When I returned to Maito Gai, I told him that the task had been completed.
"Wonderful, lit... uh...Master Cheater. Now you need to learn how to handle a weapon. Go to the Weapons Master and ask him to give you a lesson. Be careful, the weapon you choose now will be your main weapon until you can buy another one. And this can take quite a long time.”
“Ok.” - I nodded.
The NPC I was looking for lived in the very shed next to the computer terminals. Going inside through another portal, I found a large room with many racks and stands, which were located all sorts of weapons. However, all this trash looked like... trash. Raw iron, curved blades, very conventional sharpening. The only weapons that could be considered high-quality were a few hammers. They were trivially difficult to make 'not qualitatively' simply because of the primitiveness of the design.
When I found the Weapons Master, he immediately sent me back, giving me the task to choose a weapon 'for my hand'. No additional requirements were announced, so I decided to sort it out myself. Unfortunately, when I went around the entire room, I couldn't find AK-47, magic wands, or even a banal bow or throwing knives. There was only a cold weapon, which was to be held firmly in hands.
The only exception to this concept was the shield, which was also considered as a weapon for left hand. I tried to take a shield in each hand, but the system gave me a message that it was impossible to equip the item. At the same time, I could easily take a shield in my right hand, and a light sword in my left.
After going through the available arsenal, I first selected two daggers. But then I thought that I might have to fight monsters hand-to-hand for the first time. From this position it was more correct to take something long-range, so in the end I selected a short spear with a long and wide blade. This thing looks like a partisan, but total length with blade were about 1.8 meter. Small size allowed it to be used not only as a spear, but also as a staff.
"What did you choose?" – He surprised at my decision.
"Poor dwarf's spear." - I informed him after reading the item’s name given out by the game interface.
"I can see that. Do you even know how to use it?
"I'll figure it out." - I grunted.
"Well, well. All right, go to the training area. Find dummy scarecrow there and hit it ten times in each zone marked in red.” - At this point, the man again lost all interest in me and stared at some book.
I mentally shrugged and went to do the job. After reading the description in the interface, I found out some things that the malicious Weapons Master didn't mention. One place could not be hit more than two times in a row, and more than three times out of ten. When I found the dummy scarecrow of a man, I noticed that it had twelve numbered zones painted red. Adding to the problems was that they were located all over the body, including on the back, so that to strike, I had to go around the target in a circle. Well, all strikes that did not meet the task conditions were simply ignored, and did not reset the counter to zero. Otherwise, in addition to training my movements, I would have to solve the corresponding logical problem.
I didn't hurry up, but just started working out strikes in 'free mode', mainly achieving an accurate hit when moving with elements of evasion. An hour later, when the task had long been completed, one of the players came up to me and began to observe my movements. By this time, I had already practiced poking a spear at a defenseless, motionless victim, now working out the speed of the attack. The virtual body didn't get tired or uncomfortable, so I poked the scarecrow with the speed of a sewing machine, each time hitting the exact center of the circle.
"You have excellent mechanical skills.” – Watching player praised me. Without stopping the attack, I glanced at him and read his name: Heavenly Red Crane. - "Are you going to be Madman?"
"No, I'm actually going to be a Druid.” - I said, stopping my training.
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"A druid? With such good abilities, you can become a great warrior.”
"I can, but I don't want to.” - I chuckled.
"No one likes druids.” - The 'expert' tried to dissuade me.
"Why?" - I surprised.
"You're not familiar with the World of Elements, are you?" - Crane asked, then continued without waiting for my answer. - "The point is that druids can grow predatory plants and then just walk away, leaving them to grow on their own. Such 'ownerless' plants become neutral monsters, and the fight against these plants takes a lot of time from other players. At the same time, there is almost no reward for them. Early on, in first server there were many druids and they loved to do such 'joke'. But in the end, they were become so annoying, that other players started killing druids as soon as they saw them. As a result, many druids re-created their characters and became priests or demonologists.”
“Well, so then who healed the raids in the dungeons?” - I asked.
"Well, the strong guilds still have their own druids, but everyone else has had to recruit more priests.”
"Pha-ha-ha. Excellent proof of that the intelligence of crowd of people is equal to the level of their dumbest member. Apparently, strong guilds eliminated all competitors with such move, taking the opportunity to pass serious dungeons.” - I opened this fool's eyes to the true nature of things. - "So, if someone doesn't like druids, it's just an indication of their lack of intelligence."
"What?" - Crane fell in stun.
"Yes, that's the truth of life. Public opinion is often only the result of manipulation by those who think themselves as 'the true power'.”
"People's wisdom can't be wrong.” - This weirdo tried to object.
I didn't argue with him, but just grinned, waved my hand and went to pass the quest.
Weapons Master accepted my report without looking at it, not even bothering to distract himself from reading his porn novel. However, I didn't need anything more from him. After all, I am not buying a cow here. I'll still have a chance to find out why magicians need cold weapons in this game.
The next task already had a more or less close relationship to the choice of profession. They gave me three training talismans with skills of a mage, warrior, and scout. I needed to test them in a real battle against ... rabbits. Scratching my head, I agreed and went to 'beat the rabbits' in the nearest forest.
At the moment, I only had a spear in my possession, which had one slot for the talisman. The task is to kill a hundred rabbits using each of talismans. The talisman could only be replaced in a peaceful area, so I had to do at least three trips to the forest and back.
I started with a spell that relied on a magician. It was called as 'Magic Arrow' and was available to the magicians of all elements. However, for each element, it had different external effects and type of inflicted damage. Fire mages dealt fire damage, Air mages beat with electricity, Water mages froze the target, and Earth mages threw a stone spike.
In general, with the types of damage in the game, everything was quite logical. Damage from abilities and spells was only 'material' type. That is, a sword dealt slashing damage, a mace crushing, a spear stabbing, a saber cutting. The fireball caused thermal damage with a high temperature. A 'snowstorm' the same thermal damage, but only with cold. A stone spike created and thrown by magic did usual stabbing damage, while a ‘water choke’ that squeezed the throat did a crushing damage. You could poison an enemy with a poisoned blade. But something like the 'Rotting Flesh' spell would also cause poison damage. Acid is also, oddly enough recorded in the class of poisons.
The electrical damage stood alone because 'inside' it consisted of thermal fire damage and poisonous damage from the shock discharge through the body. But outwardly this division was not shown. Protection from electricity was calculated according to a complex formula, which took into account the 'grounding' of the target, its electrical conductivity, protection from fire and protection from poison.
The only kind of 'magical' damage was damage from being in an area with an incompatible Elemental shift. This damage had no additional gradations. But next to it was 'astral' damage, which could only be inflicted by ghosts. There was no protection against these two types of damage, which made them very insidious.
I had chosen Air Element, so now my spear could shoot lightning at a distance of ten meters, while dealing ten units of damage. The spell could be used once per second, and its activation lasted only a quarter of a second, which was equivalent to 'instant cast'. Spells with this rate of activation were impossible to break.
This spell consumed two units of mana, while my mana and health reserves were equal to a hundred. In other words, my mana reserves should have been enough to maintain non-stop fire for about a minute. But recovering of the mana were sluggishly, only one unit in five seconds. So, in fact, my 'rate of fire' is one shot in ten seconds. And in the case if I spent all mana, it took more than eight minutes to restore it.
I completed all these theoretical calculations already near the forest. There were a lot of rabbits here and noob players, so there was no need to run far after them. I really went deep into the forest, so as not to jostle among the noobs. I wasn't the only one who was so smart, but after three hundred meters my eyes stopped rippling from the number of players.