I staggered out the mob spawn zone back to where Rodrick was watching the fight. A wicked grin was plastered all over his face. “It almost got you, scrub” he said with a jovial tone.
“Your turn then,” I responded, “let's see how YOU handle em” gesturing towards the nearest Rockeater not currently engaged by another party. Rodrick doesn't say anything, he just takes out his axes and rolls his shoulders before charging at the creature. His first attack came in low as he dropped to a slide before reaching the Rockeater and swung one of his axes at it's less armored legs. Only to receive a face full of scaled tail as a reward. The two of them went back an forth after that trading blow after blow. It wasn't too long before I realized Rodrick was not winning these exchanges. I shook my head at that, he knows he cant win a direct exchange against something with as much armor as a Rockeater. Rodrick did cause the creature a great deal of frustration however, and in a rage it rolled into a ball and charged recklessly at him, only for Rodrick to side-step it and cause it to slam into the wall. “Ah” I thought to myself, “here comes the pain”
As if on queue Rodrick lunged into the soft underbelly of the now vulnerable Rockeater who was stunned from hitting the wall and disoriented by suddenly being pulled from a rage state. A few brutal slashes and it was over. Roderick, however, only had 10% of his life left. “you cut it closer than I did, Scrub” I said grinning.
“Shut up,” he said, “took me longer than I thought to piss it off enough to go into a rage. Let's go check on Morden” He headed towards the tunnel entrance where we left him.
We found him sitting there looking off in the distance with a focused look on his face. He was probably sifting through menus. I wasn't gonna interrupt a man reading, but Rodrick did not share that particular restraint as he slapped Morden on the back. “Wake up bud! How'd it go?” he yelled loudly clearly intending to startle the poor guy. I swear I saw Morden's soul leave his body as he yelped. Rodrick lost himself to his laughter for a good 5 minutes before He calmed down enough to actually talk.
Morden looked both irritated and embarrassed as he answered Rodrick's early question, “I gained a Low-Quality Impure Core, and It only gave me a +50 mana pool. I was looking through the forums and reddit to see if anyone has figured out how upgrade it to a pure core. No luck” he sighed.
“I got my Pure core by compressing the mana to its silver stage, if you didn't get it that far then manybe you can try compressing your core during meditation instead of adding to it or building the pathways.” I said remembering how my core was formed. He looked at me in surprise, “You can compress it!?!” he said surprised, “I thought you had to filter out impurities”
I shrugged, “maybe compressing it IS how you filter out the impurities, I dunno. I just know that blue is the color of the most impure mana, black mana has a lot of the impurities worked out, and Silver is the color of pure mana”
“well shit,” Morden said, “that'll have to be my project tomorrow. It's getting late and I gotta log out. But first...”
Morden Rockbreath wishes to add you to his Friends list. Do you Accept? Y/N
I selected yes, obviously. “cool, now we can meet up again some time. Later folks” he said before he disappeared in a flash of blue light. “huh,” I said, “so that's what it looks like to log out. I was curous about that”
“I gotta bail too man” Rodrick said, “Morden and I are usually on at the same time though so if you see one of us the other isn't far behind” I got another friend request from Rodrick Bronzebottom, which I also accepted. Another flash of light and he was gone as well. Leaving me alone outside the Rockeater tunnel. I really wanted to get check out blacksmithing, but I also wanted to finish up my pathways so I can begin cultivating for real instead of the half-baked version I got going on right now. I found a quiet corner near the Rockeater tunnel that was out of everyone's way before sitting down and activating meditation.
I was once again greeted by the same mining game as before. I began the tedious process of collecting the blue mist and condensing it all into a silver marble. This time I collected as much as I could instead of stopping at the size of a marble. I got to the size of an apple before I began to feel in begin to become unstable. With that done I started adding on to what I already had, drawing pathways from the heart through all the major arteries and veins creating a cycle that returns unused mana back to the core. I also created some exit points so I can use mana externally as well as internally. With the major exits being in my palms and forearms. When I was done I used the pea sized leftover mana to tweak the pathways after I noticed a few weak points in the rotation. Finished, I opened my eyes.
You have reached Beginner 2 in Mana Cultivation
You have reached Beginner 2 in Meditation
You have created a Custom Cultivation method rather than using an established method, would you like to name this method? Y/N (a random name will be chosen if you select no)
I could barely contain my excitement and almost hit no while trying to select yes.
please enter the name of your method
I quickly typed the message in instead of saying it because it felt weird talking to no one when there are people nearby.
Congratulations on creating the “Blackiron Heart” mana cultivation method. Your Mana cultivation Skill has been renamed to “Blackiron Heart Cultivation” and it is now possible to learn mana Techniques
Ok, that was unexpected. It says the name was just changed so I am assuming it'll still function as the Mana Cultivation skill, but I am not sure what else changed. It probably has something to do with being able to learn Mana Techniques now. I open up the info tab on Blackiron Heart to see.
Blackiron Heart Cultivation - Beginner 2: Functions as mana cultivation, but now provides a 10% boost to physical stats when circulating mana and the ability to learn mana techniques. Drains 5 mana per second when circulating
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“A stat boost!?!” I almost yelled aloud in surprise. It does drain my mana pretty fast though. That's either because my method has flaws or the AI is balancing cultivators from being to overpowered. Probably a little bit of both if I am honest with myself though. I'm pretty sure I have a long way to go before Blackiron Heart is truly complete.
I do a quick check of my status.
Duran Blackiron:
Race- Dwarf Halfblood (Hill/Deep)
Character level- 4
Exp to lvl up- 20/800
HP: 180 - HP regen: 2.1 per 5 seconds
MP: 280 - MP regen 1.8 per 5 seconds
STR: 24
DEX: 22
CON: 18
WIS: 18
INT: 18
VIT: 21
Stats gained per level: +4 STR, +4Dex, +2 Con, +2 Int, +2 WIS, +3 Free points to spend on any trait
Traits
Stoneskin lvl 1: Gain 5% physical damage reduction per level when active. Drains 5 mana per second per level of Stoneskin.
Low-Quality Pure Mana core: +100 Mana
Arcane Affinity: Magic skills level 10% faster
True Darkvision: Can see clearly even in the darkest environments, magical or natural.
Primary Skills
Blacksmithing - Beginner lvl 1: Gain knowledge and skills necessary to forge and shape metal. Skill rank determines quality and type of materials workable. [+2 STR and +2 Dex per Character lvl up]
Unarmed - Beginner lvl 1: Can learn and used any unarmed fighting techniques. Skill rank determines damage and effectiveness. [+2 STR, +2 Dex, and +2 Con per Character lvl up]
Blackiron Heart Cultivation - Beginner 2: Functions as mana cultivation, but now provides a 10% boost to physical stats when circulating mana and the ability to learn mana techniques. Drains 5 mana per second when circulating. Skill rank determines effectiveness, power, and mana regen. [+2 INT and +2 WIS per character lvl up]
Secondary Skills
Meditation - Beginner 2: Allows for increased mana regen and active Cultivation. The higher the level the more effective
Odd, despite all of that fighting, my Unarmed still hasn't leveled. Maybe combat abilities take more exp to level? I dunno, maybe I'm just not really pushing it hard enough. Been dropping all my free points into Vitality though since it looks like that's the stat that affects Health regeneration. Looks fine to me so far. I close the window and stretch. Sitting in meditation so long has left me pretty stiff. I guess I should be logging off anyway. It is getting really late after all. I open up the menu and select “log out”
error – Unable to detect TruVR device. Admin has been notified
“Wha?” I said aloud as I felt my heart drop into my stomach. That's not good. Not good at all. My brain starts firing on all cylinders going over every possibility I can think that could have caused the error. As I am not a technician for TruVR or even a standard one I am unable to think of anything. I can feel my panic rise as a cold feeling washes over me. I almost didn't noticed the human in full plate armor trying to get my attention. “Y-yeah?” I asked nervously.
“Hello, I am David. The admin assigned to your ticket” the man named David said, “First, I want to inform you that log out failures are pretty common today. We have at least a dozen fail-safes built into the TruVR system and we're getting a lot of false positives which has been causing some problems. We'll be rolling out a patch next week to fix them as the issue is too big for a hotfix, but for now we are dealing with them on a case by case basis. Now, I am just gonna run a quick check on your account to determine which failsafe has caused the error”
I released the breath I didn't know I was holding. So it's not as bad as I thought it would be. “Thanks,” I said trying not to sound as relieved as I felt at that moment.
“No Problem” he said, “this is going to take a few minutes which I run the check” I nod and take a seat while he does his thing. David starts moving around like he flipping through a book or touching a screen. Must be a lot of data to go through. After a few minutes I can see a frown on his face as he motions to close the windows in from of him.
“Okay, it looks like the problem is on the hardware side, I have passed the ticket on our tech team to make an emergency maintenance visit to the address listed on your account. Until they are done, please enjoy you time in World Walkers. I will visit you again when we have an update.” with a flash David is gone before I can even respond. Well, he did say they were very busy today. I take another deep breath. It may not be planned but I have some more time to kill. I look over to the Rockeater Tunnel. Time for some more combat practice.
I head into the tunnel, which is actually less crowded now. Most people have either logged out or moved on by now. I pick up a rock and hurl it at lone Rockeater. This time a red 1 appears over it. Damn, I can hurt it with rocks now, sweet. As it charges at me I activate Rock skin and circulate Blackrion Heart. I'm gonna be losing 10 mana a second so I got just under 30 seconds to crush this critter.
The fight goes much easier than my last solo attempt. The bonus from Blackiron Heart and Stoneskin amounts to a quite a lot against such a weak mob. 15 seconds into the fight and it's broken corpse falls off the wall I threw it at. I deactivate my buffs and take a seat to let my health and mana regen naturally. Man I need to find a good source of money so I can buy potions. When my health and mana pools are full I get up and pull another Rockeater. I repeat this process until I hit level 5, and it took longer than I thought it would as the Rockeaters started giving less and less exp the closer I got to level 5. I pulled another one after that, but noticed I didn't get any experience for it. Trash mobs man, not worth dick in the long run. My Unarmed did hit lvl 2 though, so that's something.
I walked out of the tunnels to find something else to do and was greet by David at the entrance. “I'm sorry to interrupt but I need you to come with me for a moment” he said with a very serious expression on his face, and there was a blinding white flash. When my eyes adjusted I was standing in what looked like an office from the real world. “Please have a seat” David said pointing to the chair in front of the desk he was sitting at. “This is one of many Admin offices in the game. We only bring players in here for serious discussions that we don't want others overhearing for privacy reasons.” I take a seat and nod towards him indicating for him to continue, but that feeling in my gut has come back.
“The tech team arrived at your house and discovered the problem” he said, but his expression told me that I wasn't going to like what comes next, “It appears that during your first login you suffered a heart attack and the TruVR system was unable to eject you so it instead made a full copy of your brain and implanted it into your avatar.” It felt like my heart stopped again and the panic returned in full force. “while this situation is tragic, I would like to inform you that we did actually plan for this. There were so many novels out there about “Death Games” and faulty devices causing all sorts of havoc we at TruVR were forced to devise a back-up plan in the case of critical failure, but we were obviously unable to test it due to the nature of its requirements. You are the only person the system has had to activate the program on, for now and hopefully ever.” David stops talking and lets me process it for a few minutes. I takes a while before I get the panic under control to ask some questions.
“Is my body still alive?” I ask full of hope.
“No,” David says, crushing those hopes, “Your body is dead. The technology for transplanting copied mind into a biological receptor does not currently exist, but in the event that it does appear in the future TruVR has taken it upon itself to preserve a copy of your DNA so that a new body may be cloned in the future for you.” Cold comfort, but comfort none the less.
“So I am stuck here then.” I said exhausted and disheartened.
“For now,” David says, “ but TruVR is willing to make some reparations for the situation. First of all, your family is currently being informed of the situation. Second, you will be given a space like this office that you can customize to your likes and have access to the internet and TV. You will also be able to contact the outside world via phone, e-mail, text, and so on. You can even invite others who have the TruVR system over to visit. It's the closest to a normal life we can give you. And third we have a beta feature for World Walkers you are free to test that will allow for deeper immersion into the game. We're calling “Hardcore Mode” in house” It's all very sudden and I am seriously in need of a distraction so I can process all of this and a Hardcore mode sounds like it'll give me that.
“What does hardcore mode change?” I ask. For the first time since the conversation started I see David smile.
“Hardcore mode strips all but the most essential menus and takes away the HUD so you can't monitor HP or Mana, and in the event of your death a scar is left on your avatar based on the killing blow. If you lose a limb for the killing blow that limb is gone for good. The upside though, is that you'll get 50% more experience for your actions.” he explains.
“That's a lot of downsides for a simple exp boost” I said skeptical.
“No, I mean EVERYTHING gets a 50% exp boost. Skills, spells, traits, etc.” He goes on, “Not just your character level. Nothing else in the game boosts gains so much, and those that do will stack with it.” Ok, now he has my attention. “It'll take some time to set up the room, and your family will be given a link to send private messages directly to your avatar from their cell phones after they are done being filled in. So, do you want into the beta or not?”
After what has probably the longest day of my life, former life, whatever life. I just wanted to be distracted for a while. It's too much to deal with on such short notice. So I did the only thing a panicked and stressed gamer could do.
“Yes,” I said.