Chapter 6 - Game Introduction

Chapter 6 – Game Introduction

The light that enveloped Berry started to dissipate. Slowly and steadily, his surrounding view became clearer. Berry's eyes slowly adjusted to his surroundings and he realized he was in a massive park somewhere in the middle of a big city.

Berry looked around and saw many people walking around. They did not look normal as they wore full-body fantasy-style armor with many colors and designs.

When Berry looked past the park, he saw tall buildings surrounded the park. This view could be normally seen in the real world when someone arrived at the city center.

However, Berry was indifferent to this view. He had seen those kinds of armors when he played a fantasy RPG game a few times before. Berry lived in a city too and the city's view was nothing impressive to his eyes.

Moreover, Berry knew he was in a game and everything was not real. No matter how impressive the view was, it would not compare to the real thing.

Berry looked around and wondered what he should do. "Where to go now?" Berry looked around and found an empty bench. He sat on the bench and planned on his next move.

"Let's check on my stats again," Berry mumbled. "Menu," Berry spoke and a blue floating screen appeared in front of him. There were four things written on the menu screen. Status, Equipment, Storage, Others and Options.

Berry checked on his status.

Name: Berryier

Rank: 1

Level: 1

Next Level: 0/15

HP: 10

Attack: 9

Defense: 7

Speed: 9

Ability: Barrier

Skill

Barrier [Level 1 (0/15)] (UP – 5/5) – Def+1, 1 cm2

"Name is my in-game name. Rank is…" Berry had no idea what the Rank was. He knew about the level because it was a common thing in an RPG game. He also knew that Dodgeball Master combined the two elements of sports and RPG into one.

Not only Dodgeball Master but all other sports VR games did this too because they wanted to make the game interesting.

"Is there any way to know what the Rank is?" Berry wondered and he tried to click on the word 'Rank'. Perhaps an explanation would appear.

[Rank will determine your opponent's stats in any battle or matches. Each Rank represents ten levels. For example, Rank 1 means Level 1 to 10. If a player meets an opponent of Rank 2 and the player was Rank 1, the opponent will have his stats suppressed to Rank 1 Level 10. The same when a player was Rank 2 and his opponent was Rank 1, his power will be suppressed to Rank 1 Level 10]

"Ah~" Berry nodded. He finally understood what the Rank was used for. The rank was used to make the game fair for low leveled players but also fair for high-level players as their stats were suppressed at the highest level of the rank.

"There must be more the high-level players have even after their stats are suppressed. I need to figure it out when playing this game," Berry mumbled.

"Since there is an explanation for Rank, there must be one for everything else in this menu," Berry clicked on the Level and an explanation appeared.

[There are a total of 100 levels a player can reach. For each level up, the player will be granted 3 stat points and they can apply it in any way they want in their stats]

Berry understood the explanation and clicked on the 'Next Level'.

[This is the amount of experience needed to level up. Experience can only be gained through missions or battles against other players]

Berry clicked on the HP, Attack, Defense, and Speed.

[HP is the health point. Everyone will start with 10 HP. 1 stat points equaled to 10 HP. HP is important in battles because when the HP turns zero, the player will lose the battle]

[Attack is the offensive stat of a player. It determines the amount of damage an opponent will receive when the player's attack hit]

[Defense is the defensive stat of a player. It determines the damage receive when a player is hit by an opponent]

[Speed determine how fast the player can move and attack]

Berry read the explanation and he understood them easily because all of them were common in an RPG game. He moved on to the Ability.

[Ability is the superpower the player will have. One player will only have one Ability. The skill that they can learn will also be related to Ability. Ability cannot be changed. It will remain the same unless the player decides to start the game with a new account]

"So, I will be stuck with Barrier related skills until the end," Berry spoke but he did not mind it. He played the game to learn more about it not because he enjoyed it. Berry will just go through with his choice until he decided to quit the game.

Berry looked at his skill. "Barrier with Def+1 and 1 cm2? The skill has a level too and UP??? What is UP?" Berry clicked on everything the skill had shown to get some explanation about them.

When Berry read the level explanation, he was stunned. The explanation was the same as the 'Level' explanation earlier except that the skill's highest level was 10. He would need to try it later to understand more about it.

[UP is the Usage Point. It indicates how many times a player can use the skill. All skills will start with 5 usage points. The UP will increase by one when the skill levels up. An hour is needed to restore one UP. The player can also buy the UP stone to restore the UP faster]

"So, I can only use this skill five times and when the skill's level maxed, I can use the skill for fifteen times?" Berry spoke. "With this limit, the players will need to think of strategy instead of blatantly using force when in a battle."

"How do I use the skill? Barrier?" Berry tried to say the skill's name and immediately after he said that, a small purple energy flat square barrier appeared above his palm. The skill's UP count decrease by 1.

"… Yeah, 1 cm2 is small but will I be able to block anything with this small barrier?" Berry scratched his head. The barrier was small with only 1 cm length on all of its sides. Not only that but the barrier was as thin as paper.

Berry canceled the skill and he moved on to the next menu, the equipment menu. The screen changed to a simple screen with a few spaces in which some of them were filled with the outfit Berry currently wore.

Since Berry was a new player, he was given the basic outfit of a white t-shirt, white pants, and a pair of slippers. All three of the equipment did not give him any additional stats. If he wanted additional equipment, he needed to buy them in the game.

The slots were separated into six sections which were the head, body, left and right arm, and left and right leg. Each section only had one slot meant only one equipment could be equipped in that slot.

However, in each section, there was a greyed slot with a plus symbol on the slot. Berry knew that he could increase the slot by clicking on the greyed slot.

Berry clicked on the greyed slot and a notification appeared.

[Insufficient fund]

"So, I need money to upgrade the slot," Berry understood. He moved on to the storage menu.

Another screen appeared and on it was five square slots. Four of them were empty but the first slot had the gold coin symbol. When Berry clicked on the first slot, he saw that he had 100g inside it.

An explanation appeared and explained that the first slot was designated to store the in-game money which has the currency of 'Gold' shortened to 'g'. The maximum money Berry could store there was limited to 500g and the other empty slots could only store 5 of the same items.

Even so, he did not need to worry about it because the slots were upgradable. Similar to the equipment slot, Berry could upgrade the storage slots using in-game money. He could increase the number of slots too.

Berry left the storage menu and entered the Others menu. When he clicked on that, four choices appeared. The first was the mission, followed by chat and announcement. Berry clicked on the mission and an empty screen appeared.

Since Berry did not accept any mission, there was none listed there.

Berry clicked on the chat and another screen appeared. On the right side was the list of contacts but he did not add anyone and thus, it was empty. On the left side was the list of chat groups and it was empty too. In the middle was the chat display and it was obviously empty.

Nothing interesting there and Berry moved on to the announcement. As the name suggested, it was a place where the game developer posted an announcement related to the game such as events and updates announcements.

However, when Berry opened the announcement menu, there was only one announcement there. Berry clicked on it and a message appeared.

[Welcome, new player, Berryier. To unlock the announcement board, go to the Public Guild building and receive your starting mission to start your journey in Dodgeball Master]

Immediately after he finished reading the announcement, a notification appeared.

[Mission: Beginning.

Details: Head to the Public Guild and do the following.

Register at the Public Guild

Complete a mission issue by the Public Guild

Rewards: 3 Experience points and 300g]

[You can view the mission's details in the mission menu]

"I guess this is the beginning of this game. I thought I need to aimlessly walk around and do whatever I want but a game is a game after all," thought Berry.