Deep in the depths of hell one would not expect to find devilish looking entities being forced into hard labor, however this is exactly the truth of Listonia's version of the afterlife. For the devils of Listonia the hierarchy was everything and only the highest level and strongest of devils would be able to enjoy an easygoing and luxurious lifestyle. The lesser devils and other demons were the ones who would be forced to do the menial tasks since they were the lowest on the social hierarchy.

Toiling away in the caverns of the afterlife were a number of ethereal looking souls as well as demons and amongst all of these entities was a single one with a player name above his head.

I should finally be able to get back to the mortal world today...

Gii had already been aware of how the afterlife in Hell operated based on his experience in his previous life and had planned accordingly. In order for a player to revive in the mortal world they would need to "contribute" to their faction, at least that would be true for the Heaven and Hell version of the afterlife. The meaning of "contribute" in this case would be to help perform menial tasks in which they would be rewarded with a little bit of soul energy. These were the most annoying and tedious types of quests to do as they were simply repeatable "gather this many of x" or "please deliver X of this to X location". Players would not have been considered to have "contributed" enough to be revived until they restored all of their soul energy.

Normally if you could be rewarded some XP for these tasks players could most likely bear it, but their only reward was to be revived with a 50% experience penalty. These kind of harsh penalties made the player base upset early on in the game and many people complained for a long time saying that it was unfair and terrible game design. Eventually players found out that there were more rewarding quests to be had in the afterlife. The only caveat was that you had to build up your reputation there which would require dying many times and doing those exact repeateable quests enough. In addition. the only way to truly capitalize would be to have the strength to complete those quests, which was something reserved for the higher tiers of play.

Gii had used a special route as it would normally take players at least 2-3 trips to build up the reputation with the NPC's.

Unfortunately all of the good quests for the afterlife basically require the strength of tier 3...

Gii lamented his current lack of strength but knew that from this point onward he would be able to start steadily building it up. He was sure he had now spent the better part of 2 in-game days toiling away at these tedious quests, but he had finally restored all of his soul energy. After he had turned in the last of these quests he began to make his way back to the hall of souls so he could finally return to the Mortal World. As he was making his way towards his destination he was notified of a private chat message. He opened the chat and could see that it was from his friend Ralph.

[OldManRalph: Who is the greatest merchant in all the land?]

[Gii: are you trying to claim that spot?]

[OldManRalph: I HAVE claimed that spot! Who else could get such a vast amount of resources in such a short amount of time!?]

[Gii: Wait for real!? talk about perfect timing!]

[OldManRalph: You're telling me? I just saw a post on the Forum today about this. The prices for what I was buying skyrocketed!]

[Gii: Really? I haven't been paying much attention to the forums recently]

[OldManRalph: Woe is me, forgotten about until my dear friend remembers my wallet]

[Gii: it's called trust in your partner!]

[Gii: Anyway, i'm about to revive from the afterlife so I can meet you at any Gate outside the major cities]

[OldManRalph: Sounds good to me, I can finally get a return on my investment!]

[Gii: Alright, i'll send you a message on where to meet up. It's pretty late for me so i'll probably go do all the trading for the scrolls tomorrow morning]

[OldManRalph: As long as i get my due!]

Gii and Ralph chatted idly for a few more minutes before Gii had finally made his way to the Hall of Souls to turn in the quest he was finishing up. As he completed the quest from the NPC there was a flash of light and a notification popped up in front of him.

Your Soul Energy has completely recovered to 100%, would you like to revive to the mortal world?

> >

with a sigh of relief he clicked on the yes button and was teleported away. Just like when he has transported via a Gate he was enveloped in light that blocked his vision and as his vision slowly returned to his eyes, the world space filled in around him with detail. The depiction around him was that of a gloomy cemetery and based on the black dirt and lack of any greenery around him, Gii was able to quickly determine where he was located.

This looks like it is most likely the graveyard outside of Bakaria. It makes sense as it was definitely the closest to where I died.

When players came back from the afterlife they did not revive at their last saved Gate location but instead at the closest graveyard or cemetary to where they died. As these locations were usually far and few between and not very convenient, it showcased another reason why Gii had decided to go around and register as many of the Gates as he could. He quickly sprinted off to the closest Gate location to him that he remembered so that he could go meet up with his friend Ralph.

***

The Tipsy Troll was the name of a small pub in a small village of the Duchy of Astrub. Not many players passed through here and the NPC's did not have any truly rewarding quests, so it was the perfect spot to keep a low profile away from prying eyes. Although they didn't get too many clientele, there were currently 2 adventurers who had wandered in and were sitting comfortably eating lunch in the back of the pub. The barkeep did not pay them any mind because they had paid him well and he knew that meant not sticking his nose into trouble.

Gii and Ralph were giddy at the prospect of finally cashing in on their big investment and had decided on this place as the meetup location so as to avoid drawing any unwanted attention, not that they knew of any other players that were keeping an eye on them yet. There really was not too much of a need for this much cloak and dagger, but it was never too much to be a little cautious. Gii opened up the exchange window and threw in all of the scrolls that Ralph had been promised. Ralph eyed the scrolls with an intense look and sighed as he accepted the trade.

"If I didn't need these for myself, how much could I get for them on the open market?"

"Don't even joke, i'm sure you could make a fortune. there is definitely some whale player who would come along to buy you out"

"It's just a shame I wouldn't be able to convert everything to real cash."

"Who knows? maybe they can implement that in the future?"

"I can only hope!"

Gii watched as Ralph downed his drink and smirked to himself. Although it would take a long time, one of the reasons the game blew up in it's second year is because Origin Entertainment had introduced a "Premium Currency" that allowed players to convert in-game wealth to real wealth and visa-versa. One of the other reasons he was so keen on establishing himself early was definitely for this reason, as who wouldn't take the opportunity to earn money if they knew they could take advantage of it?

Gii refocused himself on the scrolls in his inventory and then took out a small potion that had been in his inventory since he started. This was an account locked potion known as a Respec potion and it allowed a player to drink it to reset all of their stats and skill points. Players right now didn't realize how incredibly difficult it would be to reset their information in the future and so most people had used this after experimenting with different builds. Although that wasn't a bad use for the potion in this time when the game had yet to establish the best build for each type of playstyle, Gii felt it was really too much of a waste. He quickly drank the potion to reset his points and then began going through and activating all of the scrolls in his inventory.

"Not wasting any time are ya? HAHA!"

Ralph laughed as he quickly followed suit and drank his potion and began using his scrolls. After a few minutes of notifications ringing in both of their ears they both had satisfied smiles on the faces. Gii dumped all of his characteristic points he had gained from leveling up into his vitality and then opened up his character menu.

Character Name: Gii

Level: 8

Race: Demon (Humanoid form)

Class: Berserker of Reckoning

Title: Courier

Health Points(HP): 1450

Skill Points(SP): 8

Characteristic Points:0

Experience: 4%

Karma: -3100

Soul Energy: 100%

Vitality: 141

Agility: 101

Chance: 101

Strength: 101

Intelligence: 101

Wisdom: 101

Gii smiled in satisfaction at the stats he now had as it would definitely allow him to gain advantage over most of the other players. The last thing he needed to do was decide on the distribution for his current skill points. Although he also knew of ways that he could gain additional skill points without leveling, they required someone with master level professions to craft high tiered items. This option would be off the table until he could find someone that had that level crafting ability. Since you only get a single skill point every level it made the decision on where to spend them quite difficult, especially at a time like now in the beginning of the game where there was no way to reset if you messed up.

Skills had tiers to them just like classes, although they did not have level requirements like class tiers, they would cost more skill points the higher level you were. For example, levelling up a tier 1 skill to tier 2 would require 1 skill point but to go from 2 to 3 would require 2 skill points. Skills could be levelled up to tier 5 and was one of the reasons that players always felt there was a tier 5 version of a class even though no one had ever reached it.

As Gii had already made up his mind on where he would be dumping his skill points, he spent 6 points to level up his > skill to tier 3. This skill did not do any damage but instead allowed him to create a whip of his own blood to wrap around an enemy and pull them closer to him within a certain range.

I don't have any ranged attacks right now so i will have to focus on getting enemies into close combat

Gii knew that he would be leveling at a very quick pace in the beginning here once he really started to grind it out but his major weakness for this class right now was to find an enemy that would out range him and then kite him to death without him having the ability to fight back at all. The blood whip skill would be important in these early levels to prevent that possibility. As he was thinking of this information he suddenly remembered the perfect enemy to test out his newfound strength on.

"Hey Ralph, do you want to go on a hunt with me?"