When Mack opened his eyes he was greeted with the very same ceiling that he had grown to know as a sign of home for the last 3 months or so.
Standing up from his bed he took the VR Gear out and inspected it for any signs of damage. To his surprise, and confusion, there were none, which was odd since he remembered there being a sparks flying about like fireworks before entering the game.
Deciding to question that latter he turned his attention to the nearby window noticing that the sky was already dark and sprinkled with stars just like in the game.
Turns out the original time difference between game and real life was supposed to be 3:1, in other worlds, 3 days in game would be akin to 1 day in real life, but Kai Inc. decided to make the first week of the game a "probing period", to allow Players to familiarize themselves first, so they had reduced the ratio to 1:1.
Scanning his bedroom Mack could only sigh. His entire room was a mess, just like he had left earlier. With a dejected grunt he started cleaning, followed by taking a bath and eating the left over pizza from the previous day, all while searching his brain for any useful information he might have missed after his day in Archeon, and oh did he miss a lot.
By the time he had finished eating his brows were furrowed in a scowl with his head resting on his hand due to the hellish headache he had.
There were tons of information on his brain and the more he searched them the worse his headache became. In the game that didn't seem to be a problem, maybe because the VR Gear had a dampening function to prevent the Player's brain from overworking themselves, but he wasn't sure.
It took him some time to lower the painful throb on his head to a manageable level and he soon decided to write down any important information so he didn't have to suffer from this whenever he wanted to check something outside the game.
Having settled that problem and the dishes he returned to his now clean bedroom and went straight to his PC and into the main forums of Archeon Online. As expected, the forum was filled with messages from players across the globe, most of which were complaining about the lack of status, the class selection system, among other things that, for them, didn't make sense.
Mack could only smirk at the comments while thinking, "if only they knew".
But not all comments were complaints. Some were feedbacks while others were questions addressed to the developers asking about the mechanics of the game and other things.
One of the main topics revolved around the use and acquiring methods for skills, and one comment in specific caught Mack's interest.
The post went on and on about how unfair it was that only the caster classes, like Mages and Clerics, had learned skills while the other classes, like Thieves and Warriors didn't learn any, not even the bread and butter of all rogue-type classes, [Stealth].
Mack for his part could only snort after reading the text. The game was meant to simulate real life; of course acquiring skills wouldn't be so easy.
Did you need to activate a skill to chop wood? Did you need to use a skill to hide yourself after stealing the last cookie of the jar? Did you need a skill to run in a straight line with a shield in front of you?
This was most probably what the development team was thinking when they were deciding which skills to put in the game. They wanted to recreate Earth in a kind of fantastical way, but staying as closer to reality as possible.
And the game was just like that, the only reason why the caster classes received their skills was because there was no such thing as magic in the real world, so they had to change it a bit.
There weren't skills for physical classes when it came to raw actions, like shooting an arrow or slashing an enemy, but there existed skills when the attack had some special effect added to it, the best example being the Warrior-Class skill [Battle Cry]. The skill added to a Warrior's scream a crowd control and buff effect, stunning the enemy for a short time while increasing the player's overall strength.
Quite simple no? And the skill could be learned quite easily too, all the player needed to do was reach level 5, go to the Warrior-Class Instructor at the Adventurer's Guild and Voilá, Skill acquired. There were other methods, of course, but they were better left for another time.
And talking about time, Mack checked the hours and immediately left the forums before entering a chat room. He and his friends had promised to talk at the end of the release day of Archeon so they could exchange their views on the game, and maybe meet online too.
Inside the chat room 6 youngsters were already online, all of which were engaged in a heated argument meaning no one had noticed Mack's arrival, nor that he had an amused look on his face as he heard his friends bickering about god knows what.
From the six smaller screens that had appeared, 4 were owned by girls with the other 2 having a boy each. It was one of those boys, a lanky teenager with Asian looks, who noticed Mack first.
Seeing that one of his friends had noticed him, Mack gave a small peace sign to the camera before smiling, which resulted in the other boy snickering and pulling the others' attention to him.
"What's so funny Jake?" one of the girls asked. She had brown hair styled in an afro, a darker shade of skin and a very pissed look in her face due to the sudden interruption.
"C'mon Joy, it wasn't his fault." The other boy, a rather bulky looking one with short black hair and tanned skin, spoke up to defend his friend. "It was Mack's for appearing without warning," he said making the girl, Joy, and the other three blink before taking a better look at their screens finally noticing Mack, who now had an annoyed look on his face.
"Thanks for throwing the blame on me Sal, a good friend indeed," the boy said before sighing. Saulo, or Sal as his friends called him, was one of the very first friends Mack had made after entering Iwa University and one that had helped him in more ways than he could remember.
"C'mon, you know I am just kidding," Sal protested in a playful tone.
"Yeah, yeah," Mack said gesturing his hand, "now that you ladies have finished your little 'discussion' you won't mind if we get to the main topic right?"
The girls simply frowned before nodding slowly, meaning whatever little quarrel they had had wasn't over and they would continue at a later date. Mack ignored the action, whatever was happening wasn't his problem, yet, so he proceeded to ask them how their first day of gaming went.
It was with no surprise that all six's story were almost the same, beginning at the class selection exam and going down their small adventuring to grind levels by completing small quests for the Guild or hunting monsters in the wild.
What surprised Mack was that from the six of them, 2 became Warriors, 1 became a Thief, 2 became casters, a Mage and a Cleric specifically, and 1 turned out to be a Swordswoman.
"Wow, I didn't know you practiced swordsmanship Carol."
The comment was so abrupt that the group only realized what it meant a few seconds later when the addressed girl, a teenager with long blonde hair, stopped talking to stare at Mack wide eyed, a small hint of pink on her cheeks.
"I-It's not swordsmanship, it's fencing," she stuttered shyly, obviously embarrassed that one of her secrets had been revealed, "but how did you know?" she asked, her voice almost a whisper but due the silent chat room it was loud enough for them to hear.
Mack immediately bit his tongue and inwardly slapped himself. The methods to determine a player's class were unknown to the world at least right now, after all, it was only the first day! He predicted it would take at least three days, maybe a week, until someone figured out the method used.
Until then, there was no way someone could know that kind of information without being considered some kind of stalker, which most probably was what his friends were thinking right now.
His brain started working as fast as it could for a plausible answer, and an idea soon emerged in his head.
Sighing he looked his computer screen dead in the center, his brows furrowed as he put the idea in action, "you have to promise me that whatever I say you guys won't tell anyone, ok?"
This earned him a few suspicious looks, some a little concerned and skeptical, but all six eventually nodded, eager to understand how he knew their friend's secret.
"When I was in Archeon I kind of took my time to get my class, and-"
"Wait," Sal interrupted him, "you 'took your time'? Which level are you right now?"
"Close to level 3 if not there already, I didn't pay much attention to it after what happened, which is something I want to talk with you guys later and also begs me to ask, which level are you lot right now?"
"All level 5, with me, Sal and Joy closer to 6" Jake answered with a smug grin in his face, something that made the other three girls shot him a death glare.
"Well, that makes things easier," he brought their attention back to him, "but continuing, I took my time during the exam and I noticed a type of pattern whenever the instructors, or the System as I believe, decided the players' classes. I think they check to see if the player has experience with weapons, then, depending on the recorded data they select the best class that fits their knowledge."
He looked at Carol and continued, "In this case Carol became a Swordswoman, so I assumed that she had some kind of knowledge regarding swordsmanship, which she did."
"If what you are saying is true then you just found a way for people to get the class they want, you know?" The one to speak was a girl that closely resembled Carol, the only difference being that her hair was tied in a ponytail and she wore glasses.
"Yeah, I do, and that's why I don't want you guys telling it to anyone. If those large Guilds get word of this there will be a lot of trouble for us that are only playing for the fun of it."
The others knew where Mack was coming from, the last few years had been filled with cyber wars in gaming platforms, so much that entire governments had been thinking of banning large industries of entering the game industry, or at least increase the restrictions around them.
"Now that that's been taken care of, I have something you guys will love to know," that got their interest, "I found a Dungeon in the outskirt of my starting Town," this shocked them, "and I was thinking of calling you guys to raid it with me, since I got the [Double Loot] effect for the next 2 days", and this made them cheer.
"Count us in!" Jake exclaimed, followed by all the others who were already anticipating their first raid.
The group stayed awake for a while longer, discussing all the information Mack had about the Dungeon and the possible plans for their attack, alongside the preparations they would need to make.