4 Chapter 4 : Once upon a bear.
[Welcome to the character creation tool]
The feminine voice echoed in the vast blank space, Sig' looked around him, there was absolutely nothing. He wasn't lying on the sofa anymore, but stood alone in this place.
He closed his eyes and examined his sensations, his body felt lighter compared to the real world.
[Welcome to the character creation tool]
The message resounded a second time and the young man knew he was supposed to say something, or there will be a third time.
"Hello?"
[Voice registered. Please, choose your pseudonym. We recommend you to not use your real name in order to avoid any problem.]
Sig' frowned, what sort of problems?
[In the past, there were cases where people used the real name of others players to threaten them, hence the gaming company recommend you to choose a pseudonym.]
It looked like the device was able to read his thought, it was useful but a little bit awkward.
"Then call me Siegfried, like the northern hero" He said. The legend of Siegfried was one of his favorites.
[Pseudonym registered. The character creation tool allows you to modify your face, do you want to use it ?]
It was surely for the same reasons as before, but he highly doubted that anyone would recognize him, after all he was a nobody.
[You would be surprised. However you will also have the opportunity to find mask, veil and others disguises in the beginner town if you want to.]
Oh, good to know.
[Next will be the pain simulator. Please adjust it, 0 means no pain at all, 1 is the default setting, calibrated on the pain you feel in the real world, and 2 is the multiplication of the last one by 2.]
Sig' was at a loss for words. They were able to quantify pain ?
"I'll choose 1" He said. He was used to the pain, he lived with it for years.
[Choice registered. You will be able to change it in the settings later.]
Sig' spent the next minutes to learn the gesture which made the menu bar appear, how to group people, how to communicate with the other players and a lot of useful things.
Finally he chose his class, the thief, and the counter began.
When the zero appeared there was a bright light which blinded him and when he opened his eyes, he was in a new zone.
This time it was a huge field, the sky was blue without any cloud and more importantly, he wasn't alone.
There was hundreds of players around him, each of them was looking everywhere, it was the chaos.
Sig' lowered his gaze and noted the knife hanging at his waist, he took it and estimated his weight, pretty light for a knife.
[The player named Morgana is trying to call you, do you want to answer?] The system asked.
Sig' clicked on the ok button and the voice of the young woman echoed in his ears.
"Nice pseudonym, hopefully I had you in my friend list before the beginning" She said.
"Where are you?"
"Not far away if I look at the map correctly, do you know what to do now?"
The other players were running everywhere, looking for a NPC with a question mark above his head.
"I'm gonna take the quest like the others I guess?" He proposed.
"No, it's a trap, everyone is going to do so. It means that the first mobs will be heavily farmed, you will have to wait hours just to do one quest."
"I suppose that if you say that, it means you have a plan"
"Indeed, take the north direction until you reach a forest, there you'll find level 5 bears, kill them." She ordered.
"Level 5? Morgana, what about the level suppression? And how am I supposed to kill them? I told you it was my first time in a game!"
The level suppression was a limit which reduced the damage you could deal to a monster which had more level than you, the higher the level, the lower the damages.
"Sig', I'm not going to teach you how to fight, it's like the real life, avoid the hit, strike, retreat and everything else. Come on, it's just a bear!" She giggled.
Just a bear, wasn't she mocking him? He had never seen a real one in his entire life!
Shaking his head he sprinted toward the forest, without caring for the others players around him.
There was some mocking but most of the players were busy with the quest.
The young man stopped in front of the forest, there was huge trees and plants he had never seen before, it was the pure wilderness, something that you couldn't find the real world.
Even the atmosphere was different here, the air was pure but there was an invisible threat, as if someone was watching him from the bushes.
Before entering he checked his stuff:
[Ordinary knife, quality: mediocre. Damage: 6-9, rapidity: 1.5]
There was a lot of information, the quality indicated the rarity and the power of the gear, each category has a specific color. There was grey mediocre, white average, green unusual, blue rare, purple epic, orange legendary, beige mythic. The last one was a specificity of this game, you could only get those gears by special way, and it was rumored to be the best stuff possible. The developers didn't say anything else about it, so it was still difficult to understand what it meant.
The damage indicated the possible damage by adding the minimal damage with the maximal, and dividing the result by two. For example if Sig' was fighting a mob of his level, he would deal him 7 or 8 damage, but if he was fighting a level 5 bear, he would deal him 3.5 or 4, due to the level suppression. The level suppression began at 5 extra level, with a lowering effect of 50%, and get 10% at each slice of 5 levels.
The rapidity indicated the rate at which you deliver a blow, for this weapon he could only strike one time each 1.5 seconds.
In summary, it wasn't a good weapon.
The rest of his stuff was mediocre and was only giving him armor, no additional stats.
If he remembered correctly, the manual said that only unusual and above gave additional stat like strength, agility and stamina.
There was no spell in his grimoire either, so for the moment he could just fight with his knife, it promised to be fun!
Carefully walking in the forest, Sig' was attentive at everything, he looked around him, ready to fight at any moment.
Finally behind a stump he found his first opponent.
It was a huge brown bear, his paws were almost the size of the head of the young wan, with sharp claws and a maw full of fangs.
Taking advantage of the fact that he was sleeping, Sig' checked his information.
[Brown bear, simple mob, level 5, 150/150 HP]
Finally noticing him when he was coming closer, the beast woke up and roared.
The young man felt his whole body shaking from the noise, he did his best to control himself and rolled just in time to avoid the big paw.
Spinning around, Sig' slashed the flank of the beast, only to see a pitiful -2 appearing in front of him.
Frowning, he took a step back, wasn't he supposed to deal at least a -4?
The armor!
He forgot this detail!
Each creatures and players had an armor value, which could reduce the amount of damage they received.
The amount of reduced damages couldn't exceed 50%, but still, how was he supposed to handle this ?
It would take him 70 hit to kill this bear, with a hit each 1.5 seconds, without taking into account the difficulty of lending just one, it would take him 105 seconds to kill this bear !
Sig' was cursing the developers when he remembered something else, it was said that each creature has a weak point, or more, where there was no armor value.
A bear was an animal, which sort of weak point could he have?
Sig' suddenly smirked, in jail he learned something about that.
He rolled a second time, finding himself in front of the bear again, and thrust his knife in the eyes of his opponent.
-4 !
The bear angrily roared and tried to hit him back but the young man actually avoided it.
The eyes! Everyone was weak at this place!
All he needed to do now was to evade the claws and fangs of the beast, and with 34 more hit it would be done!
-4!
-4 !
-8 ! Critical hit !
Sig' was surprised, he didn't expect to deliver a critical blow.
A critical hit dealt 100% more damage, the chance of getting one was influenced by your critical stat.
If he remembered correctly, his was currently at only 5%.
Well, he wouldn't complain about it!
[The brown bear is dead, you gain 75 experience points.]
Sig' breathed out, it was finally over ! He checked his experience bar and almost fainted.
[Experience bar: level 0=>1, 75/1000]
Wonderful, he "only" needed 13 more bear just to level up!
Sig' looked at his shaking hands, covered in blood, then at the bear corpse.
It gonna be a loooong day…
[Congratulations! You're now level 1! You get 5 stat point and one spell point.]
30 minutes later he finally leveled up, Sig' was psychologically tired and sat on a stump.
He decided to first distribute his stat points, he had the choice between:
-Stamina, which increased his HP, by 10 HP for each stamina's point.
-Agility, which increased the damage of daggers, bow, cross-bow, and others one-handed weapon. It also increased the critical stat and the rapidity.
-Strength, which increased the damage of two-handed weapon.
-Spirit, which increased the mana points, by 10 MP for each spirit's point.
-intelligence, which increased the damages of the magic spell, the casting time (the time someone uses to cast a spell).
Sig' looked at his poor 60 HP and decided to put one point in stamina, and the others in agility.
Next he opened his grimoire, there was only one spell "vicious strike".
"Vicious strike, you viciously strike your opponent, dealing him 150% damages of your weapon".
Sig' was dumbfounded, what was that description and name?
It must be related to the history of his class, but still, it was a little bit awkward.
From what he understood, you could sometimes get spells while gaining a level, but usually you were obliged to find books, finishing quest or doing special actions to get a spell.
Each spell has multiple rank, and when you reached the last, your spell could evolve and becoming more powerful. However, you were also obliged to put a spell point to unlock the spell, and then using one spell point per rank.
The young man spent his first and only spell point in the vicious strike and then checked one more time the grimoire.
[Vicious Strike. Rank 1/10. 40 energy]
Energy? What was that? After searching, he finally found another bar below his HP bar, but this one was yellow.
[Energy: 100/100. You recover 10 energy point each second, this value can be influenced.]
Well, pretty mysterious isn't it?
Sig' cursed the developers, were they obliged to create such a difficultly understandable game?
The young man got up and decided to look for another bear.
He finally found one and engaged it.
Normal blow!
-8!
Finally! He wasn't under the level suppression anymore as there was only four level between the bear and him! Plus, the stat point spent in agility increased his damages.
-9!
-10!
Vicious strike!
-20!
Sig' was so delighted, from now on things will be much smoother!
[The brown bear is dead, you gain 70 experience point.]
Obviously the experience point will also be lesser as he leveled up, so he checked his experience bar once again.
[Experience bar: level 1=>2, 120/1500].
So he needed 20 more bear to level up, it wasn't a big deal.
Ring ring!
Sig' looked at the call, it was Morgana.
"Hello my northern hero, how is your first time going?" She asked playfully.
"Fine, I'm level 1 actually, you were right, it's a good spot and there is no one else. What about you? Did you also went to a level 5 zone?"
"Nop, I'm still level 0, I'm looking for information in the town"
Sig' was surprised, with all her knowledge he supposed Morgana would be the faster to level up.
"What are you looking for?" He wondered, curious.
"Everything ! Knowledge is what you need if you want to be the last one standing at the top, my little Sig'."
"How will you level up later then? The spot will surely be full of players."
"That's not a problem, you'll carry me" She giggled.
He rolled his eyes, why wasn't he surprised at all?
"Fine, do what you want and call me when you're ready, I'm gonna continue my labor"
"Are you enjoying it? The game I mean" She seriously asked.
The young man stopped and take his time to think carefully.
"Honestly yes, it's surprisingly addicting. I could be used to it" He answered.
"That's a good new Sig', take your time, one day it will be the world where your dreams come true!"
She hung up the call, leaving him alone in the dark forest.
He started looking for new bears once again, ready to fight.
However behind a tree he found a surprise.
Crouching down, he came closer to discover a treasure chest laying on a rock, and just next to it, a huge black bear.
This one seemed different compared to the others he fought before, he looked more threatening.
Hidden behind a bush, Sig' checked its information.
[Black bear, elite mob, 350/350 PV, level 6]
An elite mob! It was the first one he had seen! They were rumored to be stronger and faster than normal mobs, but also giving more experience point.
The treasure chest was also an alluring reward, but to get it he was at first obliged to kill the black bear, and the level suppression was back.
Gathering his courage, Sig' decided to take his chance and charged the beast.
Like the normal ones he roared and charged him too, which obliged Sig' to slide to avoid the incoming strike.
The young man got up and slashed, aiming for the eyes.
-5!
The black roared and charged him once again, but he was so fast that Sig' wasn't able to avoid it.
The claw touched him at the arm, the pain was indescribable.
-50!
Sig' almost suffocated, not because of the pain, but because of the number!
His HP bar immediately reduced, showing now 20/70 HP.
Another hit and it would be the end for him!
The pain disappeared, looks like you could only suffer from the hit, and not from the after-effect.
Facing the beast Sig' forced himself to calm down, he regulated his breathing and looked at his opponent in the eyes.
He appreciate the weight of his weapon, noted the distance between them and the black bear paw's size, then he closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he was ready.
He charged once again, avoided the incoming strike and slashed once more, before taking a step back.
The attack landed but the bear was unable to hit back, as the young man was already too far.
This strategy was much longer but at least he wouldn't die, all he has to do was to keep up until the end, bearing the pressure.
But this wasn't a problem for the young man, he already endured far worst in the past.
[The black bear is dead, you gain 200 experience point]
The fight took him 5 minutes this time but he finally did it!
However he noticed that the corpse of the black bear was glowing, unlike the brown bears he killed earlier.
It was the sign of a loot!
Sometimes mobs could drop a loot, it could be something valuable, or not at all, it totally depended of your luck.
[Black bear fur, quality: average, material]
Sig' didn't know what "material" meant, but he decided to take it and look for it later, now he wanted to open the treasure chest.
However, as he was about to do so, a voice echoing in his back.
"Hey guys, look at it, we found a treasure chest!"
