When I open them, I see a wonderful sight.
A blue and white, pearlescent room.
“I’m finally here.”
New world online, the VRMMORPG game from the anime series Bofuri.
As a VRMMO genre anime, it, objectively, wasn't that good.
The game balancing was absolute ass, like seriously, why do custom items on the first floor cost millions of gold, and why does it take so little time for a brand new player to gather that much money.
Remove some zero’s or something, and maybe it’ll make more sense.
Also, why are the “unique” weapons and gear still viable all the way to the seventh floor, with some rare exceptions. Like Kouromu getting new armor later, and the custom sheep outfits.
And the random, obscure ass quest conditions. How is anyone expected to figure that shit out?
Like the machine god quest, Maple just so happens to stumble across the gear on the second floor that allows her to complete that quest, it makes no sense.
But for a slice of life anime. It’s awesome.
It’s a group of friends who go on wacky adventures and have fun in a video game. The concept itself is wonderful.
And the way it's portrayed is also great. They have episodic adventures to collect items and venture into dungeons, to get better for the occasional events, which are surprisingly unique.
Which means it's perfect for me to become someone in game, and make some real friends.
But I guess it's time to create my character.
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Choose a name
[---]
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“A name huh”
‘Hmm, I guess I’ll choose Flak for this one’
When I played other mmos, I used a wide range of names for every one I played, but Flak was one of the ones I enjoyed more.
“Aaaaand confirm”
Soon after, a Mirror appeared in front of me along with a notification asking if I wanted to alter my appearance.
Reflected in front of me, was a Japanese man that stood at 5’ 9”, with a very lanky looking frame and thin body, along with very fair, pale skin. With long, straight black hair that fell down to his upper back. And piercing blue eyes that weren’t pale like the sky, but deep like the ocean.
“Not to bad if I say so myself”
I select “no” on the prompt, and move on to the next prompt after the mirror disappears.
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Choose a starting weapon
*Choose carefully, this choice will heavily influence your playstyle because you will be locked to only that weapon and its offshoots*
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Looking around I see weapons of all sorts, a single longsword, short sword and buckler, bow, hammer, small sword and greatshield, greataxe, greatsword, spear, long dagger, rapier, two crossed knives, mage’s wand, crystal orb, and a grimoire.
“Wow, that is a lot of options”
Now, my choice was heavily influenced by what stats I would choose next and my knowledge of the show.
There is one thing aside from the stupid amounts of luck that Maple, the main character, has that sets her apart from the rest of the competition.
An Extreme build.
In NWO, an extreme build is what you call someone who has put all of their stat points into only one stat.
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That's what I’m going to do.
I could just exactly replicate what Maple did, and get strong that way, but that would hurt my pride and make me feel bad.
I also think I want to join Maple tree or Order of the Holy Sword. And if I remove Maple from the equation, I don’t think either would truly exist as it does in the show.
I haven't been religiously playing and practicing at MMOs since I was 12, just to copy someone else now.
There were two examples of an extreme build in the show of extreme builds.
A Vitality build, and a Strength build.
And neither of them appealed to me.
For a while, I had wanted to do a DEX build, and be an extreme range sniper.
I didn’t even consider INT for that long, I think being a mage is boring.
(A/N: You have no idea how badly I wanted to make the MC a necromancer. But, my other idea was more fleshed out and interesting. *sigh*)
But there were ultimately two factors that changed my decision.
Potential, and Speed.
One of the main issues that extreme build players experience, is being extremely slow because they have 0 AGI
And I absolutely can’t stand being slow.
I just hate it so much.
So I will be doing an extreme AGI build.
I decided to make up for a lack of survivability by dodging, killing, and running away before the enemies can damage me.
And for lack of strength, I can just substitute it with high damage weapons and skills.
And what I mean by potential is this. AGI, alongside movement speed, dictates attack speed.
And some people who show just how busted the AGI stat is, are Dred, and Sally.
Their insane game skill and high attack and move speed make them easily some of the strongest players in the game.
If not for outliers like Payne, Maple, and Mii. They probably would be the strongest.
And my game skill is likely even better than theirs is.
I think I’ve been playing games for longer than dred, and I also think I’ve been playing them almost longer than Sally has been alive.
I’ve also just had a really good reaction time and amazing reflexes since I was a kid, not to toot my own horn.
So I think if anyone could pull off an extreme AGI build, it would be me.
So what does this have to do with my weapon choice, you ask?
Well, knowing what my general fighting style should be like, I can heavily narrow down my options.
Nothing with shields, and nothing that requires high strength to utilize effectively, like greatswords.
No magic, obviously. No consumable weapons either, like kunai or traps like that Marx fella’.
Not daggers either surprisingly. Apparently the stealth skills scale off DEX.
So that leaves me with a few options. Bows, which surprisingly only distance scales of DEX, longsords, spears, dual knives, and rapiers.
Out of all of these, dual knives and longswords are out, because I’m trying to be original here. I’m not going to replicate Dred, Sally, Shin, or Kasumi.
So I'm left with Bows, Spears, and Rapiers, all very surprising options.
I’m not the biggest fan of swords in general, so that gets rid of rapiers.
So after all that, I’m left with Bows, and Spears.
But it all comes down to variety, and cost effectiveness.
If I did a bow build, it would have to be an arrow storm build, where I’m shooting hundreds of arrows every second, which, even though its sounds cool as hell-
It also seems expensive as hell.
And for variety, there are only a few types of bow, such as recurve and long, compared to the spear, which is the most varied medieval weapon.
So, the absolute underdog, coming from out of the blue, the spear, is my choice for a weapon.
It may seem like there is a problem of not having enough strength to use it to its maximum potential, but you can two-hand spears which gives me enough leeway to use all but the most heavy spear sub-types.
But the main advantages the spear holds is in its penetrating abilities, and wide variety of subtypes it has that I can use.
If I am moving very fast, and hit an enemy with the spear, it is probably just as, if not more, effective as just thrusting it very hard.
And the types I could use, from spears, halberds, and lances, to Scythes, Bo-staves, and Naginatas. They all likely fall under spears and spear subtypes.
It also means I could build a massive collection of all the different types of spears, which sounds super fun.
“So, it looks like the spear is my choice of weapon.”
I press the spear option and the other illusionary weapons fade away, leaving me with only a basic spear resting in my hand.
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Distribute stats
You have been allotted 100 status points for the character creation stage
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I immediately put all 100 points into AGI
“No point in backing out now, if it sucks I’ll just remake my character later.”
After I press confirm, the world around me fades to white.
And fades back in to show me the scene of a homely fantasy starting town, with a great tree in the middle.
All around me I can see groups of players and NPCs walking around me.
“Impressive”
Deep-dive tech, being so new, only had a few fully built worlds that I knew of that looked as good as NWOs world looked, so it was impressive to see it with my own eyes.
I look down at myself and see a pair of black, sturdy trousers, and a tan shirt to complete the outfit.
In my hands was the spear that I had chosen as my starting weapon.
“Lookin’ good, looking good.”
I open up my status screen to see If I can get a read on my baselines abilities.
Status
Flak
LV. 1
Stats
HP 12/12
MP 12/12
[ STR- 0 < +20 > ]
[ VIT- 0 ]
[ AGI- 100 ]
[ DEX- 0 ]
[ INT- 0 ]
Equipment
Head [--]
Body [ Townsfolk shirt ]
Right Hand [ Beginner’s spear ]
Left Hand [ Beginner’s spear ]
Legs [ Townsfolk pants ]
Shoes [--]
Accessories [--]
Skills
None
It was a bit disheartening to see I had no skills, but I guess it makes sense seeing as I just created this character.
“I think that +20 I have in strength is from my beginners spear, which also insinuates that there is nothing going for me in ways of defense from my townsfolk clothes.”
‘I’ll probably just take a quick look around town and get a lay of the area before I log off for today. I spent quite a while figuring stuff out for character creation, and I started pretty late in the day, so it’s almost time I go to sleep to fully start getting into it tomorrow.’
When I go to start exploring and walking around, I immediately notice something is off.
“God, I’m so fucking fast.”
I am absurdly fast, even just walking around.
‘I guess it makes sense though, Maple, with a bit over 250 VIT, was able to completely nullify physical attacks from the poison dragon, one of the stronger bosses on the 1st floor, even after her shield broke, with her only taking damage from the poisoning.’
‘So I guess it makes sense that I’d be so fast, even with only 100 AGI’
When I start walking around again, I end up exploring the whole town much faster than I thought I would.
I found skill scroll shops, a merchant bazaar, and even the cafe that Maple and Sally loved going to so much.
I stopped in there to have a drink, it was pretty good, and after that, I decided to log out for the day and get some shut-eye.
“My true journey starts tomorrow.”