“There you will see four characteristics: strength, dexterity, endurance, and resistance. These parameters do not directly affect spell damage or defense, but they are nonetheless very important. Strength determines the mass of equipment that you can put on yourself. It doesn't affect the weight you carry in your backpack, but if you want to put on heavy armor, you'll need to be strong enough. Dexterity determines your ability to use various evasive techniques, and Endurance - how many times in a row you can evade before you run out of stamina. Well, Resistance affects your resistance to various effects of stun and movement restrictions.”
I looked at the brief description of each characteristic and immediately came to the conclusion that for magician, only resistance matters. Meanwhile, 'Maito Gai' continued his lecture, gradually descending into some wild heresy.
“Each characteristic can take a value from zero to one hundred. But you only have total one hundred ‘character points’ at your disposal, so you will have to consider which ones are more important to you. For example, if you are going to be a mage, then you do not need heavy armor, so you can make the Strength equal to zero or five. Dexterity is the most important characteristic for all professions, because it allows you to evade attacks. Make it fifty. Endurance is also important, because if you run out of energy, you can't dodge. Put all your remaining points in it. Well, the resistance is completely useless, because if you evade attacks, then they will not be able to stun you.”
What kind of sheep put this moron here to train newbies? However, what am I worried about? The more idiots follow this advice, the easier it will be for me to kill them later.
"Initially, you have 25 points in each characteristic. You can change this distribution, but you will need to practice for it to take effect. When you run or participate in a fight, your characteristics gradually change in the right direction. Since beginners don't have much time, we created a special running platform for accelerated training.” - The lecturer showed me to the 'stadium', where about a hundred players were running around at a breakneck pace. – “So, your task is to set the correct values of characteristics, bring their real values to the planned ones, and then pass the training on using evasion skills from the mentor. A detailed description of the task appeared in your game interface. Do you understand, Little Cheater?”
"Call me Mr. Almighty Cheater." - I answered him in an arrogant tone. - "I'll forgive you for the first time, but if you make another mistake, I'll have to teach you a lesson."
With these words, I turned around and walked towards the 'running stadium'. To begin with, I decided to follow the advice of this would-be teacher and set my dexterity and endurance to 50. After a short run around the stadium, I made sure that the desired result was achieved, and then went to the Instructor of Evasion. Judging by the signs on the map, he was in a room that could be accessed through a portal.
After going through the glowing shroud which crowds of people scurried, and found myself on an empty training ground, overgrown with grass. The portal seemed to lead to a private training area. A trainer appeared in the air in front of me and immediately began to list the evasive techniques available to me, which immediately began to appear in the list of my abilities. There were many techniques, but they all came down to several categories: jumping, dodge, somersault, and block.
Jumping were jumps in different directions, bounces, flips, somersaults in different directions, and so on.
By Dodge, as a rule, they meant various kinds of rapid steps. They were much faster than jumps, although they didn't move my body very far. This also included leaning and all sorts of acrobatic tricks, such as standing on the bridge.
Somersaults allowed me to roll on the ground like a bun, as well as to get up abruptly if I was knocked over.
Block consisted of blocking a blow with your hands, which did not affect the damage received, but allow you to counteract the effects of repulsion and stun.
After learning the basic movements, the trainer started teaching me how to apply the skill in chain. For example, you could avoid a blow to the head, using this movement as the beginning of a roll to the side, then jump sharply, further breaking the distance and turning to face the enemy. Here it was already important to activate the skills in time, setting the correct direction of movement or 'customizable' parameters at a time. For example, during a forward jump, you could additionally specify that the body should turn forty-five degrees to the left or right.
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And in the end, I was required to pass the ‘test’. The trainer chased me using various overturning, paralyzing and choking techniques, and I had to evade them. Having more or less mastered the movements, I refused to complete the task and decided to train on my own.
Returning back to the 'stadium', I put all my hundred points into Resistance, then ran a couple of laps, watching the surrounding players. Some of them were also engaged in practicing the skills of evasion and their ligaments.
When I was sure that my Dexterity and Endurance had gone to zero, I began to repeat the evasive skills I had already mastered. And then the difference became obvious. Low Dexterity increased my body's reaction time to the evasive command. Before each jump, my body 'thought' a little, as if deciding whether I should jump or not. And the most disgusting thing was the fact that the time of this delay was floating. At the same time, the technique of performing movement did not change in any way. My lack of Endurance meant that my stamina evaporated too quickly, so that I could not even theoretically make three evasions in a row. However, low endurance didn’t affect to recovery rate of stamina. There was a difference, but not a critical one.
After I understood how all this mechanics works, I decided to try performing these actions on my own. After all, every time I did, for example, a somersault, my body itself performed the necessary actions, ignoring all my attempts to prevent the correct execution of the movement.
I encountered unexpected obstacles when tried to self-control my body. First of all, I 'couldn't' move properly. And it is unlikely that a simple untrained person will be able to do even a simple somersault. I couldn't either, simply because I didn't know the sequence of movements I needed and couldn't execute them in a timely manner. Seeing my clumsy convulsions, which should imitate somersaults with a jump, the surrounding players as one began to laugh, pointing at me with their fingers. I just ignored them and decided to practice something simpler. For example, a sliding step to the side.
About half an hour later, I found out one thing. Normal body training in virtual reality doesn't make sense. Yes, I was able to learn to perform a movement similar to the right one. But my body could not remember this movement. And the reason for this was quite banal. During normal training, the sequence of movements will be remembered at the level of the spinal cord. Spinal cord responds to such 'conditioned reflexes'. The brain only gives the order to 'execute the movement', and the spinal cord controls the synchronous movement of all muscles.
I was now lying in a virtual immersion capsule, and all sorts of electronics were directly connected to my brain, creating an 'alternative' body. It was like a lucid dream in which a person can feel and control their body, but this body is not connected to the physical one. Therefore, all movements I developed passed by the spinal cord. And this computer technology in principle did not have the functionality to remember my actions as spinal cord, and then reproduce them. After all, it was a game, not a 100 percent reliable virtual reality.
However, there was also a positive feature. Although my entire body was quite 'wooden' and it was difficult to control it without using skills, my hand movements were characterized by high speed and accuracy. At the same time, I did not 'remember' the desired movement at the reflex level, but I could consciously control these movements, thus creating a 'reflex' in the brain itself. It was a bit unusual, but generally quite useful.
Finally, having realized all the pros and cons of the virtual body, I again went to 'pass the exam'. This time I was not taught to do three evasions in a row, because I simply didn't have enough stamina to do it. The mentor, of course, complained about this topic, but did not bother with his advice.
But when it came time to practice skills, I just stood in one place and looked at the macaque jumping around me, only occasionally blocking his blows.
"Why don't you avoid it?" - The teacher finally asked, pausing his circus performance.
"Why? I have a Resistance equal to one hundred. None of your control skills will work on me.” - I broke his whole pattern of thinking.
"But ... but… then let me attack you with damage-dealing skills.”
"There is no point in such a check.”
"Why?"
"Because I can't deal damage to you. In real combat, the damage determines which opponent will die earlier. If I can't hurt you, it's already clear that I'm going to die.”
At this point, the mentor's brain broke down, and he hovered, lost in his own thoughts. Well, at least ten seconds later I was offered to complete the quest, which I gladly agreed to. In general, judging by the reaction, the role of NPC here was performed by real people doing their 'work'. But their fragile minds didn't always cope with my non-standard thinking.