Looking around at the beautiful scenery brought a smile to my face. There was so much beauty here. Which was why we had bought this area to build our house. It wasn’t a guild hall, just a normal player home. Though we had put a lot of money into building it. There were hundreds of rooms for different things. Pools, libraries, bedrooms, living rooms, guest rooms. This mansion had everything. When we were not out leveling, relaxing here was my favorite thing to do.
Many would message us trying to get us to join their group for a hard mission. As one of the strongest, we were sought after for a few reasons. Mainly we were cheaper and we didn’t act like snobs. A lot of other mages liked to act better than the warriors and rogues because they didn’t learn magic. To be fair learning magic was hard. Using full dive, learning to swing a sword was easy, with time and skill levels you could learn it simply enough.
Magic was different though, most cases had a different rate of learning to control magic. When starting you would only have a Health and Stamina bar, learning to access your mana was difficult for a lot of people because we didn’t know what to look for.
Being rich had helped in learning magic for me because when younger, a teacher had recommended that meditation might serve me well. So learning to empty my mind and find my center was something that came easier to me than others. Still, it took me five days in the game to access my magic. However, it awarded me an amazing skill which was the reason for my success.
Meditation - Novice level 1
Because of your in-depth knowledge of mana, when meditating you will receive an increase in your regeneration speed.
1% Faster regeneration speed (Out of combat)
.5% Faster regeneration speed (In combat)
3% Faster regeneration speed (while meditating)
As the skill had leveled up to its final level it had become better for me. Though it had a choice each new rank, When selecting Beginner, Adept, Master, Grandmaster, Legendary, Ancient and Mythic. Each new rank had me selecting where to put some extra power. My choices were any of the three categories. In combat was my choice, because it was where you needed the most regeneration because it was the slowest to grow.
Meditation - Grandmaster level 10
Because of your in-depth knowledge of mana, when meditating you will receive an increase in your regeneration speed.
60% Faster regeneration speed (Out of combat)
55% Faster regeneration speed (In combat)
180% Faster regeneration speed (while meditating)
In combat got a total of 25% extra than it normally would have because each new rank, the 5% extra it had given was put in there. Which was useful, because in combat regeneration was half of your out of combat speed, and health regeneration was a third of your out of combat. Before skills of course, skills could make a lot of difference.
Sometimes not sharing the skill would make me feel bad, but there were many players who would treat others worse. There was no way this was the only hidden skill, also there was no way someone else hasn't figured this out as well. Which helped me to feel a little better.
My knowledge of magical lore was very high, because of our state of the art immersion capsules there was very little downtime needed. One hour in the game was only 25 minutes in real time. Once a month was enough for me to leave Etis, it was easier to have them beam me the work into the game. Rarely would you find me questing without Derrick. When he logged out to the real world, my time would be spent here. Studying either my college work or histories of magic. For most spells, you needed to learn from a master or to be able to buy the scroll.
Yet if you knew enough about magical history you would be able to recreate a spell after seeing it performed a few times. The higher level the harder it was to learn, and the more magical history you needed to know.
Granted that was a simplified version of learning magic. There were many avenues of magic and learning branches was important as well. Frost, Fire, Light, Darkness, and Arcane were the main branches. There were hints that there were hidden magics, but so far no one had learned them.
Closing my eyes, and focusing on the magic inside. Entering meditation wasn’t really needed for me to advance it anymore. Though it helped clear and relax the mind. Allowing my character to stave off the need for sleep. Also helping me process my thoughts and learn things quicker.
My title was Archmage Alex. It had been hard to earn it, though worth it. There were five archmage players. Which showed how hard it was to gain the title. The game had started five years ago. My skills were impressive, and that wasn't even bragging on my part.
Name: Alex
Title: Archmage
Age: 18
Level: 350
Class: Mage
Race: Elf
Sub: Light
Health: 6270 (+5000)
Stamina: 3670 (+)
Mana: 7650 (+7000)
Attribute points:
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 10
Constitution: 250 (+200)
Intelligence: 700 (+500)
Wisdom: 720 (+500)
Charisma: 100
My skills were appealing to many and many guilds wished to recruit me. Though not all were happy with my standing as the most powerful mage. That wasn’t a title I used, others called me that. After five years of playing there were many strong players and more than a few swordsmen could take me in a fight. They had legendary or higher skills. Even some of the merchants had Ancient level crafting skills. Though they were rare and highly sought after.
While Magic was harder to learn than other skills, all of my skills were in the Grandmaster range. Focusing on only one style might help me level them faster, but it would make me weaker in the end because there would only be one style of fighting I could use. Healing, crowd control, damage my mastery of spells across the different school made me unique. My power could be used in almost any mission.
Versatility like this was only an option because of the fact that most of my time was spent in the game. Overall my character had the most grandmaster skills on one character of any in Etis, as far as I had seen. No one had come forward to show more, there was even a bounty at the mission office that would net them a decent amount of gold if they could show more grandmaster or higher level skills than I had.
Every month the mission would be updated to reflect any changes to my character in that time. The mission was very popular because it didn’t need to take up a quest space, you could just swing by the office and see if you could complete it. If you couldn’t you knew what the goal was.
“Alex,” A voice called.
Sitting up straighter and opening my eyes I turned to see Derrick standing behind me.
“Hello Derrick, I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.” Standing up and walking into the house from the balcony with a smile.
“What about a mission? Any good ones come in today?”
“Not really, nothing we couldn’t do solo.”
“There is very little we couldn’t do solo, currently.”
“There are a few ancient and mythic raids I wouldn’t want to do alone.”
“True, this new patch will be amazing the lost world, for level 300-500, this will be the biggest jump to the game in a long time. The AI are really stepping up their game. I read that they are focusing on Norse Mythology for this area.”
“It will help that we are already 50 levels into the 300’s,”
“Maybe, but there will be so much new stuff to learn. The lore is supposed to be pretty involved.” The last statement brought a big smile to my face.
Lore was my specialty, either historical or magical. There were even skills for them that offered bonuses. Learning magical lore made it easier to learn new spells as well as leveling them faster. Historical lore was good for identifying items and finding hidden passages in old dungeons. There was little about the Etis that I didn’t know. Both of my lore skills were close to becoming legendary.
There were a few books that merchants were looking for me that would put me over the top. Players would send requests to access my library of knowledge. There were two, one on magical lore and the other historical. Both of my collections were almost complete. It was rare for us to let someone into our library. Mostly because some people tried to steal from it. Though it was hard to take a book out of a house you don’t own. Which had resulted in a handful of people getting banned from the house.
Others were upset because it kept us from inviting more people over. Thinking about this new area got me excited, from the uptake in missions, it was easy to know that something was going to happen, though what was a mystery to me. Leaving the game more often would have allowed me to know what was going on as well.
Staying in the game was more important to me. The pod would keep me alive and healthy, with the exercise it offered the body it was actually healthier to stay in the pod than to leave it. The nano-gel kept me clean, disposed of waste and kept my muscles working using minor electrical stimuli. Going into the pod my body had been scrawny, your average nerd. After a few years of almost complete immersion in the game, my body had been toned. My body wasn’t like a bodybuilder or anything, but it was very well defined.
“So what brings you into the game? Did you call into work sick?” My voice quiet as I turned my attention back to my brother.
He smiled, “I asked for the day off, said I wanted to go questing with my little brother. With it being the anniversary of our parent's death.”
“That’s right that is today, Spending so much time in here, my days blend together.”
“I know that’s why I took time off. Do you want to go?”
“Yeah,”
Getting ready didn’t take long, we walked out of the manor and took the portal at the end of the walkway, appearing in town. We were going to be heading to a beginner area where mother and father liked to spend time. It was a park area in one of the starting towns. They said that it was peaceful and they loved spending time there. Even after getting stronger they would go back often.
After they died, we went every year on the day they died and we would lay flowers. Very few people bothered us. Most who lived in this town knew who we were. There were some players who focused more on crafting than leveling and a lot of them lived in this town.
Though that didn’t mean that some low-level players wouldn’t ask for help. Being power leveled was much easier than doing it on your own. Today was no different. Getting to the town was easy, but the memories of our parents were harder. Four years had passed since they died. We both wished that they could have lived to see what had become of Etis Online.
Hours passed and we sat there remembering our parents. Only a few people bothered us, but they were easy to handle. Heading back home was harder leaving the comfort we found there to go back to our lives as if nothing had happened.
We entered the portal to take us back to the city we lived near when static overtook my vision and I felt pain before the world went black.
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