Chapter 11

Clemente’s Demise

9Clemente was the ruler of the NBI, the force that maintained and defended the people against the vicious monsters that roams the land. 29Before the time of the great war that started the founding of the great empires and kingdoms, he ruled over the Northern Lands with the undying faith of its few people.

1-2-14-15-21Never doubting his ability, said to have been a gift from the Ancient Terrans, he vanquished the monsters swift and easy. 20He dominated them, inspiring the followers that made up the core of the first organization created to be the protector of the land.

11The NBI was their wall, the people’s arm against the ravaging threat monsters.

8But then came the rumors that sprouted on his back. The mindless drones. They distributed the false news that jested his rule. 2His very kind heart, quipped.

11-16Rumors of his greed for power, his endless pursuit for immortality, his experiments on monster descents, his said forced taking of a woman with matchless beauty… 4rumors of sorts even sprouted about his struggle with one certain village.

1-11-14None of it has ever been proven true and so came his life’s end, with the tears and fears of the people he left...

As Siva read through the preface, his mind worked of a few circumstances that there might be some grounds about the rumors of a treasure map. But then, the reviews were right, there is no treasure map in the novel Clemente‘s Demise.

The novel talked about the life history and finally the death of Clemente Celestine, the greatest leader of NBI.

Its only purpose was to kill monsters, protect its people, and until its disbandment in the 300th year since its foundation, it never once deviated on its only goal.

Records in the Book of Legends about its long reign as the protector of the people before the founding of the Empire of Tiara, now the North Dominion, occupying most of the Northern Continent, was present on every paper. In the North, the name Clemente Celestine was the symbol of power that even the current emperor, Seth Guidonia Celestine XXXIX, had always bragged.

At this, as Siva pushed on in his curiosity about this person’s history, he landed on a conclusion that this Clemente Celestine was a clean man with a lot of very bad rumors.

As he was reading the article about Clemente; [The rumored people involved with him], Siva had noted a few names that was said to have been involved about his rumors.

Stan, the Founder of the NBI. He vanished during a mission along with his 12 closest subordinates and was believed to have died. But rumors of his ghost returning came and it affected Clemente’s reign and his health.

Vista, a man shrouded in mystery. Though this man was identified as a farmer and commoner from some far off village, his real connection to Clemente is unknown.

Monet, the rumored woman with a matchless beauty.

She was said to be the reason why the great leader of the NBI had rumored to pursue immortality. None of it was ever proven and all these people, including Monet, do not have any part in the making of the History of Terroa as it is now. In short, these people are just some product of the fables fabricated by old people from the stories they once heard from their ancestors.

As he had been reading and investigating all these time, Siva did not realize that he had piled on books, data windows, and reading materials one after another, stacked side by side on his table.

He checked the time and gasped in surprise. He has been reading for the past 14 hours and he did not even realize how it went fast.

In Terroa, hunger is just one part of the essential daily activities of a user. Aside from the need to take a bath, use the CR, and actually do what adults do, there are many other things that this game included from a human’s daily lives. True to its core of 90% reality, the hunger he was feeling had been affecting his stats to drop dramatically.

—No. That was wrong.

To put it more accurately, he’s been enduring his hunger and was actually starting to feel dizzy.

Stats like strength, endurance, agility, stability, and the likes that is commonly seen in olden games doesn’t actually affect much in a user’s game experience inside Terroa.

In simple terms, inside this game, feeling hungry is just like in real life, it can make you weak, depending on your surroundings and especially on your situation.

So him, feeling dizzy after such a long while was all natural since he hadn’t done anything except read and read. For that matter, he swiped down his finger and summoned his inventory window. Checking his money, his current status, and his sets of skills, Siva sighed and realized that he was just no different from a poor guy.

Initial Money: 200 Zentra

No equipments.

No Skills.

Nothing.

He was just a plain beginner. In any MMORPG, being a beginner is the worst and hardest part of playing a game. But still, it was a stage everyone has to go by in order to get strong. But with all of these things in his head right now, Siva’s thoughts were actually on the way side. He did not came here to be strong or establish a name, he came here for the job.

And so he closed his book and all open information windows. He returned all the materials he had pulled out and went outside.

Once outside, he went directly towards the nearest food house he remembered he had passed by and there, his eyes bulged out on the prices of food.

Bread: 30 Zentra

Cheap Meal: 75 Zentra

Satiating Meal: 150 Zentra

Full Course: 300 Zentra

…and there are still a few more with high ranging prices. He couldn’t afford it, of course, still, the price of the bread was just too much for him. But he had no choice and so he bought it. He made his way towards the fountain and watched the people pass by as he sat down on the bench.

He bought two breads, ate it slowly, and used his hands to cup water from the fountain and drink.

As he felt his hunger pass, though still a bit hungry, he continued to stare at the players ignoring him. Their armors were different and colorful, their weapons are all different, unique, and are all according to their own designs and preferred functions.

This is one of the best feats of Terroa, players have the freedom to design their own equipments. Just like inventing the equipments, it needed a few numbers of materials and items to be created but when it is done, a pure sense of satisfaction is always felt in the end.

Weapons with unique shapes, armors with unique style and color, robes sewn in great details, these are all just a few of the products of the players themselves.

In the square near his location, the traders of such goods were all alive and funky, shouting and promoting the products and some are even calling out customized orders.

Of course, there are no crafting jobs in Terroa, but it doesn’t mean that players are limited to that.

Weapons and equipments are made through the NPC shops selling pre-made, or offers customization services to the players. These shops have CAD Design, forging, assembly line, and the embedding center. Everything that has to do with creating an equipment was available to the NPC shops. And though players doesn’t have the jobs capable of such feats, there are still those already existing designs that other users want. For a price, they can buy these said products and it saves them the time and effort to actually gather their own materials.

As Siva thought of this, he continued to watch and actually praise the business minded people who thought of such scheme. It was an honest business, yet, there is still the chance that some might abuse its demand.

Siva then dragged his eyes towards a set of players also grouped near the fountain.

“I‘m a Sword Mage! Let‘s Party.”

“Hunter here! Looking for party members!”

“I‘m a pure Ranger, please let‘s party!”

Players looking for teammates were shouting their agenda. It was a noisy crowd and he watched it with a set of marveling eyes. For him, this sight is something of a thought binder. In this game, it was understandable that you cannot hunt alone, considering that you are a conservative player. But with all these players gathered here to attract partners, Siva could only look at them with envious eyes.

Because even if Augustus doesn’t have his eyes on him when he’s inside the game, Siva himself knew that he cannot trust anyone inside else.

His sole purpose for entering this game was to get the H-class secrets. If he had partners on getting one, for sure, envy and greed would always be present and a fight for the ownership of the secret can‘t be avoided. He can’t risk it. Or rather, he’s too afraid now to trust.

Steeling his resolve, Siva stood up and started to make his pace. Later on, he found himself in front of the city’s entrance gates and from here, players just like in those in the square were also gathered.

Opening his stat window, he saw the unused 100 points that he had been given upon entering the game.

Basic stats are strength, agility, charm, intelligence, manna, stamina, dexterity, and vitality. It was showed in an octagonal rendering with the stats that is a counter to one another facing each other.

And at that, he thought of the right build to go on with his avatar.

Even though there are no actual jobs in Terroa, the players are still obliged to build their avatars the right way. Players who planned to become swordsmen at the start of their careers tend to build their characters over STR and AGI. Mages, the most common jobs, tend to distribute their stat points mostly to INT and MNA. An archer then distributes their stats mostly to DEX, VIT, or AGI, depending on the type of archer they wanted to be.

There are no actual division between archers but the difference on their builds sometimes determines the type of playing style they are using. And this helps to be able to find a good hunting party to join.

But then there are those seemingly useless stats like CHR, STA, and the one on the center of the octagonal circle, the SPIRIT stat.

Only few are aware of this fact but the SPR stat are also a stat that can be given stat points.

And by this, since Siva wasn’t going to be either one of the already available classes of players, he thought of a nice way to be able to play a different game style. And for this reason, he chose to be someone from the Apollo Race.

He gave all 100 stat points to SPR.

Then, from that moment, his stat window changed.

Strength became Power, Agility to Speed, Stamina to Endurance, Dexterity turned to Constitution, Charm went to Charisma, Manna to Energy, Intelligence had became Wisdom, and Vitality became Durability. Siva himself was surprised.

“It really worked…”

As he read the change on his status window, the numbers in there did not change. Actually, there are no more visible changes except for their names becoming somewhat their advanced form.

For every user, each stat was given a base number of 100 points at the start of their game, except for the SPR stat which is 0. Adding all the Race’s bonus attributes, that then is considered the normal status. And starting from there, build and focus begins to take place, allowing the so called “class” as to what the player wanted himself to be inside the game.

Considering that, there has never been a 100% user in every stat. It is because, as been said before, Terroa is a world where death has a high price. And mistakes in building an avatar’s stats wasn’t cheap.

And considering that in itself, there has never any user who put all of his free 100 points to the SPR stat.

But for Siva, there was a simple yet profound reason for his action. His job was to find secrets, and his avatar itself is going to be one of the products he had to present as a secret itself.

His plans for the future is not yet set on stone and so this will be a strong foundation to whatever would come his way. As for reason, in many games, actually, almost every game, swordsmen, archers, and healers are the most selected classes by the players. It is because these classes have all been tested and tried and so their secrets, no matter what game, whether it’s VRMMO or the old MMORPG on the Dream Rift Console, have been proven. It is just up to the players to vary his/her preferential sets of skills, especially in Terroa since the users have the freedom to do so.

Depending on the player’s build and discretion, the swordsmen, the archers, and even the healers, can be equipt with any sets of skills. There are even cases that a healer can deal extreme damage by wielding a bow.

That said, something of a hidden class, just like what he was trying to do here, is not a proven game style. He knew, there are others like him who had risked adding a few notches to improve their normal human mode just to explore hidden chances. But as it was said, the risk is just too great, they can’t afford it if they die.

So the last remaining choice is through what was in Siva’s mind right now. If these people were to actually survive this world with just their normal stats, with no improvements, not adding up anything except for their race’s default bonus, they would have to rely heavily on trial and error. But for Siva, there was something else.

There was another reason why he was bold enough to put 100% of his bonus stats on the SPR stat.

From the moment he had taken in the change, he raised his head and stretched his hand. He was just a few centimeters away from the very edge of the city’s gates. For one, he was checking if his settings worked.

When he felt no invisible force field stopping him, he took a full step outside the gates and headed straight for the woods, 600 meters away.