Name: Jack Frost

Race: Yxdan Vampire

Class: Ice Mage

Health: 160

Mana: 220

Stamina: 210

Strength: 33

Speed: 168%

Defense: 28

Magical Strength: 45

Accuracy: 60%

Magical Defense: 45

Stealth: 43%

Blood Thirst: 60%

Special Points: 7

Grace I, Etiquette I, Sword Mastery I, Sword Arts I, Ice Magical Mastery I, Ice Magical Arts I,

Ice Resistance I, Undead Resistance I, Stealth Mastery II, Stealth Arts I, Vampirism I, Pit Vision I,

Poison Resistance I

Double Life: Turn Undead upon death

Ice Affiliation: Increased knowledge absorption, grants Ice Resistance and Ice Mag. Str.

Undead Affiliation: Increased knowledge absorption, grants Undead Resistance and Undead Mag. Str.

Vampirism: Increased Strength, Stealth, Stamina, and Speed

Mage: Increased Mana, Mag. Str. And Mag. Def.

Dual Tongue: Able to understand and converse between the Aezordii and Aethersii

No titles available

Special Points? I wonder if I can purchase skills and abilities, or if I can just boost my stats with them, like the older games.

SK Notification

Special Points detected: Skill Screen unlocked

Title progress detected: Title Progress Screen unlocked

I'll check the Title Progress Screen later, as it may have some good ones to get, but I'll leave that excitement for tomorrow when I log back in, but for now I'll go to the Skill Store Screen.

SK Notification

Upgrading Mastery Skills cost 2 SP, Art Skills cost 1 SP. Art Skills cannot be upgraded past the level of the Mastery Skills. Mastery is considered the proficiency of the skill, while the Art is considered the knowledge in the skill. There are a few exceptions.

Upgrade Skill Art

Upgrade Skill Mastery

Buy Skill Set

Detection, Analysis, Cooking, Air Magic, Water Magic, Storm Magic, Dark Magic, Spear Set, Ax Set, Bow Set, Staff Set, Alchemy, Blacksmithing, War Set,

-Requirements needed to unlock more-

Buy Attributes

Dark Affiliate, Water Affiliate, Air Affiliate, Storm Affiliate, Tough Skin, Xernurochii Tongue, Seer, Tamer, Breeder, Thrift,

-Requirements needed to unlock more-

Some of these, I will acquire naturally, and I will acquire some of the other ones if I worked hard, so I made the decision of not buying any of the new ones. I will, however, upgrade a few of my existing ones... I will upgrade the skills that will take a lot more effort to level up than the other skills, such as Grace. Given that it takes two Special Points to upgrade it, I upgraded Grace three times, due to it being treated like a Mastery Skill, it costs me six points. I threw my last point into Vampirism, which was being treated as an Arts Skill.

Skills Upgraded

Grace rank IIIeasants will look up to you, subconsciously

Vampirism rank II: Gained the Mist Form ability

Mist Form? Not bad, maybe with the Free Range Skill System, I can combine it with fire or something. I'll test it out next time. I closed out of each screen, and resumed in the world around me. I noticed that there was a buzzing feeling in my brain that must had been there the entire time I had been browsing the screens in a paused world. Maybe NPI will fix that bug with a few complaints.

“Are you alright, kid?” My temporary companion seemed to stop his history lesson and took a long look at me.

“Ah, I'm fine, it's just- Eh?!” There was no way for me to log out. I was beginning to freak out, but not as much the coachman was. He was looking in each and every possible way, probably looking for an ambush.

“What, what?! Is there an attack?” he kept looking around.

“Ah, we forgot to introduce ourselves. My name is Jack Frost.” I try to diffuse the situation with my stellar acting capabilities.

“Don't do that!” He almost hit me with a raised hand, but due to a hiss coming from Seraphine-sii, he stopped. “I thought we were under attack. Bandits are a real problem in these parts. Gah, the name is Raynereus, though most of my acquaintances call me Ray. Like the Mountain in the Solaeum Kingdom. It is interesting to know you have a last name. Could you be a noble?”

I shook my head, “I don't remember much, I may be part of some disinherited bloodline but, I do not know for certain.”

Ray looked at me with eyes of pity, and said not another word. I then closed my eyes and practiced searching for the Mana located at my core. Upon finding it with great difficulty, I began trying to move this Mana. Much like flexing a muscle that isn't often moved, I had difficulty with moving it and tired incredibly fast. I only focused condensing it into a ball shape, the size of my fist. For what seemed like hours, I was finally able to do so with ease, and next was moving it about my body. With great difficulty, I was able to move it from one hand to the other, albeit very slowly. I do this, because in VR games since in NPI-VR 8S Magical Experience game, The Failed Apprentice's Awakening, Mana skill boosting came in the form of meditating, which was about finding your inner Mana. The moment I had it go a fraction outside my body, I lost it completely, therefor ending my meditation.

Skill Gained

Mana Manipulation III: Able manipulate the Mana within, making Mana consumption more efficient, and spells more potent.

I opened my eyes, finding that my environment had changed completely, I was no longer in horse drawn wagon next to the Merchant, Ray. I was now upon a mattress, made of straw, in a small room, my body and the bed I was in had frosted completely over. I looked over where I saw Seraphine-sii looking at me from the corner of the room. Upon further inspection, I found she wasn't actually looking at me, but rather sleeping with her eyes open. It was almost rather creepy. I quietly got of the bed I was laying in, and I gradually sneaked my way over to her sleeping body. I then shook her awake.

“Hyaa! Jack?Oh, you're finally awake, I was wondering if you were hibernating. I realize that some mammals need to hibernate.” She sighed.

“You bit me, please do keep in mind that you are indeed poisonous. To act like you didn't even do anything, and continue speaking.” I shook my head.

Skill Upgrade

Poison Resistance rank II: now able resist medium quantities of low quality poisons

“So, how long have I been meditating?” I asked, “And where are we?”

“I'd say about twelve hours. It's about noon, as to where we are, we are in the merchants house, I'd presume. I couldn't understand what the man was saying, but I think we arrived in Iglaku.”

Quest Completed: Journey to the North

Mission: Cross the border of the Principality of Shadows and the Kingdom of Lunari.

Bonus: Discover 10 towns 11/10 towns discovered

Reward: 1,000 Exp.

Bonus: 1,100 Exp., 1 SP

“Twelve hours?” I guess there might be a feature that speeds up time when meditating, kind of like using the wait feature in some of the old games. This feature, if I recall correctly, speeds up time or slow it down in the perception of the player by putting the brain in overdrive. It keeps the player from getting bored and keeps things convenient in the game. Now that I think about it, this same development was probably implemented to the Skill Screen. Since you can't pause the world in a MMO, it is due to ideas like this that games can stop the world in the perception of the gamer. It is a revolutionary tactic developed by NPI in their last platform.

“I guess we should go and make ourselves known to the world, let's go meet with Ray for now.” When I looked over to Seraphine-sii, I saw that she was completely frozen, and that the world took on several gray hues, much like when time stops for me during the screens.

The scene changed before my very eyes. It went from a medieval styled guest room, to that of an arena of gigantic proportions. It was a Colosseum that was filled with people. There was probably a hundred thousand people that were just as confused as I felt. Even though there was mass confusion, there wasn't any commotion, as this was a video game, where almost anything goes. That is, until a three story tall Grim Reaper appeared, at that point, many voices of concern, and even protests were let out. Many people lowered their stances to a battle ready position.

“Silence!” Everyone became strangely silent, all at once, at the sound of a huge voice that sounded rather squeaky, “Some of you, if not all of you, have realized that logging out is impossible. It is not a mistake, an error in programming, but on purpose. Your souls are trapped here, on Aezorish.” Nobody was able to respond, due to the Reaper taking our voices, but everyone wore different faces, some of anguish, some of sorrow, though some, like me, were faces of intrigue.

The Reaper continued, “There was roughly three billion logins within the first hour of launch, NPI is proud to achieve this number. Now if you count the one and a half billion criminals in every prison, there are now four and half billion peoples' souls trapped in a single game. As you may know, overpopulation is indeed beyond critical levels on Earth. To fix this problem, all the governments on Earth came together decided to solve it swiftly, without severe backlash. The governments of the world funded Nervous Products Interactive to develop a way to send people to Cyberspace. Since a large variety of Earth's People enjoyed gaming, and gamers only follow one of two paths; developing games or being bums that only game, gamers as a whole became trash of society. So, what do you do you do with trash? Why, you throw it away, of course. So NPI, developed technological ground breaking Virtual Reality headsets, one after another, until we realized our masterpiece.

We developed many games that became more and more famous, quickly drawing popularity and fans. With our masterpiece we were able to achieve two goals; creating a cyberspace server that was completely independent of Earth, and being able to send people there without killing them off.

We are happy to say, 'Thank you for solving our problem on Earth, and Welcome to your new home, Aezorish.' Aezorish is roughly five times that of Earth. Do be careful though, twenty-five percent of the population we have sent to Aezorish are convicted criminals after all. Though don't worry to much, for most of them have been sent to the Cursed Continent to live out their days being hunted, so no worries.

Lastly, you all have been called here twenty-four hours after game launch, your first full day on Aezorish, some of you probably haven't even noticed. My, how time flies when you're dead? Sorry, too soon? After your souls leave your body, your body then dies, but you guys are alive here and that's all that matters. So there is no return ticket to Earth, cool thing is, if in the event that the Earth is destroyed, Aezorish will continue on. Ah, by the way, as a way to say we are sorry, and that we wanted to come here as well, due to the benefits, all of the World's Leaders and the NPI team are trapped with you guys. We won't tell you who we are, and it is actually best if you role play for the rest of your lives, unless you would like to be viewed as crazy by the locals.

Another thing, the locals are alive, they aren't NPCs anymore, also having children is possible, and the last thing about the creators who made this world, they took on different names, and are revered as gods here. Though, if you want, if you find a way, you can kill them and even take their place. I digress from this tangent though, I meant to call everyone here within my sector, who have reached level five so far. You will all get a choice in a gift from the box of random prizes, provided by your gods. Those of you whom haven't died yet get a second choice. Choose wisely.”

A treasure chest appeared before me. I opened it up, as I was inclined to do so.

Divine Gift

50 SP, Home Screen, Unlimited Stamina, Land Quest, One Army

One Million Gold, Ninja Skill Set, Unlimited Mana, All Tongues

I really wanted to go for the Unlimited Mana and Stamina, though I felt that it would be highly beneficial to me but it might be impulsive, so I refrained from immediately grabbing them. I analyzed the other cubes within the chest. I grabbed the cubes labeled, 'Land Quest' and 'Homescreen.' If it is what I think it is, than it would prove to be far more useful in my new home. Plus, it felt like those two had a stipulation put on it. I noticed that aside from my chest, all others disappeared, so I grabbed one last cube before the chest vanished like the others had. The cube I drew out had been labeled, 'All Tongues.' This will be particularly useful to me as a mage. I would be able to customize my spells, if it turned out that I could use Old Elvish.

I contemplated on why I was able to draw three out, but I concluded that my extra life counted for some strange reason. The eccentric Grim Reaper spoke again, “Now everyone has selected their gifts. When an individual earns a crown, each individual doing so, shall receive another gift from us. Not only that, but after you get to level ten, you will stop getting notifications on statuses and skills.

This is your new home, gods, miracles, magic and blessings are very real here and happen multiple times a day. So if you die, or an Aezorish native dies, there is a chance for them to be resurrected by previously stated sources. There is a full resurrection and a partial resurrection. A partial resurrection leads to the Undead Affliction, which can also be cured, but with a price. Since you are all new to this world, all players are granted a single Divine Resurrection. All other resurrection is up to you.

You will stop getting updates and system help, etc. We are doing this in order to get you all to be-” He paused, “I forgot the reason, but you will still be able to check your skills and status windows. Meeting Adjourned!” He bid farewell whimsically before fading away.

My vision blurred and faded from a scene where everyone was about to protest back to where I was looking at Seraphine-sii once more.

Attribute Upgrade

Dual Tongue → All Tongue: Able to understand, converse and write in all languages of Aezorish

Also a new quest appeared.

Quest: Land and Titles

Objective one: Have an audience with a with Nobility or Royalty

Objective two: Carry out orders

Objective three: Return to Court

Reward: varied amount of land, exp., gold, and subjects upon completion

After clearing those two windows, one last one popped up.

Ability Gained

Homescreen: User has the ability to go to the Homescreen