Chapter 53: Training Area

"Watch!" the instructor said. He unsheathed two daggers and approached a dummy holding a wooden sword.

Using the target, he demonstrated six techniques: Cut Throat, Disarm, Flurry, Gouge, Empowered Strike, and Armor-Piercing Stab.

"Which ones?" after the demonstration, the instructor asked, sheathing his daggers with quick and precise motions.

As his Dagger mastery was at level 22, and one technique was unlocked every 5 levels, Manco could learn four. If he had been playing a melee class, he would have taken Cut Throat and Gouge for their high damage, both direct and the over-time bleeding effects. With his current planned build, however, he would have to avoid stepping into melee range and increase the distance if melee was unavoidable.

"Disarm, Flurry, Armor-Piercing Stab and Empowered Strike." He made his choices. These four all came with some sort of crowd control effect. Disarm had a high chance of causing the target's weapon to drop and return to inventory, Flurry had a chance to disorient or confuse targets, Armor-Piercing Stab caused a mini-stun and temporarily reduce the target's armor, and Empowered Strike had both a mini-stun and a knock-back effect.

"Want another demonstration?" the instructor asked, to which Manco shook his head.

He approached the nearest dummy, which had magically restored from the damage sustained earlier. He took out his two daggers and, after a customary twirl, went to town on his target.

Letting instinct take over, Manco executed the skills. He began with Disarm, which yanked off the wooden sword the dummy was holding. The follow up was an Armor-Piercing Stab at the right armpit. Then came Flurry, a blindingly fast combination of stabs and slashes.

As the daggers danced in his hands, splinters of wood flew away from the dummies, and damage indicators floating up from his targets, he enjoyed the familiar movements he was making.

Using Melee techniques in Epoch of Liberty was another aspect that took some getting used to. Instead of just facing the target, pressing the buttons, and watching the fireworks, there was quite a bit more to it.

The big part of EoL's appeal was how much control players actually had over their virtual avatar. They could individually move every single part of their body, down to each fingertip. While this made for a more immersive experience, it was also a big challenge when players wanted to do things they had never done in real life. Every other game in its current generation chose to automate all 'unfamiliar' actions, which took away the player's control, but Immersive Interaction chose a different route.

Inside Epoch of Liberty, players who wielded a sword or a bow would have an inexplicable feeling that they "instinctively knew what to do" even as they had never done it before. This was achieved thanks to a proprietary combination of several technologies used by Immersive Interaction. Mahn Li did not know exactly how they worked, but from his research, long discussions with other players, and his own experience, he theorized that it boiled down to two things. First, the game provided some sort of 'co-pilot' that cooperated with players as they executed complex actions. Second, and more importantly, players were temporarily granted a form of muscle memory.

For example, all players were used to doing simple actions such as walking or eating. Things got problematic when unfamiliar actions were involved, from wielding swords, throwing knives, doing handstands or back-flips, or just twirling a dagger. How the fingers were supposed to move, how the limbs should coordinate with one another, and so on. Each action required a distinctive combination of movements that normally would take weeks, if not months or years, for the body to memorize.

The VR rig would stimulate and form temporary connections between different parts of the brains, allowing players to flawlessly perform these new tasks. The connections would fade shortly after the playing session ended. In addition, the 'co-pilot' would also kick in and assist with those actions. The co-pilot's effectiveness depended on many factors, the most important of which was the player's Strength, Awareness and Coordination.

Melee techniques were an expansion of those principles. When one is used, a portion of players' movements was assisted by the system, while the rest were under their control. The ratio between automation and player input varied for each technique and could even be adjusted. It was a very delicate balance between streamlining the action and making the players feel in control.

Players who already had some real-world practice with these complex actions would find adapting to the game world somewhat easier. In time, however, that advantage would disappear and everyone could do the same action, with the efficiency and precision depending almost entirely on in-game attributes.

Without learning, a player could perfectly replicate the movements involved in a melee technique. However, they would never achieve the same results. The reason was that when a melee technique was used, a small portion of the player's stamina and mana is consumed to augment the attack, making them faster and more powerful. For example, Empowered Strike had more weight behind the strike even with a light dagger, Armor-Piercing Stab could pierce surfaces that would normally stop a knife, Cut Throat did more damage and caused heavier bleeding, and so on.

'I probably won't get to use these moves very often,' Manco thought absentmindedly as he ended the chained skills with Empowered Strike, which cleanly severed the dummy's head.

"Not bad," the instructor nodded, "Sure you want to learn these?"

"Yes," Manco replied.

Several notifications popped up, letting him know he had learned the skills and money had been deducted from his inventory.

"Anything else?" The man asked.

"That is all, thank you!" Manco answered, to which the man nodded and walked away.

Looking at the dummies lining up the wall for archery practice, he mumbled: "Huh, why not?"

Taking out the Collector, which was in its second form, he assigned Fire Bolt to an empty chamber. At the moment, the gun had three projectile spells: Mana Bolt, Fire Bolt, and Mana Blast.

Previously at the inn, he had made various tests. Currently, the gun could only fire spells that he had in his spell slots. If he took Mana Bolt off his spell list, for example, the barrel to which he had assigned that spell would be empty. It went without saying that the gun could not fire Shadowbolt, which was embedded in the Darktouch wand.

Leveling his gun, he used the area as a makeshift shooting range and fired at the dummies. The second form's accuracy was just as horrible as before. He needed to stand within ten meters to have a decent chance of hitting a human-sized target.

Suddenly…

*BANG!*

The gun violently shook in his hand, and three barrels fired at the same time. The three spell projectiles flew in an irregular pattern. One projectile hit the dummy he aimed at while the other two grazed the two target on either side of it.

"Hmm, so is this random?" He had seen the effect before when the gun was used by its previous owners. Scratching his chin, he fired the gun again.

After several minutes, he discovered that for every fifteen shots, the gun would discharge all the loaded spells at once regardless of their actual cooldowns. This was probably a jab at the gun it was based on. Manco checked the weapon's description, which read: "As a great man once said, sometimes the only safe place around is behind this weapon."

If he had more powerful spells, this would be either a good opening move or a surprise attack at close range.

"If I could improve the accuracy, this would be a lot more useful!" Muttering, he put the gun away and left the training area.