Chapter 24: Players!
I had been about 42 days since the incident of faking his death, and severing his own limb. Every time Luke thought back to the near death experience he had had, shivers went up his spine, not only because of the dangers involved, but also at how decisively he had decided to rip out his own arm!
However, a long time had passed, and his hand had already recovered completely, returning normal function to his daily life with only one hand.
However, life with one hand wasn't as tough as you'd imagine, mainly because he was a mage. He could just create a golem shaped like his hand, and use it as his own hand. Although a little awkward at first, Luke had slowly gotten used to it and it had in fact improved his control over golems.
Right now, If someone gave him a dead body with enough blood in it, he could simulate all the bodily functions while controlling the golem, effectively bringing it back to life temporarily.
In fact, Luke had experimented with dead rats and animals. A problem was that it used an incredible amount of energy to emulate all the internal activities of the organs. Another problem was heat. A living human is hot! But heating up a dead body would only speed its decay. Therefore, all of Luke's Flesh Golems were freezing cold, which was done by Merlin using water magic.
Currently, Luke was at level 24, just requiring a little bit more exp to level up and chose his next race evolution.
For his level 20 specialisation, Luke had chosen the next specialisation form the Priest pathway, [Unshadowed Infancy] which gave him a few more recovery skills and talents. From the past month, he had recognized the importance of a recovery ability. It didn't matter how strong you were, as long as you were mortally wounded, you would die eventually without recovery abilities.
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NPC Status
Name: Lucas Ferland (The Sage)
Legendary point: The Fool (Gamin Continent)
Level: 24
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Race: Observer I
Path: Magician (Novice Mage)
Specialisation: Sun, Unshadowed Infancy
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Vitality: 95
Stamina: 70
Intelligence: 95
Perception: 90
Strength: 85
Dexterity: 80
Charisma: 95
Luck:2
Energy:145
Fire Affinity: 45%
Water Affinity: 45%
Wind Affinity: 45%
Earth Affinity: 45%
Mind Affinity: 50%
Recovery Affinity: 80%
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Skills:
- Undying Will Lv 1
- Intermediate Cooking Lv 5
- Intermediate Hunting Lv 5
- Advanced Hand-Hand Combat Lv 4
- Intermediate Swimming Lv 5
- Advanced Smiting Lv 5
- Intermediate Sewing Lv 5
- Advanced Meditation Lv 5
- Advanced Fire Spells Lv 5
- Advanced Earth Spells Lv 5
- Advanced Water Spells Lv 5
- Advanced Wind Spells Lv 5
- Advanced Mind Spells Lv 5
- Intermediate Magic Runes Lv 4
- Intermediate Crafting Lv 5
- Advanced Purification Light Lv 0
- Advanced Regeneration Lv 5
- Advanced Recovery Spells Lv 5
Skill points: 23
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Talents:
- Intermediate Spell Casting Lv 5
- Intermediate Energy Absorption Lv 5
- Advanced Mental Perception Lv 5
- Basic Regeneration Body Lv 5
Talent Points: 13
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Note:
Beta testing begins in 00 days, 00 hours, 01 minutes, 44 seconds.
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-Forums-
-Logout-
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Most of the skills and talents were self-explanatory, however, the one that was truly shocking was the talent [Basic Regeneration Body].
It was the evolution of [Advanced Recovery Body]. The most prominent feature of this talent was the ability to absorb 10% of the damage taken and convert it into energy, with the ratio 1:10.
Luke's current HP was 8,075, while his current energy was 145,000. However, this talent also added an additional 1000 HP to his current one bringing it up to 9,075 HP.
Lastly, Even if half of Luke's body was destroyed, he could recover given time and food!
Currently, Luke was in Broda, an extremely rural village at the southernmost end of the Leon kingdom, and also, the only beginner town in the entire Leon kingdom for the Open Betas. During the final release of Version 1, there would be 53 beginner towns in Leon itself, and almost 120 in the entire Gamin.
He was here, naturally because of the players. He was curious about how they would see him. As an NPC, and follow his orders, or as another player?
At this moment, the timer reached 0, as the option for Forums lit up on Luke's interface, as he sat in a local bar, near the village entrance, sipping on some grape wine.
He knew that this body was extremely weak to strong alcohol, and so had decided not have them until he became level 30, or gained Poison immunity, which includes status ailments from having alcohol.
…
At this moment, almost a kilometer outside the city, a bunch of glowing blue pixels formed human figures one after another.
They were all humans wearing loose white shirts and black pants, with nothing else on them.
Until Version 3, where 'Dimensional Gates��� are created, the only available species is human. From Version 3 onwards, new players can chose different species, however, every species had its ups and downs. Humans might not have any special talents, but nor do they have any weakness.
OriginalMagus was one of the many people who had logged on. He was the leader of a Professional Gamming group called Supreme, and his favored occupation was the mage. Therefore he named himself OriginalMagus, which would fit well when a guild name [Supreme] was added before it.. Due to the large size of the group backing his team, he was one of the first players to create an account, and no one had taken this name. This was also his name in most MMORPGs, as long as he is able to create an account early on in the game.
He had come to the Open Betas to not only test out the possibility of the game going professional, but also to heave a head start when it came to levels, knowledge about the world, and experience in playing the game.
Unfortunately, all the leaders from the his direct competitors had also come along with him. This included the currently named 'SwordSlasher', 'WeedGod', and 'SaintessKatrina'.
Naturally, all of them were from southern Asia, and had chosen this server.
When Version 2 would come about, not only would all servers be pulled closer, but some would merge as well.
For example, South Asia would fuse with the rest of Asia to form the Asia Server. North America would fuse with South America to form the Americas server, etc.
Everyone was currently taking in the realism level of the game, along with the lag free controls.
Not only that, but each of their actions would leave an effect in this world, like taking a step would leave a permanent depression in the soft soil until someone changes it or the weather fades it.
OriginalMagus was also in his reverie, when a player suddenly cried out in disbelief.
"My business has become the size of a peanut!"
Suddenly, all the male players, taking up about 70% of the current 100 players, looked down at their own business district.
Some sighed in relief, and some cried out in shock along with the mad who originally cried out.
Soon everyone recovered and began chatting on the forums about the realism of the game.
The forums was one of the most frequently visited place on the entire game. It was an official part of the status screen and contained many pre-loaded threads like:
--World Chat--
--Gamin Continent--
--Sumas Continent--
--Puref Continent--
--Volder Continent--
…
Most of the people began chatting in the world chat, since no one knew which continent they belonged to, while some brave ones decided to have their own personal chats in the various threads.
OriginalMagus did not waste too much time and started to wait for the first scenario. After a discussion with his team, the conclusion they came up with what to do right after you log on was to wait for the 'First Scenario' or 'Opening action' to occur. All games had either this feature, or a cutscene, and as far as he had experience no cutscene had occurred.
Therefore, the best plan was wait for something to happen. If you decided to go and explore, and in that much time, the opening scenario happened with the group, you might be left behind.
Or if you venture the wrong way and enter a high level or restricted area, it might me extremely harmful.
Naturally, you might be extremely lucky and find something amazing, but OriginalMagus did not like to take risks.
Therefore he just stayed with the group, eyes the surroundings.
Suddenly, he spotted a man without a glowing blue nametag above his head. This was an NPC, and was clearly spotted by almost all the remaining players, excluding the around 20 who had already left to explore in all directions.
Nearly 80 players, both tall and short, male and female, rushed towards the around 17 year old woodcutter, who was visibly petrified by seeing the hungry looks on the faces of these people. Decisively, he turned around and began to run back to the village of Broda.
Since he was around Level 2, while the players were all level 0 noobs, their stats were pathetically low, and were soon left in the dust. This included OriginalMagus, and the other team leaders.
They were stumped for a few seconds for what to do before a discussion re-ignited on the world chat.
"The reactions of the NPCs are so life like!"
"Yesh"
"How can you spell yes wrongly"
"It is not wrongly!"
Looking at this, Luke could not help but remember that he used to be one of those 'Grammar Gurus' that would kill the mood for any comments.
Back to OriginalMagus, he decisively continued to briskly walk in the direction the young lad ran in. Although is stamina was nearly empty, walking did not use stamina, while allowing it to recover. He was soon followed by the other leaders, while the bulk of the players remained chatting about the NPC and spellings.
Although they could talk in real life, and the game would translate it to Their preferred language for them, they still preferred talking on the forums, whose text translation ability far exceeded the game's voice translation.
Naturally, there was also an option of allowing the game to display your words in English above your head, buy that was not used by most people since it was mainly used to broadcast requests and recruitment by guild in the future.
As he was reading the conversation, he suddenly noticed something amiss with his status screen.
There was an additional feature below the 'Faction' tab.
It was called 'NPC Functions'!
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone