Lee Hyun stared at a bunch of graphs shining on a screen in front of him. The first one showed the number of players playing RREV. It had been a whole week since the game went online and it had 6 million players. The trend was most encouraging from Lee Hyun’s perspective. Others would think that it is much worse as Unicorn used to have 10 million players. However Lee Hyun would look at the games success and not the company’s success. He believed that if the game was a success then so would the company succeed. Royal Road had only 4 million players and RREV had 6 million, thus Lee Hyun concluded RREV was doing better in terms of number of players.
The second graph on the screen displayed engagement ratio. This graph indicated that nearly all 80% users were playing the game for +9 hours a day, 10% for +15 hours/day, 5% for +18 hours/day. The remaining 5% were irregular players, they logged on as and when they pleased and played as much as they pleased. These results too were encouraging but they weren’t all that good. Maybe if +80% played the game for +12 hours/day, it would be an excellent result, but for now Lee Hyun and Unicorn Corp had to be satisfied. Lee Hyun continued going through graphs, pie-charts etc some told him about the average level and class in the game. The average was higher than his expectations, 50% players were already Class +FF. As he moved on, he checked the world map, exploration and discovery progress: 0%. It had only been one week so, no player could leave the starting city. He closed the reports and stepped out for a break. RREV had just cleared the initial critical period of 1 week post release. Lee Hyun could finally get some shut eye.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Lee Jun Zhou quickly gulped down his. He was impatiently waiting to log back into RREV.
“Don’t be in a hurry! Otherwise you’ll choke on your food!” snapped his mom.
He ignored his mom and continued munching away at what remained on his dinner plate.
His mom didn’t like being ignored. “Lee Jun, are you listening to what I said?” Her voice revealed how skeptical she was of receiving a reply.
Noting the change in his mothers voice, Lee Jun perked up his head and nodded. “Itch jus that dinner ij jo GUUD!” He spoke while his mouth was filled with food. Seeing his mother show disgust on her face, Lee Jun closed his mouth and smiled. He then resumed to munch away on his greens.
Unfortunately for Lee Jun, his mom didn’t buy it. Like all mothers know their children, she knew Lee Jun Zhou well, he was blatantly lying just to get back to the game which she was forcefully dragged him out off. She was very much worried about her son being addicted to the game especially since he was eating food that he hated (greens) without realizing so. “Ok that’s it! You are grounded! No more VR games for a week!”
“But Mom! I just unlocked my personal quest!! Come on! I even studied for the school test!!” Huge tears started rolling down the young boys face.
Unfortunately, Moms grow sturdier over time and they don’t give into crocodile tears at some point. His mom continued to ignore him as she packed away his VR gear and console. No matter how much he begged or pleaded, his mom didn’t budge from her decision.
Lee Jun began to accept his mother’s grounding. He thought of what else he could do in the mean while, sure his mom said no VR gaming, but she never said he can’t surf the web. He ran up stairs to his room and tapped the glass screen covering his wall.
“Welcome back master, Lee Jun. Where would you like to go today?” asked a computer like voice.
“The most popular RREV discussion forum.” The boy answered excitedly. Even though he couldn’t play the game he could always research more about it. He also had the option watching a live player feed, in case one of the Media houses decided to cover the show.
Lee Jun got lucky! There were live discussions on Lavias City going on as well as Live coverage of the game in other cities. The Media houses usually always sent one or two reporters to cover some games. Their aim usually was to build extensive in house knowledge about the game. However, some found it easier to simply contract Pro-gaming companies to do the same. In this case it seemed, KMC Extraordinare had sent an entire team (of 15 people) to the cover RREV. KMC Extraordinare Media was one of the larger media houses, so for them sending a team to cover a game was not all that abnormal. But KMC Media (abbreviated) had more reasons to send such a big team. Firstly, KMC Media became what it is today cause of their exclusive association with Weed / Lee Hyun. So it was natural that they would want to bet on the same person again. Secondly, the prize money was just too big to ignore. Lastly, the top brass of KMC Media just had a hunch RREV would become popular.
“Record all live feed and discussion.”
“Play feed from Durara City, from the starting.”
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“Hi everyone, your favourite host, Kilp Woo here! I just selected the elven race and have decided to risk it with fire affinity. By taking fire affinity, players do not get a choice of starting kingdoms. As only one city has been discovered, I believe that Durara is the only place where one can start off.”
From what Lee Jun could tell, Durara was located on lower altitudes unlike Lavias which seemed to appear very high up – given the cloudy atmosphere.
Another similarity that probably all 4 kingdoms had was players were required to head to the temple of the starting city to initiate their combat skills. Kilp Woo headed to the fire temple where he was greeted by a priest.
Kilp Woo gained access to the temple and headed inside. “Ok so here I am in the Fire Temple! This is getting exciting!” After walking through a series of corridors (felt like going through a maze). Woo reached a grand hall. There were several users talking to each other, some players were reading scriptures on the wall and some talked to priests located near the exits. A vast majority were shouting ‘release’. Not that anything happened after the screamed. Woo wasn’t really sure where to begin with. Most games had a guide would talk to you, but in here there was clue as to whom to talk to.
“Hey are you new here?” Asked a player who noticed the confused Woo’s expression.
“Yeah.” He replied with slight embarrassment.
“Go talk to every priest in the hall. Only when you gather all the information from them can you move on to the next phase.”
“Thanks!” Woo screamed as he ran around talking to each priest.
The charitable player then resumed talking to players who were pestering him to join their party.
The first priest Woo talked to spoke about fire affinity. “Fire is the most dangerous affinity. Blessed are those who have decided to walk the path of fire.”
TRRRING!!!
You have learnt something about your affinity.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Progress: 1/30
Talk to some other priests and see what else you can learn about your affinity.
Woo hurried to the next priest. “Fire affinity players are by default citizens of Fire kingdom.”
And the next, “There are 6 known classes for fire affinity players. They are Class S, A, B, C, D and E. Each class has 3 subclasses and are usually denoted by ‘ +’ or a ‘ –‘ or nothing against the class name. You start with no class as you have no understanding of fire affinity.”
“The Emperor of the Fire Kingdom is rumored to be Class S - Level 400.”
“When you use fire attacks, the mana around you is being converted into fire.”
“Fire attacks can only be used with those who possess a container, ignition and fire affinity. A container is an item which converts mana into fuel for the fire. Ignition changes the fuel into fire and fire affinity helps you control the fire.”
“Mana is an inexhaustible resource. You never have to worry about it ending. You should just have the stamina to last as long as your attack.”
“Players with fire affinity are weak against earth affinity based attacks.”
The remaining priests talked about the history of the fire kingdom. As Woo finished learning all that he could from the priests, the last priest told Woo to meet a fire blacksmith to collect his ignition key.
Woo hurriedly collected his ignition key and had to do a related quest to gain a container. Once he did so, he returned to the temple to read the scriptures on the wall. The first step required Woo to mentally imagine a flame. Once he had the mental image fixed in his mind, he had to shout release.
“Release!” Nothing happened. Woo was embarrassed, this was not what he hoped to show the live audience.
“Release!” Nothing happened. He looked around for help and finally found the player who was helping everyone release their flame.
“Well. The thing is, just mentally imagining doesn’t cut it. I found it easier, if you accompanied some hand gestures to it.”
“Release!” shouted Woo while throwing a punch. Nothing happened.
“Release!” he shouted once again as he punched. Finally a tiny flame burst at the end of his fist.
TRRRING!!!
You have learnt how to use fire affinity.
You moved up a class. Your new class is E level 0.
The tiny flame had Lee Jun laughing out loud. He was happy he didn’t choose fire affinity. The fire affinity based players seemed to be constrained in finding a good ignition key and containers. Better the container, more the fire that could be burned at a given time. Though ignition key was only once needed to ignite the fire, the lower level ones had very very low durability; most came with a onetime use only. Woo’s containers name was ‘Match Stick’, true to its name it only burnt a flame as big a match stick could handle.
“Play feed from Aquaneos City, from the starting.”
Lee Jun, started scribbling down notes on his electronic pad. Water based affinity was written in the title. ‘These players require no container or ignition key to control water. They are weak to wind based attacks. Water affinity based players start with class FF. It is easier for players to learn water control rather than fire control…..’
“Play feed from Lavias City, from the starting.”
Title: Air based affinity. Players require special dresses to control air. They are weak to fire affinity attacks. Air affinity players start with class FF. It is as difficult to control air just like fire players.
“Play feed from Middle Earth, from the starting.”
Title: Earth based affinity. Players require no special item to control earth. They are weak to water affinity attacks. Earth affinity players start with class -FFF. The easiest of all elements to control.
Lee Jun paused for a moment. Rock, papers, scissors? Fire beats Air, Air beats Water, Water beats Earth and Earth beats Fire. So that’s how they have set this up. It was fairly standard practice in VRMMORPGs to set up magical abilities with weakness to each other. Darkness was weak to Light etc etc. However Lee Jun could not help but feel there was some deeper meaning to it.
Another thing Lee Jun noticed was that although fire appeared to be most constrained by the items and also the hardest to master. Those who did eventually learn how use it began with a huge advantage of starting class E. Thus the initial disadvantage was somewhat nullified.
Lee Jun wanted to know more how races would affect game play.
“Find threads relating to race selection.”
As he began reading discussions, his mom walked in.
“ITS THREE AM! WHY ARE YOU STILL UP!”
Lee Jun froze in terror. His mom stared at the glass screen.
“Parental Mode: Lock down for 1 month. Grounded 1 month, no VR games and no Internet! And GO TO SLEEP!” His mom screamed as she walked off.
"Fcuk!"
"AND NO SWEARING IN THE HOUSE! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU THAT! YOU JUST EARNED ANOTHER MONTH!"
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Authors Note:
1. The last swear is fuck. But it seems that the forum prevents posting of actual swearing. I just wanted to show how there was no auto-censorship in the fictional characters RL. :-/ I had no clue that RL had one too.
2. Sadly, Lee Jun Zhou is 10 years old - the age when you lack all freedom and your life is governed by adult commands.
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Authors Note:
1. Editing Credits: Knaivvs
2. In case you skipped the prologue, I strongly recommend reading it. Otherwise the starting of this chapter would come across disconnected.
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Connect to Royal Road – Elementarem Vim next Chapter?YesNo
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