Pride Online-Chapter 9: The First Adventure in a Battlefield Part II

“Do you know what this luck stat is, May?” Wisana asked again.

“I’m not sure, either. But usually, players with the luck stat use their skill to open treasure boxes for parties. The higher the luck point, the better the dropped item. And for your Gold star treasure, I think you should open it yourself, Wisana.”

Wisana nodded, looking at his attribute ‘luck’, which was significantly high up to 40 points. So, guess he was the type of player that relied on luck rather than skills.

“If we can’t tell from my stats, then how do I choose my class? I don’t have much experience in games, you know.”

“Very easy!” Maysa smiled so sweetly again. “We can try figuring it out from your next window.”

She said as she brought up another hologram screen.

“This is the abilities window, Wisana,” she said. “It shows and explains all the skills that you have. Let me see yours.”

Wisana did as he was told. He thought of an ability window in his mind for a second before a blue hologram screen popped up, knocking the previous one out of its way.

“This one?” Wisana asked.

“Yup.”

Abilities

Passive Skills (2)

- Punch combo <basic punching skill>

- Kick combo <basic kicking skill>

Physical Attack Skill (1)

- Thunder kick <lighting strike with a kick>

Magical Skill (0)

Defensive Skill (0)

Supportive Skill (0)

After finishing reading these skills, a smile came across her face. She looked up to catch his eyes again.

“Now we have some clues to decide on what class you should be playing.”

“What is it?”

“You could play martial arts fighter class. It doesn’t require many weapons. They usually fight with a knuckle-duster, or their fists with some magic bluffing, something like that.”

He nodded, not feeling so surprised because he learned many martial arts from his mom, Madam Wimon, when he was staying with her in Chiang Mai. He guessed this was why Ada registered these skills for him.

Yeah, the scan was done quite thoroughly.

Seeing Wisana look so calm, Maysa smiled broadly before continuing her lecture.

“As you can see, this ability window shows the list of skills you can use. Currently, there are three types of skills, listen carefully.” She spoke slowly in order to get Wisana’s attention.

“First, own skills, you can earn and improve this type of skill from earning experience points. You don’t have to pay for it. The more levels you reach, the stronger these skills will become.

“There are skills that you have to buy them?”

“Yeah, it’s the second type, paid skills. This type of skill is sold in book form and is disposable. The prices vary, depending on the skill level. Certainly, the higher levels of skills means the more you need to pay.

“And which one is better?” Wisana asked.

“Own skills, of course,” Maysa replied. “You can improve your own skills, according to your level. They stay with you all the time. Unlike paid skills, you can’t improve or upgrade them. They have the same ability even though you level up.”

“Oh, got it.”

“And for the last one, quest skills. This type of skill can’t be improved either. Mostly they are animal training, driving, or something like that. They don’t have much to be improved anyway, though. And how to earn them is obviously from doing quests.”

Maysa nodded as she saw Wisana looking fine with her lecture. She then popped up another pink screen to replace the ability window.

“I know this one, inventory window, right.” He spoke aloud when he saw Maysa’s hologram screen.

“Yup.” She grinned. “Then you already know that it shows and contains your items list. It has 100 slots; each slot can contain 1,000 pieces of each item. You need to carefully check your inventory before you leave town for quests, so you have enough slots for newly dropped items.”

“So, we have to sell some of our items when the inventory is getting full?” Wisana scratched his cheek.

“Nah, we don’t. In every town, there’s a place where we can leave our items there. There’s also a delivery service that ships them to us in different towns. Or you can just own a house and leave them there.”

She brought out three items from the inventory to show Wisana. The first one was a pocketknife. The second one was a bottle of red potion. The third one was something that looked like a monkey’s tail.

“Now I'm going to introduce you to the types of items,” she said, holding up the knife. “This one is an equipment type. They are mostly clothes or weapons that you can wear or use instantly. They can be upgraded to improve their quality.

She moved on to the red potion bottle.

“And this is health potion, categorized in disposable items. When you use it, it’s gone, just like your Jinnie’s ram.” After she finished, Maysa pulled out the cork and drank the potion all in one go. A second later, the empty bottle disappeared from her hand.

“See, it’s gone, so if you still need to use it, you have to go buy it.”

The last one was the strangest item. She held it up, waving it left and right.

“These are common items. They’re usually dropped from monsters. Some of them can be used as compounds to craft new items. For example, this monkey tail is one of the materials for making clothes. For this reason, please check the items' information thoroughly before you make a trade, or you’ll regret selling them to NPCs at a cheap price later.”

Wisana forced out a wry smile as he felt that Maysa bit him with her words. Yeah, like the spore, he was lucky that Jinnie had it, or he would have repeatedly lost the prizes due to his own stupidity by now.

“And here’s the last one,” Maysa snapped her fingers, and another screen popped up. “This is the news window. It's basically social media. You can write a post, and also make a video call to your friend outside the games through Pride’s communication system.”

“Okay, Understood.”

After an energetic affirmation from her student, Maysa nodded slightly. She clapped a couple of times and every tab she had opened was completely gone. Watching the teacher do that made the enthusiastic newbie want to try out this new skill, too. So, Wisana clapped, the tabs were gone. Then he had a big smile on his face, jumping around like a little kid from overjoy and excitement. The girl watched him and couldn’t help but laugh.

“Shall we try fighting the monsters?”

“Huh? Already??” Wisana raised his eyebrows, repeating with a nervous voice.

“Yes, now. What are you waiting for? There are just low-level monsters around here. And that’s why they match your level.”

Not waiting for his answer, the smaller one turned around and started marching with Wisana striding behind her. After they walked for a while, he started to notice other players passing by. Some of them were fighting monsters in the shape of mushrooms (but these were smaller than that damn mushroom he’d countered).

“There, Wisana. We found the one that you can fight.” He turned to Maysa’s voice to see her beckoning him to hurry up. She pointed her finger to the target they had been looking for.

The said target was a light brown wild dog. It wasn’t too big. Its height was about Wisana’s waist. The four-legged creature was wandering around the clear grassland. After taking a good look at it, he noticed that it was round and chubby. It somehow reminded him of a neutered dog.

But there was something for sure, right now he felt itchy in his feet from the urge of wanting to kick its round butt so much. Damn it.

“It’s called Brown hown, a low-class monster with a low level. That’s why it is suitable for newbies to farm their early levels”

“You mean that one?” Wisana asked while doing his body stretching warm-up. "Then, I'll give it a go now."

“Not so fast, bro. Put this on before you go.” Maysa held her hands up to stop the man, amused before she handed him something.

“And this thing is...?”

“Luckily, you already have hand-to-hand combat skills, so you can use my basic knuckle-duster.”

He reached out to take the item, then he got very confused. Because, no matter how he looked at it, the thing was so far from being a knuckle-duster. It was, in fact, a roll of elastic bandage, that he saw some boxers wrap around their hands before putting on the boxing gloves.

“May, how can you call this a knuckle-duster? This is a bandage!”

“Come on. It might suck, but it’s better than nothing. Bear with it till you earn some money to buy good stuff, okay?” Her words made him frown. He had no choice but to take it halfheartedly. But when he tried to unwrap it, he just couldn’t. The harder he pulled, the tighter it got. He ground his teeth, brows knitting together with frustration.

“If I can’t pull it off, how am I supposed to wear it around my hand?” Right when he finished babbling, the roll of bandage started to glow. It spread out and began to wrap itself from around his hands to his half arms. Meanwhile, the 'good guesser' just stared at it in shock, and the other one with him already burst into laughter.

“For a wearable device like this one, you don’t have to put it on the way you do in the real world. Just say the word 'wear,' and it will do the rest for you.”

“Got it. Got it. I’m ready to go now!”

As he said so, this sassy guy just ran out of Maysa’s sight, leaving the teacher who hadn’t finished her lecture behind. She shook her head with an amused smile on her face. She didn’t even tell him how to use the skills yet, and he just rushed off like a kid who wanted to show off new toys.

“WARRGH!!”

85!

Then, the said show-off kid just jumped-kicked the brown dog till it bounced off the side. The damage point he made popped up, clearly for him to see. Wisana put his guard up, as the doggo was pulling itself up off the ground. Its sharp, black eyes glanced back to see who the jackass was that dared to kick it like this.

“Come get me, doggo. In front of the same-sized, I have no fears!”