The reviving process was pretty quick. A quick fade to black, some notifications, and another fade into reality. I blinked a few times while reorienting myself, realizing that I was at the village center. I flipped open my Social tab, and a chunk of messages spilled out.
~~~
FELIX (Biggus Diggus): why’d u immediately go into a solo instanced zone when u logged in?!
FELIX (Biggus Diggus): anyways let me know if u figure out how to use the Tabula Rasa
FELIX (Biggus Diggus): dumb thing does nothing, p sure im missing something
FELIX (Biggus Diggus): have fun dying in that zone and dw if u want to look for a group
FELIX (Biggus Diggus): i solo wiped 4-5 times and decided to find one myself lol
~~~
SEBASTIAN (Raspberry Tart): Hey Isaac! Noticed you went to grind some monsters. Let me know if you’d like to join my group to speed up the process. One of our melees logged off for the night and we need a replacement.
~~~
ALICE (All Icy): spawned in some volcano zone, so unaesthetic.
ALICE (All Icy): at least the lizard was cute.
~~~
I sent my “sure!” to Seb and a sad face to Alice. then pulled out the Training Tabula Rasa. I began prodding it in random ways to see if I could get a menu pop out, but stopped when I found myself about to bite the cool ceramic.
In my defense, you never knew when something was activated by biting.
Isaac (Magnum D.): not sure bro. you wanna look a video up? we’ll call that one a freebie.
Felix’s status was already set to Do Not Disturb, so I knew he probably wouldn’t get back to me any time soon. I was going to see him tomorrow anyways, so I wasn’t too worried about a slow response.
After watching a few people respawn around me in the square, I went off to the Instructor’s Clearing to check if I had any major skill updates. It was definitely still bustling, but there were noticeably more instructors helping out the players. I flagged down a Support Instructor to access my menus.
YOU HAVE EARNED THE TITLE(S): Goblin Killer - I; Body Breaker - I; Trash Hoarder - II; Brutal?! - II; Solo Player - I; Taste of Death!
“Hello, Player Magnum D. It appears you have made progress in an unlearned, but discovered support skill. Would you like to spend copper to fully discover it?”
A shiny but fuzzy icon appeared with a confirmation window, echoing what the instructor had just asked. I dismissed it since I was pretty sure that it was related to the jump I had done. Definitely annoying that the game didn’t outright hand the skill over, but I guess copper sinks for “time efficiency” had to happen somewhere.
“You have made skill mastery progress in Block - Energy Barrier and Roll - Low. A new variant of Block has also been unlocked for you. Please review at your leisure.”
NEW! (Unequipped) Block - Guard Enhance: One layer of protection isn’t good enough. You shroud your physical defense with the formless energy, protecting your protection.
I spent a minute contemplating the three Block variants I had. The Energy Barrier was technically versatile, but it was mentally taxing to constantly throw out. The awful structural integrity of the barrier had nearly cost me my life multiple times, and it wasn’t like it formed quickly.
I hadn’t tried out the Wall variant yet. The flavor text wasn’t particularly inspiring, but the predetermined shape would definitely alleviate the brain tax. Guard Enhance was more robust when it came to empowering my shield but it would heavily limit my options, which I didn’t want.
YOU HAVE EQUIPPED Block - Wall!
YOU HAVE UNEQUIPPED Dash - Sprint!
YOU HAVE EQUIPPED Roll - Low!
Dash felt nice to use, but since I was going to be with a group, it wasn’t likely that I would need the strict speed boost. I also went ahead and swapped my Mana enhancement from Pummel to Stab the moment I got to a physical instructor. While smashing monsters with an enhanced Pummel felt good, I assumed that Stab would simply be more efficient for getting the job done.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Stab - Dagger [MANA]: The MANA enhancement causes your short blade to crackle and spark with power. All of this energy is focused into the pointy end, making it all the more stabby.
“Oh, congratulations! You have fully mastered your Bolt - Energy Blast skill. It has automatically been upgraded to the first tier. If you would like, you can instead choose a different variation of the skill.”
The Magic Instructor was the first instructor to have surprisingly good news for me. I had been using Bolt a lot, but I hadn’t realized how much I was relying on it compared to my other skills. Excited, I checked out the three options that were glowing on the screen.
Bolt - Piercing Shot: By stretching and sharpening your energy, the Bolt projectile becomes more dangerous. This needle shape is specialized to deal real damage.
Bolt - Concussive Blow: By condensing and flattening your energy, the Bolt projectile becomes more tangible. This concave shape is specialized to slam physical objects.
Bolt - Energy Blast +I: You understand this skill a bit better, refining the output and raising the effectiveness.
After some pondering, I chose the Concussive Blow option. The Piercing Shot and base Bolt upgrade were definitely tempting, but I planned on using weapons to deal damage. The fights with the goblins proved how flexible the spell was, and I was willing to give up the damage to optimize the impact. An intrusive thought slid into my head right after I hit the confirmation button.
I guess I could have slapped the Mana modification on Bolt so that it could actually do some real damage. Eh, I’m sure Felix is going to take the upgrade and power it up as much as he can.
I shrugged and started walking towards the Adventurer’s Guild, discarding the glimmers of self doubt. The fantasy of destroying enemies with cool magic was a Felix thing, so I could just live vicariously through him.
A tall and handsome man was at the side window this time, also with a Mousey keychain dangling off his belt loop. I decided to chat with him since he seemed a bit skittish. Coincidentally, he was Artemia’s intern outside the game, and fortunately had spawned in the same zone.
“I’m not too big on gaming, but the boss lady is letting me clock in hours if I cover her here. It’s not a bad deal for sure, since a few of my university friends picked this game up.” Frederick ruffled his luscious brunette hair and pulled out my quest rewards for the Goblin Scout Ears — a modest pile of copper coins.
“Oh, you were only three goblin warriors off from this other quest. Let me see if I can get you a reduced reward.”
I scrunched up my nose at that comment, fully aware that I didn’t even meet the halfway point for that reward, but I let the intern go through with it. He seemed to have a bit of an argument with the invisible spirits, his pale face flushing from embarrassment a few times. Eventually, he turned back to me and handed me my rewards.
The reduced rewards were the training weapon of choice (I grabbed a spear) and a voucher that would redeem into a skill book once I slogged through more goblin warriors. I was tempted to reject the “special treatment”, but the man was so earnest that it was impossible to accept. We chatted a bit longer before an invisible entity tugged at Fred’s ear, prompting him to apologize, send me a friend request, and ask me to leave.
Fredd K HAS SENT YOU A FRIEND REQUEST!
I met up with Seb and his group at the south gate. They had been grinding for a while at the north side and wanted a change of scenery.
“What’s even up there? I haven’t been yet.” I looked at my Stab icon blip back and forth between a spear and dagger as I played around with the weapons.
“Random forest creatures like foxes and bears. The person you’re replacing wanted some specific alchemy material from the area, so we haven’t been able to explore this side too much.” Seb pulled out an assortment of animal parts, all labeled as Materials.
“Is that a lucrative side gig, crafting stuff?” The glazed eyeball of some animal stared me down, before vanishing back into Seb’s inventory.
“It’s aight. Saved us a couple of copper.” Liz, the self-proclaimed archer of the group, chimed next to me. I tilted my head upwards to acknowledge her. She pulled out a few arrows that she had crafted herself and handed them to me for inspection. The quality wasn’t bad, but there was an obvious homemade charm to them.
“We’d save more copper if you just went magic like I told you to.” The other girl, Patricia, immediately snapped back. Me and Seb walked a bit ahead of the pair as they began to squabble, again, about the virtues of using arrows versus magic. It was an admittedly interesting topic that I hadn’t put much thought into, but Seb was clearly long tired of it.
Seb and Liz mainly fought and supported from a distance, while Patricia was the “tank”. The person I was filling for, Sam, was their melee fighter, but we had completely different styles of fighting.
“I brought up to Sam about using Bolts to mix up his options after I saw your duel, but we couldn’t find a decent skill to replace.”
“Oh really? I assumed he could drop Block or Roll for it, especially since you guys usually group up for stuff.”
“He already has dropped Block. I take care of most of the protective spells for everyone. I think he’s running Stab, Slash, Pummel, Dash, and Haste.” Seb extended each finger on his left hand as he listed out the skills.
I frowned for a moment at the last skill, which Seb noticed and clarified.
“It’s a spell that the foxes use in the North gate. We all unlocked it from grinding over there, but Sam was the only person who trained it up. Liz is thinking about it to see if it improves her fire rate.”
“Makes sense that he doesn’t use Bolt then. Sounds like you and Liz cover him pretty well.”
“The idiot wants to go into PvP with those skills too, he doesn’t know how simple that makes him.” Liz offered from behind before continuing her bickering with Patricia.
“Yeah. We want to eventually go into group PvP matches, and as far as I could tell, being versatile seems important.”
A distinct memory of Felix nearly topping the PvP ladder with only offensive fire spells.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that. My skills are set up like this because I’ve been playing solo, but I knew plenty of people who succeeded with simple skill kits in different games. I doubt this one is any different.”
We paused at the edge of the village to quickly exchange skill information and have a brief conversation about how we were going to tackle fights. Patricia’s gigantic copper tower shield flickered into existence, Liz helping her adjust it as we spoke. I left the Goblin Killer title unequipped, since it only seemed to affect aggression.
The seriousness of the party went up as we stepped into the forest, now even darker with the night’s progression.
YOU HAVE ENTERED A PARTY-PLAY INSTANCE.