Jacob accessed his status screen to review his options while he waited for Kronos to show up. While examining the screen he rearranged the order information was displayed.

Character Screen: Veralic (Pythag3)

Level: Contractor 1 /Experience(EXP): 0

Race: Half-Devil

Origin: Dark

Combat Information:

Health Points (HP) – 180/180

Health Regen (HR) – 10/minute

Mana Points (MP) – 160/160

Mana Regen (MR) – 31/minute

Stamina (STA) – 200/200

Stamina Regen (SR) – 20

Base Stats:

Strength (STR) – 10

Knowledge (KNO) – 11 (+1/Level)

Endurance (END) – 10

Spirit (SPI) – 10

Agility (AGI) – 10

Social (SOC) – 11 (+1/Level)

Resource Stats:

Potential Points (PP) – 23

Fate – 10 (+1/Level)

Marks

52

He closed the window after seeing his marks total and recalled that he still had no weapon. He checked the in-game clock and saw that he had a few more minutes before Kronos would arrive. He hopped off his perch by the fountain and dashed past the early morning players to the nearby market district.

He got lost for a minute before he found a weapon store that carried a quarterstaff to his liking. He practiced a few striking motions that Kronos had taught him. His hand slid smoothly along the wooden staff as he snapped one iron tipped end out in a jab strike. Satisfied with the feel of the weapon, he paid the merchant 9 marks and stepped out into the market.

Here the activity was picking up as players were logging in to pick up supplies for their adventures that day. Jacob wandered through the streets venturing closer to the plaza while he checked out the offerings in the various storefronts. He was startled from his exploration by a beeping notification.

“Hey I’m here. Where are you?” messaged Kronos.

Jacob dashed back towards the plaza as he messaged back. “Was picking up my weapon from the merchants. Send an invite so I can find you faster.”

Another notification sounded off that asked Jacob if he wanted to join Kronos’ party. Jacob accepted and received an arrow overlay in his vision directing him towards Kronos’ position. A few moments later, Jacob dashed past another player coming into view of Kronos who waved in greeting.

Jacob dashed one last time coming to a halt as his stamina zeroed out on him. He laughed as he was forced to walk the rest of the way to Kronos. The crimson bald demon player joined in the laugh and asked, “Liking your dash ability?”

Jacob smiled in joy and said, “Yup! I’ve gotten over the blur motion by choosing one focal point. I’m loving the rush of bobbing in place and suddenly bursting in any given direction!”

“I bet…” Replied Kronos whose face turned into a frown. “Did you not do any quests? Your level is still 1…”

Jacob waved off the concern and said, “Yeah, I was beat after training with you last night and crashed as soon as I logged. But that’s ok as I did some research this morning about my abilities. From what I’ve gathered I’ll want to delay leveling for as long as possible, at least at the start.”

Kronos’ frown returned. “What? How are you going to survive the Purification and earn bonuses then?”

Jacob smiled. “I won’t earn bonuses because I’ll be hiding in the back lines.”

Concern flooded Kronos face. “Hey, I’m cocky and I believe my guild will be able to hold off the Light this time… But you have to face the reality that they’re likely to break through.”

“And if they do break through then what happens?” asked Jacob with curiosity in his eyes.

“Well any number of events really. The most popular option right now is for major guild to conquer the starting towns like this one and force a new game plus for everyone. Basically, a reset to level 1 where they get bonus abilities while we would get bonus experience growth for the week following the reset.” Explained Kronos.

Jacob interrupted, “Then there would be a surge of players going through the tutorial and early level instance, right?”

Kronos nodded throwing Jacob a suspicious look and said, “Yes, there’s always a surge of early level instances at the end of each cycle. But aren’t you concerned about the lost experience since a forced reset will leave you without the bonus experience growth due to your ability?”

Jacob shook his head. “No, any reset will be to my advantage if my understanding is correct. Now you said the most popular option is the reset one. That implies other options.”

Kronos grinned. “Yeah, there’s another option that a few major guilds attempted at the start. They still conquer starting towns, but instead of forcing a reset they use the portals in the plaza. Once the town is seized they are able to open gateways that release god-tiered raid bosses. When the game was first released, all of the max leveled guilds attempted to take down god-tiered bosses.”

Kronos shook his head with mirth. “Man were they in for a surprise when the bosses tore into their ranks. Many of the guilds had instant wipes and had to pop their Fate to revive. Even then they were barely able to scratch the bosses. To top all of this off, they were fighting them with the boost that placed them at an instance boss level. Most gave up and retreated to other towns to reset as they lacked the stats and abilities to take on these god-tiered raid bosses. The light origin guild Entropy was the only one that managed to take down one of them. They had to burn most of their Fate in that fight to win though.”

Jacob held up a hand to stop Kronos. “Wait. I thought the revive option through Fate had a one-hour cooldown.”

Kronos nodded. “It does, but during a Purification or Apocalypse that cooldown is reduced to 5 minutes for the attackers and 2 minutes for the defenders.”

“Ah,” said Jacob. “Is that why you were so concerned about your Fate during the tutorial instance?”

“Uh-huh. I was actually down to 4 Fate from my guild pushing through to the starting towns in the last Apocalypse.” Confirmed Kronos. “But it was worth it for the extra abilities and bonus per level in my strength.”

“Is the new game option the normal way to get the extra bonus stats per level outside of character creation?” asked Jacob.

“Yup,” responded Kronos before pursing his lips together in thought. “At least that’s the only way that I know. Anyway, what was it you wanted to talk about?”

“PP.” explained Jacob. “I know about the fruits and how you can get them by running instances and taking down bosses. But I need another way of earning them. A lot of them.”

Kronos shrugged. “That’s easy. Do what that light origin player in the tutorial did and queue up as an instance boss. Select your benefits and which rewards you’re aiming for. If you want to maximize then select only PP as your reward. You won’t get any experience or marks though. If you really want to min-max, then you should only select one benefit such as the boss boost to double your stats. Though that does mean you won’t be able to farm Fate like he did while min-maxing.”

Jacob pulled up the menu options to check out the instance queue features that Kronos mentioned. He went through each option and selected the PP related ones while he removed everything else. When he finished he saw a warning of a high difficulty level with a cost of 5 P.P. to queue. “Queueing costs resources?!” exclaimed Jacob.

“Oh yeah, that’s to keep people from spamming and throwing fights. The cost goes up the higher your level, but so do the rewards.” Explained Kronos.

Jacob exited the screen and pulled up his Dealmaker skill. He laid out some parchment with his gems used for contracts and said, “I want to front load this fight in my favor as much as possible. Will you help me out by letting me manipulate our stats really quick?”

Kronos tilted his head and squinted his eyes as he answered, “Depends… What’s going to change?”

“I want 5 of your Endurance while you get 5 of my Social. I want the combat boost along with the multiplier to push my health above the level they would expect. Can you do that for me? I’ll pay the P.P. for the hour duration.” Begged Jacob.

Kronos laughed, “Is that all? I’ve already gained my extra Endurance from leveling to 10 so I can manage with the small decrease in health. Go ahead and make your pact!”

“Thanks!” replied Jacob as he placed the gems in various positions on the parchment. He scribbled various command glyphs and drew lines connecting the current placement of gems. A few minutes later he finished and rolled up the contract. He quickly reviewed the results in his ability menu.

Pact of Lorka- (1-hour)

Target: -5 END, and +5 SOC.

Self: +5 END, -5 SOC, and -1 PP.

Duration: 1-hour.

Cost: 158 M.P.

Upon Expiration of Contract:

Target: +5 END, and -5 SOC.

Self: -5 END, and +5 SOC.

He presented one end to Kronos and said. “Ready?”

Kronos nodded to which Jacob intoned, “To thee this binding I offer!” A swirl of green energy cascaded around his palm as a notification screen popped up for Kronos.

Veralic offers you the Pact of Lorka:

Should you accept, the following changes will occur: -5 END, and +5 SOC.

After 1 hour the Pact of Lorka will expire resulting in: +5 END, and -5 SOC.

Do you accept these terms?

ACCEPT

DECLINE

Kronos glanced over the terms and clicked accept. A swirl of green energy flowed from his hand as he grasped the contract. Together the energy joined with Jacobs drawing in five wisps from both players. From Jacob came amethyst colored strands along with a sixth snowy white strand. From Kronos came a dark sage green energy flecked with bits of red.

The energy condensed into a bright glowing ball of energy before dispersing into both players. Flashes of purple flowed into Kronos while Jacob received the green flecked with red energy.

“Thanks!” said Jacob pulling up the instance boss queue. He quickly selected the necessary options that focused on just P.P. as the reward and chose just the boss boost. He doublechecked his choices and confirmed his choice losing 5 P.P. A notification popped up informing him that he was now queued for a level 1-3 instance as a boss.

“Hey! Just in case you don’t know this, focus the healer. If you ignore the healer, then you’ll just end up wasting the resources you spent on queueing up. Your DPS probably isn’t high enough to completely burst down any enemy player, so make sure to stick with one target at a time with healers being a priority.” Warned Kronos.

“Got it. Wish me luck!” said Jacob as he was being enveloped in dark clouds.

“Good luck and may the RNG gods be in your favor!” shouted Kronos as Jacob was pulled away into the void.

Once more, Jacob found himself floating in the empty space of the portal’s void. This time he was better prepared and kept calm as he waited for the new light to flare into existence. This really is just a loading screen.

A purple light opened in front of him drawing him out of the void. A thundering crack resounded through the dimly lit cavern he landed in. Six tiny imps circled around him crying out in high pitched squeaks, “Boss is here! Boss is here!”, “We serve!”, and “Command us!”

Jacob blinked in surprise at the green and red scurrying minions that surrounded him. “Uh…”

“Yes!?” pleaded the imps while rubbing their clawed hands together in anticipation.

Jacob cleared his voice and commanded, “You three focus your attacks on whoever I attack. You three will attack the others and slow them as best you can.”

The imps jumped with glee and paced around the room waiting for the enemy to arrive. Jacob held back a grin and opened his status window to see the effectiveness of the boss boost on his stats.

Character Screen: Veralic (Pythag3)

Level: Contractor 1 /Experience(EXP): 0

Race: Half-Devil

Origin: Dark

Combat Information:

Health Points (HP) – 460/460

Health Regen (HR) – 30/minute

Mana Points (MP) – 310/310

Mana Regen (MR) – 122/minute

Stamina (STA) – 600/600

Stamina Regen (SR) – 60

Base Stats:

Strength (STR) – 20

Knowledge (KNO) – 22 (+1/Level)

Endurance (END) – 30

Spirit (SPI) – 20

Agility (AGI) – 20

Social (SOC) – 11 (+1/Level)

Resource Stats:

Potential Points (PP) – 17

Fate – 10 (+1/Level)

Marks

43

Jacob scanned his surroundings and saw that he was still alone. Guess I have a few minutes before they show up. Might as well familiarize myself with the terrain. He turned to the imps and commanded, “Follow and watch out for intruders.”

The six imps jumped and glided over to his side waiting for him to move. With his minions in tow, Jacob set out to explore the cavern that made up the boss room in which he would soon be fighting.