*This are thoughts*
~Sound effects~
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Chapter 01:Beginning of Training
Neuron thought that because he had buried himself in info of Royal Road he wouldn`t be surprised of what awaited him in the starting city, but he soon knew, that nothing could prepare you for the sight he was seeing right now.
He was teleported in the middle of a square inside a town he didn`t know the name of where a tall fountain stood that left his mouth agape.
Then he turned around, and let the scenery work on him.
It was a round square, around it standing medieval houses at a height of three stories.
Then he began to stroll through the town, he made plans on what to do once he finally got his capsule, but those plans didn`t matter anymore, because he was like a kid gazing at the wonders this new world had to offer.
While walking he noticed something
*Wait, why are the houses so small, and it really doesn`t look like the screenshots I saw players had posted about different cities, actually everything looks really worn down*
Then he heard loud noises and his natural curiosity won, and so he headed towards them.
When he turned at the corner, he was stunned because his eyes, ears and nose where overloaded by all this new information they had to process, it was the marketplace where everyone was shouting why exactly their wares where the best you could by for money. His brain was so overloaded, that it activated one of the oldest instincts, and thus making Neuron flee from this place.
Then he finally remembered his plans and started to head towards the Archery.
Because he had no idea where the training ground for archers was he asked the first person he came across for directions, after receiving them he run towards the direction pointed, but soon he was lost, but nonetheless he run aimlessly until he dropped to the ground completely exhausted, because he knew by doing strenuous actions he would be awarded with stats.
*Wow, I run till I depleted all my stamina, but didn`t gain a stat, just what do you have to do to gain them?*
There he laid huffing for air and a popup message appeared in the middle of his vision, but not the message he had hoped for.
* You are exhausted, and can`t move, until your stamina is restored
Drinking water accelerates the process
After reading this he cursed himself for not looking through his inventory.
Inside his pockets where a canteen, empty of course, and some bread that is named Barley, but didn`t look edible, the only thing he could do now was leaning against the wall, waiting for his stamina to recover.
*Damn it with all that running around I should have at least gotten some plus in stamina.*
While gasping for air a group of players passed him pointing at him and laughing/giggling, because one of them was a girl.
*Great, now I’m the laughing stock of some players*
He couldn`t differentiate between NPC`s and Players, but because the group where made of a warrior, a priest and a rouge which he recognized due to the armor, the staff, and the daggers respectively. He assumed them to be Players, to his eyes they also looked quite high level, but that was only because he compared their gear to his, and of course, everything is miles better than the beginner gear.
Actually their level was in the higher 80s
But it couldn`t be helped, because he collapsed in a rather large square. At the opposite of the square he could make out a Map but it was too far away to actually recognize anything, but nonetheless he strained his eyes and a shout of surprise left his mouth, making everyone in the square turn their head towards him, and wondering if this guy is just crazy.
But he couldn`t hear because his mind was occupied with something else, that thing being the map which he saw clearly as if standing right before it.
*What’s that, something like this shouldn`t be possible at all!*
After thinking of that matter he decided to look at his Stat Window. He refrained on doing so the moment he logged in, because he already knew how the stats of a beginner human look like, because he saw some screenshots.
So he called out: “Show status Window”
Status WindowNameNeuronLevel1ClassN/AFame0Infamy0TitleN/AHealth100Mana100Strength10Dexterity10Wisdom10Intelligence10Vitality10Luck0Base Attack3Defence0Magical ResistanceFire0%Water0%Earth0%Air0%Dark0%Holy0%
* Hawk Eye: Passive
Enables you to see things that are far away more clearly
Because of your special eyes it will activate when you strain them
They will only be visible when activated
Slightly increases critical hit chance.
Caution:
Because they look a lot like Demon eyes, NPC`s will be afraid of you, when they see them.
*Sweet just what I hoped for when I asked for those eyes, but I wonder why they didn`t allow it from the start?*
Because Neuron as Alex was something like a loner he didn`t mind the NPC`s beeing afraid of him, and he didn`t even think about the problems he would face when selling stuff to NPC`s.
Now he began to study the map with his new skill and as soon as his stamina recovered he bounced off the ground and continued his way towards the archery, but of course after asking for the way again.
Standing before the archery he took a deep breath and opened the door. As soon as he opened it he heard the sounds of letting bowstrings loose and arrows hitting their target, at least he expected hearing that, but to his surprise no one was here, except the instructor, well he assumed him to be the instructor, because he was the only one in there, who shot at the farthest target which was approximately 70m away. Neuron watched him for a moment and then stepping inside; when the instructor finished shooting the last arrows in his quiver he came over and asked: “what can I do for you?”
If Neuron even slightly bothered about looking at the target the “instructor” was shooting at, he would have seen that the arrows sticking out of the target where all over the place, not in a nice grouping, which you could expect a shooting instructor would be capable of doing. But he was too occupied at looking at all those practice bows that where aligned near the wall
The “instructor” looked like he was in his mid thirties, with short thinned out brown hair, coupled with a harsh look in his eyes and an overall grumpy look, but also wrinkles around his eyes that indicated that he is also able to laugh heartily, but his build was rather strange, being on the broader side, not with fat but because of well build muscles in the arms, that didn`t go well with an archer.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Well I’d like to learn archery, and I’m glad I went to this city, because now that I’ve seen you shoot I know how capable you are” said Neuron trying to flatter him as much as possible
*God, this much flattery is turning my tongue upside down, but hopefully it helps*
While he was thinking that the instructor made a face like he had to swallow something disgusting
“Glad to hear that, now come inside and choose a bow”
Because he didn`t have the Identify skill as of yet he had to examine those bows the normal way, meaning to test their performance
There where all kinds of bows, curved, short- and Longbows of course, but there was one bow he hasn’t seen before. Neuron was quiet curious about that bow, because he one time in his life underwent shooting practice and always took the archer or a ranged class in any game he has played, so of course Neuron knows some stuff about bows. Well to be true in his entire life he only used three different kinds of Bows, one being those he made himself as a kid from Hazelwood, the Recurve Bow with which he actually trained and a Compound Bow, one of his friends purchased one and let him shoot with it sometimes.
All those bows had one thing in common, and that was their Symmetry, this bow however had one limb that was towering above his head cause it had double the length of the opposing. With that at least deciding how to hold it was in vain.
Then he went to the arrows and examined them, they where all the same with a round arrowhead, ideal for shooting practice, cause the tip has no blade and thus it doesn`t damage the target as much as an arrowhead with edges.
With this he turned to the shooting range, on witch where 9 targets, standing at 5 to 20 meter with 5m distance between them, and from 20 to 70m with 10m distance between each.
Those targets where standing on a grassy field, with trails leading to the targets.
*Great, grass, this will make finding missed arrows a loooot easier*
Because he wasn`t accustomed with that bow Neuron decided to shoot at the nearest target being only 5m away. He took his stance nocking an arrow on the string and pulling the string to his cheek, taking a deep breath and finally releasing the arrow.
Of course he hasn`t used a bow in a long time and thus being a bit rusty (lets change that to completely forgotten about the basics), but the “instructor” saw, that this guy had some experience with bows, unlike those other freedman who always pulled the string with force and thus decreasing their accuracy and depleting their stamina more than necessary.
Neuron thought that this bow is actually hard to handle as he watched the arrow fly way past the target. Reason for that being, that he wasn`t accustomed to the fact that this bow got his shooting power from the longer upper limb and because of that the posture he used and had learned wasn`t suited for a bow of that
But nether less he shot some more arrows just for the fun of trying something new, when he finished shooting 7 out of then arrows where stuck in the target with 2 even in the yellow section, but those where just some lucky shots. Then he went to gather the shot arrows, the two that missed took quite some time to be found.
*Shooting at targets is nice and all, but recovering the arrows is a pain in the a..*
Then he tried the short bows, there were some different kinds, but he decided to try the Mongolian one, he leaned that because of his difficult making progress which involved putting some special pieces of wood together with some horn glue.
That was all he knew about a Bow like this.
But while shooting he realized that this bow or rather short bows weren`t suitable for him either.
Being tall is both an advantage and a disadvantage when it comes to bows. While pulling the string of the bow backwards force is exerted on the limbs of the bows and its grip, because most times the grip is made from different material than the limbs because of needing to have different properties, one being to remain still, and the other of being elastic.
But this connection is also the weak spot of any bow build like this.
If the archer is tall, his drawing length naturally increases because he has to bring the arrow to his cheek, so the pressure on the intersection rises, and with the short bows there is an even greater disadvantage, because of them being what their name implies the drawing length of those bows is shortened thus putting more pressure on the limbs of the bow and because every material has a breaking point, or a point when it loses its performance the durability of such a bow used by a large player would naturally decrease faster, and the accuracy is of course decreased too.
Just imagine bending a stick, at some point it won`t go back to its original form.
*Damn I wanted to use short bows, why is that game so realistic!*
The reason being, that it is easier to hide with a short bow, and thus ambushing targets, a long bow can only be shot in a standing position, because it normally was 1,8m tall.
Well it technically is possible to hold it horizontally, but then the accuracy drops significantly, and the drawing length decreases, making the arrow lose force and thus inflicting less damage on the target.
….
…
*Man I want to punch myself, there I´ve wished my entire life for a VR-game like this coming out, and now I´m complaining, that it’s too realistic...*
~Whack!~
* You have received a hit: -10Hp
*Ouch, I didn`t hit myself that hard!*
The “instructor” couldn’t understand this particular freedman; there he was trying out every bow, although it was quite obvious that he has to take the Longbow and after dropping the Mongolian bow he actually hit himself quite hard and then laid groaning on the floor…
Because of those actions and the over the top adulation Neuron dished out at the beginning he decided to distance himself from this boy letting him do what he wanted, and only giving advice when asked.
Adding to his disgust towards Neuron was the fact, that he was only the temporary instructor, because the old man suddenly got ill, he wasn`t even that good with a bow himself cause of him being a Blacksmith and shooting some arrows only to relax after a strenuous day of work.
It wasn`t because of the behavior of the other three freedmen he saw while tending for the Training Ground the last week, only coming here to learn the skill and then leaving, not bothering to train some more till they could hit the target almost every time (well just hitting it), it definitely wasn`t!
But it being like this is also quite understandable, because of the task of getting the arrows back, first it could sometimes be quite hard to pull an arrow out of the target, and second the task of recollecting them itself. You can`t shoot an infinite amount of arrows at the target, because then you can`t see where it hit, and it also makes the retrieving harder, if they are stuck near each other.
And also the long and annoying search for arrows that missed the target they were aiming at, which happened quite often, but this was compensated by leveling up and thus letting the system help them out, so no one bothered to stay long.
End Chapter 01
So, I REPLACEed some trivia about bows, hope you liked it, because I got more :twisted:
As always keep the criticism moderate and feel free to point out any errors you find.
Well, as I am a native German speaker, and have some problems with English, I would like to have a proofreader, PM me If you feel up for this task.