Urial's VR (?) adventure V

These friends of the original, they were losers, the original was also a loser.

The moment I took over his body, I picked my class without hesitation.

This 'Adventure' was boring, and I 100% wasn't worried. Because they were fighting F-rank 'BIEG rat's, I kill those things with my eyes closed.

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Name; Birch

Class; Skill Lord, lvl 1

Max hp; 1

Max mp; 200

Class skill(s); <Parry>

Skill crystal(s); none

Skill tree core(s); none

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'Birch'? What kind of trash name is that? Let's just replace that with 'Urial'...

Done, I'm not going to be called 'Birch' the entire time i'm in this trial.

Now... This status was very sad, but very normal for the beginning of a run.

The 1 max hp, that was normal. Even the slightest hit could kill me right now, even stubbing my toe.

I need some skill crystals quick.

And the rats wouldn't give anything of use, so, I left.

I went further into the forest, for gobbos, or goblins. They have some skill crystals that have some value, like <Sword mastery>, <Slash> and <Thrust>.

I quickly found some foot-prints, with four toes. Classic goblin anatomy, though, those losers didn't leave me alone.

They were probably worried about 'Birch', but I'm not that little simp. Who followed his 'Queen' to this place, no clue what that queen's class is, she ditched. But Birch still came, just to show 'Loyalty'.

I won't respect his friends, family, and social life. I won't even try to protect them, that'd be dishonorable. Like what 'Tsun_zu' once said; 'A simp doesn't deserve respect.'

Wise word for big brains.

So I ignored them, if they actually showed any worth, I may actually pick one up as an NPC member of my party.

Slowly, realizing that I didn't care to speak to them as I was tracking goblins to their camp, they decided that they should just follow their 'Queen's' or their friend's wishes and just show each other their classes like planned, and leaving the more socially out-cast 'Birch' to his own devices.

'He' was being bullied anyways.

Now free of any and all limitations caused by people following me, I could calmly start hunting goblins.

There was one over there right now. It was hunched over with a club, while I had a sword.

I wistled to it.

It slowly turned it's head towards me, then it smiled with it's disgusting face. I was so going to kill it and it's entire friend-group.

['Goblin' activates <Stable footing>]

That was quite obvious, how else would it be able to run at me?

I slowly unsheathed my sword, just to be cool, when the goblin got close.

The moment it got close;

['Goblin' activates <Smash>]

It threw it's club up high, and then forced it down with all it's might.

Though I used my one handed sword to stop it with my own attack, completely breaking the goblin's balance.

[Skill <Parry> activated]

I used my free, left hand, and wrapped my fingers around the young-teen sized goblin's throat.

Then I quickly pierced the sword in my right hand into that throat.

Though the goblin had defiant will in it's eyes, it couldn't do anything, as it's immense pain stopped it.

I quickly fell limp, as I wished.

Now, let's see. Is there a skill crystal?

I quickly ripped open the skeleton and took out it's heart, I then broke it open. Just a magic stone, no skill crystal in sight.

Though I didn't get lucky this time, the skill crystal lottery was sure to favor me eventually.

An E-rank magic stone would still have some use though.

I took the club from the ground, chipped a bit off, then forced the raw, un-cut crystal into the indent. Then, I threw a bit of mana to connect the two things.

Luckily, this basic =Adhere= spell doesn't need any kind of skill or class to use. Just about half-a-decade of training and research, an amount of time I had.

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Goblin club;

Each strike has a chance to do 2 points of extra kinectic damage.

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Worthless. It's worthless. If it was something different, then I may have had even the slightest use, but it's worthless.

I use blades of all sorts, not clubs, morning-stars and the like.

So I ripped the magic stone out, and then looked at what I could stick it on.

I realized birch had a locket, and yes. I discarded the piece of parchment inside and adhered the magic stone into it.

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Gobbo locket;

Any attack has a chance to deal 1 point of extra kinetic damage.

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This was... Good enough to keep.

Though I'd 100% replace the inferior goblin magic stone with something else that had value as an artifact.

And yes, this {Gobbo locket} was technically an artifact, but not made with any kind of artificing. Just a magic stone doing it's thing, no refinement at all.

Now, since tracking the goblin encampment's location is boring, let's skip it.

All you need to know is that you find out about it by finding water sources, and checking for goblin tracks, then triangulate with these two things, and then you find the approximate area.

And if you look around even a little, then you'd spot it.

Now that I knew where they were, would I;

A: Kill them all.

B: Poison their food source.

or C: Burn it all to the ground.

Have you imput your answers?

Well, it was D: 'Kill any goblins which go to far from their encampment, 'till I get my skill crystal bribe.'

About 60m away from the encampment is far enough away.

Now, the grind is eternal, until it's not. Have fun watching some of my friends, and I'll return with skill crystals and magic stones a-plenty.

-------

Tech field entered the same interview room as Urial.

The only question different was; 'Why do you and your companions call yourselves the 'Nine kings'?'

This was his answer; "It sounds cool, what other reason do you need?"

"How did you get other players to actually recognize this title?"

"Well, we proved we were worthy of it by being a clan with only nine real members, and still being in the top 5 among the clans in multiplayer. Though we left that community after it became dull to fight the same people in the same way, and always ending up in a draw.

It felt like an endless loop, and the advantage we had was cancled out since we didn't have enough time to play at a high time-dilation, except Urial who only needed an hour a day to already make a good amount of progress..."

"Let's just stop talking about this, can I go in yet?"

"...Yes, Tech field. You can, just open the menu, you'll see it instantly."

He did, and instantly pressed the big red button.

He quickly dissapeared and went through the enter animation.

He flew inside a room, then into a person in a slovenly room.

The new character instantly picked his class without hesitation.

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Name; Maxwell.

Class; Artificer, lvl 1

Max hp; 15

Max mp; 32

Class skill(s); <Artificy>, lvl 1. <Basic magic>

Spell(s); =Magic bolt=, =Adhere=, =Carve=

Skill crystal(s); none (10 slots left)

Skill tree core(s); none (3 slots left)

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A dissapointing status, though better than the beginning of a skill lord play-through.

Maxwell/Tech field searched the room in search of items and magic stones.

What did he find?

Three neutral magic stones without elemental things, it seemed they came from a 'Hyris'. A weak variant specifically.

There was actually an iron cane, it was low quality, and obviously a knock-off of a better brand.

So Maxwell used =Carve= to take a cube of metal out.

And then started to use <Artificy> to carve out mana channels and indents for the mana stones, though the indents didn't fit the magic stone's forms and they were all different.

But instead of makign the indent fit the magic stone, but the magic stone the indent.

As such =Carve= worked like a charm, and allowed him to create a proper, though extremely basic and primitive, artifact.

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Mana catalyst (Variant alpha-7-9-4^3)

1; Adds 15 points of magical damage to spells cast.

2; Increases the speed of spellcasting of tier 1 spells by 25%.

3; Decreases mana cost of tier 1 spells by 10% (Non-stackable).

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With a bit of safety now, Maxwell started to inspect the room for any information to the city he was in.

-------

Wuxia_world completely disregarded the interview as an attempted slander piece, and saw that in the menu, he could leave instantaneously.

So he pressed it instantly and skipped the interview section.

Where he appeared was in the wilds, with no one else. He quickly inspected what items he could use right now.

a compass, a zweihander, a water skin, a dagger. The rest were his clothes.

No food to speak of.

Though that was easily fixeable.

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Name; Synth Zalodeck.

Class; Martial artist, lvl 1

Max hp; 32

Max mp; 11

Class skill(s); <Martial mastery>

Skill crystal(s); none (10 slots left)

Skill tree core(s); none (3 slots left)

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Synth looked around quickly, and found the area too lush to be natural, for the area. This was a place of elves.

He quickly touched his ears, he wasn't a knife-ear. He'd hate that, then he'd be as frail as a stick compared to others of his own lvl.

This had a whole load of implications, like; 'Were they isolationists?', 'Were they racist?', 'Was it an open city?'.

Synth disregarded these thoughts as insignificant, if he was against this group of elves, he would just subjugate them all with his martial might.

Though he may need skill to counter magical means of combat.

But those elves... How would he get them to be obidient to him?

He thought about this philosophical question while killing any monsters around him.

Until the subject of his thoughts appeared, well, it was indecated that they appeared, since he heard an arrow being fired.

Though, instead of stepping backwards to dodge, Synth's hand grasped the air right to the corner of his eyes with completely confidence.

And his instincts were correct, as he now help an arrow right in his hand. Synth was quite mad, you could see from the fact that he crushed that arrow with his bare hands "Come out, elf. Before I kill you."

"Begone human, for this sacred territory!" A female elf yelled.

Synth couldn't help but smile, she had a little spirit familiar. She was elementalist! She had some worth as a battle assistant and support "Girl, whatever you job was previously, you're now with me."

The elf paused "What?"

"Welcome to the team, we're going to be an iconic duo. Me being the face of the team of course!"

The elf's mental functions short-circuited for a moment.

"First goal, get out of this weirdo elf paradise, now, you, as an inhabitant of this place. You will guide me out of this hell hole."

"N-no! You tried to sneak into our elven paradise, and for that you must die!"

Synth shook his head, sadly this place was isolationist and racist. How would he escape this weird forest?

Well it was obvious in Synth's eyes, and that was; Beat the shit out of this delusioned and brainwashed racist elf, and get a guide.

"Ha, you and your delusions, I'll make sure to mimic the process mimic uses to make people like you come to your senses."

The elf had no idea what Synth was talking about, it was actually surprising the middle-aged man with a slight beard could even speak elvish.

"Oh, you don't understand, let me put in it basic terms; 'I'm the taliban, and you're a country, now I will beat you, until you conform to my design'."

Seeing that she still didn't understand, but still had her bow aimed at him, with an arrow drawn, Synth sighed "You'll understand later on."

He leapt forward towards her, and the battle started.

['Elf elementalist' uses <Twin shot>]

Two arrows came from one, but it still didn't matter to Synth, he could see through the trajectory of both, and weaved past both of them.

[Martial art; {Fugaces-nubila gradum} used]

Using the martial arts afforded to him by <Martial mastery>, he quickly started to close in on the elf.

['Lesser fire elemental' uses <Kindling>]

The small elemental floating around suddenly pointed it it's 'Arms?' at Synth, and out of it, a small flame shot out.

[Martial art; {Spectris Pugnus} used]

Instead of trying to even avoid it, he just used a martial art to punch the flame away. Just to show how much better he was than the elf.

['Elementalist elf' uses <Forest traversal>]

['Elementalist elf' uses <Woodland-retreat>]

The elf tried to run away, she would call her village's scouts to attack this human together.

But Synth had different divination of the future, as he got close enough to attack

[Martial art; {Resurgens-daemonium calcitrare} used]

A hard kick went landed right on her chin, though she could still try to run away.

[Martial art; {Pugnus furoris * non letalis versio} used]

His fist landed on her chin again, and finally a concussion occured.

He quickly punched the elemental back to the elemental plane with {Spectris Pugnus}, then he continued with the beat down.

[Martial art; {Calcitrare (verisimile mortuus est) cadaver} used]

Kicking a (wo)man while (s)he was down was dirty, but did Synth care? No, he even found it mildly entertaining in fact.

After observing that the elven woman was finally open to negotiations, signalled by 'Please stop!'s and 'I don't want to die!'s.

He leaned her damaged for against a tree and started negotiations "If you guide me out of this place, I won't beat you half-to-death anymore."

"...D-d-deal." The youthful elven woman said weakly.

Rapping this up, Synth looked around, saw a very common healing herb, grinded that up with his bare hands, and the fed it to the elf elementalist. Which allowed her to stand on her own, though she wouldn't be able to cast skills and magic for a while.

Also, if you're wondering why all the martial arts are written in latin; Synth learned latin, and he needs to use it somewhere to not make him depressed about all the nights of rest he sacrificed to learn it.

And it's funny to see NPC's confused when the battle record says things with strange names that are unlike any language they have ever seen.

-Written in the 28th of junuary, 2023.