Vlad stepped closer to Tamerlan and put his hand on the guy’s shoulder.
“You don’t have to be scared of me, friend,” he said.
Judging by the look on Tamerlan’s face, he was scared as hell. He tried to shake Vlad’s hand off his shoulder and step toward me, but Vlad did not let him.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” he said in a surprisingly soft voice. “I’m your friend here.”
Tamerlan did not say anything. And he avoided looking Vlad in the eyes.
Vlad seemed to lost patience. His face hardened and he said something in Russian to Tamerlan. Our new teammate’s eyes went wide, and he quickly nodded.
“What the heck did you just tell him?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Vlad said as he kept staring Tamerlan down. “I just repeated everything I just said in Russian for our friend’s benefit.”
He was lying. I did not know what exactly Vlad had said to him, but judging by Tamerlan casting quick glances at the pistol beneath the Russian’s waistband, Vlad had probably told him that he’d better be his friend rather than his enemy or something like that. He was clearly threatening Tamerlan.
I glanced at Nate. Judging from the absent look on his face, he barely paid attention to our conversation.
“We are all friends here, aren’t we?” Vlad said. “So let’s not fight, okay?”
Nobody replied. Vlad waited for a moment, then shook his head and sighed. “Why do you have to be like that, guys?”
Again, nobody said anything to him.
“Okay,” Vlad said. “I’m gonna explain to Tamerlan how the Control Panel works. We’re gonna speak in Russian. If you guys don’t mind, of course.”
I just shrugged my shoulders. Nate and Tamerlan did not say anything.
“Okay,” Vlad said and shifted his gaze to our new teammate. “So you’re gonna be our new healer. Come, I’ll show you how to pick the class and how we pick missions.”
And he began to lead Tamerlan to the middle of the room where the Control Panel was situated.
A thought occurred to me.
“Echo,” I called.
“Yes, warrior,” the AI replied immediately. “What can I do for you?”
Tamerlan looked around, searching for the source of the voice.
“Who talking,” he asked no one in particular.
Vlad said something to him in Russian, probably explaining to him what Echo was.
“Echo, what Tamerlan’s level is?” I asked.
“His level is zero,” came the reply. “As soon as he picks a class, he will level up to one and receive one skill point to allocate.”
“Wait, what?” Vlad almost shouted as he came to a sudden stop. “He’s gonna be only level 1?”
“That’s correct, warrior,” came the reply from the AI.
“Can’t you level him up to my level?” Vlad asked.
“That’s absolutely impossible,” the AI replied.
“What the fuck, Echo?” Vlad snapped, making Tamerlan jump away from him in fear. “Why couldn’t you find somebody whose level matched mine then?”
“I am so sorry, warriors,” Echo said. “I was trying to find a Support warrior whose level matched the average level of your team, but there were none such warriors available. So I had to request a new warrior to be teleported here from the main space station.”
“So what do we do, Echo?” Vlad snarled. “He’s gonna drag us down.”
“Guess we need to help him level up,” I said.
“That’s right, warrior,” the AI said. “You do not necessarily have to choose missions that match the level of the rest of you. Instead, you can pick missions that match his level. This way, the chances of him dying will be slim.”
“Great,” Vlad muttered. “Just great. And what about the rest of us? Doing missions for newbies is surely gonna give us little to no experience points.”
“There’s nothing we can do about it,” I said.
“What if we pick missions matching our level, not his?” Vlad said.
“And run the risk of Tamerlan getting killed in battle?” I said.
“He’s gonna be fine,” Vlad said. “He’ll level up very fast this way.”
“No,” I said as I shook my head. “First of all, he might get killed. And second, we need a good healer on our team, don’t we? Since Tamerlan is only level 1, he isn’t going to be up to the task.”
That gave Vlad a pause. He just watched me, his brow furrowed in deep thought.
“So we’d better pick missions that match his level,” I continued. “Sure, we are going to get little to no experience points for that, but Tamerlan is going to be safe. Remember our first mission? With the giant spiders? We almost failed it and died back there. Now imagine Tamerlan sticking to us while we’re doing missions for our levels. He’ll be as good as dead. So, we are going to pick missions that match his level, not ours, whether you like it or not.”
Vlad did not like me boss him around. Not all all. He was tense, and his eyes were kind of sinister. He eyed me silently for a few seconds. His pistol was stuffed beneath his waistband. I wondered what I was going to do if Vlad reached for his piece. Sure, he had no reason to shoot me, but you never knew what was going on in the Russian’s head. You could expect anything from him.
Then he seemed to relax just a little bit and even gave me a small smile.
“Okay,” he finally said as he shrugged his shoulders. “Let’s have it your way.”
I was more than sure that Vlad agreed with me only because of what I had said about us needing a good healer. Vlad was well aware that without a good healer whose level was close to ours we would be in big trouble.
All the time that Vlad and I had been talking, both Nate and Tamerlan had been silent. The formed did not seem to be interested in our conversation. The latter had been trying to listen in on us, but his poor knowledge of the English language prevented him from keeping up with our conversation. He looked frustrated.
“You should tell Tamerlan what we had just discussed,” I said to Vlad.
The Russian glanced at our new teammate and shook his head.
“Nah,” he said. “It’s not all that important.”
Despite his attempts to befriend Tamerlan, Vlad at the same time was not treating Tamerlan very friendly. Vlad was just being Vlad.
Speaking slowly and carefully, I filled Tamerlan in on what we had just discussed.
“Thanks,” he said after I finished. “I— I—-”
We went silent, unable to express himself in English. He looked at Vlad and said something in Russian.
“He says he appreciates it,” Vlad translated Tamerlan’s words.
I nodded and said, “Come on, you need to pick a class.”
We walked to the Control Panel, which showed the map of the Universe and had it show us the Class Menu selection.
A piece of info about the healer class popped up on the 3D holographic screen:
Support
Class Description: Support warriors have a wide range of both defensive and offensive skills. Their abilities allow them to heal their teammates and deal damage to their enemies.
Abilities: Healing (Active Ability), Regeneration (Passive Ability), Ghost Walk (Ultimate Ability)
(Do you want to open the Support Abilities tab: Yes/No)
Green Rune (Active Ability) — Healing
Description: Heals your teammates over time. To do so, you need to hold out one of your hands toward the teammate you want to heal.
Duration: 3 seconds
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Blue Rune (Passive Ability) — Regeneration
Description: Your wounds heal over time when you are not taking damage.
Red Rune (Ultimate Ability) — Ghost Walk
Description: The Ultimate ability allows you to step into another plane of reality for a limited amount of time. You become half-invisible, and enemies cannot attack you. W
hile Ghost Walk is active, your movement speed increases, and all your healing abilities heal faster and work longer.
Duration: 5 seconds
Cooldown: 10 minutes
(Do you want to pick the Support class: Yes/No)
It was the only class available for Tamerlan, so he pushed the Yes button.
He blinked, then said, “I level up, guys.”
“Yeah, you’ve got one skill point you can use to learn a new skill,” I said.
“How open class menu?” He asked in broken English.
Before I could say anything, Vlad glanced at me and said, “Let me show him the ropes. I’m gonna talk to him in Russian. It’ll be easier and quicker this way. If you don’t mind, of course.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
A few minutes later, they returned to us.
“What skill have you learned?” I asked as I looked at Tamerlan.
“Here,” he replied. “I show you.”
He brought up his Class Menu and a holographic display screen popped up before him. I looked at it and saw that Tamerlan had learned a skill to improve the recharge delay for his Active Ability. It was now fifty seconds instead of sixty.
Vlad was not happy about it. He did not like Tamerlan being friendly with me. He himself never told us what skills he was going to learn when he leveled up. He obviously wanted Tamerlan to treat us the same way. Unfortunately for him, our new teammate was not keen on being an asshole like Vlad.
I then explained to Tamerlan how the Control Panel worked and what we needed to do to pick a mission.
After we took a minute to discuss it, we decided to pick a simple mission right away. Though there were no easy missions in our line of work as we had learned the hard way.
When I asked Nate if he was up for a mission, he simply nodded.
So we picked a mission and headed for the Preparation Room.
I was kind of worried. There were two reasons for that. First of all, Nate was being very impassive. All of the members of the team should be on full alert when on a mission. Otherwise, our whole team might get killed. Second, the memories of our first mission were still fresh in my mind.
However, despite my misgivings, Tamerlan’s first mission went surprisingly well. We completed it without hitting a snag. I figured it was the case because Nate, Vlad, and I were very experienced fighters by that point. With us by his side, Tamerlan completed his first mission without any trouble at all.
In the next several months, Nate, Vlad, Tamerlan, and I completed lots of various missions.
Before Tamerlan joined our team, my stats were as follows.
David’s Current Build
Stats:
Class: Flanker
Current Level: 30
Experience Points: 79450
Experience Points to Level 31: 85000
Abilities:
Active Ability — Blink
Maximum distance: 30 meters (Learned Skills: Reacher 3/3)
Amount of charges: 3/3 (Learned Skills: Unstoppable 1 2/2)
Delay between charges: 1 second (Learned Skills: Unstoppable 1 2/2, Unstoppable 2 2/2)
Cooldown: 30 seconds (Learned Skills: Ready for Action 3/3)
Passive Ability — Sixth Sense
Effective range: 125 meters around (Learned Skills: The Eagle Eye 5/5)
Cooldown: 1 second (Learned Skills: Guardian Angel 5/5)
Movement Speed increased by: 50% (Learned Skills: Speed Maniac 5/5)
The spectral voice can warn you about: 5 kinds of danger (Learned Skills: Spectral Protector 5/5)
Ultimate Ability — Teleport
Maximum length: 50 meters (Learned Skills: No Skills Learned Yet)
Duration: 30 seconds (Learned Skills: No Skills Learned Yet)
Cooldown: 10 minutes (Learned Skills: No Skills Learned Yet)
Learned Skills:
Green Rune (Active Ability) — Blink
The First Branch of the Active Ability:
Name: Ready for Action
Description: You gain an improved recharge delay for the Active Ability.
Recharge delay: 30 seconds
Status: 3/3 (Completely Learned)
Name: Unstoppable 1
Description: You gain an additional Blink charge. While the Active Ability can be used several times before going on Cooldown, after you use the Active Ability, you will have to wait some time before you can Blink again.
Recharge delay: 1 second
Status: 2/2 (Completely Learned)
Name: Reacher
Description: Increases the distance of the Active Ability.
Blink Distance: 30 meters
Status: 3/3 (Completely Learned)
The Second Branch of the Active Ability:
Name: Unstoppable 2
Description: You gain an improved recharge delay for the Unstoppable 1 skill.
Recharge delay: 1 second
Status: 2/2 (Completely Learned)
Required skill: Unstoppable 1
Blue Rune (Passive Ability) — Sixth Sense
The First Branch of the Active Ability:
Name: Guardian Angel
Description: You gain an improved recharge delay for the Passive Ability.
Recharge delay: 1 second
Status: 5/5 (Completely Learned)
Name: Speed Maniac
Description: Increases your overall movement speed.
Speed increase: +50%
Status: 5/5 (Completely Learned)
The Second Branch of the Passive Ability:
Name: The Eagle Eye
Description: Increases the range of the Passive Ability.
Distance: 125 meters
Status: 5/5 (Completely Learned)
The Third Branch of the Passive Ability:
Name: Spectral Protector
Description: The spectral voice warns you when you are in danger.
Current: Rank 5
Rank 0: The Voice warns you when danger approaches without specifying what kind of danger it is. (Learned)
Rank 1: The Voice warns you when an enemy is aiming at you and from what direction to expect the attack. It also tells you when a grenade is thrown at you. (Learned)
Rank 2: The voice warns you when a sniper rifle is aiming at you. It works even if the sniper is beyond the range of the Passive Ability.
Rank 3: The voice warns you about nearby traps. (Learned)
Rank 4: The voice warns you if there are many enemies nearby. (Learned)
Rank 5: The voice warns you if many people died near you. (Learned)
Status: 5/5 (Completely Learned)
Red Rune (Ultimate Ability) — Teleport
No Skills Learned Yet
In the next few months, I leveled up several times. Every time I received skill points, I brought up my Character Menu and learned new skills or upgraded the old ones.
When I received the first five skill points, I checked out skills available for learning.
I had all three skills on the First Branch of my Active Ability learned and fully unlocked. On the Second Branch, there were two skills that I could learn: Faster, Faster, Faster and Trigger Happy. On the Third Branch there were two skills to choose from.
The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Branches were currently locked, so I could not see the descriptions of the skills on those branches yet.
The Second Branch of the Active Ability:
Name: Faster, Faster, Faster
Description: For a short amount of time after using the Active Ability, your movement speed increases.
Speed increase: +10% (Current: 0%)
Duration: +1 second (Current: 0 seconds)
Status: 0/5
Name: Trigger Happy
Description: For a short amount of time after using the Active Ability, your reload speed increases.
Duration: +3 seconds (Current: 0 seconds)
Speed increase: +10
% (Current: 0%)
Status: 0/5
The Third Branch of the Active Ability:
Note: While the Third Branch of the Active Ability contains two skills, you can learn only one of the two. So choose carefully.
Name: Going supernova
Description: This is an active skill. After using the Active Ability, you can use the Going Supernova skill to temporarily blind nearby enemies.
Effective range: +1.5 meters around (Current: 0 meters)
Duration: +0.5 seconds (Current: 0 seconds)
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Status: 0/5
Name: Pusher
Description: This is an active skill. After using the Active Ability, you can use the Pusher skill, which creates a powerful gust of dark energy originating from you and spreading in all directions, which might knock your enemies off their feet.
Effective range: +3 meters (Current: 0 meters)
Pushing power: +20% (Current: 0%)
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Status: 0/5
However, after examining the available skills, I decided not to learn any of them at that time. My Active Ability was pretty powerful at that point, which was why I decided to continue to learn new skills for Sixth Sense—my Passive Ability.
I checked out the available skills.
The Second Branch of the Passive Ability:
Name: Fast Hands
Description: Makes you nimbler, which results in increased reload speed, weapon draw speed, and aiming down the sights speed.
The Weaponized: The Complete LitRPG Series Page 32