[Sunshine] Female Elf [Level] 1 [Health] 600/600 [Mana] 350/350 [Stamina] 120/120 [XP] 0/10,000 to level 2 [Class] Dual Elemental Master (Light, Fire) [Subclass]

Locked.

[Talents]

Locked.

[Primary Statistics] [Physical]: [Physique]

12 (= 10 + 0 + 0)

[Reflexes]

12 (= 10 + 0 + 0)

[Hardiness]

12 (= 10 + 0 + 0)

[Mental]: [Acuity]

14 (= 10 + 1 + 0)

[Force]

14 (= 10 + 1 + 0)

[Stability]

14 (= 10 + 1 + 0)

[Unspent]

3

[Secondary Statistics]:

Dual Elemental Masters were a class with relatively balanced stat growth, and better than average overall multipliers, as they started with C in Health, Mana, and Stamina, and then the two elements they chose would boost a rank each. Light boosted Health, while Fire boosted Mana, so Sunshine had B growth in both of those.

The class actually did not start with the two elementals that corresponded to their chosen class elements. They would need to capture them on their own, and could do so at any time so long as they found an appropriate elemental with a level equal to or lower than their own.

If Sunshine had started in the area for Dual Elemental Masters there would have been starter elementals she could have captured at level 1 without issue, but Chan Si had chosen for her to start in the elf starting area. This was because she wanted to spend a lot of time chopping down trees to level her woodcutting background and making money, and the elf area was best for that, even better than the woodcutting area. In fact, until her group was ready to meet up, she planned to spend her entire time in this starting area, cutting trees and making money.

Although Dual Elemental Masters had no starting weapons, the woodcutter background began with an axe in their inventory, which would be good for both felling trees and fighting with. The background had given her the basic knowledge of how to use it for both purposes, though she only planned to use it in combat to conserve mana, and she only planned to fight in the first place if some monster or another distracted her while she was busy cutting trees.

The elf starting area was full of trees, many of them oversized and hosting the homes of the elves in their branches, with crisscrossing wooden bridges. Players called it “The most generic starting area in the game”, but that didn't mean it wasn't popular. There was a thriving trade scene in the grand tree which hosted the grand elven market, and Chan Si was far from the first player to want to level woodcutting here.

It was an area that could take you from level 1 to level 150 woodcutting easily, although Chan Si planned for her group to meet up far before the time it would take for Sunshine to reach level 150 in woodcutting. As a gathering [Skill], woodcutting leveled up twice as slow as crafting [Skills], save for Provisioner.

Juggling her axe - juggling was trivially easy in the game as you couldn't hurt yourself or drop an item on accident - Sunshine ran down the winding wooden steps surrounding a tree, making her way to the forest floor below.

The axe wasn't a great weapon, though it could be wielded with one or two hands in combat.

With two hands the Physique ranking was B, the Hardiness ranking was C, and the Force and Stability rankings were D, with bonus damage of 20. This came out to 160 damage, enough to two-hit most level 1 enemies, though the attack speed was 2.5 seconds, a DPS of only 64. Using the axe one handed was even worse as all four stats which contributed to the damage were reduced by one rank, to a C, D, E, E spread, reducing the weapon's damage by 52, to 108, which would require a third attack to put most level 1 enemies down. The attack speed was the same, so the DPS was even worse, being slightly above 43.

Along the way she considered her options for where to put her unspent points. Most healers would split as evenly as they could between acuity and force, ensuring their heals would have enough potency and that they could keep casting them. However, Chan Si was strongly considering Stability, as it contributed to critical chance.

Heals could critical, and as primarily a single target healer, those criticals would be large for Sunshine. Although she couldn't rely on critical heals, they had a special mechanic she was very interested in. Anyone hit with a critical heal could be overhealed if the total healing exceeded their missing health, the additional health acting as a shield that enemies would need to chew through before damaging directly.

The overheal acted as a buff and would expire fifteen seconds after being applied, regardless of how much extra health was remaining, so it wasn't typically practical to try for an overheal effect prior to combat on purpose, as critical rates were too low, so too much mana would be wasted in comparison to the shield amount. However, if she focused all her points into Stability and wore the proper Stability increasing bone gear, plus a few buff spells she would obtain later from fire which would increase critical rate, she could obtain an efficient critical chace, meaning she could start combat with overheals and consistently refresh them. This would vastly improve her party's suitability.

Some Stability focused healers already existed for that exact reason, plus the extra magic defense giving them an easier time surviving against enemy AoE magic attacks. There were even healers who dumped 1 point into Reflexes for every 2 points into Stability, as this was considered the most optimal ratio of critical hit chance to critical hit value. However, Chan Si did not plan to put any extra points into Reflexes for her Dual Elemental Master, if she had she would have chosen Physical Focus.

The downside to selecting a stability focus would be weaker regular heals and less sustainability when it came to the overall amount of healing Sunshine could perform. For most content in the game, Acuity and Force were superior the vast majority of the time, it was just that Stability had use cases which highly interested Chan Si due to her desire to break the game, as so long as she had mana, she could reliably tackle higher level enemies for farming. It was tanking which was the weakest point in Chan Si's team, the health overshield would make up for much of that, lessening the pressure on the Dual Elemental Master from constantly reacting to low health, to being able to take a more proactive role.

However, if she did this, then her Dark Weaver would need to pick up the slack in the regular healing department. Doing so in the middle of combat would mean less time spent using other effects that would, for example, damage the enemy. This would reduce the farming speed of Chan Si's group.

Plus, they would need to stop more frequently in the middle of farming for Sunshine's mana to refill.

It was ultimately a question of what Chan Si valued more, taking on higher leveled enemies more slowly, or taking on lower leveled enemies more frequently. In both cases she planned to farm large groups at once to take maximum advantage of her Dark Weaver, but it was just a question of what she thought would get her further.

In the end, Chan Si decided she wouldn't go a Stability build, as it would take too long to start showing its benefits, and it wasn't like other options were inferior later, just different in their advantages.

Instead, she decided that she would sink all three points into acuity, as she had many targets to heal, so she wanted full access to the even the slight boost in casting speed she would get at the higher levels of acuity. This would have a similar effect of lessening the pressure on her for heals as she could respond to situations more quickly, though not as much as the overheal effect would.

While her heals wouldn't be as large due to not investing in Force, that only meant she had to keep her characters frequently topped off on health, which she felt was good practice anyway in case anything unexpected occured.

Thus, Sunshine sunk all three points into Acuity, bringing her mana up from 350 to 425. She would never have as much mana as Pickapart even with more points put into Acuity, unless she selected a subclass which increased her mana rating, but her average mana usage would also be lower.

She made it to the bottom of the tree, and set off to the north, where the regular sized trees where she would actually be able to cut down would be. Elves did not like their trees cut and would become irrate at anyone who did, even if they were an elf themself.

Mechanic wise, this translated to cutting trees in the elven forest causing a drop in Favor with the elves who lived in that forest. However, as an elf, Sunshine started with decent favor, meaning that her favor would not run so low that she would be attacked on sight even if she leveled to 150 here.

The worst that would happen is that she would have worse buying and selling prices with NPCs, and that she would lose access to some quests. She didn't plan to buy or sell with the NPCs here though, as even with the number of people who liked to use it as a logging spot, demand for wood as a raw material was high enough to sell to players for more.

As for quests, she didn't care or plan to do them here.

As a Light-Fire Dual Elemental Master, Sunshine started with three [Skills], one of each element and one that all Dual Elemental Masters had access to. The fire spell was [Fire Burst], it was a basic medium range fire attack with a base damage of 150, cast time of 2 seconds, and a force multiplier of B, and cost 30 mana at level 1.

The light spell was likewise a basic spell, but a heal, [Gentle Light], it only had a short range but would heal 100 health with a force multiplier of D, but could be cast in a relatively quick 1.5 seconds for only 15 mana, it had decent effeciency.

The [Skill] all Dual Elemental Masters began with was, of course, [Tame the Elements], it was the skill that would cause an elemental to become their pet. To qualify as an elemental, it was not enough for a creature to have an elemental nature, like the Toxic Mountain Lions; those counted as animals. Instead, the creature would need to be mostly elemental based, at least fifty percent. There were elemental sprites in the elven forest, but they were all level 20 or higher, Sunshine could not tame them and, even if she could, she did not want them, as sprites were among the worst kinds of elementals for tanking, they served a more magical dps and debuffing role.

Since Sunshine would have other party members eventually, it was fine that she didn't have elementals at level 1, and even that she wouldn't obtain elementals for a handful of levels. The early levels were the most forgiving in the game, not having a full tank set-up would only slow down the group slightly, as they could pour most of their effort in DPS and be just fine. Once they hit level 20 however, it could be said that the real Guild Tree Online started there.

When Sunshine reached the area for cutting down trees, Chan Si realized she had made her first real mistake in the game.

Every single tree was being camped by a single player. They would fell the tree, and then wait until the tree regrew, and fell it again. There was not a single free tree in the area, every single one was taken by a player. That was tens of thousands of trees, and yet.

It was a truly popular area for same reasons Chan Si wanted to train there, it seemed that anyone who learned the woodcutting [Skill] wanted to train here if possible. Chan Si knew it was a popular area, but the information she had gathered had not prepared her for the full extent. A wiki could not explain everything.

Many occasionally shouted as they cut trees, offering to sell their spot for various prices. Even the lowest quality trees, the people there were offering to sell their spot for twenty gold at least. People wouldn't even abandon their spots if they had full inventories, instead they sold the materials to other players at a discount, and those players would run them up to the market area and sell them there for a profit. It was a staggeringly organized economy, but it was bad news for Chan Si.

For one, the price for a spot was too high, even if she had the money it wouldn't be worth it to her. For two, even if she got a spot, her leveling efficiency would be too low compared to if she could run between multiple trees, felling them as she waited for the others to regrow. For three, the players were mostly much higher level than her, although she could try risking angering a player by cutting at their spot without permission, if they chose to attack her she would die in one hit, without any chance of fighting back.

If multiple players tried to gain resources from the same resource node, only the player with the highest contribution would succeed. Contribution depended partially on [Skill], but mostly on skill, so a talented enough player could reliably obtain the highest contribution from a resource node even against players with more [Skill], if they started harvesting at the same time.

With her basic foundation in woodcutting granted by the system, combined with her intelligence, Chan Si had no doubt she could obtain the resources from nodes over all but the most highly skilled players. However, in the entire time she observed, and even with the additional research she did as a response to seeing this situation, she couldn't find any instances of players attempting to steal a spot successfully. They would simply get beaten down, if not by the player whose spot they stole, then surrounding players.

It wasn't that these players had any particular relationship with one another, only that they all had a common interest of seeing the order maintained so that their own spot wouldn't be disrupted. Maybe if she only had to deal with one person, Chan Si could come up with a clever way to get what she wanted, but against so many, it didn't matter how smart she was, she was still only level 1.

Chan Si's pride in her abilities did not mean she did not know when to give up. Compared to dying for no gain, it was better for her to leave and do something else. She would simply need to find a different spot later, away from the elven forest. Perhaps when she was a higher character level, if the elven forest was still useful to her for training woodcutting, she could return and set everyone who opposed her on fire.

Since she could not train her woodcutting, Chan Si could farm monsters, do quests, or leave the area immediately. She had not originally planned to farm monsters or do quests in the area, but the way she had come to that conclusion was by researching the area, so she knew that between the two, quests would be her better option, because her farming speed as a lone Dual Elemental Master without elementals would be too low. As for leaving, she only planned to do so once she could meet up with the group, there was no advantage to her leaving early.

Thus, she ran back up the large tree she had come down.

There were many side quests in the elven starting area designed to help a player familarize themselves with various aspects of the game and area, but Sunshine would not do any of them unless the path from starting to completing them was already on the way of the main quests she planned to do. There were three main questlines in the elven starting area for characters starting at level 1.

The first was the [War Frontier] quest line, it would have the player get slowly more and more involved in the elven empire's current war against a nearby empire consisting of primarily of Lizardfolk and Orcs. The elves had started the war and were on the offensive, with the flimsiest pretense of being ‘frightened by aggressive actions’, when in fact the elves merely wanted some valuable land the other empire was sitting on, full of strong magical crystals that the elves could drain for magic to power vast spells.

The war had actually only started a year after the game had been released as part of a secret quest triggered by a player. Since then it's been raging nonstop, with players contributing on both sides. The elven side had a slight advantage and had managed to make some headway, but the war was far from over, and unless a large number of players dedicated to joining one side to overwhelm the other, the war would likely not end unless another secret quest was triggered. Chan Si liked this option because going down it meant she had a chance to be the one to trigger that secret quest, if it existed, which she felt was likely.

The second main questline was the [Nature's Dominion] quest line, it involved fighting monsters instead of another empire, to keep the elven territory safe for civilians and traders. It was the most straightforward questline, involving mostly fighting, and as such had the highest exp gain of the three main quests. However, Chan Si did not plan to pick this one for the same reason she did not plan to farm monsters, it was too inefficient while she did not have elemental pets.

The third and final main questline was one known as [The Adventurer's Guild], it was a semi-standardized questline that was in many starting areas. It would involve proving one's self to the local adventurer's guild to then be allowed to join, and see one rising up the ranks while accomplishing certain ‘special’ missions. It was semi-standardized in that the quests were the same between two players if they both joined at the same time in the same location, but that it could differ between locations, could be altered suddenly if the world state changed, and had branching paths based on player choices at various points in the questline.

Completing the first few quests in the questline would grant access to the adventurer's guild services, where one could take a functionally endless number of side-quests assigned by NPCs or other players. The rewards for such side-quests tended to be either money or items, they were very low on experience. They also had a bounty board where players could put hit contracts out on other players, and the first player to kill the contract would receive the reward. Finally, the adventurer's guild counted as a Resting Spot of rank common.

Common resting spots increased health, mana, and stamina regeneration by 1% while in them, and shared the property of all resting spots that killing another player while in them, while not impossible, would result in multiple boss-battle tier NPCs showing up to kick the offending player's ass.

It wasn't like most areas in a city where one would only need to pay a fine for attacking and killing another player, and only be killed if unable to pay. These were special rules for attacking players due to their immortal nature - in the cases where a player had the option to attack NPCs in a city and the NPC was in good standing with the city, the players would receive the same instant death penalty as killing other player in a safe spot, and on top of that have their Favor instantly set to hated if they were not already.

Of course, killing NPCs was very uncommon, as that NPC needed to already be hostile to the player in question, or be a quest designated target. Among those players who chose to become hated because they wanted to go on an NPC slaughtering spree, they didn't even have a chance, the NPC guards were too strong and would kill them on sight, and had many methods for detecting players trying to slip by them.

Only a dedicated group of players of a high level would be able to manage to last long enough to kill NPCs, an event that had happened a few times before, in which case the dead NPCs would have requests put out to be resurrected by players, and as long as any player did so within ten minutes of their death, the NPC would live again and the reviving player would receive a large amount of money, with greater amounts being given the more important the NPC was considered.

Thus, permanent NPC deaths were very rare, though there were a few instances which ended up altering questlines as a result, though in cases like merchant NPCs, a new merchant NPC would take their spot after a time.

At the very least, with attacking another player in a safe spot, it would only be a massive favor loss instead of instantly being hated.

Besides that, completing quests, side quests, and bounties for the adventurer's guild would grant a unique currency of contribution points, which could be exchanged within the guild for various rewards. Chan Si only planned for one of her characters to join the Adventurer's guild.

This was because when one took a quest or side quest from the guild, they would need to register all party members joining them who were also part of the guild, and those party members would get equal share of the reward. It was no advantage to Chan Si to split up the reward like that, because her party was all her anyway, it would just be a waste of time.

Plus it would keep all the contribution points concentrated to a single character, as they could not be exchanged between characters. This was a unique advantage for Chan Si, she could operate with the efficiency of a party but concentrate rewards like a single person. Most players would want to join the adventurer's guild so they could get a share of a reward, and could not avoid being registered for the party or opting out of their share of contribution, if they were joining for a task.

Thus, perhaps there was nobody like Chan Si in their ability to pull this off. Five times the reward for the effort.

She had originally planned for it to be her True Totem Demon to join the adventurer's guild, since the one in the True Totem Demon starting area was the most efficient time-wise out of the three she access to between her characters' starting areas, but if she chose to do it with Sunshine instead, her True Totem Demon could use that time to make more bone arrows.

This was overall more efficient than sticking to her original plan for her True Totem Demon while having Sunshine perform the [War Frontier] questline!