Moving through the character menu to the skills section, a long list of mage class skills became visible to Astaria.
Skill in Caelus Online could be divided into four types. Taking the [Fireball] spell as an example, at low levels you can only acquire the basic [Fireball Lv 1] spell. Once acquired, it can be upgraded to become more powerful by using additional skill points.
Next were skill add-ons. For the fireball skill, it has an add-on called [Blast] which causes an explosion that can be activated after the [Fireball] hits. Like with the [Fireball] skill, it could also be upgraded with skill points.
Third were Peak Skills. They could only be acquired after maxing out the level of all the previous skills. For the basic fireball spell, the [Absolute Fireball] skill improves the damage of the previous skills, as well as adding burning damage over time on someone if they were hit.
The last type was known as a passive boost skill that would boost the stats and abilities of a player. The mage class had access to 3 of these skills, the first called [Vitality Boost] which is available to all classes upon reaching the required level to unlock, boosts the VIT stat by 10, adding 100 hp.
The next which was available to a few classes that could freely use magic was called [Casting] which decreased the casting time for the player by a large percentage.
The last one available to the mage is the [Power Boost] skill which gives a small percentage boost to the player's WIS stat.
Quickly Scrolling through the various skill trees, Astaria spent 5 Skill Points to obtain the skill [Fireball Lv1] and her remaining 5 points to gain [lightning Lv1].
[Fireball Lv1]
[Launches a small orb of fire towards the targeted location.
MP cost: 27
Cast time: 2s
Cooldown: 10s
Damage: (WIS x 250%) + ((Main hand weapon attack + Sub weapon attack) x 50%)
Additional effects: User DEF + 5% for 2s
Chance to inflict: {Stun} {Trip}]
[Lightning Lv1]
[Strikes the targeted location with a bolt of lightning from above.
MP cost: 30
Cast time: 1s
Cooldown: 10s
Damage: (WIS x 300%) + ((Main hand weapon attack + Sub weapon attack) x 100%)
Additional effects: Target movement speed - 5% for 1s
Chance to inflict: {Stun}]
Happy with her selection of skills, Astaria put her remaining Attribute Points into INT and WIS bringing them both up to 25. Now moving on to the Forerunner Edition benefits, she opened her inventory and pulled out a wooden box. In the inventory this item was labelled as the ‘Mysterious Box’, but to Astaria who had already received this item once before when she first started the game, it was not all that mysterious.
Opening it, she found a white egg with grey spots. This was a pet egg. In Caelus Online Pets could not fight and were usually used for their utility skills or just treated like a pet. With a large number of female players in the game, there was a quite large market for cute pets, however, due to the limited number of cute pets being sold, one could occasionally stumble upon a rare snippet of in-game entertainment of two or more overly enthusiastic women fighting outside of stores for the limited stock.
Inspecting the egg, a screen popped up in her vision.
[Mysterious Egg]
[A Mysterious Egg laid by an unknown creature. Time to hatch: 4 days]
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Suppressing her curiosity, Astaria put the egg back inside her inventory. Next, she pulled out a small, green chest. This was a random uncommon equipment box, and it will give one random piece of uncommon equipment.
In Caelus Online, like many fantasy MMO’s in the past, the gear players can acquire in game was ranked by quality. The quality could be differentiated by the item's colour within the system menus and was ranked as follows.
White - common
Green - uncommon
Blue - rare
Purple - epic
Yellow - legendary
Red - world boss tier
Dark red - mythic
As the rarity of the item increased, the strength and quality of the materials it was made from also increased. For example, common swords were usually made from iron or poor-quality steel, while epic items were generally made from mithril.
Hoping that the equipment she received was going to be useful to her planned build, Astaria closed her eyes as she opened the box, wishing for a favourable item. Hearing the ding of a system notification, Astaria opened her eyes.
[Acquired Uncommon Black Robe]
Checking her inventory she quickly found the robe and read its information.
[Uncommon Black Robe]
[A basic Black Robe used by mages: INT +2, DEF +1]
“Hmm, not bad…”
Standing up, Astaria took the Black Robe out from her inventory and put it on. The robe covered her shoulders and reached down to the back of her calf, while her clothes underneath were left exposed from the front. Unlike other games, Caelus Online pursued realism to the extreme so required players to manually put on equipment.
Sitting back down, Astaria opened the beginner's pack next and acquired basic weapons for the mage class, a staff made from a twisted branch around 1.5 meters tall and a dull iron short sword. There were also 3 health potions, 3 mana potions, 3 loaves of bread, and a waterskin inside. After equipping the short sword to her waist and equipping the staff in her menus, she looked at the last item.
[Cosmetic Outfit Box]
“…”
Shaking her head, she left that for later. It was traumatic enough to become a girl, and she was not in a decent mental state to start playing dress up.
Now finished with preparations, Astaria looked up to see that a small crowd had gathered a distance away observing her while whispering. From the looks of their attire and their behaviour like they were tourists, but she could easily tell they were new players.
“Is that a player?”
“She was using the menus, so she must be.”
“How is she so beautiful! Surely she can’t be that hot in real life right?”
“You can only change your looks in the game by around 20%, so she must be!”
“Huh, I didn’t know that, I just skipped the character customisation and used how I look IRL.”
“Imagine if she was using her IRL looks as well, she would be so famous!”
“Hey, she just looked over here!”
Listening to the group's hushed whispers, Astaria felt another pang in her heart hearing the compliments, so she quickly stood up, almost tripping again, and briskly walked towards the edge of town.
The player's spawn location was random within the Alennos kingdom, a small, secluded nation to the north of the central continent. Its eastern, southern, and western borders were all formed naturally from mountain ranges, with the exception of a wide valley in the western mountains which serves as the main route to pass the country's borders, while to the north was the sea.
Its capital, Haligrad, was a city comparatively smaller than the capital cities of other nations on the central continent, however, due to the country’s fertile lands and prosperous ports, the country was quite well off.
Opening her map in the menu, Astaria could see she spawned at Bali village. The rest of the map was greyed out so the only thing Astaria could tell was that she was walking to the north side of the village. Stopping at the gate, she quickly found a guard to ask for directions.
“Excuse me, sir, which direction is Haligrad?”
Astaria’s beautiful and melodic voice surprised the guard who was stood looking outside of the village and did not see her walk up beside him.
“O-oh, sorry miss, I did not hear you approach!”
Stammering from the shock of such a beautiful girl asking him for directions, the guard took a moment to regain his composure.
“*ahem*, if you keep travelling north on this road, you will eventually join the main road from Alennos Pass on the south-eastern border.”
Upon hearing the information, Astaria now had a good idea of where she was.
“I see, thank you for the information.”
Giving the guard a quick nod in thanks, she made her way outside the gate.
“Excuse me miss, the roads are dangerous at this time, there is a large group of organised goblins terrorising travellers on the main road, it’s not safe to travel alone!”
Turning her head back towards the guard with a smirk on her face, she replied.
“I know, that’s what I am going to hunt.”
Waving her hand as she started walking again, she called back at the young guard who was now blushing.
“Thanks for the warning though”
Following the dirt track that left the village, Astaria enjoyed the walk. The sound of the breeze flowing through the leaves of the forest to her right, and the sweeping plains to her left where the occasional animals could be seen was pleasant. The sensation of nature around her was rather calming after the chaos of the last half hour.
Now somewhat used to her body, Astaria decided to start running, now certain that she wouldn’t fall over. As she ran, she became increasingly aware of her breasts which were becoming ever more active as her pace increased. While the game has automatically equipped her with basic underwear, it could not stop all of the movement.
After another 30 minutes of travel, Astaria could finally see the main road the guard mentioned. Before she went back in time, she had travelled this road a number of times.
She was quite annoyed since she had spawned at one of the peaceful villages in the kingdom and had not run into any hostile monsters on her way, however, it ended up being more beneficial to her since she was closer to her goal and was not losing much fatigue from travel before arriving.
[Fatigue: 55%]
[Hunger: 30%]
Seeing her current status, Astaria sighed feeling the pain of being lv 0 again as she looked around for somewhere to sit down. Spotting a medium sized rock a short distance away, she walked over and sat down. After making herself comfortable, the fatigue she had acquired hit her, making her sigh again.