Chapter 4: Master Stroke
"I will be the Cleric?" Jayden had to ask again just to confirm he did not hear wrongly.
Leave everything to them?
These people actually wanted him to take a support role?
Jayden immediately fell silent as the corner of his lips twitched wildly.
Ryan frowned upon seeing his reaction, "What? You don't want to play as a Cleric? Are you thinking of letting Michelle play Cleric instead? But then that would take the fun out of the game for her!"
"…"
Jayden was speechless.
Playing Cleric would take the fun out of the game for her? Then what about for me?
Jayden felt like complaining, but ultimately managed to refrain from doing so.
It was not like he really hated playing a support role. He knew that when played well, support characters were actually the heart of a good party. But at the same time, he was not too confident in the others' ability to perform. If they turned out to be bad, then the party levelling speed would really suffer!
Regardless, Jayden decided not to dwell on it too much. After all, this was just a side account for fun.
Who knew?
Maybe his classmates were actually really good players!
"Sure, I will play Cleric then."
"Oh? It's good that you have thought it though!" Ryan was surprised at how well it went. "Let's start playing tonight then! How about 8pm?"
As expected, nerdy students were easier to convince!
"Sure, I can do 8pm," Jayden nodded.
"Cool! See you online at 8pm then! Message me your character name so I can add you as friend later!" Ryan left excitedly after successfully recruiting Jayden.
Jayden watched as Ryan brought his food tray to sit at another table before starting on his food, chatting with them enthusiastically. But his gaze did not linger on Ryan for long, instead quickly moving on and landing on a person sitting at the other end of the canteen.
Elizabeth, the officially recognised school belle.
In an anonymous poll on 'The person you would like to date', she had triumphed over all others in the female poll. In fact, she had left all her competitors in the dust as her number of votes almost doubled the one in second place!
Her long brown hair and porcelain skin only served to further accentuate the beautiful features on her face. Though she could not be considered as voluptuous, her slim figure was still able to turn heads wherever she went.
Even Jayden, with his mind set mainly on studies, was not immune to her charms. Heck, one of the motivations for him to keep studying hard was to impress Elizabeth with his grades!
Though that did not seem to be working too well as of now…
"Daydreaming as always?" someone gave Jayden a playful nudge while sitting down beside him.
"Nah, I'm just looking at my future girlfriend," Jayden knew who it was just from hearing his voice, and replied without even bothering to look over.
"Your future girlfriend?" the newcomer shook his head in disdain. "It looks like your mental illness is getting worse. Since when did my wife become your future girlfriend?"
"Screw off, Zac! Who's the one daydreaming now? Don't you know that she talks to me from time to time? Have you even talked to her before?" Jayden shot him a cocky grin.
"That's why I say you are dreaming! She only talks to you because she wants to know the answers to the schoolwork! Future girlfriend my ass! You don't even have the guts to go confess to her!" Zac retorted immediately.
"Damn you," Jayden clicked his tongue in irritation, but from the change in his voice level, it was obvious that his self-confidence had just received a critical hit. "So what if I don't have the guts? Neither do you."
"Buddy, don't feel so depressed over this. In fact, it might actually be a good thing that we don't dare to go confess to her," Zac placed his hand on Jayden's shoulder in consolation.
"It's a good thing? Why can't I see it that way? How is it a good thing?"
"Even for the cool athletic kids, none of them were able to win her heart. If nerds like us were to go confess to her, then I'm afraid that we would only become the joke of the whole school!" Zac explained. "So, of course it is better not to do so!"
"Damn, are you trying to console me or are you trying to rub it in?" Jayden grumbled.
"You know I'm right, buddy."
"…"
Jayden could only sigh helplessly. He knew that Zac was right, and it might really be a good thing that he did not have the guts to confess to Elizabeth.
Oh well, he would just have to be contented with maintaining the current friendship between them for now.
Shaking his head to get rid of the negative thoughts, Jayden decided that he would definitely muster the courage to confess to Elizabeth one day!
One day…
The rest of the day passed by in a flash, and Jayden went to the convenience store to pick up a new WoK account card on the way home.
Michelle was really surprised when she realised that Ryan had invited Jayden to play with them, and even sent him a message to thank him for joining. This made Jayden feel a little ashamed for doubting the others' ability to play the game well earlier.
Now he had decided that regardless of their skill level, he would just focus on playing his role of a Cleric well!
Then again, what do Clerics do other than heal their allies?
Jayden might be good at the game, but that was mainly thanks to his superior adaptability and mechanical skills. In terms of hours played, he lagged far behind most other players.
While he needed to learn about other classes in order to know what to do when he met them in battle, there were few instances when Jayden needed to seriously face a Cleric, and thus he did not really bother looking up on them.
But now that he had to play a Cleric, Jayden could only look up the World of Kings' homepage for more information. He ignored the basic descriptions and skipped right to information on the secondary classes, since that was the only way to know the most efficient way of building his character.
All WoK characters started off as a Beginner Class that had no specialised skills. At Level 10, they were able to upgrade to a primary class of their choice. Further into the game, they would then be able to once again upgrade to a secondary class of their choice.
As per all other primary classes, Clerics had three paths that they could advance in.
The Priest class possessed the strongest healing spells and specialised in strengthening allies. This was also the standard way of playing Clerics, providing defensive support that could bail out allies during clutch situations.
The Shaman class was the most offensive of the Cleric secondary classes, specialising in dark rituals and curses.
The Arcane Painter class was equipped with the weakest healing spells among the three, specialising in preventing damage instead. He was centred on materialising his formation paintings in order to control the opponents' attacks.
In Jayden's eyes, the Priest class was the safest pick, but it was also the most boring one. If he really had to pick, it would definitely be either a Shaman or an Arcane Painter.
After watching some gameplay videos, he finally decided on the Arcane Painter.
Even though it was a Cleric class, Arcane Painters were required to position themselves relatively close to the frontlines in order to display the full effectiveness of their spells. This was extremely dangerous for a support character, and there were far too many instances when players ended up dead from being just slightly out of position.
On top of that, since they relied on damage prevention instead of healing, Arcane Painters had to make sure their spells land before the opponent's attacks hit. Thus it was extremely demanding on the players' skill level, requiring a superior sense of timing and awareness.
The difficulty of playing Arcane Painters was also why they were the least popular among all 21 of WoK's secondary classes.
However, these problems were nothing when placed before Jayden!
With Dis Pear, he was already used to fighting at the frontline. Without a good grasp on timing and game awareness, there was no way that he would be able to play the Swashbuckler to such a level.
This meant that the main disadvantages of an Arcane Painter were irrelevant to him, leaving only the advantages.
In this case, why would he not pick the class?
Things were a lot easier after he had decided on the end goal. Other than customising the looks of the character, which Jayden just did carelessly, he was only left with giving the character a name.
Master Stroke.
That was the name he came up with after 10 minutes of consideration, a play on the words 'stroke' and 'painter'.
At 8pm sharp, Jayden sent a message to inform Ryan of his character name before logging into the game with his new account.
[System Notice: SamuRyan has requested to add you as a friend. Do you want to accept?]
[System Notice: Friend Request accepted!]
[SamuRyan (Friend): You are just on time, as expected of the top scorer! Let's meet up at the fountain in the middle of town!]
All new characters would start off in the same Beginner's Town, and thus it was relatively easy for the group to meet up. Even though World of Kings had been out for years, there were perpetually new players joining the game, as well as old players deciding to start new characters like what Ryan and Jayden were doing.
Thus, Beginner's Town was always crowded with people, but thankfully it was not to the extent that their movements would be impeded.
After which, they partied up before starting on the usual beginner quests such as delivering messages from one NPC to another, designed to help new players familiarise with the different NPCs and their functions.
Up next was their first monster hunting quest.
[Quest (Growing Wolves): The population of Grass Wolves has been increasing and they are becoming a threat to the townsfolk. Kill 20 Grass Wolves to help curb their population growth.]
[Quest Progress (Growing Wolves): 0/20 Grass Wolves killed.]
Having done the quest before, the group knew exactly what to do. They naturally exited the town and headed straight for the area where Grass Wolves spawned.
Once they reached, they immediately started hunting down the wolves.
"Watch how I do it, Michelle. Lure them over one by one so you do not get swamped by them altogether. They are weak when alone but it is dangerous to fight a few at once," Ryan explained patiently.
"Ok!"
Despite it being her first time playing the game, Michelle had seen her brother play the game countless times, and had a basic understanding of how things worked. After getting used to the controls, she was able to follow exactly as Ryan demonstrated, taking down one Grass Wolf after another all by herself.
"You're doing really great! Let's take a rest first to recover before we continue!" Ryan was carefully observing their HP bar.
After all, it would be embarrassing if they were to get careless and end up dying to these low level creatures.
"Ok!" once again Michelle had no objections.
As new characters, they did not have the luxury of getting potions, and thus the two could only sit down for a while so that their health would regenerate at a faster rate. They went over to join Alex's Transcending All and Nicholas' Transcending None who were already seated by then.
Seeing them come over, Alex felt a little odd, "Hmm? Where's Jayden? Is he not resting?"
Alex casually commented before turning his eyes to the Party tab. Since the five of them had already formed a party, they were able to see each other's stats from there, including their current HP and MP statuses. "Oh, his HP is still quite high."
"It's still high? Isn't his pace a little too slow then?" Ryan frowned.
While he did not expect Jayden's skill level to match up to them, even Michelle had already completed one round of fighting! How could he be even slower than a complete newbie?
"No, his HP is still high, but look at his character level!" Alex suddenly exclaimed. "He is just as high as us! Wait, he just went ahead of us!"
"How can that be? Is it already your bedtime so you are too sleepy to even see properly?" Ryan laughed.
"It's true! He really is higher than us!" this time it was Nicholas who expressed his surprise.
Ryan was sceptical, but still went ahead to check the Party tab as Alex suggested. Only then did he realise that there was absolutely nothing wrong with what Alex just said.
Master Stroke's level was already ahead of them!
But this did not make any sense! How was it possible for Jayden to keep Master Stroke's HP so high while clearing the Grass Wolves?
Michelle was the only one who was not surprised at all. If anything, she thought that it was normal for them not to be able to keep up with Jayden. After all, Jayden was someone for whom her strict brother was full of praises!
So as to not compete with the rest for the periodically spawned Grass Wolves, Jayden had positioned himself slightly further away from the rest, thus he stayed completely out of their sight. At this moment, he was already about to kill the last of his 20 Grass Wolves required to complete the quest.
The heavily injured Grass Wolf snarled and swiped down with its claws, threatening to bring Master Stroke down with it.
Parried!
Master Stroke easily blocked the attack with his Wooden Rod, and then proceeded to bash the Grass Wolf in the head.
[System Notice: You have killed Grass Wolf for 10 experience points!]
[Quest Progress (Growing Wolves): You have killed 20 Grass Wolves. Proceed to collect your rewards from the Town Mayor.]
[Master Stroke (Party): I'm done with the wolves so I will go collect my rewards first.]
[Mich (Party): Ok!]
[Transcending All (Party): That was fast! Go ahead, we will be right there!]
[Transcending None (Party): Yea go collect the rewards, we are almost done too.]
[SamuRyan (Party): ok…]
Jayden sent the message to the Party chat, and after seeing their replies, he went ahead as he said he would. From the experience bar, it seemed that he was close to levelling up.
After receiving the experience reward from completing the quest, it should be enough for him to hit Level 10 and finally change class to Cleric!
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
-- Power
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