FB: Chapter 9 – Skill Shards

If my plan worked, then I would celebrate with a nice meal. For now, I would eat bread and think things over. There were no other people in the inn. That just showed how popular Murk Town truly was as a starting location. “Command remove skill shards.”

A bunch of rectangular crystals appeared on the table in front of me. QAI was nice like that. If you were sitting down or had a flat surface in front of you, your inventory item would be placed on it. Great for when lots of little things got stacked up.

I put on my inspection glasses and began looking at the four I had collected. Four junk skills for Murk Barf. It cost 1 MP and 10% of my food and water bars. I would deal 3 damage over 5 seconds to both my target and myself. If I used this skill, it would kill me.

While they were technically crystals, people called them skill shards. Rectangular crystal prisms and about the size of a pencil snapped in half, they could be slotted into my armor bracelet or a weapon. I wasn’t going to do either right now.

I put all four skill crystals into the pouch around my neck and took off my inspection glasses and put them back into my inventory. Getting exploded eyeballs and glass in them was no fun. This skill shard was considered the next drop after the ears for the basic grabbers.

Monsters below level 30 normally had 3 drops. A common clearing one that paid a bit of coin. Then a skill shard for a junk skill shard. And then a much rarer drop. For the grabbers the rare drop was a skill shard Poison Resistance. I would be dealing with equipping junk skills tomorrow. I paused, I still had time left and I needed to get into a six hours on, two off, six on, ten off routine for the foreseeable future.

Even if I was done with the smell, I needed to keep moving and not call it quits early. I let out a sigh and left the inn and made my way to the Skill Union.

“I require eight skill shards for Poison Resistance,” I told the clerk. I couldn’t wait for them to drop.

“What grade or rank?” the clerk asked.

“Junk grade,” I replied.

“We have eight skill shards available at that grade for 10 copper each for a total of 80 copper.” I forked over the money. I then slotted two of them into my armor bracelet, bringing my poison resistance up to 20%. I then went to the General store and purchased a dagger with belt sheath for 10 copper. I then set it as my main weapon, equipping the remaining two Poison Resistance skill shards into the slots on the dagger, bringing up my resistance to 40%.

If people were grinding, they rarely used their main weapon for combat unless they had a specific skill shard that interacted with the weapon to help them. Even then, they would often use another weapon. It wasn’t worth risking the durability and having your skill shards go flying if it broke. A belt dagger was a popular choice for a main weapon.

I then purchased 10 potions of pest repellant for 250 copper. Since I could handle the Murk Swamp, it was time to go all in. I made my way back to the inn, my personal time window of 6 hours was almost up. I paid 1 copper for a room. Inn rooms were instances no one could enter but the person who paid for them. They were set up like this since they were the main log-in and log-off locations of Exponential.

The cost of an inn room was based on the number of people present in the town and staying in that inn. Also, the size of the settlement. Popular places would see the prices go up. This was to encourage people to spread out. Murk Town was never going to be popular. If the price ever went over 1 copper I would be surprised.

The room had a lamp for light which I turned to the lowest setting. Future inn rooms would remember this setting for me. I then lay down on the bed and closed my eyes. The bed was shaped like the capsule to ease the transition from the virtual world to the real world and vice versa. Having gravity change directions, would give people headaches and possibly the mental illness of gravity delusion. Another reason not to log out in random locations all the time besides the penalties. “Command log out.” There was a soft chime.

I waited and then half a minute later, there was another soft chime. I opened up my eyes to see darkness, but I was in the real world now based on the smell of my body odor. “Open,” I said. There was a soft hiss and then the capsule opened. I slowly swung my legs out and climbed out.

Picking up a nearby towel, I wiped my sweat off and then sprayed the seat of the capsule with a no scent cleaner and wiped it down. Having any kind of smell or distraction could impact me. Since I was doing this, I would take all the necessary steps to make sure things ran smoothly and I had no issues in the world of Exponential.

I tossed the towel in a nearby laundry basket. I then made my way to my renovated bathroom. The shower was massive with four nozzles. I turned it on and got into the shower, blasting myself clean. I knew the contractor had juiced the water pressure higher than it legally should be, which had been appreciated. After getting cleaned up, I dried off and then put on some sports underwear in preparation for exercising later.

Since it was just me and the windows all had heavy duty blackout curtains, I wasn’t worried about anyone peaking on me. I did toss on a quick robe when I went to check the food drop box outside. My two meals for the day were there. Also, work was being down on the landscape by various workers. They glanced at me in my robe, but I didn’t care. I was glad that the outside of my home was being taken care of.

I brought the meals inside and hung up my robe. I then reheated my cold food. After that I sat down and ate the steak, potatoes, and vegetables. I had made sure to choose a large option from the meal service. I stopped eating once I felt full and sipped on my glass of watered down orange juice. The food and drink had a shit taste to it. The ultimate curse of the Murk Swamp. It made a person think everything tasted like shit.

Well not really, but after smelling and tasting that shit taste in my mouth for so long, it had seared itself into my neurons. That was why one had to be careful about VR and how the effects could linger. Full immersion made lingering effects like that last longer. I would need to get used to the taste of shit going forward, since I was going to be in the Murk Swamp for a long time.

Letting out a sigh I made my way into my exercise room. I got on the treadmill and began to run at a quick pace. After thirty minutes I got off and stretched myself out. I then began to lift various weights. My exercise routine in my home gym took up one and a half hours. I was not going to let my body go, now that it was young and had muscles again. Once I was done, I rinsed off in the shower again and made my way back to my capsule after precisely two hours.

The medical nanites couldn’t come soon enough. Currently there was a daily limit of 12 hours on the capsules for safety reasons. While one could go the full 12 hours in a single session, it wasn’t worthwhile. I needed to exercise, eat, and reset before going back in to be at my best. That would probably change, but for now I would space my time out.

I didn’t want to go back in, but I had to. The Murk Swamp was already inflicting its trauma upon me. If I was going to become rich and famous, I needed to put in the hard, soul killing work at the start. Most people were probably stacking on the levels like idiots. Even the smarter people wouldn’t be able to resist for that long as people surged ahead in levels.

But what they didn’t realize was getting skill experience oneself was important. Getting skills to the sixth rank or grade, which was Legendary, required several skills at the Epic rank. In addition, special skills required even more. But what made leveling up skill shards with one’s own experience incredibly useful was the 1% bonus to skills for each rank that one leveled up themselves. Almost no one got a skill to the Legendary rank with skill shards they had leveled up the entire way by themselves due to the experience requirements.

Most high level people didn’t go for this due to how hard it was to get that much experience, except for a core skill or two. But to make my build work, I needed to eke out every bonus I could. But a person had to level up all the skill shards themselves to get this bonus. Normally to get a higher rank skill one required two maxed out skill shards of the lower rank.

For rank 1, junk, this was only 1,000 experience. For rank 2, Common, that meant 10,000 base experience, but it would be 12,000 experience total from the two junk skill shards needed. Rank 3, Uncommon, required 50,000 base experience. Rank 4, Rare, required 250,000 base experience. Rank 5, Epic, required 1,250,000 base experience.

Getting a legendary skill shard from epic skill shards also had other requirements. But for non-special skills the experience needed to reach the rank of a rank 6 legendary skill shard and not level it up was 4,092,000 in total and for unique skills which required 8 maxed out epic skill shards instead of 2, it required 16,368,000 total experience.

If a person rushed off to level, then they would struggle later on to get experience, since lower level monsters would not give them experience. All the top people just paid other people to level up most of their skills. But they lost out on that small percentage bonus. Also, there were often quest chains or items needed to level up a skill to a unique legendary skill and beyond. This often required the skill holder to be engaged in the quest with the skills from a lower level. Such quests couldn’t be handed off that easily.

That meant the people lost out on the small percentage bonus and by the time people really realized the issue, they weren’t about to restart with their character or level up a skill. I was planning to get as much experience as I could in a single year and use that experience for various skills.

Getting special Legendary skills, was not simple due to the extra requirements, but if I got them with the bonus, it would mean the skills cost 5% less and did 5% more. It was an overall bonus from increasing the rank of one’s skills oneself, which was why it was so good. At the higher levels since this bonus was percentage based, it had a much larger impact and was absolutely necessary in my mind to ensure my dominance once I entered the public eye.

The downside to this kind of plan were the low stats I would have personally for a long time. But no other players would enter the Murk Swamp. Which was a big reason I had chosen to start there. I wouldn’t have to worry about player killers, otherwise known as PKers.

I returned to the inn room. Thankfully there was no smell in the inn rooms. My one moment of solace before the suffering began anew. “Command select all skills. Make them soul skills.” I wouldn’t be able to sell them now, and they were forever worthless to anyone but me. But they also wouldn’t drop if I died. “Command apply experience to all equipped skills.” I then switched out the four maxed out Poison Resistance skills for another four, repeating the process. I then touched maxed out experience soul bound junk skill shards together in front of me, and they combined into soul bound Common level skill shards. I equipped all four of the Common rank shards I now had. “Command open status screen.”

I confirmed that all the verbal commands had been carried out. Some people didn’t like vocal commands, but I loved them. You just had to be very precise and have the resources and knowledge available to execute a proper command, otherwise it would fail, and you wouldn’t know unless you checked. The entire process was a bit of a hassle at the start, but once you knew what to do, it was a lot easier and faster to handle administrative type actions this way.

The main reason to do it like this was that when a status page was opened, anyone with an inspect skill or item could get all that information very easily. There were people who followed around the top players trying to get information when they were in a city. And that was why most of them used verbal commands for counterintelligence purposes and many top guilds made it a requirement to do so as well.

It was good to get into the habit right away and I had that habit from my previous time in game. With my skills all leveled up to common, the crystals had changed color from gray to white. A top tier person could observe the crystals someone had on their armor bracelet or weapon. That was why many people chose to conceal them with clothing or some other manner.

It really didn’t make a difference to inspect skills or equipment if they were covered besides visual identification of their rank. Still even that information could be useful to get an idea on the rank of a person’s skills. I wasn’t going to be too worried about that for the moment. I had other problems to deal with. I got out of bed and left the inn.

My poison resistance was up to 70%. It should have gone to 80.8%, but resistances were capped at 70% unless one raised the cap. The 1% boost from using experience I had gathered myself, would boost that 80% by 1%, which was nothing. Exponential had some funky math with its damage calculations and rounding. The main thing was to understand what was happening, not get bogged down in the math itself. The caps on resistances stopped people from doing what I was planning long term for my build. Overloading a resistance.

I went to the general store. “I would like to purchase an external carrying pack,” I told the clerk.

“Please be aware that such a pack will drop in the event of your death. How many slots?” the clerk asked me.

“How much is a twenty slot and a ten slot?” I asked.

“A twenty slot costs 20 silver while a ten slot pack costs 2 silver.”

“Expensive,” I muttered. “Anything in between?” I asked and the clerk gave me a negative. I purchased a 10 slot pack for 2 silver, or 200 copper. While I didn’t think I would die, these packs would wear out over time. I was not interested in spending that much money at the moment when I didn’t need to. I put on the pack. Time to make my next stop.