The Player’s Association, or as it’s commonly called, the PA, is an organization that helps manage the players of this world. Anyone could gain rewards from a stream event if they got involved, but in order to form contracts with streamers, to gain patrons, or to participate in raids, a registration with the PA was a must.

Although I’ve mostly thought of the PA as a social gathering. They were in charge of registration and stuff, but that was only a small subset of what they did. Even a hick like me knew that the PA was the main place where players congregated. With amenities like changing rooms, healers, item stores and the green room, the PA was usually the center of action for the day-to-day life of a player.

In fact, Ronin’s place was so close by that we even walked there. As we traveled, I saw a lot of players. You could usually tell a player apart by their flashy sense of fashion. Distinctive styles, bright colors. Dyed hair was commonplace. Even Ronin’s sense of style had gotten weirder. He was dressed in tight black leggings under billowy purple shorts, not to mention a black crop-top sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, and to top it all off, he wore bright mustard-colored shoes. And get this-- when we left, he had the audacity to look at my plain jeans and flannel in disgust.

What am I supposed to say, “sorry I don’t dress like a goth high schooler?”

After a short while we walked through the doors of the PA. The lobby was surprisingly sparse, just a few sofas and tables, with the registration counters on the side walls.

“All the fun stuff is on the upper floors,” explained Ronin as he pointed towards the elevators on the back wall.

“Of course you’d know that,” I retorted.

“The Green Room is like, 90% of the reason to get registered with the PA.”

“What about all that ‘patron’ shit you were harpin’ on earlier?”

“Hmm…” He turned and looked at me with a discerning eye. “To each their own. You never seemed interested when we talked about this stuff in school.”

That’s right, Ronin was also a huge player fanboy back in school. While a lot of people liked watching the streams, the lives of players were just as exciting to some. Most of the stories centered around the PA, especially the Green Room. It was the only place where no one could stream, so players could actually relax there.

“Hello, what can I help you with today?” asked the pink-haired receptionist. She looked to be in her mid-30s, and wore a simple black uniform. It looked like she was the only one on shift at the moment.

“Ah, we’re here to register him as a player,” Ronin started. “Hey,” he said as he turned to me, “Share your ID and status with her.”

“Alright.” I manifested the status and ID prompts and hit the share button. The title “PA Receptionist *” appeared in the local ID list.

“Hey, what’s the star?” I whispered to Ronin.

“Oh, that means she’s verified by your CV. If I turn my local ID on I’d have one too. It’s PA shit.”

“Gotcha.” I responded.

“Alright, you’re Kian Sun?” she asked me.

I nodded.

“Why are you becoming a player?”

“Uh…” I looked to Ronin, who shrugged. “Money?”

“Ok, and have you ever participated in a stream before?”

“Yeah, but not on purpose.”

She looked up at me.

“What was the name, please?”

“Oh, uh… ‘The Wild Hunt’,” I said, my voice cracking a little despite my best efforts.

Ronin’s eyes widened. Oh, had I not told him the name before?

“The location?” asked the receptionist.

“Carnation, Diana territory. ‘Bout 2 hours and change away if ya take the mag.”

She stared at me blankly.

“Uh, it’s by Naro?” Ronin chimed in.

She nodded and typed something. “Ah, right. Do you have a class you’d prefer?”

“For now he’ll register as undecided,” Ronin interjected.

I elbowed him.

He looked at me with a gaze that said, Hey man, the fuck?

I glared back at him. I can speak for myself, asshat.

He sighed. Can we talk about this later?

Fine, I huffed.

“Oh!” suddenly exclaimed the receptionist. “It’s not every day we see a resurgence skill around here!” Her eyes lit up with light as she stared into the blank space where I assumed she was seeing my status window.

Ronin chuckled with what seemed like… pride? “Yeah, I was surprised too! Only took him dying in the Wild Hunt to reveal it though…”

“Ah, that explains a lot.” she paused for a second. “Hm… though it’s a bit unfortunate.”

“What?” I asked.

“Well, if you look at it, don’t all your skills get reset when you die? Except endurance, I guess.”

“Not if he sleeps for five hours though,” Ronin argued.

“Yeah, but most statistically, most stats are gained during raids or events. It’d be hard to sleep then. And with the way I’d think of utilizing this ability, I’d try to be as reckless as possible. After all, you can tackle way higher raids than your level if you aren’t afraid of dying. But if your stats are reset, what’s the point?”

“Oh, well… Uh…” stammered Ronin. Obviously he hadn’t thought that far ahead.

Idiot, did you just see the “resurgence” tag and not read any further?

“Well, it’d still be useful. Obviously avoiding death is important. Hm. If you don’t care about ranking, you could make a decent amount of money as bait or by tanking traps for a raid party.”

“Oh, of course!” Ronin exclaimed. “Hah, of course. Why didn’t I think of that?”

What are you talking about? I looked at Ronin.

“Right, you’re new to this. Uh, I’ll explain after we’re done.”

“Well, that’s pretty much everything. Do you have any questions?” The receptionist looked at me.

Yes, thousands. But well, Ronin would answer most of them.

“Uh, just one. How are my stats?” I was afraid Ronin wouldn’t tell me an objective opinion if I asked him.

“Ah, let me pull them up.”

I pulled up my status window as well.

Kian Sun

Age: 20

Class: None

Rank: None

Key Ability: Checkpoint [Resurgence]

Skills: Animal Handling [6] Cleaning [5] Cooking [3] Hunting Rifle [2] Operate Large Machinery [2] Pain tolerance [7] STR 17 AGL 14 END 124 SEN 24 INT 11 WIS 36 MAG 0

“Do you know about the ranking system?” she asked.

“No,” I shook my head.

“Well, there’s five tiers. Five is the worst, one’s the best. Within those tiers, each is split into seven levels, rated by letter.”

I nodded.

“Generally rank four is considered to be sub-par, three is average, two is good and one is amazing. It becomes exponentially more difficult to move up tiers as you gain points. The difference between the tiers and levels greatly increases. For example, you need around one thousand points to become rank 1F, but around ten thousand to become 1S.”

“The difference is that great?”

She nodded. “As players grow and become stronger, they gain access to easier ways to gain status points.”

“So each skill has a rank?”

“Correct,” she answered. “Each skill is ranked individually. However, your rank as a player is based on a weighted average of your stats depending on your class. That’s why you don’t have a rank yet.”

Shit, this was reminding me of calculating my GPA in school. “Hmm… sounds complicated.”

She laughed a bit. “Yeah, it is. But don’t worry! CV calculates it automatically, so you don’t have to worry about it. If it wasn’t done this way, classes like mages might suffer from having a horrible strength score, even though it doesn’t matter to them.”

“Yeah, Kian it’s good for you since you have an abysmal magic stat,” interjected Ronin.

“Is it that bad?”

“Well, kind of.” the receptionist answered. “Your stat is zero, which is actually tier five. Oh-- I forgot to mention. Tier five only has one level, and tier four only has two. They’re the two exceptions to the rule. Tier four only has levels A and B, and tier five is just ‘Tier Five’. It’s a special tier for people who have zero points in a stat.”

“Um, why is that?”

“Well, the difference between having zero points in a stat and one or two is astronomical,” she explained. “A person with zero strength wouldn’t be able to move, while a person with two would just be very weak. It’s also very difficult to gain points for a tier five stat, because normally you have to use a stat to gain points in it.”

“Ah… well, I think I understand?”

“Sorry!” she chuckled a bit. “I know it’s a lot of information to take in at once. Honestly you’ll get the hang of it as you start participating in events more. Explaining it all now is just helping you get a grasp of the basics.”

“Oh, right!” she exclaimed. “Your stats. Hm. Well, your magic isn’t good. That’s probably fine, since you’ll probably end up as a fighter variant due to your skills. Magic usually isn’t weighted for them. All of your stats are tier 3, so average for a normal person, aside from your endurance.”

“What rank is my endurance?”

“Oh, rank 2D. Hm, if you press the little three dots in the corner, you should be able to turn on ranks since you’re registered now.”

I did as she said.

“Oh, thank you,” I said.

STR 17 3B AGL 14 3B END 124 2D SEN 24 3A INT 11 3C WIS 36 3S MAG 0 5

“So, as you can see, your endurance is very good for a newbie. With your skill, you’ll probably do best in a class that weights that highly. Overall your skills aren’t horrible,” she said with a business-like smile.

“Thanks for your help,” Ronin said as we walked away. “Pretty painless, huh?”

I nodded. “I have a lot of questions though.”

“And I’m here to answer them! Let’s find somewhere to sit and chat first.” Ronin pressed the button for the elevator.

“We’re going up?”

“Well the best place to sit and talk is the Green Room, of course!”