[Ulna] Female Orc [Level] 1 [Health] 1400/1400 [Mana] 350/350 [Stamina] 700/700 [XP] 0/10,000 to level 2 [Class] True Totem Demon [Subclass]

Locked.

[Talents]

Locked.

[Primary Statistics] [Physical]: [Physique]

14 (= 14 + 0 + 0)

[Reflexes]

21 (= 21 + 0 + 0)

[Hardiness]

14 (= 14 + 0 + 0)

[Mental]: [Acuity]

11 (= 11 + 0 + 0)

[Force]

10 (= 10 + 0 + 0)

[Stability]

11 (= 11 + 0 + 0)

[Unspent]

2

[Secondary Statistics]:

Per Chan Si's plans, Ulna added both of her unspent points into Force. It would take a long while to pay off, but the potential was high. Besides, the class had an A modifier to health, she would be able to perform an adequate tank role in any case.

The starting area for True Totem Demons was a fortress built from the giant bones of a dragon. Its ribs formed the walls, its skull the ceiling, and its spine a staircase. Two of its claws formed a giant door, and two more a drawbridge. Bones of other creatures were used to build out the inside. Unlike the dragon bones, they were dyed various colors so that the interior was actually pleasing to look at.

Even the floor tile was made of bones that had been ground up into a powder and mixed with transulent adhesives, forming a sparkling flooring.

However, rather than going anywhere inside the fortress, Ulna left immediately. Just outside the fortress was ‘The Pile', a garbage dump of bones and carcasses that any True Totem Demon could access for free supplies.

There was meant to be a tutorial questline eventually leading the player here, but it wasn't worth Ulna's time. She immediately began picking through the bones for anything that would provide her a statistical advantage.

True Totem Demons did not literally replace every single bone individually, rather they replaced groups of bones at a time. Both hands could be replaced individually, but the individual bones in the hand could not. True Totem Demons could replace the following: Two Hand Bones, Two Arm Bones, Two Leg Bones, Two Foot Bones, Shoulders (a single bones despite there being two), Spine, Ribcage, Skull, and Pelvis. That came out to a total of thirteen replacements.

Most bones Ulna found granted a stat bonus of 1 or 2. She ignored the singular stat bonus bones completely, and picked over the area for any that had a bonus of 3. After she filled up on bones, she had four bones with a total bonus of 3, and the other nine with a bonus of 2, giving her a total of 30 additional stats, 12 of which was to Reflexes, and the other 18 was split between 10 to Physique and 8 to Hardiness.

She ignored the mental statistics, as she didn't have any mana based [Skills] yet, so the only one that would be any use to her would be Stability, but she decided the other statistics were more useful. After all, now she had 1000 more health and 400 more Stamina, and she hadn't even crafted any gear yet.

True Totem Demons only started with one active combat [Skill], Palm Push. It required 100 Stamina and would push the target away in a straight line. If they were an enemy, they would also take D rank Physique damage, so 48 for Chan Si's current statistics. Unlike most physical skills, it wasn't based on weapon damage. The damage would also impact a second enemy if the first enemy struck them, though it would stop the first enemy at that location. If instead the first enemy was pushed into a wall or other obstacle that stopped their movement and it was not another enemy, they would take double damage. It was not a great damage dealer, and was mostly useful for the push effect in certain scenarios.

The other [Skill] True Totem Demons started with for combat was Trained Limbs, it improved the damage multiplier when mixing in punches and kicks without weapons. By default, punches and kicks would use E modifier Physique for damage. With the skill, the damage was improved to C, and included E modifier Reflxes and Hardiness.

This meant a single strike from Ulna would deal 127 damage.

Although it wasn't as high as could be reached with a weapon, punches and kicks had an attack speed of only one second. Of course, later she would want to craft fist weapons with better modifiers, but for now it suited her needs, being an even more effective DPS than Gearme, although the downside was she would need to fight in melee range to utilize it, meaning she would take damage, meaning she would need to utilize time and resources to heal that damage.

Although Ulna was tanky, it would still impact her, so overall the advantage was very slight, and would only grow wider as the initial advantage of all the bones in her body dropped off - she could find new, better bones of course, but with far less reliability.

In any case, since Ulna no longer needed to perform the Adventurer's Guild questline, she sat down on top of the bone pile and began carving arrows to level her fletching. Whenever she found a bone she felt was adequate for armor crafting for one of her characters, she stored it in her inventory. She would wait until her inventory was full before actually crafting the armor.

There were no [Skill] levels gained from the armor crafting from bones of True Totem Demons, the only advantage was the armor itself, which was very basic. For example, the glove armor would use two sets of hand bones, and simply provide the combined stat bonus or, if either hand provided a [Skill], that [Skill]. The actual protection provided was based only on the rarity and level of the bones, these common level 1 bones provided no protection.

Although the True Totem Demon class provided basic skills in how to use almost every melee weapon in the game, they could not make weapons from bones, only armor and accessories. This did not mean weapons could not be made from bones, however. Rather, there was an NPC at the starting location who would craft bone weapons for a True Totem Demon player, if brought the materials. This NPC would eventually offer a quest to unlock the ability for a True Totem Demon to craft their own bone weapons, but that quest was not available until level 200.

Overall, unless Chan Si had some reason to be in the starting area, she did not feel it was worth it to rely on bone weapons. It was not as though any of her characters needed weapons of any special quality regardless, except for Gearme who would be receiving the best weapon money could buy. Whatever weapon her characters had on hand for other purposes, such as Sunshine's axe for woodcutting, would be fine enough if they happened to run out of mana. This would also optimize inventory space.

As for Ulna, she could at least actually benefit from a weapon eventually, so she would throw on whatever fist weapon she found without too much worry about quality, as long as it got the job done. Fist weapons were special, they did not change the modifiers or attack speed of unarmed combat, instead they only added a flat damage bonus and potentially special effects.

Even among martial arts classes, they were not popular due to the low modifier. However, Ulna planned to use them because 1 second was a great base attack speed, one could only get better base attack speeds from daggers or weapons with special modifiers that tended to be very expensive. Since she planned for a primarily Reflexes build in her bones, she would be able to strike very rapidly, quickly finishing enemies nearing death.

In addition, although it tended to be more for ranged characters than melee characters, it meant she could take advantage of the best meta build, high attack speed with many procs.

But why not use daggers instead, since they were faster? Of course Chan Si had considered it. However, daggers were considered among the best weapons types in the game due to their high attack speed, even though they had poor damage. To everyone who wanted to optimize their DPS to the highest degree, and use melee weapons while doing so, they would turn towards daggers unless they had many powerful [Skills] which keyed off weapon damage instead of DPS.

In short, the price of daggers were inflated beyond belief, assuming they were at least Uncommon. Meanwhile, almost nobody wanted fist weapons, the price was very low. Essentially, by selling any daggers she found and purchasing fist weapons instead, Chan Si could acquire 80% of the benefit at 20% of the cost, metaphorically.

After all, her plans did not rely on her True Totem Demon as her primary DPS source, that job belonged to a combination of Gearme and Pickapart. By properly concentrating her resources between her characters, she would be able to obtain the greatest benefits, she would not make a choice simply because it gave one of her characters bigger numbers in the short term. With the leftover money, she would be able to purchase better goods to make Gearme more efficient instead, or otherwise improve her overall party farming speed.

The only time she planned to keep an expensive weapon for personal use would be when she had no better improvement she could buy after selling it, and even then she would only keep the weapon temporarily, until selling it was to her advantage.

It was a multiplayer game with a thriving economy, so of course Chan Si would abuse that factor to the greatest extent she could. If it wasn't for the travel times between the various disconnected trading hubs in the game, she would be performing arbitrage as her primary money making method. Unfortunately travel times did take a very long time, while fast travel options were limited and very expensive, and methods for players to exchange items across long distances such as a mail service simply did not exist.

Still, if she ever did discover a method to make arbitrage possible, she would endlessly abuse it, especially since she had five characters she could operate at the same time, which meant operating in five different markets simultaneously.

Ulna dutifully made the arrows and armor. She would wear one set of armor and then two more sets would be for Pickapart and Sunshine. A True Totem Demon could make all types of armor, which meant boots, gloves, head, pants, and chest.

They would not gain the ability to make bone accessories unless they picked the appropriate talent at level 40 - the alternative at that level was a talent which granted the ability to infuse one additional bone per armor slot, increasing the overall stat gain.

Most players chose the latter as only one bone could be used per accessory, so it was 5 slots with the latter option versus 4 slots with the prior option, and the latter option would even leave the accessory slots open to be filled with other options. However, Chan Si planned to pick the accessory crafting. Only one legendary bone could be used per piece of armor crafted, choosing accessory crafting was superior if she acquired many legendary bones.

Legendary bones meant killing legendary monsters, which was a difficult task to do once, let alone multiple times, but Chan Si had confidence in her team's abilities. Thus, when it came time, she would resolutely pick accessory crafting, and fill every slot of Pickapart, Sunshine, and Ulna with legendary bones.

In the meantime, Ulna needed to craft fifteen armor pieces, five of which she would wear and ten of which would sit in her inventory until the group met up, at which point Pickapart and Sunshine would wear them. For both of them, Ulna focused on Acuity as the primary statistic. For her own armor, of course she focused on Reflexes.

Headgear was the easiest, requiring only one bone, the skull. Gloves and boots were the next easiest, involving two hands or two feet, respectively. Legwear involved three bones, the pelvis and two leg bones. The chest was the most complex, using the shoulders, two arm bones, spine, and ribcage, a total of five bones. It corresponded precisely to the bones a True Totem Demon could place inside their body.

She hadn't found as many Reflex-focus bones the second time and ended up with 9 in all three physical stats. Still, it was another 900 health and 450 stamina, she was extremely powerful for a level 1 character. As for Pickapart and Sunshine's, Pickapart was given pure Acuity, which was possible due to how unpopular Acuity bones were for low level True Totem Demons; 33 Acuity, precisely. Sunshine couldn't get that much, and ended up with 24 acuity and 8 force. When the group met up, this would be their first gear sets.

This left Ulna fifteen inventory slots to fill with bone arrows. which she busied herself with inbetween finding the appropriate bones for each armor piece, and after the armor had been finished as well. When she ran out of inventory slots for the arrows she dumped them - there was nowhere to sell them nearby, as neither NPCs nor players in the fortress had any interest them - and crafted more, trying to raise her fletching as high as possible.

===

While Ulna did this, Sunshine underwent her final quest for the Adventurer's Guild. The mock fight involved using a wooden sword and shield - Sunshine had gained the ability to use sword to a basic level from Ulna, and the ability to use shields to a basic level from Pickapart, so she had extreme confidence that she would be able to pass the test.

The wooden sword would deal precisely 2 damage on a hit, unless it struck the shield, in which case it would deal 1 damage. If one chose to bash with their shield, it would deal 1 damage, though do nothing against the enemy shield. Finally, if one made a strike with hand or foot, it would deal 1 damage. Besides that, one could use any tactics that one desired, and the fight would end when either side took 20 damage.

A few players had followed Sunshine to the testing grounds for the quest, still believing she had in some way obtained a secret quest. Among those players in the stands were the ghoul and lizardfolk, observing Sunshine very closely.

The Adventurer's Guild had an assigned instructor for each location and twelve hour timeslot of the entrance exam mock fight. This NPC would always be a decent tactical fighter - because the exam restricted gear and [Skill] usage so heavily, a high level player could potentially fail this final quest if they did not have the basics of combat tactics instilled. Meanwhile, Sunshine was far from the first level 1 player to do this quest, many players simply had the appropriate talent from real life.

The instructor in this fight was a bored looking male elf named [Zenvere]. He looked more like a scholar that someone had stuffed into leather armor, than a fighter, due to how spindly his limbs were, and his unkempt, slightly greasy brown hair.

He got into something vaguely resembling a fighting stance and called out in a nasally voice, “Begin.”

All instructors at all locations and times were considered equivalent in ability, so Sunshine did not look down on him despite his appearance. She approached and made a probing strike, and Zenvere batted it away with his own sword without so much as moving from his spot.

He said, “Please take this seriously, I'm very bored."

Sunshine would not fall for such a simple taunt, and used her knowledge of martial arts gained from Ulna to attempt to trip Zenvere from behind. Instead of dodging, he stood his ground and lashed out with a strike against Sunshine, which she blocked with her shield, taking 1 damage. However, she managed to trip him in return and wanted to strike as he fell, but he turned his fall into a lunge, which she was forced to block again.

Then she struck out with her shield, smacking him across the face and quickly lashing out with two sword strikes to the leg when he attempted to recover, putting her a fourth of her way to victory.

“So you do know what you're doing," he said, his lips curling up.

He sped up his movement, feinting a strike to Sunshine's front while attempting to hit her from the side. She read this and ducked, obtaining a cut on his arm as it sailed over her. He kneed her in the face, but she caught his leg and threw him on his back, stomped on both his hands so he couldn't move them, and repeatedly plunged her wooden sword onto him over and over until she won.

It was a brutally unfair tactic, not something one would be able to do in normal combat within GTO, but her only requirement was to win within the rules, so she had chosen to done so as quickly as possible as soon as she saw the opportunity.

To the players who were watching, it was a fairly straightforward fight right up until the moment Sunshine transformed into a murderous war goddess who seemed to be trying to kill the instructor despite it being a mock fight.

“You've got skills," said Zenvere. “You pass.”

Sunshine walked off his arms. Finishing the quest had given her 3000 experience, putting her to level 2. Dual Elemental Masters didn't receive any new [Skills] at level 2, but she still welcomed the additional statistics. Plus, each level would increase the damage of her Fire Burst [Skill] by 50, and more importantly the healing of her Gentle Light by 20. She would gain other healing effects eventually, but until she did, Gentle Light was the most important [Skill] in her party.

With the quest out of the way, Sunshine officially had nothing else to accomplish in the elven starting area. Her next goal was to begin making her way to where the entire party would meet; it was the furthest distance away for Sunshine, so she needed to get a head start.

Before she left however, she stopped by the logging area and purchased as many discounted logs as she could afford with her current money.

She had two gold and twenty three silver, so she could purchase one hundred and eleven of the lowest quality logs, at two silver each. They would sell on the elven market for two silver and twenty copper each, but she did not plan to sell them on the elven market. Instead, she would carry them with her to the place where her group would meet and sell them on that market, where they would reach three silver each instead, an income gain of 50%.

The only possible reason it could be a bad idea to do so was if she expected to die along the way, but she had mapped out her route perfectly to avoid any potentially dangerous areas, the only risk was if she encountered other players who for some reason wanted to kill her, which she felt was very unlikely.

As she left the area of the elven city, the ghoul and lizardfolk observed her from afar, then followed.