This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL
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[table=#003300]
WELCOME TO THE EXODUS EXPERIENCE
[/table]
Normally this is where the character customization screen would appear, but due to him using a bypass cheating device, Kneeko found himself in front of a command system screen. The first thing he did was to enter a username which wouldn't tie him up to whatever havoc was going to ensue.
For that reason, the name he decided to enter was 'Heosphoros', which was one of the many names given to the devil. Since his goal was to bring anarchy to this game world, the name of the ultimate harbinger of chaos and destruction was more than appropriate for him.
Then the next step was to select a starting species. Due to the cheating device connected to his headset, everything that was considered as low level entities by the system was accessible for him to play as. This meant anything from plants, mosquitoes and even earthworms.
The list which was organized by alphabetical order included millions of species of all kinds, but Kneeko needed something very specific. The biggest difference between now and before was that Kneeko was no longer part of the system and now needed to disconnect from time to time.
Selecting a classic monster like a lizard or a fish would be a very bad idea since NPCs wouldn't simply disappear as you disconnected. After disconnecting, the monster would simply remain where he was, immobile and totally defenceless against any type of attacks.
Sure, he could program some basic AI commands for when he wasn't connected, but nothing that could fully counteract attacks from players. For that reason, Kneeko focused on entities that wouldn't be noticed by anyone as long as they remained immobile, like plants and the likes.
Sure, choosing an earthworm or something that could remain hidden underground would have been a viable option as well, but Kneeko needed something that could exert a major influence throughout the entire game world. Viruses were among those 'world changing entities', but they didn't exist in this game.
Viruses, bacteria, and all these other revolutionary entities, existed only in the most advanced game system in the world, and this game was the one he and his father had spent thousands of years developing, UnivR. The next best thing in this particular case was to find a kind of plant with an advanced ability to spread like a disease.
After browsing through the millions of species, Kneeko eventually found something which attracted his attention. The species he had found was named 'Hericium coralloides', more commonly known as 'coral spine fungus'. Sure fungi were limited when it came to climate tolerance since they were fragile to cold and dry environments, but were the closest thing to a disease in the list.
Hericium coralloides was a type of fungus looking a bit like a quartz formation, and looked a bit like snowy white mould. As it grows, it should look like a blanket of snow covering the lands it managed to sprout on. The dissemination process was what made this fungus interesting.
It had the particularity of being able to clone itself and have its spores travel all over the place by being transported by the wind. With everything now selected, Kneeko then launched the integration program that would import his 'creature' into the game.
As the game loaded, everything became dark as if someone had turned the lights off, but eventually a small trickle of light appeared and seemed to be coming from above. Looking above, Kneeko saw what looked like a light at the end of a tunnel.
Waiting for his eyes to adjust, he then realized that he was at the bottom of something like a deep pit or a well, but after noticing how big the hole was, calling it a sinkhole seemed more accurate. His 'body' was no bigger than a green pea and seemed to be growing out of a crack between two rocks deep at the bottom of the hole.
Well let's just say that there was not much to see at the moment. Immediately, Kneeko opened the profile window where his stats and other information were displayed.
[table=#003300]Heosphoros (NPE)Threat level:1 (Harmless)Race/Species:Hericium coralloidesSkill points (SP):1Class:FungusBio:N/ASkills:[/table]
Such a simple and primitive life form obviously had very few stats and abilities, but it appeared that the Exodus developers had made some changes. From the look of it, this system used skill points (SP) which you obtained through level up or as rewards for certain missions.
The problem with that was that as a the simplest form of fungus, Kneeko didn't even have a level. From the look of it, he had absolutely no way of growing stronger. Seeing that he at least had 1 skill point, he then decided to have a look through the skills list, where he could purchase new skills from.
The only skills displayed were skills costing no more than what he had, so only a few trash skills worth 1 SP appeared. Among them was a skill named 'mana feast' which allowed to convert mana into skill points but once again, his current fungus body didn't have an internal mana pool.
As for health, it seemed that the absence of a stat displaying it meant that as long as a minuscule part of his body remained, that he could grow back. That way, health points weren't necessary. At this point, it would have seemed that Kneeko had reached an impasse and would need to try again with a new species, but that was not his style. In fact, he had a totally different idea which of course involved cheating.
If his body didn't have an internal mana pool, then he simply needed to create an external one. Having finally a strategy in mind, Kneeko then used his one and only skill point to purchase the 'mana feast' skill. He then opened the map and took note of his coordinates so he would be able to locate the hole he was in.
His goal was simple, it was to create a second, 'normal' non cheated character and go feed his fungus with mana potions. Before disconnecting, he opened the AI command window and wrote a few lines of code, which would cause the fungus to automatically use the 'mana feast' skill each time mana was available for it.
The AI command window was a way to 'auto-pilot' his body while he was not connected with it. If everything went according to plant, the simple action of dropping a mana potion on his 'fungus body' should have it automatically start growing and generating skill points, which was his primary goal after all.
It was going to take a lot of grinding, but since UnivR was not even released yet, destroying this game world right away would only have for effect of sending their users to their other competitors. The ultimate goal was to stockpile his skill points and area of influence before suddenly unleashing hell when they were ready for it.
Before doing so, they would also need to get one of their men on the inside. Having an admin watching your back, was the only foolproof way of pulling this off. With nothing else to do, Kneeko then opened an internet browsing window and looked up his coordinates through a fan based website which showed you where you were in the game world.
It would appear that he had spawned at a very good place since it was very close to a starter city, which were places where new players could decide to begin their adventures from. By the look of it, his 'hole' was located near Nakubar, the demon capital.
Seemed like he would need to play as a demon to spawn near his fungus, but Kneeko was obviously overjoyed by that fact. Kneeko took a last look at his profile, then disconnected from the game.
[table=#003300]Heosphoros (NPE)Threat level:1 (Harmless)Race/Species:Hericium coralloidesSkill points (SP):0Class:FungusBio:N/ASkills:
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Spoiler :
«-Mana Feast-»
[/table]
Just like that, Kneeko was back to his bedroom where only a few minutes had went by. This game world was set to be 10 times faster than the real world so for each minute spent connected to the device, 10 minutes went by in the game.
The next thing Kneeko did was to unplug the cheating device from the headset, put it back on and launch the game once more. This time he would go through the real game which every normal player had to go through. If he was to ruin the gaming experience for the players, he needed to know what it was exactly like for them by living a normal gaming experience himself.
[table=#003300]
WELCOME TO THE EXODUS EXPERIENCE
[/table]
Once again, the same green screen with yellow snowflakes appeared but this time was different. “Welcome to the Exodus experience. My name is Annel and I shall guide you through the first steps of your adventure in our unique universe.” Said a pretty lady with brown hair, brown eyes who was wearing something like a white mage robe.
'Unique my ass.' Thought Kneeko to himself. The lady then continued “Do you wish to start with the tutori-”
“Skip.” Impatiently interrupted Kneeko. “Please enter your username.” Continued the woman without showing any emotions, as if she had either seen worse or had been programmed to be closer to a robot. In Kneeko's eyes, the second possibility seemed more plausible, since Lucy was living proof that giving them too much free will could only cause troubles.
This time, the selected username was 'Kneeko'. Why change what's already perfect? “Now please select your race.” Said the woman in a monotone voice as the giant list of humanoid races appeared in front of his eyes. Some of them were blue, while others were red. Seemed like this system used the classic good vs evil concept which was... Very original... “Show me only the races which can start at the demon capital Nakubar.”
The list immediately shortened, showing only red races commonly affiliated with the darkest side of things. There were vampires, lycanthropes, orcs, goblins, wyrms, and all kinds of races but what caught Kneeko's eyes were all the various demon species available.
Bacnor, Caffeinus, Esprecht, Esprecht, Gundall, and the list went on and on. “Show me the demon race with the best affinity with summoning and necromancy.” Asked Kneeko who had finally decided which direction he wanted to go with his character. The race which then appeared was called 'Kassarack Demon'.
This game wasn't using any complicated stats, but instead used race affinity to determine which skills would be available to the players. This meant that some races would never be able to master certain skills which they lacked affinity for. For this reason, a high elf would never be able to master necromancy.
This system was very complex, yet simpler than that of Alterlife. There were only 4 stats to take into consideration and these were (strength, dexterity, intelligence and vitality). It had apparently been determined that the system felt more natural if most of the stats remained hidden and self-evolutionary.
Strength was mostly related to offence, dexterity to defence, intelligence to mana and vitality to health. The skill points (SP) earned could then be used to purchase new available skills or placed into these 4 primary stats which usually was more important than spending them on skills.
The reason why was because in this game, you could use your knowledge of the real world. This meant that a master sword fighter in real life, even if at level 1 would usually defeat a sword fighter level 20 who never fought with a sword in real life. It also meant that Kneeko, who had muscle-memorized all the skills from Alterlife wouldn't really need any skills to be a dangerous fighter.
All he needed really were magic spells or skills that needed to defy the laws of physics. For example, it was possible to mimic a sword fighting move if you knew how to perform it, but it would be impossible to teleport somewhere without the teleportation skill. With the least boring character design he could think of, Kneeko finally selected the Kassarack demon race.
[table=#800000]You are now affiliated with the dark side.[/table]
'Kuh* So lame! Did they even pay copyrights for this shit?' Wondered Kneeko. “Which class do you wish to start as? Beware, it would be difficult to change it in the future.” Said the robotic lady. “Summoner.” Confidently said Kneeko. A 3d hologram of his character then materialized in front of his eyes. A tall and muscular yet slim man, with semi-long silvery hair and black eyes was what it first looked like.
Seeing his character for the first time, Kneeko wasn't impressed. “This looks nothing like me... He looks like a girl. And why are his horns so small? On the picture I saw earlier, this race was supposed to have arms and legs covered with something like bio-armour... What's up with that?” Annoyingly inquired Kneeko.
“The horns and bio-armour are developed as you grow stronger in the game. You need to reach higher levels to finally see such an appearance on this race. As for the way your character looks, the avatars are made to look different from the users as to prevent problems. Players have a tendency to hold a grudge and seek revenge in the real world. You can of course customize your appearance as you wish.” She answered.
'So people who got mugged in the game, used their avatar pictures to track down those who robbed them in the game and kicked their asses in real life?! Well, yea I can see that.' Thought Kneeko while rubbing his hairless chin. “At least make me a bit more virile for fuck sake...” Reluctantly conceded Kneeko with a tone of annoyance in his voice.
A more pronounced chin and more ferocious brows later, everything was finally set to begin the adventure. “As you asked, you will now be transported to the demon capital. We wish you an enjoyable gaming experience in the exodus project. Don't forget to rate and donate.” Said the woman as everything began to glow in a reddish colour. 'Wait, what did she say at the end?'
Kneeko suddenly reappeared in the middle of a giant circular area surrounded by giant stone pillars. The sky was covered in dark clouds and lightning threatened to hit at any time. “Feels like home.” Said Kneeko before inspecting his new virtual body.
Many people were spawning all around him, some newbies but others visibly veterans of the game. 'So this is a spot regularly used as teleportation point.' He then concluded. Before he could do anything, a notice appeared once again.
[table=#800000]Randomly attributed starting skill unlocked: WAVE OF AGGRESSION[/table]
https%3a%2f%2fmickr4.files.wordpress.com%2f2016%2f....png%3fw%3d700 [https://mickr4.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/cm-ui-skill1.png?w=700]
'Well, I can see a few interesting ways to use this. Guhuhuhuhuh*' Internally laughed Kneeko. “Now, let's see what's so fun about this game so we can ruin it. Khukhuguhuhuhuhu*”
https%3a%2f%2fmickr4.files.wordpress.com%2f2016%2f....png%3fw%3d700 [https://mickr4.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/cm-ui-char.png?w=700]