5 Chapter 5: Tutorial! Knowledge and more slimes

Apho's POV

"Just watch me, Apho" Pixi said while smirking.

She raises her left hand and points all her fingers, like she's grabbing something, to the slimes. Her right hand is having a unique peace-gesture on her right eye. She's suddenly saying something. It's like she's enchanting a magic spell. I focus my sense of hearing on her to hear what she's saying.

"---Scan!!" she shouts. That's the only part I heard of her incantation. I almost got disappointed in myself but then, I notice something in her right eye. It has a small magic circle in front of it, bigger than her eyes but it is still small from my perspective. Slowly, the magic spell from her right eye is channeled to her left hand. It's such an amazing sight to see the graphics quality of the magic since it looks so real for a virtual reality game. It hits very differently too compared to 2d and 3d animation.

About her magic, it's definitely about scanning something since the last word she says is 'Scan'. I look at the slimes and I observed something again. Something is glowing inside of the slimes and based on my experience, it would be their 'core'. In my experience, some RPGs create a weakness mechanic that enhances the damage they take. It's the same mechanic on fps with the headshot damage multiplier. I will let Pixi explains it more thoroughly to confirm all my thoughts

She finishes her magic quickly and then flies down toward me. She stares at me with sparkling eyes and a smirk, as if she did something very amazing.

"How's that?! Hehe, I have more things I can teach you but for now, try figuring it out for yourself. Like I said, experience is better than explanation." She says then flies to her usual spot on my shoulder.

"kay" I casually said to her then prepare my sword.

I run towards the slimes and focus on the glowing thing on their core. I slash one of the slimes and I just one-hit kill it. Apparently, hitting those glowing spots increases my damage, confirming my 'weakness theory'. It will be a great technique to pinpoint the glowing spots of every enemy. And top of that, Pixi has the magic spell to do it.

The other slimes notice me after I killed one of them. They simultaneously attack me and one of them hits me on the legs. Ouch!

wait... pain... pain?!! Why do I feel pain in this game?! I suppose I can feel and control my whole body normally but to feel this sensation? Ahh what a stupid mechanic, I guess technology hits its climax in this game that even my pain-sensing neurons are copied. I wonder how painful it is when I die...

After the slime hits me, there's a screen pops out in from of me. There's a green bar and a blue bar on it. Logically, it must be my HP and MP. I just take a glimpse at it then focus again on attacking.

Three slimes remain, one slime on the left, on the right, and in front of me. I prepare my stance and wait for them to attack. They're just bouncing there, menacingly. No just kidding, their cute faces are making them not so scary.

The first one to attack is on my left. I charge towards it and stab its core. It dies immediately then the other two starts jumping toward me. I turn around and slash its core in the meantime.

"Level increase. You're now level 2" Another screen pops out with a catchy ringtone. Like a series of triangle instruments. But neat, I finally leveled up. I got distracted by it and I nearly forgot that I still have one slime to kill. It suddenly appears above me!

Out of instinct, I slash it but I didn't hit its core so the moment it flew away, I jump and stab it in midair, causing it to die. I pick up the slime balls and now I have 6 out of 20.

Pixi flies to the screen where my health bar and mana bar is. "Your health decreases, it is quite painful, doesn't it?" She asks me with a sarcastic voice as if she expected it to happen.

"Not really, I'm just surprised," I told her then after confirming that there were no enemies nearby, I put my sword back into the sheath on my waist.

"Good thing to know because you just lost like 2 or 3 percent of your health that time. But since you've leveled up, your health and mana bar will replenish and your stats will increase by a bit overall. I think you already know what those numbers besides your health and mana are." She explains to me.

My HP now is 115. If I remember correctly, my previous HP is 110. On calculations, it increases by 5. It's probably the same for my MP which becomes 55 now.

After that, the screen just disappears. "Oh and also, when time passes and your HP and MP are full, it will automatically close. If it's not full, of course it will not close for you to monitor" She says to me then before she flies to my shoulder, I ask her something to confirm it.

"My knowledge and accuracy, it's for those glowing spots. Am I correct?"

"Ohhh yes! you got it right!! you're quite an expert to notice and remember the stats I couldn't explain thoroughly," Pixi proudly answers.

"Accuracy and Knowledge are the stats that we didn't tackle since as I said that time, 'Experience is better than explanation'. You already experience it so check your stats." She says to me then flies over to the menu icon on my right.

I tap it and slide my hand to the right on the screen to access Character. I look at my stats and it has my previous stat plus the increased stat after I level up. My HP and MP increase by 5. My Power by 2 and for some reason, I have an additional 10. It must be from my sword, so I have 30 for Power. Speed… doesn't have any increase at all. The same does for my Luck.

"Accuracy is about how strong and accurate you can hit those what-you-called 'glowing spots'. They are the Weakness spot of the enemy and it increases your damage based on the multiplier you have, which is 150%. Hit, slash, destroy, etc, there are many ways you can deal extra damage" She explained to me and then told me that it's supposed to be 100% normally.

"Then, Knowledge is the rate of knowing your enemy's weaknesses. It's mostly developed by hitting those weak spots multiple times and defeating them by last hitting that weak spot. It can be interpreted as your battle IQ. In your case, your rate of knowledge is 150% again" She explained to me and then ranted that my Ac/Kn stat is unusually above average.

It's weird that the slime earlier has no name indicated like its HUD as what typical RPG is but this game's uniqueness makes it even better.

"As you saw earlier, I have a magic spell that can pinpoint the weakness of the enemy. That's my support magic, ENEMY SCAN. Its concept is to analyze and boost my knowledge to pinpoint the enemy's weakness and highlight them." She continues as she flies around while explaining. To summarize all of it, hitting those weak spots deals 100% chance of critical damage that increases more than twice the base damage.

"Do you get it all now?" she asks while staring at me. I simply nod and close my menu.

"Oh I forgot to mention, go to menu again and click Friends" she says to me. After hearing the word 'friends', I feel kind of disgusted. It's so stupid to rely on somebody to win or complete something but some are necessary especially in boss-raid/rush 'ing.

"Don't look at me like you despise it! Just do it"

oh, my thoughts are leaking. I follow what she says and the screen of friends appears. Of course, I have none for now but I plan to befriend someone, it's Yulia.

She flies behind me and says, "Don't look! Give me a second"

After a few seconds, there's a 'Friend request' pops out at the upper center of the screen. I read the name and… It's from Pixi. Another weird feature that came to my mind, Pixi is an NPC but she sent me a friend request?? To begin with, is she even considered as an NPC? if she's some kind of early player in this world, I got to know more about why she's a tutorial fairy here.

She returns back and she looks very happy. "Hey! Accept it already. I will explain the benefits of having friends" She says to me.

I click accept and now I have 1 friend. "Now what?" I ask her.

"It's easier to form a party when you have friends as one tap away, as long as you're in the radius, you can invite them to be a party member. Now invite me!" She hovers around her name which is on the screen

I tap her name then invite her then she quickly accepted it. Now that we're at the same party, I can see her HP and MP but not her name and level. I guess she couldn't see mine too.

She flew to my shoulder and then said, "Let's hunt some slimes!"

I nod and adventure around. After a few seconds, I see a group of slimes far ahead. With this flat and rocky terrain, it's so easy to spot some enemies. As I walk towards the slimes, they suddenly have a name and level. Mostly they are level 1 but two of them are level 2. I also realize that I can already spot where their core is! I slowly stop and then look at Pixi.

She giggled, "I can share my Knowledge with you when we are near to each other. Whoever has the highest knowledge stat can share it with the whole team. But that's all that 'party members' can share. Meanwhile, the party leader can boost the whole team's stats if he has the highest overall stats. Now let's complete your side quest!" She exclaims which makes me fired up and charge towards the slimes.

I one by one slash the level 1 slimes since they're easier to kill. I didn't notice that one of the level 2 slimes jumps behind me. I can feel the tickling pain in my back and It's bothering me as they can go to my blind spots. I slash a slime while turning around but I didn't hit its core. It flies away a bit and the health bar on its top decrease by about 80 percent. I check my health and it only decreases by 3, nothing much to think about.

The full health one charges me. I dodge to the left and after it lands in front of me, I took the opportunity to stab its core. As expected, I defeated it in one hit. The last one seems just bouncing on the same spot so I decide to walk towards it and stab it. I loot every slime balls and now I have 14 out of 20. I'm slowly getting used to how to put items into my inventory as I can feel that its process is slowly getting faster.

I still need six more slime balls so I return back to my old spot earlier and luckily, there are six slimes there. I walk nearby and determine that four of them are level 2 and the rest is level 1. I focus on what to do and challenge myself to not take any damage. I rush towards and slash one level 2 slime to its core.

"Level increase, you're now level 3" ahhh the catchy ringtone from earlier. I didn't bother looking at it so I don't get distracted as I have enemies in front of me.

The killed slime earlier alerts the other slimes so they charge at me. I back-step and slash them one by one. Even if I focus, I often miss hitting their weaknesses. My power increased from level upping but it still doesn't one-hit kill the level 2 slimes. I slice them one more time and they are all slaughtered now. I really didn't take any damage.

I loot the slime balls and after picking the 20th one, the side quest screen shows up. My quest updates to "Bring them to Hefesto".

"Finally! We're done killing. How does it feel, Apho?" Pixi suddenly asked while flying in front of me.

I put my sword back on its scabbard. It just feels so comfortable when I have my sword on my waist. I don't even feel tired after all that running and swinging my sword.

"Feels nice for the first time moving a lot" I answered her question. I actually almost forgot that I am playing in a virtual world and not actually the real world. The graphics are amazingly beautiful that it can be interpreted as if I'm living in a different world.

"We are actually done with the basic fighting tutorial so let's head back to the kingdom," She said to me. I just nod then she flies to her usual spot.

Killing is more fun in action.

-To Be Continued