บท 18: The Birth of a Paragon Class

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3 weeks later, The Mountain Meeting Point, 5 hours before the appointed meeting time set by Treech.

Prince landed on the ground at the base of the mountain. He no longer looked like a blob of floating black and silver starlight. He took levels in the next racial class following [Star-Dust Ethermorph] and he now had his stats in the [Star-Dust Etherite] racial class up to its maximum of 10 points.

Prince also improved his character build in much better ways to fully reflect his best personal traits. He was originally a full-on magic caster and was going to become an Astromancer like his sensei was, however after reflecting on his sensei's teachings he realized his sensei was trying to get him to learn something important. That he needed to not follow anyone's path but to make his own!

Yggdrasil was a game that promoted freedom and customization like none other. He shouldn't fall into traditional gaming roles like normal VRMMOs. Thankfully, his sensei made him realize this mistake before it was too late. From then on he focused on understanding himself. He realized he didn't have the talent to micro spells like others. But he did have talent in martial techniques. He only had been so focused on magic casters because he thought that they were the strongest class in Yggdrasil. He resolved to follow his sensei's advice. To be his own teacher. Cut his own mold. Let the people of this world use him as a reference for their designs.

Despite his enlightenment on his character build, he still hadn't defeated the pursuers he had on him all this time and it had gotten really hard to shake them off. Each time he logged in, he found himself tracked down by their magic caster BBWolf who specialized in Divination Tracking. They wouldn't always focus on hunting him down. They would focus on leveling up on the nearby monsters and would periodically check if he was online. Then they would track him to see if Treech was near him.

They still hadn't given up after 3 weeks, one could see the allure of a World-Class Item from just this. On the forums, some people even offered to purchase his [Conqueror's Merit] from Treech for a ridiculous 800,000$ offer. It was high-priced offers like these that drove his pursuers with even more vigor to find Treech. Needless to say, Treech was famous in Yggdrasil now. There was even a fan club of players who would roleplay as if they were like him. They would mimic the crazy laughing that he did in his video and his arrogant attitude. It became a cringe line where players would say:

`Oh? I guess I'll play with you for a while.`

So Prince was constantly under pressure, there were many people that wanted to find Treech for a variety of reasons. He reflected on what he should do to handle his situation and continued to think over what his sensei had said to him over and over in his head. He had a feeling that he was missing something important. As if the true nature of this test was not only to beat his pursuers but to find its hidden meaning.

So Prince had come to the conclusion there had to be something special about the meeting point his sensei had decided on. He made his way over here to see if he could finally find the answer to the hidden message in his sensei's test. He searched the entire mountain until he finally found a hidden and unassuming cave entrance at the bottom of the mountain.

He made his way down the caverns and way down inside the tunnels. He knew he had only a short time till [DemiDemi] found him again and he would have to retreat again. They had gotten much stronger and leveled up a lot since 3 weeks ago. Prince had leveled up a lot too as he was now level 60, however, he had already died a few times while dealing with them and it was incredibly frustrating for him. Thankfully, he finally felt he had seen an answer to his sensei's test as he headed further and further into the depths of the caverns.

'As expected, designing such a test to be sensei's clan member is a must.' Prince thought to himself.

The deeper into the cave he went the more strange it became. The walls glowed with luminescent moss, and strange stalactite-looking monsters would ambush him from the ceiling. They would open their mouths and rows of jagged teeth would try to cut him up. Thankfully, the monsters were rather weak after surviving their ambush and were easily finished off.

Finally, the caverns opened up into a large open luminescent green lake. The air here seemed ethereal and filled with a ghostly green mist. This open cavern was so tall that Prince couldn't see the top of it through the green mist above him. The area was lit by the luminescent worms, mosses, and blue lightning bugs in the area. It seemed like a treasure trove for herbalists and alchemists as perhaps many of these things were rare ingredients.

But the most eye-catching object in the cavern was a glowing green rock that was embedded in a pillar at the center of the green lake. Prince's attention was immediately drawn toward it, he felt that this was the answer to his sensei's hidden test. He cast a basic Tier 2 detection spell: [Detect Life] and [Detect Undead] and looked around the room. What he saw, immediately made his eyes widen at the sight of a giant slumbering creature deep down inside the green lake. Its Stats appeared on his HUD.

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[Race]: Abeloth

Level: 100

Hp: 112

Mp: 89

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'As expected of sensei, he already knew this mountain was hiding such an extraordinary being in the 4th Zone. ' Prince nodded to himself silently.

'But the hidden answer to sensei's test couldn't be something as ridiculous as to fight this thing. The answer must be that stone!' Prince exclaimed inwardly. He considered casting [Fly] on himself to move over and take the stone away, but he got rid of that idea. He was a hybrid magic caster and brawler build. He could cast basic arcane spells up to the 5th Tier and used them for supporting him during combat.

'I should use something that doesn't use energy. If it has energy senses, it would definitely be alerted.' So Prince used his absurdly high agility, to leap as gracefully as he could through the air. He used his racial ability: [Dynamic Weight] to dramatically lighten his body so that his jump could last incredibly long. He soared through the air, his body acted like the gravity was 25x lighter than normal. The moonstone on his forehead shined silver as the [Dynamic Weight] ability came to an end after 15 seconds of air time.

He landed agility on top of the lopsided pillar that held the green stone. He had a perfect and precise landing. He glanced at the green water underneath the pillar and mentally held his breath. Thankfully, the creature seemed to not stir, and he finally got a chance to look at the hidden test of his sensei. He mentally gasped at the gift his sensei had led him to just for a mere test to join his clan.

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[Paragon Stone]

[Item Tier]: World Item

[Use/Description]: Also, known as the evolution stone. An item with 3 uses in its lifetime. Gives access to the Paragon Racial class of that race's evolution tree.

Uses Left: 2/3

[Comments]:

A relatively weak World-Class Item that is only coveted by weak creatures. It is naturally hard to locate and appears in dungeons, caverns, or other natural formations of the world where the creatures are at the moments of necessary evolution.

There can only be one Paragon of a race.

Heteromorphic Use Only

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Prince took a few moments to register the information in his mind. But after a few moments, he only felt gratitude and happiness in his heart at how much his sensei had planned to look out for him.

'I swear I will not let you down sensei.' Prince clenched his fists in resolution. Swearing to himself that he would make sure he could help his sensei's clan in the future. He put his hand on the stone and immediately used it. he felt the stone's green hue, dim by half. The green energy swirled around him, and then entered his character. It happened quietly, without even a swish of air passing by or any dramatic effects. Then the stone disappeared from its place on the pillar.

'I better leave before the aboleth stirs, I am guessing it was here out of curiosity for the stone, but could not use it.' Prince thought to himself as he activated [Dynamic Wieght] again, soaring through the air. He landed at the entrance of the underground lake at the cavers gracefully. It went incredibly smooth, Prince was slightly suspicious, but then shook his head as he reminded himself.

'Of course, this is exactly to be expected of sensei's plans. A perfect exit, he probably helped me at some point. Or perhaps, he had put the aboleth into a sleeping status just before we arrived here.' Prince nodded to himself. It seemed like something his sensei would do.

Prince walked out back into the underground caverns and followed the glowing moss and luminescent cavern-life back towards the way he had come. He opened his character panel and selected his newly unlocked racial evolution class, Star-Dust Paragon, from the Racial Class menu. He didn't hesitate in the slightest and maxed his SP into it, bringing it up to 5.

As soon as he entered the points into the Star-Dust Paragon racial class, a dramatic transformation music soundtrack played on his HUD. His character's body no longer became black and silver but looked almost like a humanoid with blue skin. His hair was like a black shadow, flickering like a wick of fire with specks of silver starlight in it. His arms, shoulders, and body looked like it was cloaked in starlight clothing strips. His face was angular like the edge of jagged rock.

Prince looked down at his now blue hand, with wisps of black and silver fading off of it left and right. He took a moment to familiarize himself with his new look and he checked over his racial abilities. They seemed, complicated but incredibly strong. Though he didn't have much time to familiarize himself, because as soon as he stepped outside the mountain cave system, he was met with 3 members of [DemiDemi] who were waiting for him.

"Hi Hi," The blue-haired elf, Tonks, smiled a bit crazily with a gleam in her eye.

"Love the new look! Have you seen Treech lately?" She said playfully swinging her magic staff around in a bit of a silly manner.

There were two other players with her as well: [BBWolf] and [TakeASeat]. DemiDemi would send out a group of 3 players to hunt him every few days. They stopped committing so many resources to track him after the first 3 days, as they realized they were getting behind the other guilds in levels. This usually was good news for Prince, however, he always had trouble whenever the guild leader of DemiDemi came out to 'play' with him as she called it. He could never deal with [Tonks] due to her specializing in Crowd Control type magic.

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Name: Tonks

[Race]: Wood-Elf

Level: 70

Hp: 52

Mp: 74

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All of a sudden, Prince had a lightbulb moment. He connected the dots and realized that the new racial abilities of his paragon class specialized in shrugging off crowd control effects. He felt like he was once again reminded of why he was the student and his sensei the teacher. Did he predict all this as well?

However, while all this was going through Prince's mind, the other three players only heard Prince say.

"As expected, everything was within sensei's plans."

(Author's Note: Alright, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter focusing on Prince. He has become a bit deluded in his admiration for Treech, but it's fun to read lol. Hope you all liked it. Hoping I can write an epic fight next chapter.)