['Roan (★)' has been inflicted with bleeding. His stamina will be reduced for a period of time.]
['Horace (★)' has been inflicted with bleeding. His stamina will be reduced for a period of time.]
['Trevor (★)' is on the brink of death. His life is in danger!]
['Lumi (★)' has returned to the Goddesses' embrace! Her fighting spirit will be remembered forever.]
One hero died.
The terrified 1-stars let themselves got attacked by the monsters without fighting back.
How could they defend themselves?
They already dropped their weapons right at the start of the mission.
['Trevor (★)' has returned to the Goddesses' embrace! His fighting spirit will be remembered forever.]
Jonah tried eliminating the goblins harming the heroes.
But he was not fast enough to kill them before the monsters massacred all his comrades.
['Horace (★)' has returned to the Goddesses' embrace! His fighting spirit will be remembered forever.]
['Roan (★)' has returned to the Goddesses' embrace! His fighting spirit will be remembered forever.]
There was only one goblin left when the other 1-stars were killed.
So Jonah easily finished the monster off.
[Stage Clear!]
[MVP – 'Jonah (★)']
[Reward – 1000G]
The reduced reward for the stage retry was pretty drastic.
Considering I lost four heroes in this battle, I would need to retry the floor forty more times before I could replace them through summoning.
This game really encouraged you to spend money.
Did I really lose the killed heroes though?
Yeah, I did.
They were no longer in the Heroes roster. Including that one guy I synthesized.
It was a fundamental rule in Pick Me Up.
A hero's death was permanent.
If a hero died once, then you would lose them forever.
Be it a lowly 1-star or even a powerful 5-star hero. They would disappear once they died. Erased just like that.
I read comments in the official forum about players that invested a lot of time and money developing certain heroes. And only for those players to lose the heroes so suddenly in battle after getting killed.
That was scary.
Imagine losing my 4-star hero...
That must not happen!
There was a reason why only five players in the entire world could reach the 80th stage of Pick Me Up.
It was because this game had boss stages every five floors with insane difficulty.
Many players were forced to quit because they could not complete those difficult missions.
The fifth floor was one such stage.
That tower stage could not be challenged just by my 4-star hero alone.
She would likely die if I forced her to face its mission by herself.
A lot of players actually dropped the game because they lost their advanced hero on the fifth floor, the first boss stage of Pick Me Up.
Most of the cases happened because they did not assign reliable comrades to accompany their advanced hero on the boss stage.
I needed to quickly find other heroes that could keep my mage safe in that mission.
[Adding 'Serafina (★★★★)', 'Shanny (★)', and 'Trudy (★)' to 'Party 1'?]
[Yes (selected)/ No]
Jonah had gone to battle twice already.
The guide said heroes experienced fatigue from doing continuous battle.
I did not want to sideline him since he might level up by participating in the tower stages.
But I would have the 4-star Serafina join the battle this time to keep him safe.
[Do you wish to challenge the 1st Floor of the Main Dungeon?]
[Yes (selected)/ No]
[Which party will you deploy?]
['Party 1' -(selected)-]
[Opening the rift of space and time!]
The loading screen of the lobby emerged once more.
I still had two more fresh 1-star heroes to test out.
Hopefully they would not turn out to be useless trash.
If they just run around like the others, I would just synthesize them with the 4-star mage.
['Shanny (★)' has equipped the 'Iron Sword (E-)'.]
['Trudy (★)' has equipped the 'Iron Sword (E-)'.]
They actually armed themselves before going to battle this time.
A good sign.
[Main Dungeon, the current challenge floor is the 1st Floor.]
[The doors will open after ten seconds. Get ready!]
My party of four emerged on the grass plain.
Four goblins came to face them.
['Trudy (★)' has fallen into the state of fear. All stats decreased by 30%!]
['Shanny (★)' has fallen into the state of fear. All stats decreased by 30%!]
The new 1-stars immediately fell to the debuff state, as expected.
But these two women did not run away.
Unlike the others, they kept gripping their swords and held their ground.
They were here to fight. Good.
[Floor 1]
[Mission Type – Subjugation]
[Objective – Annihilate the enemies!]
Crash!
The mage erupted the ground beneath the goblins, scattering the monsters.
She proceeded to push away two of the goblins with her telekinesis skill and finished them off with a fireball.
After seeing how long it took for the 1-star Jonah to kill the enemies in the previous battle, I now confirmed the gap between low and high-ranked heroes.
The 1-star Shanny and Trudy suddenly rushed to the remaining two goblins.
Jonah remained on the backline observing.
He would not receive any experience points by sidelining but it was okay. The man deserved the rest.
The two 1-star women each took one monster and fought the enemy with all their might.
It was quite a pathetic sight, however.
The 1-star heroes missed their strikes most of the time.
Their attack frequency was really low. Power and accuracy were non-existent.
That Trudy even fell several times while attacking the enemy.
How did that Loki manage to become a top ranker by utilizing 1-star at birth heroes?
Were 1-star heroes really worth investing?
Should I just fill my main party with advanced heroes instead?
['Shanny (★)' has obtained the skill, 'Savage'!]
Oh, what was this?
That 1-star Shanny managed to wound her enemy.
She obtained a skill too. I better look up what it could do later in the official forum.
Why couldn't the game itself provide descriptions for the hero's skills?
It was a bit annoying to have to run back and forth between the game and the website.
I hoped they later updated the game with a patch to solve that problem.
['Shanny (★)' has been inflicted with bleeding. Her stamina will be reduced for a period of time.]
The goblin wounded the hero back.
But the 1-star Shanny pushed the monster to the ground and kept attacking it until the creature died.
['Trudy (★)' has been inflicted with bleeding. Her stamina will be reduced for a period of time.]
The last goblin also wounded the other 1-star.
This time it was the hero that fell to the ground. She was disarmed upon the fall.
The goblin tried attacking the fallen hero, but its assaults missed her every time.
Eventually the 1-star Trudy punched the goblin away from herself.
Wait.
She was holding something in her hand. It was a rock.
The 1-star then pinned the goblin on the ground and beat the creature to death with the blunt weapon.
[Stage Clear!]
['Shanny (★)' levelled up!]
[MVP – 'Serafina (★★★★)']
The 4-star still had not levelled up.
Her experience cap must be pretty high.
It was okay, though.
I managed to find another promising hero from this battle.
Loki was right, as expected.
Most of 1-star heroes were indeed trash. But some of them could be diamond in the rough.
We just had to give them a chance to improve and reveal their potential.
I better started marking the heroes that looked promising as well as my confirmed unit for my main party.
['Serafina (★★★★)' has been added to Favorites!]
['Jonah (★)' has been added to Favorites!]
['Shanny (★)' has been added to Favorites!]
Perhaps it was best that I stopped visiting the tower stages for now.
The guide said we should set resting periods for the heroes.
Apparently heroes would not perform optimally in battles if you did not maintain a regular rest schedule.
A player actually lost an advanced 3-star hero on the relatively-easy fourth floor after grinding there for 40 consecutive times.
Alright, let's leave the Space-Time Rift and return to the lobby.
Interesting.
My 1-star heroes were now training together in the Training Ground.
Those two 1-star women earlier should develop some combat skills when I log in later.
It was almost dinner time and I better wrap things up here for now.
Should I do another summon before I log out?
Even after allocating some gems for the Magic Hall facility, I could still perform one advanced summon.
I already lost five heroes so far.
Even if the 1-star Shanny and Trudy managed to develop good combat skills, my party was still lacking one member.
It would not hurt to add another high-ranked hero in their group.
Yeah, let's just do one more summon before I end the session.
[Master, starting 1 Advanced Summoning!]
[I'm excited to see what hero will appear!]
[DRRRRRR…]
[Clack! Thud! Boom!]
[Rare!]
[Master 'S1GYN' has obtained hero 'Gerrits (★★★)'!]
A 3-star.
I supposed it was too much to expect another 4-star.
Okay then.
Let's see what I got.
[Gerrits Sahan (★★★) Lv.1 (Exp 0/10)]
[Class: Mage-Craftsman]
[Strength: 15]
[Intelligence: 13]
[Stamina: 16]
[Agility: 10]
[Skills: Rune Carving Lv.3, Blacksmithing Lv.8, Equipment Crafting Lv.5, Metal Appraising Lv.2, Tool Appraising Lv.2, Carpentry Lv.4, Tannery Lv.3]
No combat skill.
A mage-craftsman. I once glimpsed a class like that in the official forum.
Though 3-star heroes and above were mostly capable combatants that could be deployed immediately in battle, there were times that a player could summon 3-star heroes specialized in support roles instead.
These types of 3-star heroes were pretty rare according to the forum.
But this was not the sort of luck I was hoping to have however.
Well, no matter.
This only meant that I had to fully commit to my mission in developing 1-star heroes into powerful units.
[Would you like to appoint 'Gerrits (★★★)' to the crafter position in the Equipment Workshop (Lv.1)?]
[Yes (selected)/ No]
Gears were also quite important in Pick Me Up.
Apparently some players managed to clear boss stages because they had powerful equipment on their heroes.
So getting a 3-star supporter hero might be a good thing, after all.
[Master, do you want to log out?]
[Yes (selected)/ No]
[Then goodbye!]