William was glad that the character selection Pavilion was a private space. He couldn’t wipe the grin off his face. He had been one of those unlucky million players who got the game and hardware on launch day only to find out that he couldn’t actually play the game. Jay, James Donnel, his best friend was another one of the unluck million. Since the launch of Arcane Unlimited the game had been limited to the two million beta users a collection of privileged heirs and heiresses as well as a cadre of elite players from a wide collection of the best VR MMOs since the later days of the first gen. Jay had managed to spoof the hardware into accessing their private server early, they were able to use the character creator but trying to load into the game world caused the black chip to fry the hardware just like it was designed to do.
William looked over his alter Ego, Drexis, waiting for the server to go green, to finish up the last bits of world Generation before sending the signal to the player access system to let players load in. On first inspection William looked identical to Drexis, but the game avatar was about three inches taller than its player and was designed to be nineteen, younger than William was himself. Ignoring these similarities the avatar looked every Inch the bronze age warrior.
William and his friends wanted more than just the generic fantasy world out of their private server. With this in Mind Jay had tweaked the server code to automatically generate a world on start up, they decided to use the setting of a world that was just reaching its iron age so that they could get a feeling a changing world while still limiting themselves to a pre-gunpowder sword-and-sorcery world.
Server greenlight ETA 30 Seconds
William touched the plaque in front of Drexis and felt a wave of nausea as his perspective shifted. Drexis stepped off the platform and began moving around to adjust to his avatar. With ten seconds to go he walked over to the gate that would open out into the central plaza of their starting town.
Moments later Drexis found himself in a relatively empty city square beside four other people. He saw Luke Fellorne, Jay, Lucy Camine, Megan, Sara Carmine, Megan’s little sister Gabriella, and Paul Kant, William’s cousin Tom.
Drexis looked at his friends, no one seemed to know how to start, so he took a deep breath and said, I kind of thought this would be less awkward, ya know?”
Lucy and Sara laughed, while they had both chosen to change their hair to a silver blonde and their eyes to a vibrant purple they wore the same faces. Lucy was a little shorter, and Draxis though she had a slightly smaller bust. Sara had gone the opposite rout, she was taller, thinner and she clearly had built her avatar to have bigger assets than the soucematerial.
Luke shook his head. “No small step for a man kind of bull then? Just had to play the loser card. He looked nothing like his real self where Jay was a good six inches taller than William and so clearly masculine that it hurt, Luke was only slightly taller than the average woman and had and had such an androgynous face that his gender was hard to determine. Luke favored the Rogue type roles and he wanted a body that he could disguise in as many ways as possible.
In direct contrast Paul had the appearance of an older man who hadn’t yet lost his physique. William’s fourteen year old cousin prefered the magic side of the sword-and-sorcery setting, and felt it was important to look like the wizened spellcaster.
Lucy stifled her laughter, once she was ready she turned to Drexis. “We should get started, I have to work tomorrow. You said we should start by unlocking skills right?”
Arcane Unlimited used a semi classless character system, each player could equip up to five free skills at a time, by progressing in these skills the layers could unlock classes. Classes allowed player to equip more skills but each class had limits on the types of skills they could equip.
Drexis nodded, “Based on what I could find on the wiki’s it looks like meditation is the best skill to go for first. It’s the root skill on the magic tree and some of the basic magic skills are extremely effective for melee characters. Basically we have to sit down and pretend to sense magic til the system is satisfied.”
Drexis sat down on the ground and imagined a loose cloud of power hanging around him. Once he had the image clear in his mind he imagined the cloud responding to his will as he tried to draw it into his body. Once he had done this he began moving the energy through his body before settling it down into his torso. He repeated this cycle for a few minutes before the notification popped up…
You have learned the skill meditation.
You have unlocked the Mana Pool attribute.
Through Meditation you have increased your Mana Pool by 1
Drexis opened his eyes and waited for his friends to unlock the skill. Sara had already learned it and Lucy finished shortly after Drexis. Sara crawled over to Paul and put her improved chest in his face while being careful not to disturb him. Drexis shook his head and turned to watch Luke who was now observing the younger Girl’s avatars rear end. Drexis closed his eyes and sighed. He figured that he should try and meditate a bit longer. Eventualy he heard Paul yelp when he opened his eyes to see Sara leaning over him. Drexis opened his eyes again.
You were meditating for 5 Minutes and 6 Seconds
Your Passive Mana Regeneration Rate has increased to 1 point per day.
Your Active Mana Regeneration Rate has increased to 1 point per hour.
Through Meditation you have increased you Mana Pool by 1.
Drexis looked at the message and opened his character status
Class: Novice
Wounds: None
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Pain: 0%
MP: 0/2
Free Skills 1 of 5
Meditation Rank 1
“Hey guys look at your status, I just trained Meditation some more and found out that our regen sucks, I have passive 1 per day active 1 per hour.”
Paul’s eyes unfocused for a moment then he turned back to Drexis. “How am I supposed to use magic like that?”
Lucy answered him, “You train, a lot. Drec what else should we learn before we settle in for training?”
“Fitness and sprinting, we can get them by running our asses off till they pop up, Fitness unlocks stamina, it's the root skill on the fighter tree. We can also work on the focus skill by trying to use meditation while running. I’m not sure it works based on the wiki’s though.”
The group started running around the plaza, Drexis focused on his breathing trying to use it as a focus for meditation. While they were running he lost track of time, he watched as everyone else quickly managed to get the skill, or skills. Paul and Sara sat down and resumed meditating while Luke and Lucy rested before joining Drexis again. He felt a growing irritation but pressed on focusing on breathing and trying to meditate. Eventually Drexis collapsed without warning.
You have Learned the skill Focus
You were meditating for 30 minutes and 59 seconds.
Your Passive Mana Regeneration Rate has increased to 1 point per hour.
You Active Mana Regeneration Rate has increased to 24 Points per hour.
You have increased your Mana Pool by 6
You have learned the skill Fitness.
You have unlocked the Stamina Pool attribute.
You have increased your Stamina pool by 26
You Passive Stamina Regeneration has increased to 2 Points per hour.
You have learned the skill Breathing Technique.
Your Active Stamina Regeneration has increased to 2 Points per minute.
You are Exhausted. Your skills locked until your SP reached 90% (22/24)
“Drec are you okay?” Megan ran over to me and rolled me over onto my back.
“Yeah, turns out you can meditate while running, I got the focus skill. By the way your notifications turn off while meditating, then they all pop up when you are done. I didn’t notice I got the skills until just now. Right now I'm [Exhausted] which means I can’t use my skills until i have more than 90% SP. Looks like I’m done for the next few hours.”
State: Exhausted
Class: Novice
Wounds: Minor Scrapes
Pain: 6%
MP: 8/8
SP: -12/24
Free Skills 4 of 5
Meditation Rank 1
Focus Rank 1
Fitness Rank 1
Breathing Technique Rank 1
“Fuck! You can drop to negative half your SP”
Meditation Rank 1
You have learned to draw in mana from the world around you.
Learning this skill unlocks MP
Equipping this skill enables passive MP regeneration
Using this skill enables active MP regeneration; gradually increases MP regeneration; and gradually increases Max MP.
Learning the Skill Breathing Technique Rank 1 increases the effectiveness of meditation by 10%
Focus Rank 1
You have learned to ignore distractions.
Equipping this skill reduces skill activation penalties.
Using this skill may unlock additional skill features.
Fitness Rank 1
You have shown an interest in training your body and have taken the first steps to do so.
Learning this skill unlocks SP; and enables passive SP regeneration
Using this skill may unlock additional skill features; gradually increases SP regeneration; and gradually increases your Max SP.
Breathing Technique Rank 1
You have learned that by paying attention to how you breath you can reduce the strain on your body.
This skill is unaffected by [Skill Lock] type status effects. The full effects may not be shown in all situations.
Learning this skill increases the effects of Meditation by 10%
Equipping this skill reduces SP consumption.
Using this skill further reduces SP consumption.
Using this skill with the skill meditation to enable active SP regeneration, if used in this way while [Tired] type status effects are active MP regeneration will be disabled and SP will recover at half speed. Meditation may be used in this way even when under the effect of some [Skill Lock] type status effects.
“Drec, you done?” Lucy had a concerned look on her face, she knew how long I had been waiting for this. Being shut out for basically eleven hours was reason enough to kill my mood.”
“No, I was just looking at my skills, I got one that helps me recover from [Exhaustion] faster.”
“That’s good. What skill is it?”
“Breathing techniques, it’s a good one. Basically it lowers SP consumption and gives you faster regen while Meditating. Also, just learning it is enough to give you a boost to meditation. Wake me up in about forty minutes.”
Having said that Drexis closed his eyes and meditated.
You were meditating for 42 minutes and 21 Seconds.
You are no longer Exhausted.
Your Passive Mana Regeneration is now 1 and 1/12 points per hour
Your Active Mana Regeneration is now 36 points per hour
Your mana pool has increased by 2
Now that your Mana pool has reached 10 you feel the effects of meditation weakening, you now take more time to further improve your mana pool through meditation.
“Okay, I’m good to go, any advice on getting sprint?”
Luke looked at me, “Run harder and faster I think.”
Lucy nodded, “Yeah, that’s about all I can think to say.”
Drexis stood up and got back to running.
SP regeneration through Meditation Disabled
Drexis paid attention to his SP and tried to time his usage of meditation so that he would be able to stop running at half of his SP. It took him two cycles of running and recovery before he learned Sprint.
You were Meditating for 20 Minutes
Your Passive Mana Regeneration is now 2 points per hour
Your Active Mana Regeneration is now 48 points per hour
You feel the effect of meditation weakening, it will now take more time to improve your MP regeneration through Meditation
Your mana pool has increased by 2
You have increased your Stamina pool by 20
You Passive Stamina Regeneration has increased to 4 Points per hour.
Your Active Stamina Regeneration has increased to 4 Points per minute.
You were Meditating for 8 Minutes
You were Meditating for 30 Minutes
Your Passive Mana Regeneration is now 2 6/24 points per hour
Your Active Mana Regeneration is now 52 points per hour
Your mana pool has increased by 3
You have increased your Stamina pool by 30
You Passive Stamina Regeneration has increased to 7 Points per hour.
Your Active Stamina Regeneration has increased to 7 Points per minute.
You have learned the skill Sprint.
You were meditating for 11 minutes
Your Passive Mana Regeneration is now 2 8/24 points per hour
Your Active Mana Regeneration is now 54 points per hour
Your mana pool has increased by 1
Class: Novice
Wounds: Minor scrapes
Pain: 1%
SP: 74/74
MP: 16/16
Free Skills 5 of 5
Meditation Rank 1
Focus Rank 1
Fitness Rank 1
Breathing Technique Rank 1
Sprint Rank 1
“Okay, I’m done.”
Lucy smiled at him, “Good work, what do we do next?”
Luke answered this time, “We start questing. Weapon and armor skills are next right?”