The town was lively at night.
All players below level 20 stayed in this area.
Some were in a hurry. Some were drowning themselves in pleasure. Their weapons were all over the place, from cold weapons to firearms, from staffs to hidden weapons. If you could imagine it, some player was probably using it.
"Recruiting! Recruiting! Dynasty Guild is taking new members! Great treatment, great benefits!"
"Selling beginner gear! Definitely cheaper than the official Aetherion store!"
"Brother, this Gunslinger class certificate is absolutely worth 1000 Copper Coins. Think about it—early-game players don't have high stats yet. Having a gun and not having a gun are basically two different worlds. I'm an old player, I won't scam you..."
"Why are you stacking stats? Have you ever played games before? If not, I'll teach you. In games, two things matter: gear and skills. Early on, stats only add a little damage, but strong gear is different. It helps you get through your first few games much more easily. Besides, as long as you work hard enough, your main stat can usually be stacked to 49 before level 20."
"Why only 49? Ahem... hey, doesn't my gear look pretty good...?"
Kael absorbed Aetherion's knowledge like a sponge and gradually understood the main player builds.
The mainstream path was the conventional build.
Players on this path focused on leveling up and upgrading gear, all for stronger and better equipment.
Because of the body's limits, once a player's base attributes reached 49, they had to break through. Continuing to add points after that was useless.
As for how to break through, Kael still hadn't found out.
But 49 was still far away for him, so he wasn't in a hurry.
A player's stats had limits.
Equipment did not.
The slogan of these players was simple: as long as your gear is optimized, the improvement will exceed your imagination.
Conventional-build players grew quickly, but in the end, their strength was tied to wealth and luck.
The second type was the scholar build.
These players focused on skills. Like Kael, they tried to understand skills and rejected the auto-casting provided by Aetherion.
Strong players of this path were more powerful than same-level players from the first path.
Weak ones, however, couldn't even leave the beginner village. The kind nobody wanted in a party.
Even so, Kael had no intention of changing his own path.
Most players formed teams for their games.
Kael still had no trustworthy teammates, so he couldn't afford to leave himself with any obvious weakness.
After that, Kael found a staff and a ring at a stall.
[Item]
Withered Vine Staff
Quality: White
Physical Attack: 10-12
Magic Attack: 15-21
Effect: Higher chance to inflict Burn when casting Firebolt
Durability: 15/15
Level Requirement: 5
Description: A wooden staff for casting... Firebolt?
A good weapon immediately raised Kael's combat strength by a lot.
Aetherion had made some kind of modification to players' bodies, allowing them to gain EXP by killing monsters or enemies.
But where there was gain, there was loss.
Without a weapon, a player could barely bring out their full strength.
A weapon was the medium through which a player expressed their power.
And once a player became stronger, they would need a stronger medium.
That was why players had to pursue better gear.
[Item]
Meditation Ring
Quality: Green
Intelligence +1
Effect: Slightly improves meditation efficiency
Level Requirement: 5
Durability: 5/5
Description: A gift from a mentor to an apprentice.
Although this ring was green quality, its effect was terrible. It had apparently sat on the stall for several game cycles already.
The moment the stall owner noticed Kael was interested, he immediately began praising the benefits of faster mana recovery and claimed that, since they had hit it off at first sight, Kael could take it for only 200 Copper Coins.
Together with the 900 Copper Coins for the weapon, Kael instantly felt poor again.
He kept a little money in reserve and spent the rest on health and mana potions.
[Item]
Large Red Bottle ×3
Effect: Restores 25 HP over 10 seconds
Description: Low-quality goods brought out from another world, but at least it tastes decent.
Price: 150 Copper Coins
[Item]
Large Blue Bottle ×1
Effect: Restores 20 MP over 10 seconds
Description: If you're out of mana, will drinking this even be fast enough?
Price: 100 Copper Coins
After leaving the street, Kael returned to the house that belonged to him.
This was a basic player benefit.
He looked around. It wasn't big, but it had everything it needed.
If he wanted more space, he could buy it directly with Copper Coins.
And it wasn't expensive.
In front of Aetherion, space seemed no more than a lump of clay that could be kneaded at will.
After resting at home for one night, Kael began trying the other functions in the beginner town.
The first place he went was the arena.
His opponent was a level 12 Gunslinger.
The two of them were separated by fifty meters.
The man looked relaxed, spinning a revolver in his hand.
"Kid, did you come to the wrong place? This is the level 10-and-up arena. You should go play house with the other newbies."
Kael said nothing.
He had come here for a reason.
Trash talk like this couldn't affect him.
The countdown in the air slowly dropped.
2
1
The instant it ended, Kael ran in a zigzag pattern.
Bullet holes appeared where he had been standing a moment earlier.
Although the Gunslinger had acted like he looked down on Kael, he clearly wasn't holding back.
At this level, Gunslingers and mages were both mid-range classes. Standing still, both could attack the other.
So what decided the outcome was attack speed and projectile speed.
And bullets were obviously faster.
Whiz! Whiz!
Revolver rounds kept cutting through the air.
Thanks to his Spirit, which far exceeded what was normal for this level, Kael could still track the bullets.
His dodging, however, was anything but graceful.
"Damn it! Why are you so slippery?!"
Both revolvers only held six rounds.
Now the chamber was nearly empty.
The Gunslinger quickly pulled a frost grenade from a pouch at his left waist and threw it at Kael. At the same time, he ran away from Kael while skillfully reloading.
But the frost grenade, which was supposed to stop Kael's movement, never exploded.
Under Kael's telekinesis, it flew back instead.
"What?!"
With a sound like shattering glass, frost spread across the ground.
The Gunslinger's feet were frozen in place.
Before he could shoot through the ice with his revolvers, fireballs began bombing him one after another.
[Combat Log]
You were hit by Firebolt
HP -25
You were hit by Firebolt
HP -20
...
You were hit by Firebolt
HP -22
[System Notification]
You lost the match
By the time the Gunslinger player came back to his senses, he had already been thrown out of the arena.
"Damn it. A scholar-build mage? Wasn't I told those guys barely have any combat power early on?"
It never occurred to him that maybe he was just bad.
As for Kael, after winning, he was reflecting on the problems in that fight.
Distance was a mage's lifeline.
But it was also the lifeline of some other classes.
When facing enemies who could attack faster than him, he was still somewhat lacking in response options.
Kael had already spent two days in the arena.
He lost more than he won.
There were all kinds of classes, all sorts of strange skills, and even rich second-generation guild players who threw money at the game.
When it came to those wallet players, Kael looked at himself, who still couldn't even put together a full set of gear, and couldn't help shedding tears of envy.