[Gearme] Male Human [Level] 1 [Health] 1000/1000 [Mana] 60/60 [Stamina] 220/220 [XP] 0/10,000 to level 2 [Class] Ballista [Subclass]

Locked.

[Talents]

Locked.

[Primary Statistics] [Physical]: [Physique]

20 (= 20 + 0 + 0)

[Reflexes]

11 (= 11 + 0 + 0)

[Hardiness]

22 (= 22 + 0 + 0)

[Mental]: [Acuity]

12 (= 12 + 0 + 0)

[Force]

10 (= 10 + 0 + 0)

[Stability]

12 (= 12 + 0 + 0)

[Unspent]

6

[Secondary Statistics]:

Chan Si - although for this fraction of her mind, she felt she should refer to herself as Gearme, to avoid any problems later - quickly closed all the tooltips, added her six unspent points to Hardiness, bringing it to 28 and her stamina to 280, and closed her character menu. She was already aware of all the important information from the research she had done, she didn't need a refresher. She wouldn't bother looking at the menus unless it was actually important.

She even had the Default Gear memorized - none of the Ballista's default gear provided any stat bonus, probably due to the class's high base stats. It was all normal linen clothing. The only item of note was the starting bow and arrows. The bow was huge, the top at Gearme's chin, while the bottom was at his ankles, while he was holding it in a firing position.

It had a Physique modifier of [A] a Reflexes Modifier of [E], an Acuity and Stability modifier of [D], and a damage bonus of 200, but a base firing rate of four seconds.

The modifiers utilized certain statistics to determine the base damage, and then the weapon itself could add bonus damage on top of that. All modifiers ranged from E - the lowest that provided any damage at all - to SSS, the highest. An E was a multiplier of 1, so her Reflexes modifier of E added 11 base damage due to her 11 base reflexes. D was a 2x multiplier, so her Acuity and Stability each added 24 damage, or 48 total. But an A modifier, that was a 5x multiplier, meaning her physique provided 100 damage! All together this put the base damage of her weapon at 159. With the damage bonus of 200, that was 359!

Even though the DPS was slightly less than 90, there was not a level 1 monster in the game with 360 or more effective health, so Gearme would be able to one-shot any level 1 enemy in the game, and even one-shot most level 2 enemies. It was a truly disgusting ability.

That was only Gearme's basic attack. The Ballista class received two [Skills] at level one. The first still cost fifty stamina, and was called Quick Shot. It did the same damage as a regular attack, but took only one second instead of four. However, with a cooldown of thirty seconds and the class's high damage, it wasn't so much a DPS increase as an extra kill every thirty seconds. Gearme could also use a regular attack first, followed by a Quick shot to quickly take down nearly any level 3 enemy in the game.

Plus, Gearme never had to worry about running out of stamina for the skill. Stamina regenerated at a rate of 1% of the maximum per second, by default. That was 2.2 stamina per second. Over thirty seconds, Gearme would regenerate 66 stamina. The skill only costed fifty! Of course, as Gearme leveled the skill's stamina cost would increase by five per level, but so would Gearme's stamina, and due to the planned build, Gearme's stamina regeneration wold always outpace Quick Shot's stamina cost.

Unlike stamina, health and mana did not regenerate quickly. One had to spend time resting. Health regenerated at the rate of 1% per hour outside of combat, and mana 1% per minute both inside and outside of combat. Thus groups would try to make sure they had enough consumables.

Healers were valuable not just because they could heal that precious resource of health in combat, but because their rate of converting mana to health was more efficient than healing health directly through most other means. Health potions were truly emergency items, valuable for the ability to heal without spending the healer's time, not common use items.

Ballista's second [Skill] at level 1 was [Terrifying Shot], a passive skill. Any enemy the Ballista fired at would receive the [Fear] debuff for as long as it took the Ballista's attack to hit, so long as the Ballista's attack would end up dealing 50% of the target's current health or more. The [Fear] debuff, at its lowest power, removed up to 20% of the target's dodge chance.

This meant that as long as Gearme aimed correctly, his attacks would not miss against lower level enemies, who would not have the health, dodge chance, or debuff resistance to avoid it. The skill would become less useful as she leveled up, but for now, it was a great boon!

It was not a complex class, though it would gain many more useful [Skills] at it leveled up. Gearme was also looking forward to the class's Subclasses and Talents, which she knew were quite powerful.

Talents were received every 20th level, while Subclasses every 100th, though the first Subclass was at level 50, followed by 150, then 250, and so on.

Subclasses would specialize a class in certain ways, primarily adding more skill points and [Skills]. Talents, meanwhile, were potential modifications to the class's existing skills. Every talent was a choice in upgrading an existing class [Skill] in one of two differing directions. Talents were not random, the same class would always make a decision of the direction of the same skill at the same levels. For Ballistas, the level 20 talent was an upgrade to the [Quick Shot] skill.

Subclasses, meanwhile, had requirements, just like monstrous character evolutions, but one could choose any subclass one qualified for at any level - there were not level requirements for the subclasses, beyond the level requirement to have the ability to pick a subclass at all. No subclasses required other subclasses either.

Every class in the game had at least five common subclasses, these were the ones with requirements simple enough that anyone could unlock them. Some had more, but they all had at least five. Every class also had at least 3 uncommon subclasses and 1 rare subclass. Again, these were minimums. For example, the Ballista had two rare subclasses.

The requirements for all rare or lower subclasses were also known ahead of time, though this did not mean they were easy to achieve. Whether a class had a legendary subclass, or how many it might have, and what the requirements might be - those were all hidden. Unlike rare and lower subclasses, only one player could have a given legendary subclass at a time. To balance this, any given class could not select more than one legendary subclass, even if there were multiple.

Some people theorized the system would always create a new legendary subclass when a player obtained the current one, but nobody could confirm this. Finally, a weaker version of a legendary subclass would appear at the uncommon or rare rank for everyone else once a legendary subclass had been unlocked. This was the source of Ballista's second rare subclass, in fact, as there was already a Legendary subclass Ballista in the game.

The subclass was called Repeater, and focused on various methods to further increase fire rate. The player with the legendary version of the Repeater subclass was the sole Ballista player who could do well in the late game, an in fact was ranked sixty seven on the overall player leaderboards!

Gearme wanted to obtain the rare version of the subclass at level 50. It wouldn't be easy as the requirements for rare subclasses were quite high - most players could not meet the requirements for a rare subclass until level 350, their fourth subclass. However, Chan Si had confidence in her overall plans.

Gearme took a look at his surroundings. The Provisioner starting area was a large market, in fact one of the largest markets in the game, featuring both NPCs and Players selling nearly anything.

The market itself was in the middle of a large city, the city itself the capital city of the Haveran Kingdom, the city was also named Haveran. It was situated in the only sizable mountain pass between the largest desert in game, the Grandiose Waste, and the much gentler plainslands that made up the Haveran Kingdom.

Nobody would be approaching the city from the desert, so it was an excellent defensive position, the most they had to worry about were occasional monster attacks.

The city was so prosperous for two reasons. The foremost reason is the sheer number of player and NPCs adventurers would pass through the area to head into the Grandiose Waste to hunt for treasure and explore ruins. The second was there were a number of smaller cities that acted a safe trade route that hugged the mountain on the inside of the desert area.

These cities had been specifically developed by the Haveran Kingdom for trade - crossing directly through the desert was too unsafe, but by wrapping around the outermost edge of the desert, they could reach a sizable lake known as Lake Trembling, for its constant rippling motions. Then, sailing across Lake Trembling - it was safe despite the turbulence - they could trade with the eastern continent, which was connected to the western continent only through this thin strip of land.

They could not simply sail under or over the land, as entire area was firmly situated in the northern hemisphere of the Guild Tree Planet, where numerous sea monsters dwelled. Only the southern hemisphere, with its icy ocean waters, were relatively safe to sail. But the northern parts of both continents were the most populated for the same reason, and the methods the Haveran Kingdom had established were simply the fastest way of the ways that were actually safe.

Chan Si had made to research the basics of lore and world building, to ensure she would have the greatest chance of discovering something important for her to exploit.

Most information however, no matter how much she wanted to learn it, she could only learn through the in-game quests. The information documentation of the various aspects of the game were extensive, but the wiki didn't contain every important detail.

Such was life.

Gearme decided to wander around a bit to confirm that information from the wiki was accurate while Chan Si pulled out a pen and paper in real life. Now that she was finally in the game, it was time to create a precise action plan.

At the top of the paper she wrote her goal: Enslave or disable the AI.

Under that she made a little arrow and pointed it to the side: Ensure doing so does not involve the creation of any other AI.

That was what she was trying to accomplish, and an important condition for her to remember.

Below that she wrote the two methods she had: Enslave on one side, and Disable on the other side. Below enslave she wrote: No known methods at this time. Below Disable she wrote: One known method at this time.

Then she wrote that one method: Overload AI processing via simultaneous wide-scale and deep depth game-breaking bugs and exploits, and hack the AI systems during this period.

She wasn't certain how long properly hacking the AI system would take, so she could only put a little arrow with a note: As much and as long as possible.

Then she added a second arrow note: 1 chance, strategy can only be executed once before AI patches weaknesses.

Finally, she wrote out what she need to accomplish this: Access to as many and as powerful game breaking bugs as possible.

That put her near the end of the notepad, so she wrote “See page 2 for methodology”, and put a little p. 1 in the corner before flipping to the next page and labeling it p. 2

At the top she wrote: Methodology for game bug access

Below that she wrote: ‘Information on Potential Game Breaking Bugs’, and ‘Acquirement of Potential Game Breaking Bugs’

And how would she accomplish those? She put aside Information for a second and focused on Acquirement. Assuming she was made aware of a potential game breaking bug and she wanted to get her hands on it, there were only really two things she needed, which she could convert into anything else she needed: Money or Power. She could also convert those between each other, but less directly, as it would take time to build up.

Power was direct in the game, it was represented by things levels, items and gear, and rare [Skills]. There was also another form of power, the power of others who would do as she said. Money was also fairly direct, and could be represented by a combination of her cash on hand minus debts, and current reliable income rate minus current reliable expense rate. Items and gear also represented non-liquid forms of money, because although they were power, they were the fastest to convert into money.

Thus she wrote down Money and Power, and under that wrote Levels, Items and Gear, [Skills], Cash on Hand - Debts, and Reliable Income Rate - Reliable Expense Rate.

To one side she wrote ‘Time’, and to the other she wrote ‘Information’. These were limiting factors in getting what she needed. She connect the two needs for information with an arrow and wrote below them: ‘Research’, ‘Experience’, and ‘Connections. Then she also drew an arrow from ’Connections' to Power.

Research was something Chan Si could do on her own while her other sections of her mind played. It was one of the reasons she decided to leave a portion of herself outside the game. Experience was something she would just get over time, although she could lessen that amount of time by trying to maximize the number of calculated risks she took.

Connections were more complicated, and she wasn't sure the best method to obtain solid ones. It wasn't just that she needed subordinates, she was certain she could find no end of those, it was that she would need to make sure any subordinates were sufficiently competent while not asking too much from her in return, such that the relationship would actually be an advantage to her, instead of a burden.

Trust and liking were immaterial, and although Chan Si was socially poor - although she did not know it - she at least knew that people who trusted or liked you would be willing to do more for less, and that trust and liking could often be obtained more cheaply than directly purchasing someone's services.

Thus, she placed an arrow back from power to connections. It would be easier for her to obtain trust and liking if she could display extreme levels of power, such that others would want to suck up to her. She could then pick and choose which among those sucking up to her had the combination aspects of sufficient ability and sufficient likeliness of actually developing trust, as opposed to purely trying to exploit her.

She thought for a second, because to Chan Si, it felt like a sort of contradiction. Wouldn't competent people attempt to exploit? And wouldn't those who refused to exploit, not be competent? She made her best guesses as to how to resolve this contradiction, and came up with two options. Option one was to reward trust and punish exploiters.

She could find people that were competent, but sure enough they would be less competent than herself, and so she could mold them through these rewards and punishments into having no choice but to trust her. It would also be best in that case if she removed as many of their options as possible, so they would be reliant on her goodwill.

She labeled this the ‘Cult’ option.

The other option was to find diamonds in the rough, people who had a lot of potential for competence but had yet to fulfill it, and use her resources to do so, then capitalizing on the resulting gratitude they would feel to establish trust. She labeled this the ‘Growth’ option.

The Cult option would be faster but risk her getting too bogged down in managing things, while the Growth option would be more flexible but risk not getting her enough competent subordinates fast enough.

Of course, that didn't mean she couldn't implement both to varying degrees, just that for everything she attempted to do she would run into her primary limiting resource eventually, time. She wasn't certain how much time she had, but she was certain she had at least two ‘game over’ scenarios.

Game over scenario one was if the AI discovered her or her plans. Game over scenario two was if the AI fixed the fact it was using itself to run the game, which it would no doubt be working towards, if not for its own safety then for its ability to free up processing so it could make other, better games. The longer she took, the more likely both would become.

If Chan Si's instructors knew she was considering starting a cult, they would laugh themselves to death. Chan Si was phenomenally intelligent, but had the social skills of a rock. Actually, many people liked rocks, because at least rocks did not assume you would answer any question you asked of them, and get annoyed if you couldn't.

They hadn't been paid to teach her manners.

This weakness of Chan Si's was very much a fault of her upbringing, rather than any inherent property of herself, but regardless of its source, it was her current self. Perhaps in time, she would be able to improve.