CHAPTER 3 - To dive
(3rd person pov)
"Link start" mikey shouted a bit louder than necessary because of his excitement.
He found himself in the game. A whole new world with new sensations and new possibilities. Looking around he found himself in a starter village like most games called the Town of beginnings in floor 1 with starting equipment of brown pants, red shirt, leather armour and iron sword.
Taking a few minutes to peruse the area and interact with the npc's he concluded that he needed to get stronger first before anything else. Going into the wilds, he began hunting regular mobs with his iron sword such as wild wolves and boars. Within 5 minutes he completely understood the game fighting mechanics and his fighting experience from the real world translated to skill in this world.
From what he could gather thus far about the system, the game operates similar to most MMORPGs with a level system and eventual skill mastery with some limits placed on it.
The entire game is monitored and maintained by the "CARDINAL SYSTEM ", which self-corrects any problems. While the Sword Art Online mainframe is capable of incredible graphical and rendering capacities, it does not actually render the entire environment in full detail unless a certain region is specifically observed by a player. SAO uses a «Digital Focusing System», which brings out the finer details of an object only when a player shows interest and focuses their visual field on it.
This reduces the strain on the SAO mainframe processor, which, despite its high performance power, is incapable of rendering all marginal details of the environment simultaneously. This effectually produces the illusion that the SAO graphical and VR experience is incredibly detailed.
First, no pain is actually felt in any situation. As a result, players can undergo severe injuries and still only feel an uncomfortable tingling sensation. Second, there is no blood; in its place are red virtual gashes that are seen in the place of injuries. Third, Sword Skills allow attacks to be performed with normally impossible speed, dexterity, and power, based on the player's stats. Fourth, there are some everyday actions that simply are not done in the SAO world, such as changing clothes by hand or attempting to wield two items at the same time.
While playing Sword Art Online, players still feel fatigue and hunger, regardless of the state of their actual bodies. As a result it is an absolute necessity for all players to eat and sleep within the game; however there is never a need to go to the bathroom. Death or deletion in the game is visualized by fragmentation into thousands of polygon shards. All monsters, items, and players that have their HP or durability reduced to zero, disappear and fragment into polygons in such a fashion.
Globally, Sword Art Online has seasons and weather settings that are effective throughout the floors. Aincrad's season correlate with the seasons of the real world, but they are generally much milder. As a result, it is not always snowy in the winter, or scorching hot in the summer. Weather settings are generally random and quite realistic. player's display, without accessing any skills, one can see several interfaces.
The hit point bar is located on the upper left corner of one's field of vision. It displays the player's name, a visual hit point gauge, along with numerical hit points (current/maximum), and level. It also shows the hit points and names of all other members in the player's party in a smaller bar.
A clock displaying Aincrad local time can be seen in the bottom left corner of the visual field. A Colour Cursor can be seen over every NPC, monster, and player in the game. This cursor is either green (for players), orange (for players with criminal infractions), yellow (for NPCs), or various shades of red (for monsters). During battle, the health bar of monsters can be seen around the targeted enemy, as well as the name of the monster. Bosses typically have multiple health bars. As for a monster that level is too far apart, hit point bars of that monster will be unable to see and instead indicated with 'unknown'.
SAO uses a level-based system to determine the strength of a player. Once the player gains enough EXP, their avatar glows a golden hue, and their current level is raised by one.
Three stat points are awarded at each level-up, which the player can use to raise either of their attributes. 10 minutes into the game and he was already level 3, putting all stats into agility and strength.
You have levelled up.
Level 3
Hp : 500
Str : 13
Agi : 13
He began testing out his skills in the field. taking a step forward he evaded the wolf's strike, Giving it a swift slash by it's throat and putting it down immediately. Sidestepping quickly after and twirling on the spot while decapitating another wolf. He began to fall into rhythm, a slash here and dodge there, it became a wonderful dance of death. When he was done the land had already become barren.