An intense discussion was currently unfolding between the people sitting around the conference table. Zoey was talking animatedly at the group.

“I told you, i’m going to use the biggest sword I can find so I can slash everything in one swing!”

Vicky responded to her

“I thought we already agreed you would be the tank since you have the best reflexes.”

Cassie jumped into the conversation as well

“Yea, I was going to be the DPS as a magic swordsman!”

Jay seemed at a loss for words as he looked across the table at the intense discussion. He never thought his simple question would spark such a heated debate.

Looks like I opened Pandora's box with this one. They’ve been going for 15 minutes.

Arden sighed quietly before giving a shout that instantly shut everyone up.

“ENOUGH!”

“We’ve already gone over this, we were supposed to be talking about the information we already know about the game.”

As everyone quieted down Jay took the opportunity to speak up.

“Well as counterproductive as it may seem, their conversation has given me a pretty good understanding of where you are at.”

“Really? that’s great, maybe we can cut right to the chase then?”

Jay nodded. “Sure”

“From what I can see, you have extensively researched everything that is out on the game and are most likely intending to use the most popular guides to build your classes and balance the party. I can get to your character builds later, but right now my question for you is what do you plan to do when you start playing?”

Arden looked at Jay curiously and then responded.

“Ideally we would all start in the same town but I gave everyone free reign on what race they would choose. So the first thing would be to gather together, and then we would form a hunting party and start grinding levels.”

Jay nodded, this was an expected response. Most people who’ve played an MMO before would have this line of thinking, however it's not necessarily the best choice for Listonia.

“That is certainly going to be the most popular choice, but it's not what the Beta testers will be doing.”

The girls all looked at him questioningly before he continued.

“Its true that in general there will be lower level creatures in and around the towns, but that doesn't mean they are necessarily the best hunting grounds for leveling. In fact it’s not uncommon for the best areas to level to be really out of the way.”

Arden nodded her head in understanding

“I do remember many Beta players complaining about having to travel long distances to get to good hunting grounds…”

Jay continued

“Yes, its a huge pain because Listonia doesn’t have any set pattern for the locations of high and low level hunting grounds. Not all of the high tiered dungeons are in really hard to get places or hidden in super remote areas, there are some that are hidden near the starting locations.”

Cassie interjected “so what are you getting at?”

“What i’m getting at, is that all of the beta players will be making sure they can easily access the areas they need without having to spend a lot of time traveling the entire way there.”

“How would you do that?” asked Vicky

“The Gate system.”

“You mean like the ones in the town?”

Joey looked over and nodded at Zoey

“Yes exactly.”

Arden looked at him confused and then had a sudden realization

“Wait, are you saying there are gates outside of the towns?”

Jay smiled “Yes, exactly.”

The gate system was a series of magical gateways that allowed users to teleport to all of the major towns. The only caveat was that you had to have traveled to the destination at least once before to register with the gate.

“There are old abandoned gateways at all kinds of places throughout Listonia. Although you would have to run around and register them all initially, in the long run it will save you a huge amount of trouble. I think many Beta players will be running around with delivery quests and registering the gateways they know of along the way.”

Cassie spoke up “wouldn’t that mean you fall behind on leveling though?”

“Yes and no.”

Arden looked sternly at him

“What do you mean by that?”

“The delivery quests available would probably be enough to get you to level 10, which is probably far behind the fastest levelers. But there is a reason you don't have to be too concerned about that. You’re all aware how there is a tier system based on levels right?”

All of the girls nodded

“Basically it's like this, as long as you are within about 20 or so levels of someone it would mostly come down to player skill to determine who would win, unless they are a tier gap above you.”

“The max level is 200 and, in theory, every 50 levels you have a chance to promote a tier. At least that would be true for the best classes. However regular classes have a tier cap so your chance for promotion could come later than others. The generic warrior or soldier job can probably never go higher than tier 3 and would promote to that around level 120, but some rare variants or secret classes can promote beyond that.”

"The benefits to those classes are that you level quickly and don't need to do anything too dificult to pick up that class. However if you were to have one of those classes and go against a secret or rare class of the same level, its very likely you would lose without superior skill."

The girls all seemed to have a realization as Jay continued his explanation.

“Tier 1 levels are really easy to get through, but once you promote to tier 2 you really start to notice the level grind. In addition, if you fight an existence that is a tier gap above you, you will have a 30% reduction in effectiveness of your skills against them and their skills will be 30% more effective.”

Zoey jumped out of her seat “That’s so unfair!”

Jay nodded “Yes it is. Even the most god tier players would not be able to do much unless they had some super powerful Artifact or powerful equipment.”

“The vast majority of the game will be played by Tier 2 and 3 characters and only the strongest of the strong, or a few who get lucky will be able to progress beyond tier 3. In the 1 year of Beta, the highest level someone got to was around 130 , which is still the middle of tier 3.”

Arden seemed to understand

“I see, so what you’re saying is that it's a more of a marathon and not a sprint? Which means we need to be thorough in our preparation by trying to find secret or rare classes and then making sure we are planning ahead of time when to gain levels and advance tiers.”

“Exactly. In order to guarantee they can reach tier 3 and beyond, me and the other Beta players will be doing everything we can to build the strongest foundation possible. The other thing to do would be to get a rare or secret class or subclass. For those kinds of classes, the advancement quests are no joke.”

“The first step to that will be to ensure we have quick and easy access to all the best areas for hunting. The second step…”

Jay paused as he reached for the bag he brought and opened it up.

“The second step...?”

Arden and the other girls watched as Jay pulled out a large stack of papers. He plopped the papers on the table and pushed it across toward Arden. Then he continued his explanation.

“The second step will be to collect those materials.”

Arden picked up the stack of papers and flipped through them. On it were lists of seemingly insignificant and random items and next to each item name was a number.

For Wisdom

Mushroom x 5240

Sunflower Seeds x 4355

...

“Why these…? And why so many?”

Jay smiled in response

“This is information that is not even known to all of the Beta players yet, so please keep it under wraps.”

Zoey seemed to perk up

“Ohh its a big secret!? Is there some crazy potion you can make?!”

Shaking his head, Jay responded

“No, there is no potion. However, those items can be exchanged for characteristic scrolls.”

This time all of the girls understood. Characteristic scrolls were better known amongst the players as stat scrolls. They were super rare random global drops that allowed you to increase a stat by 1. In Listonia, a characters stats determine their overall strength and general damage output with everything from skills to magic and weapons. High stats were essential to any character build.

“Cool your excitement a bit, you can't add to a stat indefinitely. The max you can raise it to is 101. What those of us who know about this do is collect all of the scrolls we need to bring our desired stats to 101, and then use a respec potion to reset our stats to 0 before using up all of the scrolls we gather. Essentially letting us start our character with 101 in every stat.”

“They’ve already announced that the respec potion will be given to everyone as a launch day gift, so its just a matter of diligently collecting everything you need and exchanging it with the correct NPC”

There was a pause as Arden took the information in

“This…isn’t this around 20 levels worth of stat points!? And that's just for 1 stat!”

Vicky stood up and smiled at Jay.

“I think this info is definitely worth more than enough to allow you to use 1 lousy capsule!”

“Agreed~!”

“Definitely.”

“Yes”

“I agree”

All of the girls voiced their approval. Arden nodded and look back at Jay

“Please keep going”

Jay then began a long discussion with the group that lasted many hours into the night. Eventually the girls seemed satisfied with the information they had been given and they slowly began to leave. As Jay was looking to head out himself, he was stopped by Arden.

“Hey Jay, I just wanted to thank you for your help. I know how much that information would be worth if I paid for it online. To be honest it’s pretty invaluable to people like us who are looking to create a competitive team.”

“Don’t sweat it. It’s not much since you are allowing me to use your space and capsule without being a member. Plus, it's not like i’ve given you all the information I have.”

With that he walked out of the building, leaving Arden momentarily stunned. Cassie stood next to Arden and spoke

“I guess it’s expected he would leave some trade secrets out for himself.”

Arden snapped out of it and laughed to herself.

“Yes that's true, but you can’t deny he’s really helped us out alot here. We definitely would have fallen behind other teams without his information.”

Cassie nodded and began leaving herself

“Let’s go home, i’m wiped out from today”

***

Jay returned to his dorm where his roommate Adam was absorbed in some first person shooter on his computer. He seemed to not be doing well as he shouted at the screen and mashed his keyboard.

He quickly walked over to his own laptop and fired it up.

Right now my memory of the game is from the most recent releases. I have to refresh my memory on how things were like just after the Beta. I know the dungeon locations will remain the same but I will have to modify my initial strategy a bit.

Over the 10 years that Listonia was in operation in his previous life, there were many changes that took place that affected things like the best starting locations or where certain creatures and items were found. Although he was a top tier researcher with over 10 years of experience, that was only because he was always familiar with the most recent happenings with the game.

Jay stayed glued to his computer screen taking notes well into the night. It wasn’t until he saw his roommate Adam sleepily turn off his computer and fall onto his bed that he realized how late it was.

I had forgotten about the little quirks of the Beta, but most of my knowledge holds true. The biggest thing at this point of the game is that the Righteous Alliance doesn’t exist. The path to Tier 5 I discovered has to be with an Evil character. Well, I guess it doesn’t have to be, but my gut is telling me that should be true.

Jay looked down at the time on his phone.

“12 hours…”

He could feel the excitement building in his chest. This time he would definitely not leave any regrets and achieve his dream of creating a Tier 5 class!