“How hero title usually can be obtained?” - I asked, heading toward the camp.
“For performing a feat, of course. That is, for killing unique bosses and completing unique quests. Wait, didn't you know?”
"No,"- I said.
"You said yourself that you were going to perform a feat."
“Well, it was a figurative expression. Who knew that killing this Unknown Beast will be considered as a feat?”
"So you tricked me?"
“Anyway, we have accomplished a feat.”
“But...” – Iron Sword paused with his mouth open, apparently having no words to express his feelings.
"By the way, where did you learn to swing your sword like that?"
"Oh, that? I played the Destiny Sword for two years before opening the server. There, all the mechanics are sharpened for hand-to-hand combat with cold weapons. So, I just repeat the movements from there. I even gave myself a non-standard set of characteristics for this purpose. Seventy points in Endurance. So, now I can constantly use evasion skills. They are very similar to the techniques I used with the sword in the last game. Only here, I have to wave my hands my myself.”
"Why did you decide to become a Druid here?" - I asked.
“I'm tired of waving a sword. I decided to become a healer, and then the server of the World of Elements opened. So, I'm a swordsman until the seventh level, and then I'll just stand on the sidelines, heal my allies, and give commands to the pets.”
"A Druid-Demonologist?"
“Yeah. Where did you learn to use a spear like that? I've been watching you, and you didn't make a single mistake during the whole fight.”
“Heh. Compared to the games I used to play, this is just a kindergarten.”
“Really? I won't even ask what they were called. The Destiny Sword was enough for me.”
Similarly talking, we reached the camp of the magicians. Along the way, I added my partner to friends list. And then the Iron Sword went to work out the labor service, and I went towards the portal. At first, I didn't understand why everyone was staring at me like that, but then I realized that I hadn't turned off my Heroic Aura. And it would have been fine if they had been looks of surprise and delight, but the people stared at me with barely concealed envy and anger. So, I turned off my hero title and quickened my pace.
"Hey, you, stop! Stop, I'm telling you.” - I heard a shout.
Immediately turning around, I approached the impudent man in one leap and attacked him with everything I had at my disposal. The player tried to dodge, but against my foresight, his skills were powerless. As a result, he dealt to me thirty damage, and I dealt him two hundred, after which he went to the resurrection point. Picking up the loot that fell out of the player, I glared at the people around me, then ran towards the portal. No one dared to attack me, though I could see the desire in their eyes.
In the city, I went straight to the Residence of Healers, where I passed the quest and became a real certified Healer. After that, I went to the market, where in fifteen minutes I found all the items from the set of Healer's Robes, then I put them on and inserted four amulets for energy regeneration into bracelets and shoes, and three amulets for increasing the health reserve in my pants, jacket and hat.
With my new look, I now attracted much more attention from passers-by, and again every second glance was filled with envy. I don't like this game anymore. Why are there so many assholes here?
To get an answer to this question, I went to the library. There I looked at the statistics on the first game server and found out an interesting thing. Among the players, 65% were adepts of the Earth element. 20% were Fire mages, 10% were Water mages, and only 5% chose Air. Judging by this distribution, the culture of the local society corresponded to the culture of China. This means that the main cultural values here are public opinion, following traditions, 'cultivation' at the expense of stupid endless repetition and ... envy.
It was the last feeling that determined the relations of people in society. In Europe, people with a penchant for Fire predominated, so there was a saying in use there: 'Fear means respect'. But here, it should have sounded more like 'Envy means respect'. Accordingly, I will be able to communicate normally at best with one person out of ten. And this is another nail in the coffin of the idea to develop my guild. I just don't have enough patience to make these assholes listen to me. It would be easier to kill them all. The minimum plan is clear to me: I will kill all of them - I will remain alone.
I spent the rest of the day studying the available spells for the Healer and charging the amulets with them. As a result, I had learned eight standard spells, and there were six slots for talismans. I chose spells Discharge, Paralysis, Bombardment, Quick Healing, Righteous Shield, and Grow Weed. In addition to the Discharge and Quick Healing, all other spells were available to all elements.
I took Discharge and Paralysis because of their ability to paralyze the enemy. The bombardment performed well against the invisibles and enemies hiding behind obstacles. Quick Healing and Righteous Shield were the healer's 'profile' spells needed to play in the team.
The last spell Grow Weed was a 'trial version' of the Druid's future skills. It allowed me to grow a plant of the quality of 'weed' from the seed. I took it to test magic of Druids in combat conditions. For this purpose, I even bought seeds of Healing Chamomile and Evil Nettle from the players. One, as the name implies, heals allies, and the second whips opponents who were in range.
A plant-growing spell could be cast on an area suitable for gardening. It could be bare stones, but in that case the plants received a 'debuff' to the level of life and mana. In the area of action, plants grew in five seconds, whose density of placement corresponded to their type. That is, the nettle could grow almost in thickets, and the baobab in any case would grow one.
By the time I was done with my current affairs, the sun had already set, so I went to bed with a clear conscience.
In the morning, I woke up by the innkeeper yelling at me to get out. But the urge to continue basking in bed disappeared after I read the global text message that popped up in front of my eyes.
*** 'Player Blue Hot Pepper is the first on the server who reach level 10.'
As saying says: while you sleep, the enemies farm levels. Level ten! And I still have a sixth. However, this is all a show-off. The tenth level can be reached almost effortlessly in a week. I need to go right now and pass the exam for level 7. With the healing and shield spells, this will be easy. After that, it will be possible to pass the quest of becoming a Druid, and it will only be necessary to carefully study the question of what second profession I should take. There is definitely no need to rush.
But before I could begin to implement this plan, I received a personal message from the player Dramg the Magnificent.
- “Congratulations on completing the feat. Ready to go through the quests? I've already made a plan. I'm in the main hall of the inn."
Damn, I completely forgot about this clingy fish. I think that after I become a Druid, I can start doing quests that give me spell books. I already need to start collecting the skills that I will use at level 10.
Getting out of bed, I went to the main hall of the inn, which was also the main dining room of the tavern. There were many hotels in the city, but out of habit I spent the night in the cheapest of them, where I spent the night before last. But just the day before yesterday, I was thinking about where to earn a dozen silver coins. Progress is obvious. So, gaining levels - a matter of time.
“Hi, there.” - Dramg ran up to me. – “I welcome the first hero on the server.”
“Yes, yes, thank you.” - I waved it off, scanning the menu. The most expensive dish here was the ‘heavenly octopi’s caviar’, which increases energy regeneration by +4 for whole day. I ordered it, then sat down at the VIP table and turned my gaze to the Earth mage. – “Well, what are the quests? Are they even worth the time spent on them?”
“Of course, they are!” - He said, sitting down across from me. – “These tasks are designed for players of the eighth-ninth level, but they can be completed with the sixth level, as we have.” - I noticed that Dramg was on par with me in levels. – “For this, they give out an increased reward. Four quests provide gems, three spell books, three more have a chance to get a key to open a portal to a hidden dimension or to summon a boss, and a couple more tasks allow you to improve your reputation with the Guild of Mages and the Guild of Scouts, which will then allow you to take profitable tasks from them. Now many people are trying to increase the level as quickly as possible, while the tasks on the Island of Crabs make sense to take place at low levels. This is in the outside world, the higher the level, the greater the reward. But here everything is the opposite.
"All right, you persuaded me.” - I nodded, examining the dish that had been brought to me.
It looked like red caviar mixed with slime. This substance was in a deep dish and slightly trembled, as if alive. I scooped up a few eggs suspiciously and popped them into my mouth. Surprisingly, the taste was amazing. The consistency and taste of the dish resembled fruit jelly. Except that the taste itself was not similar to the fruits I knew. When I had tasted this miracle, I began to eat it spoonful by spoonful, watching the hungry gleam in Dramg's eyes. Although he was a rich Earth mage, spending three silver coins for breakfast was too wasteful for him.
After I finished the last of the eggs, we went to do the tasks. To do this, we had to use the portal system to quickly move to the other side of the island, where there was a zone for high levels. Surprisingly, although there were no top players, they were still present, running about their business with concentration.
"Have the guilds tried to recruit you yet?" - Dramg asked me when we took a task from one of the NPC and went along the path to the forest.
“Hmm... maybe they tried.” - I said doubtfully.
"How's that? What does 'maybe' mean?” - Dramg surprised.
"Well, some idiot wanted something from me, and he disrespectfully ordered me to stop. I killed him for that, without giving him a chance to explain what he wanted.”
“Well, yes, this is similar to how the players from the first server behave, who were members of the top guilds there. In general, get ready. With your hero aura and your dungeon records, all guilds will be trying to get you to join them.”
"What use are they will have from my records?" - I frowned.
"You don't know? If you are a member of a guild and are an officer, then your bonuses apply to all members of the guild. Similarly, if you are the leader of the group, then all players in the group receive these bonuses. Therefore, there is a constant struggle between the guilds for the records of passing the dungeons. Right now, no one is really doing this, but after getting the tenth level from the main players, they will start setting records in all dungeons of Crab Island. Although each specific bonus is not very big, if you collect bonuses from a hundred or two dungeons, you can become much stronger.”
"Then what's the point of my bonus pair?" - I questioned my value.
“The point is not in the bonuses, but in the fact that you were able to get them one of the first, and even at low levels. This indicates that you have good mechanical skills or a deep knowledge of game mechanics. Both are important requirements for elite players.”
"What kind of mechanical skills?"
“This is the ability to quickly apply evasion skills and attack with weapons. Without this, it is impossible to become a strong player.”
"What about the mages? Why would they need to evade? Stand to the side and throw spells.”
"It doesn't work that way.” - Dramg ruined my dreams. - "Even ordinary monsters won't let you stand by and beat them. Someone will definitely try to attack you, escaping from the control of the warriors. And then, if you can't dodge, you'll probably die. That's why you need to have fifty agility and forty stamina. With this distribution of stats, you can dodge seventy percent of the attacks. When there is a duel between Assassins, they can simply dodge each other's blows for a long time, and the final of battle will be decided by just one blow. Mages are weak against assassins, so they also need to learn how to dodge attacks. Warriors need less evasion, but they have heavy armor and weapons, which is why they have to invest in strength.”
I figured that with my resistance, I would need to have an improved defense to survive a missed attack. Still, predicting the future may not always help. So, the second profession, indeed, I can take a Paladin. However, then I can forget about dealing damage, which is not very good. The best damage indicators are obtained from the Druid-Demonologist, because plants and summoned demons perfectly complement each other. Plus, a druid can have a single pet that doesn't require any talismans to summon at all. Actually, that is why the Druids-Demonologists are in the first place in terms of the number of players who chose the Druid as the first profession.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
But plants and demons don't know how to effectively apply the effects of control, so they won't be able to stop the Assassins or Warrior at a distance. Although there are summoned creatures with the right skills, the mage can't control the timing of their use. Only a pet can have such control. As a result, it turns out that in a confrontation with other players, only the damage dealing is important. And if these are AOE spells, then no amount of dodging them will help.
Anyway, I have an invisibility bracelet. I can summon a crowd of pets and run alongside them in invisibility, killing enemies.
Ok, I decided that I will take a Demonologist as my second profession. It will only be necessary to find out whether it is possible to remain invisible when the summoned creatures attack the enemy? To do this, I can search for the answer in the library and conduct an experiment with nettle. However, I wasn't going to use the bracelet in front of Dramg, so I had to wait with the experiment.
By the time I got to this conclusion in my thoughts, we had completed several stages of the task, and now, as a 'final touch', we had to go through the dungeon. Right now, my spear was dealing almost two hundred points of damage due to my sixth level and the Righteous Shield and Quick Heal spells installed in it. I had 700 HP, and the energy regeneration due to the amulets and the caviar I ate was equal to the 'unlucky' number of 13 units every 5 seconds.
I thought I was pretty cool at dealing damage, but when we went into the dungeon, Dramg showed me what damage a Level 6 Destroyer could do. His Stream of Fire spell dealt 400 damage per second, even though he was 10 meters away from the target. In fact, as long as the enemy reached the Dramg, it turned into a handful piece of ashes. It was already clear that the Destroyer he would become in the future was capable of dealing incredible damage.
However, this paradise lasted only in the battle against the first group of Cave Scorpions. And in the second group was a Scorpion Warrior, who jumped sharply in the direction of the Dramg, knocked him down and almost killed him with a couple of claw swings. It looked like my partner had claws instead of hands too, so he couldn't even dodge in time. I had to heal him and cover him with a shield spell while finishing off the scorpion. A couple of other opponents also decided that it would be more correct to finish off the magician than to hit me, so Dramg had to run around from them in a circle, dodging their attacks. In the course of this race, he caught the eye of another group of enemies, so I had to literally pull him out of the grave.
Now I could see why his former teammate had spared no expense in writing a message to the global chat. Dramg was not only a crab in terms of the effectiveness of his actions, he also went not far from the cockroach in terms of intelligence. These two groups of scorpions were killed only by me. At least they were all chasing after the barely alive Wizard, ignoring me until I started attacking them in the back.
Then I had to organize the passage of the dungeon, by giving to the Dramg extremely simple and stupid orders. In addition, I had to monitor the future for threats not only to me, but also to him. We started each battle with the simultaneous use of the Paralysis spell, which left us with only one or two active opponents, which we managed to take apart in ten seconds of the Paralysis effect. We primarily tried to destroy enemy archers and mages who could attack from a distance. From their attacks, Dramg couldn't dodge in principle, so I constantly had to heal him. And given the fact that the dungeon was designed to be completed by a full group of level 8 players, all this action turned into some kind of hell, where I had to repeatedly 'crack my butthole' to save the complete idiot.
On the final boss fight, Dramg again successfully 'held' boss’s aggression, running away with the last crumbs of life. At this time, I beat the boss in the back, from time to time healing my 'battle comrade', so that he did not die on the one hand, and on the other continued to remain on the verge of death. Seeing the 'easy victim' in front of his eyes, the boss didn't pay any attention to me until his HP dropped to 10%. After that, he was switched its attention to me, completely ignoring Dramg, who was finally able to use his Stream of Fire to continuously deal decent damage.
To my surprise, we not only passed the dungeon, but also set a record. The 'standard' passing time was 50 minutes by a group of 5 people. There were only two of us, so for us the record bar was 125 minutes. But we completed the dungeon in just 45 minutes, which equated to 18 minutes for a full group. The dungeon was quite large, so even just walking it in 18 minutes wasn't easy. This is if you clean all the passages and corridors.
Theoretically, it was possible to pass it in 10 minutes. This was the record of this dungeon on the first server. To do this, you had to immediately run to the boss, simultaneously killing opponents. When the boss was hit, all the ordinary inhabitants of the dungeon ran to him aid, after which they could be destroyed by area spells. But this was already the level of professional players, so our 'virtual' 18 minutes looked pretty good. Thus, with our 45 minutes, we broke the previous record of passing in 37 minutes as a full group.
"Phew, this was the most difficult quest.” – Dramg issued, when we finally got out of the dungeon and went to take the job.
"Are you sure?" - I said doubtfully. With this walking misunderstanding, any simple quest was tantamount to performing a feat of epic proportions.
“Yes. For the rest of the quests, you do not need to pass group dungeons. There will be a couple of very simple open dungeons, and for all the others you just need to run through the forest and knock out the right amount of loot.”
"Are these tasks for Earth adepts?" - I asked.
"Uh... well, on the whole, yes. To fulfill them, it is enough just to show perseverance. And this dungeon was meant for Fire adepts. That's why we had to work so tense.”
“Yes, we are so tense that we can't go any further.” - I confirmed.
For completing this task, we received spell books. I got the Emergency Rescue spell. It required standing still and constant use on an ally, was quite expensive in mana, but every 0.25 seconds it applied healing and a magic shield from physical and thermal damage. Moreover, these shields could be stacked up to a hundred times, so as long as the spell was used, the target could survive taking quite a lot of damage.
However, after the end of the spell, the shield will disappear in just a second. On the other hand, it meant that it was possible to interrupt the use of the spell, evade the enemy's strike, and then continue healing while retaining the accumulated shield. Moreover, it was possible to cast a spell for one 'tick' once per second, simply maintaining the shield at the cost of a four-fold reduced mana consumption.
In general, this spell was more in line with the skills of a Priestess of the element of Water, but I got it as an Air Healer, which in general was very good. After using the book and studying the spell, I mentally slightly reduced the 'size of the moral debt ' of the Dramg before me and already with some optimism went to perform the next task.
We completed the next six quests without any problems. The only thing that threatened us was boredom. In order not to die from it, I bred Dramg on stories about the game and achievements in it. With a little help from me, the conversation turned to the topic of the Tower of Dark Lord, which I was able to learn quite interesting things about.
The tower itself was originally a 'dungeon' and had twenty floors. You could only enter it once a day. On each floor of the tower, a boss 'lived', killing him opened a passage to the next floor. For killing bosses and simple guards of the tower, they gave a good loot, so this was a generally recognized place of farming. The difficulty of passing the tower depended on the number of players in the group, and with each floor, the strength of the opponents increased.
Every time they entered the tower, they had to clean it from first floor. Normal players could only reach the fifteenth floor at most. But if there were only players from one guild in the group, then after killing the boss on the 15th floor, the entrance to the 16th floor would open. There, all the opponents were already designed for a group of 25 people. It was necessary to kill four bosses to get to the coveted 20th floor.
On the 20th floor, there were no ordinary opponents, and there was only one immortal boss 'Keeper of the Tower'. It was basically impossible to deal damage to boss, while boss could hit players at his own pleasure. The goal on this floor was to 'capture' the tower's control crystal. If the players could 'capture' the crystal for a minute without taking damage or interrupting, then the entire tower would become the guild's property, and the next stage would begin. It is quite obvious that the Keeper of the Tower tried to prevent the capture of the crystal with all his might, attacking only the one who was capturing it at the moment.
After the capture, only groups with at least one member of the guild that captured the tower could visit the tower. And once a week, the tower was opened for an assault, in which all the players of the server could take part. In essence, it was a 'one guild versus the whole world' battle. However, even in such conditions, the chances of capturing the tower were not very high.
First, on the side of the defenders were all those elite monsters and bosses that players fought in the normal mode of passing the tower. Moreover, after death, these defenders were revived quite quickly, so given the constant deaths of the attackers, a wide stream of 'meat' had to flow into the tower in order for at least a thin trickle to reach the 20th floor.
Secondly, the members of the defending guild were reborn right on the 20th floor, and could immediately join the battle against the attackers. The delay before their resurrection was only one minute. But the attackers had to be reborn outside the tower and then fight their way through 19 floors. And third, the conditions for capturing the tower were the same - use the crystal without getting a single hit for a minute. Only here, against the invaders, there was not one boss, but an entire guild.
In general, the fun with this tower was still something, and every week tens of thousands of players rushed to the capital to take part in its capture. I was interested in one feature that Dramg mentioned in his speech. It turns out that the guild bonuses increased the strength of not only its members, but also the monsters defending the tower. Moreover, after the first capture of the tower, the defenders received a special buff, which strengthened them depending on the time that the team had to spend to get from the first floor to the twentieth and capture it.
According to Dramg story, on the first server, the tower was captured for the first time only a year after the start of the game. And for another year, all the guilds of the game tried to recapture the tower from the guild of the Heavenly Order. But after they succeeded, the owners of the tower started to change almost every month.
After the "re-capture" of the tower, the assault stopped, and the lucky ones received it in a week's possession. Sometimes unknown guilds became such invaders, because the capture of the crystal was carried out by assassins hiding under invisibility.
I was interested in this whole story because of this 'first possession buff'. If you manage to collect a bunch of buffs from passing the dungeons, and then single-handedly clear the entire tower, then as a result, all monsters-defenders in it will become so strong that no one can capture it at all. And this will automatically mean my victory.
Thinking about my future plans, I already completed tasks as a full automatic machine. I even stopped pestering Dramg with questions, just following him and killing the monsters he pointed at. The tasks were really dreary, because you had to kill hundreds of monsters.
After another sweep of the territory, we came to a small outpost, where there were only five NPC and the circle of rebirth.
“So, here we hand over quests for fifteen silver and for improving the reputation with the Guild of Scouts.” - Dramg began to explain. - "Then we'll go to the next village and teleport to the next point. At the same time, you can get some rest.”
The words about rest made me feel impatient, so I quickly went to the necessary NPC and began to give them tasks, even without really listening to what they were saying. The stories behind these quests were as boring as their execution.
After once again answering in the affirmative to NPC’s question about whether I want to continue receiving rewards from the Guild of Scouts, I suddenly received a system notification.
***' You have chosen the ‘Scout’ as second profession'
While I was trying to figure out what had happened, Dramg the Magnificent’s nasty laugh rang out nearby.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha! Gotcha! Ha-ha-ha!!! Scout-Druid! Now your character is useless. You're going to lose this game. To capture the tower, you need to have a strong guild. And who will follow a person with such a profession? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”
I turned around and looked at the freak. It looks like, he is a Game Figure. But why is he so sure that I'm taking part in the Game?
"You really are an idiot.” - Dramg persisted. Apparently, in order to feel great about himself, he had to tell me about how he had caught me. - "Didn't you see that the names of the regular players follow a certain convention? They consist of a noun and several adjectives. My name as a game figure is Dramg. I added the description 'Magnificent', but I didn't think it would really fool anyone. I knew you were a game figure as soon as I saw your name. And you hung your ears and let yourself be lured into a trap. You're dead now. Ha-ha. Well, why don't you say something? Come on, kill me. That's what you want, isn't it? Go ahead, kill me!”
"Whatever you say." - I replied, activating my psionics abilities.
In the past two and a half days, it has already strengthened enough to be used directly. I tuned in to Dramg's emotions and his name, which he considered as his own. This was enough to find him in the astral world, and then reach out to his physical body. My strength was still small, but I could do something. It was almost the same probability magic, only I could change events just a few seconds into the future.
I already had a pretty good knowledge of the capsule device. It wasn't just a virtual reality access system. In this capsule, a person was born, lived and ... died. And after his death, his body was disposed of, for which it was not even necessary to remove the capsule. Simply, a special organic acid solvent was fed into the inner cavity, which in a few minutes turned the human body into broth. Of course, while the human was alive, this system could not be activated, but my psionics power interfered to the work process of Dramg’s capsule.
I just made a small "breakdown" of the electric charge on the computer board, which triggered the valve that feeds the "acid" inside the capsule. The pressure in the hose was minimal, because the acid pump was not working, but the acid still began to flow into the capsule. I couldn't turn on the acid pump, but I could activate the pumping out of the biogel that normally filled the capsule. As a result, the rate of acid intake increased, and it came into contact with the body of my victim.
“Well, what are you standing for? Say something." - Drag continued, his voice raging. - “It's because of me that you're going to lose this game. And I'll win. I've been studying the World of Elements for ten years. I know everything...” - With that, my enemy's smug speech stopped, and he began to look around. - "What's going on? What are you doing?”
“What I doing?” - I grinned viciously. - "I'm not doing anything. You said it yourself. I just stand there and watching how you die.”
The organic solvent, from a chemical point of view, was not an acid that 'corroded' organic matter. It dissolves the cell walls, collagen and keratin. Because of this, the rate of destruction of the body was simply fantastic. It dissolved like a lollipop in boiling water. In the real world, Dramg's skin had already peeled off. The solvent got into his bloodstream, started pouring into his lungs and eating out his eyes. The pain he felt was hellish, and even virtual reality couldn't get rid of it.
Dramg fell to the ground and began to roll on it, tearing his face with his nails. Of course, the virtual body couldn't take any damage from this. Just as these actions could not ease the pain.
“You!!! I'll kill you!” - Dramg croaked, shaking in convulsions.
Now all that's left of him is a skeleton, a few internal organs, and a brain. The life support system in the capsule was going crazy, trying to save a person's life, but it was all in vain. Special valves blocked the flow of blood to the brain and switched its power supply from chemical to electrical, using the neural network contacts embedded in the brain, but this only prolonged the agony.
After a minute, Dramg’s virtual body froze in a strange pose. Technically, Dramg was already dead. The soul of the game figure left the remains of the body and was carried away to the afterlife to meet with its owner Player. In the capsule, however, there was a disfigured brain embedded in a plastic medigel. He still somehow reacted to the signals of the neural network, but it was already the reaction of a dead organism, in which the metabolism is forcibly maintained. Because of this, the game avatar did not disappear, but continued to lie on the ground. I looked at the 'corpse' of my enemy and went to the nearby forest to assess the volume of the damage done to me.