Skills

'Besides just pure level and stats, the other way a player gains strength is through their skills. 

There are 3 known ways a player can gain a skill, the most common of which is through their class. 

A swordsman would naturally gain the Swordsmanship skill upon gaining their class, and a blacksmith would gain the blacksmith skill, and so forth for other common classes. 

Although common, they serve as the foundation for all players in their respective classes.

The second most common way to gain a skill is through simply training. When a player reaches a certain level of proficiency in a respective skill, the system acknowledges their effort and displays it on their status screen. 

The third and least common way to gain a skill is through what's commonly known as a Skill book. Simple as it sounds, the item allows any player regardless of class, level, or talent to acquire the skill named on the item. 

Just like any other aspect of the system, skills are categorized under the 8 known rarities. However, unlike classes or titles, Skills have a well-known method to increase in rarity. 

Every 10 levels, there stands a natural bottleneck that players must surpass to continue advancing their skills. 

The most common way is to simply dump the required amount of Exp into the skill to advance it past the bottleneck. 

While this does advance the skill to the next tier, the rarity of the skill will remain the same. 

Instead, if the player simply trains their skill with the intent to surpass their limits, the skill will undergo a natural evolution. 

(*Disclaimer: the chances that a skill undergoes an evolution depend both on the talent of the player and the rarity of the skill. A majority of players, however, can upgrade a common skill to the uncommon level by level 20 of that skill.)' 

Though short, the forum post managed to compress the general understanding of skills into a 2-minute read. 

Despite that, the thing that attracted Vega's attention the most was the poster itself, Aurelius. 

Clicking on his profile, it was filled with guides on everything from stat builds for common classes to the most efficient technology trees. 

His page was a literal treasure trove of information for anyone who had been new to Altera. 

It was mainly due to that reason alone, that he had earned the respect of nearly every player back on earth. 

Now that the whole of humanity had been kidnapped into another world, with only their skills and knowledge of the system to back them up, everyone's respect for Aurelius had deepened even greater. 

Throughout his years of playing Altera, he constantly revealed secrets hidden in the system, allowing the whole of the player base to grow stronger. 

Besides the post giving a general understanding of skills, which Vega had just read, there was one post that piqued his interest. 

'How to Gain the Title Fast Learner (Rare)' Inside the post, detailed a well-tested and thought-out plan to gain the rare title. 

The requirements were simple if a player was able to naturally learn 5 skills, regardless of rarity, within the time frame of 24 hours, they would gain the title. 

Once the requirements were fulfilled and the player gained the title, they would be rewarded with a slightly enhanced comprehension that would help them with all things learning-related. 

It was a must-have for any player, whether they were combat-oriented or not; it was simply too op of a title to not get. 

Usually, any player would keep this sort of knowledge a secret, only letting their close friends or guild know about it to let them hold an advantage. 

Aurelius, though, did no such thing, he made the usually hidden information common knowledge to everyone. 

It was convenient—simply too convenient. Although Vega was extremely grateful, he couldn't shake off the feeling that it was strangely suspicious. 

And he certainly wasn't alone, it was common knowledge that people questioned how he knew such information. 

Despite their suspicion, it couldn't be denied how much he'd contributed to the whole of humanity in this current situation. 

Leaving that thought for a later time, Vega decided to stop lounging in the rest area of the training hall. 

Having only paid 20 bronze coins, the general quality of the place wasn't that great, but it would be sufficient for now. 

Going through the racks, which held various wooden weapons, Vega stopped at the sword section. 

Considering he had been planning on buying one before he met Hans, he was curious if he held any talent in swordsmanship. 

Having taken his choice of weaponry, he walked over to the dummy section, which was simply an open field that housed some evenly scattered dummies. 

Since it was still relatively early in the day, the place was pretty deserted except for the random lady training her swordsmanship in the corner. 

Standing at around 5 feet, she looked to be of Asian descent, with her tied-up jet-black hair and brown almond eyes. He didn't look for too long, though, since he was working on a time constraint. 

With a wooden sword in hand, Vega approached the dummy farthest from the only other person and began swinging his sword in hopes of unlocking the swordsmanship skill. 

Looking at his swings, though, they were simply too broad, and although they contained power, any proficient opponent could easily avoid them. 

He continued throwing slashes and strikes for a few minutes before he felt a presence behind him. 

"You suck genuine dick, dude." Someone commented. 

"Wait, what?" Vega quickly turned around. 

"Wah? Wait wah?" She mocked. 

"You heard me dumbass, you're clearly not fit for the sword, go pick out something else." She advised. 

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Vega asked in confusion. 

"Oh, right, I haven't introduced myself. Well, just to be nice, I'll let you know. The name's Mei, but I'm sure you know me more often by my user Heavenly demon." She said smugly. 

"Ugh. Oh! You're that person on the leaderboard, right?" Vega vaguely recalled. 

"Jus- Just that person on the leaderboard???" She exclaimed. 

"Oh, I am gonna fuck you up." She claimed. 

"Huh?? I don't even know you, what?" Vega was taken aback. 

"Oh, but you're gonna find out soon enough who I am." She chuckled.

Without a second's hesitation, she lunged towards him, wooden sword in hand.