Dragavar West Gate, September 28 2012

Vestalia felt nervous. In the real world, she did not interact much with males except obviously her father or her teacher. She had never felt as nervous as when she met Pendragon. Perhaps she felt this because Velocity was only two years older than her. She should have realized that Seption’s genre is predominantly male players.

Trying to ease her nerves, she opened the conversation again. "You said you're a veteran player? Does that mean you've played games like this before?"

"I used to be a player of Espion Online, a game that did its End of Service last year. Seption Online, the game we're playing now was also developed by a company called Genesis. They announced the closure as well as advanced notice about the development of this game," Velocity explained.

"Have you ever played an RPG, which stands for Role Playing Game? This game was added with the Virtual Speech Online genre, so it's called VSORPG, an online RPG game that features our voice for live conversations and keyword commands," Velocity continued. "Espion Online didn't have this technology before. Thus, the conversation through our voices is new to me as well. In that case, you're familiar with the terms Level Up and Party from normal RPG games, right?"

"Hmm, I already understand a bit about Level Up and Party," said Vestalia. "But I don't understand about stats and skills allocation yet."

"That's something RPG players become accustomed to. I don't think you understand that yet because this game is well, online. You only control yourself. You have to design your character. You have to cooperate with other players to do things."

On Vestalia's monitor, Party and Friendlist notifications appeared. Both are the sign of invitations from Velocity to enter the Party and become friends in the virtual world.

"That's my party and friend invitation," Velocity said. "From the player list, you can also search for User Identification Numbers, called User ID, or other player names to invite to party, friend, and Guild. For Guild, which is a form of association or organization, we haven't played that far to join yet. You can access the Party screen instantly by pressing the Z button on the keypad when you do not access the Chat Box. The friend screen is on the H button, and the guild screen is on the G button. The tutorial on party or group is complete."

Velocity was right, with such a short explanation Vestalia could understand a tutorial that might have taken longer to read and understand without his explanation. She accepted the invitation that had been sent to her.

Vestalia looked at Velocity's character information below her now. But she only saw Velocity's HP, base level, and Class information. It looked like all of the party members' names would be sorted from top to bottom.

"Next we talk about Level Up. Our characters have two types of levels, base and job level. Our characters are now at Level 6 for both types of levels and that is because we did the initial tutorial at Mjolnir academy before teleporting to Dragavar West Gate and defeating the monsters, Draco and Great Draco in the previous battle," Velocity explained. "Use the S button to open the skill chart, then the A button to open the stats."

Vestalia wanted to ask but she already got the answer first, so she immediately changed her question. "So, the points in the Stats and Skills menu must be allocated by the players themselves?"

"Exactly. The allocation of both is called Build. Even for the same Class, our Build can be different. Now let's say the Class you have planned for up to rank B. This is important to help build a character."

"I've read some articles from websites and other sources," Vestalia replied. "I've planned to become a Cleric and Priest after Magician."

She already felt confident about becoming a Class that could heal and provide a support role to other players.

"Huh? That's just like me!" exclaimed Velocity in surprise. "But you don't intend to copy my Build, do you? If you read the article, I think you intend to take on the Support role, a role that helps other players in the party by using heal and buffs."

"What kind of Build do you want to make as a Priest?" asked Vestalia curiously.

"That’s a secret. You'll see for yourself in battle," Velocity replied in a high-pitched tone.

"Hoeeeee?" Vestalia replied in confusion.

"Instead of being curious about my Build, you should read up on the functions for stats listed on Mobius. If you've read the articles on the internet or Mobius, you should already have an idea."

Vestalia read carefully about the explanation of the stats, which were divided into seven.

Power: increases melee physical damage and increases the slots in the inventory bag.

Spirit: increases magic damage, increases regeneration plus max MP.

Focus: increases long-range physical damage, increases Hit, reduces Variable Cast Time or Skill preparation time.

Tenacity: increases Defense, increases regeneration plus max HP.

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Agility: increases Block, increases Attack Speed.

Creativity: increases Critical, increases all types of Technical Damage, increases the probability of craft skills.

Wisdom: increases Mental, increases Healing, reduces the probability of some types of Crowd Control.

It took her a few minutes to understand everything. Once again, Velocity's explanation shortened the time it took her to understand, plus she already got references from internet searches.

"Wisdom, Tenacity, and Focus. Should I divide the points according to the article?" asked Vestalia, wanting to confirm her actions.

"That's up to you. Our builds are different," Velocity responded. "Take another look at the last part of the tutorial, about the Memory Book."

Vestalia read the tutorial again on her monitor. The Memory Book was a book page feature that consisted of one line labelled Build 0 (Reset) and three blank lines labelled Build 1, 2, and 3 on each line.

"You can save, load, and delete the Builds you have created in the Memory Book. Build 0 resets our Stat and Skill allocations with a two-day cooldown or pay with Sepilith. So, don't be afraid to experiment with multiple Builds. It's also a new feature that doesn't exist in Espion," Velocity said, shortening the words in the lengthy tutorial.

"And the Junction with the J icon next to each stat, what does it do? There are also icons like this next to HP and MP," asked Vestalia, noticing the symbol on the right side of the user interface on the monitor.

"It still says Locked, we can't access it yet as it said. I'm curious too," Velocity replied. "When you're done allocating stats, we'll move on to skills. This is simpler because you're just continuing the previous tutorial with Pendragon."

Vestalia opened the screen display for skills. She read through the list of skills, called Skill Tree from her Class.

[Revelio] [Meditatio] [Sonorus]

[Water Ball] [Spit Fire] [Static Elect] [Stone Needle]

[Heal] [Clementia] [Sylphario]

"So, I should learn Heal right?"

"That's right. But before that, pay attention to the Tribe Skill. These are unique skills that can have different names and effects in each Class depending on which Tribe you select. Try reading the Tribe Skill in your skill list out loud. Usually, there is only one name," Velocity directed.

Vestalia began to read aloud. "Eldora Heal. A passive skill that heals all players around the target when performing the Heal skill. Skill level affects the Heal factor. The keyword for Heal will change to Eldora Heal. Maximum level 5."

"That's a very useful skill!" Velocity exclaimed, sounding enthusiastic. "You should maximize the Heal skill and the Eldora Heal skill for your character. For now, take level 1 each."

Vestalia followed Velocity's lead. She continued to ask, "Do we only need the Heal, Clementia, and Sylphario skills for the Magician Class?"

"That's right and if you notice, the skill tree has been grouped into specific positions to synergize with the next Rank," Velocity could be heard taking a breath and pausing before continuing. "The top is for Trickster, the middle is for Wizard, and the bottom is for Cleric. Job level at rank D will stop at 30, so we have 30 points for Magician skills and have 10 points of free choice after 20 points of Cleric prerequisite skills and Tribe Skills are learnt."

Vestalia used a nod emoticon from her character to signify understanding. She read the tutorial again to sort the skills and items to be used on the Command menu, a grid of icons that she could use during combat on the bottom right of the screen. After she finished reading, she realized that they had changed places. It didn't feel like she was doing all that when her character was running automatically.

"We've arrived at a place called Deep Inferno," Velocity said. "According to the tutorial, we have to train by fighting the monsters here. We'll earn experience points to level up."

Vestalia looked around, noticing that the place was more crowded than Dragavar West Gate. There were several figures in the form of various animals that were other players or Saviors fighting with monsters around. She saw Draco, a familiar monster from the previous tutorial, but there were also new monsters that she had never seen.

"Let's head southwest," Velocity invited. "We'll fight monsters as we walk to the GPS location Pendragon sent us."

They started training by fighting the monsters they encountered. Just like before, Velocity with his melee attack hit the monsters one by one with Mace. While Vestalia uses her Water Ball magic.

In the battle, players of this game must sort Skills, Items, or other activity icons through the Command Mode bar at the bottom right of the screen. Skills that have been sorted according to Mode can be used by pressing the F1 to F7 buttons on 1 Shortcut line that can be changed in each mode. Players can switch Modes with buttons 1 to 7 on the keyboard according to the desired role: Offense, Magic, Defense, Recovery, Buff, Shred, and Item.

Vestalia read aloud the name of the new monster she had encountered. "Dino? This red dinosaur is kinda cute."

"Be careful if you meet Tyranno, it's the bigger version of them. Similar to the Great Draco."

A few minutes during their training, Velocity's words came true. Some large dinosaurs were chasing them, Velocity took Vestalia for a run with instructions to move the cursor using her mouse and then press the four-way button simultaneously to increase her speed.

"Can't we fight those monsters?" asked Vestalia as she ran.

"No, I can't explain why right now. One thing is for sure, we can't afford to waste our HP and MP," Velocity said.

They stopped once the Tyrannos were out of range, and they healed to recover their HP, which had been greatly reduced by the monsters' attacks. Vestalia noticed that she had lost more HP than Velocity.

"Are you okay?" asked Velocity, his voice sounding breathy. "I heard my voice sounds like a gasp by the way, but my real voice isn't gasping."

"Me too," replied Vestalia, almost as breathy. "This VSORPG technology you speak of is also sophisticated."

"Yeah, but it sounds weird to hear your voice," Velocity chimed in. "Speaking of which, we've arrived at the place listed on the... GPS..."

Velocity's voice trailed off when he said GPS. Vestalia joined in the whisper and asked, "Why are you whispering like that?"

"Come here," Velocity ordered her to follow him. They were behind a tree with red grass around where they stood. In front of them was a box that reminded Vestalia of phone boxes she had encountered in her childhood. But instead of a phone, it contained a monitor and some cables.

"This is called a Mobius Terminal," Velocity whispered. "With this, there are some Mobius features that we can use only from this terminal."

“So what does this have to do with whispering?” Vestalia asked in a cautious whisper, worried that her voice would also be heard loudly in the virtual world.

"Look beyond this tree," Velocity replied. "Look at that wide area."