After she switched on her Virtual Helmet, her consciousness began to fade. Most people would be scared, as full dive wasn't something they had ever experienced before. But Sera wasn't afraid because she knew this was going to happen. After her consciousness faded, everything around her was black. Suddenly, a female voice spoke to her.
[Welcome to Dryaid Reign]
[Name Registration]
"Name, huh? What Should I name myself?"
"Thoughtful Snow"
[Name has been Registered Successfully]
[Choose your class]
There were 6 unlocked classes she could choose from.
Swordsman
Berserker
Assassin
Ranger
Oracle
Cleric
Without looking at the introduction of the classes, she replied.
"Swordsman"
[Swordman Class Selected]
[You can customize your Character, customization is limited to 10% change]
Sera pondered upon it a bit before replying to the voice.
"9% customization, facial change"
She changed her face a bit so people couldn't recognize her real face. The most interesting question shoku had was, how did Dryaid Reign manage to create a character which looks entirely like them? No body measurement or anything was done by the device but still the system manages to create a character which looks like yourself. Shoku did have a conclusion after thinking a lot, the Virtual Helmet for Dryaid Reign can read or Scan the brain. But doing this wasn't safe…
But if the helmet was really capable of doing something like that, wouldn't it also have read that shoku had played the game before? Not giving it another thought, she didn't bother listening to the system and said, "Franius Kingdom."
[Acknowledged. You will be shortly teleported in Blue-moon town of Franius Kingdom]
"Blue moon town? Looks like things don't really change"
Blue moon town was where Shoku had started his journey.
Within a few seconds, a bright light illuminated from Sera's body before she disappeared.
[Would you like to play the Tutorial?]
(Yes) / (No)
She didn't hesitate to click yes. For everyone, tutorial was a waste of time, especially for Sera. But there was something she needed there. There could be two scenarios, first she goes in and no one has achieved that yet, second, someone has already taken it which will waste her time.
She then arrived in front of an open field with at least 1000 dummies.
[Tutorial System Notification: Granted a temporary wooden sword]
Suddenly, a wooden sword appeared in her inventory.
"New, are you?" A blue haired man approached her. "Yes, Mr. instructor" she replied.
This was an NPC, A sword king, Tier 3 NPC. His details were marked as Unknown and his Aura was very weak. No one would ever believe that the man in front of her was a Tier 3 Sword King.
"Well then, Newbie. There are three ways you can equip your sword. First, an easy method is basic equipping."
Basic Equipping was the manual way of dragging your sword icon to your hand box to equip the sword.
"Second, You can give the weapon to others from your hand to their hand. This will directly equip them."
"and the third" The moment he said, she grew ecstatic. She knew the third method, it was a secret quest which gave a passive skill. This skill had the power to turn tides in a battle.
Seeing the ecstatic look on Sera, the instructor stopped for a bit, "Adventurer, do you perhaps know what the third method is?"
This surprised Sera a bit. Tier 3 NPCs and Creatures had high level intelligence. But, this never happened before, maybe because Sera's excited face he thought she knew what the third method was.
"Should I say yes or no? I am confused."
After giving it a thought, she finally spoke. "Yes, Mr. Instructor. The third way is 'Materialization'"
"Yes, you're right. It is materialisation." After saying this, he lifted his hand in the air and closed his eyes. After a second, a sword appeared in the instructor's hand.
Suddenly, two notifications popped up in front of Sera.
[System: Congratulations! You have completed the Secret quest: The Imagination. Rewarding with skill, Materialisation]
[System: Congratulations! You have successfully learned Materialisation]
[Skill: Materialisation] (Passive)
Skill Information: Materialize your items with just the power of imagination.
Proficiency: Max
Cooldown: None
Sera then lifted her hand and immediately, the wooden sword was in her hand.
She then progressed with the tutorial, bashing dummies, and soon her wooden sword broke. An item breaks when it runs out of durability. There are many other reasons some items break, for example if one stumbled upon legendary items, it is always broken or Unusable. To put it into use you need to complete the designated quest which asked for a lot of rare materials.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Legendary Items were also very stingy, Some of them asked for a heavy sacrifice of stats.
[System: Completed Tutorial]
She then got teleported out of the tutorial center.
The street in front of her was full of people. Most people were in the queue in front of the Town Association for quests. There were four Town Association Buildings, each building having different quests.
"Money is a problem.."
Currently, people only use Copper Coins, Owning a silver coin is Hard at the current point of the game. Dryaid Reign was a much bigger game than one could imagine. The continents of the main Drayid Reign were split in the Easter Continent and the Western Continent. Leaving those, there were other worlds, which were not located in the Main World. Otherworld was known for its Resource-rich land.
Sera then headed for the lower regions of the Town. Much less people visited here and streets were filled with beggars. Dryaid Reign worked on the principle of Equivalent Exchange. There was no such thing as 'free'.
But there are times when NPCs cheated players. In the past, there were many players who fulfilled the requirements of these beggars, all they did was keep asking more without giving any reward.
Everyone started with 10 copper coins, also 10 bread and 5 basic mana potions. The bread replenished health and the basic mana potion restored Mana a bit.
After walking for a moment, she encountered a man who wasn't very well dressed. As soon as she closed in, the man started speaking.
"Miss, do you have something to eat or drink?"
Sera without hesitation replied, "I have those but have a very limited number of those. Can I help you with something else?"
Hearing this, the man smiled and then proceeded. "If you could help me with killing these green slimes and bring me 30 slimeballs?"
"I can, but are you sure that's the only thing you want, Sir?" Sera said as she smiled gently.
"There is another thing... but I think you are a bit too weak for that."
"Please do tell me, I will try my best to help you"
"Then I will leave this to you. The mayor, I want you to kill him…"
Suddenly a notification popped in front of her eyes.
[System: The host has triggered a Hidden Quest: The Revenge]
[Quest: The Revenge] (Hidden Quest)
Quest Information: Dyred wants you to kill the Town Mayor,
Rewards: ??? (Unknown)
"Your wish, I will fulfill it," Sera said with a confident look on her face. She then left the Man and headed towards the main Town Association Building.
After a few minutes of walking, she arrived at the entrance of the Town Association.
There was a big queue there, waiting to take a quest from the Mayor.
Ignoring the queue, she entered from the side of the queue.
"Miss! The line starts from here!" A guy yelled looking at her trying to enter the association. "Ah, I am not here for the quest."
Sera's words dumbfounded the people who heard her. At this point in the game, who wasn't interested in taking quests? Quests gave much Higher experience points than killing monsters. Leveling in the game was significantly Harder than leveling in other games. Currently, the people who played from the start of the official release were at level 1. The others and Sera herself were at level Level 0.
"Miss, you are joking right? What else business do you have with the Town association if not for quest?" The man asked with a confusion on his face.
"In any case, I am not here for the quest. I would suggest you to go and grind monsters instead of taking quests. You will be disappointed soon, if not"
The other guys ignored her, but didn't want to argue with a beauty such as herself. Instead they became dead silent and stood there. The guy who advised her, directly messaged her in game.
"Then can you tell me a suitable location for grinding monsters?"
Sera's entrepreneurial sense immediately tingled.
"Yeah, I do have one where monsters are easy to kill but the coordinates to the location comes with a cost. 20 coppers, you can easily earn upto 40 - 50 coppers there?"
"How can I trust you?"
"Depends on you. You can give me 10 copper coins first and mail me the other 10 copper coins later."
After giving it a thought, the man accepted her proposal.
After the man traded 10 coppers, Sera directly messaged him.
"Here, in the lower areas of the Greasy Garden. There are level 0 slimes which are easier to kill. If you are lucky, you can even get skill books from the slime. The other drops could be sold to NPC merchants for 7 - 8 copper coins per stack. The amount of players grinding there is less and the respawn rate is fast."
"Thank you very much, Miss Expert. Let's add each other as friends for now." The man suggested.
The man then sent a friend request to her. She accepted. 'Lonely Blake' was the man's name. Sera actually didn't bother with him, Even if he didn't pay her the 10 coppers, it was fine with her. She now had 20 coppers altogether. Sera then went towards an NPC shop and brought 'Rosuberries' which were small red berry-looking fruits. It was like a mini version of tomatoes. It took her 10 coppers for 10 rosuberries
Sera then looked at the mayor. The mayor was a High Lord ranked NPC.
[Name: Rudelford (High Lord)]
Position: Town Mayor
Race: Human
Level: 30
HP: 12,000,000/12,000,000]
His HP was enough to scare the players. On top of that, he was accompanied by two NPC Soldiers of level 60. Anyone wouldn't dare dream of killing the NPC with his/her own strength as of now. There was an alternate method of doing so. The Mayor sat below a Cross-like Object which was made of gold and silver. The 'cross-like' thing was a special item which hid the mayor's Real form. If stained completely, he would reveal his real form.
Sera then withdrew the rosuberries and threw them at the Cross-like object. This rendered the other players speechless.
"What is she trying to do?"
"Challenging the Mayor? this is interesting."
Though they thought it was interesting and she was very brave, inside their mind, they were laughing at the foolishness of her. If she angered the Mayor, she wouldn't be able to take any quest from the town association.
The mayor paid no heed to Sera's actions. She kept throwing the berries at the cross. After roughly 10 seconds, the cross was blood red. The mayor got angry and said with a cold voice, "You dare throw berries at me! you lowly commoner!"
He then charged at Sera, the moment he moved, He began to transform.
"Huh? What's happening with the mayor?"
His looks had completely changed, and so did his information.
[Name: Rudelford (High Lord)]
Position: Town Mayor
Race: Monster
Level: 30
HP: 12,000,000/12,000,000
Sera quickly drew her starter sword and drew it to defend against the charge from the Town Mayor. She then jumped in the air to receive the attack of the mayor with her sword.
-174
A damage appeared over her character, knocking her 10 yards away from her current location. The players in the queue were dumbstruck by seeing her fight. A level 0 player took a direct hit from a High lord level 30 NPC!
Though it looked like she took a direct hit, she didn't. Anyone who was at level 0 had no chance to survive in a direct confrontation with a High Lord Level 30 NPC.
After she got knocked, the guards pinned down Rudelford, and eventually his HP dropped crazily. The guards lost about -40,000 of their HP, while Rudelford suffered -100,000 HP of Damage as seconds passed. Eventually, the guards killed the mayor. The other players couldn't believe in their eyes. A level 30 high lord died, Just like that?
When the other players were processing the information, Sera dashed towards the mayor and picked an item it dropped. She then ran away from there. It was too late before others realized that she had ran away with the drop. The queue suddenly rushed at the Mayor's location. Obviously, A high lord should drop a lot of items.
But this wasn't the case. The town NPCs didn't drop anything, even after death. The item drop which Sera got was due to her quest.
After running for a while, Sera looked at the item she grabbed
[Item: Mayor's Insignia]
Item Description: Symbol of the Mayor of Blue Moon Town
Meanwhile, the other players who were in the queue outside the town association suddenly realised that if the town Mayor was killed, they couldn't turn in the quest for their rewards. Hence, all the quests they took from the association now were useless. Many players inwardly cursed Sera for killing the Mayor.
………..
"I have finished your task, Sir" Sera said, giving the Insignia to the man.
"Finally. I thank you for your help Miss Adventurer. Take this as a gift from me."
[System: Congratulations! You have Successfully Completed Hidden Quest: The Revenge. Rewarding with 5 free attributes. A strange-iron chest. 2000 EXP and 40 copper coins]
[System: Congratulations! Player has Successfully Leveled up to level 1!]
"I was expecting more, but a strange-iron chest is surely a surprise."
The items, chests were ranked with different names.
1. Common
2. Bronze
3. Mysterious-Silver
4. Strange-Iron
5. Fine Gold
6. Dark Gold
7. Epic
8. Pseudo Legendary
9. Fragmented Legendary
10. Legendary
11. Pseudo Divine
12. Fragmented Divine
13. Divine
14. God-Tier
only rumours of God-Tier items have been heard in the past. There was no such news of someone possessing one. The seven god crystal which Shoku had was also a Divine Ranked item.
It was considerably harder to get the weapons of the same rank than the equipment. It was even hard to get a designated item of the same rank.
There was also a level restriction on equipment. Currently, Level 5 common rank equipment was rare. Only guilds possessed them. The liquid-funds of a guild was currently around 2 - 3 silvers.
She immediately chose to open the Strange-Iron Chest.
When she was opening the chest, the forum of Dryaid Reign Blue Moon Town was in chaos, everyone was talking about the Mysterious Expert who successfully managed to kill the Mayor. Sera, without knowing, had become a popular figure within the Blue Moon Town.
……………….
Extras:
1. The designated items of different ranks served a specific purpose. A usable item for temporary summoning with a fixed number of time, after use the item will disintegrate
2. The Equipments work like this.
for example, you are level 1 to level 4 then you can equip the level 5 equipments. The moment you enter level 5 - 9, you can equip level 10 equipments and so on.