Game Start (Part 2)

"Pffffffft, Hahahahahahahaha" Jason couldn't stop himself as he fell over backwards laughing.

There was no way he could stop it, laughter continued to flow out as he rolled on the ground clutching his stomach.

As Jason rolled around laughing his heart out, Beth could only stare at him in shock. 'When was the last time he ever laughed so hard?' Beth wondered, completely oblivious to why her husband was so jovial.

Clark, Jessy, and Bryan could only stand there staring at their father in horror. They knew exactly why their father was laughing so much, and they knew that if their mother found out… Well, they knew things were going to get bad really quickly.

After a few minutes Jason was finally able to control himself, and he just stayed there on the ground staring at his wife lovingly.

'I really missed her.' He thought to himself.

He quickly stood up and brushed the dust off his clothes and extended his hand towards Beth to pull her up.

"There's no need to worry about controls here babe. Forget that this is a game and you'll do just fine." He said with a genuine smile on his face.

She frowned while looking up at him and reached out to grip his hand. Jason then lifted her up in a smooth motion, laughing while saying, "See? You're already a master at this game!"

She paused for a moment, then defiantly puffed out her chest and said "I was only joking around! I knew this the whole time and only wanted to see if you would fall for it!" Her cheeks went rosy red at this moment and a deep blush spread across her face.

She lifted her chin in the air and turned away. "Hmph! You are so gullible sometimes!"

Jason laughed, he could tell that his wife was pretty embarrassed just by looking at the redness spreading across her face. He decided to play along with her to spare her feelings.

He chuckled a bit more then pointed at the large line that was quickly gathering at the table. "Alright, you guys need should go hop in line before the line gets to large. That's where you can join one of the NPC guilds and receive free combat training and beginning gear. They can also test your affinity to magic and guide you to start learning how to manipulate mana."

"But dad, wasn't one of your rules to not join any guilds?" Bryan pipped up at this moment.

Scratching his head remembering that he had said that, Jason replied "I meant not to join any guilds made by people from our world. There's no danger in joining the Adventurers Guild here, only benefits."

He then looked at Beth and said, "Can you take the kids over to join the Adventurers Guild and start training with them? I'll catch up to you guys in a bit."

Beth tilted her head and looked at him quizzically. "Why don't you join us too?"

"I have a top-secret mission to accomplish." He winked at her and said mischievously. He then looked over at his kids and gestured with his head to come a little closer. He then bent down a bit, pulling Beth with him so that the five of them were at the same head level forming a small huddle.

He put his arms around them and then whispered to them, "I heard from a good source of intel that the first people to get their chosen skill proficiency to master level will receive a mithril weapon of that given proficiency." He looked into each of his kids eyes with a serious gaze. "Before you guys go out to complete quests, train hard with the instructors and obtain that rare item!"

The kids looked at each other with a determined look in their eyes. They then looked at their dad and nodded, giving their affirmation that they would be the first.

After sending his wife and kids to go join the Adventurers Guild and begin their training, Jason turned around and set off to begin his plans. He knew they would be the first ones to grind their proficiencies up to the master level and obtain a rare item since this was something that wasn't discovered till about 2 weeks after the game had been out.

He was excited to see what kind of proficiencies they would strive to improve and what classes they would choose. This game was different from other MMO's where there was a set class that limited the type of weapons and skills an individual could choose.

A User could choose as many classes as they would like, their level would be determined by the level of all their classes combined. For example, a User could choose to be a rogue and an archer. If they input their experience points to level up their rogue class to level 2 and enough experience points to level 1 for their archer class, their total level would be level 3.

Proficiency was how well someone could wield their chosen weapon, and this was something that could be obtained by becoming more familiar with the chosen weapon. By using the weapon, one's proficiency level would increase. If someone were to train with a trainer, there would be a massive percentage boost on their speed of proficiency gain that they would obtain with that weapon.

Most Users at the beginning of the game would focus on increasing their level instead of their proficiencies, which had its advantages but also led to a lack of skill with their weapons.

Now if a User had prior knowledge on how to use the weapon, for example if you trained with swords all your life on Earth; your proficiency bar would increase faster than others, but still not as much as it would with a trainer. It was even possible to increase proficiency bars by using experience points obtained by The System.

Experience points were given by The System for completing different tasks. These tasks were typically quests obtained by NPC's or given directly by The System. Experience points would also be given in abundance after defeating an opponent.

These experience points could then be input manually by the User into whatever they desired; whether it be to level up a class level, a specific skill, or their proficiencies.

As Jason was thinking about the mechanics of the game, he felt more than ready to get started and stack up on a few rare and unique classes. These were going to be incredibly difficult to obtain and had many pre-requisites which is why he decided to go alone.

He knew it wasn't a good idea to have too many different classes and proficiencies, as the experience points required to level up to higher ranks would be spread out too much. However, he knew of several unique classes that would give him great power and a huge advantage that were an absolute necessity to obtain.

The quests and ways to obtain these classes were long and arduous though, and he only had the beginning 20 silver that every new User was given by The System at the beginning. So, his first stop would be to obtain a weapon and some gear, and he knew just the place to do so.

As Jason left the courtyard, the crowds of Users slowly thinned. He would see a rare few Users run by him, just to stop at every NPC possible in order to chat with them. He knew that they were trying to activate different quests and were all hoping to get lucky and find rare or hidden quests. He chuckled at their naivety.

Every NPC, or in other words, original inhabitant of Socrathia could issue quests through The System. Any request an NPC would make to a User would be interpreted by The System to be a quest, which would then be issued with the corresponding rewards attached. The System would then also generate the rarity level and difficulty of the quest and add experience points to match the difficulty onto the quest if completed.

It was rare to find a rare or unique quest, hence the associated tag. The ranking system of quests, and items and their associated color tag were as follows: basic-white, uncommon-green, rare-blue, platinum-silver, mithril-orange , legendary-gold, and mythical-purple.

It was rumored that there was a tier above mythical, which was artifact-red. Jason knew this rumor to be true as his sword from his previous life, F'thanir, was an artifact. He had no idea if there was anything above that grade. He didn't even think about trying to obtain F'thanir at the moment, he would need to at the very least be level 40 before he set out to obtain his old trusty sword.

Jason passed many cobble stone shops on his path. All advertising merchandise such as clothes, perfumes, potions, weapons, armors, food and other assorted items. He stopped by one of them to pick up 8 bottles of beer which he quickly stored in his User inventory costing him 2 silver in total. The inventory was a 5x5 dimensional space that was only able to be accessed by the individual User.

He would occasionally pass a Tavern or two, even some smithies. However, his target was in a particularly run-down part of the town.

As he walked through the streets, the cobbled stone pathway quickly changed to a dirt pathway. The buildings here were all made of wood, and stores became far less frequent. After a few minutes he turned into an alleyway and entered through a door at the end.

Stepping inside, the room was only lit by a few flickering candles. Sitting passed out on a table, with a spilled over beer bottle was a dwarf snoring away. The dwarf appeared to be your stereo-typical dwarf; short at about 1.5 meters, bushy red hair hanging off his head and face. The beard and hair were almost as long as the dwarf was tall, and all tangled up with each other.

There were beer stains all over the table, and the room smelled of urine.

Jason walked into the room and up to the dwarf who only continued to snore. He pulled out one of the beer bottles, uncorked it, and waved it under the dwarfs nose.

With a start, the dwarf woke up. Glaring up at Jason who so rudely woke him up, the dwarf grumbled, "Whaddya want? Thad beeeer bedder beer fer me." His speech was nearly unintelligible, slurring together so much it was clear he was heavily drunk.

Jason handed him the bottle, pulled out the other 7 beers and placed them on the table.

"All of these are yours if you let me use your forge and materials to forge myself some weapons and armor."

The dwarf eyed him and guffawed, slapping the table. He quickly chugged the bottle Jason gave him and grabbed another off the table.

"All I got er scraps boy! Give me 10 silver and ye got yerself a dreal!"

Jason smiled and handed him the coins.

"De forge ish in da back." Mumbled the dwarf as he began to nurse his second beer that fate had brought him.

Jason thanked the dwarf and looked around the room a bit more. There was broken plates and mugs on the ground, rotting food in the corners, and a curtain cutting the room in half. Jason walked up to the curtain and pulled it down, revealing a beautiful smithy.

The anvil was shining, the tools were neatly placed on the walls, and the forge was glowing a beautiful soft orange.

Jason rubbed his hands together with a smile on his face.

"Time to get busy!"