The woman was standing several feet behind him her fiery red hair falling to the side of her shoulders. Her eyes were a galaxy of purple and blue colors, slightly mesmerizing. However, besides her hair and eyes everything else was just normal in terms of sexual appeal.
Legeron was slightly taken aback but at the same time he was kind of pleased. Usually when playing an MMORPG all the women were over sexualized. She was a normal woman with a few features that jumped out at you.
Her body was adorned with a set of basic leather armor and two daggers strapped to her waist. A pack rested on her back with a couple of bottles hanging off the side.
"Did you really accept Glinar's quest?" The stranger mocked.
Looking at her, he noticed her name and level: Scarlet Blade lvl 8. Was she the other person in here from the After Life program? Did he just randomly pick the town with the only other After Life Ig'Dracil player? Was he really that lucky?
"Excuse me are you the other After Life player?" Legeron's asked.
"What the hell are you talking about, After life?"
Legeron dipped his head slightly in disappointment. "Never mind. Yes, I accepted Glinar's quest. Wait a minute. Does that mean I'm connected to the actual Ig'Dracil game? Like I can interact with everyone in this world?" He asked picking his head up in excitement.
"Yeah?" Scarlet questioned curiously. "Wait a second...the After Life program. Isn't that where they take your brain and digitally download it?" Her eyes became huge while continuing, "Does that mean you're dead?"
"Wow, not really subtle but technically yes." Legeron shrugged
"Wow! That's insane." She said with extreme excitement. "So, how similar does it feel to using VR?"
"I wouldn't know. I never could afford a VR headset in real life."
Scarlet blade paused for a moment and contemplated. "Well VR isn't completely synced with your body. Right now it think it's a 70 percent synchronization with your brain. So if someone were to touch me IRL then I would still feel it. I can also move my arms IRL if I focus but I can't move both my body and my character at the same time. Also, the sense I feel in here are definitely dulled."
"Well I am 100% here right now. Also it feels like I am in the real world while in this game."
"Was your consciousness put in this game? Like are you in Ig'Dracil only?"
"No, I can leave whenever I want and I have access to other games."
"That's awesome! So, how much do you know about Ig'Dracil?" She grilled
"So I was still in real life when this game came out and I heard some minor details about it but nothing too much. I think the game had been out for three days when I had my accident."
"Well Ig'Dracil has been out for around a week and a half now. So you're quite behind the power gaming group. However you have new people coming in everyday. This weekend should have a flood of noobs coming."
"Why's that?" Legeron questioned
"There is a big event this weekend to help celebrate Ig'Dracil's launch. It's a double XP weekend and rare drops rates will increase. Unique monsters will be all over the world and they will drop unique items too. Once this event is over those monsters will never appear in this game again or at least that's what the game developers are saying."
"What day is it?"
"Currently it's Wednesday at 9:18 am CST. My college class just ended for the day. More people will hop on later."
"So I have two and a half days to prepare for this event."
"Well you have longer then that. Ig'Dracil time works differently. For every one day IRL you experience two days in here. It slows down time for your brain. So you'll have four and a half days to prep."
"So is it a longer day that I experience or two completely separate?"
"Two completely separate days. From 12:00 am to 12:00 pm is a 24 hours cycle in Ig'Dracil."
"Ok I get it. This means it's going to turn night soon."
"Yep. As a note some creatures have certain periods of the day that they come out. Monsters that come out during the evenings tend to be stronger."
"Is staying in town safe or will monsters attack there too?" Legeron inquired.
"From what I have experienced yes. Towns are safe zones that monster don't attack. However, I have heard rumors that one town had a special event activate and everyone of the players in town had to help defend it from a hoard of monsters. I haven't been able to confirm if this rumor is true or not."
"That sounds fun..." Legeron smiled slightly he was fortunate to bump into someone this knowledgeable about the game. "So why did you call me a noob for doing this quest?"
"Well what you are working on is a foraging job. These are honestly ok to work on but Foresting tends to be one of the hardest to do and happens to be one of the most abundant resources. It's generally not a good one to level up. After this quest Glinar is going to ask you to do a profession quest of some kind. It's just the tutorial quests to introduce these two concepts. However, you're honestly wasting your time doing this quest. Foraging is good but not really helpful until you reach level 10 when the Auction house is available. And as for profession jobs, those are good but worthless until you can get blueprints. Blueprints have a stupid low drop rate in the world. But dungeons have a better drop rate. The first dungeon is available at level 15. Without blueprints it's impossible to increase your profession."
"If that's the case why would anyone do any of the professions?"
"Well crafted equipment is better then any found equipment. So if you found a level 10 common item and you crafted a level 10 common item the states of the crafted one would be better."
"I see this makes blueprints rather important. Would it's be the same with legendary items?"
"No ones knows but I think it would have better states then a pick up legendary."
Legeron paused for a moment absorbing all this information. He continued, "Does anybody sell blueprints?"
Scarlet Blade thought for a minute, "If there is an NPC that does then nobody has given out that information and nobody is going to be selling blueprints in the auction this early in the game."
"Is there a limit to how many profession or foraging skills a person could learn?"
"No, but the thing is time. You have to put time and energy into learning that profession and foraging skill. Nobody has enough time to learn them all."
Legeron though about that statement for a quite some time but continued, "Are you one of the top gamers in Ig'Dracil right now?"
She chuckled a little bit. "If I was a top gamer I wouldn't be wasting my time talking to you, would I?" She laughed a little more, "However, I was a professional gamer in some other VR games and I'm hoping to catch up to the top. Right now the highest level is 21 and nobody knows what the level cap is. In fact I should probably get back to leveling. Before I go here's a friend invite, after all you intrigue me. Also, I'm planning on getting some people together to hunt unique monsters. If you reach level 10 by Friday how about you join me and my friends?"
"I'll see you Friday then" Legeron let out a laugh as he accepted the friend request from Scarlet Blade.