Decisions

[Master Stroke (Party): Hey guys, I got to go off now. See you in class tomorrow.]

[Mich (Party): Ok!]

[Transcending All (Party): Cya]

[Transcending None (Party): See you.]

[SamuRyan (Party): Bye]

[System Notice: Master Stroke has left the party.]

"He sure cleared the quest fast!" Alex couldn't help but praise Jayden.

"Yeah, how did he do that?" Nicholas added.

"It's probably just dumb luck! Maybe he managed to score a bunch of critical hits in a row, that's all!" Ryan finally could not stand it anymore and cut in with his opinion.

"Haha, maybe it really is like that!"

"Yeah, that would make more sense!"

Alex and Nicholas bought that reason immediately. In World of Kings, every single attack had a chance of scoring a critical hit, resulting in it dealing more damage than usual. If Jayden really managed to get lucky on every hit, then it would even be possible for him to take less time than he did to complete the quest!

"Forget about him. Let's just finish up and go change our class!" Ryan suggested, drawing everyone's attention back to the game.

"Shouldn't we wait for Jayden to change our class together?" Michelle asked hesitantly.

"There's no need to!" Ryan hurriedly objected, then realised that he could be coming across as pushy, thus quickly softening his tone as he continued. "In fact, it would be better for us to gain more levels first since we are in charge of dealing damage. This way, next time when Jayden rejoins the party, we can help him level up faster as well."

"Is that so…" Michelle was still a little unsure, but decided to trust his words since she was still new to the game.

"Don't worry, Michelle. He will join us again tomorrow. It is not like you don't know how little time he spends playing. If we have to keep waiting for him, then we will take forever to level up!" Ryan added.

He was already unhappy that this Jayden suddenly lucked out and indirectly robbed him of his position as the leader of the group. Now that Jayden had finally logged out, it was the perfect time for him to retake his rightful place at the top!

At this juncture, how could he allow everyone to stop and wait for Jayden?

No way!

This was the best chance to put an insurmountable gap between them so that this Jayden would never be able to match him again!

Even though Michelle was still feeling a little uncomfortable about it, she could only nod in agreement after hearing Ryan's explanation. She had seen her brother levelling up new characters. Indeed, if Jayden only played an hour a day, then it would truly take too long to get to max level.

In any case, Jayden still had his main account, so he probably would not mind them pushing forward without him, right?

Convinced, Michelle finally stopped worrying and returned her focus to the game, trying her best to pick up all the tips that her classmates were trying to impart to her.

As for why Jayden did not continue playing with them, instead logging out immediately after hitting Level 10, the reason was simple – the time was now 9pm.

In other words, it was time to start his daily revision.

Even though he agreed to play a new character together, it did not mean that he was willing to sacrifice his precious study time.

His grades were much more important than some new Cleric character after all!

---

Jayden was once again one of the first few students to arrive in class the next day. When he arrived, he routinely took out his textbook to start reading ahead on what would be covered today.

"Good morning, Jayden!" a clear voice suddenly sounded out from the other end of the classroom, catching Jayden by surprise.

"G-Good morning," Jayden instinctively answered while looking up to see who it was.

Upon making eye contact, Alex casually waved as he walked over to sit down among his own group of friends, who were just as surprised by Alex's gesture as Jayden was.

"What? Since when have you become so chummy with our star pupil?" one of them could not help but asked.

"Yeah, are you going to start studying all day as well?" another laughingly added.

"What do you guys know? We are playing WoK together now so of course I will be greeting my party Cleric. Heck, he was even the first among us to hit Level 10 last night!" Alex answered nonchalantly.

"Oh? You mean your new characters to play with Michelle? But isn't Ryan playing together too?" the classmate turned to face Ryan who was also sitting among them. "I didn't see Ryan greeting him just now! What? Ashamed about losing to a nerd in the game?"

"Are you kidding me?" Ryan sneered. "He just got lucky with his crits to hit Level 10 so early. From now on, our disparity in skill levels will only start to show! Even though he managed to reach Level 10 first, we are already ahead of him in levels by now!"

"Hahaha, just kidding! No need to get pissed, man!"

"Yeah, how can a nerd who only studies all day be a match for our great Ryan?"

The group laughed among themselves, but they managed to keep their voices soft enough that Jayden was unable to hear it. Otherwise, he would definitely have burst out laughing!

Got lucky with critical hits?

Yes, he did manage to get more critical hits than the rest to clear the Grass Wolves at a faster rate. However, that less about him getting lucky, and more because every single one of Jayden's attacks was aimed perfectly at the Grass Wolves' heads!

In World of Kings, every attack that hit the target's head had an increased chance to score a critical hit. This was a game mechanism that was deliberately included so as to provide mechanically skilled players with another avenue to utilise their talent, further separating them from the average players.

Of course, at his classmates' level, they were completely incapable of pulling off such precise aiming in the midst of battle. Thus, they never even considered the slimmest possibility that Jayden had been able to use this to his advantage.

The rest of the day passed by quickly, with nothing exceptional happening other than everyone being given an especially tough assignment to complete at home.

Still, even though it was considered tough to most people, it was still manageable in Jayden's eyes. After all, if even he was unable to handle it, then the rest of the students would not even need to try!

After heading home straight after school, Jayden immediately buried himself in the assignment. When he finally looked up at the clock again, Jayden nodded in satisfaction.

He managed to complete the assignment just barely within an hour, not too bad!

At this moment, Jayden could hear noises coming from the front door.

Perfect timing.

After taking a deep breath to prepare himself, Jayden opened his drawer to fish out an envelope and headed out of the room.

"Darling! How was everything while we were gone?" his mother smiled warmly upon seeing him.

"Welcome back! Don't worry, everything's fine at home," Jayden returned the smile.

"What's that in your hands?" his father caught sight of the envelope immediately.

"It's something I need to discuss with you about," Jayden headed over to take a seat on the sofa.

His parents only shot each other a quick glance before joining him.

"What is it, darling?" his mother asked.

"I was approached by a professional gaming team, offering me to sign with them and become a professional player. So I want to hear your thoughts about it," Jayden opened up the envelope before passing the contract to his mother who sat directly beside him.

"Oh? A professional gaming team? Is it for World of Kings?" his mother started reading through the document.

World of Kings currently took up more than the bulk of the gaming market and had maintained its position as the undisputed market leader among games for the past years. Thus, Jayden was not surprised that his mother was familiar with the name despite never having actually played the game before.

"Well, I say that it's a professional team, but it's actually more of a team that is just starting out," Jayden clarified.

"Wow, they are giving you 20 thousand dollars up front? That is a lot of money for a high schooler!" his mother exclaimed in surprise before passing the document over to her husband. "Is this a scam?"

"Actually that money is mainly to compensate for acquiring my game account. I looked it up and it seems that it is a normal practice for professional teams," Jayden explained.

With how popular the game was, Dis Pear with his Star Ranked Equipment was actually worth a lot more money that he looked. It was extremely rare to for such equipment to drop in the game, and many rich people were willing to pay in order to acquire accounts with such equipment.

"Looks reasonable enough," his father finally looked up at him after reading through the document. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I would like to give it a try."

"Are you sure this won't affect your studies?"

"I will do my best to manage."

"And if you can't manage?"

"Then I will quit the team."

"Breaking the contract then? What about the penalty fees?"

"For that, I would have to rely on dad," Jayden did not hide his intention at all.

Jayden's mother kept quiet throughout the brief exchange between father and son, taking a back seat as she let them sort it out.

"Looks like you have thought it through. Since you have already decided, I have no objections. Give it a try then, go have some fun while you are still young," his father did not take long to give his approval.

"Got it, thanks!" Jayden subconsciously let out a snicker before returning to his room with the contract.

His mother then turned to look at her husband with a smile, "I'm surprised that you agreed so easily!"

"I'm sure Jayden knows what he is doing and would not step over the line. He is my son after all."

"You mean OUR son!" Jayden's mother sulked unhappily.

"Yes, yes, our son…"

At 8pm, Jayden once again logged into the game as Master Stroke. This time, he did not message the rest immediately, instead heading to change his class first.

It was already 9pm by the time he received the quest rewards the day before, and thus he did not have the time to go change class into a Cleric. So Jayden intended to quickly do so before joining the rest tonight.

Heading to the middle of Beginner's Town, Jayden could see the 7 buildings that corresponded to the 7 primary classes – Mage, Weapon Master, Warrior, Thief, Archer, Knight, and Cleric.

Not even taking a second look at the other buildings, Jayden's Master Stroke walked right into the Temple where he could change his class to a Cleric.

It was an easy process. He simply had to approach the NPC in the Temple and confirm that he wanted to become a Cleric, and a beam of light would shine down on his character. The next moment, Master Stroke had already advanced to become a Cleric.

[System Notice: You have successfully advanced to be a Cleric. Class Bonus: Your maximum MP and MP recovery speed have increased.]

The first thing that Jayden had to do after changing class was to rearrange his stats.

There were 5 basic stats attributes in WoK – Strength, Vitality, Agility, Intelligence, and Wisdom.

Strength increased a character's physical damage and knockback distance.

Vitality increased a character's maximum HP and HP recovery speed.

Agility increased a character's movement and attack speed.

Intelligence increased a character's maximum MP and MP recovery speed.

Wisdom increased a character's magical damage and negative status resistance.

Before changing classes, with every increase in level, all characters gained an equal amount of stats points in each attribute. This meant that a Beginner class character would always have the same number of stats points in all 5 attributes, and that their Strength level would also be the same as their Wisdom or Intelligence level.

However, this rate of increase would start to differ after changing classes.

A Knight's Vitality increased the fastest while for a Cleric it would be the Intelligence attribute. This played to the strengths of each class, allowing each character to perform their role optimally.

But that was not all.

After reaching Level 10, apart from the natural stats increase, characters would also gain additional stats points with every increase in level, which they could invest freely in any of the 5 attributes. This allowed players in WoK to further customise their characters according to their preferred playstyles, creating diversity in the ways to build each character.

Over the years, there had been many people who tried to research on the optimal way of building each class, and there had already been no lack of guidebooks posted online. Despite that, no one could confidently point to one specific guidebook and confirm that it was the optimal build.

This was because the game was simply too complex for there to be an 'optimal' build.

Too many factors played a part in the decision, such as who were the other characters in the party as well as their respective stats distribution.

Thus, most players chose not to dwell on this for too long, either following the guidebooks with the highest ratings or simply copying the builds of their favourite professional players.

Jayden, just like these people, did not even hesitate when adding his free stats points. But unlike them, he did not follow any guidebook or professional players. After all, he had already made his decision the moment he chose to go for the Arcane Painter class.

With a few clicks, he spent all his stats points, adding them all to Master Stroke's Strength attribute!