Horizon had visual confirmation on 13 other players, but his presence skill insisted that there were a few other players hiding around still within the forest surrounding them. Neutralizing the ranged enemies would have to be his priority, since they might kill Arkas.

From his inventory he threw spears at seemingly random areas, into bushes, the trees, and over the bandit's heads, each spear hitting a mage or archer.

275![Crit]

289![Crit]

312![Crit]

323![Crit]

You killed player Arexel -50 Fame

You have killed player Dreadnaught -50 Fame

You have killed player Skreem -50 Fame

You have killed player 5n1p3r -50 Fame

As his fame rapidly decreased he swore. Because he had initiated with the first hit, it would count as a PK towards them and he would keep losing his fame. With the level advantage, he was able to hit hard, and because the spears had hit mages, archers, and their healers, their already low base health could be drained with one hit. With his ever decreasing fame, he adapted his tactics to allow them to hit him before he retaliated, or his alignment would quickly change him into a red-aligned player.

21!

17!

31!

18!

I cursed as I saw my health drop, If this was a 1v1 situation, their low damage output could be easily neglected, but in groups, their damage couldn't be shrugged off so easily. With no other choice than to kill them and become a red player, I ran towards them hoping to end this as fast as possible.

"What the hell is this kid?!", The bandit swore as my glaive tore through his body, instantly killing him, while my sword had already slayed the other bandits. With the remaining bandits retreating, I realized that I wouldn't have to lose anymore fame, but since I had already become a red-aligned player, it had made no difference to me. As they ran, each retreating bandit fell one after another as spears erupted from their bodies, leaving behind only their dropped items.

"H-h-how did you do that?!"Arkas stammered as he recollected his thoughts.

Horizon apathetically gave a shrug as if it was nothing and added- "I guess it's too bad I'm a red-aligned player now though."

As Horizon collected the bandit's items, he was disappointed in their low quality. The best item that they had dropped was a Superior-Green sword, but it's stats were lower than his current sword, both in tier, and in level requirement.

Nonetheless, he grabbed all the items, as they could still be sold for something.

Reaching Tiriel, he parted ways with Arkas, as he had an Infamy count of 270.

When green-aligned, completing quests, event rewards, special achievements, and killing red-aligned players will occasionally grant Fame, but killing green-aligned players, certain NPCs, certain achievements, quests, and such, would decrease fame. As your fame grows, its becomes more difficult to gain Fame, and losing Fame becomes much easier. When Fame reaches a value below 0, it becomes Infamy. Infamy very similar to Fame, but reversed, helping NPCs, and certain quests or achievements will decrease Infamy while killing green-alignment players will increase Infamy. Gaining and losing Infamy goes by the same rules of Fame. A difference between these is when a Red-Aligned player kills another Red player, the killed Red player will lose Infamy while the one who had killed the other will gain Infamy. General monsters count as red-aligned, and as such will occasionally increase Fame upon killing, but do not grant Infamy.

Fame and Infamy gave certain effects, and increased levels in both would increase the effects. The current known alignment tiers were

Peacemaker

+1% All Rewards

-1% NPC prices

+0.3% All stats+500 FameCivil

+1% All Rewards

-0.5% NPC prices+300 FameHelper

+1% Money drops+150 FameFamiliar

+1% Money drops+50 FameNeutral

-No Effect50 Fame ~ 50 InfamyCautious

+10% Aggro range+50 InfamyDeviant

+0.5% Damage Increase+150 InfamyCruel

+0.5% Pierce+300 InfamyMalicious

+1% Drop rate+500 InfamyWicked

+1% To Randomly Debuff Enemy When Attacking+750 Infamy-With each ascending tier, the effects from the previous tier(s) will stack.

-

Unable to enter Tiriel for the time being, he had noticed a player with a pet inside the gate, and as such his interest was piqued and he decided to find a decent pet to tame. In order to tame a pet, you needed a rare drop, generally an item relating to the monster you were are attempting to tame.

An example of such was a slime. The slimes around the beginner towns were called Green Slime. In order to tame these green slimes, you needed a rare drop from them called Slime Nucleus. Another requirement of this was that the slime you were trying to tame was a rare variant known as "Baby". "Baby" monsters were always level one. Using a Pet Rune. Pet Runes were sold by special NPCs in certain towns, and Pet Runes have various tiers, each more proficient at catching than others. When taming pets, depending on the pet, the chance of taming it will change with the pet's characteristics, rarity, and traits.

Without access to Tiriel, he realized that he would also be unable to tame a pet even if he grinded for the rare Tame Drop. He then remembered his Masquerade skill, which he had never looked into. As he activated it, an interface showed up, letting him set an Alias. If he had remembered correctly, Aliases would have a separate Fame stat.

A straight nose, deep violet eyes, black hair, and an emotionless smile. His Alias, which he left nameless was created as such. Checking his fame stat, it had been set at 270 Infamy. As making this as difficult as possible to exploit, when an Alias was initially created, it replicated the user's Fame.

Horizon resigned himself to defeating monsters to raise his fame, having to kill twice as much as monsters, he would need to start as soon as possible if he had hoped to tame a monster anytime soon.

Having logged off, he walked out of his room, and into the kitchen. "Hey Noa, is there anything you'd like to eat?"

Noa replied that whatever he made. she'd be fine eating. Searching through their refrigerator, he was unable to find anything that would work for dinner.

"I'm shopping, anything you want?" questioned Evan. Noa gave a short reply from her room that if he could bring some ice cream for them, that would be nice. Locking the door as he left, Evan gave a sigh as he turned and began walking towards the open-air markets. Evan who had browsed at the stores found that the open- air markets gave better prices, and healthier foods, as compared to the indoor stores.

"How much for these?" asked Evan as he waved assorted vegetables towards the sales clerk. Having been asked the question, the sales clerk replied that it would be $5 for them. Seeing that these were slightly overpriced, he turned away but was stopped as the sales clerk quickly added that for him they would be less. If you listened carefully you could hear the sales clerk mumbling about how hard it was to sell their products. Evan was experienced with dealing with the products of the open-air markets, as he always found the best prices, and would hardly ever have an undesirable deal.

After he had finished with the open air markets, he proceeded to the indoor stores for the ice cream that Noa had requested. As he neared the store, he couldn't help but notice a large sign screaming "Closed For Maintenance."

My luck sucks doesn't it? The next closest store was 7 blocks away, and by the time he had returned the ice cream had already melted. "Ah... Sorry about that, the store was closed and I had to go to a different one," explained Evan as he gave the melted ice cream to Noa, who had a mixed emotion on her face, that could only be described as one of humor and disappointment. "Well, thanks anyways,", Noa replied as she stuffed the ice cream into the freezer. "But did you always smell that bad?"

Earlier, While returning from the market, Evan had accidentally bumped into someone as they were running by. He recognized them, but couldn't place their name. While turning corners, and trying to move out of the way, he had fallen and tripped over a garbage can that was near them. They did give a short apology, but ran off in a hurry towards the closed market, which he noticed had a line growing from it.

After trying to get the stain off, which he did to some degree, he asked around, wondering what was taking place. He was given suspicious looks from his smell but was eventually answered. There was going to be another release of the capsules. DarkEden had now started to distribute them worldwide, and explained that the language differences would be dealt with using an integrated translation system, that would make it difficult to tell if someone was from another part of the world. Though Evan was quite sure that it would still be easy to guess who was from where, considering that they were each culturally different. (I.e honorifics, and addressing each other(Mister -> Uncle/Big Brother))

After he finished preparing and eating their dinner, he caught up on his late assignments for his tech classes and after that he returned to HCO to grind his Fame levels up.

Slaying a countless number on monsters, he had not only set his fame level to the Friendly tier, but he had also gained levels up to 24, and his bar was set at around 90%.

On his return trip to Tiriel, he was able to kill enough monsters to level himself up. As he reached level 25, 2 windows appeared. The first indicated that he had leveled up, but the second contained an interface he had not yet known about. Race Evolution.

Race evolving was a mechanic that he had never heard about. It allowed a user to evolve their race. Upon selecting a race, the race would have racial skills and other effects.

Race Evolution IYou may now evolve your race.Current Possible Race Evolutions For HUMANDwarf

-By evolving into a Human-Dwarf, your base stats for STR and DEX will increase by 10%

Dwarves have the racial trait [Dwarven Resistance] which reduces damage taken from physical and fire-element attacks.

and the racial skill [Practiced Strike] which will increase in damage every time it is used during a fight, but will reset when the user leaves combat for a set time.---Vampire

-By evolving the Vampire race, all stats will be increased by 15%.

Vampires have the racial trait [Vampiric Curse] which will bleed enemies on attacking, but when above ground during the daytime, or when attacked by a weapon with silver as a material, will clear all buffs, and reduce all parameters by 30%. And the Racial skill [Flight] which allows the user to fly for a set amount of time.---High Human-By evolving the High Human race, skill proficiency will by increased by 2x, and all stats increased by 2%

Evolving High Human grants no racial trait or skill.---Reptilian

-By evolving the Reptilian race, AGI, VIT, and STR will increase by 3%

Reptilians have the racial trait [Scaled] which will increased movement speed by 5%, and reduce damage taken by 2%

and the racial skill [Strike] which temporarily increases movement speed by 30%, and the next strike will deal an additional 50% damage.---Ogre

-By evolving the Ogre race, VIT and STR will increase by 10%

Ogre's have the racial trait [Brutality] which adds a small chance to Cripple enemies when attacking.

The Ogre's racial skill is [War Cry]which increases the STR and DEX of nearby allies by 5% for a short duration.---Were-Human

-By evolving the Were-Human race, VIT, STR, and AGI will increase by 5%

Were-Humans have the racial trait [Morph] which allows the user to morph into an animal (Set: Wolf) and each animal will give different buffs.

Their racial skill is [Track] which allows them to detect players within a radius, effectiveness and range may differ.---Specter

-By evolving to the Specter race, AGI will increase by 15%

Specters have the racial trait [Apparition] which gives a 20% reduction in damage taken by physical attacks, but an increase of 10% magical damage taken.

Their racial skill is [Spectral Haunting] will grant the user an on-hit debuff towards the enemy of a 2% decrease in damage and defense.

Carefully inspecting each of the skills, Vampires were the strongest class, and had the flight skill, bu they could easily be countered by attacking them with a silver weapon, and their vampiric curse had a massive debuff which would be active half of the time, so he quickly excluded the vampire class from the possible race evolutions. Dwarves, Ogres, Reptilians, Specters, and Were-Humans all had decent racial traits and skills, but the High-Human's skill proficiency would come in handy for many tasks.

Your race has been evolved into High Human

By having the skill proficiency trait, he would be able to master his passive skill [Refine] and fill his resonance bar quicker, which would come in handy when in prolonged combat, although the dwarf's [Practiced Strike] emulated this, it was only within the damage parameter.

Satisfied with his evolution, he used Masquerade and raised his Alias' Fame stat.

Walking on the large stone path that led to Tiriel, He left the path and ventured a distance from other players and deactivated his Masquerade skill. Through the doors that led into Tiriel, he could see that it was large, though, not as large as Kaya was.

Peering through the shops, he finally ended upon the door that led to the special 'Tamer Shop' which sold the Pet Runes, as well as various pet accessories.

He ended up buying [500 Pet Rune II], which was the second tier of Pet Runes with slightly higher tame rates, but couldn't find any Tame Drops for decent pets.

Apparently, Horizon had been very slow on the uptake of pets, as, within Tiriel's Townsquare, almost every player seemed to already own a pet, and others were even selling pets, for quite a profit.

As he searched through the players selling pets, he found an interesting pet, a Scarlet Bird, which had decent stats but it was way overpriced for the stats that it gave. He tried to bargain for lower prices, but was unable to reach a realistic amount.

Unable to find a viable pet, he was disheartened and stopped looking. Walking past the grand gate that led out of Tiriel, he followed the gravel path that would lead further out from the town, and into the next area.

As he walked upon the road, he observed in detail how each party fought, and took note of the skills of their classes. He was occasionally glared at by these parties, some of which contemplating whether to rob and/or kill him, but so far no parties had taken the initiative to attack him, and they left each other to their own things.

Whilst taking in the scenery in stride, his thoughts were interrupted by screaming. Shaken from his train of thoughts, he followed the origins of the scream and came upon a party being attacked by a horde of monsters.

It seemed that a small guild was attempting to grind in the area when another player came by with a train of monsters. Aggro dumping the mobs onto the party, the majority if the party was taken out by the sudden appearance of the monsters. Apparently the player who had been doing this in the area had a reputation, but nobody had been able to do anything about it because they had to focus the monsters that he was training. (Training is basically aggroing a bunch of monsters and leashing them so they aggro another group.)

Seeing the chance to grind EXP and loot, he equipped his weapons and began a dash towards the massive amounts of monsters. With his glaive and sword taking down monsters with several slashes, his EXP bar slowly rose.

When the monsters had all been eliminated, he began searching through and grabbing all of the items that he could grab. Approached by the remaining players of the party, they offered him some form of compensation for helping them, but his conscience would not allow someone who had already suffered to give something away that they would need so much.

He left the three remaining party members alone, and walked towards the Tharien Mountains, which apparently had high leveled vicious monsters according to the forums and chatter that he had overheard in his stay within Tiriel.

The encounter with the train of monsters had allowed him to raise his passive skills to the next tier, and had gave him a nice amount of monster drops.

The Tharien Mountain's monsters were indeed high leveled. Horizon had approached an armored insect and tried to use [Identify], but was unable to get it's exact level, meaning that they had a level advantage of over 10 levels.

Inzekt Silver ShellLv. ???A hard shelled creature that roams the Tharien Mountains.Health: ???Mana: ???DMG AVG : ???DEF : ???

After landing a combo of hits on the SilverShell he was stumped by it's unrealistically high amount of health and defense.

47!

75!

58!

109[Crit!]

The process of taking a SilverShell wasn't hard, but because of its large defensive qualities it would be very time consuming. Before he was even able to take the SilverShell to half health, another SilverShell monster had appeared.

Seeing that attacking 2 SilverShell was not much harder than taking on 1 SilverShell, he leashed them and kited 3 more SilverShells, in addition to a monster with the appearance of a mantis, which he found out was called Inzekt Mantis. It seemed like the creators of HCO a very bad naming sense. Or was very lazy.

With first SilverShell defeated, his EXP rose a noticeable amount.

'With the massive EXP gain from these creatures, he would be able to level up in no time!'

Indulged with his thoughts from the EXP he had gained, he just barely was able to dodge the Mantis' attack, and was grazed by the edge of it's claws.

458!

Horizon almost choked himself when he had seen his health drop and saw the massive amounts of damage that these creatures were able to deal. No wonder the other players rarely came here. it had near-invincible shelled bugs, and a mantis that could kill with 1 strike.

With his raised Resonance stat, dealing with the monsters became easier over time, and he quickly took care of the mantis and the SilverShells.

-Level Up-

The massive amounts of EXP gained from the monster train earlier, and the SilverShell's and Mantis' noticeably large EXP boosts allowed Horizon to achieve yet another level.

With this level up, he had learned a new skill.

Yay, more cliff hangers. :P

Notify me of any errors please.