Another few words from the Author.
I'm a bit sorry if you'll find the chapter a bit boring and a bit short but I still hope you can understand that it's a bit hard with coming up with great Ideas and ways to make it better.
Please enjoy and Ask away any question in your mind, either to why or how, I can explain almost everything, but to tell the truth, I have already have ready the next few chapters to go If you want 2 chapters tomorrow please say so, I think It'll take a bit of effort but It won't be too much.
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It was a new day and Darknym had to decide which world to enter, Allastar or Destros. He decided on Allastar as he had loads of stuff to take care of there while Destros could wait for at least a week.
He entered Allastar and it was the middle of the night there. It was a bit frustrating since it was daytime in the real world. Aretea was lying on the bed and Princess was sleep, he looked at his spellbooks and decided to cast the sweet dream spell at them. It was a useless spell at least normally but he didn't care at least it would give a good night's sleep to them.
He hadn't seen the difficulty of the spell but for some reason the spell was cast as a priest spell and a cooldown was activated, a 100seconds cooldown. He had only cast the the spell on Aretea and he now meditated for a little to wait for the cooldown and did the same for Princess.
He then meditated for a long time to come, sometimes leaving to draw some designs for the blacksmith. He had also taken out the river reed to raise the Illusion detection skill. When his Mp were low he went to a different room and begun activating the staff again and again, sometimes prolonging the duration of the light.
He had few things left to do, so he looked at the river reed while doing some tai chi practice, it probably gave him nothing in the game but it was a good way to have peace of mind.
He then looked at his spellbook once more, he had a spell called "Dream Manipulation" It took a shitload of 100 stone to cast and 10stones per second to keep.
He cast it on the Princess and he appeared in a strange place, it was like around him there was only darkness and under him there was a transparent floor through where he could see the Princesses dream.
She was in a strange Palace made of white stone and green jewels. She had many guards and she was looking outside through the balcony where her people were cheered for her. She seemed truly happy, he sighed for a little and then came out of her dream. The cooldown for the spell was around an hour it was a powerful spell and if you could kill someone inside his dream, they would either wake up or die instantly, based on their mental fortitude.
He called the butler and asked for the medical soup that restores Mp and after refilling his Mp went to train his own spellcasting.
The reason he could cast the Dream spells was that he used his Affinity to cast them, it's possible for anyone to do so, all they need is a spellbook and enough affinity to cast a spell they don't drain the affinity but depending on the power of the spell the cooldown will be longer, but he wanted to train his own spellcasting he begun casting his wind marble spell again and again the spell took only one stone but needed a small amount of mp to sustain making it good for practice. He cast the spell until he run out of Mp, 540tries and 539fails but his skill had gained valuable skillpoints
.
He ate another soup and went again for another round of 540tries this time with 6 successes, but he wasn't disheartened each time it took him less time to cast the spell.
At some time his control,focus and augmentation stats all three together gained a level raise to 1.
Basic control enables a mage to control how much magic to put into a spell,
reducing the chances to fail to cast a spell and wasting magic.
Basic Focus makes the chance to cast the right spell into a 50% which was
25% in the start and makes the range of the spell a bit better at least a 10% up.
Basic augmentation is like a "+" button to make a spell stronger
with each 1% magic more you use a 1% more power is added to the
spell's effect up to 100% or become weaker with a "-" button
up to -50% making the spell weaker but also usable more than one times.
In other words he had 25% more chances to cast the spell right now,
but even with that it was still a sad 7/540 successes.
seven hours had passed since he had started grinding his skills and was startled by Aretea's arrival to where he sat in a lotus pose on the flour casting spells, his success rate now rising even more as the simple spell casting had entered the 1000sp he could cast 10/100 spells successfully, making it a 54/540 spells.
"So how's training going?"
Aretea said while looking at his somewhat disturbed face.
"Not so good I'm afraid"
"I'm sorry to hear that"
"Well It doesn't matter, do you think everyone's awake now?"
"Probably"
"That's good for me, do you want to come or will you stay here?"
"I'll pass, this city is too close minded to my liking"
"Suit yourself"
Darknym left the Inn, Greeted Silvie at the entrance and went for Yosh's store. Yosh was working on some piece of wood when Darknym came in.
"What took you so long, I was waiting for you at least a week ago"
"No one knows what might happen tomorrow, isn't that so?"
"Well it must have been some great woman to make you stay a week at that place"
"You can't even Imagine it, one week and she still couldn't make me scream such a waste of time"
"I'll leave it at that, so shall we begin with the profession training"
"Would I be here otherwise"
He gained the Spy profession first because of Yosh's stubbornness and
then the merchant profession
(spy's stalk)
Spies have a special ability that locks on the target,
helping them hear what the target says through walls and obstacles.
(Merchant's fake death)
A basic skill that allows the player to play dead,
only works on herbivorous animals and non aggravated mobs.
He wasn't so happy about the skills but at least they were easy to train, the stalk drained stamina while the fake death drained nothing at all, it just failed to work all the time, gaining 100 points in both was not so easy, he had a 60 in stalk and 100 in fake death just by staying still for 100seconds without breathing.
Stalk raised both his stamina and reflexes while fake death did non.
Yosh gave him a stamina potion, quite generous of him. with that Darknym went another 80 points in stalk gaining an 140 points in stalk.
The next skills were...for the Spy profession
(Stalking peeping)
Can create holes in thin walls or surfaces to see what's on the other side.
Only applicable if the stalked person is on the other side.
(simple Drug mixing)
Can mix simple drugs and poisons from ready ingredients.
Raw ingredients do not count as ready.
(Spy's Finesse)
Raises charm up by a few points, max of ten.
For the merchant profession
(Running dead)
Raises your speed after a using fake death for a short duration.
(Merchant's product beautifying)
Enables the merchant to make products more presentable in
order to sell it for a better price.
(Merchant's looks)
raises your charm up by a max of 10 points.
The skills were strange since he didn't know what charm was used for
Charm stat
The ability to become more likable to npc characters, might help gain
a small discount in some store or learn information.
"How do I train these skills that raise charm?"
"It's easy, you don't just talk with people like you normally do and they will raise by themselves"
"sounds convenient"
Darknym said, though his mind went towards the fact that there were very few Npcs left in the city.
He trained the stalk but the peeping thing was hard to be of any use, since all walls are hard and the only way he could find it useful was by carrying a newspaper around like in those old detective comedies. He held a piece of paper in front of his face and made a peeping hole in it while stalking Yosh inside the shop and playing dead on a chair at the same time, it was a bit funny but too tiresome.
He was afraid of the beautifying skill of the merchant because it could ruin an Item and he had no junk items at the moment but Yosh solved his problem by giving him some junk of his that wouldn't even sell for more than a copper. The skill use Mp but such a small amount that he couldn't even care about it.
His spy's finesse and Merchant's looks were raised just by talking to Yosh, but the real profession skilled started at the next level of skills he got. Spy's abilities weren't something great, but the merchant's were handy to have, it's no surprise many warrior select to have a merchant as a profession.
(Hide and seek)
Can hide in the dark shadows making the spy
almost impossible to detect. movement might
give you away.
(adjust potency)
by putting more or less of each ingredient you can now
adjust a simple drug's attributes.
(barter skill)
Have the ability to barter prices the discount on the
price won't be more than your skill.
(max 10%)
(package service)
You can put items into packages which reduces their
space in the buyer's inventory.
(max 100items)
The package service is as unbalanced an Ability as it can be, you can pack 100 different items in one slot, of course it doesn't means 100 stack of 999, just 100 items. Packing 100 same Items is a waste anyway since stacks reach 999, the problem is the weight of the items, he had no problem with weight since he had no weapon armor or anything that would weight him down too much but if he didn't raise his strength a little he would become over encumbered in no time once he starts fighting monsters.
The hide skill used Mp and he could use skills while hiding as long as they didn't require movement.
He had replenished some Mp since then but mostly it was Yosh that provided him with potions that replenished Stamina and Magic.
He had spend four hours on training his skills to this moment and now Yosh gave taught him the last few skills he needed.Although he couldn't use the drug mixing because Yosh had no Ingredients, he did use his barter with him on many cheap staff, losing another gold on some cheap wood.
He had a stack of 999cheap wood now, which he beautified and packed until they all disappeared, as he failed to do it again. Beautify is stackable so if you are good at it you can do it up to 100times but each time it's harder to not destroy the Item so it is not advised to do it a second time even at high levels of the skill.
He was now ready for the next skills Yosh said, he wanted to go through this in just one day, well normally players don't spend more than a few hours to gain their profession so it's inside the accepted boundary, although some stay longer with their teacher because of the teaching bonus he gives, under the guidance of a teacher all your skills are raised 100% faster, Instead of 1sp per activation you gain two and instead of 0.5sp per failure you gain 1sp. Of course the third profession had gains only 80% of the sp instead of the whole 100% the first gains but it's still tolerable.
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(stealthy walking)
After hiding can walk but using skills will
cancel the effect of stealth, unless it's
another stealth skill you used.
(Spy's loyalty)
Raises the endurance of the spy for some points.
(max 10end)
(Spy's training)
Raises the constitution of the spy for some points.
(max 10con)
The spy's skills looked a bit lacking but once he started to play
the game they would surely help a lot.
(something extra)
You might ask for something extra for free when buying in bulk.
(Merchant's prowess)
Permanently decreases the price of goods for you.
(max 10%)
(Merchant's pride)
Raises the lowest price of your sold items.
(max 10%)
The merchant's skills were worth every single coin he spent for the wood, if he decreased the prices of valuable Ingredients and books he could gain a large profit from it not to talk about the selling price that he could raise with the skill.
He first trained the Spy skills to please Yosh who gave him the potions to refill his stamina.
And was given the 5th level skill of the profession, he wasn't so sure as to why Yosh was so happy about it, but the last skill was worth every penny.
(Spy's Stealth)
Raises your stealth level by a few points.
(10max)
He searched through his other status pages and found
the stealth level and detection levels.
Stealth level is based on agility and detection on reflexes.
"Here your training with me ends but if you decide to work for the good of the world we could always use a capable adventurer"
"I will think about it"
he said as he looked outside, and it was morning already, they must have spend more than ten hours grinding skillpoints for his Spy profession.
"Could I buy some more wood"
He said with a smile on his face.
"You drive a hard bargain but since it's you I will make you your discount"
They had been bartering about the price of a large bulk of wood,
it was more than 9990 pieces of wood.
"Could you also sell me a carving knife?"
"I have something more useful for you"
He said and took out a set of daggers and gave them to him.
There were 12 light daggers, they were sharp and jugged on the corner.
"And what I'm supposed to do with these?"
Yosh took one and threw it with force at one of the mannequins at one corner of the shop, hitting it strait in the head.
"Thought you might need them in the future if you begin to travel"
he said with a smile.
Darknym would have been Impressed if not for Yosh's bad Aim, he had hit the mannequin on the right side, on the head. but if there was a helm it would have bounced off on the moment of impact.
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Set of flashy throwing knives
Quality - common
attack - 20-40
durability - 24/24
missiles - 12/12
Physical enhancements
None
Magical enchantments
None
No requirements
Value 10silvers
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Well they were flashy, but other than that they were a little disappointing, an average beginner's sword does 80damage, a normal throwing knife should at least do a 40-60damage but his did only half that but they were a gift he took none the less.
He told him to send the wood to his Inn room while he himself logged out and took a break from the game for the rest of the day.
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Inside the game in the underground secret chamber of Yosh's shop the four spies were sitting down on anything that could be used as a chair. Only one Person sat on a normal chair, He was something of a leader.
"So flower it seems your elven brethren was a member of Helllion in the end"
"It's not 100% precise yet but it seems so, for the moment he is training under Theo but he had more deals with the Helllion than ever these past few days"
If darknym was here he would have recognized Flower as Silvie or whatever her real name may be.
"So his intel was right after all but I really can't understand you "Traveler", why train him as a spy when he doesn't even belong to the Democracy"
"You won't understand even if I told you, I simply couldn't not train such a talent"
Traveler/Yosh or whatever his real name was said not really knowing himself why he had accepted to train him.
"Even If he hit you in balls the other time?"
Another person explained as the burst into laughter.
"That wouldn't have happened if someone was better trained and a little more careful, right Blade"
Said Traveler
"How could I know that there was someone there, I walked under complete darkness, I seriously couldn't even hear him following me from behind"
His laughing voice had switched to an apologetic tone as he spoke.
Now the Boss stood up with a serious expression.
"The mission is now Over, You have three days to cut any loose ends and return to the HQ for your next missions, be sure not to be found in your last few day here, I will make sure you all gain letters that will justify your leave"
"I'm right on it Raven"
said Yosh/Traveler
"I pity Theo, she will be alone once more and business at the Inn is at a decline now"
Said Silvie/Flower
"In the end did anyone find out what the mysterious beast was?"
Asked Blade
"There was no third appearance of the monster, there are only three clues to go on and the results will be disastrous if it is what we think it is"
Silvie aka Flower said.
"Glowing red eyes, otherworldly wails and great agility, if not for it being able to walk every clue directs us to wraith, but the only other creature with such characteristics would be an undead chimera"
Raven said with a serious look of concern and a pale look of terror on her face.
"I thought they only appeared in Anchora"
Said Traveler/Yosh with a puzzled expression.
"It must have been some stupid Adventurer that brought one inside the town in secret"
Said Flower/Silvie full of anger and concern for Theo who would stay alone in the town after she left.
"Well there hasn't been any sight of the beast by either the guards or the Adventurers, some even doubt it even existed"
Said Blade
"Lets hope it just went towards the Dragon mountains and died a horrible death"
Said Traveler in an attempt to drop the subject.
"Last subject for the day is the war in the Isleplains, the democracy is at a loss as all our Adventurers are some sort of celebrities who spend most of their time doing public stunts to raise their fame and assets"
Raven Exclaimed
"Why aren't there any decent Adventurer?"
Flower/Sylvie complained with a silly expression on her face, if not for her voice none could have recognize who she was without her glasses.
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POV Hope
Somewhere else In Allastar a player named Hope entered the game. He was a strange young man, he was skinny and seemed deathly pale, if not for his golden hair and deep blue eyes anyone would take him for an undead.
He roamed through his small starting town only for a few minutes before he headed for the town's gate. The guard wouldn't let him pass through unless he had a fighting profession or an escort who would provide him safety. This was a means of having new players train for a few hours and adapt to the mechanics of the game.
He however begun coughing so hard that the guard became afraid to come too close to him, giving him a chance to bypass him and go outside.
He young man was now lying on top of a green hill. His name was Lazarus and in the real world he was dying by a terminal Illness. His coughing was a mental thing that followed from his real life body. This was the first of the last days of his life, his family didn't want to have him die sad so they logged his unconscious body inside the game.
They didn't know where he would start from but they would surely find him, as they had contacted the administrators of the game for help since he was one of many such special cases.
Hope was cloud gazing for a long time until something almost invisible came into his view, he couldn't understand what he was seeing since he had never even bothered looking about the game before his illness.
Out of curiosity he went closer and closer, the ethereal thing that looked like a ghost from cartoons, a blank white sheet with holes for eyes. He couldn't understand why there was a ghost in broad daylight bad since he didn't know if it was dangerous he decided to leave it be.He was walking away when a chilling feeling came upon him, he coughed a little and then heard a voice from behind him and a message popped up.
"Hello buddy"
-You are being haunted by a malicious ghost -
-you can exorcise it by going to the closest-
-Temple of light or health or life-
'At least I won't be bored'
He thought without knowing what was coming and the real Identity of the malicious ghost.
"Please don't exorcise me, I don't want to die once again, I will help you become stronger, I will do anything you like"
He was wary of ghost's promises, it was probably plainly evil but he didn't care, he had bigger problems than being taken advantage by a ghost Inside a VR game.
He went up the hill and continued the cloud gazing.
"Oi strange buddy, what are you thinking about?"
Hope didn't answer but his thoughts were about the real world, about how his family will be crying at his funeral, how in years to come they will forget about him, the happy and the sad days he spent with them and his friends.
"Will I still be remembered?"
He said subconsciously in a low voice.
"As you are now probably not but if you become a famous hero or a mighty overlord, everyone will know your name for times to come"
Said the malicious ghost.
'Well nothing better to do, nothing to lose'
He thought and asked the ghost a bit intrigued.
"What should I call you Ghost?"
"Call me Sensei"
It said with a small laughing tone.
A strange relationship begun after that as Sensei taught him how to fight and defend and other handy tips for the game, sometimes staying silent for some time or even days.
Hope couldn't log out as his capsule was equipped with the life support addon allowing him to live inside it and cut the costs for nursing as well.