.
.
.
-----------
[Playing video…]
"It's starting…"
"Shut up Max!"
The Video started within a large hall just like the one they were in right now but it was empty.
There were no sounds, just the sound of wind light breathing...
The camera did a slow panoramic view of the room before resting behind a tall man with developed muscles and red hair.
He had a mask on his face blocking others from seeing his facial features. However, the lower half of his face was visible.
He smiled at the camera as he started to run… And it was then that to the surprise of the millions of players currently watching the video, he jumped and kicked the wall, eventually grabbing onto the edge of the ceiling where he crawled into the light…
[Congratulations! You achieved something never done before]
Suddenly, epic music started to play as the system voice sounded in everyone's ears. The camera moved as it started to show his back facing the ruins of the tutorial below him.
It looked pretty good…
It suddenly cut to him running, jumping, and even opening chests through the tower as a narrator started to say promotional words, like… Explore, Conquer yourself and the world, Collect lost treasures…
And at the end of it, it displayed a shot of the masked man jumping into a monster with a lance in his hand, fearless and brave as he put his life on the line…
But it cut exactly there. The music changed to something more simple but still epic as it showed the man running around the ruins of the city, exploring mysterious regions and collecting loot.
How he ran in dark tunnels, how he escaped from falling metallic cogs and it eventually ended with him opening a giant vault and golden light shining on his body.
And the video ended right there with his laugh.
[DING!]
But before they could do anything, every player received a system notification.
[A new record has been made, fastest Tutorial clear, time: -10 seconds. Player: My Dad]
[Congratulations to 'My dad' for setting the record!]
It was at that moment everyone realized the records weren't purely bullshit, and this entire promotion video was about a player achieving something incredible.
"HAHAHA! What an interesting guy." Said the guy with red hair as he stared at the ceiling
'To think about jumping into the hole… How did he do it? It's way too tall, not even the best of the best would be able to do it… And besides, how did he even get alone on the server?'
'It's impossible for him to be Level 100 when the game just started, so there must be a secret behind it all… How interesting.'
"Fred should we…"
"Forget it, there is less than a minute before the tutorial starts, there is no point in trying to jump into that hole, in fact, we should focus on what he did… Those chests he got and even that item… You know what those were, right?"
They all nodded.
"If this guy is truly a player and not a developer like we thought. And it can only be one of two things, he is either a Beta tester or he knows someone with a great deal of information… But for now, let's focus on ourselves!"
'We can think about him later... A single player doesn't matter in the grand scale of things.'
[Disclaimer, initiating the Tutorial]
…
/5 minutes ago…/
"Huff… Huff… I did this… Check... And that… Okay, I did everything I wanted. So it's time to do some of the extra things…"
Dale was now sitting on a rock near the village as he recovered his breath, he was wearing a suit of heavy armor and he looked rather cool as his armor shone under the sun…
The villagers looked at him and some of the elders seemed to notice what his armor was, they all had all manners of relations, but no one approached him.
"First, I need to clean my inventory of all this trash."
'I raided many chests along the way and now my inventory is saturated with shit I don't need… At least right now, but even if I may need them one day, money is more important than some things...'
Dale got up and went to a nice-looking stone building in the village.
There was a wood board near it reading: Trade Center.
"It's rather empty…"
'In the Beta, this place was closed. Shortly put, this is the game market.'
'Every MMO has a market operated by the system AI, most of the time, it's the players that set up their own markets and stimulate it, however, the game has a market system with Medium to low-interest rates in case you need to sell something fast or if you want to sell something at a high price by auctioning it to the entire Server.'
'Currently, there is no way for players to get access to other in-game markets, so the system operated one will have to do the trick for now.
I will drop my items here and this will allow the players from multiple servers to buy and bid for them, I will get an enormous amount of gold like this…'
'Specially since the gold can be collected anywhere in the game as long as the player is within a major settlement that has one of these Trade Centers.'
'Not only the currency but also items... There are some items I would like to collect... So I could sell them later hahaha.'
"Hello mister knight, how may I help you?" Asked a beautiful blond clerk
Dale was straightforward, he opened his inventory and said to the NPC:
"I wish to put some items directly into sale and auction some of them."
The beautiful blond-haired girl smiled and replied:
"Are you aware of our policy and rates? If not I can explain it to you pretty quickly…"
"I don't want to be rude since I am running for time, so make it fast please."
The girl didn't seem offended as she said everything rather fast.
Dale nodded and started to select his items and put them for sale.
"I don't need this, much less this, these should be sold in batches, and these should be sold individually, put these on a special market... I will only accept these for payment... Perfect."
After 2 minutes, Dale's inventory was now pristine.
"Is that all sir?" Asked the clerk with a sunny smile
"Yes."
"According to our policy, some of your items transactions require you to pay a certain amount beforehand. The total is 0.1 Iron Zulls."
"Okay."
'0.1 Iron Zulls are about 1000 Wood Zulls, it's pretty steep, especially when you learn how 1K XP is about 1 Wood Zulls… But I have enough funds, and I will hit it big soon enough…'
'The amount I gain is proportional to the amount I spend! If I do it in a smart way…'
'Such a shame I can't convert money into xp... And in any case, this conversion will most likely only be a thing in the Tutorial/'
Dale turned around and left the shop, he felt it was a bit of a shame to leave so soon but he had no time to appreciate the beauty of an NPC.
The clerk waved to him and Dale stopped, turning around and waving at her when he was about to leave.
But once he was done he rushed outside.
"... My… How quick of him."
The blond clerk's eyes suddenly sparkled with wisdom, she had a playful smile on her face as she used her left hand to caress her cheeks.
'We'll meet again one day… Dale Hooston. It was fun.'
With that, she got up from her chair and left through a back door, and soon enough, another pretty clerk came through the door and sat in her place, as if that was the natural order of things.
She did not have the same eyes as the previous clerk though...
…
Dale ran through the streets like a bulldozer, the NPCs made way for him hastily so as to not be knocked off by him.
Everyone would since it is quite scary to see a 2-M tall heavy armored Knight running at you with menacing intent at the speed of a car.
He eventually stopped inside a house and said:
"I collected what I wanted, I investigated the secrets I planned, got extra items, and the only thing that is left is this:"
Dale took out a few items from his inventory and put them together on top of a rock.
[Sigil of Strength (Broken)]
[Sigil of Constitution (Broken)]
[Sigil of Dexterity (Broken)]
[Sigil of Mental Power (Broken)]
[Sigil of Reflexes (Broken)]
[Sigil of Mana (Broken)]
Looking at these 6 shining items made Dale smile and remember older times.
"These 6 items were part of a special event and they were extremely rare drops from 6 even harder Raids… I never thought I would be able to gather them all like this."
'In the past game, each of these Sigils could've been kept in the player's inventory, and they would grant him/her a flat stat boost forever, however, they don't do that anymore.'
'They're broken, unusable, however, if I break them, I can absorb their energy and the effect would be just the same. In the past game, this could be done but no one would be stupid enough to do it.'
'It was a waste of a good item that could've been passed onto a new character or sold…'
"There was a ritual that could only be done once all 6 of them were gathered, I don't know if it will work this time, but if it does…"
Dale shook his head.
"No more talk, time to work…"
He opened his inventory and took out a hammer.
[Manufacturing Hammer (Consumable)
Effects: Use it to fuse several items together into a single item, the result is random and may range from all possible recipe options.
The higher the rarity of the items, the higher the failure rate.
]
/Clang!/
Dale struck the 6 sigils!
/SHUA!/
Rainbow light shone on his face as the six sigils fused together in a party of brilliant lights…
And in the end, a single sigil was left.
It looked like a floating seal, shining in a faint white color.
(Think of the Elden Ring lol)
[Aspect of Might (Incomplete)
Effects: Consume it to gain a might fit for a Champion.
]
"It worked!... But it's incomplete?... Well I guess that is normal since the sigils were broken to begin with."
'As for my luck... There was no such thing, the ritual was supposed to have a 100% success rate. Although I was a bit skeptical since the materials were broken...'
'I can say my gamble paid off...'
/Crack!/
Without hesitation, Dale crushed it and red lighting started to surge through his arm and into his body!
[You are absorbing an incomplete fragment of the Aspect of Might]
"ARG!"
Immense pain soon followed.
{Detected massive change in the Biological Core}
{Body reconstruction is in progress}
But Dale did not hear it as he was too occupied screaming in pain…
…
Half a minute later…
The pain suddenly vanished as Dale felt every part of his body sore.
"Haaa… Fuck me…"
'What happened to me?... Is this because of the real-life pain configuration that comes with the fucking HardMode?...'
"Open… My fucking Status. Phew..."
[Player: DareDevil (Dale Houston) Attainments: Body Reformation
Level:5 (0%)
Class: None
Character Status:
Strength: 60(115); Constitution: 60(115); Dexterity: 60(115); Mental Power: 35(90); Reflexes: 35(90); Mana: 10(65)
Skills:
Slot 1-> Spear Technique 2-Star (Neutral)
Slot 2-> Close quarters Combat 0.5-Star (Neutral)
Slot 3-> Stable Emotions 1-Star (Passive)
Slot 4-> Spatial Awareness 0-Star (Passive)
Slot 5-> Fighting Spirit 0.5-Star (Active)
Temporary Skills: Glyph Activation 2-Star (Active); Glyph Ignition 3-Star (Active);
Current Effects:
+15 All Stats
Aspect of Might -> All Stats +15
Body Reformation -> Natural Healing and Stamina recovery speed have been increased
Commander of the Vault Guardians Set -> All Stats +15 while in a Ruin
Ruin's Guardian Glyph Blade -> +10 to all Stats while in a Ruin
Inventory (+)
]
"What now?" Asked Dale in confusion
…
.
.
.
Notes
First, his stats may be high, but let's look at the overall situation.
+15 stats will vanish once he leaves the tutorial.
+25 stats from his gear will go away once he leaves a ruin.
So his sole boost is the Aspect of Might and whatever armor he decides to later use.
I will show how this will be balanced, he is strong, but not super overpowered. Especially since people can do the same as he did and there will probably be someone out there that will…
So how strong is the Mc?
As I showed before, with 50 strength, the mc was capable of lifting several times what a normal person would be normally capable of.
He bench-pressed almost double that of the world record, and he didn't even try that hard. And his body isn't that massive.
The Mc can break a thick brick wall with ease, but if he uses a spear it gets easier.
It will become clearer as we advance in the story. But what I have in mind is for him to be as strong as a Level 40-50 player. That is... If we only count his base stats without his items and buffs...
If we add those as you saw, his stats are over 100, which are over what a standard Level 100 player would have as a base... Of course, that is pushing things since players would normally do many events and quests to grow stronger outside of their own stats without the use of gear.
But yes, he is OP... If he is to face another player, what I want to say is that even if he is so strong since he is a HardCore player, he can still die if a low-Level player hits a lucky strike...
He isn't impervious to the sword like a martial artist yet.
...
Some of the items' stats ->
[Commander of the Vault Guardians Set (Unique)
Rating: 3.5-Stars
+15 all Stats while in a ruin, otherwise, +5 to all Stats.
Set Bonus -> Commander, if there are 5 or more people with the Vault Guardian Set near you, All Stats + 2, and for each 5 additional people, to a maximum of 20.
If the number of people goes to 25, unlocks the temporary Skill, Barricade Vault 2-Star.
If the number of people goes to 60, unlocks the temporary Skill, Gliph Aura 3-Star.
If the number of people goes to 100, unlocks the temporary Skill, Wrath of the Machine 4-Star
Requirements: Strength: 30; Constitution: 25; Dexterity: 10
Description: Long ago the Paxus Knight Army stood guard over the Capital of Pil-Iros with their Glyphed weapons and armor gloriously under the setting sun.
Their Commander, wearing his famed armor, stood guard over the city and never once lost a battle.
]
PS: I also decreased the requirements for the Gliph blade since I thought I put it a bit too high.