-4 minute rotation! This is absurd!

Free of the duties of University, at least for four months, Oliver is once again screaming at a game screen.

-This is too much, they put so many skills and powers, that the game becomes a light show!

In the new Asmodeus game, no matter what class you chose, there was a meta, a proven mathematical order of skills you had to use to deal the most damage. It counts the cooldowns of said skills as well as the  cooldown of items to get a correct rotation. 

This happens in many games, however… 

-Next game, next game for sure I'll do it differently… 

The amount of skills in this game is simply too much. 

Thinking of all the skills he has to use, even if it no longer needs buttons, now that there is virtual reality, you barely see the enemies you're fighting against, you only see the light show that is your attacks. 

That made Oliver furious. He loved to see the animations on enemies, how they react and feel the pushes and pulls of a battle. 

And because of this last game he decided something. Something small but grand. 

Oliver is in the beginning of his English Major. He isn't sure what he wants to do with it, but his best grades were in language classes so he chose it as his Major. 

He is a thin young man that looks like he has muscles, but it's just him not eating enough. This was mostly because he didn't really like eating, it felt like a waste of a time, so he usually ate while doing something different.

Light brown hair that falls over his forehead and brown eyes gives him a very soft feel. Brown skin courtesy of his parents paints his skin. Lucky him, as he would probably have the whitest skin for all the time he spends in his room. 

Both of his parents love him and even his sister has a good relationship with him. But he knows he is very much a lonely and shut-in person and that worries them. But he can't control it, he just… Feels at home in his room. 

Even in school or the odd jobs he had, he never really made friends. There were people he talked with sure, but it never grew to be more than just that, acquaintances. One thing that is repeating itself here, in the university. 

Low maintenance, or maybe just not caring about things, he lives a very low key life. He stays in his room, buys mostly pre-made meals and reads, plays, or just sleeps. 

Except when it came to games. 

He always spent his money on new consoles, games and of course the new virtual consoles. From the earliest age he could start working, mostly odd jobs and helping neighbours, he did so he would have money to buy his games. 

And he kept doing it to this day. He played the old, the new and always wanted the next one. The advent of virtual games had already happened before his birth, but it keeps getting better and better. 

Knowing full well how much the virtual era of video games could be, thanks to anime, mangas, series and movies, despite loving the retro consoles and their games he was ready to have a good adventure in a virtual world. 

One that he had the freedom to make his character the way he wants, make it work and not have the restraints games usually had. Not be in a constraint of having to use meta to be able to play. Or maybe not even having a choice, as some games give you the skills and spells needed and you had no choice on the matter. 

Stolen novel; please report.

This is at least what he expects of the new game coming out this break. 

World online. 

With the new helmet-like console, and promising the world for their players, the game is bound to be a hit. It checked every box he wanted. 

An experience where you could choose your stats, skills, classes and way of play, where you evolve your character the way you want. 

For sure there will be metas, but he was also sure there will be the rogues and the off-meta. He just had to be smart and he could do what he was thinking. 

Using the money from his part-time jobs and help from his parents, he got the helmet and was just waiting for the day the game opened for the players. 

The game even had a demo. 

It was an arena with various weapons and bookcases. You could spend some time reading the books to get skills or using the weapons to get it too. 

You couldn't fight with other players, but it had a few npcs to fight against. 

And if you win against them, you would get other skills. 

Oliver of course tried everything. The magic skills, the physical ones, the weapons and all the books. It was tiring doing that while he had classes, but he loved it, even the tiredness. 

Just knowing the possibilities, the few ones they showed, he was hooked. 

First and foremost is the way he was going to play. He knew it was going to be hard, but he wanted to try no matter what. 

He wanted to do an all passive build. He was going to get every single passive skill he possibly could, and fight only with that. 

With the books he found in the arena he already knew there were passives against certain types of enemies, both offensive and defensive, which would be instrumental for this build, so he would need to hunt for them all. 

There were also the passives for weapons, as well, armor and shields. As well as passives for stats and health and mana. He could also learn to be a blacksmith to create weapons that do status as well as alchemy to make poisons for the weapons.

That he learnt from the Monster Slayer series. 

Maybe there are more games he could forage to see what else he could gain on  knowledge of passives. 

Doing some research he found an old series called Star Sea, which had a lot of passive skills you could buy with skill points, and with that increase the abilities of your characters.

He spent a good amount of his time before the game launch playing Star Sea and studying what had already been put to public on World Online. 

The game had 6 main attributes that you could raise; Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. You get 5 attribute points per level and everyone started with 5 on all of them. 

Oliver wasn't the best with stat allocation, but with 5, he thought he could put one in each stat except wisdom. 

-Maybe intelligence is used for crafting. If not I'll put 2 points on con, my build will definitely be more of a slow burn, so I'll need to have plenty of health points (HP). 

Skills are a little different. You have to buy, learn or even gain the skill, then it has tiers and levels. 

40 levels for the trained tier, 30 for expert. Apparently there is a master tier but no one got it on the beta, or at least showed it to anyone. There is also a quest to evolve to the next tier. 

Not having a limit on skills truly is amazing for him, he will need to get as many as possible. 

The problem now is the classes. 

He had no idea what class to pick, each class had passives he would like to have. He knows there are hidden and secret classes, some have been found during beta, but none made what he wanted. 

Sometimes things just can't be prepared beforehand, he will have to enter the game and play it to see what happens. Maybe he will find a hidden class too. 

-Maybe I'll find a super class hahahah… 

Truly thinking about your character is one of the funner things to do in a game. 

Oliver was already thinking on what weapon to specialise. Maybe bow and arrow, to poison the arrows, maybe a knife with its easy manoeuvrability, a spear with its long reach is also good. 

The race will be human. He would love to do a different race, but for what he wants to do, he needs options and humans are known to have the most options, right? 

One thing for sure he will have to find. Someplace that teaches how to fight with these weapons. Being a virtual game, he is not sure how well the skills help the players, and some beta players with real weapon experience did say they got levels quicker.

So that's what he did. 

He found a place, The Fighting Arts Academy. It had a weird name but it looked like a survival skills school. It taught various weapons as well as skills for foraging, survival and wilderness in general. 

Checking if he could actually pay for one of the classes, Oliver enrolled. 

Wilderness training it is. He knows he will play alone, so knowing how to take care of himself is a must. 

It took the span of a month for the game to launch. 

For that month, he continued playing retro games, studying the beta and doing his wilderness training. 

Connecting

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