He felt like a new man. Well, that was a little exaggerated, but he did actually feel the difference compared to when he was only using the helmet. It was as if something had been weighing him down, and now it had been removed.
He didn’t suddenly become more powerful, as his stats didn’t change, but he could control his body better.
‘And this is only the first-generation pod…’ he wondered as he jumped around in the first chamber of the fracture that the Silvercrest family had taken over at the mines. It was low-leveled, but it had enough monsters in it to allow him to test things.
He slowly went through all his skills, first using only basic elemental spells, then shadow, and finally wind spells. Finally, he did a run with only his sword. And one where only Lucky fought as the loyal wolf decided he wanted to have a go too and Sam didn’t have it in him to resist the puppy-dog eyes.
Sam just stood in the back and occasionally supported his companion as it tore through the horde of monsters populating the fracture.
He left the area with a quiet thanks to the staff who were very accommodating, satisfied with the properties of the pod. He also sent off a quick message with the results to Lucy and asked her to make sure every key player in the guild and company would have access to one. Isabella, Katie, and Lara probably wouldn’t have issues with it, but Dan and Liz would need the help as they didn’t have the same resources as the others.
Returning to the city, he took some time to walk around and see what the general response was to the continuous crash of the gold’s worth.
Donning a disguise both with clothing and with his Chameleon mask, after sending a happy Lucky back into his shadow, he entered the city.
After barely five minutes, he had a small glimpse into how the populace was handling the event.
Most NPCs were indifferent, as the gold in their world usually fluctuated. Mostly because of some magical catastrophe or somebody finding a new mine. So, a few percentages here and there didn’t mean much.
Though, as the consummate business people they were, they naturally made use of it and raised the prices, citing inflation with a face carved out of stone and eyes glittering with greed.
Most everyday players – people who logged in maybe once or twice a week – were pretty bummed but seemed to also not care. They just played the game, not caring about the higher economics.
The most outspoken group about this event were, naturally, the professional players. Players whose salaries depended on the gold they made.
Of course, some guilds and groups provided some basic salary, but most of them just took the gold the players made and converted that to real-world money. Consequently, most of these guilds relied on the members using their gold to pay for various services. Like housing in the guild building, access to training locations and personnel and even to borrow some high-quality equipment.
Most of them, naturally, either shut down these services until the gold situation stabilized or increased the price to match the real-world value of gold from the game. Which made it impossible for the regular players to access them.
There were already grumblings on the streets and taverns. Sam walked around, joined some groups gathered here and there, and listened to their complaints, adding his own opinion here and there.
“Oh, yes! It is horrible what those greedy guilds are doing!”
“Exactly! What were they even thinking?”
“Completely ruins the game! I agree!”
“We should take back the means of production! Glory to the people!”
And so it went, sowing a little chaos everywhere while gathering information. He ended back in one of the biggest plazas of the city, full of people hawking their wares and people trying to enjoy their days.
He was about to buy some snacks, as the smell was heavenly, when his messenger rang. It was Adam.
“Yes?”
“Get back to the guild. It’s a madhouse,” the man said before hanging up.
Sam blinked in surprise, then cast a longing look at the tantalizing meat skewers, sighed, and turned toward the direction of their guild headquarters.
Between two blinks he vanished, nobody but some lone ravens noticing his sudden departure.
Madhouse was not really a good word to describe the situation. But he didn’t hire Adam for his skills in the art of wordsmithing.
When he arrived at the building, he was instantly beset by the loud voices of the group of people who had gathered in front of the headquarters of Chrysalis. It took only a few seconds to find out what they wanted.
He slunk away into the shadows, going around the building, avoiding the crowd, to the back of the building.
There Sam was met with a group of players from the guild, standing guard, looking rather frazzled.
He slowed down as he emerged from hiding, not wanting to scare them.
The moment they spotted him, they all stood to attention, their hands on their weapons or their magic, ready to strike.
“Halt!” the person in front called out. “This is private property!”
Sam just smiled and took out a guild token and showed it to the guard.
The guy frowned but accepted the token. The rest still kept an eye on him and the surroundings, ready for anything. Sam approved.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
After a quick test, the guy handed the token back and gave him a quick and sloppy salute.
“Welcome back, sir! Sorry for…” he began to explain but Sam just held up a hand.
“Don’t worry. I get it,” he smiled at the worried-looking guy.
“Thanks…” The relief was very audible in his voice.
“Has anyone tried anything?” he asked curiously as the rest of the group relaxed finally.
The guard, whose name Sam still didn’t know, shook his head. “No, the crazies are at the entrance, trying to get into the guild. But…”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “But?”
“Several thieves tried their luck.”
“And?”
The guy just smugly shrugged. “They tried…”
“Good,” Sam said, then clapped the guy on his shoulder as he walked by. “Keep up the good work.”
The inside of the headquarters wasn't any calmer.
People were standing in line, while guild officials sitting behind desks tried to determine at first glance if they were flakes or had a chance to pass the guild test. The rest of the guild stood around, decked out in armor and weapons unsheathed, glaring at anyone who tried to act out.
Even as he walked past the chaos, he saw them drag out several people who tried to cut the line by insisting that they were stronger than any of the people there.
In a minute, he found himself in Adam’s office, watching as the other man went through reams of documents with blinding speed.
“Do you actually have a skill for that?” he asked bemusedly, as he felt the small emanations of mana as the muscled guild master handled the documents.
Adam just grunted but didn’t look up.
“What do you want me to do?”
“What do you mean?” he asked with a grin.
Adam sighed, put his pen down, and looked up at him with a frown. “You clearly planned for something like this with our contribution point system. I assume you also have a plan for this?”
Sam smiled and nodded. “Sure.”
Adam said nothing, just sat there and stared at him expectantly.
“Just accept everyone that comes our way and have them do the test. If they pass then good, if not then it’s no skin off our nose…”
“What about the spies? Perfect time to slip in some…”
“Leave that to Tim and Lucy.”
“Are you sure?”
Sam walked forward and took the only seat present. “Look, I know your trust has been…shaken… but we are not playing around. Lucy and Tim have my trust, just as we trust you.”
Adam opened his mouth to reply, but Sam held up his hand. “I know we haven’t been working together for long, but I like to think that I and the rest of the team aren’t going to do you like your ex-friend! By the way, how is it going with him?”
“He tried to break into my old apartment,” came the deadpan delivery.
“Anyone hurt?”
“No, it was being aired after cleaning, so nobody was there. Just the cameras…”
“You expected this?” Sam asked, surprised. Adam was a genius when organizing things, but planning for this kind of human behavior seemed a little out of character for him.
Adam blushed a little. “It was my grandmother who set it up,” he explained.
“Ah! Smart woman…”
“Indeed…”
They lapsed into silence after that and spent a minute eyeing each other. Finally, Adam broke the silence.
“Look. Sam. You helped me with something big. Nothing will change that. Which means I owe you big. And I’ll make sure to pay it back. But you’re seriously creeping me out with your knowledge and I simply want to know if I should expect a high-powered corpo lawyer from the game company to knock on my door with a contract I can’t refuse.”
Sam just chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’m not doing anything illegal… or immoral.”
Adam digested that statement before asking another question. “Then… how are you doing this?”
Sam just leaned back and spread his arms wide while grinning. “I’m just that good, baby!”
The man sitting in front of him sent a withering glare, but in the end, let out a quiet sigh and nodded.
“Alright, I suppose that’s the best I’ll get for now.”
Sam gave an apologetic shrug. “Sorry, I don’t know what else to tell you…”
“No, no… I get it. Everyone has their own secrets. I just wanted to make sure yours don’t fuck up my life even more than the secrets that my previous ‘friends’ held.” He took a deep breath, then continued. “Alright. Enough about that. Let’s talk business…”
Sam nodded and leaned forward, watching as Adam took out a few documents.
“So far, we've got around a few hundred viable applications.” He showed Sam the list. “It’s just not viable to test them one by one. Especially with the way people are gathering at the front. We already had several visits from the guards. I don’t think they are going to stay happy for long. Especially if the players start to riot when we refuse them.”
Sam took the document, scanned over it, looking for interesting names, but he didn’t spot anyone.
“Then just do the test in batches,” he commented with a shrug. “Have them pair up, let’s say in three people groups and assign one guild member as observer for the first test. Then off they go to the fractures.”
“That will give us a very biased result…” Adam warned him.
“Hmm… true. What about a free-for-all? Hundred people go in, ten leave?”
“Unfair to support classes,” came the rebuttal.
“Damn… How about a mix? We set groups of DPS and tanks and have them fight against each other while a randomly assigned support class helps them. We judge the support classes by how well they keep the players alive, while the rest about how well they can kill other players.”
Adam looked thoughtful for a moment. “That… is a little rough around the edges but it could work. How about…”
As the other man’s brain kicked into high gear, Sam just sat back and smiled while listening to him.
He was just climbing out of his pod, having dealt with the Great Guild Recruitment Catastrophe and then doing some work around the company headquarters, when his phone rang again.
“Yes?” he answered, holding the device between his ear and shoulder while pulling his pants on.
“You doing anything important?” Lucy asked, and Sam could hear the frown in her voice.
“Nothing important, just trying to put on pants…” he said while trying to put his leg in the bunched-up leg of the pants.
“What? Nevermind. Check the news!”
“Which one?”
“It doesn’t matter!”
He walked over to his living room and turned on the giant screen. After a few seconds of clicking, he had one of the local news channels playing.
“…currently the drop in the price of the in-game currency, known as ‘gold’, has caused severe chaos in the market. With the rise of the Virtual Reality game, Magic Unbound, their in-game currency has embedded itself into the lives of many people with remarkable speed. However, this fast expansion seems to be the undoing of this phenomenon.” The pretty newscaster read this with a routine smile as various images of despairing people played in the right corner of the screen. “Later, we will be discussing the issue with an economics professor, here at Channel Five, but for now, let us turn our attention to the presence on the street…” The screen changed to another journalist standing in front of many Magic Unbound stores where a throng of people were kind of demonstrating and begging for the company to do something.
“What the hell, Sam?” Lucy asked.
“It seems the company is really drawing this out…” Sam commented. While to him personally, it was really weird to see it, thanks to his inherited memories, he had already lived through these times once. Sadly, the other Sam was one of those unlucky people who could only despair as they watched the value of their meager amount of gold evaporating.
“Why?”
“I haven’t the foggiest,” and this time he was one hundred percent correct. Nobody knew why Future Unknown delayed intervening for so long. They could have had the cheaters within seconds thanks to the system. “Maybe the exploit is not in the game and they need to gather evidence?”
“How?”
“Best guess is that they've got insider information. That takes a while to prove…”
“And if they’re smart, practically impossible to prove…”
Sam just scoffed. “If they were really smart, they wouldn’t have crashed the gold market.”
Lucy chuckled weakly. “Does this change our plans?”
“No. But make sure to spread the information a little to the masses. They should be buying gold. With the current price, even a small amount of money will net them a steady profit when the market resurrects.”
“Spread the joy, eh?”
“Hmmm, something like that…” he answered as he settled in comfortably and began switching between channels. “How about something like this…”
Rewards: Next reward at 60 reviews, 2500 followers, or 750 favorites!
Titles:
Magical Items:
[High-quality Troll Leather Armor: Created by a journeyman crafter employed by your own company. They worked extra hard to make sure to return your goodwill. Excellent quality, given the materials and the crafter. Enchanted to decrease the sound it makes during movement, as well as has increased durability. Thanks to the substance it was impregnated with the troll leather it lacks its customary weakness to fire.]
*Not actually bottomless.]
Quests:
Active quests:
[Just walk in there!]
[Prove yourself!]
Finished quests:
[Monster Parade!]
[Topping the tree!]
[Reap what you sow!]
[Seaside opportunity]
[Another seaside opportunity]
[The booty of mystery!]
[Demonic demonstration!]
[The Test of the Survivor!]
[To the city you go!]
[Eternal Vigilance!]
[Returning Champion]
[Volatile Valley]
Skills:
Mana Skills:
[Mana Body: Level 7/100 (21%) (Passive) Your mana permeates your body, enhancing and improving it. The better your control of your mana is, and the more mana you have, the bigger the effect is. For every 100 Mana Points, it grants you 1 Base Health gain. For every skill level, it increases the Health Regeneration by 0,1.]
[Mana Shield: Level 99 (99%) Using mana, you can form a simple shell around yourself, which decreases the damage you take. Damage decrease depends on the amount of mana invested. For every unit of Mana invested in the spell, the shield will protect you from 9,9 (physical) damage.]
[A/N: Currently: WIS: 50 / MAG: 50 = 1 --> +2 Mana Regeneration per skill level]
Neutral Mage skills:
Elemental Mage Skills:
Wind Mage skills:
[Wind Blade III: Level 9/10 (99%) (Active) A spell that allows you to launch a blade of wind. The cutting power and speed of the blade are increased. You have greater control over its movement after creation. Allows you to slightly control its path after launching the wind blade.]
[Wind Blade Storm: Level 6/10 (7%) (Active) A spell that unleashes a storm of wind blades around you. The damage of the released Wind Blades depends on the Wind Blade spell and your mastery over it.]
[Wind Bullet III: Level 9/10 (99%) A spell that allows you to launch a bullet made of concentrated wind. You have excellent control over the projectile’s speed, size, and path.]
[Wind Explosion: Level 3/10 (21%) A spell that allows you to create a singular bullet of wind mana, and then fire it, which will, upon impact, detonate. The strength of the detonation depends on the amount of wind mana channeled into the bullet and your mastery over the Wind Bullet spell!]
[Wind Movement: 39/100 (19%) (Active) You can use your mastery over wind to move in any direction you wish. Your movement speed is increased significantly. This speed boost is increased by 1% for each skill level.]
[Wind Edge III: Level 9/10 (99%) (Passive) A spell that allows you to enhance the edge of any bladed weapon you wield with the wind. Thanks to the spell, the speed of your strikes will greatly increase. The power and reach of the blade will be greatly increased further.]
[Wind Affinity: Level 61/100 (17%) (Passive) You have a good affinity for the wind. Beings born of the wind will be more favorable to you. The cost of the Wind-type spells and skills is reduced and their power is increased by 0,5% for each skill level.]
- Wind Flurry
- Wind Bullet Barrage
- Healing Wind
- Wind Jump
- Wind Drill
- Wind Blade I-III
- Wind Blade Storm
- Wind Bullet I-III
- Wind Explosion
- Wind Movement
- Wind Edge I-III!
Utility skills:
Companion skills:
Shadow skills:
(Shadow Cloak triggers this benefit.)]
[Shadow Affinity: Level 30/100 (14%) (Passive) You have a good affinity with the shadows. Beings born of the shadows will be more favorable to you. The cost of the Shadow-type spells and skills is reduced and their power is increased by 0,5% for each skill level.]
Physical skills:
[Basic Armor Mastery: Level 91/100 (6%) (Passive) You learned the basics of wearing armor. Decreases the Stamina consumption slightly while wearing any kind of armor.]
[Clean Armor: Level MAX (MAX%) (Passive) Your mana got used to a certain spell, so the waste mana radiating from you will, over time, permeate and clean your armor.]
[Resistant Armor: Level 5/5 (MAX%) (Passive) Thanks to your practice, you can fully utilize everything that your armor provides, granting you increased resistance against the environment. Grants 2% increased environmental resistance per skill level. Environmental resistance protects against environmental effects only.]
[Durable Armor: Level 0/5 (0%) (Passive) You learned how to roll with the punches. This includes knowing when your armor can take a hit and when it can’t. Increased durability for any armor you wear from incoming damage from non-environmental sources.]
[Epic Breathing Technique: Level 9/10 (99%) (Passive) You breathe, and the world breathes with you. You move along your own rhythm. Decreases stamina consumption even more during any activity and further increases stamina regeneration when not in a fight. Gain +2 Stamina Regeneration for every skill level.]
[Tranquil Heart: Level 11/100 (54%) (Passive) Your heart beats to the same rhythm as your body. It’s efficient and harmonious. You have an even easier time resisting mind-altering effects and a portion of of those effects are reflected back to the source. The portion is 1% per skill level. You also radiate an aura of tranquility that confers the resistance portion of the skill to your allies near you.]
[Flow: Level 77/100 (9%) (Passive) Thanks to being a natural sensor, you can read the flow of the mana. Increases your stability and the bonuses any movement or martial art skill provides by 1% per level in the skill.]
[Focused Flow: Level 5/5 (MAX%) (Passive) When focusing on any enemy beyond what is normal, your ability to read their flow becomes clearer and more precise.]
[Controlled Flow: Level 5/5 (MAX%) (Passive) Your read of the flow is more controlled, allowing you to see the flow much better. Increases the flow visibility by 20% for every skill level.]
[Immersed Flow: Level 0/5 (0%) (Passive) When you start reading the flow a counter starts. After every ten seconds, the effect of the Flow skill increases by 1% for each skill level. Maximum 600 seconds.]
Parry: Level 24/100 (13%) (Passive) Decreases the stamina consumption of defensive weapon movements. It allows you to more efficiently and accurately parry incoming attacks. Decreases the damage of the blocked attack by 0,5% for each skill level at the moment of blocking.]
Resistance skills:
General skills:
[Dwarven Language: Level 5/10 (1%) (Passive) You managed to learn the basics of the Dwarven language.]
[Elven Language: Level 7/10 (8%) (Passive) You managed to learn the basics of the Elven language.]
[Dark Elven Language: Level 5/10 (1%) (Passive) You managed to learn the basics of the Dark Elven language.]
[Sarkan Language: Level 3/10 (42%) (Passive) You managed to learn the basics of the Sarkan language.]
Crafting skills:
Pet skills:
[Strong Jaw: Level Max (Passive) The jaw of the wolf is strengthened.]
[Lucky Aura: Level Max (Passive) Those who are in the same party as the wolf receive a buff to their luck. It depends on their luck how big the increase is.]