With the issue of the guild done, there was nothing that they could do for now. They would have to wait for daybreak or continue with trade professions. As he thought about the various things that he could do, he realized that he could also go to the Colosseum in the city.
It was the best place for PVP and there would also be fights against monsters and other NPC combatants. The only drawback was that if he fought with NPCs or monsters, he would have to bet with the system. For PVP fights, it was a very good place. It required a small sum to book an arena which would provide the person 10 combat points. If he won, he would get the combat points or anything else that he bet with his opponent, but a loss would make a player lose the bet along with a few points going back to the system.
The good part about the fights was that there would no loss of experience on death in this place. So, it was a good place to train players. Apart from that, it would also give combat points and other rewards for every win with the NPCs or monsters.
It used to be a very crowded place and a lot of players used to continuously come to the Colosseum to test their skills against one another. At that time, it was really hard to get a chance to fight against NPC or monsters as a lot of players used to compete for it. There would be a fixed number of fights with NPC or monsters per day. Now, he had all of it for himself.
"There is a Colosseum in the city where you can fight against other monsters or NPCs or you can try to learn engineering or inscription," said Shadow immediately guiding him. If there was no way for them to level up or play the game other than trade professions, the game's popularity would surely go down.
"You can also try to get pets from the pet store," he suggested. Though people couldn't tame wild beasts for pets, cities allowed for players who passed level 10 to have more docile already tamed pets. Taming a wild beast could only be done after gaining the tame beast skill book. Such skill books could still be found in the auction houses of cities held by the NPCs. These auctions were one of the ways of collecting money by the game managers and is common in most games.
But these tamed pets bought at stores wouldn't get popular as they usually didn't have the advantages, or the fighting skills of a wild beast tamed as a pet by a player. As the level of the players increased it would get easier to get tame beast skill books. Later upgrade would also introduce, Beast Taming as a trade profession which can be used to provide tamed beasts to others as pets.
Beast taming is one of the compound trade profession like engineering, trap disabling and field medic. It required the players to know a bit of other professions like alchemy. It required the player to create medicines which would help increase the level and strength of the pets. Engineering was also similar to this as it required a good knowledge of the forging profession.
The professions couldn't be done without the alchemy and forging. The players also had to use a lot of apparatus that was used in alchemy and forging. That is the reason, the professions such as engineering was only introduced in the cities when most players have made a decent attempt at professions like alchemy and forging.
They immediately checked the map and headed towards the direction of the Colisseum, but first decided to make a stop at the pet store in the market. This was the first time that Rudra had seen a pet store in the game. This was quite similar to the ones in real-life.
They store had three floors with each displaying a number of monsters for pets. The ground floor was filled with the smallest and harmless of pets. These were simple ones like slimes and small plushy cats, dogs and ferrets. They didn't even have any strong skills that could use in battle. These would all be pets that are just eye candy and would be good gifts or playthings.
The top floors had stronger beasts that have moderate skills. As they went up to the higher floors, one could see better and stronger monsters. There were quite a few ones including cougars, cats and even wolves. These all have few physical skills which can be used in combat. All these pets required food to increase in level and even needed potions and bandages to heal from injuries.
The behavior of these pets were also quite similar to how beasts and animal would behave in real-life. They had to be cared for and sometimes even pampered. To teach skills, one could use pet skill books or even use the tricks in real-life to train them.
They both went into the pet store and began to browse over the ones that are available. Shadow couldn't find anything that he would like. All the pets available were quite low level and had a low life rating.
Though the concept of having a pet would be very enticing to most people at this stage of the game, Shadow had no interest in it. He considered it to quite useless and it would hinder his progress than help him advance easier in the game.
It was an entirely different thing for Rudra. From the cute ones in the ground floor to the wolves and beasts on the other floors, he wanted to buy everything. Even if he didn't use it, he wanted to get them just so that he could show them off in the forums.
Shadow had to physically wrestle him down from doing something that stupid. He knew that he could simply get to feel out the pets and take pictures without buying them. They soon started to take pictures of themselves with a few pets.
At the end Crimson Power still had bought a pet. He actually bought the flashiest one of them all. It was a large white crown hawk. It was similar to a hawk and had light brown colored feathers with a white crown on its head made of bone plates.
White crown hawk (Elite flying pet)
Level: 10;
HP: 3000/3000;
Perception: 25;
Movement Speed: 100;
Attack Speed: 80;
Physical attacks:
Claw attack: 80; Peck attack: 100;
Attacks cause bleed effect.
Flying monsters were frequently used to scout new areas. These kinds of monsters would be most useful when exploring new areas. The hawk also had physical attack skills and with the hawk being a flying beast, its attacks would be quite unpredictable. It also could increase up to level 20 and would be quite useful.
The hawk was smaller when compared to the beast and monsters at its level and it also had low health. But it had a high perception and speed. The perception attribute decided the range of vision of the players and monsters.
This was common among many bird like pets. The bird just needed to have the player in its range along with any other monsters. That made the effective range of the player almost twice the range of the pet. This was one of the most important features of pets with perception. It allowed the players to be a lot safer while exploring new environments. When these pets see any monsters or dangers, they tend to run back to the player and shriek or so signs of fear.
Apart from bird type pets, the same could also be true for monkeys or moles which were reared as pets. They would also run back to inform the player of dangers. But bird pets were the best ones as they would tend to be a lot faster and nimble than other beasts.
The problem with these pets were that they were high maintenance and useless without skills. The tamers can be paid to teach the pets a few skills, but most shops didn't have any attack skills. Though not attacks, the skills for scouting and defense had a lot of uses. Most players would be interested in attack skills, but these pets without a good defence or exit strategy all attacks would result in death of pet.
Once, they were done with the pet store, Shadow and Rudra continued to the Colisseum. This was a large game stadium. Once, they got in, they could see a large ground at its centre. The ground that was open in the centre usually had some NPC's or monsters fighting each other, while the players could bet on them. But most players just watched them fight rather than bet on them.
Occasionally, there would be chances for the players to fight the monster or NPCs in the main arena too. It was free for all to watch these fights. Unlike in fights against other players, the fights against other monsters at least provided about 50 combat points.
There were a bunch of other smaller combat arenas that players could access to have fights among them. These arenas don't have a viewing area and unlimited in number. Once, a player paid the amount for the arena to the manager at the Colisseum, he could choose for a random fight or set up an arena with a password so that they could only fight with specific players.
The entire outer edge of the Colisseum is filled with stores. These stores formed a kind of small market selling different kind of products, but they would only sell and not buy from the players and they only sold for combat points.
Moreover, the Colisseum which was in the outer region of the city had stores which had a lot high quality equipment and products. A few products that were only available in inner and core regions could also be bought at the Colisseum stores. The only problem with it was the large number of combat points required to exchange for the various tools and products that were available.
With Shadow and Crimson Power being the only two players at the Colisseum, they could easily register for the fights with monsters and NPCs. These fights were usually held with monster or NPCs which were of a similar level to the top 20 members of the leader board. If it wasn't so the fights would not be interesting enough to the audience. Everyone wants to watch and bet on fights which would showcase new skills and top players, else it wouldn't much fun otherwise.
They both registered to fight the monster in the arena. With them being the only ones, the fight with the monsters was immediately held. They were immediately sent to the main arena. The main arena was a simple flat ground without any obstacles. It was a fight that was held in multiple rounds. The number and level of monsters would increase once they killed the monsters or defeated the NPC in the previous stage.
The first round had a couple of wolves. They were the same as the other wolfs and had the same behavior and attack pattern. The only difference was that they were at level 10 and had higher health and damage than the previous ones. With his expertise, it was quite easy for him to kill them. The number of the wolves increased to double in the next round. Though it was a bit harder, he still managed to clear the round. With every round the creatures would change or increase in number
Every five rounds, the players would be provided an option to get out the fight or continue. Getting out of the fight would provide him with all the points but continued and dying would cause him to lose half the points, even though he wouldn't lose any experience.
He quickly accepted to continue the fight in the arena. He continued until level 10 when he decided to give it up as he almost got killed by the bears. He was an assassin by profession. An assassin's expertise would be sudden aggressive burst of attacks that make quick work out of the opponent. Fighting continuously in a flat arena would be extremely hard for an assassin, especially when fighting against multiple opponents.
Such fights were more suited to guardians or berserkers. By ten rounds, he already managed to gather 700 combat points. It would be a waste, if he lost and had to give up half of them.
Rudra who had also registered got into the arena after Balthazar got out. His opponent was an NPC instead of monsters. It was swordsman NPC at level 10. It was always harder to fight NPCs than monsters as the NPC had human techniques.
Though Rudra had a halberd which was a longer weapon and had practiced using it against monsters on the way to the city, it was a completely different experience with the NPC swordsman. The NPC had skills and fought like a professional that Rudra couldn't compare with. He never fought with armed combatant in his life and was easily defeated.
This fight taught that physical fights with humanoid races in this game would be a lot more difficult than in any other game he played before. "Without proper and frequent practice, you won't be able to compete in this game. Don't forget that the somnium technology was created for military purposes. Fighting with humanoid NPCs is also quite different to fighting monsters and would be very hard for me too. We can practice with each other before we attempt again," comforted Balthazar.
Though his friend comforted him, Rudra was not a fool. He knew that his friend told that fighting humanoid NPCs is very hard, he knew that his performance paled in comparison to Balthazar's. "It looks like serving in military had given him an unexpected advantage in the game. I need to work a lot more than expected to be able to become a strong player in this game," though Rudra.
It was clear to him that all people who had actual skills in real-life would be able to use them in the game and would be extremely successful. "My gaming experience would be useful, but it might not have much effect if people like him continue to join the game," thought Rudra as he understood his urgent need for physical training. If he needed to establish a first-rate guild as he promised to his father, he must learn to fight physically, especially since he chose berserker occupation.