Of course, Fortuna Corporation wasn’t composed of idiots. I knew they expertly extended and reused their original code and data to improve the game experience for everybody. As a result, communication felt very much true to life. Unfortunately for me, I was now the subject of everybody’s comments. Furthermore, I was unable to hide my user details right away, so even after quickly setting my username to private, I already heard a lot of people who recognized my name. It was also well-known by now that characters in Eternal Arcanum were very much fashioned to appear like your actual appearance with some minor modifications and customizations permitted. This meant a lot of people now knew what I looked like in real life. Ignoring my dark elf skin tone, this was something that really embarrassed me.
“I didn’t know that the manly Edelweiss from Arcana Gate was so cute.”
“So it really turns out that she was concealing her appearance the whole time.”
“It’s well known that he’s a dude, man…”
“It doesn’t matter to me. I’d still hit that. I mean, look at him! He has a cute outfit while all of us are stuck with the beginner gear.”
I definitely would not answer to any of this; even if I wanted to get rid of this overpowered mantle, it was bound to my back slot anyway so I was forced to keep it on me forever. It would not drop even if I died in PvP. On the other hand, if they knew that this piece of gear immediately made me level half as slowly as everybody else here, they’d probably have some different ideas. Ignoring the peanut gallery for a while, I took the chance to check out my statistics. It appears they didn’t deviate from their golden standard – all characters started out pretty much the same. There were six main statistics, STRength, AGIlity, INTelligence, DEXterity, LUCk and VITality, which affected various sub-statistics in various ways. The stat system was actually really simplistic, and was shamelessly taken from a much older, but incredibly popular game that managed to run for literally over 2 decades before being dumped for VR tech.
Regardless, that game was a treasure trove of knowledge to make the virtual reality MMO gaming experience more fun and open for discussion and theorycrafting. All characters made in Arcana Gate started with 1 point in each of these stats, and it appeared like Eternal Arcanum wasn’t an exception to this rule. In fact, I realized that statistics progression was pretty much exactly the same as the old game, which made me quite convinced now if I wasn’t before that Eternal Arcanum was designed to be pretty much “Arcana Gate 2.0”. However, where I would expect to have 10 points to distribute to my stats, I discovered I had 30 instead! This was, obviously, due to my [Shroud of Magdalene] which gave me three times the usual stat points on level up. This was actually huge.
The leveling deficit in this sense was actually massive – many people would consider me to be absurdly weak, but because I had three times the amount of bonus points to distribute compared to a person of my own level, I would actually be invincible in my own level bracket! Unfortunately, this had the disadvantage of making me slower in hitting key level brackets for skill prerequisites and gear… However, I did recall a certain kind of new skill system being introduced that allowed people to learn [Personal Skills] that were unique only to the person who learned or created them. I was pretty interested in this mechanic, but there wasn’t much official documentation on it, so I would only have to pray that I could bump into something good.
I was also disappointed to learn that [Shroud of Magdalene] did not offer any bonus stats at my current level, but I was only level 1, so it would be too greedy of me to expect otherwise. After keying in my statistics, I smiled in approval.
Major Stats (Gear bonuses listed separately)
STR: 10 +0
AGI: 1 +0
VIT: 1 +0
DEX: 7 +0
INT: 1 +0
LUK: 1 +0
I had used up all 30 points rather perfectly. At the beginning of these kinds of games, damage and accuracy was incredibly important. Though you could mitigate low accuracy with player skill, sometimes you rammed into an enemy’s ability to dodge perfectly and it was only countered with raw accuracy stat. This was naturally determined by dexterity. Therefore, as a physical attacker, it was pretty obvious to prioritize accuracy over attack speed.
I charged through the crowd, or so I imagined, as I discovered people were making way for me. Did I really look that pretty? I suddenly felt like I was eye candy. I didn’t really know how to react to that, as in the past, I had made my character look deliberately masculine and more handsome than feminine. Suddenly, I felt a rough hand grab my wrist. Inwardly sighing and realizing I couldn’t escape this kind of treatment, I stopped moving and turned to face the person who grabbed me – he seemed to be a healer kind of magician... A Human cleric, I guess. But he seemed pretty creepy, so I didn’t want to associate with this guy. “Would you like to team up with us? We just picked up a ques—“
“No thanks.” I frowned and bowed apologetically, swallowing my pride and continuing my way. Fortuna Corporation had a cruel philosophy when it came to quests and the scenario. Normally these low level quests would be like a tutorial to get the player accustomed to the game. But I already could tell at a glance that Eternal Arcanum was just Arcana Gate with highly improved technology and new features. This meant triggering secret quests and tasks probably happened in the same way too. Since I definitely wouldn’t be the only veterans playing this game, I had to quickly cement my foothold. If my new appearance ended up working for me in this way, even better.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Kacha –
The only disadvantage of skipping the tutorial quests right away is that you didn’t get any of the better equipment. Everyone started with the basic dagger as a weapon; it was rather pitiful. It only provided a +6 bonus to your damage, which would normally be low for most people, but I had already pumped my strength to the magic number of 10. Normally, your base damage was just equal to your strength, but at every multiple of 10, you gained an extra 4 damage for a total of 5 at each multiple of 10. Therefore most people at my level wouldn’t even be able to do more than 10 damage at level 1, even with a weapon, but not the case for me. Against an enemy with no defense, my damage ceiling already approached 20. This was unprecedented!
Now, you were still limited by attack speed by somewhat, but this was a VRMMO – you weren’t limited by the game anymore. You could attack as fast as your body permitted you to, but the bounding factor was attack speed, which exerted artificial pressure on your arms when you approached the limit of attack! In fact, controlling when you felt this pressure was a high-level technique back on Arcana Gate was called “Attack Speed Capping,” which was named after the concept of trying to cap your ASPD by acting personally instead of letting the system do it for you.
As a fighter, I was now using my arms to do the fighting. This meant I could mow through the enemies pretty comfortably. Ignoring the overpopulated beginner areas, I decided to make my way to a forest clearing that was filled with monsters that looked like walking hollowed tree trunks. They were actually non-aggressive but weren’t exactly pushovers when struck.
I made my move, immediately rushing over to one of the tree trunk monsters and slashing my dagger out in a clear forward arc. Unfortunately, I swung my arm too much and ended up catching two creatures next to it with my swing. Though they were just baby wolves, they seemed much fiercer than the tree monster. Not intending to let myself get made into mincemeat by these mobs, I tried to dart about to avoid the wolves, and instead let the tree trunk creature hit me instead – with the broken property of the [Shroud of Magdalene] allowing me to block 50% of incoming damage from 2/3rds of everything in the game, I could be considered a heaven-defying existence.
I realized that though these monsters were much stronger than those the regular beginners fought, I was still stuck at level one. The leveling capacity being cut short by the [Shroud of Magdalene] was truly annoying, but given all the benefits it provided on the other hand, I could only consider it to be fair. Soon, I decided to test myself by mobbing a group of these tree monsters with my wide-arc slash. Repeatedly doing this, I soon heard a system notification sound out.
[Crescent Moon Slash] Personal Skill has been created by you. Share? You may also share achievements anonymously.
What? A personal skill? Isn’t this way too convenient? I looked at the time and realized that I had been mobbing monsters in this manner for about four hours. When I looked at my level, I only grew two levels, making me level 3. However, my disappointment turned to astonishment and joy when I realized that the way to create personal skills was not too dissimilar to a previous game that shut down due to the developers going bankrupt. As long as you repeatedly did something that could be considered ingenious and out of the game’s scope, the game would turn it into a personal skill for you.
It also gave me the opportunity to share it. I immediately decided to share this achievement anonymously. I then decided to inspect the properties of the skill which the system had gifted to me on a silver platter.
Crescent Moon Slash [Level 1]
Slashing Skill – Cost 2 SP
Swing your blade in a wide forward arc, creating the impression of a crescent moon.
Deals damage to everything the arc and moon touches.
Higher level of this skill increases the damage and the wideness of the arc.
DMG +120%
On next level: DMG increased to +130%, arc increased by 5m
I had already gained an area of effect skill before reaching level 5 and getting the capability to learn skill books. This was really a blessing from the heavens. I really hope my bullshit luck doesn’t bite me in the ass, but having to play the whole game looking like this could probably be considered to be my bad luck also.
As I was busy standing there like an idiot I heard someone call out towards me.
“What’s a cutie like you doing in this level 5 area? You’re only level 3.”
I snorted and folded my arms together. “I was here since I was level 1.”
“Hahahahaha. Don’t joke around with me. Leave this nicely populated area to us, the professionals. Don’t think about messing around just because you have nice cosmetics.”
Just who did this brat think he was?
“I need to level here. The lower leveled spots are too slow. It took me four hours to get to level 3.” I frowned. “Sirs, I’m just a harmless person.”
“Since you’re so harmless, you should know your limits and scram.”
“I really don’t want to get into a fight so early.” I sighed inwardly and recalled Fortuna Corporation did not impose much limits on on-field player killing, or as it is commonly called around here, PKing. Technically you could even PK on the beginner fields, but nobody did that unless they were deliberately bullying someone. Now that I thought about it…
“If you’re really leveling here, you must have a nice treasure that helps you battle the monsters here.”
“I do, but even if I wanted to, it’s permanently attached to my back. I couldn’t take it off, even if you killed me.”
“If I weren’t talking to you right now, I would have thought you were a cute girl. I could have had a lot of fun with you.” The man speaking from a distance was approaching me. I now got a closer look at him – he was a thief, wearing a leather cloak and holding a much fancier dagger in his hands than mine. He was tailed by a boring cleric and an archer that had a clear look of pity on his face. He probably thought I would be massacred by him. Logically speaking, this is true – they outleveled me by three, being all level 6.
“Sadly, you’re just some girly boytoy. I have a friend who is into guys like you. Hehe. But enough joking around. Do you honestly fucking think I believe you? I’ll kill you and take the treasure for myself!”
Sigh. Facing a PvP experience like this… Suddenly, I regret hiding my username. If I didn’t hide it, they would probably freak out and run away. But well… I have the Shroud of Magdalene. And the entire time this guy named “Lone Ranger” was insulting me, I had taken the time to boost my stats – where normal players had 20 points after reaching level 3 from level 1, I had a whopping 60. I boosted my strength to 20, my dexterity to 15, and my agility to 5. My damage with the dagger now reached almost 40. Though these players were higher level than me, with my combat experience and my Shroud of Magdalene cutting their damages to half… Haha. They should only blame the fact that they are guys.
If any one of them was a girl, I would actually be screwed over.
But these scrubs? Hahaha. Looks like you guys kicked a metal plate!