When I was still in school, I really thought to myself, I can do what my teacher does. I really want to help people learn! I very much regret that decision now. Teaching was repetitive. The new students tended not to care and the ones that did ended up leaving after a year anyways. Then I had a wonderful dream. A beautiful, glowing goddess descended upon an open plains and offered to take me with her on the full moon, to a new place of adventure and excitement. I woke up from excitement, coming back to reality in ever increasing disappointment. Looking out my window to the waning moon further disappointed me. I sighed and went back to bed. It's Sunday. I still had to teach tomorrow.
I was up before the sun and out the door with coffee in hand when it finally rose. I arrived at the nameless community college I worked at by seven. The college wasn't actually nameless, of course, but it was just like any other community college. The lower end of them anyways. A place for the bottom feeders in society to get some degree of government funded education before they waste their lives on some meaningless job and barely make enough to support a few pets. Not every student is absolutely terrible, though. There are some who are stupid, but actually try to learn. Like my favorite this year, Sarah Welsh.
"Hi professor Hearth!"
I swiveled my head towards the voice that called out to me while I was unlocking my door. Speak of the devil. Well, it was bound to happen, she has classes at 7:30. Every morning she comes to talk about the day before.
"Good morning, Sarah." I wave for her to come into my room. After we both get seated she starts to talk about her weekend and asks for the solutions to some of her problems. Finally she gets to the interesting part of every morning.
"So I finally managed to clear a seven star dungeon on Saturday and among the loot was a fire element Black Swan. Since you're the best Tamer I know, would it be better to raise that up or keep my max level Fire Lizard?" Sarah and I play an MMORPG called Domain of Terratros. It has around twenty million players world wide and an international ranking system. I am ranked in the ten thousands. When wording it like that, it doesn't sound quite as impressive, but I am in the top .5%. My class is Monster Tamer, while Sarah is a Mage.
"Sarah, you specialize in water magic, why do you have a Fire Lizard as your pet? Every time one of you AOEs anything, the other's attack will get cancelled. You know that, right?" One of the rules in Domain is large scale magic will destroy an opposite elements projectile spells. A fireball will not make it through a wave attack and an ice shard will not make it through an inferno. Also, opposite large scale elemental magics will cancel each other, making pvp combat very interesting. Of course, this applies to allies as well. Making Sarah an idiot. But as I said before, at least she tries.
"It was the first pet that I got that wasn't a slime. Do you know how long it took me to get a pet that wasn't made of jelly? Until I managed my first five star dungeon! That took months!" Sarah took a quick look at her watch before standing up abruptly. "Whoops! I gotta go. Three minutes to get to class. See you at lunch! Bye!" I sighed. I won't be able to do anything for another five hours. To pass the time, I will explain the various systems in Domain.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
There are several classes, starting with the basics and branching out from there. The reason Domain became popular is because of the amazingly balanced multi-classing system. There are ten skill trees, each starting with three branches and getting far more diverse from there, there are over 1000 different skills in game, and all of them can be learned. Theoretically anyways. Even the number one player only made it to 600 after three years. You are considered a certain class by the system depending on how many skill points are in a tree. If you have 40% more skill points in a tree than the second highest tree, and if it's any closer than that, you are multi-classing. Most characters end up dual-classing or tri-classing. Some of the adventurous ones will even quad-class. Anyone who does more than that is an idiot. The reason is because higher tier skills are much stronger than bottom tier ones. And since you can only use one skill at a time, having 5 really weak attacks will not beat one really strong attack, regardless of cost effectiveness.
There is no level cap. Even though there are a limited amount of skills to learn, the final skill for each branch can be strengthened endlessly. It is how I, who already maxed out the rest of the monster Tamer tree, managed to not multi-class even though I am a high enough level to reach the final skill for several trees. The final skill for the Monster Tamer tree is an increase in max monster cap. Meaning for every skill point in, I have another monster out on the field. Right now, the skill level is above 100. Imagine a legion of 100 dragons descending upon your puny life. Just thinking about it makes me laugh.
"Professor?" (Student whose name I don't remember)
"Ahem. Anyways, back to absolute values..."
Maybe I shouldn't think of anything funny for now. By the time I look up at the clock it's already time for class to end. I was probably happier than the students at this point, but I don't care. Time for Domain! I jump online and see Sarah is also on. Like always. We go to clear some dungeons for an hour before I have to return to my normal routine. I sigh as I think of the week before me.
*One month later*
Whoo! Finally beat the hardest dungeon in the game. I should sleep. Well crap, it's Monday morning. But didn't I start the raid on Saturday? That means I played twenty, no thirty hours? And I have to teach today...
I look out my window into the night sky. I feel like I'm forgetting something. HOLY CRAP!
"Hi there!" A beautiful woman shows up in front of my face. She came from nowhere.
"How did you even? When did you? WHAT?" She crossed her arms and pouted.
"You don't even remember me. I even went through all that trouble to contact you on the last full moon. I said I'd take you to a better place and you said yes. Remember?"
"... no-"
"Too bad!" She tackles me and the only way I can describe what happened is we rolled through time and space.