°oh, what means dick?¡± ¡°...¡± next chap is finally some action, fufufufu r-chapter 4: undead I will sometimes include other people POV, especially under ''special'' circumstances ;) Smurf POV: I am smurf, a legendary figure in the history of virtual reality! And following behind me are 4 almost as heroic figures as me, my personal party. The great me, smurf, tank. The great him, klain, warrior. The great her, winera, priest. The great sir, zwarg, archer. The great lady, gera, mage. Today we take on a dungeon that has been infected by evil. To be precise our enemy consists of soul-less wolfs. By defeating them we do not only do good to humanity, but also help these poor creatures escape there cursed fate. ¡°here we are¡± ''identify'' Dungeon: hungry wolf, Difficulty: F, spawn rate: fast, spawn groups: 1-10 So this is the hungry wolf dungeon. ¡°This is our first F-rank dungeon. This isn''t like a puny G-rank, make sure to stay in formation¡± ¡°Look who is talking like he owns our party¡± ¡°eh? I am the leader so of course I have to give detailed instructions¡± ¡°He also doesn''t understand a joke¡± ¡°when it comes to sarcasm he is as dense as you in certain areas¡± ¡°what do you want to say with that that?!¡± ¡°nothing¡± ¡°would be better if you really say nothing¡± ¡°why?¡± ¡°and stop whispering!¡± ¡°ok¡± looks like the great him and the great her are at it again... only the great me can stop them at such a time. ¡°ok, you two, lets all be friends again. I don''t like it when you fight. This is already the 10 th time today¡± ¡°...¡± ¡°did he seriously count to 10?¡± ¡°i know right, I am quite shocked as well¡± ¡°who knew he could count more than 3, our little smurf is growing up¡± see? They are already best friends again, hugging each other and crying, only the great me could perform such a miracle, but to me this much is nothing, after all I am a legendary hero! Sometimes in our older games people would question us. They would say that we are a weird group and how we get along so well. To them I would only answer: ''The great us!'' and they would instantly stop answering and run away, only to tell our tale in the furthest corner of the world. Before we started CoM, we already played other VR games together, no even before that we were already a party for many years, creating legend after legend. ''the great 5 who run faster than a dragon'' we were the only ones who ever ran from a dragon and made it back to city alive. ¡°do you remember how we once ran from a dragon?¡± ¡°oh, that... in ''GODS'', dragons were only as strong as slimes in other games, but smurf got scared and ran away¡± ''the great 5 to destroy the devil'' one of my favorites, there was an epic fight, some kind of world-event where the alliance of darkness fought the alliance of light. I waited for the right moment, and the devil who had his guard down was killed by me. ¡°or that one time we were assigned as personal guards of the devil and smurf ruined everything?¡± ¡°...he never understood that we were on the side of darkness...¡± Good old times indeed. However these times have past and what is in the past should stay in the past. Oh, that reminds me of the time we released some poor old fellow from the prison of time, I still wonder why that didn''t become a legend. We started a new age after all. Hmm... what was that called again, ''eon of despair''? Anyway, it is time to start a new legend, a heroic tale forged by our noble actions. Well, I guess fighting low level wolfs doesn''t account to much, but it is the will that counts. The will to cleans this world of all evil! Now that I think about it why are wolfs evil again? Ah, right, they give exp. So we begin our hunt, not for glory, neither fame is what we seek. It is a simple and true reason, exp is our goal. Our souls thirst for it. Any gamer knows this feeling, when your avatar rises in level and you hear this familiar ''ding'' sound you feel great, almost unstoppable. And these wolf are the source of exp, the origin of our joy and reason. As long as we fight them 5v1 it is easy, but since we only have one tank and one other close-combat fighter it get difficult when we fight bigger groups, but luckily these wolfs are dumb as shit and almost always attack me. However, not long after we started with this we can hear sounds of fighting from further into the dungeon. Probably another party like us. Though I thought we were the highest level people around here. So we decide to check out just exactly who is ahead of use. To our surprise there is not a group of player like we thought, but a lone skeleton fighting a wolf. Good thing we still have some popcorn left from our last party, so we can fully enjoy this scene before us. A humanoid skeleton against a hungry wolf. What a show. The skeleton just randomly throws punches against the wolf without aim, even my granny would be called grandmaster compared to it. and the wolf bites at the bones of the skeleton, but they are quite sturdy, only after some time do a few break, but to our astonishment they repair again. Since when do undead have such a cheat like ability? Thanks to the infinite stamina and recovery ability of the skeleton the fight ends with a dead wolf and a few more blood strains on the not so white bones. And just after the conclusion of this show, a crimson blur speeds in our direction and I barely manage to bring my shield in front to block the incoming skeleton. ¡°everyone get ready, this is a worthy opponent¡± While I block with my shield the other already surround our foe. Since we have been a party for many years our teamwork doesn''t really require me to give orders. Most of the things I say are just to make me feel good, for being the leader of a legendary team. I activate my tank skills to make sure the aggro stays on me and the others can dish out damage without a worry. Actually aggro is a strange thing in this game, because it works on some mobs and doesn''t on others, but it should work on a low level undead. And just as I activate my skill the skeleton, who was already attacking my shield like a madman becomes even fiercer and I barely hold onto my only defense between me and my enemy. Now it is even grabbing my shield. ¡°that thing is mine! Do you know how much that cost me, I won''t give it to you!¡± I really like my shield collection. How can a fragile skeleton have so much power behind its punches? It keeps attacking me in a frenzy and leaves me no room to breath. At this rate my stamina will run out before we can kill that damn thing, after all it is repairing its bones at a crazy rate and neither flames nor sword are fast enough in destroying them. ¡­ Shit, my stamina is getting really low, I probably can''t hold on for much longer. Just as I think that I receive a heavy smash against my already damaged shield and topple backwards, landing on my butt. The skeleton follows me and climbs onto my shield that I hold above me. Is this thing dumb, it could just attack my other party members and without a priest to heal me or our dps it would have a much easier time, but instead chooses to go after me again? Now it even jumps on top of me. Dang the durability on my shield is practically gone. Does this skeleton have any personal grudges against shields? But before my shield completely breaks I hear bones in my body break, the weight of the shield combined with a jumping skeleton seem to have done the trick. Good thing I only play at 10% pain, otherwise a tank like me would go insane in an instance. Well I guess this is it for today. gn8 Radi POV: just a few minutes ago I was floating trough the sky like a butterfly, but now I am underground. Darkness. The kind of darkness you would only find at a moonless night inside the wilderness. That is all is see, for the last 5 minutes I only saw pitch black around me, while I fly trough the hill. turns out something like earth isn''t much of a hindrance to a ghost. Suddenly, without any warning whatsoever there is a strong pull from below and my hearts skips a beat. Ah, I don''t have one right now... but seriously what is going on? Just a moment ago I was leisurely wandering around and now something is drawing me close. This is what love at first sight has to be, an entity gets drawn in by something, but it cannot possibly understand why, at that moment however, it doesn''t matter what happens, you just let that feeling of passion take over and go with the flow. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. So I decide to not panic and welcome that witch is about to happen, whether it may be the demons of hell or the angels of heaven, whatever is awaiting me at the depths of the abyss, I shalt not falter, after all this is just a game, bwahahaha. Maybe it would be good to end up in some kind of dead-end place where I can never again hope to see the light of dawn, a place so distant that in a thousand years there would be no hope to escape. In such a place I could just ignore my original intention to stick with one char and create a second without regret, then I could also choose a different race the helf... hmm, ok. it''s decided, gimme doom! Oh, I already came to a halt? Shouldn''t have been more than 100 meter... not deep enough for certain doom... I don''t like this. I would have preferred a less anticlimactic final destination. After all the surroundings haven''t changed from pitch black yet and I just randomly stopped in the middle of nowhere... Nowhere. I always wondered what kind of place would be worthy of having such a grand title. A place without a connection to the outside world, a place where there is no time nor space, a place that would be devoid of anything but itself, simply space without a single entity. Somewhere with the properties of No. in other words a place that is the definition of boringness itself. ¡­ so I guess I am not actually nowhere, but merely somewhere unknown! Good to know, otherwise I would have quit immediately. But what am I talking about again, sometimes there are a bunch of random thoughts in my head that neither make sense nor fulfill any kind of purpose, but then again having useful thoughts 24/7 is more difficult than one would expect. So, where was I? Right, in the middle of nowhere. Ah, wait, I mean somewhere. Actually while I am at it let me tell you a thing, just between you and me: don''t think! And I mean what I think... no, for real. Humans think too much, sometimes it is better to just not think instead of thinking a bunch of nonsense that just leads to war and stupid stuff, so lets just take a minute here and stop our brain, just forget anything around you and stop thinking, just read the nonsense on your screen and listen to the voice of your heart, which I still don''t have, but that joke is already old so I better not make that every other minute or people would suspect my sanity. With is in fact the correct assumption. As I see it I am an idiot, after all I am a human and just like humans have two eyes, ears and a mouth, they are idiots. And the first one to tell me that he is blind and reading this will find himself on the moon to reflect upon his stupid remark! ¡­ and another hours has past in this camber of death. The world created by a god of misfortune has turned against me and is confining me in an underground prison, which if I may say so has only one porpoise, to break its inhabits mind and create an army of mindless undead that will terrorize the world. But that is actually a good thing, since the outside world is filled with a bunch of morons that live there peaceful live in ignorance of the evil in this world. The nobles and rich with there endless parties where they drink till they fall stupid or the king that eats his citizens food while the wild beast eats these citizens as there food. That is why I, as part of the army of the dead will rise my sword to the sky and rebel against the injustice that plagues the lands, by eradicating this world. I will plug the roots of this misery and kill any sentient being that blocks my path. Oh, god of destruction, demon of the underworld, show me the path I have to take in order to free this world of its suppressors. I shall follow your guidance and eradicate the light, only a world where the light is gone, a world where darkness triumph, only then will I find peace and only then will I stop my revenge. When I encounter an obstacle I will kill it, if I can''t kill it I will destroy it, if I can''t destroy it I will demolish it, if I can''t demolish it I will eliminate it, if I can''t eliminate it I will obliterate it and if I can''t obliterate it, then I will sacrifice myself to cleans it. Begone, light that I hate and detest, light that is the origin of my reason and existence, light that I will make disappear. Until I die there wont be a moment in witch you can rest, there wont be a moment without fear, for I will hunt you forever without a moments pause. Now let this game begin, this game of life and death, this game of destruction and annihilation. You shall be honored, for you are the first light amongst many that I will fight. Let this body of white be my tool and be a sign for this new era. Light is born from darkness and to darkness it has to return. I am the envoy of darkness who leads all light to fulfill its porpoise, for I will turn the light back to its original form. The creation of light was a mistake by the god of creation who longed for happiness. In his foolishness he tainted the darkness and bliss would follow. But rejoice not, for I am here to bring an end to all good things and recreate the time where darkness reigned supreme. ... Setting priority of light to negative. Spotting light. Impossible to determine species. Closest target at 3, more at 10 and a big group at 12. Charging instinctively towards the closest one at 12. Using my hand to form a fist. Smashing downwards at the indistinct figure that shines with a weak light. Impossible to determine damage. Light still shines. Have to eliminate light. Light moves around, trying to dodge. Die! Continuing to smash at light. Light comes closer. Hand broken. Light fighting back. Have to kill light. Regrowing hand. Nothing can stop me. Light gets weaker. Darkness takes over. Moving on to next target. Cant stop. Have to keep moving. Difficult to regrow hand. Takes a long time. Don''t have time. Have to kill light. ¡­ I can feel it, the future. It is mine to shape. By fighting this wolf like sphere of light, I can forge my destiny. That is why I have to kill you. A creature made of light. Many more to go. A new type of light has appeared. Humanoid in front, a small group of 5. Doesn''t matter whether its a group or singles. Attacking strongest light first. Feels like smashing into a wall. Go down! You cannot stop me. Other lights surround me. They have the same height as me. I hate the light. I hate them. I have to kill them. Light is like hope, such a thing cannot be allowed to exist. Have to hit harder. They are destroying my bones. I have to regrow bones faster. The light in front of me is getting brighter. Begone! This damn annoying wall in front of the light is in my way. Have to destroy any obstacle. I ram into the wall again and again. I take hold of the wall. Wall only moves a few inches back and forth. The lights are slowly getting dimmer. There attacks are getting less frequent. The wall is still in my way. I jump at it with all my power. The wall finally fell! Light is still behind the wall. I continue to smash against the wall. Light is below wall. I jump up and kick the wall. I trample on top of the wall. Light goes out. 4 to go. They run away. I am faster than them. Catching up to closest. No wall in front of this light. Smashing straight trough the light. Light goes out. 3 to go. Next one is not far away. Light goes out. 2 to go. Other run in different directions. One runs into a group of other lights. A bright light show starts. Light goes out. 1 to go. I chase the other light. Light goes out. 0 to go. Al bright lights gone. Only weak wolfs left. Have to destroy them all. Spare no one. ¡­ A/N: it is not without reason that I like death note and code geass. Villain mc ftw! Well, not really... r-chapter 5: the calm before the storm I can feel my consciousness slowly returning to me. How a helmet is gently pressing against my head. I open my eyes and see a blurry ceiling, slowly getting clearer. ''What am I doing?'' Is the only thing going trough my head. I try to remember, but everything is in disarray. Ah, whatever. I put the helmet away and try to get up, but I get weak and have to sit on my bed. Normally after exiting the virtual realm you are a bit groggy and need a few minutes to readjust to reality, but this time, it seems a bit stronger and the effect fades slower. I know, it was really dark and before that, I died. I hunted something... light? But why? ¡­ I should just get some fresh are to clean my head, that normally helps. And so I tumble outside like some drunkard, which isn''t all that easy considering I am at the 5 th floor. And like a so I continue my usual route to the park, while ignoring the occasional stares from people. Its a miracle I even noticed anything besides myself. After a mere 10 minutes or so I am the entrance to the park and now only 100 meter on the walkway, then to the left on a hill with a tree. That tree is my destination I start climbing and about 3m from the ground I come to a halt and rest on a big trunk. While the evening sun is illuminating my surroundings I close my eyes and fall asleep almost instantly, I really am tired. Actually, did I ever mention that I really like sleep? You just do nothing, without remembering that you did nothing. Time flies past in an instance, yet it is not that you did nothing at all, your brain works hard during sleep, just that you don''t perceive that consciously. When you wake up all the fatigue is gone and... ah, whatever... zZz... a man was alone in the desert. to others he would look gray. the man didn''t know how he looked like, but he didn''t mind. he would never be able to see himself in a mirror, but sometimes he would long for his reflection. what he looked like, how his face was shaped, what color his eyes had. maybe he wanted to not be alone anymore, having someone with him in this great yellow desert, but alas a reflection wouldn''t be able to talk to him. he knew very well that his reflection wouldn''t add a person to his realm, but at least he would be able to see himself, that he was a person. however this was merely a subconscious wish and not what he actually thought, for he didn''t mind his loneliness. And so without anything on his mind he continued with his task, to pick up grains of sand and move them elsewhere. ''growl'' ah? I am hungry, should go back. Huh? Michi didn''t come today? Or did I sleep all the time and just didn''t notice him... ...whoa holy smokes! already this late? Its 21:35, I am 35 minutes behind, the game has already resumed... ah, whatever, not like I have anything important to do there anyway, like meeting with party members or joining a raid. As long as you don''t have any responsibility like that there is not really any time pressure, so I might as well take my sweet time. Kinda funny how I haven''t really talked to anyone inside the game, its like I don''t even exist in there... nice! Oh, that reminds me, my head seems do be fine again, so what was going on exactly? Ha, he... huhu... bwahahahaa! For real? Who is that bastard that turned me into a skeleton?! Altho I don''t remember things clearly, I do know that I had a similar structure compared to my normal body, but without flesh. The funny thing is actually that I basically have no senses left, I can''t hear, smell, see, taste, feel. The ''vision'' I had was not exactly seeing, more like a combination of seeing black-white and hearing, with a 360¡ã view angle. For the most part everything was black, but then there were also bright structures with the form of wolfs and later on humanoid, kinda reminds me of a bad horror movie with fog and sometimes a strange creature would appear to scare you. Was that actually a dungeon with wolfs and then there were players who hunted these wolfs, but ended up dieing by my hands? Still I don''t quite understand what: ''destroy all light'' is supposed to do. Is that a basic instinct of an undead, to fight all life and destroy it? At any rate, it was pretty funny, except for the headache I got afterward. The problem is that I wasn''t really in control of my own actions, kinda like a dream, in a dream you are pretty much a spectator and even though it feels like it is you that does things, it really isn''t. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Unless you are able to actively control your dream, I think that''s called lucid dreaming or something, but I never tried that. So how about I challenge this so called instinct? When it comes to ignoring ones urges I am fairly good at it. With that in mind I should first eat something, I haven''t eaten anything in ages. Seriously, I didn''t eat anything inside the game, witch obviously doesn''t change anything in RL, but it still makes one feel really hungry. To bad all stores are closed already... stupid game addicts... like me... At first there were still a few stores that had open when CoM was running, but there were virtually no customers, so one might as well close shop and play as well. Actually, it is really creepy here... I mean in the city. Normally there are a lot of busy people doing whatever, oh so important things they do. But since CoM started there are 20 hours of total silence... the age of virtual reality, huh? Well, there are some stupid people, who say something like VR is evil and would suck your soul out of your body, but these guys are a natural phenomenon that occurs every time a new technology changes how society works. Even when over 1500 years ago they started printing book o mass did some church people call that evil, because it would distract the youth mind and bring them from there believe. There really is no helping some people... ¡°Virtual Reality is bad for the people, it takes your soul and reproduces you inside a different world, but that ''you'' isn''t even you anymore. The ''you'' in VR is something created by a machine and the things ''you'' think and do aren''t done by the real ''you''. Who knows what immoral experiment unicorn is doing to your head and heart... Oh, hey you!¡± me? ¡­ got spotted... by some strange creatures ¡°you aren''t playing the heretic game and you don''t look like you are in any hurry to do so, are you a fellow RR person, a real reality follower?¡± ¡°hello there. To be honest I just played CoM a few hours ago, but you know what. I got mind controlled, everything I did was in fact not my will, but that of some evil spirit¡± ¡°hah! I always new that this so called glorious ''new age'' is a load of bull crap. How about you join our resistance, the last defense of humanity shall not fall just yet¡± ¡°huh? What are you talking about, I ain''t got time for your childish game, I go back now¡± ¡°what? But what about the mind control?¡± ¡°oh, that? Heh, that was interesting!¡± ¡°...eh?¡± ¡°and if you are wondering why I am not in a hurry, live ain''t a speedrun¡± ¡°hey, don''t you know how dangerous that is?¡± ¡°sure, I might lose my sanity, rigth?¡± ...as if such a thing would happen, idiot. VR is for entertainment, not to lose your sanity, just like how hoes aren¡¯t there to lose your virginity...wait what? There really is no helping some people. Not that I feel like helping anyway... so without stopping I continue around the small group of weirdos. Back home I take a quick shower and eat a pizza and an apple, nothing is better than apple seeds. I always eat apples whole, I don''t understand why people throw away half of it, I mean it''s even the better half! The reason I also eat that little stem is because I am too lazy to go trow it away... I should go back now... ''back'', does that mean VR is my real home? Hmm... stop thinking, geez!
logging in... 00:59
the good old log in screen. Well, its only one minute so I still got plenty of time to prepare for the incoming madness.
logging in... 00:02
E#7: life of a skeleton A/N: apple seeds OP, seriously eat them, they taste good, kinda like almond paste. So if you like it, then apple seeds are the way to go. Thou there is some poison in them, so you shouldn''t collect the seeds from dozens of apples and eat them all at once, but the few you find in one or two apple are no problem at all. Really short chap, so be prepared for the next two :) r-chapter 6: crimson reaper altho you can change the setting for the loading screen, I just left it black.
logging in... 00:00
And like that the pure blackness fades and gives way for an eerie kind of darkness. ''Kill the light'' are my instincts screaming at me the moment the blue loading screen window vanishes. It is not some kind of voice in my head or anything of the likes. It is just a very basic feeling deep inside me that drives me. Like how some people fear spiders, when they get too close to them it is almost like there is an invisible wall that hinders them from getting any closer or when you see a huge cleavage between twin mountains in front of you, there is no way to avert your gaze. It is simply like breathing, you just do it. To not destroy light would mean to not breath, something that doesn''t need a reason nor purpose. My vision is still black-white with a 360¡ã angle and I can see a lot of wolfs in weird directions. I must have fallen to the ground when I didn''t log back in immediately. So I get up, surprisingly easy, considering I am a skeleton for the first time. Since I can''t see, I try to feel my body. My left leg, right leg, arms, spinal column, chest bones, sternum, skull. The way my skeleton is formed resembles a lot my former helf body. Small and thin, even the bones are only about half as thick as normal human bones. That''s probably why they broke so often. Now that I think about it, didn''t I repair them at an inhuman speed? Have to test that out later, but first I have to do something about this blurry vision. I can just barely figure out where the head is located on these wolf-lights, but in a fight I would get confused really fast. So I should try to improve it, not that I know that this is possible, but it doesn''t hurt to try. Only by trial and error can one improve. Altho I''m not so sure about the improve part so far... Anyway, since the only thing I can see is light and light seems to be life, I guess I just have to concentrate on detecting life signals from these wolf... just that I don''t know how to do tho. If I was a mc in a fantasy novel, I would probably know how to do this... ''sight'' so how about I try to think like a mc... ''give me face, or I exterminate your entire clan including dogs and chicken'', nah that wouldn''t help. ''let there be light, and there was light'' hmm... doesn''t work either. Guess imitating someone else isn''t really the way to go. Have to think for my self once in a while, which isn''t easy, humans are born copy cats after all. But how do I do this? I see light, but that light is not very distinct. I can mostly see general structures, but when it comes to details, there are none. I try to concentrate as much as I can, but the feeling ''Kill the light'' is really annoying. It''s like when you really have to pee, but you can''t at the moment, because you have to first finish that level. It is an extremely uneasy feeling and the more I try to hold it back, the more it builds up, the more I have to concentrate to resist the urge to destroy. But concentrating simultaneously on controlling my desires and on the light doesn¡¯t really work out well, and my vision starts to get even worse. Soon only balls of light are within my field of vision and the more distant ones are growing weaker in intensity. This really doesn''t work at all... but I continue anyway, only that I can''t think about the light now and have to fully concentrate on my desire, in order to not go berserk again like last time. Normally when I try to suppress some kind of urge I think of it as boring and useless. For example coughing, in most cases, before you caught there is a really strong sense of itching somewhere in your nose or throat. I take that itchy feeling and think of it as something that isn''t interesting. As long as it is still in its initiate state, suppressing a cough is actually really easy. Really helped when I was ill once and cough every other minute, but when I paid attention to the itchy feeling before, I stopped coughing. So I just try to think of ''Kill the light'' as a boring feeling, something that is so useless it shouldn''t even exist in the first place. However, coughing happens in a really short amount of time and you are normally good for the next minute at least, but with this feeling its completely different. It is constantly tugging at my will, trying to force me to spring into action and destroy light. Resisting something like this is beyond my willpower. Right now I can still hang on, but the rate it gets worse is fast and in a few more minutes I would have to give into this feeling. As the minutes pass by the amount of light I can see gets slowly less and less, my vision is reaching a point where I can see almost nothing... wait, isn''t that what I originally wanted, a world without light? Where only darkness reigns supreme? Then if I can make my vision even worse, to the point where I can see nothing, wouldn''t I reach the state I tried to achieve? Heh, this is so much easier than destroying all light, just don''t see the light, only see yourself, ignore everything else, but one self. What is the difference between a world where there is no light and a world where you don''t see any? There is none! So instead of killing everything I should try to blind it out. Altho I am currently approaching my limit, with new motivation found I try to make the darkness the supreme ruler of my realm, the realm that only belongs to me, because I am the center of that realm and its only entity. This is my realm, where I am god! And as the god of this realm I will all light to vanish. Even that last wolf that is only a few meters away from me, but only has the appearance of a dim little ball. Dim, and it gets dimmer by the second, I can see almost nothing, only this last speck of light is remaining. I will reach fulfillment in a second, even tho my willpower is basically at its limit this one last second shouldn''t be a problem. But just as I think the light should disappear from my vision, it gets closer. Arghhh! Curse you RNG, why did the wolf have to move the moment he would have left my realm. Concentrate, the action of destroying light is a useless one, for there will always be light where there is darkness and thus I can''t rely on the darkness of the world. I have to create my own darkness, the darkness created by my will alone is the one and true darkness. Only then will I have fulfilled my wish, my dream of a perfect world! However, the light before me, it shines dazzling. Light, is what I see. It contains a living being, a being I have to destroy. Life, is what I seek. The feeling inside me, it crushes my soul and devours my will. Agony, is what I feel. I have to kill the light, only by killing it all, will I be released from this curse. Death, is what I need. If suppressing nor ignoring work, then the only other option is to accept. I have to accept, that the feeling of ''Kill the light'' is a part of me, it is a natural desire, that doesn''t allow room for questions or suspicion. Only trust can bring me to my goal, I have to trust in me, that the things I desire are what I really want. And the things that you trust, won''t you allow them to control your actions? Just like how people trust there GPS system when they drive there car in unknown territory. I will let my desire by my guide, who shows me the rout I have to take, only that I still want to be the driver, for I was never a fan of autonomous cars. I have to open my eyes to reality, a reality soiled by light. Light that is the target of my mission, for destruction is my tool. Death, is what I need. Agony, is what I feel. Life, is what I seek. Light, is what I see. As I open my eyes, I look at the wolf I front of me, a wolf with 4 legs, tail, body and a head with ears, eyes, mouth and a nose. I can even see the hair on his body. This wolf is all that I see. I from a fist with my right hand and smash at his skull. Having hit a hard bone with bone my hand shatters, but the light gets dimmer. I still can''t see my hand, nor the rest of my body, after all I am undead, something that isn''t dead, but isn''t alive either. I take a look around, more wolfs enter my field of vision. There structures are as clear as the sky and I can see all details in an even clearer form it would be possible for my old form as a helf or human. They belong to my realm, the realm of destruction and annihilation, where I am the supreme ruler, it is only natural that I can see anything within my own realm, like I know the back of my hand. But first, I wait for my hand to regrow, then dash forward, striking against the nearest wolf. I am the hunter, they are the prey. ¡­ Smurf POV: ¡°hey smef, you sure this is a good idea? I mean last time we got rekt pretty bad¡± ¡°hmpf, why should I care what happened last time, I mean last time is already in the past and I couldn''t care less for insignificant things like that¡± ¡°there goes his logic¡± ¡°it always amazes me how he can be so positive¡± ¡°besides, this time we aren''t alone, altho I would have preferred a smaller group, our fame seem to attract adventurers like light attracts mots¡± ¡°i think most of them want to see smef dieing in a funny way¡± ¡°we don''t even know that skeletons level¡± ¡°sure, but I always follow my instincts and they tell me that we got just enough people to do this, as I always say, if there is something you can''t do alone, then you do it with two people, if there...¡± ''''''''not one of his lengthy explanations again... at least he can''t spout other nonsense in these situations'''''''' ... ¡°...and if 74 aren''t enough, then 75 surly are¡± ¡°he actually counted to 75... when did he become so good¡± Dungeon: hungry wolf, Difficulty: F, spawn rate: slow, spawn groups: 1-3 oh, we are already here, just when I finished counting. Looks like that skeleton did a lot of work in there. Dungeons can change there spawn rate when there are a lot of kills. Its like there is a reserve, when you kill something, then from that reserve a new mob will spawn and the reserve slowly regenerates, but when you kill things too fast, then the reserve empties and the dungeon will get ''cleared''. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. There are different types of dungeon, some can even get ''cleared'' for a long time, while in others you can kill as much as you like, but the spawn rate doesn''t change. Anyway, with our big group, or rather raid we should have a decent chance to bring down that irregular mob. We got a few tanks, few melee dps, a few ranged dps and a lot of supporters. When you have a big group like ours against a small single target, then you can''t have too many dps people, you would just stand in each others way and there don''t have to be many tanks, but they have to be the best. We don''t have many mages either, this isn''t a game where you can just cast huge spells in the middle of a crowd and only enemies get damaged. There is friendly fire, so archers are normally better in this kind of situation. Most important are priests with heals and buffs. No one would want his tanks to die. As we advance in the dungeon we can hear fighting from up ahead and we get into formation, tanks in the front, then archers and mages specialized in single target damage, then supporter for the heals and buffs, and the few warrior are mostly for cleaning up wolfs that come too close to our formation when we fight later, we don''t know how long it will take after all. Most people would probably think that 75 people is overkill. Last time we fought with only 5 and we didn''t do too bad, but my instincts are telling me, that it wont be that easy this time. Hehe, there he is. ¡°is that it? The skeleton smurf was talking about?¡± ¡°that thing, it is fighting wolfs and there blood just splatters all over him¡± ¡°a lonely warrior dyed red in the blood of his enemies, how romantic¡± ¡°oi,oi, this is not the time to be impressed! That thing looks dangerous, I never expected smurfs information to be true, looks like even 75 people will have a hard time against that thing¡± ¡°standing alone, only by himself he fought the enemies of his realm until the end, even in death he struggled to defend what was precious to him. Defeating all his foes until he was alone again, for everyone around him was the enemy and the enemy he killed. The bloody warrior bringing doom to all, the crimson reaper¡± ¡°where did we pick up this weirdo?¡± Radi POV: some strange lights enter my range of perception. Humans... accurately guessing long range distances like this is impossible, similar to having one eye closed, but if I had to guess my max range should be about 200m. If an archer could shoot that far I would be completely helpless... they increase in number slowly until there are about 50 or more in my range. Unlike last time where only the general structure was human like, now I can see them fairly detailed inside the endless darkness, slowly approaching my position, while clearing the last few wolfs left between us. However, I still can''t see there armor and weapon. Not that they appear naked to my eye, well in a different sense they are, but its far too indistinct to get distracted. Altho I am fairly indifferent when it comes to how humans look without clothes, my youthful heart isn''t at a level, where I can just ignore worldly affection. I mean you shouldn''t really care about that stuff when you are in a life and death situation to begin with... not that I care about something trifling like life... But enough of this, they are already getting close. There are 5 big guys in the front, who shine especially bright, they should be there tanks. Apparently these 50+ people look like they are well organized. Is this what a raid looks like when you are on the monster side? Heh, interesting. I just hope that these players can put up a good fight, now that I have my actions somewhat under control I wont just mindlessly run into the tanks, but even if I say that I can''t help but feel drawn to them. It''s like having some delicious dessert right in front of you and something health, witch means it tastes bad, somewhere in the back. You know that you should go for the healthy food, but a human doesn''t have sufficient willpower to resist such strong temptation. Just like how I couldn''t reach fulfillment a few hours ago and gave in to my instincts, if I were to fight them now, it wouldn''t do me any good, so I have in fact no other choice but to fight the tanks... I mean seriously there light is shining so bright, it is like they want to invite me to a banquet, not that a primitive life form like light would know what a banquet is... anyway, it would be rude for the host to ignore his quests, who even went to the length of bringing gifts with them. How long has it been since I last had a good fight I wonder? Well, this should be the time where I think up a water proof strategy and declare victory before the game has even begun. You know something like: ''First I attack the tanks like any normal skeleton would do and make them think I am your average brainless undead. When they throw a big move at me, probably a joint attack of the mages I evade at the last moment and break out of the tanks encirclement. This will be the most crucial point, since I have to defend against a strong attack without getting immobilized and I have to resist my instincts for a short time, witch will impact my performance greatly. The problem will be how to detect such a strong attack, since I can only see life and not attacks I will have to keep a close eye on the rangers to detect any unusual movement and predict there attack. ...That doesn''t sound like an easy thing to do, I have no experience with any of these things and the chances that I do something right the first time I try are rather low, at least when the difficulty is at such a high level. So if I fail and cannot avoid the attack I should use the smokescreen that such a big attack surely produces to take out one of the tanks, my biggest advantage will be my stamina, with one less tank there will be more pressure for the two remaining and I can take advantage of that later. Ah, wait there would be four other... how did I get that wrong?'' Plan one: failure! ''I will use magic to blow them all up at once. Oh, right I don''t have mana... no magic'' Plan two: failure! That wasn''t even a Plan! I always knew that something like strategic planing that is actually successful is something that happens only in anime. Witch is an excuse on my side to make it sound like I tried my best to come up with a plan, but am actually to lazy to do so, so I just do whatever I think is best at the moment and I was never wrong with following my intuition. I was never good at planing ahead, whether it is life or just what I would do the next day. I am a very spontaneous person, someone who has no grand plan in his head and just does whatever feels right at the moment. And right now the right thing is to kill these lights. It is not that I want to be the bad guy and kill other players, it is because they are players like me that we are destined to fight like this. In a fantasy world, where the highest form of power is violence there is in fact no other choice, but to fight. To fight for your ambition, your freedom and most importantly, for fun. Altho dieing at the hands of a player skeleton might not be fun for them, it is there misfortune to meet with me in such a place, after all playing this game means leaving your mothers tits(don''t try to imagine, can have negative side effects), where you have to fight on your own without anyone to rely on, that is what it means to be free, the right to forge your own path, that is what man strive for, independence. Ah, darn I lost myself in thoughts again... I told you that thinking is far from good, it is the evil of this world. And this light in front of me, life, is the foundation of thoughts and has to be eliminated alongside the world as a whole. ''clang'' hehe, thank you kind warrior for interrupting my thoughts and letting this chapter progress towards the more interesting parts, where players fight players, undead the living, a lonely sane man against a group of madman, a hero of justice against evil... is what a fantasy game would normally be about I guess, but these kind of things are fun. What I want is not enjoyment, but something interesting. ''bang'' And like a so I take the second hit without being ready. ''oi, you bastards, I wasn''t ready yet.'' Not that a live and death struggle needs the concept of being ready, but a gentleman should always wait for his opponent to be at this best, otherwise it would be difficult to justify, when one loses anyway. Unless you look at anime. Waiting for your opponent to recover from injuries helps making the fight longer and reduces the production costs, witch is also the reason goku takes so long to power up, if it wasn''t for the pressure of the industry, he could have defeated boo on his own... ah, wait that''s not whats important right now. ''crunch'' ohw, &%$¡ì now my left arm is already broken... more importantly, goku would never lose to su... ''scatter'' No! my right leg! ... Smurf POV: ¡­ ¡° oi, smef! care to explain what is going on?¡± ¡°well, we won, right? So where is the next bar? Hahahaha¡± ''ouch'' Skeleton: ''ah, I guess being a skeleton just wasn''t interesting enough for the author...'' and thus a new legend was born, the legend of smurf who defeated the evil skeleton all by himself without letting one of his friend die. The tale of a true hero. Smurf: ''Hehehe, all the loot is mine!'' A/N: abrupt/anti-climatic ending, banzai! This wont be a story, where every dungeon adventure magically ends in a happy ending you know. Actually, at first I had a big fight in mind, but it just didn''t feel right at the moment and I spontaneously decided to go with the flow... (flow? More like laziness :P) And thus the 4 th wall fell... (watching too much gintama lately where the 4 th wall is almost none existent...), hope it doesn''t become a habit. Edit: if u read next chapter right after this... O.o that wasn''t planned, believe me, plz! (I don''t have a plan...) random: sry, I couldn''t stop laughing when I wrote: ''let there be light, and there was light'' calling the bible a fantasy novel. That made my day. idk why tho, its not even funny actually... r-chapter 7: playing normal Do you know the feeling of falling asleep after you drank way too much alk? Your head hurts like crazy and everything seems to be in disarray. However, once you are asleep the world seems to return to its original form. When falling asleep after going through a day of torture that is called hangover, you find yourself in a state similar to how people imagine heaven, a place where everything is better, where happiness reigns supreme. That is how I feel at the moment, after going through more than a week worth of time as a skeleton, players finally managed to destroy me, free me from this curse to hunt light. Now I can have fun again and hunt mobs and raid dungeons like a normal player. Having fun in an inn after successfully completing a challenging quest. Enjoying the beer the sexy waitress serves. Listening to the bard and watching the dancer who shows way too much skin. Showing of your newly forged armor to the noobs in town and feel there amazed gazes on you. Training in the local training hall to test out your new finishing and fishing moves, shouting out its name without having to be embarrassed about it like a kid failing the kamehameha-wave. Reaching a new level with the ''ding'' sound and being able to finally equip that epic item you were lucky enough to get in a treasure box. That is what a normal person like me is supposed to do inside a game-world, having fun. As my grip on this skeletal body slowly fades, I fascinate about what I could do. But is that what I really want? To enjoy myself? I am doing something every human should do once in a while, to ask a question: ''what do I want?'' Well, its not like if found an answer to questions like ''who am I?'' and ''what is the propose of life?'' Still thinking about the things you want to do really helped me with making a lot of decisions in the past. And the best answer I found thus far is that I want to do things that are interesting. By experiencing new things everyday, learning new interesting ways to life, exploring the previously unknown. That is what I want. Do interesting things. In other words my goal is not to enjoy myself, neither do I seek fun or entertainment, all I want is to satisfy my curiosity. Heh, I know you might think that a human should just life his life a bit carefree and have fun, but I destroyed this thinking. About half a year ago. After graduating from school, when I would soon have to make life changing decisions like what job to choose. One of these days I started to think. That''s right, I thought... It was a strange feeling, like waking up from a dream. I started to see the world in a different light and much clearer than ever before. I started to question things like my common sense, morals, ethics and basically everything I learned to that point and a lot of things I took for granted didn''t make any sense anymore. It was as if everything I knew formed a big structure inside my head, a structure that is fundamental to all humans, it can be said that this very structure defines us as human beings, it tells us what to do and what actions to take. When we are born there is no such mindset, it has to build slowly when we grow up, through education. Our parent, school as well as society as a whole teach us, we learn languages, science, morals, ethics, common sense and all in all our surroundings form us. We follow fashion trends, game trends, music trends and just in general do a lot of things the bigger part of humanity does. Even when we try to swim in the opposite direction and do things different, we still can''t leave the river called modern life. Altho we might think of ourselves as one of a kind snowflakes or rebellious genius, in the end we are still part of a bigger whole. We are humans, born as such, live as such and die as such, there is nothing we can do about that. ''What is the porpoise of my life?''. When I hear people say that I can''t help but laugh inwardly. What a joke I tell you, what a joke! Unknown to history someone decided that there has to be a meaning in life and everyone believed him and took that statement into there structure. Just he never said what the meaning was. Then everyone stated to think what they are doing and for what reason, but no one questioned the fact that life has a meaning... ...why? Is what I started questioning. Is it necessary for life to have a meaning, a reason? Is our common sense not nonsense? I started to ask questions a human isn''t supposed to ask, I doubted my fundamentals, what is called human. I started to question myself. However the structure in my head that is called human couldn''t answer the more complicated questions. Then one day I decided to start anew, to destroy the fractured structure inside my head, a mindset that has no way to answer my questions. I gave up on being human, altho biological I still am one, the way I think started to differ from normal people... I started to eat, not because of hunger, but because of a need for nutrition¡¯s. I started to sleep, not because of tiredness, but to relief my fatigue. I started to see, not because my eyes where open, but because I opened my eyes. I lost interest in artificial created things like fun, enjoyment, happiness. Concepts created by humans to forget about there miserable lives. That day I quit being human. I know that this is stupid, that my life became empty. I know that what I do, isn''t what I should do. I should enjoy life with all its ups and downs, live each day as it comes, as a human being. But I choose to forsake my fate, living in happiness would become a thing of the past, the future would bring nothing, nothing but a faint slither of hope, the hope that one day I could return to being a human. Therefore I am an idiot. Living my life as an idiot, I choose to destroy my old mindset and create a new one. To forge my own mindset, something not human nor inhuman, neither angel nor devil, divine nor demonic, blessed nor cursed. A true fundamental structure. I began my journey of seeking. A life in search for true Freedom! ''sight'' making a grand speech while dieing as a skeleton in a dungeon... what a joke. Still, dieing in a place like this seems a bit too boring, rigth? Heh, if you go down, you should at least do so with a bang. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I still haven''t experienced the limitations of an undead. There is more to this then I know, I can feel it. The players around me are slowly fading, there light is about to expire, I have to prevent that, my desire to kill still burns deep inside me. Now that I think about it, why? Where is this destructive nature coming from? Why do undead seek to destroy life? Why are undead born? What is the purpose of us undead? This hatred against all living things. This drive, that tells me to annihilate all that shines. Its as if undead are destruction incarnate. They are just like the dark side of humans. Humans, no, all living beings have a destructive urge since birth to destroy everything around them. Altho they learn to suppress such feelings as infants, since ancient times this nature has never changed and altho suppressed, it is still omnipresent within all creatures and occasionally some would give into there urges and leek that destructive nature into there surroundings. I am the result of these urges, who reside within all beings. Born from the accumulated power over aeons, monsters are born, to give went to instincts humanity has failed to cure. As such a being of destruction it is my mission to destroy everyone. To do so, all I need is to take the power given to me by living beings, beings like these players in front of me, who deep in there heart thirst for destruction. Player1: ''that damn smef! Making up such a grand story and then our opponent dies in one hit?'' Player2: ''he has to pay! Wasting our precious time when the game is still fresh'' Player5: ''if it wasn''t for the fact that PKing has such a high penalty, that wimp would be dead already'' Just like how a god is created by the subconscious prayers of millions, monsters are born from the suppressed feelings of billions, creating the harbinger of death. Player13: ''Lightning should strike him on a cloudless day!'' As a god of destruction I hear your prayer and shall fulfill your wish. I can feel it, the power of destruction, that resides with you, I will use it to bring an end to all light. Just like there is light within all living beings there is also darkness, but the difference between darkness and light is that everyone holds onto the light, using it only for themselves and monopolizing it. the darkness however is something unwanted. Like garbage, it is thrown away and pollutes the surroundings. There is no balance in this world between the opposing factors of light and dark, resulting in an unstable world, a world that has no right to exist, a world that shall be crushed with my hands. I have to gather the darkness in my surrounding, form it into a being of dark that opposes the light. The players around me shine bright, they shine with light, but just like they shine with light, the light doesn''t get out, but is withhold in them. However upon closer observation there is a clear flow of darkness coming from the light and merging into the world. I draw that darkness towards me, giving myself fully up and becoming one with the darkness. I offer my soul to become the medium of god. I let my instincts take over and become one with the world, the world of darkness. Every bone in my body is shaking with the power worthy of a god, bestowed upon me by countless prayers. I still lie on the floor, with bones broken all over the place, but now it is time for my divine judgment. Refined by the will to destroy, I regrow my bones with ease, as if I had done so for millenia. Reborn as a god, I can feel the unlimited power inside me, waiting to be unleashed. Smurf POV: ¡°hahaha, calm down everyone. No need to be so exited about our instant win, such a feet isn''t worth so much praise. I can do something like that before I wake up¡± ¡°its before breakfast... ah wait, that''s not what I meant! I told you to go die, smurf!¡± ¡°ha? I don''t wanna, hmpf¡± Everyone seems to have fun and they are shouting loudly to celebrate our victory, only I don''t quite understand some things they say. It is good to have fun when adventuring, this is a man''s romance! Time to collect the loot, if undead in this dungeon drop anything that is, but such an irregular mob can''t just give nothing, right? Just as I want to turn around to evaluate the loot I feel an ominous presence from behind me. Looks like the event isn''t over just yet, hehehe. As I turn around and look at the skeleton on the ground, that is only a few meters away I can feel my soul quiver. What I see leaves me speechless, around the skeleton is a dark aura forming and envelops the bones from tip to toe. The blood red skull is surrounded by an aura of death, emitting a soul piercing feeling that sends chills down my back. Without being able to come to a decision whether to attack or wait I just stand there dumbfounded and watch the missing or broken bones to grow at a stupid speed This broken mess on the floor slowly stands up. It looks like an eternity passes while the skeleton rises to its feet. Then again, it could also be fast, just that my perception of time is distorted by my fear for this rising undead, who despite being smaller than me gives me a feeling as if I stood before an immeasurable high mountain. To think I would be able to feel fear inside virtual reality and in a game at that. ¡°hahaha¡± this could be fun! ¡°bwahahahaha¡± The first thing I will do, is silence your pathetic laughter. Radi POV: ¡°hahaha¡± ¡°bwahahahaha¡± this could be interesting! The first thing I shall do, is end your pathetic lives. A/N: deep <- is what one of you might think, but this chapter is nothing compared to what i have in stock :P ¡­ seriously I didn''t plan to have a fight scene... after I wrote last chapters A/N, I thought... yeah right I started thinking, and that was my mistake... a wonderful mistake that created this chapter, bwhahahaha this chapter is slightly confusing, but the mc is quite confused as well... a shitload of explanation in this chapter... how dungeons work, monsters spawn, gods are created... r-chapter 8: God? The birth of a god... What is a god? God is merely a word, something lowly like a word could never express what I truly am. So even if something like sovereign, devil, demon, angel, tyrant was closer to what I truly am, then that description would be still far away from reality. Words are nothing more than tools for mortals to communicate with one another. To think a god would need such lowly means to think, well I guess a newborn god is still far from perfect, but I will eventually abandon these shackles called words and reach true godhood. But then again, does that even matter? The meaning of words I mean, does it matter what a god is? Does it matter what a human is? No, it doesn''t. I am radi, something that could be described with both the words human and god, yet can a human be god and a god be human? Words are confusing, they are weak, they don''t have a solid definition to them, they change with time and depending on where you are, people use words differently and even use totally different languages. I never liked talking, because it didn''t matter whether my thought had any sense to them or not, for when you use words to transmit your thoughts, they become meaningless. No, even before that, thinking is meaningless, since thinking requires the use of words. Human learn language not only to speak, but more importantly they use it to think. That limits humans, they think only in a confined space of words. If you want to think about something new, you would have to create new words, but that too is meaningless, since you would be the only person able to understand them. But does it even matter for other people to understand you? Do you think, to be understood by others, or do you think, to understand others, the world around you? I don''t care about other people understanding me, for the words I can use to communicate with them have no meaning to begin with. We learn the meaning of words when we listen to our parents before we can even walk, later when our teacher tells us about more complicated things and through books we are able to understand things that aren''t even within our reach, things that the book is talking about without any evidence at all. However, everyone has different parents, different teachers, different cultures, different social standings, reads different books. The meaning of words is different for every person in the world. So it is not the word''s job to tell use the truth, it is our job as readers and listeners to interpret words and sentences and figure out there meaning, whether that meaning is in the authors intention or not doesn''t matter at that point, since the author doesn''t understand the meaning of others words and others have no way to understand an author. So, what is a god? In western culture, a lot think of god as some kind of old man who has some kind of mystical power or something and is a lone god. In eastern culture there are often multiple gods who all have there own special things to do. So what do I mean, when I say god... to me, the word god has no meaning, it is beyond my comprehensive ability to understand what gods are in this VR-world. All I know is that this feeling I have currently, this feeling of absolute power can only be describe as godlike, who else but a god could defy natural laws and live free from mortal boundaries? Only a god has such rights! The right to decide his own fate, the right to stand above mortals and decide there fate, the right to judge is a gods true power, for what a god decides is law. I, as the god of destruction have but one law, the extermination of all that is light. Laws are something absolute, something that cannot be broken. The human way to use the word law is basically wrong, with the intention of making something fragile seem powerful. Lets say, you aren''t allow to steal... you can still steal easily, just that you get punished for it, if you get caught that is. If you try to go against the laws of gravity... you get punished by falling on your nose. Human laws are in fact just rules. The law of a god however, is to be followed whether someone wants or not. The opinion of the affected party is meaningless, for the only option is to obey. The communication via language is weak, but the communication with actions is powerful. Unlike words, actions have a clear intention. If you say you are no virgin, then you can be either one or not, you can lie about it, but whether you lie about it or not doesn''t change reality. Actions however, have the power to change things, after you have sex you are no longer a virgin, whether you say that or not doesn''t matter at that point. So instated of rambling on with words, let my actions speak for me. So without further ado, I have to enforce my divine laws upon this mortal world. To do so, I gather the surrounding darkness, the prayers of mortals to slay every living being. Concentrating the darkness, I will it to form a black sword and have it manifest inside the material plane, where mortals dwell. That is the one downside of being god. The divine are transcendent being, but in order to pass on judgment they have to enter the filthy realm of mortals. I create my divine tool of judgment, a sword of darkness, consisting of my surrounding energy, the prayers of mortals to perish from this plane of existence. To be released from there anguish, that is every beings wish. The only way to achieve such ultimate freedom is in death, only when one ceases to exist, will one leave the shackles of the world behind. The material manifestation of my divine blade inside the mortal realm is exactly that. A tool to create freedom, independence, to let ignorant souls reach enlightenment by leaving the world. As the heir of dark I raise my sword and approach the light to give it my love. In a crescent arc my blade descents towards the first being. When the light and dark come into contact, sparks fly wildly about and the struggling light fights against my will. Like a child trowing a tantrum the useless struggle comes to an end and the surface of the light eclipses in dark cracks until it gets extinct like a candle in a whirlwind. Nothing remains of the light and darkness takes over the world, however I can''t let my believers wait too long and slash at the remaining lights. Like a farmer his wheat with a sickle, I cut down the light in front of me with a sword and just like a farmer wouldn''t bother to look back to count how many stems he already left behind him on the ground, I proceed onwards without looking back. ''sparkle'' oho, looks like there is a tree in my wheat field. My opponent has a glowing shield in his hand to block my assault, guess this player has a paladin type class. But does this fool truly believe that his imitations could stand up against a genuine god? In your dreams. I increase my pressure with the sword slightly and the shield alongside its wielder gets split in half. Well, looks like it was just a bamboos tree... ¡­ Some time later, or maybe a few seconds, but the concept of time is a rather vague one for gods to begin with. Anyway, there are only 5 players left, the same 5 players I encountered previously and slaughtered easily when I was still a mortal, so how do they think they can defeat me now? I shouldn''t even bother to fight them normally and just annihilate them on the spot... As a god of destruction, I have absolute control over the darkness, for I am dark and dark is me, however as a novice god my area of influence is limited to a small space. Only within a small area can I control the darkness and absorb it into a definite from. This area of control is called a god''s divine realm, it is a space, where the laws of this god are absolute. I abandon the form of a sword and skeleton, let the bones crumble lifeless on the floor and take shape as a cloud of doom, slowly approaching those who dare mock me and rebel against my reign. Without the use of a sword as a medium of interaction, I will me to attack the light directly. The few remaining wolfs in an area of several hundred meters get extinct almost instantly and the surface of the players starts to wither. Cracks form and long black valleys cover there surface, I invade through these cracks and enter there inwards, to completely destroy them from within. Smurf POV: 70 of our comrades died already to this mob, only the great us are left, but this time it looks like even we are unable to do anything but re-spawn. Stolen story; please report. Even tho the skeleton crumbled a second ago, the dreadful feeling is only increasing. From the corner of my eye I can see wolfs die as if slain by a ghost and moments later something creepy approaches me. I can''t see it, nor hear it, but I can feel the cold aura of death touching my skin and altho I still wear armor it feels like I am naked in front of this ominous power. A tremor runs through my body and cold sweet pours out of every corner in my body. ''Die'' is a voice whispering to me. I can''t hear it with my ears nor with my mind, but within my soul. ''Vanish'' it is not telling my flesh and blood to rot, but my very being to disappear from this world forever. ''Begone'', my existence as a being is in danger. However, for some strange reason, it doesn''t feel bad, like a long forgotten wish is finally fulfilled. My instincts are telling me to accept this destiny. I am not sure what I should do, like a middle-schooler asking for his first date. I just go with the flow and trust in the darkness. I entrust my fate to someone else... ¡­wait, I am not quite sure why, but something is telling me that this is wrong. But isn''t it the right thing to trust others? Only if there is someone you can trust from the bottom of your heart will you be able to experience the feeling of not being alone, depending on others is what makes us human, gives us the power to stand up to anything. So by trusting this feeling, I will ultimately reach fulfillment and be together with it forever, being one with death. Doesn''t sound so bad right, eternal happiness. Still, why does it feel like a part of me is rejecting this ideal world? How could a child possibly reject the warm embrace of its parents? ¡°Ahhhhh!¡± huh? Zwarg, do you feel anguish? Don''t you like this feeling, my friend... Right, friend... I trust my friends, be it with my life or death, my friend are those I trust unconditionally, not some kind of mob in a dungeon. Only my friends have the right to be with me for eternity, not the darkness of the world. I don''t care about things like happiness, sadness, nor anything else, as long as I can be together with my friends. That is all that matters. And a lowly being like you has no right to destroy our bond! By awakening my wrath, you have chosen doom as your sole fate. Those who threaten me and my friends are my enemy! Radi POV: my opponents still struggle uselessly against my divine will. I try to invade further, but just as I advance, there is a strong counter force. The darkness inside them suddenly vanishes, and I lose all control over the darkness in the immediate surrounding of those 5, where a bright aura of light rejects everything. I retreat to a safe distance and concentrate my being back into a small body of a skeleton. How did this happen? How come mere mortals have the power to eradicate a divine being? I don''t understand this... I don''t have to understand it, understanding this would in fact be meaningless. All that matters is that this is interesting. To think a game would be able to provide such an interesting content, hehehe, guess I was right to play this game. I gather as much of my surrounding darkness as there is still left after there light expanded outwards like crazy. With the remaining pieces I form my sword again, I really like katana-style longswords. The lights opposing me some dozen meters away glow with a bright aura and illuminate even there surrounding, they look almost like they are just one person and not 5 individuals, there auras perfectly sync with one another and give of the feeling of numeric supremacy that would normally only originate from an army. Altho I can''t see there eyes, there gaze seems to pierce straight through space into my very existence, threatening to extinguish me. As if by a common understanding, we both start moving at the same time and with a sword of light and dark, clash in the middle, creating a wild maelstrom of opposing elements, distorting space and time like paper. My whole body trembles violently, while our blades cross between us and not only my material manifestation takes damage, but even my ethereal consciousness takes a huge blow. Damaging the true form of a god should be impossible, but yet this being in front of me has the ability to kill me. Wherever my black sword passes by, light gets extinguished, but wherever his glowing blade strikes, I vanish. We both continue to hack at each other like madman in an attempt to kill before being killed, but something feels strange, I can feel me getting weaker with every hit, yet why is it that he seems to become stronger by the second? The darkness surrounding me is limited, but the light of my opponent seems to have an infinite supply that comes from withing. Like a spring can supply the biggest river, and fill a desert with life, this person has the ability to overpower the darkness of the world, oppose it and wash it away like a river. My existence gets illuminated by the light and my consciousness dwindles at an alarming rate until my entire vision gets white and I lose the ability to be... A/N: smurf OP, plz nerf ahhhhhhhh! This is shitty, the more words I use to write my story, the less meaning it has... but I am bad at using just the right amount of words... oh I know, if I don''t write anything, then all the meaning would still be there, bwahahhaa... wait, then it would be meaningless to write, because no one could read it... do u believe in the meaning of words, the meaning of live? Jk, or am ''I''? What does this ''I'' even mean, who am I?, this ominous person writing a bunch of nonsense... PS: words, that have a meaning, they didn''t originally have (not that I know there original or current one...because that would be meaningless): most curse words originate from some kind of disease, minority with bad/wrong reputation, other things... (the problem is kids(when I say kids, I mean people/idiots of all ages who aren''t mature...) use them innocently without bad intention... because they don''t know there real meaning. Those that do know and still use them are the real jerks) all other words... just say a word and think about what it means, meant and will mean. Totally meaningless if you ask me. Thinking that is... for example, black people, there are about as many ways to say that as there are languages, mohr, niger...some are offensive for obvious reasons and others are not... but niger is just the latin word for black and mohr is also from some older language... yet over time the meaning has change. I am not an expert in this field, I never was in a situation where I had to differentiate between people based on there skin color... but let me give you an example for a rather ridiculous(in my humble opinion) example: maximum pigmented... wtf? So many pigments that the skin is black or what is that supposed to mean? Political correctness ftw... I don''t think I said anything racist, but if someone does think so, then it amazes me, how that person managed to read my story this far without having there brain fried first... and no I won''t apologize for something meaningless, since an apology would have no meaning in the first place... still you have to be really careful nowadays what you say, people get offended over nothing... but it isn''t the talker that is in the wrong, but the listener who doesn''t understand the meaning.(in most cases) then there are also overused words like sorry and thanks, that people use left and right like they are cheap... its seriously annoying! doesn''t mean you shouldn''t use them tho, but not for everything... btw... the tag gender indifference doesn''t mean that there are no gender related themes(don''t ask me why I used that virgin example), it just doesn''t matter witch gender I am talking about.... on that note, don''t be surprised when people get introduced without gender... just imagine it yourself, create a harem if you want :P might lead to strange scenes :) meaninglessly long A/N... actually most A/N start like this and shortly before posting them I just delete everything O.o is there anyone interested in my random trash talk?(in other words, did anyone read till this question mark?) so many meaningless things this chapter... ok, the first to post a meaningful comment gets a cookie.