The teleportation crystal was impossible to miss. Approaching the attendant, he asked, "May I teleport to Witherville?"
"50 bronze." Arthos agreed and took out a silver. The attendant took it and returned 50 bronze. "Put your hand on the crystal."
There were runes carved all over the crystal. Arthos complied. The attendant took a scroll and stuck it on an area of the crystal, and channeled into it. The last thing Arthos remembered was a smile and hearing "Close your eyes and have a good trip."
Arthos felt a daze. It was as if his body came apart and was out back together in an instant. It was not painful but his body suddenly felt alien to him, and the sudden change of the surroundings gave him a headache. 'Next time', he assured himself, 'I will close my eyes.' He closed his eyes for a moment till the 'motion sickness' passed, took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. 'Much better.' It was now a country side view, with small wooden homes scattered around the crystal. Some larger and more prominent than others, and a few stalls around the crystals.
"Beautiful.. I could live here.. forever." Just as he was about to explore, he heard a message. "System alert: user has be online for 6 hours. We would recommend taking a break. To ensure your belongings are safe, please log off in designated safe areas."
It has been that long? Arthos called up the system interface and logged out without hesitation...
Only to be welcomed by intense pain, nauseating, and an almost unfamiliar body. "I could see why there are people who get addicted to virtual worlds." He grumbled like an old man. Well, he was an old man after all. Sucking a deep breath due to the pain, he took off the head gear and called for assistance. Accompanied to sort out his bodily functions and taking his dinner, he looked up more information on Apocalypse online.
Sure enough, the 8th Apocalypse was coming soon. The barrier between the earth and the moon was weakening by the day. Apparently, the Apocalypse was meant to be the 1st episode of a series of games with a possibility for the players to 'win', however, this got distorted as players enjoyed preparing for the war and the massive battle over stopping it. Even players who tried to explore the lore to find a solution to stop the apocalypse tired out, only leaving a small group of hardcore roleplayers who still searched for the truth. The developers caved in, and decided to make it a battle Royale at the end of each apocalypse with rewards, cashing in on cosmetics and subscriptions.
'I guess commercial pressure dumbs down many things. Still I guess people just aren't as patient as before.'
Guides on skills were similar as what he experienced in the game. He really was not interested in other classes anyway. 'Oh what's this.' There was a post talking about magic in the game. 'Magic really is too difficult to start off. Rune sketching is difficult to accomplish and takes up crucial time in battle. Mind casting requires intense focus and is difficult to combine multiple runes. In the end, the general consensus is still for scroll casting. However, scrolls were expendables with a one time use. It's too expensive unless you save up as a second character or have rich friends.'
This felt ominous.
Reading on, Arthos realised that mind casting had gone out of play and most only used it when they ran out of scrolls. Furthermore scroll making had an assistive function to copy known runes into a scroll, and for activation, all one needed was to hold the scroll and focus on it. Arthos thought about it for a while. Mind casting was not much of an issue for now, but perhaps it would get more difficult as he progressed. Well, that's a problem for another day. Sleep takes priority.