As Michael spawned he was in a large crowd of new players that all marveled at how real it felt. He could feel a slight breeze and the heat of the crowd. He could feel the beginner clothes on his body, and he could smell the stench of the streets. While he marveled at the complexity of the game he suddenly remembered that he needed to check his name.
{Name: Eos
Affliction: none
Class: Mage
Level: 0
0 / 100 Experience
Health Points: 110 (+ 40 equipment)
Mana: 230 (20 equipment)
Base Magic 20 (+4 equipment) (4+ title)
Defense 4 (+3 equipment)
Magic defense 15 (+2 equipment)
Attributes
Physical stats (expand)
Magical stats (expanded)
Intelligence 12
Wisdom 13
Mana 15
Mana sensitivity 15
Elemental affinity 15
Free attribute points 5
Mastery
Apprentice Fireball (0%) (expand), Apprentice Heal (0%) (expand)
Equipment
Beginner mage staff
Magic damage +4
Magic regeneration + 2/s
Mana + 20
Beginner mage robes
Defense + 2
Magic defense + 1
Hp + 30
Beginner mage shoes
Defense +1
Magic Defense + 1
Hp + 10}
Michael almost got a heart attack when he saw his name as it was so similar with Eros the goddess of love which was a name he did not want to be stuck with. He had a sigh of relief when he realized it was not Eros and the pressed expand on the two spells.
{Apprentice Fireball (0%)
Fires a small fireball that deals 10 (fireball damage) + 20 (Base Magic) damage + Brun 2 (+ 3 element affinity) for 5 seconds.}
Consumption 15 mana (-5 mana sensitivity)
Cooldown 3 seconds
{Apprentice Heal (0%)
Heals a teammate 10 (base heal) + 20 (Base Magic) health + 1% (base heal) (+ 1% elemental affinity) every second for 5 seconds.]
Consumption 20 mana (-10 mana sensitivity)
Cooldown 5 seconds
{Apprentice *** knowledge (0%) Locked.
hidden}
{Apprentice *** transformation (0%) Locked.
Allows you to switch from your *** from and your human appearance.
Cooldown 4 hours
As he was reading the description of the spells someone suddenly bumped into him.
He looked up and saw another player that was about 190 cm and seemed to have a great constitution, everything that he currently lacked. He looked up another bit and saw the player's username "Astraeus". The second he saw that username he felt fire go lose instead of him and latched the blame for his physical stats on him.
Before Michael could curse him to let out all his rage the player disappeared from his sight into the crowd of new players. He attempted to chase him, but he could not get through the crowd with his 1 strength stat.
As he realized he would not catch up with this "Astraeus" he put his anger rather out on a few pebbles on the road and made a mental note to kill that player if he ever meets him in the wild.
After he had lashed out all his anger on the pebbles, he began to look around for any possible starting quest so he could begin leveling up, so that he could crush "Astraeus". The only problem was that he did not see any types of signs above the heads of any of the NPCs.
As he continued to walk down the streets of the beginning village he was suddenly stopped as an NPC in blacksmithing clothes stopped him with an outstretched arm.
"I am going a little low on leather, could you go to the forest east of here and hunt some animals and deliver me their leather."
{Quest: gather leather acquired}
"Ok… "muttered Michael as he was unsure of how to accept the quest as there were not any yes or no option under the quest.
{Quest accepted:
Objective Gather five pieces of any type of leather and hand it to the town blacksmith Axel.
Hint: Rewards are increased based on the quality of the leather}
After he had finished reading the quest description there finally came a marker. There was an arrow pointing at him in the direction of the forest.
He followed the arrow for almost 2 minutes before he finally managed to get out of the cramped town. AS he continued to walk down the trail, he noticed how rugged the terrain was. The deeper he went the lower the quality of the road became, and his lack of stamina became apparent.
After walking in the forest for a good 5 minutes he finally found the hunting grounds. There was a large open plain full of rabbits that were jumping around. Michael stood there for a minute taking inn how real it all felt.
{- 5 hp}
A rabbit had sneaked up on him and tackled him while he was not paying attention. He hurriedly swung around his staff to make the rabbit stop.
{dealt 1 damage to angry rabbit}
Michael almost fell into despair once more when he saw the damage and compared it with the 100 health points of the rabbit.
After he continued to trade blows with the angry rabbit, he began to get low on hp and remembered that he was a mage. He attempted to find out how he could release the spell, he looked around to see if there was any kind of icon, he could tap to release the spell. As he realized that there was no icon that he attempted the embarrassing plan B.
"Fireball"
As he muttered the embarrassing words, he felt something around his body as he felt a warmth gathered at the tip of his cane. After it had gathered for a secund, it suddenly released and was sent straight ahead into the forest.
{executed skill: Apprentice fireball:
Quality: Horrible
-40 % damage
+ 0 % mastery}
The rabbit seemed unfazed by the sudden display of magic and continued to attack until Michael lost his final health points.
{The user has been defeated by angry rabbit}
{Since the user is under level 10 no death penalties will be applied.
The user can respawn again in a minute}
After Michael had waited the minute, he once again spawned inside of the beginner village.
There was a large sense of embarrassment as well as excitement on his face when he respawned. Embarrassment because he had to say fireball out loud, and he died from the beginner monster. And excitement as he was able to use magic.
After having calmed down he began walking towards the beginning monster area once more with new determination. This time there were other players that were walking to the same destination as him.
When he finally reached the beginner area once more, he saw that there were many more players farming them than before.
Since he failed so badly last time, he decided to change his tactic this time around. He went to one of the corners of the field as far away from the nearest rabbit as possible.
When he reached the corner, he aimed his cane at the nearest rabbit and calmed himself.
"Fireball"
{Executed the skill: Apprentice fireball:
Quality: Poor
-30% damage
+ 1% mastery}
He once again felt the same "wind" following around him as the tip of the cane shot out a fireball. And this time the fireball was sent right ahead towards one of the rabbits and hit the rabbit right in the head.
{dealt 50 damage to angry rabbit with Apprentice fireball}
{inflicted burn to angry rabbit}
When Michael saw that the rabbit survived the fireball, he hurriedly cast another one which successfully killed the rabbit.
{Defeated: Angry Rabbit
Gained:
2 experience points
3 copper coins
1 low quality small leather}
When Michael finally killed the rabbit, he felt a sense of atonement for the earlier embarrassment and an excellent way to channel his anger for "Astraeus".
He continued to slaughter all the rabbits which came into his sight, completely ignoring the quest which was his reason for coming.
After an hour of slaughtering rabbits, he got a notification.
{Congratulations, player has acquired the title: Mindless rabbit slaughterer}
{Title: Mindless rabbit slaughterer:
Given to those who mindlessly slaughter innocent rabbits without a care in the world.
Effect: There will not be a single rabbit that does not fear you. When a rabbit sees you they will be frozen in fear and ready for your mindless slaughter.}
Michael just stood there while wondering why every single title had to be phrased into him being weak or evil.
As he stood there, he checked his experience bar to see how many levels he had gained in an hour of grinding.
{level 1
68 / 100}
His level was maybe one of the most demotivating things that he had experienced in his life. He had grinded his ass of for an hour and all he got of it was only a bit over halfway in level 1. As he wanted to give up on the game, he remembered that he could complete the quest.
He hurried himself back to town and began searching for the blacksmith. It was first at this moment he fully realized how bad his sense of direction really was, he had yet to find the blacksmith but, he had passed the town hall three times already.
After another ten minutes of mindless wandering in the crowded roads of the beginner village he finally found the blacksmith once more. He found Axel because of the large group of players that were crowded around him attempting to hand in their quest. Before he approached the blacksmith, he checked his inventory for the quest items.
{Inventory:
18 low quality small leather
10 medium quality small leather
8 good quality small leather
5 lucky rabbit paws}
Because of Michael low strength and new low stature, he had difficulties approaching Axel. Suddenly he felt stupid as he realized that it was just a game, and the quest ended most likely by voice command. "I want to hand in the leather ". He shouted in the direction of Axel and all the leather except 3 low quality leather was removed from his inventory.
{Completed quest: gather leather x 6.
Rewards:
+ 160 experience points
+ 3 silver coins
+ 10 favor with Axel}
{Congratulations to player for leveling up:
New level: Level 2
Rewards:
+ 2 intelligences
+ 2 Wisdom
+ 3 Mana
+ 3 mana sensitivity
+ 3 elemental affinity
+ 7 free stat points}
The amount of stat points that he had gained from a single level shocked him. And it reminded him of his free stat points. He could finally get rid of his weak strength and gain the ability to bulldoze through the crowds. He summoned the status tab and put points in strength.
{Error:
Player cannot increase physical stats as side effect of decreased physical potential below 1}
This message almost broke Michael, in reality he was not the strongest guy, but he had enough to be at least able to get through a large crowd. Being so weak that one has a large problem wrestling one's way through a crowd in a game where everywhere was crowded turned out to be a huge pain in the ass.
Dejectedly he accepted the quest once more and returned to the beginner farming area. His farming efficiency increased exponentially since every rabbit now froze and was ready for slaughter whenever they saw him.
{Congratulations to player for leveling up:
New level: Level 3
Rewards:
+ 2 intelligences
+ 2 Wisdom
+ 3 Mana
+ 3 mana sensitivity
+ 3 elemental affinity
+ 7 free stat points}
{Congratulations to player for leveling up skill fireball}
{Novice Fireball (0%)
Fires a medium sized fireball that deals 15 (fireball damage) + 20 (Base Magic) damage + Brun 3 (+ 3 element affinity) for 5 seconds.}
Consumption 20 mana (-5 mana sensitivity)
Before he realized it he had been in the field framing for over two hours and decided that he should hand in the quest and log out.
He once again returned to town. This time finding Axel was a lot easier as one only had to follow the crow wherever they were going as it seemed it was the best beginner quest.
{Completed quest: gather leather x 20.
Rewards:
+ 560 experience points
+ 12 silver coins
+ 30 favor with Axel}
{Congratulations to player for leveling up:
New level: Level 4
Rewards:
+ 2 intelligences
+ 2 Wisdom
+ 3 Mana
+ 3 mana sensitivity
+ 3 elemental affinity
+ 7 free stat points}
After having finally finished the quest he logged out.