After choosing his race and class, Ren looked at his information again, ensuring that nothing was wrong and everything was perfect.

He had black hair and silver eyes, pale skin, and pointy ears in this world. Nothing much changed from his actual appearance except the luminosity of his skin and his pointed ears.

He wasn’t worried if someone noticed him since it was still the beginning of the game. Also, the game had its own countermeasures to protect the privacy of its players in real life.

In COVENANT, every avatar is unique because they’re an exact copy of you. However, you could still hide your appearance by equipping certain armors and accessories.

Once you set your avatar, you could no longer alter its face and body in the future except for the hair, eyes, skin, and adding some props like wings and horns, which would become accessible once towns were open.

In the beginning, everything was set in the newbie village and beginner’s forest, grinding until your ATP (attributes) reached the specific amount to enter towns.

Dungeons, bosses, some quests, and most towns required specific ATP as well as equipping armors and weapons.

Ren then happily pressed his player status.

∥ S T A TU S ∥

Name: Ren

Age: 19

Race: Sprite

Class: Mage (?)

Eye Color: Silver

Hair Color: Black

Attributes:

HP (Health Points): 40

MP (Mana Points): 70

STR (Strength): 2

DEF (Defence): 2

MDF (Magical Defence): 2

INT (Intelligent): 10

AGL (Agility): 2

LCK (Luck): 4

Skills:

(None)

Spells:❶ Heal Lv.1

Life Skills

Cooking: Beginner

Fishing: Beginner

Foraging: 5Beginner

EXP (Experience points): 0 + 1000 BONUS

Money: 0 + 100 gil BONUS

Items:

❶ Newbie Garbs

❷ COVENANT’s map

∥ E N D ∥

Since he didn’t choose a subclass, he didn’t get the additional bonus ATP points and the skill and spells associated with that subclass.

The default HEAL spell was common to all mages and other class as well. It was a generic basic spell to aid everyone at the start of the game.

Classes could be evolved when specific attributes were met. Aside from that, there were also hidden classes and races.

ATP could all be leveled up using EXP. HP and MP could have an additional +5 for 100 EXP while the rest would increase +1 in exchange for 100 EXP.

While skills, spells, and life skills could only be increased through the amount of using the said skill.

Skills had the maximum LV. 10 before they could evolve to a much-advanced version of the spell. In contrast, life skills have the category of Beginner, Intermediate, Master, and Grandmaster. The life skill category determined whether your cooking would be a success or pig’s food. It dictates the quality and rarity of the fish you catch when you fish and dictate the amount of materials you gather when you’re foraging.

There were also hidden life skills later in the game, but those were the basics.

Aside from the usual common skills and spells that could be bought from any shop, there were also rare and hidden skills and spells from missions and drop items.

But of course, the chances of dropping these rare items was only four percent of probability. However, if your luck were high, the percentage would also increase.

There were no restrictions to your ATP, so there was no limit even if your ATP reached thousands. Pro players and god-like characters have this much attributes later in the game. But of course, the more you advance, the lesser the EXP you gain, except maybe if you encounter bosses.

Ren didn’t waste time and immediately distributed his +1000 EXP to his ATP.

∥ A T T R I B U T E S ∥

HP 45

MP 75

STR 2

DEF 5

MDF 4

INT 11

AGL 3

LCK 5∥ E N D ∥

STR was useless with his race and class, so Ren didn’t bother with it. He would rather allocate his EXP to DEF, MDF, INT, and LCK.

The common mistake that most players made was, they wanted everything to be balanced and wanted every of their ATP to increase without considering their class. This mistake caused their character to fall behind from the others.

A mage couldn’t wield weapons since most of it has Class restrictions, so it was impossible to use them as a means of physical attack. At the same time, Mage’s spells and skills heavily rely on mana and magic. They didn’t have spells and skills that use physical attacks, so STR was really useless to level in a Mage.

Likewise, if you have a Class that heavily focuses on physical attacks, then INT was useless to level up.

EXP was generous in the early game since your ATP was low. But in the mid and later part, EXP was so scarce that only Dungeon raids, PVP (players versus players) battles, Rare Quests, and Boss fights gave enough EXP to level up your ATP.

Equip with that knowledge. Ren must allocate his EXP to ATP’s that would greatly benefit him from the start. Hence, he couldn’t afford to even waste a single EXP to ATP’s that he wouldn’t use. His STR could stay at (2) for all he cared as long as his INT and DEF’s reached thousands.

Satisfied, he looked at his skills and spells.

∥ S K I L L S ∥

(None)

∥ E N D ∥

∥ S P E L L S ∥

❶ Heal LV.1

–– cost 5 MP

–– single target

–– 10% replenish HP

–– 1 Min. cool down

∥ E N D ∥

Ren almost forgot how mediocre the stats were at the beginning of the game. In a fast phase fight, a minute cooldown was disastrous. The penalty was EXP if you died and you’d respawn in the nearest village or town or a save crystal that was usually present near dungeons. And there was no save in a boss fight.

To make matters worse, if your EXP reached O and you keep dying, your hard-earned ATP would go down in exchange for your EXP.

There were even players whose characters ATP’s all reached zero. Needless to say, they quit the game.

Such was the shrewdness of the developers.

And thus, many players opted to buy potions to make sure that their HP and MP remained at optimum during unexpected encounters.

It would be disastrous if you accidentally encountered a rare beast and your HP was low. Just imagining the rare items from that loot turned to dust just because you didn’t bring any potion sent a shudder in Ren’s spine.

More than once, it happened to him when he was still new to the game. And no matter how many times he triggered that encounter again, it never came. The rare items that came from that rare beast were gone.

Such was the life in the world of COVENANT.

Ren looked at his empty skill and shrugged the matter off. He didn’t have any skill or spells to attack his enemies at this point in time.

Ren wasn’t worried, though. In the early game, PVP wasn’t introduced yet. It’ll come later when the guild features open in the game, so he didn’t have to rush to acquire and level up his skills and spells. He could just buy a basic spellbook in the newbie village later in preparation for the upcoming quests.

He needed to complete first blood, acquire rare items, and raise his attribute points. And besides, he already had something planned to compensate for his lack of combat ability.

—-

A/N

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