Cyclone and Silver Blade looked skeptically at Bleary Mirage.
"What? Don't trust me?"
"You're the expert."
Liam nodded with a smile as he led the two women in. He was surprised to see a few players already sticking around. Obviously, these hardcore gamers had good game sense.
Walking past the training soldiers, most of them nephilim, Liam reached a wall on the other side.
Three nephilim could be found here, a man and two women. They directed the trainees in the arena with stern faces.
Liam came to a stop as he addressed his companions:
"If you talk to these three, you can choose a class. Do you have any preferences?"
Cyclone stared at Liam with bright eyes.
"We can choose a class here? How did you figure this out?! Wow, you must have a lot of insider information. Not even my family knew this!"
Liam kept a polite smile, neither admitting nor declining. But inwardly he was surprised by the information Cyclone had just revealed.
The young woman didn't harp on the matter though.
"I want to become a mighty lightning mage! The storms at my back and call! Everyone will tremble before me!"
Liam and Silver Blade both chuckled. The man turned his eyes towards the black-haired woman.
"I'd prefer to defend."
"Defend?"
Liam was taken aback. People who liked to take a tank class usually choose a dwarf or orc as their race.
But a nephilim tank?
However, it could prove quite useful in certain circumstances. Nephilim had bonuses on their holy and dark defense. Thus, they could shine brightly especially in many main quests.
Silver Blade felt uncertain as Liam stayed silent.
"Do you think it's a bad choice?"
Liam noticed the young woman's uncertainty.
"No, no. Not at all. But the difficulty might not be low."
"Ok. I still want to try."
"Sure."
Subsequently Liam directed Cyclone to one of the female trainers while he and Silver Blade approached the male one.
"At this point we don't have many choices yet, only warrior, mage, and thief. But we can specialize further at level 10."
"Ok. By the way, what are you playing?"
"I'm going for the most challenging class! Warrior!"
Silver Blade and Cyclone both looked at Bleary Mirage skeptically. Eventually he couldn't help but let out a chuckle under their stares.
Liam naturally had a path in mind, but it would only come to play during future specializations. Explaining himself now might be too abnormal.
At this moment the trio approached the trainers. The man shouting at his trainees immediately stopped and turned towards Silver Blade.
Liam's eye twitched.
Look at your ugly smile!
"Adventurer! I'm Querin, the warrior instructor here! I can already see that you are cut out to become a powerful warrior! Are you willing to learn from me?"
[Do you wish to start the warrior training?]
Silver Blade was embarrassed by the trainer's enthusiasm, hastily accepting.
"Great! Your future will be limitless! In fact, I already know that I can put my trust in you. Are you willing to help me with something else?"
[Do you wish to accept the quest 'Show-off'?]
Liam stared from the side, the warrior trainer still not showing him any attention. Meanwhile Silver Blade already received her second quest.
"Really, comparison makes depressed…"
Silver Blade smiled apologetically at Liam as she followed the trainer's instructions. She grabbed a wooden sword from the side and began training.
Only at this point did Querin finally turn to Liam.
"Adventurer! Are you here to become a warrior?"
F*ck. Where is your enthusiasm now?!
Liam cursed inwardly, hastily accepting the quest and getting away from the trainer.
He already knew what to do, grabbing a wooden sword and approaching one of the trainees on the field.
A tall nephilim nodded at him.
"You want to become a warrior? Show me what you got!"
Suddenly two notifications lit up. Liam only glanced at them.
[Received skill 'Double Slash']
[Received skill 'Sidestep']
[Double Slash (rank 1)
Cost: 5 Fury
Effect: Slash out two times in quick succession, dealing 80% (PDMG) and 130% (PDMG) physical damage.
Cooldown: 6 seconds]
[Sidestep (rank 1)
Cost: 3 Fury
Effect: Do a quick sidestep.
Cooldown: 8 seconds]
Liam already knew pretty much everything there was to know about skills, especially these basic ones.
He understood that the damage of the Double Slash skill was calculated based on his attack power, which was dependent on his weapon power, strength, and dexterity.
Even his mana changed to fury at this moment. It was the resource most close-combat classes needed to cast their skills.
Fury was gathered by attacking or being attacked.
For Liam, who usually preferred a fighting style reliant on dodging, it was somewhat counterintuitive. But he had to make do with it for now.
The sparring partner took on a defensive fighting stance, giving the player enough time to get familiar with their spells.
But Liam didn't need it as he immediately started with a normal attack.
The experienced player swung his sword at a tricky angle, increasing the chance for a critical attack.
The trainee was naturally no strong opponent. He didn't manage to block.
[-5!]
Liam looked at the number plopping up, frowning faintly. The damage was less than he thought.
As someone hailed as being all-knowing about the game, doubts came to his mind. But after all this was just the most basic training opponent. Even Liam could recall their stats wrong.
Still, he quickly used a skill everyone possessed: [Inspect].
[Warrior Trainee
Common enemy
LVL: 2
HP: 77/82 Fury: 4/100
Main Attributes:
?????]
Liam couldn't help but whisper:
"I could've sworn you're level 1."
The NPCs in the game were incredibly lifelike. With a low exclamation the trainee swung his sword:
"Don't get distracted!"
But Liam could win this fight with closed eyes. He skillfully raised his sword, blocking the enemy attack.
[Stance -6]
Stance was a special attribute in the game which allowed one to negate enemy attacks.
A player had three different options to do so, namely defending, dodging, and flash step. Naturally there were skills with the same effect but those required fury/mana instead of stance.
Of course, stance wasn't unlimited. Right now, Liam had only 30 points, allowing him to defend 5 times, most likely up to 7 considering the passive regeneration.
But this way of fighting was something most players hadn't discovered yet. A few of the present hardcore gamers looked over at Liam, enticed by his actions.
The latter didn't care for the attention. Still in doubt about the enemy's prowess he continued the fight.
Normal attacks had a certain attack speed, which could also be understood as a kind of cooldown. It mainly depended on the weapon used.
With the wooden sword Liam used he had to wait an agonizing 1,4 seconds until he could attack again.
The same was true for the opponent, forcing them to awkwardly stare at each other.
Suddenly Liam moved again. His sword came in a graceful arc.
[-5!]
The trainee retaliated instantly, but Liam expected it, blocking again.
[Stance -6]
This time Liam didn't have to wait as he had enough Fury for his skill.
[Double Slash]
Left, right! Liam performed two quick slashes.
[-4! -6,5!]
Blood splashed as the trainee lost a huge chunk of HP. Some fainthearted players in the vicinity looked away with disgusted expressions.
Liam knew that people would figure out some basics about the game soon, for example how to turn on some family friendly options.
The warrior trainee didn't end the fight yet, copying Liam's actions.
But at the slightest hint of moving in for a double slash, the trainee already saw his opponent evading with a [Sidestep].
Liam appeared next to his opponent. The same rotation began anew.
Soon the trainee had less than half of his HP remaining. Jumping back, he shouted loudly:
"Stop, stop! I admit defeat!"
Liam nodded without comment, putting the wooden sword away.
In his mind nothing of importance happened but a few of the surrounding players already took note of him, discussing in hushed whispers:
"Wow, have you seen this fight? Didn't lose a single HP!"
"Impressive. Do you think he is some kind of martial master in real life?"
"Might be! His movements were so smooth, now wasting a single step!"
"The poor trainee didn't stand a chance!"
"I have decided! I'm going to become a warrior!"
Liam didn't know that his actions would lead to a handful of skilled warriors emerging from this novice village. He was already talking with the instructor.
"Adventurer! Impressive! You are a famous warrior in the making!
Say, are you interested in helping me with something?"
[Do you wish to accept the quest 'Show-off'?]
Liam cursed inwardly. Silver Blade received the quest without even initiating a talk. But he had to perform a flawless fight for the instructor to take note of him.
"Of course, instructor."
Liam accepted anyways. Although this quest wasn't important to him, he wouldn't get punished even if he left it to rot in his journal.