The earth is rumbling while the golden flagpole sinks deeper and deeper into the sand pit. The rumblings start to crack the earth around me. Deep cracks begin from the middle of the sand pit crawling outwards.
Once they reach somewhere around 100 meters, golden lights start to spread from the ground up to the sky. Wooden walls with spikes on the outside started to spawn out of nowhere. Two gates formed at the facing and south-facing of the 4 walls.
In the previous sand pit, a golden gem on an altar spawned up before being covered by a white tent with the same marking as the flag. That will be the center of the base. Think of it like the castle of a city.
Hovering my hands on the gem, the control panel for the base popped out the same way as it did in-game. With control over the gem, I could freely modify the base from the layout all the way to taxes.
Base ALPHA
Control : Limited (Before update)
The control panel proves that my ability to control the base is still limited due to the limited descension of the dimension.
"Congratulations on the completion of the quest. Initiating reward roulette."
"Same as how in-game reward works."
Much like how games give rewards for completing quests, TLD gives two types of rewards. Fixed rewards and roulette rewards. Basically, other than the confirmed reward, you get one chance to pull another good reward from the reward pool depending on your luck.
"What rewards are available in the current reward pool?"
Since the game in reality has not actually started, so there are plenty of rare and legendary rewards still available in the reward pool. I guess a headstart is definitely a benefit in the roulette reward pool.
My right hand grabbed firmly on the handle of the roulette before spinning the roulette hard so that I could have a chance of hitting rare rewards. Weapons or skills are essential in the starting phase.
I do not really wish to explore the outside areas without any self-defense capability. If I wish to upgrade the base, materials, and blueprint in the surrounding areas infested by monsters is definitely a no-go.
The roulette started to spin faster and louder before slowing down little by little. I could predict what I would be getting. From a range of materials to ingredients not needed, moving slowly to the weapon areas. I could probably use some shotgun weapon.
*PING*
The pointer on roulette was releasing the previous section in roulette before pointing to the current section. It reads "NPCs".
"NPCs? What type of NPCs? I hope they are battle-oriented cause if it's other NPCs, my starting phase is going to be a pain in the ass."
Beginning the summon of NPC
A background voice reverberated through my mind. The clouds above started to form a small spiral that felt like what would be creating a tornado on the base. I have to say, the summoning of NPC is having a full 10-pointer on VFX and atmosphere.
The spiral turned faster and a tornado shot down to the ground not far from where I was standing.
*BOOM!*
Smoke erupted everywhere before I could even see who the NPC was. Fanning away the smoke, the sight of the summoned NPC really made my day. She was an angel! What's more, a golden two-winged Angel! Golden-winged angels are one of those progressive NPCs where they can evolve into better and stronger forms.
"Greetings, Master. I am Sheranze of the East Wind."
"Hello, I am Isaac. Do you know why you came here?"
I asked Sheranze as I am curious, how a non-living NPC suddenly becomes a living being with the capability of reasoning and logical thinking.
"I do not have any memories from before I descended to this dimension, Master."
So the Absolute used reincarnation style for these descends I guess. Solves a lot of issues and can avoid interferences with what the initial objectives are. Without memories from before, there will be no bias at first, and will only passively react to certain situations.
"Inspect Status."
Name: Sheranze
Traits: East Wind
Affiliation: Base ALPHA
Level : 1
Stats:
Strength : 20
Perception : 20
Endurance : 20
Charisma : 20
Intelligent : 20
Agility : 20
Luck : 100
"What da hell? Her stats are almost quadruple of mine!"
For comparison here is my stat:
Level 1
Strength : 5
Perception : 5
Endurance : 5
Charisma : 5
Intelligent : 5
Agility : 5
Luck : 3.67
Normally, a player's stats start with a base value of 5. Considering I am just starting, other than my weird Luck stat, it is all normal. After all, the omniscient class does not give any extra buff to stat but instead allows instant stat reallocation without costs.
Each increment in level gives 5 stat points normally. All the stats can be increased other than LUCK which requires special methods and not through assigning stat points. One of the easiest ways would be to wear a lucky item that boosts your LUCK.
The way LUCK works is that it boosts your chance of rare drops or hitting a critical attack when it shouldn't be possible. That being said, 3.67 is a weird number for LUCK since I had never seen a decimal point in-game for stats.
Back to Sheranze, her trait "East Wind" indicates what her specialty is. East Wind angels are proficient in aerial battles as well as reconnaissance. They boast the highest speed and silence since they can control the winds created during flight to a minimal. Combined with their inherent light magic, a perfect rogue is born.
"Sheranze, can you fly around in stealth and record down locations of gold pillars? They should be appearing in another 30 minutes."
Judging by the clock countdown in the sky, I still have plenty of time to plan further for my base and future development. Considering the update, the first stage is going to be hardcore gathering for blueprints while evading monsters.
That is until the lifestyle players are able to craft weapons. If the current advanced military weapon works on the monsters then I can directly gather the blueprints. If not, slow development would be better for the base.
I am also not sure if the development of the dimension invasion would be roughly the same as what happens in the game. If so, I can still gather the blueprint since the first wave of monsters are the cleaners, aka Slimes.
Slimes has a lot of weakness but they are pesky little monsters since they eat materials. From metals to grasses to living beings, they don't choose their target. As long as the target contains energy, it will be attacked. So, my base is also at risk as the walls are just wooden walls.
The walls surrounding the base are already attracting a lot of questions and gazes from nearby houses but none is willing to come out since the clock is ticking nearer to 0. Now? The clock has less than 5 minutes before reaching XII.