Chapter 5. Skill practice

As he was leaving the bakery to start his test, he saw several objects enveloped by green colored spheres through his monocle. He approached the objects and saw these objects were some loafs of bread. He picked one up and studied it.

*

Bread (Normal consumable)

Recover HP by 5 every second for 6 seconds.

Relieve hunger

*

"There's a bunch of bread in this bakery shop, why are only four of them glowing?" He picked up a non-glowing loaf and inspected it.

*

Bread (junk consumable)

Relieve hunger

*

After pondering for a bit, he surmised that the glowing ones were items that could provide in-game assistance to him, while the non-glowing ones were just normal food and, therefore, junk. He felt very lucky now that he had obtained this God-eye monocle or else he would have trouble separating the junk items from the useful ones.

He picked up all four glowing bread loaves, storing three inside his storage bag and munching on the fourth to raise his HP.

His HP was 185/230 when he checked his status. That meant he had lost 45 HP points in the zombie fight at the Trigitech building. That it stayed that way until now meant that this was the kind of game system where there was no natural healing mechanism. He would need to find consumables or items in order to heal.

This kind of game was more troublesome, he would need to stock up on supplies. He couldn't just go into combat and then retreat for healing. If he ran out of supplies and lost HP, he would die. Knowing this, he made a mental note to go look for more shops that could provide food or medicine.

After eating the normal consumable bread, he saw his HP was increasing slowly. After 6 seconds, it stopped at 215/230. Not full HP yet, but it should be enough. If he ate another loaf of bread now, he would waste 15 points, as one bread could heal a total of 30 points of HP but his HP gauge would be full after just 15.

He walked out of the bakery and scanned his radar again. There were two red dots now. The first one was getting closer while the other one was at the edge of the radar, and was headed away from him.

"Let's take care of you first," he said while gripping both his weapons tightly.

'Ok, just take it as any other VR games you have played.' Jack thought to himself, trying to maintain his calm.

When he got close to the monster, he saw that it was y zombie, like the ones he had encountered before. He checked his God-eye monocle, the monster was level 1.

"Ok, let's do this," he said as he advanced towards it. When he was ten meters from the zombie, it finally registered his presence and started to move toward him. This zombie monster was not like the slow zombies from those classic pre-hologram movies, but it was sloppy. Its movements were dull, which made it easy for him to predict its actions and plan his counter. Like he did in his previous fight, he let the zombie lunge past him before he made his move.

"Power strike!" He shouted. The short sword in his hand trembled before picking up speed. It struck the zombie on his side.

*36 damage*

That was high, it was almost as high as when he landed a critical hit. Maybe his increased strength also helped. The zombie staggered a bit from the blow, Jack took the opportunity to land another normal hit.

*23 damage*

The zombie clawed at him angrily. Jack stepped back to move away. He waited for Power Strike to come off its 3 second cooldown and made another test attack. This time he didn't shout out the skill's name. Instead, he mentally willed its activation. He felt the trembling sensation again as he guided his sword to strike the monster. Another 36 damage appeared. Now he knew the skill activation did not have to be voice-activated.

He again retreated some distance from the zombie. It was time to test the Magician skill. He brandished the staff with his left hand and mentally commanded the Mana Bullet skill to activate. The staff began to glow and a ball of blue magic shot forward. It brushed past the zombie and splashed on a nearby fence.

'Crap. I need to practice my aim!' Jack cursed silently. He was not very experienced with ranged classes. In addition to that, his left hand was not his dominant hand, so his control was a bit off. He put some distance between himself and the zombie and kited it as he waited for the Mana Bullet cooldown to end.  He then resumed blasting it with the spell. His aim improved as he practiced and after a few more bullets, the Zombie fell to dust.

He hadn't used the staff's energy for its ranged attack, so the staff energy was still full. He looked at his stamina and mana, they were gradually recovering. So the rules for stamina and mana were different compared to HP which was not self-recovering. He sat down for a few minutes waiting for his Stamina and Mana bars to return to full, before proceeding to the next red dot.

Being a ranged class had its advantages: he could kite his enemy without risking retaliation. Thus, he didn't lose any HP which saved him from needing to consume another loaf of bread.

Using the same method, he ground away at the second monster, which was also a zombie, practicing his aim using his left hand.

In this manner, he kept on grinding, finding zombie after zombie with the help of his radar and killing them. If he saw zombies that were grouped together, he would go the other way. Before long, his Fighter experience bar had reached 98%, while his Magician experience was at 32%. If he only had one class, he would have breezed past level 2 by now.

His God-eye monocle beeped when he was nearing his next target. He was at a public park surrounded by brick walls, the next red dot was on the opposite side of the wall. He looked in the direction of the red dot, and saw a silhouette composed of red lines. Level 2? He finally met a higher leveled monster. Apart from this discovery, he was also thrilled to know that his monocle also possessed the ability to partially see through obstacles and could warn him when a nearby monster was higher level.

He paid attention to the silhouette. It didn't look like a zombie. Its movement was also different, and it looked like it was holding a stick? He was both nervous and excited to encounter a new kind of monster. He made his way toward the wall that was separating them. He expected the monster to discover his presence once he was close to the wall, but the monster's movement didn't change.  It seemed oblivious to his presence.

'It couldn't be that its perception range was lower than the level 1 zombie, right?' He pondered. 'Or could it be because it didn't see him due to the wall? So, maybe, in addition to needing him to be inside their perception range, monsters also needed to see him before they turned hostile?'

  If this was true, then it opened up a new way of fighting. He could steal the first strike by stealth; this could greatly increase his chance of winning and surviving.

Eager to test this theory, Jack followed the silhouette along the brick wall by relying on the see-through ability of his monocle. He also walked silently, he was not sure if monsters relied on hearing as well, but he would just assume so. After following for a while, the monster finally approached an opening in the wall. Finally, he would see the monster directly.