The guild stood around the table. Their lot looked much improved since earlier. From the basic rags all characters wore after being resurrected from death they all now wore armor and weapons. Too few glowed showing signs of magic, most were simply low level equipment of chainmail and leather primarily. The weapons were also basic beginner pieces. Serion noticed there were now a few missing trophies on the wall.

Pyron spoke “After a little experimentation. Little of our PvP gear is wearable anymore. We are all neutral alignment again, our specialties and affinities have been reset too. All of us are too low level for our best gear, might as well store them in our chests for now. The weight will only slow us down."

"There is some good news however, the high end storage bags we all have still function properly. Like before reach in and think of what you’re trying to grab and it appears in your hands. Everyone has a handful of tokens that still function because they had no level preset. But for all that our abilities are back to level one so it will be a hard climb back to where we were."

The news broke Serion’s heart. So much effort acquiring rare and soul bound gear and in a single day they were put back to the beginning. The amazing gear, weapons, and items they had accumulated over the years was next to useless. They could see it but do little with it, now it was just a bunch of useless junk that weighed them down. They could look but not touch.

The spell books all players had from the beginning of the game was open in his hand. Before they could open a window to each page to look at everything that made up their character from core stats to abilities and skills. Now they had to physically pull it out and turn the pages. His stats were pathetic once more. He kind of felt like crying.

Serion - Lv 1 Human Mage

Guild Leader of The Dreaded Thirteen

Arcane 10/Shadow 10

Vitality - 10

Might - 10

Dexterity – 10

Resilience - 10

Intelligence - 10

Wisdom - 10

Willpower - 10

Perception - 10

Charisma - 10

Luck - 10

125 stats points currently unassigned.

*237* stat points have been locked until the player reaches the level they were originally received.

From level 118 to 1. How the mighty have fallen. After this he would probably have quit the game if it was still possbile.

He felt a tremendous blow at his affinities. It had taken a long time to get them to a perfect 60/40. You could never go past a total of 100. Each one had abilities that could only be used at a certain affinity level. Affinities leveled a bit like abilities, where abilities leveled as you used them like a warrior’s shield bash or a rogue’s throwing daggers the spells Serion cast would increase his affinity level. Casting shadow bolt enough times would make his affinity with Shadow rise giving him access to new spells. By casting different shadow spells it would rise even quicker, he couldn’t just spam shadow bolt all day long and get the same amount of progress.

Because Serion had two affinities he would have to carefully watch out for when they maxed out at a total of 100. Then he would need to stop using spells from the one affinity he wanted lower than the other. When the two reached a perfect synchronization of where he wanted them he could use an Affinity Stone to stop them from changing anymore. The low levels of his affinities would stop him from using any of his best spells for quite some time.

The game had dozens of affinities but he liked Arcane and Shadow because they suited him. Arcane was great direct damage and had a decent amount of dispels and buffs. Shadow was good at turning the environment to your advantage, some rogues took it to hide themselves from their enemies better then just Sneak, it also had some decent debuffs. He loved going into the shadows with a group and shooting his foes with a massive Arcane attack. Some called it cheap but it was very effective. Nuking from the shadows he liked to call it.

In addition as a character's affinities got higher they allowed a mage to access new spells. As a spell unlocked the mage could use it and if liking it could put affinity points into it making it much better or evolve it into another spell. Character leveling was secondary to increasing affinity. The higher one got it the better assortment of spells they could wield. With multiple affinities one could unlock unique spells few others had access to. Of course one could just stick to a single affinity and become a 'Master' of it but that also left them weak to certain opposing affinities and fewer spells. Many players chose two affinities creating a primary and support.

His core stats were so low now. He remembered all the leveling he had done had given him a little over a 1000 core stat points altogether. 237 points were locked too. Those he had gained for completion to main storyline quests, class quests, and unique or holiday quests.

100 to core stats from the beginning.

100 freely given to players to make their character fill the role they wanted.

15 additional points for taking the beginning test before the game started, 25 was the max possible.

Levels 1-20 gave you 10 core points upon leveling. Level 1s 10 points were given to the player.

Levels 21-40 – 8 core points

Levels 41-60 – 6 core points

Levels 61-80 – 4 core points

Levels 81-100 – 2 core points

Levels 100-150 – 1 core point

Levels 150-200 – 1 core point every other level

Levels 200+ - 1 core point every four levels

The higher level one got the smaller the gap became based on core stat points between players. The game had many additional factors however. Ambushing or attacking a critical spot on an opponent could quickly take them down even if they are of higher level. He’d seen low levels stab higher levels from behind and get enough bonus damage to kill them.

Let’s distribute these points shall we?

Vitality affects a player’s health. The higher it is the more damage a player can take. Use armor to protect your health points.

Might affects a player’s strength and how much they can carry. With enough points a player could cut through a boulder with ease and use full body plate armor.

Dexterity affects a player’s speed and reflexes. Your enemies can’t hit what they can’t see.

Resilience affects a player’s resistance to physical ailments such as poison or disease. It also increases a characters stamina.

Intelligence affects a player’s spell power. The casted spells will do more damage.

Wisdom affects a player’s casting speed and spell cooldown time.

Willpower affects a player’s resistance to spiritual and magical ailments such as curses. It also increases a player’s mana pool.

Perception affects a player’s awareness around themselves of possible traps or other dangers. At higher levels hidden paths or shadowed enemies will be easier to see.

Charisma affects a player’s intercalations with others. Others will like you more and agree on your views. Can get shop discounts from merchants and opens unique dialogues and quests.

Luck affects everything.

After familiarizing himself with all the core stats again he put his points where he thought they would be most useful at this early stage of the game. Every 50 points in a core stat the gains would decrease slightly. He always thought of it as a buffer against mini maxers.

Vitality – 35. He did not want to find out if he could really die here.

Might – 10. For warrior types like Drecksis.

Dexterity – 10. For sneaky back stabby rogues and warriors that thought dual wielding was cool. It’s not but it made his job of killing them much easier when there wasn’t a shield in the way.

Resilience – 10. Meh.

Intelligence – 40. Should provide a good amount of damage boost.

Wisdom – 40. His favorite stat really. The higher level Arcane spells always needed at least few seconds to cast but he had gotten most of them down to instant casts. With the cooldown costs also improved he could near instant cast and recast large damage spells continuously. Of course his mana always took a huge hit but if the options were death or mana depletion it became an easy choice.

Willpower – 40. Because having little mana sucked donkey dick. The resistance was just a nice added bonus.

Perception – 10. Note to self put a few points here later.

Charisma – 10. Why bargain with people when you can just kill them and take their stuff?

Luck – 20. Actually important to mages one shotting people, he had a lucky medallion he would have loved to wear but couldn’t until lucky level 21.

Taking a look at his skills everything was level 1 again. All his weapons he’d mastered, minor and major skills, even his profession skills. If they truly were stuck here for the foreseeable future someone would need to level cooking up asap.