《Replica - Swordmaster》 1 The Beginning "Replica is taking the world by storm", "Ordering sites crashing due to the mass demand for the new Replica headset", "Is this the start of a new virtual age?" these titles and many more could be seen all over the news and the internet, it was just a day before the official release of this world changing game and it seemed like there wasn''t a singe soul unaware of this phenomenon. Meanwhile, Kyle was undertaking his usual swordsmanship exercise, yes, swordsmanship. Although in this age swords were scarce and most people didn''t see one in their life, Kyle was from a traditional Japanese family with deep roots when it came to sword arts. The sword wasn''t just a hobby for him, it was his life. He liked the feeling of constant improvement, the feeling of being better than yesterday, there was nothing he liked more than sword practice. It could calm his mind like nothing else could, and most importantly, help him forget about his worries. Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. He wasn''t always so absorbed in the way of the sword, he used to be a normal child, until a major event that changed his life took place. When he was 6 years old, during the summer break his parents took a flight to visit his relatives, but they never came back. During the flight back, the plane crashed in the middle of the sea and his parents were nowhere to be found. After his grandfather found out, he took care of Kyle and taught him his family''s traditions and past. His grandfather was the only traditional person in his family, everyone else gave in to this new age of technology, but Kyle knew better. Sadly, today even training couldn''t calm his mind, he couldn''t keep hiding from his problems and push them to the back of his mind. Last month, his grandfather was diagnosed with a rare illness. It wasn''t incurable, but the price is too high. Kyle wanted to find a way to get enough money, but his grandfather told him not to worry. It wasn''t that his grandfather was too old, in this age a normal person can to live up to 150 years, and his grandfather is only in his 80s. But nonetheless, his grandfather asked him not to worry about him, to enjoy his life and pass the family traditions, but Kyle was never one to give up. His grandfather knew him well, he knew Kyle would worry for him, so he decided to distract Kyle with the new game ''Replica'', his grandfather though that Kyle would love the game, after all he is a teenager, and teenagers love video games. Yes, that''s his grandfather''s logic, he is a simple man after all. But even though Kyle never played any video games, he decided to try this one for his grandfather, he read about the game online and it''s possible to earn money from it, although the game wasn''t released yet, a trading site for items and ingame currency is already available, although it is empty. 3 Dodging Champion While walking to the archery training hall, he wondered how can he increase his other stats other than agility, after all he should take the chance to increase all of his stats. Even he could figure out that it won''t be that easy to increase them in the future, after he leaves the beginner village. He remembered there are five types of main stats but only four training halls. But he didn''t worry, he was never one to worry about these things, he will know when the time comes. As he entered the archery building, Kyle was welcomed by a large hall, split into two parts. One larger part, made out of countless rooms, way more than what could realistically fit inside it, inside each room you could see a long shooting range and a bow near the door. Players were constantly leaving and entering rooms, and each time someone entered a room the door automatically locked itself and the door changed color from greenish wood to a light red color. The second part, was like a wasteland compared to the popularity of the other part, it was split into multiple parts, each part was a large room. The surprising part was that there weren''t any bows or targets in the rooms, the only difference from a normal room were the holes inside the wall facing the door of each of these room. In the middle of both parts were two platforms, one similar to a shooting range and the other similar to the rooms with holes, players surrounded the shooting range platform while a single player was shooting at the targets, some players laughed when someone failed and others cried. He figured out they were placing bets, but that didn''t really interest him, he came to train. Based on his experience, he knew he should talk to the hall inspector to get more information. He spotted an old bearded man with ragged clothes, if it wasn''t for the quiver on his back, you could mistake him for a random beggar. [Ingor, Archery training inspector of the beginner village] Level ??? Background: A lazy old man that can easily be mistaken for a beggar "Hello old man, i am here to train. How can i improve my agility?" he asked Ingor. Ingor lazily looked at him and replied "Go to the right, enter one of the rooms and choose a difficulty, the higher the difficulty, the faster you train". Kyle understood that Ingor doesn''t want to be disturbed, so he quickly thanked the old man and followed his instructions. As he entered the room, he saw a screen magically appearing before him. The screen showcased four buttons: Easy, Normal, Difficult and Extreme. He immediately chose Extreme without thinking too much, although he liked to train, he liked a good challenge even more. As he clicked the button a countdown from five began. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 As soon as the countdown ended arrows were shot out of the holes in the wall, needless to say, Kyle only lasted a few seconds. He simply couldn''t move fast enough to dodge the arrows, and even if he did, the arrows came in groups which required much more than speed in order to dodge. After this failure he understood that he didn''t simply need more agility on order to manage the Extreme level, but a good technique as well. So he set his goal at Difficult for now, although he liked a good challenge, it doesn''t mean he would blindly charge to the Extreme level. After he set his mind, he chose the Difficult level and started training. Kyle was confident in himself, but after a minute he started to understand why the level''s name was Difficult, a normal player would only last a few seconds at most, luckily he wasn''t a normal player. Just as he thought that he heard a notification That notification gave him the motivation he needed, his movements stopped looking lazy and he started thinking about the most effective way to dodge the arrows. Although a challenge was enough to motivate him, a good reward was even better. He knew the arrows were getting faster and spawned in larger groups the longer he lasted. But so did he, the more arrows he dodged the better he became at dodging arrows, and the less movements he needed to perform in order to do so, not to mention his improving agility. In the first few tries, he only managed to last a few minutes, while his highest record was five minutes, but after a few hours he gained four more agility points and improved his dodging technique by a large margin, and finally managed to complete the Difficult level. After congratulating himself for achieving his goal, Kyle wanted to try something new, earlier he wanted to get a defensive sword skill but there wasn''t anything that could attack him in the swordsmanship hall, but that wasn''t the case here. The only problem was getting a sword, the training sword couldn''t be taken outside of the training hall, so he decided to buy one, although that required money. He suddenly recalled the platforms in the middle of the archery hall, it looked like players were betting there. As he approached the platforms, Kyle recieved a notification from the system [Betting - Place a bet on a player, 90% of the money received from the losing bets is split between the winning bets, based on the amount they bet] [Challenging a player - Challenge a player to a round, the winner gets 10% of the money received from the losing bets] [Place a bet / Challenge a player] He chose to challenge a player, he didn''t have any money anyway. He then chose the dodging platform, and the Difficult setting. After a few minutes of waiting someone finally accepted his challenge. [Hall Announcement: Player Swordmaster has challenged the player Dodgeball to the Difficult level dodging trial] "No way, someone challenged the dodging god", said a player. "It has been some time since someone attempted to challenge Dodgeball, he is the village''s best archer after all" another player exclaimed. Kyle heard the players but he didn''t worry, he was confident in himself. Because Dodgeball was the challenged player, he was the first to set the record Kyle needed to break in order to win. Dodgeball started the trial right after he got teleported to the platform, he didn''t waste any time. Dodgeball managed to dodge the arrows for fifteen minutes, which surprised all the surrounding players, and made the ones that placed a bet on him, which were almost all of surrounding players, cheer loudly. But Kyle wasn''t impressed. "Good luck Swordmaster, show us your ''mastery'', hahaha" Dodgeball laughed loudly from his own joke before he got teleported out of the platform Kyle didn''t take Dodgeball seriously at all, he was just a walking pile of money for him, or rather, a pile of bronze coins. He could easily surpass the fifteen minutes record, but he wanted to challenge himself a bit, so he decided to dodge with his hands behind his back. Although its not like fighting with his hands behind his back, dodging with no hands is still hard. Apparently, the other players didn''t think the same as he did. "Hahaha, he already gave up, he doesn''t even lift his hands" said one of the players, "I told you not to bet on him, but you had to do it, always looking for dark horses" said another. But they were in for a surprise, he easily dodged all the arrows without moving his hands even once, he already finished this difficulty after all, fifteen minutes are nothing to him. Kyle though he would recieve more than half a silver coin, but he figured out its just a small training hall in a beginner village, he shouldn''t expect for much. He got 50 copper because almost no one but one lucky player placed a bet on him, if Dodgeball won the guy wouldn''t have recieved more than 10 copper. ***** Meanwhile, a new post have been uploaded to the forums "The return of the sword freak, now a dodging freak as well" The post showed Dodgeball''s arrogance and how Kyle easily beat him with his hands behind his back, literally. The video was recorded by a fan who watched the first forum post about the sword freak. The fan went on about how lucky he was to earn 450 bronze coins while only placing a bet of one copper coin. The comment section exploded, some people cursing the fan with the good luck while others thanking him for sharing the video, players could learn based on the dodging techniques shown in the video after all. The post was even more successful than the first one, it seems like a legend was beginning to take form. ***** As he left the hall, Kyle started walking towards a blacksmithing shop he spotted on the way to the archery hall, he needed to buy a sword so he could learn defensive sword skills. As he entered the shop, he spotted a muscular blacksmith wearing fitting clothes with no sleeves, showcasing his glorious tattoos to the world, but Kyle ignored him and started looking for a sword, there were many kinds of swords, but most of them were priced at one silver or above which was more than twice of what he had. Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. "How can i help you?" The blacksmith asked him while looking at him wryly, after all he was still wearing the starting clothes that aren''t even worth enough to be considered items. "Do you have any cheap sword that could be used for training?" Kyle responded with a question. "Of course, is this what you are looking for?" said the blacksmith as he proceeded to take a plain looking sword from below the counter. [Plain Old Sword (Common)] Physical Damage: 2 Level Requirement: 0 Durability: 10/10 Note: A simple old sword made by a beginner blacksmith "Yea it looks good, how much for it?" He asked the blacksmith. The blacksmith told him he could have it for 10 copper, so he purchased the sword. After finally getting his own sword he excitedly left the store, he wanted to use the sword while dodging the arrows to get defensive skills, and at the same time raise his agility, this kind of efficient training is what he liked the most. As he entered a random dodging room he selected the Difficult level, and started training. 4 Defending Dwarf Finally, he finished training his agility to the max, luckily there isn''t something like stamina, or it would have taken him much more time. Not to mention, his sword almost broke, with only 2 durability left, he stopped using it after a while simply because he was too lazy to go back to the blacksmith shop. Now its time to check his progress with his new skill [Defensive Stance (Replica)] Level 2 (56%) Requirement: Level 1 Intermediate Sword Mastery Active: Passively deflect up to 3 projectiles for 6 seconds This skill can be leveled up with repetitive usage Cost: 25 MP Cooldown: 4 minutes and 30 seconds Luckily, he has the Sword Genius title, which allows him to learn skills 3 levels above his sword mastery, otherwise there is no way he could have learned such an advanced skill. Now after he finally finished his agility training, and also combined his sword technique with his dodging technique, he can attempt the Expert level again. Although he remembered how easily he was beaten last time, it just made him more excited to try it again. After choosing the Extreme option, just as the countdown ended, arrows were quickly shot out of the holes, but he wasn''t the same as before. In the first few minutes, he didn''t even need to use the sword, but after 15 minutes he didn''t have a choice. And in the end, even with his sword, he only lasted a few seconds after the timer hit 30 minutes. Every 5 minutes is a small level, and every 15 is a large one. After he passed the second large level, holes suddenly appeared in the side walls as well, and arrows were quickly shot out of them, he only managed to last a few seconds, and even that was only because of Defensive Stance. He knew his limits, he needed to focus his sight on the front wall in order to dodge the arrows, with his current agility and senses he would never manage to focus on the sidewalls as well, not to mention beating the difficulty. After thinking about it, he found out that his senses were a bit duller than outside the game, he remembered Odor told him there are hidden stats you can''t see in the character menu, his senses are probably related to one of them, he will have to figure out how to increase them in the future, but first he has to finish his current mission, train all the stats to the maximum he currently can. And so he started walking towards the building with a shield emblem, he enjoyed the sight of all the trees and plants on the way, he even spotted some flowers secretly blooming. He liked this sight which was so rare in modern society, he realized that this game isn''t just a game to train or earn money, its a second life, and just like it''s name, its a replica of the real world. But not the current world, filled with machines and smoke, air pollution and tainted rivers. Its a replica of the ancient world, with wild nature and small civilizations, living in order to survive and achieve their dreams. He rather liked this kind of world, where you fight with your fists instead of words, without annoying politics and rules that hold you back and prevent you from being who you are. He spent the way enjoying the surrounding and thinking about his life and goals, he had a habit of drowning in his thoughts, like he was living in his own world. Thanks to that, hours of training sometimes feel like a few minutes to him. As he reached the building with the shield emblem, a short muscular man with a long brown beard greeted him, if he had to guess how a dwarf looks like, this would be his first guess "Welcome, young adventurer" he said. Kyle focused on the man and received some information [Shane, Defending training inspector of the beginner village] Level ??? Background: A muscular man with a beard who likes young adventurers, he used to be a famous adventurer but he retired due to an injury "Hello instructor, I came here to train in the way of defense, can you please guide me?" Kyle replied to him, according to the background provided by the system, the instructor should be excited to help him, which will be much better than the poor explanation of the beggar like archery instructor. "Of course, it will be my honor, follow me while i show you around" said Shane as opened the door and he started walking inside, Kyle quickly followed him, he rather liked straight forward people like Shane. As he walked inside, Kyle spotted a lot of dummies of all kinds, they looked a lot different compared to the scarecrows in the swordsmanship hall. Some dummies were tall and some were short, some of them had two hands and some even had six, Kyle wad amazed by the variety of dummies, it looked much better than the plain scarecrows of the swordsmanship hall. "Welcome to the Defense Hall, now officialy. Sadly, you already train in the way of the sword, and I can see that a shield wouldn''t suit you, but fear not. The way of defense isn''t limited to shields nor any type of tool or weapon" said Shane as he proceeded to explain "Defense is an art of many forms, just like swordsmanship, you can defend with a shield, a sword, or even your fists. And each of these forms has different types of defense techniques, you can defend and then attack, or attack aggressively, because sometimes attack is the best defense. You need to find the style and technique that fit you, or develop them yourself, I have big expectations from you, young adventurer" Shane said and then pointed at the dummies. "Now that we covered that up, lets talk about the interesting part that you came here for, training. As you can see, there are many types of dummies, some attack in spinning motions, some attack from above and some from below. Gaining vitality points from training depends on three factors: The amount of hits you defend from, the success rate of each of your defense moves and the difficulty of the attack. For example: defending from two attacks with a success rate of 80% is more rewarding than defending from ten attacks with a success rate of 50%. Also, an attack from someone weaker than you will be a lot easier to defend successfully from, so its less rewarding if the difficulty is low, that also works the other way, the stronger your enemy is compared to you, the harder it will be to defend successfully. A perfect defense of 100% negates 75% of the damage, but that doesn''t count shields, they have their own defense values that negate additional damage" Shane explained. "Well I don''t want to bore you with the numbers, so lets proceed to the practical things. If you look to your right you can see many small rooms with a shield shaped wooden door, they only look small from the outside. After you enter a room you can choose the dummies, their attack pattern and stats, or you can go with the default settings based on difficulty levels, I wish you good luck" Shane finished his long explanation. "Thank you inspector, the information is really helpful and detailed, with this it will be much easier for me to train fast" said Kyle as he wondered if he could''ve adjusted the arrow speed in the agility training as well. "Also inspector, what determines the success rate of a defense?" He asked. "The success rate depends on many factors: The enemy''s position compares to you, your defense''s angle, the difference in strength, and much more, normal adventurers find it hard to have an average defense success rate of 60%, so don''t feel dissatisfied with your results if you fail at the start" answered Shane as he started walking towards the hall entrance "Farewell, young adventurer, I hope to hear about your adventures in the future" he said, as he left through the door. Kyle entered one of the empty rooms and a screen appeared before him [Dummy System] [Default Dummies (difficulty based) / Customized Dummies] He picked the customized dummies and selected one of each type in order to test them, he then selected the same agility and strength as his own for the dummies, positioned them around him and chose to start. As he blocked the first hit with his sword, a combat log appeared and a new entry could be seen inside it [Defended an attack from a dummy, 65% success] Kyle was rather disappointed, he expected more from himself, he simply didn''t think he could be compared to the average player. But before he could analyze what he did wrong, he suddenly sensed an attack from behind, he quickly defended, he couldn''t be so careless to look at the combat log while fighting, luckily it only happened while training. This time the success rate was even lower, only 58%. Although he was surprised by the attack and wasn''t prepared, he didn''t want to make any excuses, enemies will surprise him many times in the future and he needs to prepared. He quickly got rid of all of the dummies but one, and chose an agility and strength of five for it, he wanted to start from the bottom and only after having a success rate of 90% can he increase the difficulty, although that will make his vitality training take longer, having a high success rate was much more important for him, a player with a high success rate can withstand many more hits than a novice player with five times his vitality. As he trained with the dummy, his first defense was 80% successful, although the dummy was much weaker than him, he was still motivated and kept training. A few hours later, he could defend against a dummy with the same strength as him with an average success rate of 91%, with his best defense achieving 98%, not to mention he received three vitality points as well. But that wasn''t his largest gain, he managed to develop a new skill [Parry (Replica)] Level 1 (3%) Requirement: Level 5 Beginner Sword Mastery Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. Active: Parry an attack to reduce 50% of the damage This skill can be leveled up with repetitive usage Cost: 20 MP Cooldown: 1 minute The skill is just too good, when he tested it, he found out that you could also defend using a skill, so theoretically if you perfectly block an attack with Parry, you will only receive a bit more than one tenth of the damage, and its only at level one. Although it has a relatively long cooldown, with the right timing, it can save him in a dangerous situation. He could now confidently choose the same dummies and settings he started with, and start the training, well he could do that, but his sword just broke, he was surprised it lasted this long with only 2 durability but he guessed it was because he faced weaker enemies, he quickly rushed towards the blacksmith shop and bought swords with all his money, he prepared to stay inside the training room until he reaches 15 vitality and an average of 90% defense rate, and that means a long time 5 Magical Encounter As he dodged the hit directed at his neck, he was forced to sidestep another one directed at his waist. He couldn''t afford to get hit once or its game over for him, although he couldn''t recieve damage in the training hall, but his sword only had one durability left, and one''s sword is no less important than one''s life. Without his sword he is simply broke, he wasted all of his money on swords and this is his last one, so he has to make the best of it. After thinking about it, he figured out there isn''t really a point to dodging the attacks, he did it out of instinct, he already maxed his agility so he wouldn''t earn anything from dodging. Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. He only needs one more vitality to finish his training, but he was too scared his sword will break, but he couldn''t keep hesitating, it''s just a waste of time, he had to go all out. He replaced all the dummies with one dummy that has three times his strength and twice his agility. The stronger the enemy, the more rewarding blocking his attack is, so he readied his mind and started the training. As soon as he started the dummy came to life, and started swinging it''s hand towards him, but he was prepared as well. He managed to sidestep the fist, and then striked it in an angle the made it slide across his blade, barely doing any damage. He looked at the combat log and couldn''t believe his eyes. [Defended an attack from a stronger dummy, 100% success] He couldn''t believe he managed to finally perfectly block an attack, he managed to block with 99% success many times, but for some reason he couldn''t perform a perfect block. Now he understood that blocking shouldn''t be done in a direct way, a good block is one that uses the least force to reduce the most damage, which means using your opponent''s power against himself. Now that he finally managed to finish his vitality training, and with one damaged sword to boot, he decided to leave and said goodbye to Shane. While walking towards the building with the book emblem, he decided to take a look at his stats. Name: Swordmaster Titles: [Sword Genius] Level: 0 (0%) Race: Human Class: None HP 300/300 MP 100/100 HP Regen: 1.5/second MP Regen: 0.5/second Strength: 15 Agility: 15 Vitality: 15 Intelligence: 5 Wisdom: 5 Physical Defense: 0 Magical Defense: 0 Luck: 0 Fame: 50 Equipment: - Plain Old Sword (Common) Skills: [Strong Strike (LV 2)], [Double Strike (LV 2)], [Quick Draw (LV 1)], [Defensive Stance (LV 2)], [Parry (LV 2)] Talents: [Beginner Sword Mastery (LV 4)] He had many gains from the vitality training, but his biggest gains out of the training were upgrading Sword Mastery to level 4 and Parry to level 2. He could now do more damage with a sword and learn better sword skills, and with Parry he could now defend even better. He kept walking while thinking about his fast improvement pace, and eventually he reached the library, at least that was what he called the building. As he entered, he was welcomed by a beautiful young lady, with blond hair and blue eyes, dressed in a light blue robe while holding a wooden staff with a blue gem on top of it. "Welcome adventurer to the magic training hall, I hope you enjoy your stay", she said, and turned to the next player. This place is much more popular than the other training halls, he though. He didn''t expect this kind of inspector, he was used to the weird old men, so he dazed off for a few seconds while looking at her. "Beautiful, isn''t she?" He heard a voice from his left, he turned and saw a player sitting on a chair with crossed legs, holding a book. The player had blond hair, green eyes and thin eyebrows, if it wasn''t for his voice you could mistake him for a girl with short hair. "Yea, I''m used to the old men at the other halls, I didn''t expect this kind of change. I can''t say I don''t like it though" he responded. "Well don''t even dream about it, a guy once tried to get close to her and he instantly turned into an ice statue, quite a sad way to die" the player said while smiling, like he was recalling a happy memory, he didn''t look sad at all. Kyle was a bit freaked out, but he was still thankful for the warning, so he decided to make acquaintance with the guy. "Thanks for the warning, my name is Kyle, how should i refer to you?" He asked. "You can call me Mark, pleased to meet you" the player responded. "Well I''m going to train my intelligence stat, do you perhaps know how to do that?" He asked Mark while looking around, the hall was split into multiple parts. To his right were many shelves with books, most of the books were thin and ragged, players were taking books the shelves, and many books could be seen magically appearing on the shelves. To his left were mostly tables with chairs around them and a lamp on top, you could see players sitting and reading books, some players looked interested while some looked like they were slowly dying inside. To his front he could see a big door at the end of the hall, players were constantly leaving and entering through the door, and when it was open he could see grass and trees, he figured out it was some kind of garden. As he looked aroud he heard Mark''s voice again "Then you came to the right place, do you see all these players reading books? Most of them aren''t doing it because they are smart or because they like books, the books are thin for a reason" Mark said while pointing at the players. "Reading a book raises your intelligence stat, and there is a trick to it. The higher your understanding of the content the better the rewards, of course complicated books also give more points. These players are reading because to use magic you need at least 10 intelligence" Mark continued. "I don''t exactly understand how Replica can know your comprehension, but I guess if it can listen to mental commands like opening the character menu, it can do much more" Mark explained. "Well I need to go back to my books, I advise you to read magic related books, they give more points" Mark said while returning to reading his book. "Thanks Mark, see you later" Kyle thanked him and started walking towards the bookshelves, he could see a sign on each bookshelf with a genre written on it. He saw a history bookshelf, a languages bookshelf and even a romance one, he wondered who wrote all of these books. At the end of the hall was a bookshelf with "Magic Theory" written on it, he guessed this was the one Mark was referring to, so for the first time in his life, he was thirsty for knowledge, after all it was for the sake of training, and when it comes to training, it''s always exciting. 6 Magic Theory He read for a few hours without a break, he didn''t know he had it in him, but his interest in magic isn''t any lower than swordsmanship. Because he enjoyed the books about magic theory a lot, he read them until his comprehension reached 100%, and by the end his intelligence reached 12 points already. For some reason, he didn''t feel the least tired after hours of reading and memorizing, but he attributed that fact to the game. He then set for a few minutes to organize the knowledge in his head and came up with his own summary about magic theory. All creatures have energy stored in their souls, mana. Some creatures have bloodlines that passively strengthens their body with their mana and some can control their mana to perform spells. In order to cast a spell you need to channel mana into a spell matrix. To form a spell matrix you usually need a medium that can be a verbal chant or a hand gesture, those with bloodlines don''t need to rely on a medium to cast spells related to their bloodline, as their bloodline serve as a complicated spell matrix. There are many kinds of spells, the most common ones are elemental spells and arcane spells. Elemental spells change the mana into an one of the four basic elements: Fire, Earth, Water and Wind. Arcane spells use mana at it''s pure form. Mana can change shape, element and much more. For example, to make an ice arrow you need to channel mana from your soul to the spell matrix, the the spell matrix needs to do the following: change the mana to the shape of an arrow, changes it''s element to water, change the temperature so it turns to ice and then the use mana to give the mana arrow velocity. The speed and power of the spells themselves depend on your intelligence and elemental affinity. The chanting speed and efficiency, which is how much mana a spell costs, depend on your wisdom, elemental affinity and your own comprehension of the spell matrix. For example, someone with enough comprehension and understanding of a certain spell matrix can cast it without a medium. On the other hand, someone with poor comprehension that only relies on skill books will need a lot more mana and time to form the same spell. Its also possible to form original spell matrixes based on your knowledge. As for elemental affinity, you can get it in many ways: items, potions, rare quests and more. Its one of the hidden stats you can''t see. After he finished summarizing the important information, he decided to increase his wisdon stat as well, he didn''t see Mark around so he approached the librarian at the entrance in order to ask her instead. While approaching the librarian, he suddenly noticed a tall old man with a long white beard in the corner of his eye. It was hard to spot him because he was hiding behind a bookshelf. The old man was secretly looking at the librarian. Based on his prior experience, he came to a realization that the lady at the entrance isn''t the real training inspector. It was already surprising that all of the other inspectors were old man, so he only needed to connect the dots. As he focused on the old man, he noticed some information. [Reynold, Magic training inspector of the beginner village] Level ??? Background: An old man with a weird obsession about his student, Sapphire. Although he doesn''t look like it, he is a magic freak that believes knowledge is the ultimate weapon. After considering his options, although he didn''t like the old man, talking to him will give him more benefits than the librarian, he was stronger than her after all. Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. Reynold didn''t notice him and was too focused on the librarian, so when he spoke, the old man got a scare "Hello Inspector, I heard a lot about your wisdom. Can you perhaps guide me in the way of magic?" Reynold suddenly jumped, his head hit the bookshelf, and his mouth produced some indescribable sounds. "What do you think you are doing? Are you trying to kill this frail old man? I almost had a heart attack because of you" Reynold whispered at him with an angry tone. Kyle was embarrassed but he didn''t regret his actions, the old man deserved a wake up call. "Im sorry do disturb you, but I am seeking knowledge about spells and increasing wisdom, and I heard none are wiser than you" Kyle replied, he wanted to flatter the old man so he will forget his previous grievance, he was thankful for the useful background the game provided. "Hmm. I see you have some potential in you young man, but you can''t earn a dime without walking a mile, first read all the magic theory books and then I will consider giving you a hand" Reynold replied while satisfyingly smirking, his gaze was already directed at his student again. Reynold was starting to get on his nerves, the damn old man didn''t pay him any heed, he decided to prove the old man wrong. "Magic theory? You mean that small bookshelf over there? That thing is for starters, I finished it ages ago" he replied with his own smirk. Reynold turned and looked at him with an interested look, Kyle shuddered, that look was too similar to the one the old man had when he looked at his student. "Oh, did you? What is the third law of mana shaping?" Reynold suddenly asked him a question. Kyle wasn''t surprised, he expected that kind of a reaction, but he didn''t read all the books until his companion reached 100% for nothing. "Mana can change shape but not volume, you can increase the size of the spell but the effect will stay the same, unless you use more mana" The mana laws were one of his favorite subjects, the book "The Laws of Mana for Beginners" was his favorite. "I didn''t expect you to be so knowledgeable, but having knowledge isn''t enough, you need to know how to apply it. Intelligence can be trained by simply acquiring knowledge, but true wisdom comes from the man and not from the books". "My teacher once told me: An intellectual person has a lot of knowledge, but a wise person knows how to use his knowledge to his advantage, mages strive to be both". "Take this book and come back to me after you finished learning all the spells inside it, by then you should be wise enough for me to guide you". Reynold said as he pulled out a book from thin air and handed it to him, as he proceeded to stalk his student once again. Nonetheless, Kyle was excited about the book, not only can he learn about spells, but he can also train his wisdom stat at the same time. [Beginner Spells - Extended Theory Edition (Unique)] Note: A book about the basic elemental and arcane spells, with great explanation about each He then found a secluded corner for himself and prepared to dive into the world of magic. 7 Trial Key Kyle opened the book and looked at the content, it was split into ten different chapters. Each chapter had information about a different beginner spells. The book contained the following spells: Arcane Bullet, Arcane Shield, Fireball, Fire Aura, Earth Spike, Earth Wall, Ice Arrow, Water Shield, Air Blade and Air Blast. The book didn''t only contain the spell but the logic behind it as well, something that he greatly appreciated. Each spell had it''s own backgroup, chant, and detailed explanation about the spell matrix. He decided to only focus on one chapter at a time, he didn''t want to confuse himself with too much information, he started with Arcane Bullet. Arcane Bullet is the easiest spell out of all the beginner spells, because it''s spell matrixe only contains two steps: Shaping the mana in the form of a bullet and giving the mana velocity. After memorizing the chant and reading the chapter a few times, he decided his comprehension is high enough to try out the spell. Of course, he couldn''t practice spells inside the library, the old man would kill him. He recalled the library contains a garden, it probably exists for players to try out their spells, so he decided to take a look. As he went through the large door he saw a world full of green. Trees, flowers and even birds were everywhere, you could even hear the birds sing melodies. Sadly, the situation only lasted for a few seconds, he suddenly heard a a large explosion. ''BOOM!'' Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. But it didn''t end there, the explosion was followed by many more, players were constantly training their spells, and fireball was the most popular one. He hated to see players disrupting nature like that, if only they could appreciate it like he does. He quickly pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind, he had a task to complete and he couldn''t slack. He found a secluded place and started training. He chanted the spell and felt mana gathering in the palm of his hand, but the mana was shaped in a weird way, he couldn''t tell which shape it was, but it definitely wasn''t a bullet. He sat down and started recalling the process, he tried to find what went wrong, and he quickly figured out he should try to apply one of the concepts he read about in magic theory that helps beginners to form a correct spell matrix, ''Spell Image''. When casting a spell, linking the spell matrix to a certain image in your mind can greatly help beginners, so he stood up and tried again, this time while using the ''Spell Image'' concept. While chanting he imagined a light blue bullet forming, and a small bullet really started shaping at the palm of his hand! he couldn''t help but grin, he finally managed to complete the first step. But he couldn''t celebrate yet, he still needed to shoot the bullet, he chanted and supplied mana to the spell metrix, and suddenly the bullet left the palm of his hand, and flew in a straight line towards a tree. Luckily, the bullet was too weak to leave any lasting damage. [Arcane Bullet] Level 1 (0%) Active: Shoot a small bullet made out of mana that deals damage equal to 50% of your magic attack Casting time and mana cost can be reduced by gaining comprehension This skill can be leveled up with repetitive usage Casting Time: 1 second Cost: 5 MP Cooldown: 1 second Finally, not only did he create his first spell, he also received a wisdom point! Nothing motivated him more than improving, seeing how his efforts pay off simply lifted his spirit. He repeatedly practiced the spell and improved his control until he managed to reduce the mana cost to 5 MP and the casting time to 0.5 seconds, and the spell also reached level 2 and now dealt 60% damage. It was now time to start learning the other spells. ***** As Mark dashed through the streets, he looked at the shiny golden key in his hand and couldn''t help but wonder how he got into this situation, how could he possibly make a whole guild chase after him? He didn''t intend to find any trouble, but he couldn''t resist a good opportunity. When he saw a party of players fighting a boss in the wild he wanted nothing to do with it, he recognized their emblem after all, it was a golden snake with the head of a dragon, the famous ''Dragonsnake'' guild. Although it''s name was pretty lame, it was still feared by most, the guild was one of the top three guilds in the village, with more than 500 players. But when he was about the turn around and head back, he spotted a shining light blue chest, this was the sign of an unique chest! He immediately decided to risk his life for the chest, after all at worst he would lose a level, and he was only level 3, the rewards outweighed the risks by a large margin. He sneaked to the chest and started to open it, it took him a few seconds, but as he opened the chest, a dazzling light suddenly bursted out of it. Because he had never opened a treasure chest, he had no idea of the spectacle opening one causes. One of the players from the party noticed him and shouted "Hey, look over there! A player is stealing our treasure, quickly, chase after him!" Immediately, five out of the ten players started running towards him, he quickly picked the golden key from inside the chest and rushed out the place. After successfully escaping, he recalled one thing, the situation was much worse than simply losing one level, the guild could kill him many times, and even force him to stay inside the village so he couldn''t go out to kill any mobs! Well, the deed is already done, at least he could consolt himself by checking the information about the key. [Trial Key - The Forgotten God (Unique)] Note: An entrance key to a special trial, can be used to teleport to the trial with four other players. Requirement: Level 15 Oh come on, all of that effort for a key he couldn''t even use for more than 10 levels, well he couldn''t go back now, at least things are going to get interesting soon. 8 Flaming Sword Finally, he finished learning all of the spells, it took him long enough, but now he can confidently call himself a mage, it does seem weird because he also calls himself a swordsmaster, but who said you cant be both? Magic fascinated him, anything is possible with magic, even improving his swordsmanship, so his new goal now is not only to reach the peak in the way of the sword, but also with the way of magic, and finally combine them in order to reach previously unknown heights. But he still has a long way, and every journey starts with the first step. After he finished learning all the spells in the book and improving them both in comprehension and in level, his wisdom and intelligence also reached the maximum. [Strong Will] Level 1 (MAX) Passive: - You are fully resistant to mind related debuffs - You can survive a fatal strike (Cooldown: 24 hours) He was surprised his actions received such merit, he merely trained for his own enjoyment, but the game keeps giving him rewards, he rather likes this kind if game. But he couldn''t let it distract him, he wants to start walking the path of a mage with a sword, and that means getting a spell that can strengthen his fighting style. So he decided to review all the spells he learned. Arcane Bullet - Easiest and simplest spell, low damage, cast time and mana cost Arcane Shield - Good against all attacks, weaker than elemental shields Fireball - A strong spell with high damage, can hit multiple enemies Fire Circle - Constantly damages enemies around you Earth Spike - Can strike enemies even if there are obstacles between you (It comes from the ground) Earth Wall - A sturdy shield, good against physical attacks Ice Arrow - A spell with average damage, applies slowness Water Shield - A flexible shield, good against magic attacks Wind Blade - A strong spell against single targets Air Blast - Pushes enemies away from you and does little damage Now he needed to decide which of these spells can help him in his path. The offensive spells would probably be weaker than his attacks with the sword in the future, and both of them take mana, so he should focus on defense spells or spells that can be used simultaneously with his sword skills. The best pick for an attack spell seems to be the ''Fire Circle'', he can damage his enemies with fire at the same time he attacks with his sword. As for the best pick for a defensive spell, it seems like ''Water Shield'' would be a good pick, his skill ''Defensive Stance'' can''t block magical attacks after all. But these spell aren''t enough, he needs a spell that can strengthen his sword technique, and it doesn''t seem like the ones he learned can do that. It looks like there is only one option left, create one himself. Although he doesn''t understand spell matrixes enough to create one from scratch, he doesn''t need to. Spell matrixes are made out of different layers, each layer has it''s own function. For example, the first layer of the ''Arcane Bullet'' spell is responsible for shaping the mana. So if he takes layers with different functions and combines them together perfectly, he should be able to create his own unique spell! After organizing his thoughts, he started picking the functions he needs for his spell. First of all, he needs to shape the mana in the shape of his sword, this is the most difficult part, but based on the spells he learned, he believed he could do that with a bit of luck, and the trial and error method. Secondly, he needs to give the mana an element. He chose the fire element, as this elemental is the most suitable for his attacking style. Finally, he needs to constantly supply mana in order to keep the spell active, he could take that part from the ''Fire Circle'' spell. The result should be a spell similar to ''Fire Circle'', but concentrated to his sword, meaning that the damage will not only be higher, but also combined with the damage from his sword skills and attacks. He started with the first layer of the spell, he tried changing it many times, not only based on his knowledge but also based on trial and error. At first, the shapes were vague and unrecognizable, but slowly and surely they started looking more and more similar to a real sword. Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. Finally, after almost a full hour, he manged to create a perfect sword made of mana. He smiled but didn''t let success get the better of him, he still has a long way to go. The second part was easy, he directly used the same layer as in the fire spells, and this time after supplying mana, the mana sword instantly turned into a fire sword, but it quickly dissipated. He still needed to add the last part that allows him to maintain the sword, and so he tried, and failed. He tried again, and again. He tried for almost two hours before he stopped, filled with frustration. It didn''t matter how he tried to combine the three layers, they just didnt connect, the fire sword always dissapeared quickly. After a few seconds of cursing the mother of the one who invented magic, he started to calm down. Charging in blindly isn''t his style, he shouldn''t let his previous successful attempts give him a false sense of confidence, modesty is a virtue. He took a deep breath and tried looking at the problem from a different angle. Maybe the problem wasn''t with the combination of the layers, but with spell matrix as a whole, so he decided to try his old method, ''Spell Image''. He imagined how he would hold the sword, slash the sword, and even block with the sword. He slowly sinked into his own imagination, fusing and perfecting the spell matrix unconsciously. After a few dozen minutes, he suddenly woke up to a system notifications. As regained his consciousness, he tried to recall his previous dream. After a few seconds, he came to a realization. Spell matrixes aren''t different layers with individual meaning sticked together, but a perfect fusion of different concepts. Each combination of layers has it''s own fusion, and without understand the concept behind the fusion, it''s almost impossible to fuse them together, at least it would take days to fuse even two layers, not to mention more. The first two layers fused together easily because changing the element doesn''t count as an additional layer, but an addition to the first layer. Luckily, he managed to enter a special state of mind, otherwise he would have inevitably failed. As for the spell name, he didn''t need to think much. The name came naturally to him, and just like that, the spell ''Elemental Sword - Fire'' came into the world. 9 A Strong Ca As he though about the skill in his mind, he quickly received the related information. [Elemental Sword - Fire] Level 1 (0%) Active: Cover your sword with fire for 10 seconds, adding damage equal to 80% of your magic attack to every attack Casting time and mana cost can be reduced by gaining comprehension This skill can be leveled up with repetitive usage Casting Time: 3 seconds Cost: 60 MP Cooldown: 1 minute [Native Magician] You have a perfect affinity with the basic elements of this planet (Fire, Earth, Water and Wind). You can manipulate mana easier than others He was shocked, he didn''t expect such bountiful rewards. With a perfect affinity with the basic elements, his mana can now change elements freely, without using any mana, this change reduces the mana cost to only one third of the original cost. The second part was even better, it reduced the chanting time for all spells by half. He would now have a much easier time walking the path of a mage, he should go brag about it to that perverted old man. While enjoying the unexpected boon, he recalled the request of Odor, the swordsmanship inspector. Odor asked him to come back when he finishes his training, and it looks like now should be a good time to do so. He started walking towards the swordsmanship hall, he tried looking for Reynold on his way back, but didn''t find him, so he will tell him about his achievements at a later date. As he entered the swordsmanship hall he was startled by the sheer amount of players. It was at least ten times more players than what he saw last time. Searching for Odor was like looking for a needle in a haystack, but after a few minutes he noticed an old man hiding in the shadows. He didn''t know Odor feared crowds, but it was nice to see the old man wasn''t invincible. As he got closer, Odor noticed him and said in a relieved voice "Young lad, it''s been a long time. Did you think about my request?". "Yes, I came to accept it, I finally finished my trainings. It seem like you have been doing rather well" he said while smirking. "I see you grew a sense of humor, lets see you can keep joking after hearing my request" said Odor with an evil grin. Kyle wanted to refute but his face quickly turned pale after he heard the evil inspector''s quest. "Don''t worry, it''s nothing too serious. You just need to kill cat. Oh I forgot to mention, it''s a level 5 boss and you need to kill it alone or it wouldn''t count" said Odor with a look of anticipation. "You senile old man, how can you even call a level 5 boss a mere cat" He jokingly said. He wasn''t worried too much, if Odor asked him to do it then it should be possible. The difficulty didn''t discourage him, in fact it just made it more thrilling. What''s the point of a challenge if it doesn''t make you give it your all. "Alright I accept, if an old man like you requests my help then it shouldn''t be hard" he teased Odor. "Haha, I knew an energetic young man like you would agree, the boss is in the Felin Garden" Odor replied, and then proceeded to give him the coordinates. [Quest: Loose Cat] Background: Lately a new leader emerged from the Feline race, he intends to conquer the beginner village with his cat companions, stop him before it''s too late. Object: Defeat the boss ''Grandis Cattus'' alone Reward: Unknown Is this a joke? He thought. It was like the old man tried to mock him, well whatever, the difficulty should be hard so it doesn''t matter if its a cat or a dragon, he will defeat them all the same. When he thought about a map, an image suddenly appeared in his mind. Most of it was gray but in the middle was a green part named ''Beginner Village'' and a few smaller green chunks surrounding it, one of them was called ''Felin Garden''. He probably needed to explore the gray areas by himself or obtain maps in order to see their names. Using the coordinates in the game was much easier than in real life, he only needed to think about them and a red arrow appeared on the map. He was astonished by the convenient interface, but he didn''t plan to go for the boss yet, it could probably kill him with a slap. He isn''t afraid of it, but he wasn''t an idiot either, he knew he isn''t strong enough to defeat a boss five levels above him by himself, so he needs to levelup before he attempts to complete the quest. It was finally time to kill some mobs, he never fought against a real enemy before, he always trained alone and with a wooden sword in real life, he looked forward to some fights. Name: Swordmaster Titles: [Sword Genius], [Native Magician] Level: 0 (0%) Race: Human Class: None HP 300/300 MP 300/100 HP Regen: 1.5/second MP Regen: 1.5/second Strength: 15 Agility: 15 Vitality: 15 Intelligence: 15 Wisdom: 15 Physical Defense: 0 Magical Defense: 0 Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. Luck: 0 Fame: 200 Equipment: - Plain Old Sword (Common) Skills: [Strong Strike (LV 2)], [Double Strike (LV 2)], [Quick Draw (LV 1)], [Defensive Stance (LV 2)], [Parry (LV 2)] Spells: [Arcane Bullet (LV 2)], [Arcane Shield (LV 2)], [Fireball (LV 2)], [Fire Circle (LV 2)], [Earth Spike (LV 2)], [Earth Wall (LV 2)], [Ice Arrow (LV2)], [Water Shield (LV 2)], [Wind Blade (LV 2)], [Air Blast (LV 2)], [Elemental Sword - Fire (LV 1)] Talents: [Beginner Sword Mastery (LV 4)], [Strong Will (MAX)] 11 Beating Wolves Immediately after the wolf stepped into his range, he dushed towards it and activate ''Quick Draw'' and ''Strong Strike'' together. He didn''t use any spells because he wanted to see his combat power without magic, it could be used to surprise the enemy after all, no one would expect a swordsman to suddenly attack with magic. Because of ''Quick Draw'' attack speed bonus, the wolf couldn''t react before the attack reached his side. ''-50'' appeared above the wolf''s head in white, which signified physical damage. It''s defense is so thick! His full powered magicless attack only dealt one sixth of it''s total health. After the sudden strike, the wolf quickly reacted and tried to bite Kyle''s waist, but he expected this much and sidestepped the attack, Kyle''s agility was higher by a small margin, not to mention the dodging technique he developed in the dodging training. He then proceeded to attack the wolf''s exposed neck. ''-32'' Red text appear above the wolf''s head, which apparently signified a critical hit. Amazing, not only does hitting a vital point increase the damage by half but it also ignores all defense. It seems like technique is no less important than strength in Replica, a normal attack can deal almost the same amount of damage as a powerful skill if your technique is good. Unlike his expectations, the wolf didn''t stop when it received a hit, it immediately follow with a strike from his claw. Kyle didn''t have time to dodge the attack so he hurriedly blocked it. ''-20'', appeared above Kyle''s head in yellow, which signified a successful block. His time training didn''t go to waste, he managed to achieve 80% success and blocked most of the damage. He didn''t buy any potions because he is too poor, and regeneration didn''t work in combat, so he can''t afford to lose too much health. Making the decision to end this fight quickly, he decided to go all out and started chanting the ''Elemental Sword - Fire'' spell while retreating. By the time the wolf noticed his intentions and leaped towards him, it was already too late. Kyle sidesteped again and used ''Double Strike'' to hit the wolf twice in it''s neck ''-110'', ''-130'' a series of purple numbers floated above the wolf''s head, they signified physical and magical damage combined. With only 60 health points left, the wolf wasn''t a threat anymore. Kyle followed up with ''Wind Blade'' and ''Arcane Bullet''. Two numbers appeared above the wolf''s head, ''-50'', ''-14''. This time the color was light blue, and it signified magical damage Thud! The wolf''s body hit the ground. Great, he only needed to kill two more wolves to levelup, the next level required 100 EXP after all. For some reason the corpse glowed, and when he touched it, the corpse dissipated and left 2 copper coins. He hoped he was just unlucky and that leather isn''t extremely rare. He used half of his mana in this fight, so he waited for two minutes and then continued to search for more wolves. This time he chose to fight against five at the same time, without his mistakes, he could have previously won without a single injury, his stats weren''t that far from a normal level 3 player. He chanted ''Arcane Shield'' and then opened the fight with ''Fireball'' and ''Elemental Sword - Fire''. As the wolves entered his range he finished chanting ''Fire Circle'' and immediately started attacking them. Using this combination he managed to kill three out of the five wolves before the duration for his fire sword ended. He also leveled up and his mana returned, his health was still full and his shield only half depleted. He quickly finished the last two and looted all the corpses, he managed to find three leather pieces and 10 copper. It seems like the drop rate was around 50%, it wasn''t high but neither too low. Using the same tactic he managed to kill a few more groups and levelup to level 2 and close to level 3. He spent half of his free attribute points on strenght and half on intelligence, he felt like his agility was plenty and wanted to improve his killing speed. He also found six more pieces, and only needed one more. As he searched for an easy last kill, he noticed the big pack of wolves, with a big wolf in the middle. He didn''t like the feeling of leaving the place without completing all the challenges, taking on fifteen wolves with one of them being stronger seemed almost impossible, but the key word here is almost. As long as there is the slightest chance, he will take it and turn it into a certainty. Name: Swordmaster Titles: [Sword Genius], [Native Magician] Level: 2 (76%) Race: Human Class: None HP 300/300 MP 400/400 HP Regen: 1.5/second MP Regen: 1.5/second Strength: 21 Agility: 15 Vitality: 15 Intelligence: 20 Wisdom: 15 Physical Defense: 0 Magical Defense: 0 Luck: 0 Fame: 200 Equipment: - Sharp Sword (Uncommon) Skills: [Strong Strike (LV 2)], [Double Strike (LV 2)], [Quick Draw (LV 1)], [Defensive Stance (LV 2)], [Parry (LV 2)] Spells: [Arcane Bullet (LV 2)], [Arcane Shield (LV 2)], [Fireball (LV 2)], [Fire Circle (LV 2)], [Earth Spike (LV 2)], [Earth Wall (LV 2)], [Ice Arrow (LV2)], [Water Shield (LV 2)], [Wind Blade (LV 2)], [Air Blast (LV 2)], [Elemental Sword - Fire (LV 1)] Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. Talents: [Beginner Sword Mastery (LV 4)], [Strong Will (MAX)] 12 Mini Boss After watching the wolf pack for half an hour he roughly understood their patterns. Out of the 15 wolves, two of them went out scouting at a time, and the rest continued in a moderate pace, he decided to following the pair. Although he liked a challenge and didn''t mind small odds, he wasn''t rush either. He always liked to look calmly at the situation and make the best decision, he can accept failing due to weakness, power is something he can improve. But, failing due to being rush or because of a dumb mistake is unacceptable, he should always be able to perform at his best. Seeing the scouts got far enough from the pack, he quickly killed them before they could signal for help, after his recent improvements they weren''t a match for him anymore. He repeated the process until only 9 wolves were left, the big wolf included. They finally understood something was wrong and stopped going off alone. Now he could clearly see the big wolf and perceive some information. [Stone Wolf (Special Elite)] Level: 3 HP 1000/1000 Although it wasn''t a boss, it wasn''t that far off either, it was similar to a mini boss. Kyle quickly came up with a strategy, he will attack the wolves from afar and deal as much damage as he can before they close in on him. By the time they will arrive, he will be able to easily finish them off and focus on the mini boss. He immediately started to execute his plan, he uses ''Arcane Shield'' and then followed up with 2 ''Fireballs''. At that point the wolves were alreader close to him, he quickly chanted ''Air Blast'' and knocked them away, before they reached him he managed to hit them with another ''Fireball''. At that point the normal wolves only had around 120 health points left and he only had half of his mana left. He chanted ''Fire Circle'' while simultaneously dodging the attacks of two wolves, only idiots stood still while chanting spells. Based on his calculations the ''Fire Circle'' was more than enough to kill the normal wolves, but the range was too short to reach all of them. He wanted to save up as much mana as he could, so he grabbed the attention of all the wolves and faced them off for a few seconds. He dodged some of the attacks, but he still had to block a few. His shield could endure 100 damage but even so it broke and he received 140 points of damage. He didn''t use ''Parry'' because he wanted to save it for the mini boss. Luckily, he was close to the next level and managed to levelup so his health and mana were restored. Now it was finally time to face the true challenge, the big wolf sustained some damage himself from the fireballs, but it still had 850 health points left. What a powerful defense, he though. He quickly started chanting ''Arcane Shield'', but before he could finish the chant he suddenly saw a blur and felt immerse pain from his stomach. His body was flying backwards and a big white number appeared above his head ''-120''. Crap! He underestimated this wolf too much, his confidence started to control him again, he mustn''t surrender to old habbits! He quickly got up and saw the wolf dash towards him again, this time with lower speed, he figured out the last strike was some kind of skill with a cooldown or condition, and the wolf couldn''t use it often. He started chanting ''Elemental Sword - Fire'', this time he wasn''t careless and managed to barely sidestep the wolf''s sharp claws. He only managed that because it''s movements were too predictable, against a skilled player with such strength he wouldn''t be able to do the same. When the mini boss dashed towards him again aiming to bite his waist this time, Kyle already finished his chant and blocked the attack. He then quickly used ''Double Strike'' coupled with ''Strong Strike'' for the second strike. The wolf was surprised, it didn''t expect this puny human to attack him with his sword, all he did until now was defend and cast spells. Kyle used this opportunity to land two critical strikes and deal a total of 300 damage. If critical strikes didn''t ignore defensive then there is no way he could have done so much damage. The boss was knocked back by the damage, Kyle used this opportunity to cast ''Arcane Shield'' and ''Fire Circle''. He only had less than half of his mana left, but he preferred saving his life rather than his mana. The boss quickly closed in but Kyle was ready, he blocked the attack again and managed to slash the wolf''s neck twice and deal 220 mixed damage, but the duration of his flaming seord ended. Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. The wolf only had 330 health points left, Kyle could already see his victory and loot. No, this can''t be real! An earthquake took him off guard, while the wolf used his leap spell again! Not again, you fool me once, shame on you. You fool me twice, shame on me! He used the skill ''Parry'' that he saves up all along, and barely managed to blocked the attack. The attack that was meant to deal 300 damage only dealt 60, it couldn''t even destroy his shield. He felt like an idiot, if he would have reacted accordingly, he wouldn''t have received so much damage last time. After his sudden attack, the wolf significantly, slowed down and Kyle landed a few more hits and finished it off, it seemed like that last strike was it''s ultimate. The EXP gain wasn''t much, he was already the same level as the wolf. But it was still enough to bring him close to level 4. Luckily what interested him wasn''t the EXP, but the drops, he never killed something stronger than a normal monster before. As he the wolf''s corpse dissipated, 20 copper coins appeared and below them he could spot a small shiny book. 13 Sudden Leap He focused on the shiny book and managed to perceive some information. [Sudden Leap (Skill Book)] Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. Desc: Leap forward with great speed A skill book! He wanted to get one since he heard about them from Odor, but he didn''t know where to buy them, nor did he have enough money. He immediately picked up the book and a system notification followed. [Yes / No] He chose ''Yea'' without any hesitation, he didn''t have any movement skill, so he needed this spell desperately. [Sudden Leap] Level 1 (0%) Active: Leap forward with 300% movement speed, deal 200% physical damage when you land This skill can be leveled up with skill points Cost: 30 MP Cooldown: 1 minute This skill will be of great help, it can be used to chase enemies as well as escape. Based on the description, it should be the same skill the big wolf used to catch him off guard. That means the big wolf can probably drop a skill book similar to the earthquake as well. Since he didn''t see any more big wolves, he decided to loot the rest of the wolf corpses and then return to complete the mission. His total harvest from this trip was 16 ''Stone Wolf Leather'', 80 copper and an awesome skill book, not to mention his level almost reached 4. He spent his 5 attribute points on agility, after the fight with the big wolf he realized that with low agility, he could die without having the opportunity to hit the enemy, so only having high damage is idiotic. It was extremely hard to decide which stat to focus on, all of them were important, there wasn''t such a thing as a useless stat. He reached the village in half an hour, a lot faster than last time due to his improvements. As he got closer to the village chief, the guy noticed him and walked towards him while ignoring the crowd. Adrian looked agitated and quickly asked "I see you have returned adventurer, did you get the leather for me - I mean my father?" Kyle smiled and assured him "Of course I did, thanks to your gift, the wolves weren''t a problem at all". He didn''t want Adrian to take the sword back so he referred to it as a gift. Adrian flinched, it looked like he originally intended to ask for the sword back "Of course, of course, so where are the goods?" Adrian''s behavior made it look like they were trading illegal goods, but since the guy was practically the law here, Kyle didn''t mind. He pulled the leather pieces out of his bag and handed them to Adrian. Adrian immediately grabbed them out of his hands "Finally! I can get my armo - I mean blankets for my father!" A bright light engulfed him, he leveled up again! One more level and he can finally fight the cat boss, but first he needs to gear up, he didn''t even have any armor and potions! He had two options, the first is to buy armor and the second is to try to obtain it by himself, he heard a level 5 dungeon opened up recently. While debating about his next move, he heard an annoying voice. "Hello! Hello! Did your mind suddenly lose connection? I didn''t finish talking to you, I got another quest" Adrian nagged with an annoyed voice. Oh crap, he totally forgot about the village chief! He hurriedly replied "Yea sorry I''m listening, I was just lost in my own thoughts, I''m thinking about how to obtain armor, my defense is nonexistent as you can see" he decided to try his luck. "Great, I can reward you a full set of common equipment if you can complete this task!" Adrian returned to his normal behavior. Kyle didn''t want to get taken advantage of by the crafty village chief, but a full set of common armor was a tempting offer. Don''t underestimate common gear, although he managed to obtain an uncommon item, even common items were relatively rare, most players only had one or two common items and the rest were trash grade. He decided to hear about Adrian''s offer before deciding "I''m interested, tell me more" he replied. "My friend Zack went to check the situation about the spider den and never came back, can you go and search his whereabouts?" He replied in a concerted tone. Now he wants to use me as disposable scout! Kyle didn''t like the man, but he knew the place Adrian talked about wasn''t a random place, it was the recently discovered dungeon! Since he already intended to go there, and he really needed the armor, he chose to as accept. "If you feel so concerned then it must be of utmost importance, I will gladly contribute for the greater good of the village" He felt like he developed some kind of habit when talking to natives, he wanted to obtain as much benefit so he talked very differently. Adrian smiled "If it''s you then I''m assured, but just to be safe, take this ring with you, it should be useful against spiders" On second thought, the guy wasn''t that bad, you only needed to get to know him better. 14 Meaty Salesman After thanking Adrian, he focused on the ring and percieved some information. [Poisoned Ring (Uncommon)] Vitality: +2 Passive: Reduce 50% of damage received from weak poison. Level Requirement: 0 Incredible, based on what he heard about the dungeon, some spider apply poison, which is incredibly annoying because both magical and physical defenses are useless against it. The only known tactic is having two vitality focused tanks tanking together and a priest constantly healing them, but that reduces the overall damage. He equipped the ring and started walking towards the market, he needed to buy some trash grade armor after all. The market looked like a total mayhem, player stalls were all over the place, and the closer you got to the middle of the market the more crowded it became. He figured out he didn''t need to enter the deeper part since he only needs to get some trash equipment, so he visited different stalls and asked about the price of equipment he liked. The market price for a trash armor equipt was 10 copper, that was the same as the common training swords he bought! After asking around, he understood that equipment in every rank except trash was divided into different levels: Low, Mid, High and Peak. His training swords only amounted to the lowest of low common items, the only reason they weren''t classified as trash was because natives didn''t sell trash grade items. Players normally got them from quests and drops from monsters. He bought a set of trash armor for 40 copper total: Helmet, Chestplate, Leggings and Boots. After finishing his business at the market he checked the route for the map ''Aranea Swamp'' where the spider den was located. As he was about to exit the market, he suddenly heard a voice from behind him "Excuse me, are you going to the spider den?" Kyle turned around and spotted a chubby guy behind a stall, he had short black hair and brown eyes, he looked no different than the most average person, except for his meaty build of course. He was surprised someone could tell where he is heading based on his direction, he could go to many more places after all, he was still in the market. "Yes I am, how did you know?" He replied. The chubby guy looked at him with a proud expression "Easily, you bought level 4 gear, walked towards the exit with a face of someone looking at the map in his mind, and the only level 4 and above map in that direction is ''Aranea Swamp''. Of course, I was only half sure, but you confirmed it." This guy was much more intelligent than he looked, he decided to give him a chance to see what he wants "You got me, so what do you need from me?". The chubby guy''s face lightened and a weird smile formed on his face. Kyle hoped this smile was only a forced one, otherwise he really pitied the guy. "Nice to meet you, I''m Luis, since you are heading to the spider''s den, would you be interested in some high quality potions?" the chubby guy, or rather Luis, asked him with a coaxing tone. Although Luis was smart, he lacked in the communication department. But since he wanted to buy some potions anyway, there was no harm in checking Luis''s goods. "Nice to meet you too, my name is Kyle. Lets see what you got" he replied in a friendly manner. Luis then proceeded to show Kyle around his stall, not only did he have health and mana potions, he even had weak instant health potions. Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. Normal mana and health potions cost 6 copper per stack of potions and the instant health ones cost 12. Each stack had five potions and Luis claimed they were 25% cheaper than the market price. Since he intended to buy potions anyway, he bought two stacks of health potions, one stack of mana potions and one stack of instant health potions. He added Luis to his friend list in case he will need to order some potions in the future. He now only had 10 copper left, but he felt prepared for the dungeon, and so he left the market, heading for the spider den. Name: Swordmaster Titles: [Sword Genius], [Native Magician] Level: 4 (12%) Race: Human Class: None HP 340/340 MP 400/400 HP Regen: 1.7/second MP Regen: 1.5/second Strength: 21 Agility: 25 Vitality: 17 Intelligence: 20 Wisdom: 15 Physical Defense: 8 Magical Defense: 0 Luck: 0 Fame: 200 Equipment: - Sharp Sword (Uncommon) - Poisoned Ring (Uncommon) - Rusty Helmet (Trash) - Rusty Chestplate (Trash) - Rusty Leggings (Trash) - Rusty Boots (Trash) Skills: [Strong Strike (LV 2)], [Double Strike (LV 2)], [Quick Draw (LV 1)], [Defensive Stance (LV 2)], [Parry (LV 2)], [Sudden Leap (LV 1)] Spells: [Arcane Bullet (LV 2)], [Arcane Shield (LV 2)], [Fireball (LV 2)], [Fire Circle (LV 2)], [Earth Spike (LV 2)], [Earth Wall (LV 2)], [Ice Arrow (LV2)], [Water Shield (LV 2)], [Wind Blade (LV 2)], [Air Blast (LV 2)], [Elemental Sword - Fire (LV 1)] Talents: [Beginner Sword Mastery (LV 4)], [Strong Will (MAX)] 15 Odd Party Reaching the spider den, he spotted a lot of players, way more than he saw in other maps, it seemed like most players preferred to kill mobs in a dungeon. The spider den is a level 5 dungeon, meaning the party leader needs to be at least level 5, so he couldn''t enter it without a party. "Looking for a priest! Aiming to kill the first boss" "Looking for a tank! We only want to grind and levelup, level 5 and above" Everyone was only looking for priests or level 5 players, no one wanted a level 4 player. "Looking for a tank! Level 4 and above" After looking around for a few minutes, he finally managed to find a potential party to join. He walked towards them and asked "Are you looking for a tank?" Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. The leader, a guy with short white hair and a skinny build replied with a repeatative tone "Yea, we don''t have a priest thought, we are four damage dealers so no tank wants to join us" It looked like the guy was tired from searching for a tank. "I can tank, I''m level 4, But I have 17 vitality and 25 agility, so I can survive without a healer" The guy was delighted, after searching for hours, he finally found someone willing join them. Although Kyle was only level 4, he was still a tank and they never intended to fight the boss, only to grind mobs. The guy now replied with an excited tone "Great! Lets go team, we can now finally grind these mobs!". After a minute they arrived next to the entrance of the spider den, before the leader went to the native in order to take the dungeon quest, he first introduced himself. "Welcome to our team, I''m Stephie" he said as he turned around. Stephie then pointed at the guy beside him "This is Barry", he then proceeded to point at the girl next to him "This is Mary", he then pointed at the last two guys. Surprisingly, they looked perfectly identical. "They are Marvin and Darvin, I already gave up differentiating" Stephie said with a sigh. Kyle smiled and replied "Nice to meet you all, I''m Kyle, and I say we go grind like crazy". Stephie chuckled, "That''s the spirit, let''s go kick some spiders" [You have been invite by ''Stephie The Lone'' to his party ''Accept''/''Reject''] Kyle chose to accept the invitation, a screen then popped up and listed his party members and their health and mana points. Their names were so odd, Barry called himself ''Bored Barry'' and Mary called herself ''Little Mary''. The twins nicknames were even weirder, they were called ''Clone One'' and ''Clone Two''. Not only were their names similar, but also their health and mana were the exact same, if he had to guess, they were probably trying to pretend like they have some cloning skill. Stephie then walked towards the native, the native noticed him and turned with an anxious face "You must exterminate these spiders! Earlier, a squad of soldiers went in to check the situation, but never came back. You must take revenge for them! You must tske revenge for my father!" Kyle tried to interact with him but the native kept repeating sentences like "Exterminate the spiders", "The spiders are evil" and "The spiders suddenly appeared one day without any earlier notice", he figured out some natives have high intelligence while some only act based on a limited number of reactions. The last sentence seemed to be hinting something, but he was never good with riddles, he will understand on the way. Stephie finally accepted the quest, and the enterence of the cave started glowing in a dazzling white light. Stephie then lead the way inside, and everyone followed. 16 Grinding Spiders As he stepped into the white light, the surrounding changed into a deep cave with emerald colored walls. You could see cobwebs everywhere, the cave was dimly lit due to the glowing emerald walls. Stephie then briefly explained "Kyle, you take the lead. Me and Barry will help you with the load, the twins and Mary will deal damage from behind". They all nodded and reacted based on their respective role, Kyle took the lead and they started walking forwards. In less than a minute, he could already spot some spiders. [Spider Soldier (Normal)] Level: 5 HP: 600/600 Three spiders appeared, and the party members went to their positions. Kyle attacked the first spider, and then used ''Double Slash'' to hit the other two, he did it incredibly fast due to his high agility, his last strike was so quick his teammates only saw a blur. But that didn''t make his teammates happy, on the contrast, why didn''t other tanks use an agility based build? The answer was simple, if you focus on agility, your vitality will be lower. Hence you will become a fragile tank. But Kyle proved his teammates that fast doesn''t mean fragile, he swiftly blocked one of the strikes, after all he couldn''t dodge the legs of three spiders simultaneously, each spider had many legs. ''10'' A white number appeared above his head. His teammates eyeballs almost popped off, how high was his defense? The spiders normally dealt 50 damage without defense, but they only dealt 10 damage to him. Unknown to them, his defense was only 8, but the secret was in his high defense rate, he achieved 90% in this block! His teammates quickly came back to reality and started attacking the spiders, in less than two minutes all three spiders died. "Amazing! It normally takes us at least five minutes and some potions to clear the first spiders. But not only did you not use any potions, you are even second in the party damage leaderboard!" Mary exclaimed. Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. Kyle was surprised as well, but for a different reason. The spiders gave him so little experience! He needed to kill at least 50 in order to levelup, that was multiple times the amount of wolves he needed to kill to get to level 4. But that much was to be expected, not only is the level gap only one level, but the experience is split between five players, it couldn''t be compared to his lucrative solo grinding. They gained 10 copper coins after the fight, nothing else dropped which was quite disappointing for Kyle, but the others were already used to it. After the fight they kept grinding spiders, and about an hour later, he finally leveled up. Everyone congratulated him and he decided to put all of his points in agility, because he came to a realization after grinding for some time. While grinding spiders he leveled up ''Double Slash '', ''Strong Slash'' and ''Quick Draw'', his damage output was raised to the first in the team, and that was without using magic! He understood that there are many ways to increase his damage, but it''s hard to increase stats like agility, even if he managed to learn a spell that could increase his speed for a long time, it will probably cost a lot of mana to maintain. On the other hand, by increasing his agility, not only can he move faster and dodge more attacks, but he can also increase his attack speed and blocking success rate, after all he can position himself better. He now reached 30 agility, and could easily achieve 90% success rate with every block. After his levelup they took a break, and decided to distribute the loot. Although common equipment didn''t drop frequently, they still managed to collect a few. As the party''s only tank, he had priority over armor and defense related equipment. He recieved a level 5 common chestplate, leggings and boots that each give 5 defence, his defense now reached 17, the spiders only did 1 to 5 damage to him when they managed to hit him. A common sword also dropped, but he gave it to Mary with the excuse his sword was better, although his sword was a bit worse, it was only a level 0 low uncommon sword after all. Now only a common bow was left, but both clones refused to use it due to a weird need to wear the exact same equipment. Stephie was embarrassed but Kyle didn''t mind, he had something else bothering him. He wanted a harder challenge, these spiders couldn''t satisfy him anymore, he could even solo them without using any magic. After clearing another wave of spiders, he turned around and asked his teammates "I think this is a bit too easy, why don''t we go for the first boss? Although we don''t have a healer, I have a lot of potions so I believe we can do it" They looked at him weirdly but eventually nodded, although they originally only came to grind spiders, it wasn''t because they lacked ambition, but simply because they didn''t have a priest and by using too many potions they will spend more than they will earn by killing the boss. Stephie grinned and replied "I think we do have a chance, with a tank like you, it''s definitely possible!" After all he had the most ambitions for this team, although the others mainly played to have fun, he had a competitive spirit within him. And so the newly formed party started marching towards their first challenge. 18 Useless Poison As he touched the glowing corpse, it dissipated and left behind a sword, leather helmet, coins and some miscellaneous items. He focused on the drops and managed to perceive some information. [Spider Fang Sword (Common)] Physical Damage: 15 Level Requirement: 5 Durability: 100/100 [Spider Skin Helmet (Common)] Physical Defense: 8 Level Requirement: 5 Durability: 100/100 It was a top tier common helmet and a peak tier common sword! Although Kyle had some uncommon items, they were all low level with low stats. His party members also looked at the drops. Stephie then asked "I think we should give the sword to Kyle, it''s high damage should go well with his high agility". The rest nodded in agreement, although they developed some complicated feelings about Kyle, they couldn''t ignore his usefulness. Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. He thanked them and equipped the sword, now they needed to decide who to give the helmet to. The twins quickly rejected, for the same idiotic reason as before. As for Mary, the helmet didn''t achieve her beauty standard, or in her words "This stupid hat is way too ugly". Stephie and Barry then proceeded to draw lots, it was a useful system feature, Kyle noted it for future use. Stephie got 80 points and smirked, but his pride was quickly crashed by Barry and his 98 points. The leather helmet then went to Barry and they started marching towards the next grinding ground. After about a minute, two small spiders appeared, they were about the size of a large dog. They were black with green stripes, and looked a little more intimidating than the previous spiders. [Poisonous Spider Soldier (Normal)] Level: 6 HP: 500/500 Although their health was lower than the other spiders, their level was higher, which means something else is their strong point. Looking at their name, even a moron could guess their speciality. Stephie looked worried as he told Kyle "Be careful, they should be a lot stronger than the previous spiders, not to mention they might be faster because of their smaller size". Stephie started to regret continuing, they could have just returned to grind normal spiders, there is no reason to risk themselves for some extra experience. Little did he know, Kyle''s opinion couldn''t be farther from his. Kyle didn''t worry, not only does he have the ''Poisoned Ring'', but he didn''t even use his magic yet. Quickly, Stephie found out his worries were for naught, although the spiders were faster than the previous ones, there were only two of them. Kyle dodged all of their attacks and they quickly killed the first spider and brought the second one to low health, he then intentionally received a hit from the spider to check the damage and poison. He recieved 43 damage, he didn''t block the hit after all. That means the spider''s attack should be 60, but that wasn''t the worrisome part. After he got hit, a debuff appeared. [Debuff: Weak Poison] Desc: Lose 2 HP every second for 5 seconds (Stackable up to 3 times) This means that if a tank didn''t know how to dodge well, he would have to deal with 6 damage every second until his party killed all the spiders. Luckily, not only did Kyle dodge all the hits, he even had the special ring that reduces damage from weak poisons by half. They continued to grind spiders for almost an hour, even with his dodging, Kyle still used a full stack of potions, but they received great gains and improved their teamwork, ''Quick Draw'' was already close to level 3. Looking forward, Kyle spotted a large group of spiders, with a few bigger spiders within it. On the way here, they fought some of these bigger spiders, but only one at a time, they were Elite Spiders after all. This group had 4 normal and 2 elite poisonous spiders, taking them on wouldn''t be that easy. Luckily, this wasn''t their first time fighting a group, not to mention Kyle''s new combo. Kyle used ''Quick Draw'' and ''Strong Strike'' together and managed to hit a vital point, he then quickly used ''Leap'' and ''Double Strike'', leaving the spider with a silver of health. His teammates quickly finished it off and he moved to the next spider. Even with most of his skills on cooldown, Kyle dodged the attacks and instantly striked a vital point whenever he could find a chance. Using this tactic, a few minutes and one health potion later, only the two Elite spiders were left. Because they were Elite rank, and not Special Elite, they only had a bit more health, damage and defense, but not by much. They were about as strong as one and a half normal poisonous spiders, the only problem was their poison, it could stack up and deal up to 12 damage per second. Players came to the conclusion that the poisonous spiders existed mainly to burn the health potions of anyone that wanted to challenge the final boss, only morons would grind them, after all the reward wouldn''t even cover the cost of the potions used. However, most players overlooked a single point, what use was their poison when the spiders couldn''t even hit you? The Elite spiders were bigger, and due to that, slower as well. And so, with money on the line, Kyle managed to dodge each and every attack, getting hit means using a potion after all. 19 No Pain No Gain Kyle struck the last Elite spider, it only had a sliver of health left, and so it died in Kyle''s hands. Stephie could finally let out the breath he has been holding. He looked at his teammates and said "Finally, this group took too long to kill, but luckily we have Kyle or we would have lost a lot more than we could have earned" Mary pouted and said "Yea, although I don''t like him, I can''t deny he is the only reason we made the cut" Kyle smiled but didn''t bother replying to his cheeky teammates, he could only think about the final boss waiting to be challenged. He could see the large opening in front of them, but everything afterward was completely dark, they will probably need to enter in order to see the boss. Although he wasn''t an expert in understanding others, he could figure out his teammates were made out of cowardly material, it wouldn''t be easy to convince them to try out the boss, but he had to try. He put on his best fake smile, or rather a real one, it wasn''t that hard when thinking about facing the boss. "I say we try out the boss, I didn''t use any potions when facing such a large group, so the boss can''t be that hard, can it?" He said in a persuasive tone. He then continued "Anyhow, even if we die, it''s only 10% experience. Don''t you think that it''s worth a shot?" His teammates looked at him in a weird way, Barry then said "Can''t be that hard? The only reason we managed to defeat the last boss is because you covered for our mistakes. Can you confidently say you will have the ability to do it with this boss as well?" Mary looked agitated as she added "No way, I''m not going through this experience again. Even if my character didn''t take any damage, you can''t say the same for my mental health" He couldn''t give up, he looked towards his last hope, Stephie, and said "Think about the riches and experience we could get! Who knows, we might even get a rare item, we could even sell it for real money to earn a lot! Do you really want to give up such an opportunity? You won''t be able to do it when I won''t be around after all" Stephie was tempted by the reward, but most importantly, he managed to perceive the hidden meaning in Kyle''s words. If they aren''t going to take any challenges, Kyle will leave the party, which strong player will stay with a bunch of cowards? Kyle is his only ticket to being a professional player, Stephie didn''t want him to leave, what was 10% experience compared to that? Just grinding with Kyle for half an hour will earn him more than that. He knew what he should do in order to persuade his teammates. He looked at Mary and said "I think we should try it out, think about the money, didn''t you say your parents tell you they won''t let you play games if nothing comes out of it?" He threw the bait, now the only thing left is waiting for the little fish to catch it. Mary looked hesitant, but after thinking for a bit, she replied "You are right, sacrifices are required in the road to success, I''m in" Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. After persuading Mary, it wasn''t hard for Kyle and Stephie to persuade the rest, and after a few minutes they were done and ready to face the challenge. As they entered the room, the surrounding walls were suddenly lit in a bright emerald color, even brighter than the first part of the dungeon. They could see a big spider facing them. It wasn''t as big as the first boss, but it was bright green, similar to the surrounding walls, with dark green colors at the tip of its legs. [Poisonous Spider General (Leader)] Level: 6 HP 6000/6000 His teammates were already starting to regret their decision, but it was too late, you can only leave a boss room after you killed the boss. Kyle started the fight with ''Quick Draw'' and ''Strong Strike'' and managed to strike the spider''s bottom, a vital point, due to his fast attack speed. His strike dealt 200 damage, although he manages to damage the boss by 3% of its total health, Kyle''s skills had a cooldown. The attack enraged the emerald spider, and it jumped towards Kyle. Kyle quickly dodged the dangerous strike and returned one of his own, while his teammates kept dealing damage. Soon, the spider had 90% left, and its mouth moved in a way Kyle knew too well. He quickly used ''Leap'', but instead of leaping to save a teammate, he leaped towards the boss, he wanted to try something new. Great reward comes with great risk, and that''s exactly what he intended to take. Just as the emerald spider was about to spit the poison out, Kyle struck it''s mouth with ''Leap'' and ''Strong Strike'', forcing it to close it. A big blue ''300'' appeared above the spider''s head. His teammates looked at him with a shocked expression, they didn''t know this kind of thing is possible. Kyle simply chuckled and returned to his position, using the same tactic, he managed to interrupt the boss''s skill in every time it tried to use it. The boss also managed to hit Kyle a few times, it''s hit applied a stackable poison that deals 6 damage per second for five seconds, and can stack up to 5 times. Luckily, Kyle rarely took a hit, so the poison didn''t stack. After a few minutes and potions, they finally managed to get the boss to 50% health, they looked at each other with a glowing expression. Sadly, fate had a different plan. As soon as it''s health hit 50%, the emerald spider penetrated the ground with its legs and started changing color to a darker green. Kyle hurriedly shouted "Quickly, everyone get away!", but it was too late. 20 A Fast Combo The ground quickly got covered by poison, all of his teammates but Stephie didn''t manage to react in time. But even though he and Stephie managed to jump, it didn''t look like the poison is going to disappear any time soon, they will soon fall right into it. Stephie fell first, and only managed to last a few seconds. "See you on the other side" Stephie said with a sigh, he expected such an outcome, how could a final boss be so easy to defeat. Kyle knew he had to do something or he will end up the same. Right as he was about to start descending, he suddenly thought of an interesting idea, and decided to try it out. He started chanting the ''Fireball'' spell, while aiming at the boss. He then used the velocity he gave the fireball in order to launch himself upwards. As he was about to reach the top, he flipped midair so his legs touched the ceiling. Finally, he could use ''Sudden Leap''! In order to use the skill, he had to be on the ground. Although it isn''t written in the skill description, the game is based on the laws of physics. For the same reason he could use the fireball''s velocity to push himself in the opposite way, he had to be on the ground in order to launch himself. The fireball reached the boss first, and did a surprisingly high amount of damage. But he could already guess that. Mary had used the same spell to damage the spiders before. They already figured out the spiders had a weakness to fire when they first fought the normal ones. By the time Kyle reached the spider, the poison on the ground was already gone. He combined his leap with ''Strong Strike'', and even managed to hit a vital point. The spider''s health was already close to 40%, but Kyle knew his challenge has only just begun. He used the chance when the spider was distracted to cast ''Arcane Shield'' and ''Elemental Sword - Fire'', and used a mana potion. The spell perfectly fit against the spider, all of his attacks with the sword now also dealt fire damage, which was the spider''s weakness. The spider charged at him, but Kyle calmly intercepted it''s strike while using the opportunity to strike its vital point. Due to having a magic shield, he could allow himself to receive damage in order to deal damage. ''Arcane Shield'' is extremely useful, not only does it move with its caster, but it can also block many different kinds of damage, including poison. The spider''s health fell below 40% and it was about to spit out poison. Kyle slid below the spider, causing the poison to miss, while also using the chance to strike the spider in a vital point. Thanks to the elemental sword and his offensive style, Kyle''s damage output was multiplied by several folds. Soon, Kyle managed to get the boss to 10% health, but at the cost of several health potions and a mana potion. The boss''s damage shouldn''t be underestimated, it was the final boss of a dungeon after all. The only reason he could solo the boss was due to his strong magic shield and formidable dodging capabilities. Even so, Kyle started to underestimate the boss, how strong can it be if he can defeat it without giving his all? But he was in for a surprise, as soon as the spider''s health reached 10%, it started glowing in a faint red color. The spider''s eyes started turning red and its speed and damage started rising exponentially. He couldn''t keep up with its speed anymore, Kyle was forced to parry strike after strike, with barely any space to breathe. He knew he couldn''t let the situation continue. Kyle jumped backward and used ''Air Blast'' to push the spider in the opposite direction. He then kept running away while chanting ''Elemental Sword - Fire'' and before the spider managed to catch up, he managed to change his state to out of combat. He smiled at the glowing emerald spider and said "It was a good fight, you were a worthy foe indeed" Before the spider could react, Kyle used ''Quick Draw'' combined with ''Strong Strike'' and immediately followed up with ''Sudden Leap'' and ''Double Strike''. The spider stopped midair and dropped dead to the ground, with its corpse glowing. It took Kyle less than a second to complete the combo, he was surprised at his own accomplishment. Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. 21 Disappointed Teammates Kyle looked at the new notification and smiled, it seems like a new weapon has been added to his arsenal. After thinking for a bit, he came up with a suitable name. He chose the name ''Four Strikes of Heaven and Hell''. There wasn''t any particular reason he chose that name, apart from the fact that it sounded cool of course. [Skill Combination - Four Strikes of Heaven and Hell] Requirement: Out of combat Desc: Strike the target with ''Quick Draw'' combined with ''Strong Strike'', quickly followed up by ''Sudden Leap'' and ''Double Strike''. Special Effect: Damage amplified by 100% for every strike you hit at the same place Using the skill combination was much better than using the skills separately. Not only was the execution time shortened, but an additional effect was added. Sadly, the damage for each of the skills was still separate, so the damage amplification wasn''t for the whole combination, but for an individual the strike. He was astounded, he didn''t expect such a reward from simply utilizing a few skills together. But he couldn''t say he wasn''t disappointed as well, the last few times he created something, he got additional rewards for being the first to do so. Well, he didn''t have the time to waste, his teammates are waiting for him outside the dungeon, it''s time to loot the boss! As he touched the corpse, it quickly dissipated and left a few items behind. The first item was a peak tier common staff. [Enchanted Wooden Magical Staff (Common)] Magical Damage: 25 Level Requirement: 5 Durability: 100/100 The damage was high, but because it was only common grade, it didn''t provide any additional stats. The second item was an uncommon dagger. [Poisoned Dagger (Uncommon)] Physical Damage: 15 Special Passive: [Weak Poison] - 10% to apply poison that deals 10 damage per second for five seconds, unstackable. Level Requirement: 5 Durability: 100/100 It was only low tier so the chance for the passive was low, but due to the high agility of dagger users, it was still useful. There were only one item and some coins left, Kyle prayed it was something useful to him, the other two items didn''t suit his style. [Leeching Ring (Uncommon)] Special Passive: [Leech] - Steal 5 health points with every attack Level Requirement: 5 Durability: 100/100 A peak tier Uncommon ring! Although there is only one passive, not only does it provide support, it also provides additional damage. Not to mention, it didn''t specify if it works on physical or magical attack, so it has to work for both! After he equipped the ring, all there was left were 3 silver coins. After he finished with the loot,, he recalled there were a few notifications he ignored during the battle. It was about time for his flaming the sword to level up, it took a lot longer than his other spells, probably because the spell was a lot stronger. As for the magical shield, it wouldn''t be an exaggeration to say it was the spell he used the most. A glowing green portal opened before him, and he entered it. He looked at his surroundings and found out he was near the dungeon entrance, close to the native that gave them the dungeon quest. Thinking about a quest, he didn''t find anything related to the quest the village chief, Adrian, gave him. He probably needed to defeat the Elite difficulty in order to complete the quest. Suddenly, he noticed a group of players running towards him while calling his name. After a few seconds, they were close enough in order to identify them, they were his dead teammates. "Kyle, why did it take you so long? We waited here for at least a few minutes, since when dying is that difficult?" Mary said in a sarcastic tone. "Don''t worry Kyle, I''m sure we will be able to win next time, you learn more from a loss than from winning!" Stephie said, trying to comfort him. Barry gave him an acknowledging smile, and the twins were ignoring everyone else, like usual. Kyle smiled at his teammates, he never felt like he belonged anywhere before, but he rather liked this feeling. He then chuckled and said, "Well I''m sorry to disappoint you Stephie, but it looks like I didn''t learn much, I''ll make sure to lose next time". "Don''t worry it''s not your fault... Wait, what?!" Stephie and the rest were looking at him with shocked expressions. Name: Swordmaster Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. Titles: [Sword Genius], [Native Magician] Level: 5 (6%) Race: Human Class: None HP 340/340 MP 400/400 HP Regen: 1.7/second MP Regen: 1.5/second Strength: 20 Agility: 30 Vitality: 17 Intelligence: 20 Wisdom: 15 Physical Defense: 17 Magical Defense: 0 Luck: 0 Fame: 200 Equipment: - Spider Fang Sword (Common) - Poisoned Ring (Uncommon) - Leeching Ring (Uncommon) - Rusty Helmet (Trash) - Old Steel Chestplate (Common) - Old Steel Leggings (Common) - Old Steel Boots (Common) Skills: [Strong Strike (LV 3)], [Double Strike (LV 3)], [Quick Draw (LV 2)], [Defensive Stance (LV 2)], [Parry (LV 2)], [Sudden Leap (LV 2)] Spells: [Arcane Bullet (LV 2)], [Arcane Shield (LV 3)], [Fireball (LV 2)], [Fire Circle (LV 2)], [Earth Spike (LV 2)], [Earth Wall (LV 2)], [Ice Arrow (LV2)], [Water Shield (LV 2)], [Wind Blade (LV 2)], [Air Blast (LV 2)], [Elemental Sword - Fire (LV 2)] Talents: [Beginner Sword Mastery (LV 4)], [Strong Will (MAX)] 22 Determined Stephie Stephie suspected Kyle is holding back for a long time. Although it looks easy when Kyle uses his agility to dodge and block attacks, taking less damage than a full vitality tank, it''s actually incredibly difficult. Not to mention, the precision and timing required to save his teammates every single time they mess up, it was astonishing. His teammates aren''t as experienced as him, so they didn''t notice. But to him, it was clear Kyle was holding back, or rather, they were holding Kyle back. He knew they shouldn''t waste Kyle''s potential, but regardless, he had his own dreams as well, and Kyle was his key to achieving them. After hesitating for a while, he came to a decision, one he believes should be the right one. He looked at his teammates "I think we all learned a lot from this dungeon, and learned what we should work on improving. I decided to become a professional player, if you want to play casually, then this is where we split up" "You think you are better than us? I''m in as well, you will die the second I''m not around", Mary said while pouting. "Count us in as well!" the twins said simultaneously, he could see Kyle shuddering for a moment. The poor guy has yet to get used to them. Stephie smiled and looked at Barry. "I''m afraid I won''t be able to join you, but I wish you good luck". Barry said, a glint of hope could be seen in his eyes. He then proceeded to walk away, waving towards his teammates for goodbye. Stephie was disappointed, but he didn''t let it affect his expression. They all wished Barry good luck, as they looked at his back slowly getting smaller and smaller. After Barry was out of their sight, Stephie turned towards Kyle "I''m glad we met each other, but I think we should part our ways here. Let''s add each other as friends, and may we meet again in the future". Stephie didn''t want to hold Kyle back. Instead, he wanted to train his party, until the day they could finally stand shoulder to shoulder with Kyle. And maybe even be the ones that support him, and not the other way around. Kyle sighed and accepted the friend request. "Don''t forget about me, don''t you dare reject my friend request", Mary said. Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. The twins also sent a friend request to Kyle, and he accepted them all. Stephie looked at the departing Kyle one final time and said "Alright team, it looks like we have a job to do" ***** Kyle sighed as he walked silently back to the village. He knew it was too good to be true, finding friends couldn''t be so easy, not for him at least. Although he felt like a babysitter when fighting with them, he liked the feeling of someone trusting and relying on him. Not to mention, his control over his skills and battle awareness improved immensely, it turns out battling a boss while protecting players is a great form of training. Similar to how running with weights is more effective than running without them. Thinking about it is of no use, after getting strong enough, it will be much easier to find a team. He started running to clear his mind, it was some form of training, and what''s more calming than training? After entering the village, he started walking towards the market, he didn''t get to give his teammates the equipment he received from the boss, so he intended to sell it. On the way to the market, he suddenly recalled an odd guy that could be of some helped. He decided to message the meaty salesman for some help, he didn''t want to get scammed by others after all. "I got a low tier uncommon dagger and a peak tier common staff, how much should I sell these for?". He immediately received a reply "Don''t worry about it, send them to me through the mail, I''ll sell them for you for the best price, you are my friend after all". "Thanks!" He replied as he clicked the ''mail'' button and selected the items. "No problem. By the way, I take 5% as a fee" "..." He felt scammed, but he couldn''t do anything about it, he already sent the items. Pushing these thoughts to the back of his mind, he decided to focus on his goal, beating the cat. Now that he thinks about it, that doesn''t sound good. After setting his mind on defeating the mighty boss that wanted to conquer the village, he started planning his next steps. 23 Shameless Old Man First, he needs to resupply his potions, he used most of them in the dungeon. Also, he needs to repair his gear, it''s almost broken already, he really needs to pay more attention to it. After finishing his errands, Kyle still had 15 silver left. Of course, this was after he received the money from the salesman Luis. Now all there is left is to plan a strategy, he can''t charge in blindly. This quest is much harder than normal, which means the rewards should be plenty. He started thinking about his weaknesses and strengths. Movement should be covered, for short termed movement he has ''Sudden Leap. As for long termed, his high agility is enough. His damage is also high enough. As for his sustainability, not only does he have the leeching ring, but he also has a lot of potions. His only problem should be taking on a large group of enemies, because he can''t block multiple hits at once, so the damage will be too high for him to sustain. Another problem is getting killed due to a surprise attack, his armor isn''t high enough in order to sustain him. He must block and dodge the strikes in order to survive, that''s why it''s rare to find agility based tanks. He needs to find a way to attack enemies from a distance, without wasting too much mana. Mana potions have a cooldown after all, not to mention he has a limited supply of them. The only way he can think of is archery. Archers use a bow and arrows which are physical objects, so they don''t require mana to use. Wait, that''s the key! Although he can''t learn archery, he can use a different type of physical object, a sword. But, because a sword is too short, he can use magic in order to extend it. Although he will still consume mana, the amount won''t be great, and he can still use his sword skills, including the bonus damage from ''Sword Mastery''! Thinking about an element, earth should be the best choice, it''s the only one that is similar to a physical object. Using water, fire or wind to extend his sword will require a lot of mana, because without using mana to sustain these elements, they naturally dissipate. However, earth can stay for longer periods of time, as seen in the spell ''Earth Wall''. Using earth will not only make the mana consumption lower, but also allow him to extend his sword farther. Now that he planned his next course of action, he started walking towards the library. He liked to train in the library''s garden, it helped him calm his mind. After entering the library, he suddenly remembered something important. Without having some lucky insight, there is no way he can create the spell matrix for the earth sword anytime soon. Last time, if not for his luck, it would have taken him days to create the fire sword spell. Spotting the librarian in the corner of his eyes, a solution came to his mind, and his expression turned to a relaxed one. Find authorized novels in Webnovel£¬faster updates, better experience£¬Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting. Some players saw him and sighed, another pervert has entered the library. Oblivious to their thoughts, Kyle started walking towards a familiar bookshelf. Unsurprisingly, he found a rather odd old man, it was his hiding spot after all. The old man turned and looked at him with an annoyed expression "You again?", surprisingly without jumping and hitting his head like last time. Kyle didn''t mind Reynold''s manners. He grinned "Didn''t you give me a book last time? I came to return it" "Oh that kid, took you long enough, didn''t it? Alright, if that''s all, you can give it to me and leave, can''t you see I''m busy?" The old man had some nerves, but Kyle didn''t let it bother him "Actually, I came earlier but didn''t find you, I wanted to consult you about something" The old man didn''t even lift his eyes from the librarian "If it''s related to the book, then ask quickly, I''m already old, do you want me to die before you finally ask it?" "Alright, after creating a spell matrix, I came to a realization that it''s almost impossible to do so without understanding the concept behind the fusion of the different layers. Can you teach me? I would like to understand my spells better, knowledge is power after all" Reynold was so shocked he quickly lifted his head to look at Kyle, but his mortal enemy, the bookshelf, was waiting for that opportunity. The old man mumbled some cursed Kyle didn''t recognize, but he quickly came back to his senses. "I want to say you are lying, but there is no way you can know about the importance of the fusion without creating a spell. If I haven''t met another promising young man already, I would have taken you as my disciple. However, I can give you access to my private collection of books, how much you gain from that is up to you" Kyle smiled and said "I will gladly take that offer" 24 Runes While following Reynold, Kyle looked at the shelves and was surprised about the weird design choice. The farther they went down the hallway the darker the color of the shelves got, even the surrounding looked darker. Normally players couldn''t access this part of the library, it was clear when Reynold unlocked three kinds of locks to access the hallway, not to mention disabling the magical alarm as well, he took a note to look into this kind of spell. "Curious I see, it''s a good trait for a mage. But always remember, curiosity killed the cat, Hahaha." Reynold laughed, but Kyle didn''t find it amusing. As they walked down the hallway Reynold kept saying weird remarks, but Kyle grew bored of it and ignored him completely. He could spot fewer and fewer shelves until all the was left are doors, locked ones of course. "Don''t worry I''m just joking, when did the young generation become so stiff? Anyway, here we are. This is my private collection so feel free to satisfy your desire, the one for knowledge of course." Facing them was a large block door with some white sentences written in a language Kyle couldn''t recognize. Reynold touched the door and it split into two parts, slowly sliding into the wall. "Once you finish, you can use the teleportation platform, it will directly take you to the garden. You are a smart one, so you must wonder why we walked all the way when we could teleport. There isn''t a good reason, well apart from the fact that frequent teleportation for someone with a weak body like you can result in your body dissolving into particles that will endlessly float in empty space. Nothing to worry about but it could be mildly unpleasant, for me, you won''t even feel it." Reynold chuckled and left. Kyle quickly entered the room, he didn''t know if the door is going to close like the electric doors in the real world. The room was relatively small and had two shelves, one at each side of the room. Facing the entrance was a desk paired with a chair and a small stone platform with ancient looking characters. Kyle studied the platform carefully but he couldn''t understand the weird characters engraved on it. Without Reynold''s remark, he would have mistaken it for a normal stone platform, not that you can usually find them in study rooms. He then looked at the shelves and found out the books were separated for a reason. The books on the right shelf were mainly about magic theory while the books on the left shelf focused on broader subjects like the history of magic and an encyclopedia of magic beasts. After scanning the right shelf for a book related to earth magic he settled with one called ''Rocks for Rookies''. He sat comfortably on the chair and opened the book, it was time to dig in. After reading all of the books related to the earth element, he had a basic understanding of the element. Every element had its own specialty, and in this case it''s stability. Earth stays the same for centuries and can survive many harsh conditions. Earth doesn''t move on its own and it remains firm, it''s the closest element to a physical object. He then went on to read the books related to fusion, but very quickly he realized he had a problem. The reason why he couldn''t fuse the different layers of spell matrixes is because each layer represents a rune in the language of magic. Of course he couldn''t fuse them, it''s like trying to combine random words and hoping for a logical sentence. In order to invent new spells, learning that language is the way to go. He searched for a book about it, but couldn''t manage to find one. Five minutes later he finally realized, he was looking at the wrong shelf. It only took him a few minutes to find the book on the left shelf. While reading the book, he found out many different ways to use the runes, they were all around him and he only needed to take a look. The alarm system and teleportation platform were both made by an inscription master, a profession that focuses on connecting runes together to create formations with different functions powered by magic cores. There is also another profession called enchanter that adds magical effects to items like poison or fire damage, it works by using runes to convert some of the wasted energy to magical energy. All of these skills: Inscribing, enchanting and inventing spells use the same basis, the magic language. Don''t let the name fool you, the magic language isn''t like human language, in order to convey meaning you need much more than simply knowing the word or sentence. Runes act differently based on many factors, and in order to create new skills a lot of learning and testing are required. But that knowledge will also help him in becoming an enchanter and inscription master, something he wanted to so since reading about these professions. He then gathered all the books related to rune fusion and set down, he had a lot to do. 25 Elemental Runes Closing the last book, Kyle sighed in defeat, learning the magic language isn''t as simple as he thought. There were many runes, and each of them has many different uses and interpretations, not to mention fusing runes in order to create new effects. Sadly, this library only had information about a few basic runes, not to mention he didn''t have months or possibly years to spend sitting in this dusty small room. However, not all hope is lost. Although he can''t become an official inscriber or enchanter with these books, he might be able to use the limited knowledge in order to achieve his current task - creating an earth sword spell. Let''s see, in order to make the sword he would need to shape the mana to a sword, similar to his flaming sword spell. However, this time he needs to increase the length of the sword, and because he is using earth to create it the mana required to sustain it will decrease. Overall the mana cost should be the same for both spells, one focused on damage while the other on range. Secondly, he needs to convert the mana to the earth element and consistently provide mana to maintain the spell. Although he doesn''t need to sustain it as much as he does with the fire element, earth isn''t indestructible. When using a spell like ''Earth Wall'' the mage doesn''t need to sustain it, once it breaks the mage will simply cast another one. However, he can''t let his sword break, that would make the spell useless. After forming a complete plan in his head, he knew exactly where to start, thanks to his attentive reading. The book ''Elemental Runes - The Basics'' describes the basics of each rune of the four elements. Luckily, the book used spells for reference in order to showcase the uses of runes in battle. The author even theorized about creating a moving version of ''Earth Wall'' and even explained why it wouldn''t work, or rather would be useless. One of the traits of the earth element is its immovable nature, in order to create a moving wall you would need to either create it in the air, which would require you to consume a lot of mana in order to defy gravity, or instead destroy and reform the wall in order to create the illusion of movement, and calling that a waste of mana would be an understatement. However, the discussion about the latter helped Kyle immensely, since reforming the sword is exactly what he needed to do. Thanks to his previous experience with inventing the flaming sword, he knew what he needed to do, it was time to test his theory. Although he has yet to read most of the books here, he believes he would have his chances to return. Not to mention, reading all the books in one go without having the chance to implement the knowledge would only result in the majority of it being wasted. Giving the dusty room a final look, he stepped on the teleportation platform, and waited for it to do its job, and kept waiting. Ten seconds later he realized waiting might not be of much help. The stone platform still looked the same, with no reaction at all. It''s probably a test, the shameless old man wanted him to figure it out on his own. Who locks a kid in an ancient dusty room? This geezer must be out of his mind. However, his hours of reading didn''t go to waste. He recalled there are different ways a formation can be activated. The common one for platform-related formations is standing on them, but there are still other methods. It could be a switch, an activation word, or even multiple conditions at once. Luckily, it didn''t take him much time to solve it, after looking at the inscribed runes thoroughly he found a point that didn''t fit in. After pressing it, information appeared in his mind. "Please state your destination." A female voice sounded in his mind. He wasn''t that surprised, it was similar to the character creation one, that must be the default voice for verbal information. The game usually transmits information in one of two ways: Verbally or directly to the mind. The first one is commonly used in system announcements and the latter is how he receives information about monsters, NPCs, and more. After all, it wouldn''t be convenient if an information window blocked his vision when fighting monsters. Imagine what would happen when fighting ten or more at the same time! Coming back to reality, Kyle chose the garden and vanished from the room.