Adam woke up with a loud yawn. He stretched his arms above his head and groaned slightly before shaking his head and jumping off from the bed. The young man was twenty-five years old and lived alone in quite a large house in a semester resort in Spain. It might sound strange for someone so young to live alone, but as a matter of fact, his background was nothing of the ordinary.
His parents were extremely wealthy, showering and pampering him endlessly without stop. Seeing their son have such talent for archery when he got second place in last year’s Olympics, they immediately bought him a house here in Spain and gave him the chance to focus on archery. He took it without batting an eye. Here, far away from new york, he could live his own life without having to ask his parents before doing things.
“Where did I put the cereals? Che, this might actually be the only reason I miss home…”
He grabbed a bowl from one of the shelves and poured up some milk inside it. After ten minutes of searching and scrambling around inside the house, Adam finally got seated at the table. Floating in the bowl on top of the table were blotches of soon not crispy flakes. He quickly finished scooping up the brown cereals, and then drank up the remaining milk which was smitten by the sweet taste of the flakes. It was delicious!
Feeling ready for a new day of Ragnarok, Adam went to plug the virtual reality helmet on top of his bed.The exquisite, thin helmet shone with a silvery light as he put it onto his head. He opened a window and lay himself down to rest, getting ready to wake up inside a new world.
The servers would open at six in the morning and close at twelve in the evening. This was for the north American server he played in. Europe and Asia and Africa, among other regions and zones, were timed differently, and therefore couldn’t possibly have the same downtime the northern America's server.
There were about a million people in North America that received pre-copies. Although not everyone who wanted could have, the top brass received their helmets and was, therefore, satisfied. The competition was fierce for the rest of the helmets, and it was only because of his influential, rich parents that he could get one of these google virtual reality helmets with Ragnarok stored within.
<
“No problem!”
He passed the time by contemplating on how he was going to recreate his real body configuration inside the game. His strength, stamina, speed and so on wouldn’t be the same, but if he got the same ratio as in reality, he could probably make use of the Archer class better than other players. That was one of the main reasons to why he refused to spend his allocated stat points immediately after entering the game. He needed time to think.
<
He closed his eyes, and after a moment opened them again. What greeted him, instead of an oak-brown roof of wood, was a clear blue sky in which white, angelic clouds roamed freely. Adam chuckled at the beautiful sight while making his way to the field of brown dogs. He was ready to hunt dogs, and he was ready to level up!
“Summon Hercules!”
To his command, the little, brown dog materialized by his side. And again, like last time, it rubbed itself against him affectionately. Adam laughed and stroked Hercule’s head. The trauma from last day was gone, or rather, there was no trauma, just his own silliness!
“Let’s start the grinding!” He said triumphantly. “It shouldn’t be that hard to level up in the early game!”
Adam brought the bow to his hands and found a brown dog further away down the field.
“Hercules!” He yelled, pointing his finger to the dog. “Use reckless charge!”
The dog, Hercules, barked furiously in response. It crouched down and then sprinted away. Its speed was rather fast, probably moving in about twenty-five or thirty miles per hour. Of course, one had to take into account that this was a skill and not its original speed. All in all, it was very fast. Although it wasn’t close to the speed of a jaguar or racing dog, it was very fast. And not to mention, it was but level one. Thinking about Hercules in higher levels, or even other mobs on a higher level, Adam felt shivers creep along his spine. How terrifying!
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He loaded up an arrow and released it.
(-3)
The arrow hit the dog and was shortly after accompanied by the agile cannonball called Hercules.
(-4)
With two attacks, over half of the brown dog’s hp was shaved off. In most other virtual reality games, this would be an impossibility since the early stages of those game were very hard. In Ragnarok, however, it was a bit different. Adam guessed that the experience gained from killing each mob was significantly lesser here than in those other games. Maybe the ratio was one to hundred, or even one to two hundred. Adam was unsure about this matter as he had yet to kill even a single mob.
(-3)
The brown dog’s attack hit Hercules. It was a bite to the throat. In real life, this attack would have been fatal, life-threatening to say the least. But in games, these attack merely reduced one’s hp. And when one lost hp, one would die. But in return, as long as one had even one point of health, he or she wouldn’t die.
“Swish!” Another arrow was fired off, hitting the dog with a dull thump.
<< 2 experience gained from killing a Lvl 1 brown dog>>
The dog’s red eyes slowly lost all color and its body slowly faded into dust, swept away by the wind. On the ground lay a piece of glimmering copper and a small, five centimeters long or so a slab of meat. Adam went and plucked it up, then putting it into his inventory. He inspected the meat slab the beast dropped.
– Item name: Dog Jerky
– Quality: Common
– Effect: Restores 10 hp upon consumption
“In other words, this dog jerky is like a health potion?” pondered Adam in deep thought. “Anyway, my body here seems quite accustomed to battle, but I feel that the ratio between strength, agility is a bit bad. On the other hand, that’s not very strange considering I have one point in each attribute.
Adam opened his character screen and added two points to strength, one to agility and two to spirit. He moved around a bit and drew back and forth the bowstring a bit. After doing some jumps and stretches, he confirmed his thoughts.
“Strenght is how much power I can use, and is essential to pulling the bowstring quickly and efficiently. Agility should be my movement speed and reaction time. Therefore, dexterity should affect how nimble I am as well as my coordination of my hands, fingers and so on. But I can’t be completely sure yet.” confirmed Adam.
He gazed around the field, trying to perceive everything around him.
“Spirit seems to affect my eyes, improving my sight. In other games, spirit affects health and mana regen as well, so that might be the case. We’ll see once I take some damage.”
Adam ordered Hercules to attack another brown dog. After about ten seconds, the dog was defeated, falling dead exactly like the previous one. It was a shame, though, that the dog didn’t drop anything. The only thing he received from killing the mob was a lump of experience to his experience bar. It was barely filled to one percent. He would at the barest minimum have to kill two hundred brown dogs before leveling up to Lvl one.
“Well, I got nothing else to do today either way!” Adam grinned and sent Hercules towards another brown dog. “Hercules, use reckless charge!”
... “Finish it off with bite!”