“Seven… six… five…” My eyes were glued to the screen.

From how my recognized rival bid, he had money to spare but was trying to save costs. By placing larger and larger bids, I signaled there was more where that came from, and it’d do him well to back off. It might cost him a pretty Artas if he kept bidding and abruptly stopped. Would he risk that? How much was it worth for him to wait for the next [Health Conversion] Shard to appear in the auction house?

“Three… two…” I clenched all my orifices that had muscles. “One.”

[ Congratulations! Herald Stone won the auction! ]

[ Received: Ocadule Link Shard: Health Conversion ]

“Eh? That was it?” I slapped my face to snap me out if I was dreaming. Then I realized how stupid that was because I was in a virtual world. “Herald Stone won the auction, indeed!”

Lvl. 1 Health Conversion (Link): Replaces the cost of linked Active Skills with Health, with a multiplier of (220%)

I immediately slotted it in my [Tower Shield], linking it with [Greater Pyro Shell] and [Arcane Poison Empowerment]. Because of the enchantment on the [Tower Shield], two levels were added to [Health Conversion], bumping it up to three.

Lvl. 3 Health Conversion (Link): Replaces the cost of linked Active Skills with Health, with a multiplier of (170%)

This was what Enrico mentioned. Higher levels of [Health Conversion] would lower the multiplier, reducing the health I’d pay for [Greater Pyro Shell]. Enrico advised that being stingy with my health beneath the barrier would be prudent.

But should I level this Link Shard?

Before I could ponder a brewing, unboxlike idea, I received a message from the outside world. Nelly was on to me.

[Where are you?] she asked. There was no sound in a text message, but I could sense her annoyed aura emanating from the words. [I saw Jimmy carry a VR helm. Are you playing MCO?]

[Yes, I am.] The jig was up; no use pretending. [Something important in-game.]

[Pause that and return later. Come help here.]

[Pause? You know I can’t do that. You play MCO too.] Déjà vu. Younger Nelly used to tell me the same thing when she’d fetch my equally younger self from Vanguard Gaming because Mum was fuming that I wasn’t home yet for lunch.

[Just kidding. But I’m serious. I need help.]

I eyed my new Shard. Right, I could test this later. Test this… Test this? Testis. Balls. I chuckled at my dumb-as-a-turkey joke while typing my reply to Nelly. [One minute. I’m going back to the meeting.]

[Good. I was about to call Mum on you.]

I smiled. Playing games. Having my family around.

It wasn’t so bad.

BOOM!

My shell exploded, blasting Paritor’s Asipu hounds attacking me into wisps of smoke. Granted, they were heavily damaged by retribution and [Blight Cloud], and Paritor wasn’t actively healing them. But there was some chip of pride for killing a stronger player’s summons.

“Aw, why did you kill them, Herald?” Megantress whined. “They were so cute.”

“Paritor can just resummon them, you know?” Nitana2003 drawled, not looking up from the movie she was watching.

Paritor flinched. I doubted he was surprised by the explosion. From his uncomfortable grimace—quite hard to decipher Mardukryon expressions—I surmised he didn’t like me killing his pets. He confirmed my suspicion by making excuses. “I shouldn’t have refrained from buffing them,” he said. “Their lifesteal was insufficient.”

“If you buffed them, they would’ve killed me,” I said to assuage his feelings. Not exactly true. Spamming heals and debuffs, I was confident I could tank maybe a couple of blue doggies. “And buffs would’ve interfered with our tests. Their crit and double attack make it hard to gauge how thick my shell is.”

“I suppose that is true.”

“Anyway, I logged how many seconds before my shell popped. I’ll make a quick trip to the Chief’s Lodge to remove this Shard, and then we’ll test again to compare.”

“I’ll go with you,” Paritor said.

“You can stay here.” I looked past him and locked eyes with Megan. “Get to know the party.”

“Yeah, let’s chat,” said Megan, quick on the uptake.

“I-I am uncertain what topics…” Paritor stared at the statue he carried in his main hand as if the coiled snake-like creature could help him. “What I mean is that I don’t have anything interesting to—”

“So, how long have you been playing?” Megan drew a sparking question mark in the air with her wand.

“I, uh, I have played…”

I left Paritor to his fate and made my way back to the village. We stayed at the Swineling area’s far edge, where the mobs thinned, and players didn’t venture. Since it wasn’t a PvP zone, Paritor and I had to turn on our PvP settings to attack each other.

It’d take me ages to break [Great Pyro Shell] alone. Relying on monsters to do it made for unpredictable calculations. Fortunately, Paritor was online and willing to help. We couldn’t test inside the village because fighting wasn’t allowed there—the guards would arrest us if we tried—so we had to leave. On our way to the eastern gate, we ran into Megan and Nitana.

I passed several youngling players hunting Swinelings. Ling-killing-lings.

Someone with an enormous AoE skill grabbed kills from the others. The bastard was trolling—a player his level should farm monsters stronger than measly Swinelings. Some things never change. I might’ve been guilty of this same assholeness a few times in Nornyr Online.

Disagreements followed, but the troll didn’t leave. Those who couldn’t compete went further into the forest to farm something else. In a way, this was a snippet of the Great Hunt. Even with Kezo, our party was too weak to contest the veteran teams head-on. It wasn’t like we could ask the stronger players to give us kills. Imagine what Luds would say to that?

Kill-stealing is always an option, I mused to myself, trotting through the eastern gate. An option, yes. It was a whole different matter pulling it off.

The center of the village was more crowded than before, if that was possible. It was a sea of bulky molten stone-plated creatures, and I had to swim through the armored waves to get to the Chief’s Lodge. Once inside, it was another struggle to get to the NPC removing Shards from slots. Like the auction house, everyone else disappeared once the interface popped up.

“All this trouble to remove one Shard,” I grumbled.

Hypothesis: [Health Conversion] made [Greater Pyro Shell] thicker. The ‘life’ of the shell was calculated by a combination of its AS cost and a percentage of my Armor. [Health Conversion] not only changed the resource used for casting but also increased it with a multiplier. Did it follow then that the shell would get thicker?

The answer appeared to be yes.

When I returned to my party mates, I sighed in relief, seeing that Megan hadn’t chased Paritor away with her energy. Not to say Paritor was doing well talking to her. He still stammered and couldn’t face Megan straight, but there was no awkward silence. Baby steps. The important thing was that progress was made. Nitana was glued to her movie with an amused smirk, either from what she was watching or Paritor and Megan’s interactions.

Paritor called his hounds out of thin air for our second test.

I made sure the variables were precisely the same. I capped [Ancestral Constitution] and checked that [Band of Loamy Renewal] was ticking and that [Reinforced Pavise] was unequipped before wearing [Greater Pyro Shell]. The blue doggies attacked. Asipu summons made of Ancestral Flames were immune to Burn—[Mantle of Kindling] couldn’t randomly debuff them, making their damage consistent.

My barrier exploded. This time, Paritor made sure he healed his summons to full.

“So, that’s without Health Conversion,” I said, reviewing the calculations I hoped were correct. I wasn’t some math whiz like Enrico. “Comparing it to earlier, the Shard adds… almost, uh, what? Twenty percent thickness to the shield? Also, twenty percent damage. My hypothesis is right!”

“Hooray!” Megan was ready with her sparklers. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But still, hooray!”

“Something about thickness,” Nitana murmured.

“One last time, I’ll rearrange my Shards,” I said. “Just wait here for me.” Before Paritor could speak, I called out, “Nitana, have you talked with Paritor already?”

She flashed squinted eyes at me. Then she was all smiles at Paritor. “So, how long have you been playing?”

Megan poked Nitana with her wand. “Hey, I already asked him that!”

Back at the Chief’s Lodge, I implemented my unboxlike scheme, rearranging Shards and LSPs.

[Heaping Infections], [Chorus of Delirium], and [Enfeebling Burden] went to my [Tower Shield]. The seventeen LSPs needed to max all three Shards were reduced to thirteen by the shield’s enchantment.

[Greater Pyro Shell], [Arcane Poison Empowerment], and [Health Conversion], switching places with the debuff Shards, went to [Peytral of Fiery Devise]. [Health Conversion] stayed at level one for a thicker shell—seven LSPs to max the other two Shards. Lastly, [Compelled Frenzy] had three LSPs on it. At level twenty-six, I had two LSPs free.

I cast my shell. Around two thousand health points disappeared—a third of my health bar. No [Ancestral Constitution] stack procced; it wasn’t considered a hit. My regeneration soon patched it up, but it was still a hefty cost. I wouldn’t want my shell to break before my health bar returned to full.

I was placing too much faith in my barrier. My setup to spam [Greater Pyro Shell] was more than enough for any challenge around my level, but it needed improvement for the big leagues. The risk of getting one-shotted was high. However, I didn’t want to raise my health just yet—I needed it to be low for my strategy.

BOOM!

“The blast dealt more damage this time,” Paritor commented. His pets didn’t die but suffered more damage than before.

“This is about… thirty percent stronger than without the Shard,” I said, doing some quick number crunching. “The health cost, however. Painful meatballs.”

“Will you be using Health Conversion?” Paritor asked. “If you’d like, I can assist you in getting Immaterial Counterpoise from the Spirit Carvers. It’ll allow you to manage your resources, choosing when to use health or Ancestral Shroud.”

“I’ll settle on this Shard,” I replied, not wanting to owe him this early. “It was just this one skill giving me a headache.”

“On that note, I tested Immaterial Counterpoise to answer your previous inquiry. Using health to pay for skills didn’t count as damage. Try as I might, my level one Pyro Shell didn’t pop no matter how many skills I cast.”

I nodded. “Thanks for the info.”

“What was your intention with it?”

“Looking for a way to pop my shell on my own for added DPS when grinding. If tanking a boss, of course, I won’t do that. But if I’m farming normally, it might be good to spam casting and popping it.”

“Hey, guys!” Kezodilla emerged from the snow-covered, golden-laced thickets. He had donned a new set—dark greenish metal interspersed with wriggling tentacles. The plates of his armor looked like a mixture of bone and decayed flesh.

“Is that set from the world quest?” I asked.

“Looks gross,” Megan said, making a face.

“A few old boys returned to the game,” Kezo said. “I quested with them for some and completed this Necrotic Scourge set.”

“You’re not leaving us for them, are you?” said Megan.

“No, of course not.” Kezo gave us the thumbs-up we all know and love. “We’re going to conquer the Great Hunt! Are we complete?”

“This is Paritor,” I said, patting the summoner’s shoulder because we were true buddies. “As for our healer, I think she’s—oh, she has messaged me. Let’s go to the tunnels. Melonomi is waiting for us there.”