Chapter 3

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Knock, knock, knock. Check the fixings, and hang the virt sensor on the wall. Last one. Ugh.

My friend brought the system in early, woke me up, and, after quickly begging for a mug of coffee - it's my weakness, I like good coffee, I always have at least five varieties in the cupboard - he left to spend the money he had received. And I, still not fully awake, began to set up the sensors.

Virtual reality has not yet been created. There is no such thing as a real-life experience.

There is a sensor system that can be installed in a room. If the system is powerful and expensive, you can cover a hall like a school gym with it. If it's like the one I have now, then the room should be smaller, up to thirty squares. Eight sensors, four pucks in the corners of the room, four elongated cylinders like daylight lamps hung on the walls at head level, a three-by-three mat spread on the floor, and the edges pressed down. Plus a helmet that connects wirelessly to the computer. You don't need a helmet, you can do it with ordinary glasses, but my friend's helmet was an advanced one, the kind that captures the emotion and draws a face in any game. And I'm too lazy to create a character. So I'll be looking at the world through the visor of a paladin helmet that's not removable by vow. Plus the sound system in it is much better than the ones in the glasses.

Two thin bracelets on each arm, two on each leg, plus a wide belt - all this allows you to direct the actions of your character with high precision. And there's a microphone built into the helmet for saying something pretentious, which a paladin is supposed to do. A little to the side is a treadmill, again connected to the Virt. Toward noon they bring a set from the game store - a sword, a shield, and a gauntlet. The treadmill gives you five percent more experience and a bonus to your physical skills.

I didn't figure out the bonuses yesterday - the system was more complicated than I thought it would be.

Each connected device not only reduced the experience multiplier but also allowed you to pump secondary parameters. Treadmill - running speed and vitality. Virt - a combat skill. Sword and shield boosted vitality and power, tablet boosted wisdom, and if I bought a bow, I'd get an accuracy boost. It's a shame that a bow for a paladin isn't specialized, and it would take a long time to increase accuracy. The manipulator, which I was going to score a few spells on, was developing wisdom - not a necessary parameter for a paladin, but a necessary parameter for mages. So I sat for another hour, graphing and calculating the benefits of certain bonuses.

And when I finished, I suddenly started giggling.

I never logged into the game, I did not even finish watching a single gameplay video, which was millions, I would not be able to distinguish the look of a warrior from the same paladin, but I already knew exactly how I would pump my character.

Theorist, damn! A mail boxer!

A courier from the store arrived in time for lunch. The sword turned out to be a half-meter stick made of plastic in a thick foam case, and the shield was a strange construction like a wristband. It weighed no less than one kilogram. Quite a lot. The manipulator I ordered was a glove, which allowed me to do gestures (I immediately thought of hanging something on the "goat"), as well as to perform gestures after I downloaded the necessary drivers and installed it into the virt system.

I guess I'd look like a complete idiot in all this gaming gear. Virt bracelets, belt, sword, and shield in hand, a gauntlet on my right, and helmet on my head. Beautiful man!

All right, Vova, there's no need to delay. You've already made up your mind, don't pretend to be dissatisfied with anything. You're already shaking, aren't you?

"Comp, the launch of Creators of Destiny!" voice interface, the delight of lazy people who don't want to get up from the couch to switch music.

A screensaver flashed on the wall monitor.

Welcome to the world of Creators of Destiny!

Your account is not linked to your ID. Would you like to link it?

I summoned the projection of the keyboard.

Yes.

Voice, tablet, electronic signature?

Voice,

Microphone check in progress, please repeat "Account linking" out loud.

"Account Linking."

The device is functioning normally. Please state your name.

"Vladimir Polushkin."

Your name is Vladimir Polushkin. Link your account?

Yes.

Dear Vladimir Polushkin, the account is activated. You can start the game. You can change the linking at the hundredth or multiple of the hundredth level.

A character has not been created. Would you like to create a character?

Yes

You can choose from ready-made classes or create your own character. Warning - player-created classes have additional experience requirements.

A choice of the available ones. Paladin archetype.

Twenty-two kinds of archetypal paladins, according to the number of deities of the "Creator" world. Searching, searching... here.

Paladin of Amala the Healer.

Your choice is the paladin of Amala the Healer. This is a warrior-priest capable of both fighting and helping those who suffer.

Warning, this class has higher requirements both in experience per level and in role-playing and is not recommended for novice players.

Attention, the choice of race has been canceled. The available race is human.

Attention, the choice of starting location is canceled. The character will appear in one of the temples of Amala.

Ouch, I'm afraid, I'm afraid. I'm scared.

I agree.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Name a character.

Uh... um... okay. Well, let's go with Vlad.

The selected nickname is Vlad. Attention, your nickname will be known only to those to whom you tell it.

This is a concept I already knew. The "COD" was atypical in this matter. It was impossible to find out the name of a character unless he revealed it to the interlocutor himself. The name I called would only be known by Amala herself when addressing me (in theory she could do this, but in practice, the gods very rarely addressed the players, it was believed that someone from the management of the development team played for these NPCs). Knowing the name of the player, it was possible to recognize him in the crowd, otherwise, he would be recognized only by his appearance. The name in the "CoD" and its knowledge gave a lot.

A character is created.

Vlad.

Class: Paladin of Amala the Healer, level 1.

Life - 10

Mana - 5

Stats:

Strength - 1

Endurance - 1

Agility - 1

Intelligence - 1

Free points - 4

Class stats:

Faith - 1

Reputation - 1

Class Parameters:

Attack power - 1

Magic power - 1

Defense - 1

Crafts and Skills: Not selected.

Want to choose a craft?

Uhu. Drawing.

The craft has been chosen - Drawing. Now you can encase the power in scrolls, releasing it when necessary.

Doing this on a tablet would give me a five percent boost, and if I'm lucky I'll be able to raise my secondary parameters. Plus, if the articles aren't lying, there's a lot of development that's cut down on the schools whose spells you put on the scroll. Unless, of course, they are included in the character's skill grid.

Secondary skills are not selected. Should I do it now? Two skill slots are available.

Without cooking, which allows you to recover faster, and at high levels temporarily increases the parameters, it would be boring. Plus we need at least one mining profession. Well, let it be "Trophy Gathering" and "Camping”.

The following secondary skills are selected:

Trophy Gathering. Carefully examining the battle site you will not miss even the smallest loot.

Camping. The ability to make a warming fire and cook food will help you on a long journey.

You have 1350 "Small Power Rings". Would you like to invest them in character development?

No.

It's early yet.

Do you want to connect external devices?

Yes.

Device detection is in progress, this may take some time. Please do not interrupt the process.

External devices are found:

A virtual system, Sport-XP-1500.

Treadmill.

Plug-in manipulator "CoD-magic".

Plug-in manipulator "CoD-combat" (sword and shield).

Tablet OM-2000s.

Microphone.

Please check all devices in use.

I tick six boxes.

A check of the device's operation is required. Please follow the requirements of the connection instructor.

The instructor was a grim-looking man in armor. He gave commands in a curt, barking voice.

“Rookie! I have to test you! Come on, run a hundred yards!”

What a voice he had! A sergeant of the fifth term, no less!

The drive of the track rumbled, and I barely had time to jump on it. Well, let's run.

“Good, you run fast. Now get your weapon.”

I jumped off the treadmill and stood in the center of the room.

“Hit with the sword!”

A swipe of a plastic stick.

“Shield yourself!”

Left hand - in front of me.

“Turn your head! Is your helmet okay?”

I lower the visor of my helmet. The man stands three meters in front of me. Look up, look down. By the way, the program is already working, the virtual masonry pattern is superimposed on the real walls of the room.

‘Good. Now tell me your name!”

"Vlad, sir! Pleased to meet you! " The audio system of the helmet is already working, the voice sounds like a big empty room.

"Pleased, then? So be it." Wow, it turns out that even the character creation is interactive. "It also says you're literate. Can you write? Well, show me! What's your name, write it down!"

Tablet, where are you? Ah, here. Let's write: "Vlad."

"Well done. These days people are more and more waving their swords and forgetting about the quill. Literacy is a great thing. By the way, you're supposed to know magic, too? Come on, show me!"

The letters of the message lit up in the air.

To activate the manipulator, draw a circle and two horizontal lines in the air, then lower it sharply.

Sword in my left hand, waving my right, with the manipulator. Five sparks flashed and went out in virtual space.

"Well done, rookie! I commend you. When you're free of those paper souls, come see me, I'll show you some useful tricks."

The external device check is finished, and all devices are recognized.

Select the mode of use - permanent/temporary.

Temporary. Jumping around in that gear all the time is for the crazy gamers. I'll use whatever is more useful at the moment.

The mode of using external devices is temporary. You can call the connection menu through the character properties screen. Recall that the experience bonus is activated depending on the frequency of using devices.

A few seconds of silence.

Congratulations! You have created your character!

The opening video has begun. Colorful. Warriors waving their swords, mages conjuring, healers healing. The monsters, eerily authentic in the virtual world, jumped on me. While all this beauty swirled and fought, showing off the beauty of the graphics, I pondered my next steps.

Let's assume that I'm pumping a high-level character for sale with unspent rings. That means that two hundred and fifty rings, following the time of the game's existence, should remain. And I need to use the remaining one hundred somehow, disguising them as natural character development. Because as soon as word leaks out that someone has gained illegal superiority, I'll get banned the hell out of it, and they'll be right about something. The use of gaming bugs cannot be justified.

So we have to spend those rings on something. For what?

Directly in the characteristics, I can pour a maximum of some amount, which the system will miss. Eh, I couldn't walk around with a thousand life points at first level, and I couldn't hit a sword for a hundred damage per hit! Well, I haven't lived well, so I won't start.

It is impossible to invest in the development of archetype skills and spells, so - only crafts.

Smartasses trying to hack the game and gain advantages have always been there, and "CoD" also suffered from them a lot, even despite the most advanced, admittedly, anti-cheat system. Articles on fan sites told about hacking and improving characteristics, trying to find glitched NPCs, about other tricks, but by all accounts, this worked only once and ended badly. If I stick my head out with a suspicious development they'll check it, take me by the scruff of the neck, and throw me out of the game. And the "extra" thousand must be invested before the start of the game and set statistics. So I can raise a few characteristics only by some relatively modest value.

The way out was suggested by one of the non-magical character development schemes. The theorists were talking about bonuses from the crafts, and I was interested in "Drawing". It was a craft that allowed you to create scrolls into which you could "preserve" spells stolen from monsters. Creating a spell scroll took a lot of time, and the effect was many times weaker than its natural counterpart. But scrolls could be used by any player, even those without magic. To write a scroll with the first rank spell took a minute, required the purchase of ingredients (extracted from monsters or created by other crafts), and the scroll itself worked without considering the increase in magical power, counted from the characteristics and equipment of the character. At the same time, the chance to cast a spell was one in three, which meant that it took an average of two and a half minutes to cast one spell, which seemed ridiculously small.

So much fuss and not much use? Yes. And that's why drawing wasn't very popular. It was just a third-rate profession. Blacksmithing, for example, allowed you to sharpen your sword to plus one for every stroke of the day at the first rank. Every strike got an amplification! Scrolls were disposable. And the higher the rank of the spell, the harder it was to write the scroll. And most importantly, the spell had to be learned first, because class spells could not be drawn, or the characters with magic would gain a decisive advantage.

In general, it's a bunch of crap that's only interesting to nerds who prefer to have nerdy conversations about different aspects of the game. Most ordinary guys chose blacksmithing or alchemy for brewing potions and something else for collecting reagents.

And somehow it was completely overlooked that you can scribe any spell you know. Any school, any power, as long as you learn it.

Well, let's take a closer look...

I pulled my laptop over and made myself comfortable. There was a lot of planning to be done - my favorite thing to do!

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