Rise of the Undead Legion

And so the days passed. Dave managed to leave the hospital and went back to his small town. However his injuries were never healed, his leg and right hand were truly a mess right now. He would limp every time he tried to move and his right hand was unable to even properly hold a cup. Truth to be told, he became even more of a mess than he was before the incident. And now due to his suffering, he is incapable of regular work his former boss kicked him out from the petrol station due to his injuries but said that it was due to Dave’s tardiness and his absence from work.

Dave could do nothing but sulk at the injustice that is happened to him. More so now that he has to rely on his left hand to do all sort of menial tasks, it was a torture.

Thankfully, Dave was not without friends. Ralph, Dave’s best friend just came back to town and saw the condition of Dave. They met at a coffee shop and Ralph was shocked at the current condition of Dave he then urged him to tell him of the reason for this but Dave had to keep quiet afraid of implementing his friend in his problems, he had to tell him how his injuries happened though.

"I fell down the cliff, it was nothing serious Ralph, don’t worry." Said Dave, however, his tone betrayed his words, truly Dave was depressed.

"Listen up man. You know, I know I don’t have the right to say this, but you should have finished your studies and went to college, at least you could have managed to get a decent job, or enough experience to get a desk job. Working part-time or doing this kind of works have no future... il tell you what. Do you know about Conquest?" he said

"Ah, that game? Yes, I read about it, but what does this have to do with studies man? Or work. You cant make food out of a game right?"

"No, this is where you are wrong. I am a member of one of the strongest guilds in the game, I even receive a salary by just playing and doing some tasks. Though I am not a core member, I still manage to get about 5000$ a month by just playing. And due to the time dilation between the game and reality, I can manage to play for a long time, doing different quests and bringing honor points to the guild will earn people more income. Last month I managed to get 12K my salary plus the benefits of doing a hard quest and managing to get the name of our guild in the server announcement."

"Wait wait, you are saying that you got 12 000$ just from playing a game? Holy shit I could barely get a third of that by working my ass off all month long!" said Dave.

"Yes, you heard me right, and that was just because I happened to be on the same party of that did the quest. The guy who discovered the quest received 50 000$ from the leader. This is all about commerce and sponsorship basically, if you get to do a legendary quest and manage to get the name of your guild or party up in the server announcement, you can input the name of one of your sponsors there, doing publicity to them. Thus you will gain sponsorship and receive money." Said, Ralph

"This sounds interesting. How can I join? I remember the price of those machines costing about 10 grand."

"Well, you ’re right, they are quite costly. But if you manage to get one you can start ahead and create your own character, once you do that you will be able to join the game. Listen up, there is a minimum requirement for joining our guild, its to hit level 50. Once you are level 50 you will be eligible to access the guild, with a recommendation from me of course. But be wary just because you joined the guild doesn’t mean you will be immediately paid. You will need to start doing some quests and help to achieve some objectives. And if you discover a new dungeon or region you will be awarded by the guild. Though now that three years had passed, it is rare to find new zones or new dungeons. You will have to be lucky."

"So this means nothing. I will never be able to do anything. The game started 3 years ago, and by what I heard many bosses have been taken down, and many dungeons have been conquered. What would an insignificant person like me achieve, I better just stick with regular work."

" No, no. who said that you need to do just quests. There is a contribution system in the guild. Each month, you can exchange your contribution points from the guild to money or gold coins"

"Oh, those contribution points are easy to come by I presume?" Dave asked

"Yes, you just need to farm some dungeons, do some repetitive quests. If you gather 5000 contribution points you will be paid the exact some in hard cold cash. On the other hand, by doing these quests, you will earn some gold coins. The exchange rate is 1:1" said, Ralph.

"Oh, so 1 gold coins is one dollar that is not bad." Said, Dave,

"That doesn’t mean it is easy to get gold coins, however, it is also not hard. It is much more profitable too. Do you remember the hype about bitcoins? This is almost like it, but the gold coins can be exchanged rather rapidly. So what do you say? Wana join?" asked Ralph

"It sounds interesting enough," said Dave"But I will have to decline for now. I don’t really have enough for the moment" Dave lied. But he knew well enough why. "I will join the moment I have enough cash to buy one." Said, Dave.

He knew that Ralph was a good friend of his, and he knew that the moment he joins the game he will dote on him and try to help him as much as he can. If he were to do that he will have bothered him a lot.

That is why Dave wanted to rely on himself like when he used to play old MMORPG games he always went solo. Doing stuff like joining guilds was never his thing. But before he joins the game he needs to do massive amounts of research.

"Hey, listen up I can help you buy a gaming capsule," Said Ralph, but he was immediately interrupted by Dave.

"No need bro, I know well enough that you want to help, but for the moment I need to find a job first. I can’t just rely on the game to pay you back, who says when I will reach level 50 I might even give up on the game and you would have wasted money on me while I will be forced o get cash to pay you back. 10 000$ might not be that much to you, but it would take me a lot to gather it I should work and save up to get the gaming helmet myself" said Dave.

"Sigh, do whatever you want bro. anyway, if you ever join, send me a private message. My game name is Blaster."

"Alright Blaster," said Dave snickering "I will send you a PM once I join," he said.

The both of them spent time chatting and speaking the whole evening.

Then Ralph bade Dave farewell and left.

The night was still young and Dave went back to his apartment.

It was a shabby place. Yet it was not filthy, it had the bare minimum of tools. Two chairs and a small table, a desk near his bed and a small kitchen and a shower for his use. It was not the best of places but the rent was really cheap.

Currently, Dave’s balance was about 17 000$ that remained from the money he was given by that man in black. Truth to be told he felt disgusted at using the money but he still was unable to get a job so he had no choice but use it.

"It seems that I will be needing to use this to buy a capsule... sigh"

That day, dave went online and began by doing some research about the Game Conquest.

There were several classes in the game, ranging from hunters, thieves berserkers tanks and many other classic classes. There were even some hidden classes with superior attributes but they need to be unlocked by following a questline or doing some various odd jobs. The game was separated into multiple giant cities and territories. The players had the ability to conquer other territories and claim land. However, due to the three years since the establishment of the games the political map of the game has been changed. No longer was the original kingdoms the current rulers of their countries, but guilds took over. Killing the king of the said country would grant the killer the right to rule.

So it was really easy to take control over land. However, it still meant that the moment the king of said country is killed they will lose their kingdom.

This hower is only applicable under certain conditions, the kingdom must be forced to undergo war. This was not easy to achieve. There is an item that is needed to start a conquest. A territory attack Conquest. Those items are dropped by High tier monsters and rare and ancient chests.

These high tier monsters would require thousands of players to fight against and even if they defeat them, the chances of the territory attack conquest to drop are abysmally small.

From the begin of the game. Three years now, only three of such items were found. And they were used to conquer three major Kingdoms.

As such the current game rulers are three guilds. Heaven’s Dawn, that took the northern kingdom under it. Blood Rage, who took the Southern Kingdom of the desert. And The Devastators who took over the western Kingdom. Naturally, these super guilds have strong backing. Above each of these three are three rulers. Zhang Shi. From the Chinese guild Heaven’s Dawn who took over the guild and is declared king over the north. And Warlord, who is an American player that rules over the Western kingdom and leader of the Devastators. While Wan Yi, ruler of the Southern Kingdom and leader of the Blood Rage guild. Each kingdom was named after their guilds. And Ralph was obviously a member of The Devastators.

The world map was split into four great regions. Each of these regions has their own territories and quests and geography. Each of these regions has tens of thousands of miles of territory. To travel from one end to the other of the map would take about ten months of travel on foot.

This just serves to speak of the immense size of the game. The designers of the game have implemented a super AI that is managing the game and creating more terrain and quests by each passing minute. Thus the game never suffered any setbacks and always moved forward with new content.

Of all the four regions, only the eastern region was left without a guild to command due to the nature of that kingdom it is an impossibility for it to be conquered. Why? Because it is ruled by an eastern emperor who rules over actual living dragons!

There were several footages showing the might of the eastern army. They actually claim themselves to be an empire and have ruled over the land for thousands of years. Also, their position is in a highly dangerous area with monsters of high level.

Normally the highest level in the game is 1000.

While the highest player currently is the leader of the Devastators, Warlord with level 422. Even after three years of gaming, no one managed to reach the max level. This just tells people how vast the world of Conquest is.

While the rulers The domain of the eastern kingdom is vast it also harbors highly tiered monsters and creatures. The lowest level beasts range from level 400 to 450. Even the highest level player cannot take on these beasts thus the almost impossibility to conquer the kingdom.

Still, this doesn’t mean that they didn’t try but looking at the footages of the conquest against the kingdom many had seen how impossible it is for casual or even Hardcore players to take down the kingdom, even reaching the borders with an intent to fight is rewarded with instant death from the superior guards of the place.

So for the moment, many players are intending on leveling up their characters in order to conquer the land and gain a huge income.

Due to the nature of the game once a king establishes rule over a land they are entitled to a percentage of the gold that circulates in the territory. Mainly, taxes. The rulers get to hog taxes from the kingdom, from fixing equipment, or buying anything, a small percentage of the money is sent toward the kingdom’s treasury, and the king of the land is able to use that money to either reinforce his kingdom or use it as his own.

The rulers of the three super guilds are currently billionaires, due to the amount of money that is circulating, however, they don’t use that cash just for themselves. They use it to empower their guilds and reinforce their lands. This way they will not fear the day when someone tries to take over their kingdom and take away their golden egg laying goos.

This is the basic idea of conquest. One must take over territories to gain power. And due to the vastness of the kingdoms, even if a person manages to take over a city within the kingdom and is appointed as a baron by the king, they will be able to take a percentage of the taxes from the said city while also sending a percentage of the tax to the king however they will be needed to supply the king with forces if need arises, so to rule over a simple city is enough to make a person rich for life.

The game encourages people to conquer new lands and new dungeons. The person who conquers a new dungeon will be eligible to Hogue the dungeon for themselves and will be able to set a fee for everyone else to access the dungeon. This, of course, is another mean to get rich, however, most of the dungeons are owned by one of the three major guilds. Still, some players were lucky enough to gain access to some dungeons.

Dungeons rights can also be sold, and many players who manage to conquer dungeons would sell these rights to one of the three guilds for a huge some of the money.

Basically. This game is about gaining power, financial power many companies are supporting the three major guilds for a share of the pie by giving financial support and organizing events to gain advertisement.

After reading about this Dave felt thrilled if he were to own a small dungeon or conquer a dungeon he might get rich by selling the dungeon right to any of the three major guilds. However, to do so he must first level up and go to uncharted territories. This is not easy especially after knowing that others had about 3 years headstart. This will be really hard, but if he is lucky enough, he might be able to turn this situation upside down.

Dave then submitted a purchase order for the gaming capsule and waited for it to arrive.

It took about two days for the gaming helmet to arrive, and in that time Dave did his homework on the game’s mechanics and classes.

Once he set up the gaming helmet he put it on, hoping that the 10 000$ would not be a waste he logged in the game.

A white light soon blinded him for a moment before a notification showed up before him.

Welcome to Conquest!

Please speak to ALFRED!

The notification then soon disappeared.

Looking at where I stood, it was a blue platform where there was an old man wearing butler clothes and a single lens glass. He fixed his lense and moved forward.

"Welcome to the world of conquest. Adventurer. Here you should know that everything you will be doing will affect not only you but anything and everything around you. Let’s make this brief, let’s start with your race, which race would you like to be?" asked the butler while with a wave of his hand he showed all available races

From humans to elves dwarfs gnomes even orcs and trolls. Looking at the characters one would see the difference in each of their characteristics and basic stats. Basically, it was the normal thing that most MMORPG had.

"Name Death Stroke. Race: Human, keep the same features," said Dave

"Very well, quite direct I may say." Said the butler named Alfred.

"Then where would you like to start your journey?" asked Alfred.

"I am more of a solo player, I would like to start near the eastern Kingdom," I said

"The eastern kingdom... I don’t think you will be able to survive there... especially with that" said Alfred as he looked at my right hand.

"Ah... I totally forgot about this!"

"Worry not," said the butler and with another wave of his hand the mangled right hand and right leg were like new.

"Wow! That is amazing? How did you do that?"

"The Headgear is attached to your brain, I just tempered with your brain waves, now you would not be bothered by your injuries in this game but do know that once you leave the game the injuries will not disappear." Said the butler

"Ah, I can’t thank you enough. I was going to go for a caster class due to this now that I can move my hand like I used to... I should probably go for the regular tank class."

"You cannot choose a class here, you must do the required tasks first before that"

"Ah I know, I am just thankful," said Dave.

"Hmm... many people came here, not bothering with this old man. They were eager to play the game while you are being courteous enough to thank an artificially made character..."

"Artificial or not, it doesn’t matter, you did right by me I need to do right by you, thanking you is the least I could do."

"Well enough, still this doesn’t mean I will give you any favors now be on your way if you have nothing else to ask."

"No no! wait!" Said Dave.

"What is it, Adventurer?"

"What is Inheritance? I never had the chance to study them would you mind explaining some of them to me?" Asked Dave.

"Hmm, this is currently known knowledge I can answer anything that is already been divulged to the public. Inheritance is powers given by the gods of this game, there are several Inheritances throughout the game and to discover them is not easy. These inheritances are separated into Tiers from S to E. S being the strongest. For Every class, there is one major inheritance that is given by the Deity of the said Class those are all unique inheritance and are given to only one person throughout the game The Berserker class has the inheritance of the god of war. It gives immense power to the wielder and a lot of special sets of skills specialized for the class. However, for the moment all of the S class inheritance of the known classes have been found and are already owned.

"Oh, so that means that there is still the possibility of an S class inheritance to show up if a new class is discovered?" said Dave with a smirk.

Actually, that was a smart deduction on Dave’s behalf, he understood that the butler meant that even if the inheritance of the major classes has been discovered, the top inheritance of a hidden class has yet to emerge.

"Hmm, indeed, there are some hidden classes who have yet to be discovered and they too have a unique inheritance to them. However, this doesn’t mean that they are easy to acquire, first, you must find the hidden class and then you must search for a way to obtain the inheritance, believe me, that is easier said than done." Said the butler

"Well, that means it is hard, and not impossible, thank you for the information." Said Dave. Actually, he already did his research on the Inheritance and saw many footages of people that owned them wielding immense strength, but due to the uniqueness of them, he felt sad for not being able to obtain them. Still, the butler now confirmed that there is still some hidden Inheritance that some Hidden classes can own. He just has to find himself a hidden class then.

"Anyway, this is all I wanted to ask. Let’s meet again then" said Dave as he waved his hand to the butler.

"By the way," said the butler

"I am the AI of the game if you happen upon a bug or something that you deem worthy of my guidance or question please do not forget to call upon my name now be on your way," said the butler as he waved his hand and a portal appeared before me. He then disappeared.

"Ah shit I didn’t ask him where my exact location will be!" said Dave to himself.

"Well, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just look where we will land and hope it is not somewhere dangerous."

Right after that Dave walked through the portal and found himself in an almost vacant town.

He looked at his character and saw that he was wearing some brown wool pants and a white shirt.

The basic of basics.

"Status screen!"

Level 1

Health 100 Mana NA

Stamina 100 Rage/Focus NA

Intelligence 10 Wisdom 10

Dexterity 10 Agility 10

Vitality 1 Strength 10

Magic Resist 0 Defense 0

HP Regen 0.1/sec Mana Regen NA

Stamina Regen 10/sec Rage/Focus

Regen NA

Title NA

This looks all right...

"Hmm, Rage? Focus?. Ah it seems that these are related to classes, I guess by the moment I gain a class I will be eligible to access those stats"

"If I remember correctly. Wisdom is related to Mana and intelligence is related to magic damage. The more wisdom one has the more mana they will have, and the more Intelligence one has the stronger their attacks. Strength, on the other hand, relates to how hard one can hit with their weapon. Every weapon has a range of attacks, and due to strength, the damage can increase. Vitality is related to Hp. 1 vitality is 10 Hp. As for stamina, it is a necessary stat to almost all classes. It helps with movement and rate of attacks, Thieves would need high stamina to chain attacks, every physical attack would cost a bit of stamina. So, the more stamina one has the more they can hit or dodge. Then there are defense and magic resist. They are stats that help resist a percentage of the damage dealt to a character. If I remember correctly. An attack of 1000 damage if it lands on a character with 100-defense only 900 damage will be dealt to the character. The same goes for magic resist. Quite simple actually."

Stamina regen mana regen and health regen are related to the speed of regenerating these stats. The more regen a character has the more HP they can regain after being damaged. A character can regenerate HP even if they are in combat. High regen equipment can help prologue a fight.

"Well now that I understand the basics... I should probably get myself some equipment, but to get the equipment I need to do some quests! Time to start noobie quest!" said Dave as he happily moved forward towards a character who had an exclamation mark on their head. It seems that there is a quest!

Chapter 2

Dave began to appreciate his surroundings. Looking at the town where he stood, the dimly lit skies and the dark atmosphere. This place was unlike anywhere he had been too before. The buildings had a medieval theme to them. There was an interface that he had access too, it was at the side of his vision if he would focus clearly he could see many different icons.

Map.

The first thing that interested him was to know where he is. Looking at the map from a third person point of view Dave understood that he was actually in the rims of the eastern kingdom, yet not in a populated place. This city or town was named Moria. It was an old town and was very small, there was even the number of population, about 300 people lived here without taking account the players.

Still, it was strange that there were no players around. Dave began to think that this town was too far away from the main cities and not many players would want to venture this far, or at the very least that this place was of no interest to everyone else thus the lack of other players.

Right after he verified his location, he "zoomed" his view on the map to look at the town where he was.

Three major things caught his attention here; the teleportation gate, the church, the training center.

The teleportation circle is a gateway that can teleport a player from city to city. So that they do not waste time going from place to place. The church was where he could take the simplest and easiest to acquire class, a paladin. And the training center where he could train his character to learn the basic skills that every class has.

"Should I start first by doing gathering quest, or should I head to the church to start the paladin questline?" asked Dave himself.

"Well, let’s start by going to the training center, at least I could get a basic weapon and shield and start training if I remember correctly I would need to reach level 10 before starting the basic paladin questline." Said, Dave, as he moved towards the training center ignoring the man with the question mark on his head.

Once he arrived at the training center he saw, many NPCs doing various move sets and attacking dummies.

There was a large buffed man, who was leaning on a pole and watching the NPCs. That man must be the instructor as he had a yellow Question mark on his head.

"Hey sir," said Dave to the man.

The gruff looking man made an inspecting look at Dave and said

"Oh, fresh blood, you must be one of those Adventurers right? I have seen many of you. Truth be told I am envious of your ability to revive even after you die, still, that does not make you invincible. Ahh, I guess you want to learn the basic skills and train right?" said the man

Dave was a bit stunned, not at the man but the way he spoke and the expressions on his face. Though he was but an artificial character, he displayed remorse and envy and gave advice to Dave. This was for him a first, how can a fictional character display human emotion? Dave could only praise the work behind such a game. Perhaps this is a reason why people are hooked on the game.

"Ah, Yes, I was hoping to learn some basic skills, others have said that they will be useful to train later on. Would you be kind to teach me?" asked Dave.

"I have no qualms with that, but first you must do me a favor. I have been looking over these grunts for the past few hours and I am feeling a bit hungry. Take this and go to the bakery, my wife works there. Bring me my lunch I forgot to get it." said The man

You have obtained a new Quest.

Bring us some food

Xp +200.

Bring The instructor Juda his lunch. Even an idiot can do this.

Quest difficulty: NIL

Dave squinted his eyes at how rude the notification had been but didn’t voice he complains. He took a small stamp that had the name Juda on it and went to where he was supposed to go. A new location was now clinging to his map and he understood that that was the bakery.

It took him a couple of minutes to get there. Once he was there a woman who had an exclamation mark on her head was there. She was the bakery’s shop owner.

"My lady, Mr. Juda had asked me to bring him his food," said Dave and brought forward the stamp.

"Oh, that idiot had forgotten to take his lunch... here you go give it to him while it is still hot."

Quest update.

Bring back the food to the instructor Juda.

You have 3 minutes time limit or else the food will turn cold and your quest will fail.

Are you going to fail this, are you?

Again with the rude notification... sigh.

Dave took the food and it was instantly placed in his inventory. It was a small looking pouch that said.

Hot food.

Simple.

Once Dave got the food he went straight towards the instructor. It didn’t even take 30 seconds before he was there and gave the Instructor the item he wanted

"Oh, very well, it is still hot too. Thank you lad!"

Quest cleared.

+200Xp

Time spent 33 seconds.

Bonus reward +50 XP

Only then, Dave fully understood the meaning behind this idiotic quest. Any character that has an exclamation mark can give quests. The quests have scored on them, and the better one manages their time and quests under the conditions of the quests the more can one earn by doing them. This was a simple quest that many must have done to familiarize themselves with the system. Dave was no exception.

Looking at Dave’s gauge bar he understood that he just got a quarter of the needed XP to level up.

Juda the instructor soon disappeared and after a minute or so, he appeared again.

"That was very satisfying. Anyway, kid, you wanted to learn the basic skills right. You should know though, this is a training facility for warriors, if you want to learn magic you will need to go to the magic tower in this town." Said the instructor as he pointed at a tower that was a bit far but still within the small town.

"No, I wish to learn the way of the sword." Said, Dave

"Then you came to the right place, however, you need some strength before you can carry a weapon, you still lack strength. Let me tell you, you see those weights there, start by picking them up, once you gained at least 15 strength then you can start by training with the sword." Said the instructor.

"Ah, so you can gain strength by lifting weights..." said Dave

"Well, what do you think? If there is another way to do that then please tell me!" said the man with a laugh. This actually made Dave sound like an idiot. These NPCs did not have the same view over the game as Dave did. They see weapons as weapons no matter the tier. They only gain strength and power by training.

"Ok, I will start then" Dave then went towards a corner of the courtyard where there was a lot of weight spread across the ground.

Starting with the 10-pound weights he grabbed each of them. Inspecting them gave Dave an idea about them.

Lifting Weights: 10pounds.

Training for 1 hour=+1 strength. Capped at +5 strength. (Limited Under 15 strength)

5 stamina/lift.

Oh, this was interesting.

Dave then looked at another one.

Lifting Weights: 20 pounds.

Training for 1 hour=+1 strength. Capped at +5 strength. (limited under 20 strength)

25 stamina/lift.

He then understood. There was a way to gain strength, but he will need to grind. Looking at the number of weights, he understood that he could train with all of them all the way to weights that had +500 pounds. Normally that would be difficult for anyone to carry but this was just a game.

Calculating the total amount of Strength he could gain he understood that once he trains with every tier of weights here in the courtyard he will gain +100 strength!

However, there was a problem with this. If he were to calculate the time needed for him to reach such strength, it would take him at least 5 hours training per tier. Looking at the 20 tiers of weights. He calculated that it would need him about 100 hours to train all the way to +100 strength, with 1 strength per hour. This will be an arduous task however, that was under typical circumstances.

Because not only would he be lifting weights, he will be spending a lot of stamina to use them. So he will need to grind up not only his strength but also his stamina. So it might take much longer than just 10 hours, especially at how much the stamina consumptions reach once he looked at the heavier weights.

The last weight needed at least 250 stamina/lift! Something that he didn’t even have. But thankfully Dave understood that there was a ratio where the game worked with. A basic Strength of stamina conversion.

The more strength one has, the lesser the needed stamina to do a job. Therefore, when Dave reaches higher levels of stamina, the Weight that now looks like it needs 250 stamina/lift would probably be about 100 stamina per lift. Still, that was too much, and it would take him a lot just to do so.

There was also the lifting animation, the character needs not to bother with manually lifting the weights, he could just let the animation do the job for him. It is capped under a certain amounts of lifts/hour.

"Mr. Instructor," said, Dave, as he came back to ask the instructor about something that was bothering him.

"What is it?" asked the instructor.

"How does one train their stamina?" asked Dave.

"Stamina is easy to train, not only would Weight lifting increases our stamina. You can also try jogging around. It will help greatly with increasing your stamina." Said the instructor.

"Oh, that is interesting..." said Dave.

So running and weight lifting can increase stamina... this sounds logical, but what if I do both then?

Dave then picked the lightest of weights and began lifting them. Indeed he entered an animation where he didn’t need to do anything but watch his character lifting the weights. Still, he willed himself to move and the animation was canceled. He then started to manually lift the weights.

Not only that, he also began to jog around the courtyard while lifting the small weights on both of his hands.

This was an experiment if the character was to gain strength while manually lifting and manually jogging it should be much simpler and time efficient than to train lifting weights for an hour then do some jogging afterward.

However, what Dave did not account for was the stamina consumption. Normal jogging would consume about 1 stamina per second. While weight lifting would consume 5 per second. In total, Dave was spending 6 stamina per second. In addition, in doing so he could only train continuously for about 16 seconds before his stamina is fully depleted, then he will have to wait for 10 seconds before he would proceed again. His stamina regen was 1/second.

Dave kept on doing this until an unexpected result showed up. It barely was 30 minutes before results were already apparent.

You have gained +1 Strength!

You have gained +1 stamina!

Surprisingly so, manual training was much faster than automatic lifting. This way Dave was sure that he could manage to finish the whole training in at least 50 hours instead of the 100 hours total that he calculated before.

He also went to the largest weight and confirmed that now that he gained +1 strength the total Stamina needed for him to carry the +500 pound weight was now only 240 stamina/lift.

It seems that the weight to stamina conversion was 1 strength can decrease the stamina consumption per 10.

However, there was no change to the needed stamina for lifting the smaller weights. Normally it should not cost anything to lift the 10-pound weight due to his increase in strength. However, it seems that there is a minimal stamina value that no matter how strong one is, they cannot help but spend stamina to lift.

So the more strength one has the easier it is to lift heavy weights, however for lightweights, there should be a minimum value that cannot be avoided.

Dave continued on with the routine. It was actually interesting first, for the few hours that Dave saw his Stamina and strength slowly climbing. However, after almost eight hours, Dave began to feel bored. Extremely so. A man cannot help but feel bored doing the same thing for hours to no end. Still, he kept on, why? Because he had a very slow start, many people started before him. And compared to them he is far behind. If he could manage to get his fundamentals high enough, he would be able to make a difference later on in the game.

Dave had logged out and did more research on this topic, then he understood something. Thankfully he didn’t level up to level 2 like many did before they understood that for every level you reach, the weightlifting training is decreased by half!

So for a level 1, if they do the full weightlifting training they can gain 100 strength by the end! But if one levels up to level 2, they will be capped at 50 strength! This was a huge setback.

Dave then understood that not only Strenght but even intelligence and wisdom can increase. He was not the first to discover this, there were many others that found out about this and did this. They trained for hours and hours and managed to get at least 100 in the element of their choice before they would try to level up. Once they had reached the cap for beginner training they would no longer be able to increase their stats by normal means. They will only be able to do so using equipment or stats from leveling up.

This was foundation building, if a player is not dedicated enough they will not be able to benefit from this small bonus.

Dave then made sure that after he takes his meal and a bath. He would continue on doing the training until he Capps the Strength Training level without leveling up!

Thanks to the time dilation between the game and reality, it was possible to spend three days in the game for only 1 day in real life. However, humans need food and sleep otherwise they will not be able to function properly.

Thus Dave could only dedicate 16 hours from his day to the game. 7 hours, for his sleep and 1 hour for his meals, spread out through the day.

Dave logged back in the game and continued with his grinding session.

It was boring, however, it had a great importance to him.

Dave discovered something when he was training. He could also train his agility!

By doing the weightlifting session, he was skipping trying to maximize his training and was met with a surprising result.

You have gained +1 agility!

It seems that training made him earn more agility, it was free stats so he didn’t bother and kept on doing his thing, mixing weightlifting with punches, and even doing squats.

You have gained+1 dexterity!

Amazingly so he could also train his dexterity.

Dave did not bother with these stats at first, his aim was to increase his strength and stamina, he wanted to become a paladin, and their basic stats were revolved around; strength, stamina, and intelligence!

However, dexterity and agility never hurt.

Dexterity would increase the reaction time of a person. They can even dodge attacks. While agility could increase their speed and attack speed.

Both of them are stats that are not harmful to any class, they might even be bonuses.

Thus, the training session that was going to waste 50 hours of Dave’s time now took much more!

Dave was a greedy person, he knew he only needed to train just his basic stats, but now that he had the ability to train more, he would not want to waste it lest that he would regret it in the future!

Therefore, the training session increased until he had spent more than 1-week game time!

Then and only then did he check on his status screen to see the improvement he brought to himself.

Level

1

Name

Death Stroke

Race

Human

Health

100

Mana

NA

Stamina

200

Rage/Focus

NA

Intelligence

10

Wisdom

10

Dexterity

110

Agility

110

Vitality

10

Strength

110

Magic Resist

0

Defense

0

HP Regen

0.1/sec

Mana Regen

NA

Stamina Regen

1/sec

Rage/Focus

Regen

NA

Title

NA

"Fantastic!" Said, Dave, as he admired his perseverance! It took him a lot of time to finally reach this point, he even ignored the instructor’s advice to come back to him after having 15 strength, now that Dave gained the bonus 100 stats that can be obtained at level 1, he felt rather proud of having achieved something of great value after being consistent and persevered through it.

"Now if I gained this much just by doing physical training... how can someone gain intelligence and wisdom?" said Dave to himself.

Then he went back to the instructor to ask him about it, after all, he was the only one who gave him tips about training his body.

"You want to increase your intelligence? Why don’t you go to the library and read some books, I might look like a brute but I do know that reading books can make you smarter," said the man with a laugh.

Hmm, so reading books..." thought Dave to himself as he looked at the map trying to find a library.

There was none to Dave’s dismay.

There was, however, another choice for him... the wizard’s tower. It is only logical; wizards would need to have a high level of Intelligence and Wisdom to cast their spells.

Dave then headed towards the wizard’s tower ignoring the instructor once again.

Dave did not want to proceed with Skill learning before he claimed all the bonus points that one can have.

Once at the wizard’s tower he met a beautiful woman that wore a wizard’s hat. She was at the front door with an exclamation mark on her head... this must be the magic instructor.

"My lady, can I please ask you on the ways to increase one’s intelligence." Said Dave in a polite manner. Being courteous never hurt anyone, this was a moto Dave always abided with.

"Oh, such a young one seeks the wisdom of the sages. Your request must be related to the way of the arcane, indeed, one must be smart and wise before they would learn to cast spells. You may get inside the tower; if you wish to learn magic from me, I need you to have at least 15 intelligence before you could begin learning the most basic of skills." She said in a manner that showed her elegance and with an attitude of superiority.

Once again, Dave was surprised at the game’s creator’s sense of ingenuity. They can make artificial characters behave like humans.

"Thank you for your kindness." Said Dave and went inside the tower.

There were a lot of bookshelves and desks filled with various books.

Dave then picked a book related to the basics of magic and began to read.

Dave could not believe that all of these books were related to magic, if so how much time would, the AI must have spent to write the lore and theories of magic in this huge "Library"

Then again he was disappointed. The moment he opened the first book he understood that it only had two pages worth of words and the rest were empty.

The book he had on his hand related to the theory of mana and magic in the world, there were just bunch of words to make fantastical ideas look logical. However, once he finished reading the book he was met with a pleasant surprise.

You have gained +1 Intelligence!

You have gained +1 Wisdom!

It only took Dave one book to level up his stats, and both of them at the same time!

Without wasting time Dave then began reading another book.

However, he was not rewarded with anything until he read another one.

Then he understood that the more stats he gains, the harder it is to gain more. This was simple logic; one cannot fill a full cup. Once a person knows too much of the world he will find it hard to learn new things. Well, this was the theory and Dave had nothing to lose. So he started reading more and more books. It was not easy though, it took him about 20 hours of straight book reading to finish the whole books in this library, thankfully, each book had at most 2 pages worth of words, but by reading the last one of these books. Dave Was met with a pleasant surprise!

Not only had he managed to gain 100 intelligence and 100 wisdom, he gained a title!

You have gained a new title!

I know it all!

+5% towards all basic stats!

With this, Dave was surprised! A title that adds bonus stats! It might not be much right now. 5% stats is not a great deal at the moment, however, in the late game, this 5% can become monstrous!

In addition, this title only needed the person to do all the menial tasks and gain all the bonus attribute points before they reach level two.

Dave did not wait until he looked at his status screen and was amazed at what he saw.

Level

1

Name

Death Stroke

Race

Human

Health

100+(5)

Mana

1100 +(55)

Stamina

200 (10)

Rage/Focus

NA

Intelligence

110 +(5.5)

Wisdom

110 +(5.5)

Dexterity

110 +(5.5)

Agility

110 +(5.5)

Vitality

10 +(0.5)

Strength

110 +(5.5)

Magic Resist

0

Defense

0

HP Regen

0.1/sec +(0)

Mana Regen

1.1/sec +(0)

Stamina Regen

1/sec +(0.5)

Rage/Focus

Regen

NA

Title

I know it all!

Not only that! His Mana bar was unlocked and he did not even notice until he saw his status screen! In addition, the mana Regen. It was a nice amount, yet it was too low. Even if it was much higher than his Hp regen, it was still a measly 1.1/second, to fully fill his HP bar it would take him at least 1000 seconds! That is about 16 minutes. Which was a bit too much? However, he understood that the more wisdom one has the higher their mana capacity is, and the more Regen they will have.

The conversion rate is 1mana point/sec for every 1000 mana this was still too much, but Dave knew that there were many items that help with mana regen and there are classes that benefit from passive mana regen, also there are classes that have increased regen on stamina and Hp.

This past week was a good haul for Dave. Once he finished his reading, he headed back to Juda the Instructor. He was going to start learning his new basic skills!

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