26 Episode 4: Shadow (2)
"Ahem. With that settled with..." Coughing out in an attempt to remove his embarrassment from earlier, Shinto moved on with the next topic. "Let's check out your stats and abilities."
"Right, right!" Kon spoke out confidently. "I promise you, I'm a very capable fighter! I won't disappoint you in that aspect!"
"I see. That's good to note," he nodded his head. "Let's see here... I wonder if I can access your status window?"
For a pet or summon, the owner would typically have the ability to view their status window. At times, this allowed the owner to manage their stats growth and allow them to grow alongside their summoner. But, this was under the basis of a normal pet or summon. As for Kon, he seemed to be a rather special case.
A summon would usually be non-sentient. They would follow the orders of their summoner no matter what. As for a pet, they usually had some form of sentience, allowing them to do things out of their own free will. The latter required the owner to train and tame them, while the former did not.
As for Kon, he was a summon from the skill (Shadow Calling). However, at the same time, he acted more like a pet, or rather, an NPC. Thus, Shinto was curious as to whether or not he could see Kon's status window. After all, for an NPC, it was near impossible to view their status window unless through a special skill.
"Even if he's like an NPC... I should still be able to view his status window, right?" he thought to himself. Without another delay, he began to mumble out two words: Status Window.
[ Shadow Minon's Profile ]
Name: Kon (NPC)
Race: Shades
Level: 5
Class: Shadow Fox
-Class Attribute-
The Shadow of the Fox is one who swears absolute loyalty to the Shadow Diviner.
•When the Shadow Fox is in a party together with the Shadow Diviner, the Shadow Fox's overall damage will be increased by 20%. Not only that, their Movement Speed and Intelligence will also increase by 10% and 5% respectively.
-Titles-
[ Shadow of the Fox ]
A title that is given to the Shadow Fox who serves the Shadow Diviner.
•INT +20 / AGI +15 / WIS +5 when in the near vicinity of the Shadow Diviner.
•INT +15 / Overall Damage +5% when in the near vicinity of any of the Shadow Diviner's allies or servants (Effect does not stack).
-Stats-
HP: 108/108 | MP: 364/364
Strength: 6 | Stamina: 6
Intelligence: 41 (+20) | Agility: 26 (15)
Wisdom: 9 (+5)
-Skills/Passives-
Skills: Orbal Shadow (Lv 1), Pale Flame (Lv 1), Shadow Play (Lv 1)
Passives: Undying Life (Lv 1)
...
At a glance at Kon's status window, Shinto raised his brow in interest. "Oh? So Kon counts as an NPC, huh?" he muttered to himself. He had speculated as so, but seeing the status of Kon now confirms it. After all, Kon wasn't acting like a pet, and neither was he like a summon. "If that's the case, I guess the rest of the Shadow Minions would count as an NPC too."
This was especially great for Shinto. Unlike summons or certain pets that players owned, which had a separate category, NPCs were special. This was because their growth was not reliant on a player or their stats, but instead, on the environment.
For NPCs within the game, their levels would typically scale on the average levels of the player base. As such, the playing field between players and NPCs would be balanced. Sometimes, an average NPC would either be of the same level as the average player or lower.
But for the cases of special NPCs, who largely impacted the worldview of the game, they were typically called "Named NPCs", those who held great titles, had boundless growth and seemingly had no limitations to their stats. Unlike a normal NPC, these special NPCs would usually surpass the average levels of the player base. The difference wasn't little, but instead by a large margin.
If the level of an average player was 52, the named NPC would sometimes double or even triple their level. Players within the rankings whose levels were way above the average were left in the dust by these NPCs. Thus, they couldn't dream of ever facing them head to head without suffering hardships in battle.
As for Kon, Shinto didn't know whether he fell under the category of a normal or named NPC. He was just level 5. But, he reckoned that he was in the latter category. After all, he held the title of [ Shadow of the Fox ] and didn't seem to have any limitations to his stats, whereas normal NPCs do.
"Hmm... In terms of reliance as a summon, Kon's class attributes and title both seem to heavily rely on my presence. So I would need to stick with him at all times for the full benefits," he thought to himself, now analyzing his status window. "As for his stats... He seems to be more focused on Intelligence and Agility. So he should be a mage."
Wanting to confirm for himself, he began to scrutinize the details of his abilities.
...
[ Orbal Shadow Lv 1 ] [ 50 MP ] [ Cooldown: 20 Seconds ]
The Shadow Fox creates a shadow orb, launching it over toward an enemy. Upon impact, the orb deals magic damage of 120%. After the ability's usage, the user gains a small shadow orb that floats around them for two minutes.
•Per orb that surrounds the user, the damage and number of hits of the skill will increase by 10% and 1 respectively. This effect is stackable up to a total of 6 times. When gaining an orb after the first, the orbs will last for an additional 5 seconds.
...
[ Pale Flame Lv 1 ] [ 65 MP ] [ Cooldown: 30 Seconds ]
The Shadow Fox unleashes a small pale flame over toward an enemy, dealing fire magic damage of 220% with a 15% chance of inflicting [Burn] to the target.
...
[ Shadow Play Lv 1 ] [ 200 MP ] [ Cooldown: 1 Hour ]
The Shadow of the Fox creates a doppelganger of himself that has half of his stats. The doppelganger will last for 5 minutes, and they will have the exact same abilities as the user (Except for a few) with a separate cooldown for each.
•The doppelganger must manually be controlled by the user.
...
[ Undying Life Lv 1 ]
The Shadow Fox will never give up!
•When the Shadow of the Fox falls in battle, they will return to the Shadow Realm and rest. This passive will then be placed on cooldown for 24 hours. If the fox falls in battle as a summon instead, the cooldown will instead be 12 hours.
...
"Hmm... So these are your abilities?" Shinto muttered to himself in thought.
"Yep!" Kon eagerly nodded. "So how are they?! They're up to your expectations, right? Right?"
"They're all pretty solid," he replied with a nod. "Especially that doppelganger skill."
"Mhm, mhm!" Kon excitedly wagged his tail at Shinto's praise. "They're all solid!" However, despite his eagerness, a slight look of hesitation could be seen behind it. "Ah... Uh... As for the doppelganger skill you mentioned..."
"...?" Shinto tilted his head at Kon's sudden hesitance.
"Um... You see... My mastery of that skill is... To put it in the words of my sister, 'Horrible control and unable to be utilized'." Kon's wagging tail stopped in place, as his eyes began to look away from Shinto.
"Ah." Immediately understanding where Kon was coming from, Shinto began to comfort him. "It's fine. Since you need to manually control your doppelganger, it means that you need a high degree of awareness. For that, you'll need practice."
For a manual skill like [ Shadow Play ], no matter how skilled a player was, needing to manually control the skills of a separate entity and yourself was a difficult task to master. Even for an NPC.
Despite being made up of the most advanced AI technology, each NPC worked differently. They weren't all the same. Likewise, although they were AIs, their inner workings and way of going about life were identical to that of humans. As such, they were almost non-differentiable from actual players. Oftentimes than not, most players would mistake NPCs to be players as well.
"Y-Yeah..." Kon muttered out in a slightly disappointing tone. "But, I assure you! I can use all my other abilities just fine! Do you want me to show you my performance?!"
"Sure. I do need to see your abilities in action anyway," Shinto said. "Shall we find some monsters to kill?"
"Yeah! Let's go!" Kon resolutely shouted out.
...
Continuing down the path through the dungeon, a few monsters could be seen roaming around the vicinity. Locking onto one of them up ahead, Kon leapt straight into combat, wanting to prove his skills.
"Heeyah! Take this!" Kon shouted out whilst launching an orb of shadow over toward the poor Leafios, instantly turning him into grey ash. "Aha, see this, see this! Isn't the damage good?!"
"Of course," Shinto calmly said as he saw the monsters that were aggroed by Kon, easily handled by only just a few basic attacks and skills. "Your damage is way above this place's average."
With the stats and additional bonuses by being in a party with Shinto, Kon's firepower easily swept through the monsters of Black Wolf's Den. Despite only being level 5, it had to be noted that his intelligence right now reached 42, with a 20% overall damage boost to his attacks. As such, his damage was way above the average dealt by a normal player here.
"Mhm!" As if satisfied, Kon turned to Shinto for praise. "So did I do good? I didn't disappoint, right?"
"You did great," he nodded his head in reply. "Though... In order to test your full fighting capabilities, we'll need to head over to another area with monsters more of a match for you."
"We're going to continue fighting?" his eyes glistened with joy. "Alright, onto our next destination!"
"Hmm... You're rather excited, huh?" Shinto asked.
"Of course I am! I'm in the presence of the Shadow Diviner- I mean, Master! Being able to serve and fight alongside you is an honour!" Kon's tail wagged. "I've been waiting for this moment to come for a long time!"
"I see..." Shinto uttered to himself in thought. "For a harder dungeon... Perhaps Old Wood Caverns would do? It's near the town, so there won't be much of an issue going there."
"Alright!" Kon nodded his head. "Lead the way, Master!"
"But... Before that, there's a problem," he said.
"Huh?" Kon tilted his head in question. "What's the problem?"
"Well... To head to Old Wood Caverns, we'll be needing to go through town. So, for you to be walking around town in broad daylight... That might cause some unnecessary attention."
For Kon who was a fox, if Shinto were to bring him into a town packed with countless players and NPCs alike, curious eyes would undoubtedly fall upon him. After all, he wasn't a dog or a cat, but a fox. Although it wasn't rare for players to own pets and have them freely roam around town, it wasn't anything like the fox currently in front of him.
"Ah...?" Kon blinked blankly. "Uh... Then what do we do?"
"Well... The simplest way would be to unsummon you and—" As Shinto was about to continue on with his sentence, he was abruptly interrupted.
"A-Ah! Um... Is there any other way besides releasing me from the skill?" Kon hastily said. "Maybe I can sneak around town, or perhaps, we can take a long detour around town?"
"...?" Taken aback by the unexpected interruption from Kon, Shinto raised his brow in confusion. "Sneaking around town or taking a long detour are both plausible, but... What's wrong with unsummoning?"
"W-Well..." Kon mumbled out with hesitance. "Y-You see... If you release me from the skill... It means I'll be left all alone in the Shadow Realm again! I-I know I'm being selfish, b-but, would it be possible for me to stay?"
