ℙ001 – Just Another Virtual Reality Game

P001 – Just Another Virtual Reality Game

[Year 20xx]

The sun shone brightly, illuminating the distant horizon. Two moons floated in the blue clear sky, with each have peculiar color blue and green. Their appearance can be clearly seen with naked eye even at daytime. It was clear from the existence of the two moons that this planet is not Earth.

Below, the vast and lush forest stretches far away, with its inhabitant living in harmony. Birds singing in the top of the tree, rabbits jumped around searching for food, cicada occasionally let out their sound, and the deer drink the water in the river happily.

But, in a certain part of the forest, this calm was disturbed by fierce battle.

It was not difficult to find the source of this disturbance. Various explosions and deafening roars could be heard from time to time. The smoke from that battle rose high into the sky and could be seen from a distance.

A lot of humans and demi-humans with their strange attires, wielding various weapons as if they were performing cosplay, currently engaging a huge winged reptile-like creature in battle.

If people describe this creature in one word, this creature... is a dragon.

This dragon was enveloped with a black miasma in its entire body. Anyone that touched this miasma would inevitably poisoned as their skin turned purple.

[][Sharknath, the Calamity Dragon - Lv160]

But obviously, those people already had their preparation.

One of the humans, wearing the most advanced armor, shouted in a loud voice.

"Tankers! Prepare for impact! Dragon Breath is coming!"

"Healers! Don't heal if the Tank HP doesn't fall below 50%, just use Regeneration! Save MP!"

"DPSes! Hold your horses and retreat to the backrow! HURRY!"

They orderly forming a formation, following the command of the leader. All of them obeyed and performing their role with careful steps. Even so, there would be some miss and accident. Not everything was smooth.

Fire coalesced inside the dragon's mouth, and with one roar, it blasted the fire towards the flock of people.

But then, 6 people in the vanguard, or the tankers step up carrying their shield and shouted.

"Shield Reflect!" "Defending Aura!" x6

In that instant the Tankers, or more precisely, their shields glows. The dragon breath hit their body hard with a boom, but it didn't cause much damage. On the contrary, their shields glows for a second before they releases some kind of shockwave that hit back the dragon.

Spoiler ; ; Skill Name: Shield Reflect Requirement: Crusader, ??? Type: Active / Self MP Costs: 10 + (SkillLv 2) Duration: 5 minutes or until recast. Effect: Produces an aura of retaliation to reflect a portion of the close range damage taken, back to the attacker for five minutes.

Requires the user to have a shield equipped.

; ; Skill Name: Defending Aura Requirement: Paladin, ??? Type: Active / Buff MP Costs: 30 Duration: 10 minutes or until recast. Effect: Produces an aura of protection to buffer all incoming damage at the cost of attack and movement speed for ten minutes.

Requires the user to have a shield equipped.

GUOOAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!

-24399 -24475 -23004 -25020 -23984 -24402

Seeing the dragon's HP drop a little, the leader... or known as Leon, smiles.

Yes, this world is not the real Earth, but it is a world inside a VRMMO game called Ascension. The peoples that battle just now is the players, and the dragon was the boss monster.

After the emergence of Virtual technology more than 20 years ago, various breakthrough had occurred in this field of study. Using the latest full-dive technology, people are able to dive directly with their brain inside a Virtual Reality. And this Ascension is one of the games that uses VR technology.

Nowadays, many online games uses this technology to bring realism to their users. Just 3Ds was not enough, people wanted something they can feel and touch with their own hands. Ordinary online games that only uses 3D was just unable to keep up with demand.

No matter how exquisite the 3D, it's just a 3D in the monitor. When your finger touch it, it was just flat.

Shortly after 1st and 2nd VRMMO games emerged, those desktop online games quickly went extinct.

Well, some of their servers supposedly still around for a while, but only few people keep playing in that kind of game. Most of the logins is just farming bots. The atmosphere, economy, and competition is not really good.

In the end, those games closed for good and their company follows the trend, using VR technology to create a new game.

"YOSH! GOOD JOB! DPS! PREPARE YOUR POSITION!"

With Leon's signals, lots of Wizards prepare their spells, Rangers prepare their arrows, Knights prepare their swords.

The healers, Priests and High Priests, busy healing the retreated Tanks, as well as buffing the DPSes that steps forward.

Leon himself is a Templar, an advanced 3rd Job-class originated from Knight. He unsheathed his swords and jumped. With his agile movement, he hacked his sword with precise movement towards the dragon's torso.

"Double Slash!" "Vital Strike!" "Raging Thrust!"

-8400 -8400

-15456

-12500

Various numbers of damage pop up appeared above the dragon's body. The other DPSes also doesn't want to lose. They unleashes their skills in succession, while counting the skill recast time in mind. Once the recast time is over, they bombarded their skills once again.

"Firestorm!" "Ice Barrage!" "Wind Scourge!"

"Blade Aura!" "Double Slash!"

"Double Strafe!" "Arrow Charge!"

-5020 -4000 -4784

-7800 -7800

-4300 -4300 -6000

( Okay, that's a lot of skills, I'm not gonna make tables explaining each of them. That's just like spamming this chapter with a longcat image.)

They repeated the process by using the Tankers to block its Dragon Breath, and then ganging up the dragon. It's health bar slowly but steadily drop. When the HP bar dropped to less than 10%, the dragon's eyes suddenly glows red, followed by some sort of red mist enveloping it.

GRRRRROOOOAAAA!!!

Suddenly the dragon's attack pattern changed and it become fiercer and fiercer. Noticing it, Leon didn't panicked out. This situation was already calculated during the team briefing.

"The BOSS entered berserk stage! Everyone, hold on and do as we discussed earlier!"

Leon shouted excitedly.

"Just a little more and we, Genesis Guild, can kill this World BOSS!!"

He then took out an MP Potion from his inventory and drank it in a big gulp. In an instant, his MP bar filled up and he can use his devastating skill combo again. He was confident he can cut off the BOSS remaining HP with one or two combos.

Unfortunately, he was too careless. Leon's attention was completely on the BOSS, he didn't notice that one of the party members he brought had a different agenda.

A girl with petite build and blue shoulder-length hair in the middle of Mage squad, observing the battlefield calmly.

She has been quietly casting spell "Ice Barrage", matching with other caster class. But not even in their wildest dreams they could imagine that this girl only used her spell less than 5 times since the battle start.

The other times she just shouted the spell name, not activating any spell at all.

"Now should be the right time..."

The girl, looked at her status screen first.

Status Screen ; <td colspan="4">; Name: Hecate EXP: 203,044 / 28,535,000 Race: Human / Gold:

12,000

Class: Archwitch - Lv128 Sub: Acrobatics Guild: Genesis Collector Blacksmith HP: 6,800 / 6,914 STR: 1 + 14 MP: 41,200 / 42,500 AGI: 1 + 8 STA: 86% VIT: 1 + 15 INT: 220 + 68 Karma: 5 DEX: 1 + 19 Stat Pt: 3 LUK: 1 + 3 Status: Protection (DEF +500) (0:17:21 left) Shell (MDEF +500) (0:17:27 left) Bravery (ATK +10%) (0:02:43 left) Focus Mind (MATK +10%) (0:01:09 left) Suffragium (Cast-time -25%) (0:00:14 left) Exp Potion (Exp Gain +50%) (0:25:32 left)

A typical min-max avatar type, all of the Stat Points was poured into INT while leaving nothing for others. Her avatar was focused solely on firepower and her HP is unbelievably very low. A scratch from the BOSS can surely kill her in one shot.

Despite that, she is genuinely an Archwitch, one of the advanced 3rd Job-class, far stronger than regular Wizard/Witch. Using that status, she was able to join the raid party...

No, more precisely to say, infiltrate.

She then checked her skill tree.

Skill Tree ; <td colspan="20"><big><big><big>

</big></big></big>

<td colspan="2">Cast Cancel <td colspan="2">Spell Breaker

<td colspan="2">Dispel

<td colspan="2">Free Cast <td colspan="2">Fire Mastery

<td colspan="2">Firebolt

<td colspan="2">Fire Boost

<td colspan="2">Fire Amp

<td colspan="2"> Water Mastery <td colspan="2">Waterbolt <td colspan="2">Water Boost

<td colspan="2">Water Amp

<td colspan="3">Rod Mastery <td colspan="2"> Wind Mastery <td colspan="2">Wind Slash <td colspan="2">Wind Boost

<td colspan="2">Wind Amp

<td colspan="2">Earth Mastery <td colspan="2">Stone Spike <td colspan="3">Book Mastery

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<td colspan="2">Earth Boost

<td colspan="2">Earth Amp

<td colspan="2"> Light Mastery <td colspan="2">Lumos <td colspan="2">Light Boost

<td colspan="2">Light Amp

<td colspan="2"> Dark Mastery <td colspan="2">Soul Strike

<td colspan="2">Gravity Veil

<td colspan="2">Dark Amp

<td colspan="2">Soul Drain

<td colspan="2">Increase MP Recovery <td colspan="2"> Mana Drain <td colspan="2">Mana Stone

Creation

<td colspan="2">Energy Coat

<td colspan="2">Safety Wall

<td colspan="2">Mystical Amplification

<td colspan="3">Skill Points

Total SP Used

;

(Lv1)

(Lv5)

(Lv5)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv1)

Dark Boost

(Lv10)

(Lv10)

(Lv5)

:42 ; ; <big><big><big> Archwitch Skill Tree Allocable Skill Points: 42 Passive Equipment Rod Mastery1 [Name: Rod Mastery Damage Boost Fire Mastery (Lv10)3 [Name: Fire Mastery Lv10 Water Mastery (Lv10)6 [Name: Water Mastery Lv10 Wind Mastery (Lv10)9 [Name: Wind Mastery Lv10 Earth Mastery (Lv10)12 [Name: Earth Mastery Lv10 Light Mastery (Lv10)15 [Name: Light Mastery Lv10 Dark Mastery (Lv10)18 [Name: Dark Mastery Lv10 Trait Increase MP Recovery (Lv10)21 [Increase MP Recovery Lv10 Active Skill Cast Cancel (Lv1)24 [Name: Cast Cancel Lv1

Effect: Allows its user to cancel currently casted spells.

When canceled, the spell still consumed required MP.] , Spell Breaker (Lv5)25 [Name: Spell Breaker Lv5

Requirement: Wizard/Witch, Cast Cancel Lv1

Type: Active

MP Costs: 10

Effect: Cancels a spell that enemy casts.

If succeeded, the spell will rebound and the user will absorbs the MP used by the spell.] , Dispel (Lv5)26 [Name: Dispel Lv5

Requirement: Archwizard / Archwitch, Spell Breaker Lv5

Type: Active

MP Costs: 1

Catalyst: 1 Pearl

Effect: Cancels all magical effects on the target.] , Energy Coat (Lv1)27 [Name: Energy Coat Lv1

Requirement: Wizard/Witch, Increase MP Recovery Lv3

Type: Active/Self

MP Costs: 30

Duration: 5 min

Effect: Wrap oneself with spiritual energy to reduce damage taken by enemies around.

Amount of remained MP affects on the amount of damage reduced by the skill.] ,

Mana Drain (Lv3)28 [Name: Mana Drain Lv3

Requirement: Wizard/Witch, Increase MP Recovery Lv5

Type: Active

MP Costs: 1

Effect: Drains MP from a target

Current: Drains 150 MP per casts] , Mystical Amplification (Lv10)29 [Name: Mystical Amplification Lv10

Requirement: Archwizard / Archwitch

Type: Active/Self

MP Costs: 10 + 4 per SkillLV (lv10 = 50)

Effect: Amplifies MATK of one of the user next spell.

Current: MATK +100%]

Spell Soul Strike (Lv1)30 [Name: Soul Strike Lv1

Requirement: Mage

Type: Active

MP Costs: 18 + 4 per SkillLV

Effect: Summon aggressive ancient ghosts which attack with Dark property on a desired target.]

Subclass Extra Skill

Another abnormal skill tree. Except for Soul Strike, she didn't learn any of the offensive spells. Instead, her skill points used on boost damage Passive Skills.

But, if so, how did she managed to cast other spells like Ice Barrage in the first place?

The answer was because of her Equipment. Other than relying on their Skill Tree to learn skills and spells, players can also use Skills attached inside many Equips, although only for limited activation.

For example, her +7 Moon Glacier Armguard which contains the spell Ice Barrage that can be used 14 times per day.

Spoiler ; ; Item Name: +7 Moon Glacier Armguard Requirement: All Classes - Lv70, INT 40 Type: Armor - Arms Rarity: Durability: 240/269 Crafter: Lyndell Souren (Native) Effect: INT +10, DEX +2

Able to use Ice Barrage Lv5 for 2 UpgradeLv per day (7/14)

- MP costs still applied normally.

Details: A relic from the Ruins of Ice Palace, have been enchanted with the spell Ice Barrage by the Great Mage, Lyndell Souren. ; ; Skill Name: Ice Barrage Requirement: Wizard/Witch, Water Boost Lv3, Coldbolt Lv5 Type: Active MP Costs: 20 + 5 per additional shot Effect: Summons Arrow of Ice that can be shot from the air.

Water element property.

Although the spell attached to the equipment was just a spell that can be learned by any Wizard or Witch, but thanks to Hecate's stacked Passive Damage boosts, the lethality was comparable to 3rd Job-class Skills.

The details of the damage boosts was not shown in the skills. However, after calculating from various experiments, she already could guess roughly how much the damage boosts given by each skill.

Water Mastery (+10%) , Water Boosts (+25%), and Water Amp (+50%) => +85%

And if she wanted to, she can cast Mystical Amplification, a unique self-buff spell belonged only to Archwizard or Archwitch that boosts whatever next unleashed skill's MATK. And at level 10, the skill amplifies the MATK by twice of total amount.

Hecate closed all the windows and immediately prepared herself.

"Ok, overview is done. Mystical Amplification!"

She casts the skill as she quietly withdraw from the battle, then hide in a blind spot. Ensuring her figure was out of everyone's sight, she opened her inventory and immediately used 2 items.

A Crime Scroll that can hide her name from anyone to see for 10 minutes, and a Life Insurance Scroll that can nullify death penalty for 30 minutes. But, she wasn't done yet.

With a wave of her hand, she activated a hotkey that changed her set of Equipment in an instant.

And then, she directly press the X button in her own name on the Party List.

Spoiler ; ; You have used Crime Scroll.

For the next 10 minutes, your name won't be shown to anyone.

You have used Life Insurance Scroll.

For the next 30 minutes, your Death Penalty is voided.

; ; You have equipped +8 Eldritch Bone Wand.

You have equipped +7 Mask of Serenity.

You have equipped +7 Cloak of the Fallen.

You have unequipped +5 Shadow Walker

You have equipped +6 Elevator Boots.

You have unequipped +7 Moon Glacier Armguard.

You have equipped Ring of Ventus.

You have equipped Ring of Ventus.

You have equipped Ring of Ventus.

You have equipped Ring of Ventus.

You have equipped Ring of Ventus.

You have equipped Ring of Ventus.

You have equipped Ring of Ventus.

You have equipped Ring of Ventus.

You have equipped Ring of Ventus.

You have equipped Ring of Ventus.

; ; You have left the party.

Instantly, the cute staff she was holding replaced with gruesome wand with a human skull attached on its tip. The wand gives off a thick aura of death.

Next, a mask with eerie design that looked like the mockery of human being hides her adorable face.

Then, the fancy garment that can induce her girlish charm replaced by an ominous black cloak that hides her entire stature. A ring that glows with green light appeared in each of her fingers. Not only that, her newly equipped boots increased her height by 7 inches. Her true height has been camouflaged to the average height of the players on the field.

Spoiler ; ; Item Name: +8 Eldritch Bone Wand Requirement: Archwizard/Archwitch, Lv100 Type: Weapon - Rod Rarity: Durability: 700/980 Crafter: Lyndell Souren (Native) Effect: INT +100, DEX +20, VIT -500

Upgrade Bonus: MATK +1200

Each time uses a spell: Karma -1.

Can use [Death Sentence] Lv1 for each UpgradeLv per day (8/8)

Can use [Mana Explosion] Lv1 only once per week (1/1)

- MP costs still applied normally.

[ ][ ][ ][ ]

Details: The Great Lich, Lyndell Souren's bone wand.

It contains her grudge and despair.

; ; Item Name: +7 Mask of Serenity Requirement: All Classes, Lv1 Type: Head - Face Rarity: Durability: 200/200 Effect: STR +8, AGI +3, DEX +9

Upgrade bonus: DEF +35

Distort the user's voice into unrecognizable pitch.

Details: The newest fashion in Netherworld.

Its horrendous design, is supposedly cute by their standard.

Obtainable from limited cash shop items.

; ; Item Name: Ring of Ventus Requirement: All Classes, Lv70 Type: Accessory - Ring Rarity: Durability: 200/200 Crafter: Hecate Effect: Wind DMG Boosts +40%

Wind DMG Resistance +20%

Fire, Water, Earth DMG taken +80%

Can use Wind Slash Lv5, 10 times per day (10/10)

Can use Wind Barrage Lv3, 5 times per day (5/5)

Can use Cyclonic Storm Lv1, 3 times per day (3/3)

Details: Ring blessed by Ventus, the Spirit of Wind.

Grants its user the power of the wind.

; ; Item Name: +6 Elevator Boots Requirement: All Classes - Lv10 Type: Armor - Shoes Rarity: Durability: 180/180 Crafter: Hecate Effect: STR +2, DEX +2, AGI -5

Upgrade Bonus: DEF +42

Increase the wearer's height by 7 inches (17.78 cm).

Details: Boots that have a thickened part of the shoe that makes the wearer look taller.

Now, nobody would be able to associate this mysterious figure with the previous cute girl.

No one had realized that someone has left their party as they were still occupied with the BOSS.

Her name was obscured because she used Crime Scroll. If they were to check the log, perhaps they will see a record that says [??? has left the party]. But even if they did, how can anyone remember all of their party member's name?

The chance they realized it was Hecate was close to zero.

Hecate let out an evil smirk. Now is the moment of showtime!

; ; 1st Jobclass 2nd Jobclass 3rd Jobclass Warrior Knight Templar Crusader Paladin Cleric Priest () High Priest Priestess () High Priestess Monk Asura Mage Wizard ()

Witch ()

Archwizard

Archwitch

Scholar Sage Thief Assassin Shadow Assassin Rogue Trickster Archer Hunter Ranger Beastmaster Warmonger Calculating Hecate's stats ; <td colspan="2">

Each Lv Up gives:

1 Skill Point -> 273 lv ups = 273 Skill Points 10 Stat Points -> 273 lv ups = 2730 Stat Points

Calculating Stat Points:

Raising stat from (x) to (x + 1) where (x > 0) costs ( Floor[(x 1) 10] + 2 ) pts. Increasing a stat from 1 to 220 costs 2727 points. ; How many Lv Ups: Novice -> Mage = Lv1 -> 10 = 9 level Mage -> Witch = Lv1 -> 40 = 39 level Witch -> Archwitch = Lv1 -> 99 = 98 level Archwitch -> Current = Lv1 -> 128 = 127 level Total: 273 level ups. Monster Tiers [ ] = Tier 1 [ ] = Tier 2 [] = Tier 3 [] = Tier 4 [] = Tier 5 [] = Block Detect