Welcomed by the dark room, Ikky slowly opened his eyes. Previous physical and mental exhaustion was now gone, replaced by the refreshing serenity people earn after a good sleep. However, deep inside he could still feel uneasy.
After several more minutes, he still didn't move a single finger or muscle, not until the light from a car on the street lightened his room through a window, he eventually moved.
Checking his smartphone he could see several messages from his friend John. Ignoring them, for now, checking the weather along with the information when will sun raise.
Then he slowly got up from the bed and started with a short exercise, afterward he went downstairs to eat something for breakfast.
Everybody in the house was still sleeping as it was barely half to 7 am, except the father who was already in the job.
When the first rays of the sun reached the rooftop of the house, Ikky was already outside and running through half-empty streets and parks.
He didn't focus on anything, just running. After more than 2 hours he arrived at his favorite spot. At the top of the mountain, there was a small lookout lounge from which one could see the whole City.
Ikky sat on the bench and continued to watch a quiet City which was usually loud and busy.
'I wonder how many people are actually playing the game.' Ikky wondered as he never thought that so many people would be stuck home, unwilling to go outside.
He sat there for more than 2 hours, some people came by, but nobody was bothering anybody, they all came to this spot to enjoy the peace and calmness of this place. When he felt the beginning of the hunger, it was a signal that it was time to return to reality.
After those 2 hours, his mind was very clear of any thoughts. As much as one would get their head clear from spending some time in nature with fresh mountain air.
***
Ikky opened the door and was welcomed by his sister.
"Where have you been big brother?! I had to help mother with the lunch." complained his little sister.
Ikky smiled and patted her head, which she hated fighting his hand as if it was a sneak.
"I will prepare the dinner." Ikky responded in apology.
"By yourself? Yaaay!" little sister ran back to the living room right when he took off his hand from her head.
"Mom, I will take a shower and I will be right back," he yelled while walking upstairs.
"Take your time." came somewhere from the kitchen.
Afterward they all ate together, Ikky turned to his sister.
"Do you want to play together?" he asked.
"Really??" his little sister was confused and happy at the same time.
She was already so much bored of staying home for a whole day since the elementary school was also closed, otherwise, she would never ask her brother to play with her.
Ikky nodded with a smile.
"Then go change, I want to play outside!" she said while running upstairs to change clothes.
"Don't run upstairs!" yelled mom in a helpless tone.
And so brother and sister spent the rest of the day together as every family should once in a while.
***
In the evening family sat at the dinner, but this time even Father was present.
Ikky looked at his usually talkative father, being quiet.
"Are you doing alright in the job, father?" he asked with concern.
"Eh? Oh, yes, we are having difficulty due to VR technology introduction, but it should be alright, it's not as if the whole world can change Software in every device by Crystal company AI, at least for now." father answered in a skeptical voice.
"Yes, you are right," said Ikky encouraging his father.
After dinner, Ikky asked his sister if she want to watch some movies together, but after devouring all of her boredom this afternoon, she was back to her usually no-thank-you attitude.
With nothing to do Ikky went up to his room and finally read all the messages, he received from John.
*Man you are already level 5? How are you so fast?! Didn't you start with several hours delay? I just reached level 5 two hours ago.*
*Hey are you reading this? Didn't you get logged off by the system? Or did you only log off to write me and then went back?*
*C'mon man, we need to contact each other! But there is no private message in the game, alright set alarm at 9 PM and let's call each other before we drive in! Talk to you later*
Ikky read through the mess of messages from his friend and laughed, it was currently 8 PM so he had one hour before the call.
'I should check if there isn't some information about the game already, for example, stat explanation.' he thought.
After several minutes he found exactly what he was looking for.
[Stat explanation (please up-vote the post), by: Erxis]
[The stats effects are different based on the class, I asked several of my friends and we tested it together very thoughtfully. However in general the stats would look like this:
-Strength - HP / Defense / Attack power
-Agility - Evasion / Critical chance / Attack power
-Stamina - HP / Defense
-Intellect - Maximum mana / Magic attack
-Spirit - MP recovery / Occult defense
That is a basic explanation, a detailed explanation can be found below:
-Strength - Using a melee weapon, Strength has the highest impact on damage dealt, however portion of the Agility is also calculated to attack.
-Agility - Using a ranged weapon, Agility has the highest impact on damage (this has not been tested yet, but should work as explained due to pure logic).
-The rest of the stats from Strength and Agility are dependent on the classes, while Rogue would receive 1 HP per Strength point, a warrior would receive 3 HP, and vice-versa in case of Agility gains.
-Occult defense is resistance to curses or dark magic, at least what we were able to test.
As for MP recovery, each point gives at least 1 MP (or more based on the class) recovery per 10 seconds.
Ikky finally understood, ignoring the fact that the Bow had a much higher base attack than a dagger, the main boost in damage came from Agility, which was his highest stat, the Strength should affect his Daggers damage.
'I will have to look for other weapons in the game to understand the damage output, but seems like Bow is having the strongest attack in comparison to other weapons, as a weakness it's slowest and there should be a chance to miss attack completely, not like if I can miss with the new skill though.'
As he continued to look through different topics, he found another interesting one. It was the one explaining the safety features of the VR helm.
'Safety features? I think I heard this mentioned by the school director before?'
[Safety features not mentioned in manual, by: Lix]
[Hey guys, we made a spreadsheet about safety features, and a lot of them are now discovered on a light!
Safety features:
-VR helmet can replace only one max two days of sleep, then you will be put into deep sleep if you attend to use VR helmet again (during log-in period, if VR helmet notices a discrepancy in your brain waves it would put you into a deep sleep instead of logging into the game, this deep sleep will last for several hours and you will not even notice it until you wake up)
-If you stay connected for more than 12-14 hours (depending on when you had your last sleep) you will be forced out into deep sleep again.
-This is all we were able to find yet, but we are already experimenting with how to bypass those limitations, and seems like taking a short break from playing every 8 hours, might actually allow you to connect for the third time for a few more hours, before you are put into a deep sleep. I wish you good gaming! See ya, Lix!]
Ikky shook his head, people trying to risk their health just to play a bit more are crazy regardless of age and time. Then he realized something.
'Wait, didn't I play the whole day and night on Monday? Even with a short break for the dinner, I should have triggered safety, or not?'
Just when he was about to click reply to the post and ask about his current situation, a lot of new posts started to pop up. It didn't even take 10 seconds and the whole first page was already full of new posts.
'What is going on?'
****