Chapter Ten - Kill! Kill!

Bad news- the moles Artha hit accidentally were perstered, hunted by other players. Good news- none of the moles died, so these players didn't come to fight with him for kill stealing.

Better news- his bonus multipler worked. Damage to each monster converted into XP and the multiplier effect worked on it. Just like that, he got more XP than killing few moles. For the drops though, he has to kill atleast one. So he just had to concentrate and his skills and kill one mole and he could say goodbye to this map.

Melee players, if they had foundation in real life could adjust faster in the game. Moreover primary basic skills were not difficult to understand. To implement them successfully, yes, it was difficult but understanding the basics and practicing them ...easy peasy. Rangers or archers, if they didn't practice shooting or archery in real life, the work would be double. How hard to pull the string, how much error would be there if the arrow is inclined by 5°, what type of arrow would be useful, will be arrow even reach the target range, even if reaches the range, will it hit the target... So many variables. In return, they could kite monsters, kill them while standing away from the agro range of the monsters. If powerful arrows or skills were used simultaneously, a monster could die with a single arrow too. Mages and healer class had to understand the the spell though. They had to manipulate the mana or the spirit precisely and they had to hit the target precisely.

Mana, any type of it, would be colourless and shapeless. The player had to collect that gaseous form into desired shape be it a simple ball or different ones like an arrow, a shield or even a sword. Next step- increase the concentration and compress the mana till it looks or even becomes solid. Finally, use it. More the spirit, better the compression. More the wisdom, better the shaping.

Artha could make mana balls but they were not very solid, this could scatter even before reaching the target range. After trying few times, finally his success rate in this reached more than 50%. Without a worry, he chugged Mana potion to replenish red MP bar. Next practice hitting the target. After wasting few potions, he found near perfect way. Instead of focusing on moving monster, he could focus on spots where monsters would come. It was only possible in this map because moles ran into hole to run away from strong players.

Concentrating fire near holes meant he could hit moles more often. But that meant he recieved ere of fellow players too. So he moved to border of the map where players were less. Monsters spawn was less and moles would run towards centre more often.

The drama between the two guilds had ended sometime back when big backers of both groups came, talked tough and walked away arrogantly. Poor young lad of Supernova guild. He would recieve lashings from the actual managers of the guild and had to pay to collect the monster drops.

After suffering even longer (and turning on the help tutorial for sometime), Artha finally, finally killed a mole. By that time, few batches of players had finished playing in the map and gone to explore other maps. The bonus for killing the monster was huge though. Enough to upgrade his trader bag. After all, his talent allowed him to multiply the item or upgrade it. The limiting factors were the XP used for conversion as more XP was needed for upgrading one or more levels and the talent could be used only once for any item. Higher the quality of the item, more XP for the change. The trader bag, even the basic version was way way better than other inventory bags. No wonder it used up all the XP he collected. But good news, he need not rent another room to sleep. He can dump back nearly all the items to bronze grade trade bag.

With that worry out of the way, let's concentrate on targeting moving monsters. The players in the map had increased again. Maybe he should practice what other players had done previously. Just spam the spell over the hole and kill just spawned monster before it even raises it's head above the ground. The XP gained would be less but the task was just to kill 10 moles, who cares about their strength. These pre entry level monsters were stingy in giving XP and loot anyway. With time and enough practice, and long pauses in between to replenish mana and help, he did better and better. The potions were finished long ago. But as he learnt how to play, the errors became less and less, the mana wasted was becoming negligent.

Next stop, village. Before replenishing his potions, he would never dare to hunt monsters. Only solace he had right now was that despite of wasting so much time in that level 0 map, he was level 2, on par with the pioneers and experts of the guilds. This level increase was temporary though, he still hadn't found items to replicate or increase the grade. As the staff was from the lot which came with bonus, he could not upgrade it. The monsters had not dropped any equipments, even trash type. Stingy.

He submitted the task. Viola! The bonus strikes again. Now, he could claim he had more money than the guilds in the village. The initial tasks were all money making tasks because newcomers needed the support of potions and weapons far too much and they could be only purchased, not created, at least in the beginning. He could see few players doing some miscellaneous work in lifestyle shops, probably part of quest to become apprentice in the lifestyle they had chosen. It would take some time to be apprentice, then they should have a recipe or a formula or a design, some basis , through which they could start creating.

The game developers had cautioned that lifestyle players would not have it easy at all in the beginning. The success rate was be very poor before they reached small success in the said design/recipe/formula. The completion rate would increase with increase in proficiency too.