I'm back online

Here's the 2nd arc

Enjoy

VOLUME 2 PROLOGUE - Crisis in Eden Online

It's been a week since I started playing Eden Online. I hunted together with Lily, while the others go on their own business. Lilith was last seen yesterday, she said she will be offline for a while. Tatsu and Yuu kept on playing, they're currently travelling to the second town.

Lily approached me who is sitting in the fountain.

"Ren."

"Hmm?"

"I have some business in RL, so I'll be off for a while."

"Ah, okay. I'm also going offline, I need to check my house."

"When will you be online?"

"Let's see, I just need to check on my sister and nothing else. So, I'll probably back by 30 minutes or so."

"30 minutes eh, I think I won't be back by that time. I guess, we part ways here."

"Well, I'll stick around in this town for a while. If you're back, send me a message."

"Of course!"

She put on such a sad face. My heart aches just seeing her. When we're done with the goodbye, a system notice appeared.

Dear Players,

Eden Online will go into maintenance in 4 hours. Your characters will be forced to log out 30 minutes before the server shutdown. Updates will be implemented when the server goes back online. Estimated time will be posted on our official website. Thank you for your attention.

A week to update. That's fast, did they encounter some kind of bugs? I guess I'll just hunt until the server shutdown.

At R/R Office Building Top Floor

Inside a room, there's an oval table big enough to fit 20 persons. There're 6 men dressed in a black suit, 1 man in a white lab coat, 1 woman in a white lab coat, 6 women dressed in a red suit, and 1 man wearing hawaii t-shirt.

"Is everybody here?"

Said the person with the hawaii t-shirt.

"Mr. Edgar hasn't arrived yet."

"Ignore him, he's still on the lab working on the updates."

"Let's begin the meeting then."

A hologram screen was shown in the middle of the table. On each person table, a transparent graphic with complicated interface was laid out. When each person confirmed their own TG and nod their heads, the person in Hawaii t-shirt starts operating his TG.

"1st problem, there're a lot of martial artist inside Eden Online. The movement restriction we put worked against their favor."

"Isn't that a given? We can't have them using their technique inside Eden. It won't be fair!" (Male Scientist)

"No, no. What are you saying? They moved like a pro, dodging weapon with a paper-thin difference. How is it stated that it worked against them?" (Woman 1)

"Exactly how many people can do that kind of evasion technique?" (Boss)

"According to our reports so far, there's only 1 person with high evasion rate. It's a character named Ethan." (Female Scientist)

She starts operating her TG. Ethan info are shown in the midde screen.

"Only 1." (Boss)

'Hmmm. If it's only 1 person, it won't matter much.'

"What about the others?" (Boss)

"According to our reports, we have a few shaolin monk and their movement was dulled. They're capable of dodging, but only a little bit above average." (Man 2)

"I also found a few swordsman. Their movement's above average, they can't use their technique, but make it up with their solid basic foundation." (Man 3)

"Here's the evasion statistic when you compared an experienced martial artist with normal players and Ethan." (Female 2)

She operates her TG and a diagram appeared in the middle screen.

"The highest evasion rate belong to Ethan with 100%. Average martial artist on 23%. The experienced one on 35%. Normal players on 12%." (Female 2)

"That settles it. We won't change the movement restriction. Can't have them using kame-hame-ha inside Eden, can we?"

(Boss)

"Yeah. If I can use my "Soaring Dragon" combo inside Eden, hell, even boss won't be able to touch me." (Female 3)

"Ha! You wish." (Female 2)

"Stop! We have more important matters to discuss. Stop the useless chatter. Let's move on to 2nd problem, combat style." (Boss)

"Here's a video showing Ethan battle with other players." (Female scientist)

A video was shown in the middle screen. Ethan's moving throughout the field with a speed so fast, that most of the people in the room rub their eyes.

"I can't see him clearly, slow it down please." (Boss)

The female scientist operates her TG. The video was now shown with half speed.

"Here. This part. See the point of his sword. He attack only by scratching his enemies." (Man 4)

"He barely goes into the inside. It's like watching an outside boxer. He attack with minimum risk and steadily keep his distance." (Man 3)

"He's truly exploiting our system flaw." (Female 4)

"In accordance to this video, Mr. Edgar is working with Full Body Mapping to be applied after maintenance." (Male Scientist)

"Problem no 2 solved." (Female Scientist)

"3rd problem. PK complaints." (Boss)

"We're not expecting PK to occur this fast. They're still low leveled players, but they're already have the nerve of high leveled players." (Female 5)

"Should we punished them severely?" (Male 5)

"PK is natural. It'll happen sooner or later. But in this case, lv 3 trying to pick a fight with lv 7? What a joke. There're too much arrogant players." (Man 3)

"We have a few options. One, marking the PKer with a red name and high chance of equip drop. Two, teleport them to jail for a period of time." (Female Scientist)

"That's just the same with every classic online RPG. Don't you have anything more original?" (Boss)

"How about adding karma points?" (Male 5)

"Explain." (Boss)

"Every PKer will obtain karma points for each player he killed. The higher the karma, the lower his status goes." (Male 5)

"What about unavoidable PK? Not every PKer is bad. There's also a scenario in which a player is forced to do PK." (Female 5)

"No matter what, killing other players is considered a bad thing. How do you justify a PK?" (Male 5)

"Example, your friend is in trouble, because other players tried to PK him. You know he's innocent and you try to help him, but other party didn't want to hear explanation. The only choices are kill or be killed." (Female 5)

"I see." (Male 5)

"Let's combine the karma point with red name system." (Boss)

"How?" (Male 2)

"Let's set the karma as debuff, so it'll disappear after a while. Put the PKer on red name, so he'll drop his equip if he die." (Boss)

"What effect does the karma have?" (Male scientist)

"Any suggestion? Don't lower status. A permanent status loss is outside the question." (Boss)

"Lowering their status is fine, right? Since it's debuff, the status will go back to normal after a while." (Male 2)

"It's not severe enough." (Male 5)

"Freeze their status!" (Female 6)

"What do you mean freeze? Elaborate." (Boss)

"Freeze their exp gain for a while, not with a time duration. But with a certain amount of monster kill." (Female 6)

"In that case, the red name will have a negative impact on the innocent." (Female 5)

"Rather than red name, how about bounty?" (Female 3)

"Whose pocket will pay for the rewards?" (Male 1)

"Your pocket!" (Female 1)

The entire room laughs at that remark.

"Of course the rewards will be from the PKer. If not, some people might abuse this to gain money." (Female Scientist)

"NPCs will not after the bounty. A player only bounty system. Hmm, that's pretty good." (Boss)

"Then, we'll settle with this for now. Let's continue." (Female Scientist)

"4th problem, percentage system." (Boss)

"Here's a video of a boss battle." (Male Scientist)

He operates his TG. A video was shown in the middle screen.

"This is Hellhond, a dungeon boss. All the players were inflicted with fear debuff. 20% chance of failing their skill/spell." (Male Scientist)

The video keeps playing until the boss is defeated.

"As you can see, the fear have no effect." (Male Scientist)

"Is it a bug?" (Male 2)

"No, we confirmed it with other players. Some people failed, while some others don't." (Female Scientist)

"So, they're lucky?" (Female 2)

"It seems people with high concentration is capable to override our debuff system." (Female Scientist)

"Hooo, so a debuff on avatar physic is 100% chance, while a debuff on avatar mental is not 100%." (Boss)

"That's right. People with high concentration have higher mental resistance to confusion and such." (Male Scientist)

"How do we go about this?" (Boss)

"Do we need to rework our debuff system?" (Female 1)

"No, if we raise the mental burden, it might impact their health." (Male 4)

"Erase the percentage system?" (Male 3)

"And replaced it with what?" (Female 2)

"I don't know. Maybe charged numbers?" (Male 3)

"Oh, that's a good one." (Boss)

"What? Charged numbers?" (Female 2)

"Yeah yeah, we erase the percentage system that is involved with mental debuff and replaced it with a charged numbers." (Boss)

"Explain charged numbers please." (Female 4)

"Example, 20% chance of failing action will be replaced with 5th action will failed. In this case, we can force the player action to fail using the game system, rather than through the player's mental." (Male 3)

"We also need to adjust our items attributes. Quite a lot weapons have debuff chance." (Female Scientist)

"Great! Let's inform the other crew." (Boss)

"4th problem, checked." (Female Scientist)

"This is the last one. I want us to move to second phase within 1 month." (Boss)

"But, we need to apply these updates. After this, who knows what kind of bug will appear?" (Male Scientist)

"We already have a dozen candidates, you only need a few others information. We have the core already." (Boss)

"True, but..." (Female Scientist)

"No more buts. Use all of your resources, if you have to. We need results. Dismissed!"

Beginning of 2nd arc