by EA Hooper
Vincent grabbed Jim’s arm and pulled him toward the collapsed tower. He jumped down onto a broken ledge and then to the rubble below where the surviving players fought off goblins.
Agility Level Up: 1>2
He equipped his bow and launched branzium arrows at the oncoming horde. Jim jumped down beside him, blasting the two nearest goblins with a spell that Vincent managed to Scan on reflex.
Mana Volley – Mana Usage: Medium | Magic Rating: 50-150 | Releases a volley of marble-sized mana balls from your hand. The attack loses strength over distance.
The volley tore through the two goblins at close range, shredding their bodies like they’d been hit with a shotgun blast. Jim chugged half a bottle of ether, and then used Mana Volley on two more goblins.
A group of Wardens jumped down around them, creating walls of orange-colored forcefields between the players and the horde. Vincent reached forward, his hand passing through one of the barriers as he Scanned it.
Barrier (Warden Only) – Mana Usage: Low | Magic Rating: 100 | Creates a forcefield to protect players. The user may expend a very low amount of additional mana to move the barrier.
The goblins tossed their exploding barrels at the forcefields, but the barrels bounced away before detonating. The nearest explosion knocked out a few shields, but players had already raised dozens of forcefields around the fallen tower. Vincent noted some of the forcefields were upgraded or different altogether from the basic Warden Barrier, but he didn’t have time to Scan them.
More players jumped down, joining their side. They attacked from the safety of the forcefields, preventing the horde from further attacking the wall. Vincent eyed the orcs and gray-skinned goblins as the stronger monsters charged in their direction.
“They’re sending their big guys!” Vincent shouted.
“Take these,” Jim said, handing him two runes. “The red one is a spell-booster. You ought to get three uses out of it. The blue one stores mana. It has as much mana as I can hold. With those two together, you might survive longer than thirty seconds.”
“Thanks,” Vincent said, taking the runes.
Should I use them to spam stronger Mana Guns? That’s about all I can do.
The first Orc reached a Barrier and tore through it with an oiron club. He swung again, knocking back three players with one swing. Two of them had Mana Shields to absorb the impact, but the third lost his head in an instant, spraying the nearby players with gore before his body vanished into dust.
Jim readied another Mana Volley, using a rune to supplement his lack of mana. He Vanished, appearing next to the Orc, and blasted him point-blank-range in the face. The monster’s head disappeared with the flash of mana, and his body toppled to the ground before disappearing.
Jim showed Vincent a thumbs-up, but then a fireball hit the Rogue, knocking out his Mana Shield. Both friends turned toward the goblin that had cast the fireball.
Vincent recognized the witch as the one that had killed May. He pointed his finger and fired his Mana Gun, but the goblin raised a mirror shield. The shield flashed with magic when the Mana Gun struck, and it bounced back at the Ranger.
Vincent’s gaming reflexes kicked in when he saw the mirror on the back of the shield, and he dove from the path of his own mana bolt. He drank an ether, swapped his bow for the mana-holding rune, and prepared for another shot.
“Wait!” Jim shouted. “I’ll take her on up close.”
The Rogue equipped a longsword and charged the enemy. He swung his weapon, but the goblin blocked it with a glowing staff. The witch slammed her staff into the ground, sending out a shockwave that tossed Jim backward.
Jim rolled to his feet, and then leapt forward with another swipe. This time, the goblin blocked with her shield, and the magical force launched Jim even farther than the staff had. However, the persistent man jumped to his feet and tried again.
I need to do something about that shield, Vincent realized. Only, normal mana attacks don’t work. Come on, think. There must be a way to exploit the game’s mechanics to get rid of that shield. In his mind, he replayed the arena battle from earlier when he’d Scanned the negative energy. Maybe something like that could work.
Vincent equipped the other rune Jim had given him. With his heart racing and the sounds of battle and death all around, he formed a ball of mana from his own reserves. He struggled to control it, but forced himself to make the ball larger with the mana stored in the blue rune. Despite floating between the runes in his hands, the ball of mana felt heavy.
Sweat dripped down his forehead, and Vincent felt the mana orb throbbing with power. If I drop this thing, I might blow up myself.
Once the blue rune ran out of mana, Vincent tossed it aside. He spread his fingers, trying to control and hold the mana in place. He circled his hands around and tried to prevent any globules from leaking out the side. Once he thought it was stabilized, he activated the red rune and tried to compact the ball. It shrank to a tenth of its size, but it squirmed and bounced between his hands.
Don’t blow up yourself. Don’t blow up yourself. Come on.
He activated the red rune a second time, shrinking the ball to a tenth of its size once more. It glowed hotter and sparked with energy. When he activated the rune the third time, the ball shrank to a speck, turning pitch-black like the negative energy he’d seen in the arena.
Spell Creation: 1%
The black dot sparked and jumped back and forth between his hands. It took all his willpower to contain it, and he could feel gravity shift in his palms as the speck bounced around.
Just a dot? Will this work?
Vincent glanced at his friend as Jim and the witch fought a ferocious battle—a fight his friend appeared to be losing. He ran toward them, trying to contain the black dot.
“Jim, move!” Vincent shouted.
His friend backed away from the goblin with a look of confusion, and Vincent pushed his hands forward, releasing the black dot. The speck sparked and zigzagged through the air. It bounced off the ground, kicking up dirt, and rebounded off someone’s sword, cracking it. Despite its snaking back and forth, it seemed to follow the direction Vincent had pushed it.
The witch raised her shield as she saw the dot rushing toward her. The speck of negative energy hit the shield and vanished. A fracture raced across the goblin’s shield, and a look of disappointment crossed Vincent’s face.
A crack? That’s it?
Jim used the distraction to chug another ether. He took a red rune into his hand like the one he’d given Vincent and used it to supercharge a mana attack. The goblin raised her fractured shield as Jim released an extra-strong Mana Volley at close range. The shield didn’t react with a magic glow this time, and mana balls tore it to pieces. A few of the balls made it to the goblin, blowing away chunks of her flesh. The witch fell to the dirt, writhing in pain.
Jim stood over the goblin and pointed his sword at her heart. “Vince, picture!”
Vincent opened his HUD and took a picture as Jim pierced the goblin’s heart with his blade.
The two of them peered around at the battle that had turned in favor of the players. At least a thousand more people had joined the fight on the ground, and the humans tore through the goblins and orcs with mana, metal, and elemental attacks.
Clerics jumped down the broken tower and healed injured players with glowing light. Wardens protected everyone with forcefields. Mages and Rangers bombarded the remnants of the horde. Fighters and Rogues tried to rush in for easy kills on fleeing goblins. Within minutes, the horde had dispersed, leaving only stragglers for the players to hunt down.
Jim grabbed items that had been scattered along the ground, and Vincent joined him.
1-Piece Gild Coin (x134)
5-Piece Gild Coin (x15)
10-Piece Gild Coin (x7)
Elixir (x14) – Drink to heal minor injuries.
Ether (x9) – Drink to recover a small amount of mana.
Goblin’s Oiron Longsword (x5) – Material Rati
ng: 100 | A medium-quality longsword with a handle of obvious goblin design.
Goblin’s Oiron Hand-Axe (x9) – Material Rating: 100 | A high-quality, goblin-made axe that was handcrafted with love.
Goblin’s Hardened-Branzium Tunic (x13) – Material Rating: 75 | A fine goblin-made tunic. It’ll fit a human, but it’s misshapen and uncomfortable.
Goblin’s Crystal Ball – Supposedly, goblin witches can see future victories inside this ball, but you’re pretty sure it’s just a useless piece of veraglass.
Goblin’s Leather Boots (x13) – Material Rating: 10 | These are the most uncomfortable boots you’ll ever wear, but you won’t have to worry about stubbing your toes anymore.
“You take all the good stuff?” Vincent asked his friend.
“Only the C-Class monsters have good stuff,” Jim replied. “I did take the witch’s gear. Someone else nabbed the items off the orc I killed.”
“We should split the witch’s items, since I helped.”
“I left you that crystal ball. It’s a good item.”
“The item description says it’s a useless piece of veraglass. Is veraglass rare?”
“No, it’s basically the worst kind of glass in the game.” Jim chuckled, but then paused in contemplation. “This assault was weird, though. It was bigger and more dangerous than usual. You don’t think ARKUS increased the difficulty with the update, do you?”
Vincent sighed. “I don’t know. I’m just glad we won before they broke through the city wall. I would’ve thought I’d level up more than my Agility.”
“Wait till you get to my level. Sometimes, I go an entire month without leveling up at all. I hear it gets even worse at higher levels. Although, the game increases your rate of leveling if you set yourself against tougher challenges.”
“So there’s like an invisible bar that determines how fast you level up?”
“I guess, man. But if you get lazy, it will get harder to reach the next level. Like being out of shape. Only, you can’t lose levels. It just makes progression harder to restart.”
“Makes sense.”
“Yeah, but something that doesn’t make sense is what you did to fracture that witch’s shield. It looked like that glitch energy that happens on rare occasions.”
“It was. I Scanned it in the arena and tried to make it into an attack. Spell creation is a big part of the game, from what I’ve heard. Only, I had to use both those runes you gave me just to make that little speck. It didn’t even do any real damage, and my spell creation only hit one percent.”
“Once you hit a hundred percent, you can save the ability to use on the fly. It’s difficult to do, though. Some abilities take months or years to develop. I know people that reached ninety-nine percent on a spell they were designing, but they couldn’t get it to one hundred. Sometimes, an ability isn’t even possible within the game’s physics. No offense, but I’m willing to bet that’s the case with your little speck. I’ve heard of other players trying to figure out how to exploit that kind of stuff, but they eventually gave up.”
Vincent smirked at his friend. “Just because they couldn’t do it, doesn’t mean I can’t. You know how I am about trying to break the physics of games.”
Jim shook his head and smiled. “After all these years, you haven’t changed much, Vince. Have fun figuring out your exploit. Maybe in the next three hundred and sixty years, you’ll get it working.”
Three hundred and sixty years. I’d almost forgotten. Maybe I just need to keep distracting myself until ARKUS’s devs sort out this whole dilemma. I’m sure they’ll fix the problem within a few years of in-game time. In the meantime, I’ll level up and work on the exploit. If it’s possible to control, I bet it won’t take me too long to master.
Year 15
Chapter 6
Player: Vincent
Location: Teramor (World) | Eastern Wilds (Region)
Class: Ranger
Vitality: Lv 32
Spirit: Lv 38
Resolve: Lv 35
Perception*: Lv 45
Agility: Lv 37
Strength: Lv 31
It still felt like Vincent had put on the headset only minutes ago. He could remember what he’d eaten for breakfast the morning he started playing the game. He could still visualize his wife’s funeral in his mind like it’d happened only two years ago. Although he didn’t need to sleep in the game, he’d sometimes take a nap and dream about Monika. Her face stayed clear in his memory, even though fifteen years had passed in-game since he’d put on that headset.
The last fifteen years had gone by faster than expected. Vincent had spent the first few training in sword fighting and archery. He’d studied rune-making with the shopkeeper Roderick. He drank with Jim from time to time, and they talked about old memories. He’d joined the City Watch Guild and pushed back more goblin invasions than he could keep track of. It seemed like the goblins had increased their rate of reproduction after the update, and most players were afraid to leave the cities with pain reduction disabled.
However, in the last few years, Vincent had made numerous journeys into the wilderness of Teramor. He even planned to leave that world when he felt prepared. Although, no amount of preparation ever seemed enough, since ARKUS had increased the spawn rate of monsters when the update started.
I could take on any monster if I could only get this to work, Vincent thought, pouring all his mana into a dense, erratic sphere of negative energy. He aimed the sparking, black marble at the trees ahead. Just to be careful, he pressed his teeth on the capsule in his mouth, ready to bite down if the attack backfired like it had on multiple occasions.
Lotus Capsule – A capsule made from concentrated Dark Lotus. If it breaks and dissolves inside a player, their body will be converted into mana in an abrupt explosion. The size of the explosion is based on the user’s total mana capacity.
Vincent concentrated, trying to stabilize the erratic marble. He tried feeling for the frequency of the negative energy—just as he’d learned to do when making runes. However, like all the times he’d tried before, he couldn’t find any frequencies coming from the negative energy.
If I could just get the feel of this thing, I could make it work. I know I could.
He felt his grip on the negative energy slipping, and he released the sphere toward the trees. It zigzagged through the air, left a hole in a tree, and then flew back in his direction. Vincent ducked under the black energy, and it cracked a boulder in half before vanishing.
Close one. If that had cleaved through me, I’d have needed to waste a Lotus Capsule to escape the pain.
Spell Creation: 99%
It’s still at ninety-nine. It’s been stuck there for three years. Maybe Jim is right. Maybe the game won’t let me save a negative energy attack to use on command. Most players don’t know that you can even create negative energy. I don’t think ARKUS intended for it to be used in gameplay.
Vincent looked at the damage the sphere caused and sighed. I hate to admit I wasted fifteen years trying to get this to work. I could’ve been developing useful abilities. The only thing I’m close to upgrading is Scan. He looked at the spell upgrade bar for Scan, noticing he was about halfway to adding Farsight.
Vincent drank an ether to restore his mana, and then he peered around the dense forest. He saw no paths, only tall, thick trees in all directions. Which way was it back to Knightrest? He noticed the moss on the split boulder. This forest is east of the city, so I need to go west.
He walked west, but peered around the trees as he traveled. His levels in Perception aided him in avoiding danger outside of the city, but in the rolling hills and twisting valleys of the Eastern Wilds, even Vincent could be occasionally surprised. He thought about the time a goblin’s arrow had caught him with his shield down, or the time an orc had smashed his head open with an oiron club.
I had a Lotus Capsule ready for the goblin, and the death by the orc had been almost instant. I don’t want to be one of those people that get caught
outside of Knightrest, torn limb from limb in an excruciating fashion.
He slid the Lotus Capsule between his teeth and quickened his pace.
Vincent continued until he noticed the sky growing darker. Oh, no. Did I stay out that late again? How many ethers did I burn through?
He glanced at his inventory, noticing he’d almost run out of the potions. Yeah, I need to quit wasting so much time and resources trying to make a spell from negative energy. Almost all the gild I’ve made has gone to ethers. I should’ve been saving up for Jump Crystals if I wanted to travel to the upper worlds.
The sky turned almost black, leaving the glowing outline of hundreds of worlds. Even after fifteen years in the game, he sometimes stopped to marvel at the World-Tree. However, as his feet pattered across the forest floor, he paid no attention to the sky. His eyes followed the outlines of trees, looking for anything out of the ordinary. An owl lurked in the branches of a tree. Rabbits scurried through tall grass. He glimpsed the shape of a deer, but it heard his footsteps and retreated.
His view narrowed on the tiniest sliver of light poking between the trees in the distance. It’s not a fire, he noted. So, it’s probably not a goblin camp. It might be a player using runes. It wouldn’t be smart to draw attention to yourself in the Eastern Wilds at night, however, unless they have a strong party. I should check in case it’s a group of players.
He hurried toward the glimmer, but tried to keep his footsteps light. Luckily, his boots had the enchantment Sound-Dampening 50 that decreased the noise of his footsteps by half. He slowed as he neared the glimmer, and then crept toward the clearing where the light awaited.
He glanced at the pond in the middle, the surrounding hills, and then the elegant creature by the pond. Gazal the Forest Lord sat beside the water, and Vincent realized the sliver of light was the glow of the worlds reflecting off the World Boss’s crystalline horns.
Vincent gaped at the World Boss. He hadn’t seen the creature since his first day in the game, but he’d always heard Gazal migrated between several hidden locations. He glanced at his Class Quest, remembering that he still needed to kill a World Boss with no help to unlock a subclass.