First Battle

The man charged the very second the match started with a roar, he was certainly eager to get this going and followed through with his barbarian type look with his actions. She hoped that continued. And this was also her first look at the level of speed at whatever rank this guy was at and he sure was fast. He crossed the twenty meter distance between them in a but a moment...but still she was faster. Dodging out of the way of his downwards swing, she moved to his left as the club rushed past her obliterating the ground in a rather large crater a couple of meters across and deep on impact. That was so far above even what the strongest human could do that she assumed that his major was put into strength.

She had only let him come close because she figure that she was actually faster than him on just that first movement. She had based her expectations on what Lucilius had told her and it was further confirmed with the crater he made. Mobility was at the very least not his major or standard pick. She decided to finally play to her strengths as she dodged a following horizontal swing from him and created some distance via leaping backwards. This was when she decided to reveal her Sigil, as the man attempted charging after her with a grunt of surprise at her speed she lifted up her right arm as her gun manifested itself in her hand and fired a shot. He had a surprised look on his face that almost said, "How is that fair?" as a dark blue shot of energy loosed itself from the weapon.

The man barely shifted his club towards his body as the shot smashed into his arm, causing a small explosion. The dust cleared a moment later revealing large gash as his left arm hung uselessly to the side. She had been attempting to go for a headshot but this was the first time she had fought in this game and despite having real-life experience with firearms this body was quite different to her human one. The club wielder was wary now, she would have to be careful with her shots because she had quite the recoil and he seemed to have picked up on that and while she was faster he was still quite agile so he could certainly look to dodge her aim if not her bullets.

Suddenly a red hue adorned the man, and she felt a slight pull towards him. This had to be a skill. She was being sucked towards him and the vacuum got more powerful as it went on. She raised her arm and fired again but he was ready this time, barely ducking the shot and charging again he raised his club once more before striking the ground. The ground shook far more than it should based on the power of that slam causing her to lose her balance as she fired her third shot and missed entirely. She had miscalculated, she had thought of him as not very smart based on how he attacked earlier and had disregarded the use of his skills since he had not used any of them until now. He reached her as she was staggered and swung his club towards her midriff, she barely put up her arms and twisted to the side as she got slammed away from him so hard and fast that she cratered a boulder she slammed into coming to a stop. The pain was immense and this guy who had a broken arm had not made a sound to indicate he was in pain, she had to respect that. Just a glancing hit and she nearly lost both her arms. If that had happened this fight was over, after all her only way of attacking is her gun.

Screaming in pain she lifted her Sigil and fired shot after shot each missing him as her arms were in too much pain to aim properly. After the sixth shot she stopped firing and lowered her arm. The man approached her slumped form with a cocky grin on his face as he prepared to finish her up. He lifted his club up in the air and then noticed her raise her gun again slowly, he thought nothing of it knowing that it was a six shooter revolver only for her fire a shot at his shadow. This shocked him and it was a part of what she banked on. There was no way he would realise that her revolver was nothing like a revolver at all and maybe if he payed more attention he would realise that she did not use any actual bullets in her gun and come to the conclusion that she did not need to reload but that was a bit of a stretch to figure out with such minimal information. Lastly, he could have reacted to her currently poor aim with her shaking hand and so with her gun not raised up to him properly he thought she was just desperate. The last shot into his shadow worked with shadow stitching as her gun used her paranormal energy after all so she figured she could use her shadow stitching with it and was correct. He was frozen in place for a few seconds so she could slowly raise her arm up to his head ensuring a guaranteed headshot. Even then it took two headshots to finish him off.

[WINNER: FLORA]

[POINTS: +100]

[EXP GAINED]

[YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 1]

[YOU HAVE GAINED A LEVEL IN SHADOW STITCHING]

Her vision flashed white once more and she was sent back to the plaza, she saw more and more people appearing back at the plaza around her. Looking up she saw a massive screen that showed all the battles happening at the moment as each concluded the winners appeared in the plaza with the losers disappearing from the battlefield and not appearing again. Looking at herself she saw her wounds healing.

She heard some clapping behind her, turning around to see Lucilius walking towards her a small smile on his face. Well they certainly met again quite quickly.

"Don't worry about injuries as long as they aren't on the level of vital organs our bodies can regenerate from them pretty quickly although this only works out of combat because these bodies and the paranormal energy in it also have the ability to stop the enemy from healing."

Interesting.

"Why the applause?" she asked.

"Well I watched the end of your battle, it was quite ingenious tricking him like that."

"You had to be done quite quickly to have managed to watch my battle."

"Well I was." He laughed.

She wondered what his skills were before asking him another question that had been on her mind.

"By the way how do the Sigils we use get determined?"

"I thought you would never ask, essentially your starting stats you pick are the main thing that is factored in."

She figured that was the case.

"Your personality and hidden stats are also a factor though the make simply narrow down the options you get from the stats pick." He cocked his head. "You do not seem surprised about the hidden stats."

"I asked the Grand Administrator about extra stats he handed over the information quite quickly but did not elaborate much further."

"You really are smart huh." It was clear he wasn't being patronizing and it was just an observation.

"I would like to think so." She said with a small smile.

"Hmm, well I would explain further about the base stats now we have some time since even I don't know that much about the hidden stats."

Something he did not know, well that was certainly a surprise.

"I am sure you noticed that even with my explanation with even D rank strength the feats on display were far above what was expected and even your ability to survive did not add up based on where I think you put your starting stats. Simply put, the while just G- rank strength would put you far above the peak of humanity the combination of G- rank strength and G- rank resilience is more multiplicative than additive."

That certainly explained her ability to survive even a glancing hit from the barbarian and take minimal damage from cratering a boulder.

"As for weapons if you know what you are doing you can manipulate what kind of skills and weapons you get significantly, you still would not be able to get exactly what you want due to hidden stats but certain combination of major, standard and minor beginning stats can get you certain predictable results with some variations." He paused. "As an aside whatever is picked as you major is harder to rank up for a while than the other two."

Nodding to him to continue she noticed the number of people still fighting had dwindled sharply.

"For example if you were to have mobility as your major, strength as standard and energy as minor you would get," he swing out a pair of daggers spinning them on his fingers, "something like this."

"If resilience is your major and strength is your standard you are on the way to getting a shield as your Sigil you can get combinations like a sword and shield which can depend on what your minor is. Despite being called minors they are extremely important for fine tuning the product."

"Power is key to having an energy as you main way of attacking and having it as a major or standard almost guarantees a destructive skill as your first. This brings us to skills, these are gained every 5 levels with level 30 being the maximum. You level up from winning duels and fighting in the open field."

All the fights were over now and the number of people had been reduced by exactly half.

The Grand Administrator appeared again in much the same way he first did to her but in his huge size above the plaza.

"Good job to all those who still remain with us, with this done you are officially a player in this world, make sure to beat every challenge you come across and you shall be rewarded accordingly."

With that brief message he disappeared and it would not be for a while until she would see him again.

This time the entire plaza glowed before it and everyone in it disappeared. They all appeared in what seemed like a town a moment later with the plaza being exactly the same and the people in the stands were the same as well, she wandered how that worked.

She noticed said people were starting to make their way down to the plaza. Lucilius' smile got turned into a frown.

"I suggest we move before they get here."

"Why is that?"

"I would explain just trust me on this."

Following him into an alley he stopped when they were a ways from the plaza.

"Those are clan leaders, they are there to invite people into their clans, people that catch their eye."

"How is that a problem?"

"Being in a clan certainly doesn't sound like a bad idea it means you are safe from certain people who do not want to cause trouble with a clan unless it is a system forced duel, however clans would work newcomers to the bone to get their levels up and a lot of your points would be donated to the clan. On top of that you would force them to train in specific ways to gain the kinds of stats they want. Essentially you would be bullied into doing what they want to until you get to a useful level and then you would be forced into clan wars and dungeon runs in the open field."

"Not everyone would be chosen by a clan right?"

"This is true."

"So why are you sure that this would be me."

"Simply put, your class."

"Ah yes I actually forgot that I had one."

"It is actually quite rare to have such a class from the start which is why I did not mention them to you however your control over shadows gave it away. So I am sure a few clans are looking for you right now."

"It was quite minimal control though; I doubt it was enough for them to notice."

"If I did, they certainly would have, while I have a lot of knowledge remember I haven't experienced any of this myself."

This was true, experience and knowledge trumped just knowledge in itself.

"Can't I just decline them?"

"You could but then you are sure to anger them and as it is your first time here you are guaranteed to have to stay in this world for up to 80 hours, meaning 80 hours to hunt us. Of course since this is not the open field they are unable to attack us until we are level 5 at least as per rules set in this world however they are able to send pre level 5s to do so instead."

"But how is that any different from just running away?"

"For most of them it is not possible for you to know this information, so they might be wondering where you have gone but they do not think it is to avoid them this already reduces their animosity as well as buying time for use to formulate and execute a plan."

She mused for a few seconds.

"Is this unique class why you are interested in me at the moment? And how did you realise I had one before hand?"

"As you have figured yes, that is the reason I was interested in talking to you and gaining your trust. As to how I realized it is due to my class' first ability which is quite lucky really."

So he had some way of learning about people's classes and likely stats too, very convenient for someone who already knew about this world before becoming a participant. And it certainly matches up with his explanation on abilities and Sigils and the method of obtaining them. He must have manipulated the choices in various ways to end up with the set-up he had.

"So what now?"

"I wait for my friend and we lay low for now, the first few days for us without a clan are going to be quite dangerous, people with clans backing them would challenge us to duels or outright attack us for levels and for points."

"Who is your friend?"

"A level 15 player he plans to make a clan with like-minded individuals. One that would not follow the ways of the current clans and would allows its members to be far freer to do what they please."

He had contact with a player before arriving in this world. Meaning that there was a way to circumvent the rule that stopped people from divulging information on this world to others.

"And I assume you plan to recruit me to this clan?"

"That is the case yes, you have great potential with that unique class of yours and you seem like an upstanding individual, he also tasked me with finding a decent addition for this clan."

"Wait why haven't there been other clans like his yet surely not every person wants to follow in the footsteps of the current clans."

"Every person that attempts to stick out of the masses and make a decent clan gets squashed by the others." This came from a baritone voice she did not recognize.

A dark skinned heavy-set man who looked to be in his early thirties, his short spiky hair was a dark blue colour and he wore deep blue plate armour. A rather large, scaled tail swept up lazily behind him as he approached them from a distance.

"Oh Byron, you sure are a sight in this world." Lucilius looked up at him as he towered above even his own height.

"Which is why it took so long to get to you, I was being watched the whole time as one of the few people that managed to get to level 15 without having his or her points wiped out by the onslaught of clan attacks."

He turned to her.

"I guess this is the potential recruit? The name is Byron, may I have yours?"

"Flora. Anyone else you are looking to have join your crew?"

"There is at least one more, but it would be a while before I find her and I am not even sure if she would ever want to join a clan."

"Is there a reason you have not been attacked here? As I have been told the only reason people would not be attacked in this city is due to the level protection."

"Good question, simply put attacks at my level are highly destructive, the city in itself would be in danger and so the residents of this world would not take kindly to attacks here, this is the reason this is seen as a neutral zone ignoring attacks on new players since they barely matter in this world until they join a clan."

This world gets more complicated by the second, she thought.

"Remember despite how it looks, this world is not a game." Byron stated. "Now lets get out of here, we are heading to the open field."

"Wait I thought it was too dangerous for new players?"

"And that is exactly why it is safe for you as the clans would not expect you to be there."

Byron waved his hand in a circular motion, and after roughly 30 seconds what looked like a portal formed in front of him.

"Let's go, this way I we would not be tracked."

She still was not sure whether she should trust either of these people. But she suspected that if it wasn't for them her time in this world would not be as enjoyable as it could be. And so she followed.

STATS:

NAME: FLORA

CLASS: UMBRAL SHAPER

LEVEL: 1

POINTS: 100

STATS:

STRENGTH: G-

RESILIENCE: G-

MOBILITY: G+

ENERGY: F-

POWER: G

SIGIL(1): SHADOW REVOLVER

SKILLS:

SHADOW STITCHING (LEVEL 2)

GENERAL SKILLS:

NONE