“Fine I’ll teach you!” snapped Theodore in defeat. “However, only if you can pass my test.”
“No. I refuse to learn anything from you if it requires me to complete a quest. For all I know it may be an impossible to accomplish feat and you are setting me up for failure.” Replied Weed shrewdly. He was a bit worried that if he negotiated too hard then the dwarf might not teach him at all and their relationship would sour further however if he gave in too easily, he would definitely receive an impossible to complete quest which would be of no value to Weed.
“No, don’t misunderstand me, you need to be of a certain level before you learn these skills and the opportunity to do so only exists in a tiny window. The test must be completed before the next full moon, otherwise you will have to wait another month to take the test!” Replied Theodore hurriedly. The dwarf was sneakier than Weed had anticipated; he wasn’t going to let Weed back out of the quest, he planned to make Weed suffer a terrible price for the insult. “You may consider it a test or a minimum requirement but it is absolutely necessary for you to undergo this trial. Even I, Theodore son of Utmiz, had to undergo this trial at the coming of age ceremony, all dwarves undergo it.”
Weed considered it; he really had no option. Doing Theodores test next month would give him more time but it would mean failing Rodriguez’s test. Time was of the essence – Weed calculated by accepting the quest / test now he would only be disadvantaged by a week, to take it next month would mean to wait and do nothing for a whole month. “Fine, share the details of the test first.”
“Weed, before I talk about the test with you, I want you to understand something about dwarves. Dwarves blood is thicker than elven blood. Even distant cousins are treated as first brothers. We may be oddities living beneath the ground like moles digging away, but we have our pride for our close knit relationship. If you pass this test, you will be one of us. Though elf you may be and hated by all, we will still stand before your foes as our own, we will risk our lives and walk down to the very gates of hell if we must. You must honor the first principle of this code. The second principle of the code is the secrecy of our skills. Our skills are valuable across the lands, humans pays fortunes for it and would go on to pay mountains of gold to learn how to forge as well as us. Though we may love gold we are not bloody lizards to sell our secrets to anyone outside our brethren. You must treasure the gift I am about to teach you and protect its origin and history with utmost secrecy. Can you do that much?”
“Yes.” Replied Weed solemnly.
“Excellent. The foundations of blacksmithing are dexterity with our hands, creativity of our minds and perseverance of our souls. We prize our creations more than gold and cherish our skills more than our lives. Elves are creatures of poor and weakness in soul. They lack love and compassion. Thus, my test for you is Weed. Forge yourself a new and show to me that you are indeed worthy of learning the sacred skills of blacksmithing.”
TRRRING!
Quest Part 1: Forge yourself a new
“The foundations of blacksmithing are dexterity with our hands, creativity of our minds and perseverance of our souls. We prize our creations more than gold and cherish our skills more than our lives. Elves are poor creatures with weakness in soul. They lack love and compassion. Thus, my test for you is Weed. Forge yourself a new and show to me that you are indeed worthy of learning the sacred skills of blacksmithing.” – Theodore Balkan son of Utmiz Balkan.
To learn the great secrets of the dwarves, you have been asked acquire new stats or raise stats or you must do whatever you can to forge yourself a new; worthy of the blacksmithing skills.
How well you do in the test will determine your future blacksmithing skills to a great extent.
Rank: D
Reward: You will be permitted to learn the great art of blacksmithing.
Quest limit: 3 Weeks
Quest Requirement: None.
“Do you accept Weed, or should I consider it too difficult for you?” scorned the Dwarf. Theodore was confident that Weed would fail the test, he was particularly disadvantaged by the fact that he was starting a week late.
“Yes.” Weed wasn’t a slightest bit hesitant to accept a level D quest, rather he was more than happy to do so, if it meant that he was one step closer to a secret profession, then he had no choice but to embrace the challenges as they came.
You have accepted the Quest.
Theodore had an evil grin on his face. “Please then, please show me your stats window.”
Weed was hesitant to show his stats, but went ahead – there was no embarrassment in front of an NPC.
Physical Status WindowNameWeedClass / LevelFF/001Health250Mana Conversion/Sec0Health Regen/Sec0Stamina Regen/Sec0.01Strength0Agility5Wisdom50Intelligence50Stamina105Defense0Dexterity0Luck200Looks/Beauty5
Weed was slightly surprised at the slight change in stats but he then recollected the bonus SP for selecting Elves were Health, Wisdom, Intelligence and Elemental Affinity. If he had to guess, STR increased and decreased to 0 or just decreased to 0, Stamina increased due to continuous physical activity; pushing the wheel barrow for nearly 7 days. Luck came from the compensation of wrong affinity selection. There was an additional stat – Looks; Weed really considered it the most useless stat ever. All other stats remained unchanged.
“Hmmm. Nothing very impressive in particular, if anything, you are terribly weak!” Commented Theodore. “Alright show me your elemental stats.”
Elemental Affinity Status WindowFire Affinity2.5%Resistance0%Wind Affinity2.5%Resistance0%Earth Affinity2.5%Resistance0%Water Affinity2.5%Resistance0%Other Affinities0%Resistance0%
“I see! I understand! You are a neutral elf!” exclaimed the dwarf excitedly. “Definitely, a weird rare conflicting combination if I may say so. As you are elf, you have an increased elemental affinity compared to other weak humans however it is because you are neutral; the bonus has been spread out. Does it serve any purpose? None whatsoever.”
Theodore scratched his beard for a while as he stared at the stats. ‘Well this journey is going to be extremely difficult for you and you brought this upon yourself. Never insult a dwarf or you’ll have to pay a terrible price.’
“Well then elf, begone, farewell and see you in three weeks!” Before Weed knew what was happening, Theodore took Weed’s cup from his hand and pushed Weed out the door.
Weed stood outside the cabin for a few minutes bewildered with abrupt end of the conversation. Weed walked through the forest pondering about everything Theodore said. The quest wasn’t as simple it appeared. On the face of it, Weed just needed to invest a few skill points into his character and simply rebuild his character but then it wouldn’t be a Difficulty level D quest. Most VR noobs / newbies might have done that, but Weed was different. Weed already figured there was a riddle involved here, ‘Dexterity of the hands, creativity of the mind and perseverance of the soul.’
‘If I look at it like this, then all that I need to focus on is dexterity, creativity and stamina stats? So if I invested the 300 points I have into that, would it be enough? There were other lines as well - We prize our creations more than gold and cherish our skills more than our lives. Elves are poor creatures with weakness in soul. They lack love and compassion. Did these remaining lines mean anything?’ Weed reached the end of the forest and headed back to the Eastern Gate.
“Alak.” Weed whispered.
“Yes Weed?” Alak asked while still invisible.
“What did you think of Theodores challenge?”
“Nothing new.”
Weed was a little surprised with the reply. ‘Nothing new?’ Does this mean Theodore gives out the challenges often? “Could you elaborate on that more?”
“Nothing new means nothing new! That has always been Theodore! Weed when are we going to look for a fairy pond? Let’s leave this quest and look for a fairy pond!”
“Yes, sure why not, but only if you tell me what you meant by nothing new.”
Alak thought about it for a little while, “NO! Weed is a liar! I wont tell! Hmph!”
Weed tried getting Alak to talk after that, but to no avail, she just refused to say anything. Weed had no choice but to give up expecting Alak to help – fairies were outright selfish creatures – Weed thought to himself.
Weed was glad he didn’t invest his SP before the quest, otherwise it would have been significantly harder to alter his characters build but it was time for research before he could proceed further. He needed to know more about the elf race, neutral affinity, Lavias City. He also had questions about Rodriguez, Lisa and Theodore. Had any other players met them before and tried their quests? There were a lot of questions to which Weed needed answers to, but staying in RREV any longer seemed pointless.
- Log out. -
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Lee Jun stared at the analog clock on his computer screen while laying on his bed. He was lost in thought about the riddle, he didn’t rush to forums to see the answers, he wanted to think of at least a few ideas and see if he was able to guess even remotely what others may have already considered (assuming others had solved this riddle).
He took a sip of lime juice and a bit of his sandwich – moms really are the best. Lee Jun considered himself lucky that he could finish at least one quest before his mom came back from her business trip. He now needed an effective time management plan to skillfully avoid his mom’s wrath and dislike for VR games. Fortune once again smiled upon Lee Jun, with summer breaks going on, his mom was more than happy to have him inside VR games rather outside disturbing her work. So it would be okay if he stretched the hours a bit here and there, but going on the excessive side would definitely lead to grounding. ‘Maybe if I had a VR pro-gaming elective she would not say much…may be…’ He decided to find out more about his elective options when school would restart.
“Computer, open forums relating to–RREV Elves, RREV Neutral Affinity, RREV Lavias City. If you find any overlapping forums, open those too. Also, see if we have something in deep dive.”
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Found 1132 forums on Elves, 291 on Neutral Affinity and 314 on Lavias City. Currently, there is one live deep dive discussion going on – topics include Lavias City, Wind Affinity, Wind Temple, Journey to the next Wind City. Would you like to attend it?”
“Yes.” Weed put on his VR gear.
The screen read – Connecting …-
x-x-x—x-x-x-xx—xx-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
VR had opened a new realm of human interaction and communication. Though originally VR was created for gaming, everyone realized it was a great tool to cut costs. OZ Deep dive was the most secure and popular encrypted network. It provided a great way to share information and collaborate with others. Rather than buying huge office buildings for employees, now employees connected to the OZ network of their company and simply worked in VR offices. This did not mean companies stopped having RL offices, it just meant they required less RL office space. Essentially VR changed the way society was structured and worked. No longer did people have to commute to office every day or, children have to go to school.
The substantial benefits weren’t limited to simply cost cutting on real estate and travelling costs, it also meant employees could have the best VR infrastructure, each employee could have a cabin, no more paper waste was generated or threats of information leaks were down! In schools bullying came down substantially (except PE which happened once-three times a week, where students did have to attend the class in RL) as the VR environment was continuously monitoring them, teachers could display 3D animated learning models in the fields of chemistry, biology and physics. Even everyday social interactions like going to a café could now be done over VR. People could taste food and ambience of restaurants around the world which they normally couldn’t do so from luxury of their beds or sofas.
Again none of this meant RL cafes closed, it just meant Starbucks and Costa also had their own VR networks for people to connect to. People still went to cafes and restaurants when hungry in RL and people still went to RL hospitals when ill. There were some professions where VR had minimal impact, medical care, policing, fire safety etc these were few to list examples. Another where VR had minimal impact was VR programming.
It was rather ironic that those who created VR spaces still had to go to work in RL. However, it would be interesting to note, that there are three aspects to VR; there is the hardware which OZ Deep Dive provided, the operating VR space and the VR space itself.
The single rule to VR was that changes could never be created in real time to a VR environment. The VR space would have to go offline, the programmers would make changes in RL and then upload and launch the new system online. Thus the irony, those who made VR spaces could never work in one.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-xx-x—xx-x-x-x-x-
The surroundings changed and Lee Jun found himself in a café. Just like Lee Jun, there were at least a hundred other people listening to a person talk about his experience in Lavias.
“Although the name is Lavias, it is not the heaven city, just located on a high altitude. When I first heard Lavias, like most of you I too expected it to be the heaven city, but it seems Unicorn Corp was cutting corners and just went for similar names and topography. Though honestly, I wish the city was flying, it would have added better dynamics of wind affinity players who could try their flying skills with more freedom.”
A person from the crowd asked, “Seen any of those talking birds?” A few people laughed, those brainless birds were really cute in RR and their absence in RREV Lavias was missed.
“No, I have so far travelled all six cities available but no birds anywhere, RREV is similar to RR but I don’t think they are related in anyway.”
“Mr Cho, some of the dungeons we find are also similar to those in RR, enemy units as well. Of course there has been tweaking in their stats and the addition of elemental affinities, but don’t you think it’s too curious?”
“Well, even if I did have some thought’s too it, at this point we all would simply be speculating. I will take more questions at the end of the discussion. I wanted to talk about the newest city we have unlocked, so I shall quickly summarize the key points of Lavias. It’s not too bad of a city to start in if you are Wind affinity, all other affinities should just avoid it. The city is located near fire border, so avoid the western side. There are a few beginner dungeons and hunting grounds near the northern and eastern side but I’d advise to headed to the next city where the monster drops are better. If there are any other affinity players here who started in Lavias, my best advise would be to head to the temple and learn what ever skill they can offer….”
Lee Jun interrupted at this point. “And if they don’t have any skill to offer?”
“Then you are most likely to be a neutral affinity player and I would recommend to learn lots of professions and decide on your affinity soon. However, if you are even more willing, then delete your character, neutral affinity is one of the worst affinities out there. I simply see no point in it.” Replied Cho.
“What about hidden affinities?” rebutted Lee Jun.
“Well it’s not like you can’t change affinities later in the game. If I am not mistaken, there are already quite a few players who changed affinities. There was a player in Earth Kingdom, I believe, he changed from Earth affinity to Metal Affinity a hidden affinity, fire and water have had one too. Air kingdom is one of the more difficult starting points, so we haven’t made as much progress as other kingdoms.”
Lee Jun wanted to ask more questions, but Cho had a timetable to stick to. He continued with information on wind affinity, “For those of you who want to learn how to fly, I suggest, heading to the next city, AirBour located near the mountains, just follow the trail from the northern gates. It may be best to improve your class before attempting to fly. Trust me, you don’t want to jump off a cliff and have your character die.”
Most wind users in the room started laughing, some of them had personally experienced it. It was common mistake to learn skills that required a higher class and then to try it out, this often resulted in players dying or severely injuring themselves.
“On a more serious note, up your class, boost your MC stat and elemental affinity.”
“How do we boost elemental affinity?” The question indicated that the person who asked so was a clear newbie, Cho decided to ignore it and move on.
Lee Jun logged of the discussion, there was nothing more there right now that interested him. He would have liked to listen on…but time was of the essence. He then turned his attention to the glass computer screen and checked forums on elves.
- All you need to know about the RREV Elf Race by CTS Media –
‘Good for elemental users…bonus to elemental stats…most suited profession is …mage and related….in the short run very weak but in the long run, can have significant impact on game. Most useless skill is looks attribute….inability to carry weight and low strength render them as difficult to use characters in the beginning……don’t take neutral affinity with elf, conflicts with boosts of elemental stats. …..(already know that)…best starting city is middle earth…..invest initial SP in STR & DEF.’
- All you need to know about neutral affinity by JJB Media –
‘BEGIN IN MIDDLE EARTH! AVOID ALL OTHER STARTING CITIES!...(wow whats with the caps..)…middle earth offer most doable quests for neutrals…can learn more professions before elemental users giving rise in demand for neutral players. Most parties in Earth Kingdom are happy to have neutral, good atmosphere….risk of accidently learning Force Affinity is high but pay off is not bad, Earth Kingdom recruits force users heavily…’
There was nothing available that Lee Jun didn’t already know. He tried searching forums about Rodriguez but nothing turned up. When he tried Lisa, a few topics on the archery profession in Lavias turned up and how one could get Lisa to teach them, the only mention of Rodriguez there was that she lives with her husband. Lee Jun searched “Theodore” and the screen flooded with hundreds of articles.
“What the heck…” whispered Lee Jun to himself.
“Theodore Balkan…spotted in Fire Kingdom…air kingdom…also known as the travelling blacksmith, wandering dwarf, the oddity of Versailles….can learn blacksmithing from him…quest test difficult D…” Lee Jun’s eyes widened, maybe this was it but at the same time he was disappointed that he wasn’t the first player to discover this quest. If he wasn’t the first then that means the rewards were common to all players. ‘Would it really be worth spending a month learning simple blacksmithing?’ Lee Jun continued reading the article, “The Travelling Blacksmith shifts from one kingdom to another depending on his mood. He has 12 apprentices and more than 8000 players have confirmed taking his blacksmithing test. Passing rate is fairly high however after clearing the test he makes players compete for top position. Winners are selected as apprentices. Though appears initially as a hidden / unique profession and often confused for similarities with Legendary Moonlight Sculptor, apprentices claim that the blacksmithing taught is the same as those taught in schools. NPC is still being investigated, though most players have written it off as a ”
Lee Jun sunk back into his bed… ‘8000 people have already taken this test? Common blacksmithing skills? I need a freaking break here!!’
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Authors Note:
1. I wrote a long chapter, then I felt it didn't suit my style, so I split the chapter into two parts. Then I felt, it was best suited for one chapter....so the end result it one long chapter.
2. I have begun focusing on quality, so there should be fewer mistakes. This hasn't been proof read, but that will be done soon.
3. I made some changes in the teaser released section as well, :-/ teaser releases are more like draft versions.
4. I wanted to talk about the impact VR has had in fictional RL this isn't all that important to the story now, but I have planned a subplot for it.
5. I could have written long details of elves and neutral affinity, but honestly there isn't all that much information to give. It's what has already been established. I just wanted to focus on Weed and RPG elements for the next few chapters. One of my reasons for not bringing in Lee Hyun at this stage is that the game has been online for 2.5 months. It's not like players have had a lot of game time to establish themselves well. I promise to show more Lee Hyun as the RPG plot develops and the larger role he ends up playing, but that wont be for a while. I just don't want to rush the story - as readers I hope you appreciate that.
6. In case anyone is wondering what happened to the wheel barrow and the 1000 gold coins, its in Theodore's cabin. Weed just hasn't realized that as yet.
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Connect to Royal Road – Elementarem Vim next Chapter?YesNo
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