After playing this game for so long, I've forgotten how tedious farming and grinding was. To make it even worse, I was never an athletic person and it showed with near death experiences fighting creatures around my base camp.
Mobility, flexibility and stamina are the three things needed in all fighters to survive and hopefully level up but since I don't have any, this had been proven to be a challenge. This was even more evident, when I took out my weapon, a level 1 m9 knife, a staple basic combat knife in most military shooters.
What surprised me however was the accuracy of 80% and critical hit of 80%. The fact that it only did 100 damage at it's best, intrigued my curiosity since all I did was cowardly flailed the blade around at the creatures.
Every hit I swung hits it's mark and the 80% boost in critical hit chance made the 100 damage of the blade quintupled with the game's on-hit multiplier. Level 5 boars to level 15 wolves were the types of creatures that lurked around in this forest. To my relief there were more lower level creatures around me than the higher ones like the level 7 boxing rabbit to the level 9 red eyes which are very territorial birds.
I remembered these creatures the most because they were the most annoying creatures to run into. With most MMO's, creatures in the game with the lowest level to the player became neutral and the creatures that are higher level to the player became aggressive and would often attack the player who enters their territory.
Boxing rabbits and Red eyes however, will always attack any players that enters their territory – stated in their bio's 'it's in their nature' – were only a hinderance to high level players because of the low attack damage but if you were close to their level or lower, the chances of surviving were slim to none. If you accidentally ran near one and it spotted you, then there's a 100% chance that others around the area will flock in as well .
Fighting against a group was hard in VR since movement and attack inputs are all player based. Though everything felt surreal in VR, I felt no danger versing any of these creatures since I knew in real life, my life was safe... But now was different. The fear I excruciated as I saw them approach me nearly made me release my bowls.
I was never a nature's kid. I remember when I was 10 years old in grade 5 and the teacher had made me go on a camping trip to Jacob's Well. Camp felt like hell since I was always a loner and they made you sleep in a group. What made it worst was that most of the activities we had to do for fun, were around nature.
That trip brought back bad memories and now I'm reliving it... so I knew, I was pathetic when I started to instinctively tried to swat the red eyes away. I reflexively closed my eyes as I swung my blade at my incoming doom.
The creature's noises amplified around me when I closed my eyes and felt my heart raced to the sounds. I screamed at the top of my lungs as I swung my blade aimlessly like a frightened and cornered prey.
As the final screech from the red eyes faded and I no longer felt any additional pain, I slowly opened my eyes and got the shock of my life. Bodies littered the ground, blood puddles filled the dents of where the boxing rabbits had leapt from and as the stench of blood reached my nose, I gagged.
When I finished vomiting, I lifted my head up towards my right hand holding my blood-stained blade and noticed that my hand, were covered in drops of blood and scratches from all the red eye's attacks.
My level grew in that battle and with that so did my skill points. I was now level 10 with 10 skill points but I needed to be level 15 to place my first skill's point in 'steal'. Just 5 more level which meant that I had to do more grinding.
Once I barely levelled up to 15, I placed my first point into Steal which brought a smile to my face.
Even though steal was the only skill I'll use in the thief class, in my opinion, it's the most underrated skill in the game. To put it frankly, it's the same skill Kazuma used in KonoSuba but with one notable difference, steal in King's World does what the name suggest without any restrictions.
No randomness. No luck involved. If the user wanted to steal a tiara off a princess's head, then all the user had to do was to visualise it.
Throughout this spell's creation, it had met many buffs and nerfs from mana cost to limited usage. As it stands now, it cost a ridiculous amount of mana to use and can only be used three times in a battle.
No one outside the thief's class would ever choose this skill above their own except me. Throughout my career playing this game at a high level, it still baffled me, how players whether veteran or new jumped on the bandwagons or sell themselves to be in the new meta. I chose the skill 'steal' because it's a necessity skill to be in my kit regardless of it's nerfs.
I've actually placed 5 out of 8 of my skill points into steal. I placed 3 in summon, 'Mouse squire', 2 in elemental magic; Ice [Frost Bite] and 5 in Barrier.
I placed 5 in barrier so that the mana cost would be reduced. At 1 point, the mana cost would've been twice as much as it is now, but by placing 5 points, it reduced the mana cost down to 50. From 150 to 50 was a massive drop, this meant that I could spam barrier and it would only waste 10% of my total mana.
Barrier as of right now is an essential skill to learn even though it's the weakest out of all the level 1 protection skills. The reason I chose it was because of the spam effect. The other skills cost was way too much and are unspamable due to their large mana cost.
Barrier had a 10 second cool down and can be reduced to 3 seconds once the skill had reached level 9. Barrier also allows me to place it on others and multiple people, once I levelled the skill to max, so it's a handy little skill if you know how it works...
I was happy with the skills I've chosen and I knew these skills would help me with my survival. This is my real life on the line so, one mistake and I'll be dead.
With a milestone like this completed, I felt a bit more relieved. I felt my stomach growl which meant it's time to hunt. Even though I had fought against a bunch of the red eyes and all their meat are scattered around me, I knew back in the real world, all these meat are contaminated.
I trudged along the footpath for a while, just so I don't accidentally aggro any of the creatures, especially at night...
After a while of walking, I started to hear voices. In the game, if you started to hear voices, it's either npcs or players on voice coms and that I was close enough to them, to hear their voice channel.
I quickly hid behind some trees just in case they are coming to my location. I don't know if they would rob a low level newby looking character like me but player killing is a thing and looting of other players is also a thing. I had to be extremely careful around anyone. I just have to be prepared and act if I felt like I'm in danger. No respawns for me that's for sure.
I heard their voice coms getting louder which meant that they were close.
"Hey Raj! Are you seeing this?!"
"Seeing what?"
"The world chat!"
"Bro, why would I be looking at the world chat! I closed the chat once we entered Lacan Forest. I don't want to lose all my shit again like last time."
"Yeah? But look at the world chat!"
"Why? What are they saying?"
"That Z is dead!"
"What?! What do you mean?"
"People are saying that the police had found blood all over Z's apartment this morning!"
"What?! Fine! I'm opening up chat... Holy shit! How could this happen? Didn't he like win the championship, like yesterday? I mean we saw it on the live stream!"
"I don't know dude but this is all crazy, the four time champion is dead..."
"But wait, they say they found blood but never mentioned a body..."
"Yeah, that's true..."
I listened to the two talking and immediately wondered if I could open chat. Chat was something players could use to talk to each other even though there were mic's built into the headsets. The most used channel on the chat panel was the clan's chat, other than that, world chat was the most used. I thought of the chat panel and sure enough, the chat panel popped in front of me.
The chat panel has many features. You could look at the local chat which was the chat in the location your in. Server channel which is the server your on, clan's channel which is a channel for your clan and world chat which is a channel that has all the servers from around the world on the one chat channel. It can get hectic and messy once you enter world chat, so the pro players would avoid using the world chat like it was a infectious disease.
I haven't used the world chat ever since I became a pro player. This would be my first reentering the chat panel in years and when I did, I had quickly regretted it.
[World Chat]
[World] Ilovaboy {ILove} [US386]: [Server list] <- in-game funeral!
[World] Isolope {VietBoys} [VIE108]: Rip Z
[World] LeMasno {EliteGonz} [FR202]: Rip Z
[World] Trigger {GunsRU} [US001]: Link to body found! [www.newsnotcool.com]
[World] AR25 {GunsRU} [US001]: Don't listen to the guy above, he's a troll...
[World] CraxyGir {GirlsLife} [RUS113]: #PrayforZ
[World] Trigger {GunsRU} [US001]: Am not! [www.myclansuxs.fu]
[World] UnitOp [RUS222]: Troll! There's a troll in the world chat! I thought you guys should know...
[World] 121Lolz [GER104]: HaHa HP reference! #HPfans
[World] Trigger {GunsRU} [US001]: [www.FreeTheTroll.ok] #Can'tstopmyconsitutionalright!
[User: Trigger has been removed from the world chat]
[World] SophieL {GunsRU} [US001]: Sorry! For our clan member's behaviour!
[World] Locodi {HazNo} [BR024]: [WTB] [Legendary] Ice Lance (Ascended) A250+, SBR024 IronStorm Forge!
[World] Sunshine {Happy} [AUS102]: What happened to our boy Z?
[World] LostForz {Lost} [AUS397]: people says he died!
[World] ButterSad {butter} [AUS376]: yeah it's all over the news! Google it!
[World] Blossom {Sakura} [AUS222]: it's on channel 7 right now go watch it!
[World] LostBand {Lost} [AUS397]: SBS is paying tribute to our great hero! #SBSRTherealchannel
[World] Applepie {Crisp} [AUS111]: they say they haven't found the body yet! #Findourboy #Justiceforourboy
[World] URTrig {GunsRU} [US122]: FUCK U SYSTEM! #I'mbackbitches [www.king'sworldcan'tsilence.me]
[World] URTrig {GunsRU} [US122]: [www.king'sworldcan'tsilence.me]
[World] URTrig {GunsRU} [US122]: [www.king'sworldcan'tsilence.me]
[World] URTrig {GunsRU} [US122]: [www.king'sworldcan'tsilence.me]
[World] URTrig {GunsRU} [US122]: [www.king'sworldcan'tsilence.me]
[User: URTrig has been banned for 14 days for spamming.]
[World] CherryKis [CN202]: T.T #PrayforZ
[World] CherryKis [CN202]: T.T #PrayforZ
[World] CherryKis [CN202]: Oh oops sorry, I didn't mean to spam, it was an accident. -.0
[World] (GM)DoMa {ClanGM} [US001]: Hey everyone! Sad Night tonight!
[World] Honeyvn [SK222]: Oh My God! it's DoMa! Hey DoMa! What are you guys going do for our boy Z?!
[World] (GM) DoMa {ClanGM} [US001]: pay attention to your screen. Something special will pop up on announcement! ^.^
[System announcement: Congratulations to ZCovey for winning the King's Gauntlet 2020 Championships. ZCovey has now earned the title of 'One True Ruler' four times in a row! We of the King's world team, would like to thank and pay tribute to ZCovey for all that he has done.]
[System announcement: We of the King's World community pay tribute to Zyane Covey. Champion of King's Gauntlet 2020 in home state, Queensland, Australia!]
I sighed as I closed the world's chat only to see the same message displayed in front of me...
[System announcement: Congratulations to ZCovey for winning the King's Gauntlet 2020 Championships. ZCovey has now earned the title of 'One True Ruler' four times in a row! We of the King's world team, would like to thank and pay tribute to ZCovey for all that he has done.]
[System announcement: We of the King's World community pay tribute to Zyane Covey. Champion of King's Gauntlet 2020 in home state, Queensland, Australia!]