Genesis

[Jin]

Genesis
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Here’s a fun little experiment for anyone with even minor sociopathic tendencies to try out: Find someone, anyone really, and wait for them to fall asleep. It will happen eventually, and while this trick would work with even a momentary lapse in concentration, it is best for your target to be completely unconscious before carrying out the following task due to just how tough it is to get past protests like “Let go of me, you creep!” or “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” in everyday situations.

So, assuming you’ve decided upon your target and they’ve sufficiently fallen unconscious for a guaranteed period of time – the use of Rohypnol or Chloroform may be necessary in cases involving particularly stubborn or sleepless subjects – you need simply to move them from their original location and into somewhere else entirely random. After that, the experiment simply requires you to wait for them to awaken and watch the reactions unfold.

Some people, those who aren’t particularly aware of their surroundings first thing in the morning, may lay in bed groggily, waiting for their minds to tell them that their alarms should have gone off long ago. Others may be up with a start, wondering where exactly they are and what’s been done to them. Those seem to be the two main schools of thought on such sudden events, though the shorter the lapse in time between the lapse in focus and the return of concentration, the more varied the reactions may become.

For instance, John wasn’t entirely sure when the transfer from fantasy to reality had happened for him when it came to Elder Tale. The last thing he’d been coherently aware of when he knew he was in the real world was the strong desire to get out of his house. He’d had some form of argument or another with his family, something about moping around the house too much and not having any form of a viable or satisfactory life set up for him in the long run. The usual complaints.

He’d gone for a walk as he often did when he wanted to get away from the crushing atmosphere of the place he so ambivalently called his home, if only to clear his head and regain his sense of calm for his inevitable return. Until he went off to University, he was afraid he’d be under his parents’ thumb and there would be nothing to be said on the matter. However, that should have just been a few short months away. The emphasis there, of course, was on the words “should have been.”

He’d blinked – at least he was pretty sure that was all that had happened – and in the fraction of a second it took his eyes to close and open once more in order to keep his vision clear and the organs behind the lids damp and mostly clean, he was somewhere else entirely. He wasn’t quite sure when he noticed the shift. He’d been walking on a grassy hill in the area around his home that seemed far enough away from other houses that he could sufficiently be alone with his thoughts both before and after the shift, whenever it had happened.

The new scenery didn’t go entirely unnoticed by him after that blink of realization. His calm and stoic demeanor betrayed, his head whipped back and forth in confusion with brows raised high when the realization that he had no idea where he was right now anymore finally struck him. Just how had he gotten here? Did he really walk all this way? Was that…was that Big Ben? How the bloody hell was he in London all of a sudden? Why the hell was this happening?

Looking down at himself, Jin quickly became aware that he was not in his normal clothes, and a quick inspection of his hands swiftly revealed odd markings on them that, upon even further investigation, seemed to cover his entire body. Where the hell was he supposed to be? If he didn’t know any better, he’d say he was inside Elder Tale, but the servers were still down for the update that wasn’t supposed to go live until…

Until tonight. The servers had gone live tonight, but John’s parents had thrown their usual fit over his lack of anything close to resembling a social life outside of the gaming world. What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t suddenly abandon the friends he had online for people he barely knew off of it.

Though, if this weren’t just some crazy dream and he was actually stuck in the game world, then there were likely others as well. He supposed that could be considered a best of both worlds scenario. He wasn’t technically playing the game anymore, and he was going to have to talk to someone eventually. Perhaps his friends were online, too?

Sighing, the boy decided now would be as good of a time as any to start figuring things out, and a group of heads was always better than one. That town would be the best gathering place for anyone who bothered to exist, so he would head there and see what he could find out.

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Words (post): 868
Words (quest): 868

Credit to Jin of Elder Tale.

[Jin]

Genesis
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John had given the nearby town – Londinium, apparently – a few hours of his time. It seems that the plan to recreate the world in one half of its original surface area had been set in motion with the latest update, as the town was smaller than he’d thought a big city like London was supposed to be. While that was all well and good, the information he’d gathered besides just that would be much more useful.

Placing his hand in the center of his field of vision, John allowed the menu to pop up. It wasn’t all that different from what one would usually find in a game, save for the fact that instead of being behind a computer screen, this menu was now right in front of his eyes. He was a level one sorcerer, priest, and pharmacist, apparently. This was the new character he’d made shortly before the servers went down, eager to play through everything again in order to get the most out of the new content that he could have swept through quickly on his older character.

Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. This wasn’t his character anymore, this body belonged to him. John smirked, shaking his head at the concept of something close to a new start. People wouldn’t know his as anything but Jin in this world, and he was completely fine with that. John Smith was a dull, mundane sort of existence to have anyways. This life would prove to be much more interesting, however long he was stuck in here. Honestly, if he could somehow forget his past entirely, he would. Life back then was boring, almost like a loading screen in a game where the player was to perform some trivial mini-game while they waited for the real thing to start.

Perhaps that was all Jin’s old life was; the prelude to something bigger and better. Either way, rushing into a new world, a new reality, without having all his facts straight wasn’t a good idea. He would have to wait for information to come to him, or perhaps go out and find it himself if it proved to be safe enough. As of now, he was as weak and defenseless as he could ever be. There would be nothing out there that didn’t pose a substantial risk to his wellbeing until he could prove his skills transcended beyond his current position, and to do that he would have to make the most of his abilities. The obvious choice for right now was to get his survivability chances up, and that meant killing monsters, gathering gold and items, and generally just grinding like one usually would in any other game.

Though, that left the question as to what else was out there to be answered. He was sure that the only thing that had changed was the reality of this world. A new expansion had been released. That meant new areas, new enemies, new items, and new systems to discover, memorize, and take advantage of in time that anyone who posed a threat would be at least one step behind him. This world allowed PvP combat in outside areas, after all. There were bound to be people going after those of lower level for things like gold or any item that they didn’t think someone who was so new to the game deserved.

So that was Jin’s new plan. The first step was to become strong, the second step was to become useful. After that, it was all a matter of making sure that he found a group of people who weren’t completely retarded and would allow him to remain alone if he wanted to, but would also be willing to help him out of anything he bit off that was bigger than he could chew alone.

Super simple stuff, eh?

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Words (post): 639
Words (quest): 1508

Credit to Jin of Elder Tale.

[Jin]

Genesis
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A short yet brisk walk had brought Jin into the fields that made up the area just outside of town. He had his equipment with him, though it wasn’t much. Still, two starting weapons would be enough to take out just about anything he had to that was around his level. The difficulty curve of the game wouldn’t just throw something with a more complicated attack pattern than “run in a straight line at the target” at this point. He would be completely fine dealing with a decent sized group of just about any creature all on his own.

A few minutes of searching brought him upon a group of three boars, the weakest variety of course. He wasn’t in any area where a higher level creature would be spawning. All he had to do was make sure not to cross into other higher-level spawn zones for too long during the fight, and the initial attack on the creatures would be more or less successful.

Opening his grimoire – a book that supposedly contained spells, but Jin couldn’t bother himself with worrying about such trivial things when all he needed to do was look into his menu to figure out which spells were currently available to him. Right now, he knew that the grimoir’s primary purpose was simply to throw basic attacks out at a longer range than could be achieved with the typical melee tool.

Taking aim, Jin fired a bolt of nondescript magic out at the nearest of the three boars that were currently caught up in their docile activities like gnawing on grass and spinning around in circles. They couldn’t have been caught more unaware by the attack if he’d found them wearing blindfolds and earplugs. That was fine, though. It would make gaining experience easier. That’s all this part of the game was, at least. Levelling up, gaining skills, boosting numbers and the like. It was all easy, simplistic, a task more or less.

‘Boring, if I think about it too hard,’ the boy thought to himself. Though the thought didn’t stay with him for long as the creatures all appeared to take notice of the damage being dealt to them, their aggression drawing his way like a nail to a magnet. He was ready for that, though. It was all too expected of the creatures, and all too expected of the game to act such a way regarding new encounters. Jin’s numbers may have been low, but the numbers belonging to those in front of him were even lower.

This would be a slaughter.

The boar Jin had hit first was the first to sprint at him, the damage to its body not at all impeding its physical capabilities. Injuries themselves rarely ever did that in games, after all. Still, Jin wasn’t going to complain about a non-realistic quality about an entirely different reality. This was still a game, but it was also the game where he lived. There would be no questioning the facts if they were simply facts.

For the second attack, Jin crouched low and crossed his legs, spinning and slicing at the short creature, landing a clean cut across its face before jumping back to distance himself further from the charge. He’d knocked the first boar back with the slash, grouping it with the other two who had joined their friend simultaneously after seeing it charge. Now that all three were in a group, targeting would be a little harder. He needed to think of a way to split them up now.

One more blast from his grimoire was aimed to take out the first boar, cutting his targets by a third. However, he was a little off on his aim and ended up hitting one of the undamaged creatures. Scoffing as the small animals continued to press him back as he was still not entirely aware of his hit box in this world – though it was probably the exact dimension of his body now that he thought about it. He just needed to get them to stop grouping up like they were if he wanted to deal with them cleanly.

He supposed he had no other choice than to dive right in and hope for the best. Keeping his eyes pinned on the boar with the lowest HP, Jin charged his blade with Thunderbolt Crash. His travel towards the creatures was swift thanks to his lack of heavy armor, but he knew full well he’d only be getting faster as he grew stronger. It was all part of the game, after all.

A basic attack from his grimoire landed successfully on the weak boar, killing it as Jin rammed the enchanted sword through the boar in front of him, paralyzing it for the half second required for him to spin on his heal and kick the remaining boar away from the fight. Another jump put the momentarily paralyzed boar between him and the one he’d just kicked, but not for long seeing as another blast at close range from the grimoire was enough to clean up the body of the boar he’d struck with the enchantment.

The final boar shook of the kick, which had not done any damage but had knocked it back long enough for Jin to take full advantage of the stunning properties of his sole skill as a sorcerer at this point in time. Hopefully after a few more bouts he’d be able to claim another skill or two, but that didn’t matter right now. The only thing that really did was taking out this last boar. Of course, he couldn’t jump right into another Thunderbolt Crash. The cooldown was still up, after all. He needed to deal with this by making best use of his slashes and blasts.

Speaking of blasts, another one flew from the book in Jin’s left hand and flew true towards its target, striking the pig in the face. Aiming in this world was just as easy as aiming in the last one, apparently, which meant Jin wouldn’t have much trouble unless he was trying to pick a target from more than seven meters or so without any sort of assistance. Luckily, the range of his tome was well within that limit.

Charging, the boar had no regard for its own wellbeing as Jin swiped at it once, running past it as he did. The separation between him and the creature was enough for him to prepare and fire one more shot from his grimoire, landing a glancing blow that only served to have the creature run itself through with Jin’s outstretched katana.

With the final boar dead, Jin released his equipment back into wherever it went when he wasn’t using it. He supposed he should go elsewhere for further training. He wasn’t going to get anywhere if he didn’t learn how to read attack patterns, even simple ones like these. Everyone had to start somewhere, and he wasn’t going to take any unnecessary risks. He still didn’t know what this was going to be like, seeing as he wasn’t sure how much was a game and how much matched reality. If he died, would he respawn? Would he cease to exist, just like in the other world? Was there some sort of afterlife or cycle of reincarnation? Well, it’s not like it mattered all that much. He wasn’t planning on dying anytime soon. He’d lose valuable EXP. No, he was better off keeping the pace relatively relaxed to start out with.

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Words (post): 1250
Words (quest): 2759

Credit to Jin of Elder Tale.