Moving through the character menus to the skills section, a long list of mage class skills becomes visible to Astaria.
Skill in Caelus Online can be divided into four types. Taking the [Fireball] spell as an example, at low levels you can only acquire the basic [Fireball Lv 1] spell. Once acquired, it can be upgraded to become more powerful by using additional skill points.
Next are skill add-ons. For the fireball skill, it has an add-on called [Blast] which causes an explosion that can be activated after the [Fireball] hits. Like with the [Fireball] skill, it can also be upgraded with skill points.
Third are Peak Skills. They can only be acquired after maxing out the level of all the previous skills. For the basic fireball spell, the [Absolute Fireball] skill improves the damage of the previous skills, as well as adds burning damage over time effect on someone if hit.
The last type is known as a passive boost skill that will boost the stats and abilities of the player. The mage class has access to 3 of these skills, the first called [Vitality Boost] which is available to all classes upon reaching the required level to unlock, boosts the VIT stat by 10, adding 100 hp.
The next which is available to a few classes that can freely use magic is called [Casting] which decreases the casting time for the player by a large percentage.
The last one available to the mage is the [Power Boost] skill which gives a small percentage boost to the player's WIS stat.
Quickly Scrolling through the various skill trees, Astaria spends 5 Skill Points to obtain the skill [Fireball Lv1] and her remaining 5 points to gain [lightning Lv1].
[Fireball Lv1]
[Launches a small orb of fire towards the targeted location.
MP cost: 27
Cast time: 2s
Cooldown: 10s
Damage: (WIS x 250%) + ((Main hand weapon attack + Sub weapon attack) x 50%)
Additional effects: User DEF + 5% for 2s
Chance to inflict: {Stun} {Trip}]
[Lightning Lv1]
[Strikes the targeted location with a bolt of lightning from above.
MP cost: 30
Cast time: 1s
Cooldown: 10s
Damage: (WIS x 300%) + ((Main hand weapon attack + Sub weapon attack) x 100%)
Additional effects: Target movement speed - 5% for 1s
Chance to inflict: {Stun}]
Happy with her selection of skills, Astaria puts her remaining Attribute Points into INT and WIS bringing them both up to 25. Now moving on to the Forerunner Edition benefits, she opens her inventory and pulls out a wooden box. In the inventory this item is labeled as the 'Mysterious Box', but to Astaria who had already received this item once before when she first started the game, it was not all that mysterious.
Opening it, she finds a white egg with grey spots. This was a pet egg. In Caelus Online Pets could not fight and were usually used for their utility skills or just treated like a pet. With a large number of female players in the game, there was a quite large market for cute pets, however due to the limited number of cute pets being sold, one could occasionally stumble upon a rare snippet of in-game entertainment of two or more overly enthusiastic women fighting outside of stores.
Inspecting the egg, a screen popped up in her vision.
[Mysterious Egg]
[A Mysterious Egg laid by an unknown creature. Time to hatch: 4 days]
Suppressing her curiosity, Astaria puts the egg back inside her inventory. Next, she pulls out a small, green chest. This is a random uncommon equipment box, and it will give one random piece of uncommon equipment.
In Caelus Online, like many fantasy MMO's in the past, the gear players can acquire in game is ranked by quality. The quality can be differentiated by the items colour within the system menus and is ranked as follows.
White - common
Green - uncommon
Blue - rare
Purple - epic
Yellow - legendary
Red - world boss tier
Dark red - mythic
As the rarity of the item increases, the strength and quality of the materials it is made from also increases. For example, common swords are usually made from iron or poor-quality steel, while epic items are generally made from mithril.
Hoping that the equipment she receives is going to be useful to her planned build, Astaria closes her eyes as she opens the box, wishing for a favorable item. Hearing the ding of a system notification, Astaria opens her eyes.
[Acquired Uncommon Black Robe]
Opening up her inventory she quickly finds the robe and reads its information.
[Uncommon Black Robe]
[A basic Black Robe used by mages: INT +2, DEF +1]
"Hmm, not bad…"
Standing up, Astaria takes the Black Robe out from her inventory and puts it on. The robe covers her shoulders and reaches down to the back of her calf, while her clothes underneath are left exposed from the front. Unlike other games, Caelus Online persues realsim to the extreme so requires players to manually put on equipment.
Sitting back down, Astaria opens the beginner's pack next acquiring basic weapons for the mage class, a staff made from a twisted branch around 1.5 meters tall and a dull iron short sword. There are also 3 health potions, 3 mana potions, 3 loaves of bread, and a waterskin inside. After equipping the short sword to her waist and equipping the staff with her menus, she looks at the last item.
[Cosmetic Outfit Box]
"…"
Shaking her head, she left that for later. It was traumatic enough becoming a girl, and she was not in a decent mental state to start playing dress up.
Now finished with preparations, Astaria looked up to see that a small crowd had gathered a distance away observing her while whispering. From the looks of their attire and their behavior like they were tourists, she could easily tell they were new players.
"Is that a player?"
"She was using the menus, so she must be."
"How is she so beautiful! Surely she can't be that hot in real life right?"
"You can only change your looks in game by around 20%, so she must be!"
"Huh, I didn't know that, I just skipped the character customisation and used how I look IRL."
"Imagine if she was using her IRL looks as well, she would be so famous!"
"Hey, she just looked over here!"
Listening to the group's hushed whispers, Astaria feels another pang in her heart hearing the compliments, so she quickly stood up, almost tripping again, and briskly walks towards the edge of town.
The player's spawn location is within the Alennos kingdom, a small, secluded nation to the north of the central continent. Its eastern, southern, and western borders are all formed naturally from mountain ranges, with the exception of a wide valley in the western mountains which serves as the main route to pass the country's borders.
Its main capital, Haligrad, was a city comparatively smaller than the capital cities of other nations on the central continent, however due to the country's fertile lands and prosperous ports, the country is quite well off.
Opening her map in the menu, Astaria could see she spawned at Bali village. The rest of the map was greyed out so the only thing Astaria could tell was that she was walking to the north side of the village. Stopping at the gate, she quickly finds a guard to ask for directions.
"Excuse me, sir, which direction is Haligrad?"
Astaria's beautiful and melodic voice surprises the guard who is looking outside of the village and did not see her walk up beside him.
"O-oh, sorry miss, I did not hear you approach!"
Stammering from the shock of such a beautiful girl asking him for directions, the guard takes a moment to regain his composure.
"*ahem*, if you keep traveling north on this road, you will eventually join the main road from Alennos Pass on the south-eastern border."
Upon hearing the information, Astaria now has a good idea of where she is.
"I see, thank you for the information."
Giving the guard a quick nod in thanks, she makes her way outside the gate.
"Excuse me miss, the roads are dangerous at this time, there is a large group of organised goblins terrorising travelers on the main road, it's not safe to travel alone!"
Turning her head back towards the guard with a smirk on her face, she replies.
"I know, that's who I am hunting."
Waving her hand as she starts walking again, she calls back at the young guard who was now blushing.
"Thanks for the warning though"
Following the dirt track that leaves the village, Astaria enjoys the walk. Between the sound of the breeze flowing through the leaves of the forest to her right, and the sweeping plains to her left where the occasional animals can be seen. The sensation of nature around her was rather calming after the chaos of the last half hour.
Now somewhat used to her body, Astaria decides to start running, now certain that she won't fall over. As she runs, she becomes increasingly aware of her breasts which are becoming ever more active as her pace increases. While the game has automatically equipped her with basic underwear, it could not stop all of the movement.
After another 30 minutes of travel, Astaria can finally see the main road the guard mentioned. Before she went back in time, she had traveled this road a number of times.
She was quite annoyed since she had spawned at one of the peaceful villages in the kingdom and had not run into any hostile monsters on her way, however, it ended up being more beneficial to her since she was closer to her goal and was not losing much fatigue from travel before arriving.
[Fatigue: 55%]
[Hunger: 30%]
Seeing her current status, Astaria sighs feeling the pain of being a lv 1 again as she looks around for somewhere to sit down. Spotting a medium sized rock a short distance away, she walks over and sits down. After making herself comfortable, the fatigue she has acquired hits her, making her sigh again.