Chapter 0002

Leviene swore a blue streak and told some very ambiguous deity to do something anatomically impossible for humans. Now that she is apparently a Perrian Let with a tail, some of those previously mentioned impossible position is quite possibly possible. Not that Leviene will attempt it. No siree, she will not attempt it.

However, Leviene’s current sentiment is expressed quite admirably with those few choice words.

The annoyed Perrian Let, who has a death grip on her tail so that she won’t be the butt of her own foul mouth, nevertheless process the information delivered via a hideously boring lecture.

The world they were summoned to is called Arashia. Leviene used the word ‘world’ very loosely, considering it is more like an onion with multiple planes layering on top of another than a cluster of independent planes connected by portals. They are on the first plane, or continuing with the onion analogy, the core of Arashia called Airen. To further clarify their location, they are in the capital of the Aerials called Evanstrial.

Arashia does not exist on the physical planes, and the concept and theory of Arashia existence is so alien the human mind cannot comprehend it. It defeat the original purpose of the powers that be if humans can not interact within their new world, so they tweaked the laws of Arashia to accommodate the human mind.

The closest the powers that be thought of is a virtual reality game.

Of course, some of the important questions were answered as well.

First question, why were the players summon here? Coincidence. The walls separating Arashia and Earth grew thinner and thinner over the years, until there were holes in the ‘planar wall’ so to speak, which allowed Arashia to connect to Earth. There are very powerful beings residing in Arashia and for unknown reasons, they can not leave it. Over time, they became really bored managing this world. When the planar wall became thin enough, the power that be decided to introduce humans to Arashia by creating a permanent portal between Earth and Arashia.

The humans were brought here for the amusements of the powers that be. Watching other people play games is boring for humans. The powers that be didn’t think so, but their way of thought cannot be comprehended by their summoned pawns.

Second question, how do the players get back home? Challenge the rulers of Arashia or head beyond the 12 planes that make up Arashia and take their chances there.

“Most people in this world can not see the level of the rulers here,” the announcer said offhandedly, “but it was hinted that their levels exceed 1 million.”

Third question…..? Play the game and explore Arashia.

Fourth question…..? Play the game and explore Arashia.

Fifth question…..? Play the game and explore Arashia.

Leviene zoned out after the information imparted became: Play the game and explore Arashia.

Instead of listening to redundant information, Leviene decided to do what every good player does when they first started playing a new game, configure the controls.

The complex rules governing Arashia, which shall be known as the System, so named by Leviene, zapped Leviene into a meditative state where she can move all the boxes, panels, buttons and bars around. Configuring the controls can only be done in this state, so if Leviene got bored fighting a mob and wanted to move buttons or bars around during combat, she can’t.

Inversely, when a player is fighting an enemy and they did not set their controls correctly, a huge pop up screen can cover their field of vision, leading to a dead players.

Leviene always stress the importance of game configuration to her family. Chat box in left lower corner, quick button bar at the bottom, health and mana bar at the lower center field of her vision.

Leviene noted there were 10 quick access buttons and 2 slots, one for health potions and one for mana potions.

When Leviene’s ‘cursor’ hover over the quick access buttons, an information balloon popped up.

Quick Access Buttons: Allows the players to quickly cast a new spells. After proficiency is obtained, the player can cast the spell by memory, without having the spell on the quick access buttons or looking for the spell in the spellbook.

Great! A FAQ dialogue balloon. Leviene did not have to guess what everything means in this game.

The information delivered is pleasing to the eye.

Leviene understood the logic behind the word proficiency. After she cast a spell a thousand times, if she doesn’t remember the incantation by heart, then she’s an idiot. The idea is similar to a baby learning the alphabet. After singing the alphabet song over and over a thousand times, the baby should know B comes after A.

Inventory inspection is next. Leviene likes to grind (killing monsters over and over in a set area), farm (making money/gold by killing mobs over an extended period of time) and make money. The more a player can carry, the more they can sell, thereby limiting the numbers of trips back to the vendor.

The basic inventories all players has is a 100 slot bag, with 4 other slots to expand the bag space. Leviene was happy with the slot amount because materials are stackable. There is 20 mana potion taking up only one slot, 20 health potion taking up another slot and 1 Home Stone.

Once Leviene was satisfied with her inventory, she went to check the character page. She decided to bypass the spell book completely. The new player hadn’t decided on a class yet, so she saw no point exploring non existence spells.

The character sheet was interesting.

Leviene Altreyes Rayael Arganox.

Race: Perrian Let

Gender: Female

Face: Already inputted

Hair color: Dark purple

Hair style: Long hair with curls at the ends and bangs framing the face

Eyes: Dark blue

Height: 5’4”

Body type: Slender

Feather color: Black

Wing color: Black and white

Wing span: Small: changes as a characters grows and develops

Tail: Uncontrollable

It was interesting to note the changes made to the character sheet after she logged in. Feather color, where it was originally white and will change as the character grows was change to black, wing color was changed to black and white and a tail was added. The most hateful changes to Leviene’s character was the unruly tail. If the game gave her a tail, then they could have given her control over it. Stupid tail.

Leviene noted a separation of stat points, primary and secondary stats. Stats points are given when a player levels and can be used towards primary stats. Secondary stats are acquired through playing the game.

This division of stats points, Leviene approved of. Leviene hated when rich players used real life money to buy gold in game and geared out their characters. The separation of stat points ensures that the players played the games instead of working around the system.

Leviene’s stat has the basic player’s start up with her racial bonus applied.

Primary Stats Secondary Stats

Constitution 11 Endurance 11 Hit Points 165

Strength 10 Precision 10 Power 15

Agility 10 Dexterity 10 Crit Rate 8

Intellect 10 Wisdom 10 Spell Power 18

Faith 10 Focus 10 Mana 133

Constitution improve hit points. Strength increase power, which converts to damage to monsters. Agility affect the evasive tanking stats, dodge, block, parry as well as critical strike (doubles the damage of a regular attack). Intellect increase the amount of mana. Faith affect mana recovery.

Endurance is interesting. In addition to improving constitution, thereby hit points, it also improves buff durations (conditions which improve stats of the character), reduce debuff duration (conditions which harms the character) and increase flight time.

Precision improve the chance to hit a mobs and affects power. Precision is a relative stat points. The chance to hit a mob is determined by the character's level and precision points relative to the monster they are attacking. If the monster is at a higher level than the character and has more agility than the character has precision, then the chance the player has to hit the monsters lessen. The opposite scenario is true as well. If the character is at a higher level and has a higher precision than the monster’s agility, then the chance to hit the monster improves.

Dexterity affect the chance to incur a critical strikes, but also the evasive tanking ability, dodge, block and parry. Dexterity is like precision in that it is a relative stat point.

Wisdom is a secondary stats mimics intellect and faith but at a different ratio.

Focus affects attack or spell casting speed and the chance an attack will interrupt a spell being cast.

Hit points is life. If it reaches zero, the player dies.

The damage a monster takes per each hit of a character varies and depends on many factor. The main damage inflicted from a player point of view is power x ratio + weapon damage + skill multiplier.

Mana is the resource used to cast spells. If a player doesn’t have enough, they can’t cast spells. For healers and spell caster, mana is manage to the strictest degree.

Spell power is added damage to a spell cast.

Crit rate is the chance of hitting the vital points of a mob, thereby doing twice the normal damage.

In a corner of the character sheet is the magic resistance section. Leviene has not played the game so she has no resistance to any magic. Magic resistence is also a relative stat point, but instead of it being relative to the mob, it is relative to magic level. For example, with 0 resistance to dark damage, a level 1 spell does 10 damage while a level 2 spells does 15 damage. If Leviene has resistance to dark spells, then the 10 damage from a level 1 spell and the 15 damage from a level 2 spells get reduce. By how much magical damage is effected by magic resistance is unknown.

Leviene doesn’t know to what extent the primary and secondary stats affect damage, but her brother will know. She’d wring the information from the quiet, contemplative bastard.

For now, the new player is content the racial bonus of the Perrian Let is applied to constitution and endurance.

Leviene glanced around her character sheets, trying to assimilate all the information overload. It is overwhelming to play a new game if the player knows nothing about computer games or massive multiplayer online role playing game or MMORPG. MMORPG is further shorten to MMO.

Whoa. Hold onto your horses, Leviene thought, I nearly missed important information. Unacceptable! At the corner of the characters there are two stats which are major deciding factor in character customization and when choosing a class.

Character Bonus

Holy 10%

Darkness 25%

Where did this character get these bonuses from? More, more more. She wanted more, or at least know how she can improve those already impressive numbers.

Leviene hover her cursor over the section and the FAQ popped up explained everything. Players grow into the characters, after which, they develop special characteristic depending on the coloring in which the characters takes. Since Leviene receive the hated black and white customization, spells or attack which are affiliated with holy or darkness are amplified.

Woot woot! Black and white isn’t bad at all! Haha bastard, suck it. This character will make a lot of money grinding and farming and if anyone interferes with her acquiring gold, then they can eat it with holy and darkness amplified attack. Die, player killers, die.

Come kill me suckers! I’ll kill you all. I don’t have call my family for vengeance anymore. I can do it myself, Leviene thought manically. Leviene knew she may have been a tad too affected by all the time she died to pker (player killers) killing her when she has been innocently farming and can do nothing about it because she customized her character to make money, not attack other players. She could only cry to her family or guild/clan mates, then ask for help after the pvpers kept corpse camping (the act of killing a character after they resurrect over and over) her.

Leviene decided to leave the character screen. There were too many information to assimilate. Anymore information will overload her brain.

Leviene then notice the overload of a different nature.