Over the next six months, Kane Reed almost stopped sleeping. His father and sister were certainly worried about him, but the young man, having negotiation experience, quickly managed to assure them that everything was fine and this was only temporary. He saw no point in sharing the details with them yet, as he didn't even want to think about what would happen if his plan failed.
If it weren't for Curtis, his army friend who managed to borrow a rather large sum from his friends, his dream might never have come true. But either his luck wasn't so bad, or fate took pity on him once again, but there were no problems at this stage.
Since his second job was guarding a shopping center, internet access wasn't a problem, so after his rounds, he searched for information about games. He had never played himself, but lack of experience and knowledge was a fairly small obstacle. The guy had more than good motivation, as well as tempered willpower to endure the tedious reading of various articles, guides, and everything that could help him prepare somehow.
Kane sifted through tons of information, learning strategies, builds, class features of characters, and other information. He didn't know which of this information would be useful in the new game, so the goal was to learn as much as possible. Of course, everything could turn out differently in reality, and all his efforts might go to waste, but beggars can't be choosers.
The result of his activity was a large map on the wall. Multiple arrows, comments, and other details would make anyone who saw them freeze for several minutes trying to digest the information.
Since his sister lived in a dormitory at the educational institution, and his father was constantly on business trips, his affairs didn't interfere with them.
Among other things, Kane registered on forums visited by players, and from a whole pile of useless comments and links, he searched for something worthwhile. Everything went into the piggy bank of his gaming baggage.
But despite the knowledge gained, without practice, all this was useless. To solve this problem, the young man started renting capsules at special gaming centers every other day. Although it was expensive, it was necessary, because in case of failure, he would let his sister down, and this could not be allowed.
Each person could create only one game character on their account, and that, in turn, was tied to the capsule's factory number and personal citizen ID. Kane didn't understand yet why this was done, but it greatly hindered his plans. At least until Angela — the girl sitting at reception told him about so-called "empty accounts."
These accounts have all game classes, testing which would make it easier for players to determine their suitable choice. These characters aren't in guilds and can't take missions. Development companies introduced this possibility recently, deciding it was another way to attract new players.
Some try once and get hooked, some twice, and some three times, but in the end, even one out of three is already a plus. Many start playing for the first time, and to avoid recreating their character whose race and class might later prove uncomfortable, people were given this opportunity.
The characteristics for "empty accounts" were distributed by professional players so they wouldn't be "lame" and would allow feeling the character you're playing. This wasn't about weapons, clothes, or skills. All these were of normal level. The point was for a person to understand what's more comfortable to play as. Tank, healer, mage, thief, or someone else.
At this pace, three months had passed since he learned about the game.
Having finished another test of a new character, Kane left the game lobby, returning to reality. With a familiar movement, the young man flipped open the capsule lid and climbed out, then after stretching, headed to the counter.
The gaming center was cool, soft light fell from the ceiling, quiet music played, and a barely perceptible aroma of coffee lingered in the air.
Near reception stood a person who looked either Japanese or Korean. He and Angela were quietly chatting but stopped when Kane approached. The tanned stranger, dressed in a colorful t-shirt with shorts, smiled widely at him as if he had noticed an old friend, and although the guy had already seen him here several times, they hadn't had the chance to talk.
"Hi!" he greeted. "Angela told me you've been trying to choose a class here for two months. Need help?"
Kane frowned, not understanding such strange activity, since they had crossed paths before, so what had changed this time?
"What do you want?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the still-smiling person.
"This is Park Chons, our club has a contract with him. He's a professional player in 'Lost Lands.' You've entered it several times on test servers. In general, as a regular user, you can consult him for advice. And it's completely free."
"Ah," Kane realized this was a good chance to clarify some points he had read about, and since it was free, he went straight to business.
"Can we use 'you' informally?"
"Whatever suits you," Park smirked.
"Well, I have several questions, but they're not related to class yet, rather about the games themselves."
"Hm, I don't see a problem, but let's step aside and not interfere with the beauty doing her job?" Park winked at Angela, then looking around, spotted an empty table. "Let's sit down."
"Okay." Kane shrugged and headed to the table.
"You can continue," Park said when both were settled on the couches.
"Tell me, is it possible to play alone?"
"Well, it all depends on how you plan to play. If you're not interested in epic quests, dungeons, and other places where you need at least, I repeat, at least five people, then, in principle, nothing stops you. This is called playing for fun. Players come just to temporarily escape reality and enjoy the world of sword and magic, space, underwater world, and so on. However, you'll often go to respawn, and this greatly slows down character growth. Different games have different penalties. Some drop levels, some impose powerful debuffs: such that you won't even be able to fight a level one rabbit. There are deaths without penalties, but you can't enter the game for one or even two days. If you're playing for fun, then this is nothing, but if the game is your work, then death is the worst option."
"I see," Kane nodded and thought for a while. "Have you ever killed a monster ten levels higher than you?"
"It happened." Park, as if remembering something, shook his head: "But here too, everything depends on circumstances. Are you familiar with the concept of exploit?"
"You mean using a flaw or terrain to make passage easier?"
"Correct," Park nodded, "but in modern games, finding these becomes more and more difficult. Developers study information coming from different sources, be it forums, top players' blogs, video sites dedicated to their game, and fix this with updates. But gamers are such people, they're constantly finding something. There are even those who specialize in this and earn money selling information, but it's an extremely tedious business. You have to study a location five to ten times, repeatedly dying in the process, and this, I tell you, isn't easy."
Kane had read about this, but to make sure, he decided to get a pro player's opinion. The guy looked at his interlocutor, thinking whether to speak frankly with him, and deciding he had nothing to lose, asked another question.
"I think you've guessed that I'm more interested in earning in the game than, as you said, 'fun.' But the thing is, I don't know which class would be best for this."
"Hm... You know, there's an expression: a hundred people — a hundred opinions. Some will insist on one class, arguing in their favor, others on another, beating their chest and convincing everyone that there's no better class than theirs. I, for example, love playing as a paladin. And I earn very well at that. It's not about the class, but about the player. Are your hands growing from the right place? Stubborn and risky? Then go for it — choose the class you like and forward."
"Well, it feels like you're even paid for the number of convinced players. The speech really ignites interest." Kane smirked crookedly, and Park in response just leaned back on the couch, not commenting on these words.
After chatting for about another half hour, Park handed him a business card:
"Here's my email. If it happens that we end up in the same game, I'd like to play with you sometime. And if you have more questions — write. At least for advice, I won't charge money. I have connections, I can help with many things. So, feel free to contact me."
Park stood up from the table and shaking hands goodbye, said farewell.
"Well, bye," muttered Kane, examining the neat paper rectangle and putting it in his pocket, headed towards the club exit.