Azeroth looked at the ceiling and thought about the conversation he had with Viki. He learnt a lot of interesting things over the past few hours.
It seems the universe has nerfed him to an extent. There was not much he could do about it. His powers were forcibly suppressed by the universe and there is no magical way to get back to his peak.
The only way to reach S rank is to do what all Gamers are familiar with, grinding. Grinding back to his former level was going to be difficult though. It was as hard as grinding from F to A rank. The hardest part of the grind wasn't the missions and tasks that he had to do for experience, it was the time taken to achieve it.
Unlike the traditional levels in games, Zenith had grades instead. It started at the lowest F rank, all the way to the highest S rank. As a person who reached the end game of Zenith, he felt that F to A rank was quite simple. Perhaps getting A rank did take a bit of effort but it was achievable by majority of the player base.
Levelling up all the way to A rank could be done through normal grinding which is basically doing quests and the like, but from A rank onwards it becomes much more complicated. In Zenith online S rank was the end game which meant that it couldn't be achieved through normal means.
Just doing quests or killing monsters for experience alone wasn’t enough. One needed to have special achievements in order to breakthrough to S rank. Otherwise even if you get the required experience points through grinding your grade wouldn’t increase to S rank no matter what.
Only the top players in Zenith or otherwise known as Pro gamers were talented enough to get the S rank. The so called “special achievements” were not the same for everyone.
Depending on your chosen “path” and the actions you have taken so far until A rank. The supreme AI of Zenith assigns certain conditions or achievements to each player to fulfil or obtain in order to get S rank.
Albeit Zenith Online made it much harder by not telling the players what their condition or objective was. According to the game Devs finding out was “part of the journey.”
The Big Boss was one of the rare few players to get S rank in the game.
Back to the situation on hand, now that Azeroth was back in A rank he had to grind back up to S rank. Luckily according to Viki, he didn’t have to worry about the special achievements part as his achievements in Zenith Online still counted.
All he had to worry about was getting loads of experience points. Hopefully it would be much easier since this new universe is filled with strong beings.
There was some good news from Viki though, at least it sounded like good news. According to her, the level capped enforced by the game is “absent”. The level cap was a fundamental part of Zenith Online’s system but since he was no longer in the game it no longer applied to him.
Theoretically it meant that Azeroth could grow without limit. It gave him a lot to ponder over but Azeroth decided to shelf that thought until after he reached S rank.
With the city under attack it was better for him to focus on his current condition. He was still A rank which put him at the same level of strength as a peak Mortal realm cultivator. Unfortunately, that was all he had from the system. According to Viki his circumstances resulted in the utter destruction of all items in his “inventory”.
The whole transmigration through space and time resulted in the disintegration of all items in his inventory. An unseen force, which Azeroth assumed was the one that brought him to this universe managed to ensure the safety of soul but the items in his personal pocket space were not spared.
Nothing from Zenith Online was strong enough to withstand his soul’s travel through what could be described as “Oblivion”, the nothingness between universes.
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He should be thankful enough that the pocket space wasn’t destroyed as well. It was still frustrating though as many of the items were valuable and could of have been used to handle his current problems.
‘I’m sure I had a quite a few bombs in my inventory.’
Staring at his hands Azeroth knew it didn’t matter though as he still possessed the power of an A rank. While he wasn’t sure how he compared to the people here, he was at least as strong as a Peak Mortal Cultivator or even stronger.
He only had himself to depend on. Azeroth opened his status and took a look.
| Name: @!*$)U$ @&T*^R |
| Title: The Big Boss |
| Guild: The Caelisti Familgia |
| Main Path: Genetic [ Titanic Monster(Kaiju)] |
| Rank: A (S) |
| ..........|
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.
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“Viki change my name to Azeroth Vanaheim.”
His old name mattered no more in this new world. He was Azeroth, a proud prince of the Verath Empire.
Boom.
Azeroth shivered at the sound. An involuntary reflex that was the result of his fear. Vibrations could be felt from the cannon shot. His forces were firing warning shots at the enemy.
Azeroth suddenly blinked in surprise.
‘His forces.’
The men on the walls were his people and they believed in him. He might have just arrived in this universe but that didn’t mean it was going to be a relaxing life. It wasn’t a vacation; no, it was a New Life.
Azeroth was going to cherish this chance and live his life to the fullest. Sure, death was right around the corner and it was a world where the might was right. He was scared and he had every right to be so, but the world didn’t care about his feelings.
He had to get up and do his duty or it wasn’t just his life on the line, it was the life all the people in the city.
“I am The Big Boss.”
There was nothing to fear. The Big Boss was invincible and filled with limitless strength, He most certainly was not a terminally ill patient with no hope in sight.
Smiling to himself Azeroth thought,
‘As if a siege machine could hold a candle to a Kaiju.’
Zenith Online had a unique path system instead of the traditional mmorpg classes. What made the path system special was that it could evolve into something unique. No one’s path was set in stone after all.
Zenith Online had three basic paths that players could choose from, the ‘Genetic’, the ‘Magic’, and the ‘Techno’ paths.
He began with the genetic path and somewhere along it he found his calling as a ‘Titanic Monster’. As he became famous in the game and players found out more about him, they dubbed his class as ‘Kaiju’ after a popular type of monster found in movies.
Eventually even though the official name of his genetic path was “Titanic Monster”, he found himself calling it as Kaiju as well. It had a much better ring to it.
His path was a pure genetic path. Most players combined another base path into their main path in order to obtain a more unique path and gain an advantage over the other players but not The Big Boss.
He stuck to the genetic path and became Zenith Online’s only Kaiju.
Azeroth knew the various abilities he had would come in handy in the upcoming battle.. He didn’t feel the need to test the limits of his current body or try out some of his abilities.
There was no practice required at all. Whatever transformed his body also gave him all of the knowledge he had as the Big Boss. This included combat. Everything about his body felt… natural.
His transformation didn’t give him any discomfort at all. To use his abilities was as simple as breathing. Azeroth just knew he could do it. If Azeroth had to pinpoint something different about his body from the game then perhaps it was the fact that it was ‘alive’.
The Big Boss wasn’t just a character in a VR game anymore, no it was breathing living person now…he is the Big Boss.
The presence of life in his body told him it was all real. Such a feeling was absent in Virtual reality. One could say this was the missing 1 percent in a game with 99% simulation.
That said he still wanted to test out all his abilities but considering that the city was in a state of emergency he didn’t want the citizens to panic due to some of his more extreme skills.
Right now, the most important matter at hand was to increase the morale of the men. He knew just what would help them too, himself.
Using the excuse, he had prepared beforehand, Azeroth would tell the people of Hamlish that he was ‘forced’ to use his ‘true power’ in order to defeat the enemy. His new appearance and strength can simply be attributed to his mysterious background.
Azeroth decided to head out and call in a meeting with the military leaders of Hamlish. Stepping out of the room he spoke to the maid standing by and said,
“Laura, tell General Randeim and his men to meet me in the war room immediately.”
Azeroth then started to head towards the war room but then paused and looked at the maid who just stood there and looked like she saw a ghost. He then sighed and put his hand on the maid’s shoulder.
“Hey you still there?”
Laura got shook out of her stupor and composed herself. She then cautiously looked at the man before her and inspected him. The man looked completely different from the boy who just entered the room.
Upon seeing his face, she realised that he looked eerily similar to the young Lord.
Azeroth on seeing her antics sighed again and looked at her and said,
“Yes, Laura it’s me.”
Laura once again looked surprised. The young Lord said her name not once but twice, and what was even more amazing was that he knew her name.
Laura bowed down and said, “Right away my Lord.”
As Laura walked away Azeroth said,
“… And Laura I will explain later.”
Laura turned back within another look of surprise and bowed once again and then went on her way. As he watched Laura walk away Azeroth couldn’t help but admire at how calm she acted throughout the whole ordeal. She had more mental fortitude than your average maid.
He took note of her as she might prove to be more resourceful later on and headed towards the war room. On the way he thought about how he would handle the council regarding his current changes and their plans for the upcoming battle.