Andius didn’t seem to get the effects of the dreamer skill when he was in the respawn room, so when the sound of a gong going off resonated throughout the room, he bolted to his feet in a panic! The room was relatively unchanged save for the swirling portal off to the side. “Guess it’s time to go back, huh? I’m going to end up back in the forest again, aren’t I?…” With a sigh, he stepped through the portal.

Pain was the first sensation that hit him, like he had molten lava coursing through his body! He had indeed spawned back in his original spawn point, but that didn’t explain the excruciating sensation coursing through his body! He fell to the ground and clutched as his chest, looking around for whatever might be the source of the damage he was taking, but he couldn’t find anything!

Notifications were blinking like crazy in the corner of his vision, maybe that had the answers to this situation? It was hard for Andius to focus with all of this pain, but he managed to focus long enough to open his notification window, and what he saw made his eyes bulge.

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Dagger level: 8

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Light armor Level: 5

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Stealth Level: 6

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Dodge Level: 6

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Congratulations! You have unlocked your first mana cha-… ERROR… Calculating…. ERROR, all mana channels opened simultaneously, unable to calculate mana. Player character unable to sustain life.

——————

Andius’ eyes went wide with fear and panic, did it say his body was unable to sustain life?! Screw this! He pulled up his menu and selected log out, but was only met with a message stating he was unable to log out while taking damage! “W-what the fuck? This is inhumane! This game i- urg! It’s torturing me, Admins!” there was no response save for the silence of the forest… wait, the forest wasn’t usually silent, why?… The mana, it was already starting to crack his skin like old stone, and was leaking out in a few places.

Andius shakily rose to his feet, every movement was agony and felt like it was going to cause him to burst open, but what could he do? He couldn’t just stay here and wait to die over and over, he had to find someone who could help him! With hope in his eyes, he started slowly walking towards where he had found that man with the Gnolls, hoping he might know someone who could help him!

——————

Magic Resistance Level: 1

Any good mage knows to build this skill up. While normal warriors and peasants would be turns to ash from the effects of magic, you stand in defiance against the natural weapons of the world. Masters of this skill can catch another mages attack with their bare hands, only to throw it right back! A lot of good this skill is going to do for you, though.

X(1)% reduced damage where X is the level of this skill.

——————

What was with that snarky message? He wasn’t sure, but he realized that if he kept leveling this skill up, he would be able to survive longer and longer! If he got it to level 100, that would mean he was immune to magic damage, right? But that barely accounted for anything right now, and already he was starting to see spots of light in his vision. The pain was indescribable as made his slow pace back down the trail, but he only got a few more steps before his body started to just melt away. It seemed that the mana had just burnt his nerves, because he couldn’t feel the pain anymore, just the feeling of loss as his body simply started to evaporate. “H-how… How many times… am I going to have to do this?”

Within a few seconds, he was back in his respawn space, having lost another 10% of his accumulated experience. He immediately rolled over onto his back and joyously gasped in a few long breaths, mind still reeling from the second death in a row. “What am I supposed to do? It feels like there is absolutely no way for me to fix this! This is unfair, Admins please!” A notification popped into his screen, and he eagerly read it.

Complaint noted and sent to the appropriate entities. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Inconvenience? The game is torturing him! He had better get some pretty intense payout if they didn’t want him to sue! The phrasing of that message was weird too. It said entities instead of admins, “This game has some serious commitment to role-play or something he said with a grumble. He opened his menus and found he could connect to the web from his respawn room, so he pulled up his web browser and searched for any news of the game.

There were forum posts and videos going around like crazy about this game, apparently some people found a record function and were posting their videos on all the streaming sites. Apparently that guy who found that crazy sword had set a town on fire in a fight, and was being held prisoner at… “Well would you look at that, Woodsdale. Funny to think this would be the first player I ran into, wonder how big the world really is?”

Time flew while he was looking through the various topics. Apparently no one had thought to level skills like jumping, running, or climbing, so maybe he would be one of the first! There were a plethora of build guides out already, but that was useless information. As far as Andius could tell, the game generated skills for you as you used them, so it would be impossible to min-max unless you knew exactly how to get some skills.

He heard the gong and shuddered, he knew he had to go back, he could already feel the portal pulling him in. “Please let it be fix, please let it be fixed!”

It wasn’t.

*******

Andius had lost track of how many times he had died, but luckily it had resulted in two things. First, his Magic resistance had reached a whopping level 24! That was almost 25% reduced damage from magic! The other was a whole new skill, one that had made traveling with this crippling affliction more possible.

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Pain resistance Level 13

Pain is a constant in life, whether you’re a warrior on the battlefield, or you just had some bad lunch, everyone knows pain. Luckily with this skill, pain doesn’t bother you as much! Masters of this skill Wont even flinch as an arrow shoots them in the knee! Dying is really good for leveling this skill, do that more!

Ignore X(13)+Y(7)% of pain you feel, where X is the level of this skill, and Y is half your constitution, rounded up.

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It wasn’t that he felt less, it was more that he just didn’t mind the pain quite as much. Sure it was still agony, but now instead of lava in his veins, it felt like acid. Still awful, but an improvement! He was looking over his new skill gains with a frown. For some reason the trauma of his deaths faded away within a few minutes, and even now he wasn’t bothered by the fact he keeps turning to ash. In fact he was even happy about the skill gains, despite being bled of almost all of his experience by now.

The gong sounded again, and he walked through the swirling portal with a sigh, “Pain, I’ve been expecting you.” At least this experience hadn’t stolen his sarcasm. Once again pain surged through his body, and he struggled to remain standing for a few moments as he adjusted to it. All around him were charred outlines of where he had been sent to respawn, his corpse always dissolving away thanks to the magic in his body, which didn’t seem to lessen no matter how many times he had died.

He heard voices nearby, speaking in English… actually it sounded more than that, way too familiar.

“Come on bro, boss said to find it, and I swear I saw that light come from over here!” There was a group of groans from the group and another voice spoke up, sounding irritated.

“Enough already,” came the grouchy reply, “there was no pillar of light, there was no splitting of clouds. Probably just a trick of the light or something.” These accents sounded… kind of like the people around his own city.

Andius had finally found people, and he shouted as loudly as he could, “H-hey! Over here!” The sounds of the footsteps stopped and he heard a few mumbled whispers, before he heard their footsteps coming closer. A short guy with black hair and glasses stepped out of the bushes near the trail, right next to where one of the scorch marks were, and screamed out.

Another walked out and looked at it, a frown forming on his face. This person looked a lot like the first, but his hair was a lot longer, coming down to about the mid of his back, and his eyes held the look of a killer. “You,” The man called out, his voice deep and demanding, “Explain what happened here!”

Andius blinked a few times, and if he wasn’t on the fast track to becoming abstract art again, he would have ran from this group immediately. “U-uh, I keep getting sent to respawn! I’m caught in a bug or something.” He explained, trying to keep his answer as vague as possible.

The man’s eyes went wide for a second, then a grin spread across his face. “You’re a player?” He asked, he almost sounded happy.

“U-uh… yeah?” Came Andius’ reply, which was met by a whistle form the man, and two more people stepped out of the forest to this clearing. Andius was super confused, and looked to all of their matching leather armor, painted black with a red knife emblem at the shoulder. “O-oh fuck, you’re-”

“The blood blades, that’s right.” Came the mans reply, his grin getting almost manic. “Alright boys, hold him down! See if he has anything interesting to tell us.” His eyes scanned each one of the body shaped burns on the ground like they were a gold mine, and Andius knew this wouldn’t end well for him.

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Magic Resistance Level: 25

Any good mage knows to build this skill up. While normal warriors and peasants would be turns to ash from the effects of magic, you stand in defiance against the natural weapons of the world. Masters of this skill can catch another mages attack with their bare hands, only to throw it right back! A lot of good this skill is going to do for you, though.

X(25)% reduced magic damage where X is the level of this skill.

Skill Advancement: Thanks to reaching level 25 in this skill, it gains an additional effect!

Absorb and redirect 10% of magic damage received.

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Oh, that was per- a beam of energy immediately shot from his hand, a thin stream of raw magical power that was already burning a hole in the earth in front of him. The men who had been moving towards him stopped, looking shocked.

“He knows magic!” One shouted, and the leader immediately shot forward and ended up behind Andius, holding his hand in the air and whispering, “Now, that’s just rude. You’re going to hurt some nice folks you keep going on like that. Shock.”

A jolt of energy shocked Andius, making him scream and spasm as the energy coursed through him. It was awful, and he could only imagine what it would have been like without his skills. Electricity joined the stream of energy, blasting into the air with cracks and pops, “S-s-stop!” he shouted, but the man didn’t listen, instead forcing Andius to his knees.

“Strip him and take his gear away, after that cut his throat, he’s got some weird skill.” The leader ordered, and the men did as he said, Andius watching on in horror as his only possessions were taken away from him! They weren’t able to take his right vambrace, since doing so would mean getting hit by the magic he was shooting.

Once he was stripped down to his clothes, cracks were already starting to show in his skin and bright light was seeping through, the others were being cautious about being too close. The leader smashed his foot down on Andius, and he heard the trademark snapping of bones as the pain washed over him. It hurt, but he gritted his teeth and tried not to scream, getting mixed results. The long haired man kicked Andius in the back after that, making him tall on his face. “Cut his throat and be done with it. Brandon, come on man, first kill!”

All the others backed away, not trusting the situation in the slightest, and they were wise to do so. When Brandon, a larger set guy with balding hair, walked up with his sword, Andius gave him one last lone look. “Touch me with that blade, and I guarantee you’ll regret it.”

Brandon took no heed of the warning, and raised his blade, plunging it through Andius’ back. Immediately there was a bright flash of light as the blow ended Andius’ life, an explosion the size of a small building took in the entire area, wiping out Brandon and one of the others.

Andius appeared in his respawn room, looking irritated and a bit haunted by his most recent death, but he watched the replay anyways. What was wrong with these people? Why would anyone enjoy making someone suffer like that? He looked down at his spectral form and frowned when he found that all of his gear was indeed gone. Well, at least they didn’t get it, the blast probably turned it to embers. “Well. I guess I know what I’m doing when I solve this issue.” With that, Andius waited for his respawn timer for what felt like the hundredth time.