Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

When Flora's party vanished, the pop up with the assessment for the Ranged DD test appeared.

 

Flora chuckled, but Aito beeped angrily.

"What's up, dear? Not satisfied with your exceptional control over me?"

The AI highlighted the row with the 95 aggro management.

*farting beep*!

"I did my best, sweety."

*beep beep* *beep!*

"Oh, you don't feel the test judged our work correctly… hmm." Flora mused. "Dear test, could you elaborate on the assessment?"

"Thank you! What a constructive explanation. Are you satisfied, Aito?"

*beep…* Aito agreed hesitantly.

"What is Under My Command? I thought the tank was admonishing me, but your capitalization reads like a skill."

"Nice! A pity that the cooldown is so long. If you could use it for every group, I could go all out with AoE."

A shimmering parcel materialized in front of Flora's nose.

"I'm finally getting used to sudden appearances! Okay, now I might have jinxed it for the next occurrence." Confidently, Flora grabbed it out of the air and read the text on the waxen seal: "Legacy of the Damage Dealer."

When she opened it, a slew of messages bombarded her HUD as the scroll dissolved in motes of light.

"Oh, wow, these skills would have been so helpful during the trial. May I use them during the Melee DD test?"

"Should I even take the melee test? I already have the class… on the other hand, I want to know my affinity for it, and it will be a nice warm-up for the tank test. How much time do we have until the Animator course starts?"

"Two and a half hours. They were reserved for your nap, Milady."

"I did sleep a bit on the nail bed. My sense of time is messed up with all the time dilation shenanigans. It feels like I spent a whole workday here."

"2h 53min multiple-choice test, 3h 47min Attributes, 2h 28min Weapons, 25min Ranged DD, 19min transfer between domes. That's 9.9 hours, Milady. Friedhilde only adjusted the time-flow to 2:1."

"Maybe I should ask the fairy to increase the dilation… But I don't want to. I'm well acclimated to the 3:1 dilation, but it still feels a bit like I'm drunk−the early stage where you think you are sober… I feel drunkenly sober? Does that make sense?"

"No, Milady."

"Well, you go to a party, you drink a bit, you go home, and you think you are fine. Then you make yourself a nice cheese toast, you bite into it, and then you notice that you had put Nutella under the cheese." Flora said.

"That wouldn't happen to me, Milady."

"Well, you're just one week old, wait until you are a teenager." Flora grinned. "Back to our time management. I find these tests fascinating. We should do them thoroughly and disregard our plans. Remind me again 25 minutes before the Animator course will start. If we are close to finishing, I might skip a few steps; if not, we take the lesson tomorrow."

Flora entered the next portal.

Two boards hung on the wall again, one for Warrior and one for Cutthroat. Flora wasn't interested in the latter because skills like Backstab sounded too cowardly. She owned Warrior but hadn't connected it to her tree.

"You could acquire Elemental Fist. It is suitable for all bludgeoning weapons. Via Bulgeoning Master, you could connect Warrior to the Elemental Mage. Dice Icicle, the brother of Zapple and Mia's squad-mate, probably has both. Another option would be obtaining Shield Master and Elemental Shield. The test has mentioned the latter class in your recommendations. Jelonso Emba, Ressa's squadmate, possesses them. You might need to do quests to receive the classes. There are quests to unlock connections for 'Weapon Master' classes for Priest: Staff and Bludgeoning Master, Paladin: Sword and Bulgeoning Master, and Mage: Staff Master."

Flora inspected the Warrior skills. "Please change the display. I want range, duration, and cooldown visible, and you can delete the rating for skills because it's in all cases SSS."

"Yes, Milady. I suggest we add the standard cast time and tier as well. We can mask the OV column, too. Only the modded Operative Value is of importance."

"I'm ignoring all the letters in places where numbers should be…" Flora smiled wrily. "The Charge Skill looked like fun when the Fireling did it. With Power Strike, we have an attack without a cooldown. Does it have a secondary effect?"

"Bleed, Milady. You have the Blood affinity to make it stronger."

Flora inspected the signature skill, Battle Cry.

Name: Battle Cry

Description: Raises the Regeneration of Friends, lowers the Regeneration of Enemies.

Cooldown: 1 min.

Duration: 10 sec.

"The longer I'm in the game, the less satisfied I'm with the descriptions. 'Raises'! 'Lowers'! How can I gauge whether it's a good skill if I don't know how significant the effects are?" Flora complained. "And don't get me started on assessing the affinities and attributes! How can I know whether an attribute is important if I don't know what skills they are influencing?"

"You get shown only the shortest version, because you wanted to mask the other information, Milady. You requested that last week. The formulas are available for all skills, either provided by the Cetviwos or the users."

"Oops. Add the math, Affinity, and most significant Attribute for each skill. Display the latter in the skill-table as well."

Name: Battle Cry

Description: Raises the Regeneration of Friends, lowers the Regeneration of Enemies.

Cooldown: 1 min.

Range: Self

Duration: 10 sec

Cost: 10 mana

Area: Spherical with the caster in the center. Diameter: OV of ( OV Physical Power + OV Sonic Affinity) in meter, max 100 meters. Currently: 30m.

Attribute: Physical Power

Affinity: Sonic

Effect: Raises the Regeneration of Friends up to OV of ([OV Artifact] + OV Physical Power + OV Skill) * (Target Tier / 4). Doubles Regenerations OV. Currently: + 4-5 to Physical and Magical Regeneration resulting in 76 OV PReg and 74 OV MReg for 10 sec.

Effect: Lowers the Regeneration of Enemies up to OV of ([OV Artifact] + OV Physical Power + OV Skill) * (Target Tier / 4).

"What a mess!" Flora looked at the formulas and shook her head. "I didn't expect to see the target's tier in there… and the affinity plays no role in the effect? Is that typical?"

"The inclusion of the target's tier is only common with buffs. The Affinity plays a role in the lowest possible value the buff can generate. If you had an OV higher than 17 in Sonic Affinity, you would always generate + 5 OV. The differences are more significant at higher levels."

"Haha, I sense the work of our special friend, the administrator. I bet someone had buffed up a newbie to the gills and send him on adventures." Flora regretted she was too late to do it herself. "Let's go back to the topic at hand. I believe Warrior will do. Nonetheless, I want a nice weapon for the test, something like the bone club."

Flora walked to the weapon racks but found only nonmagical weapons. Just as she wanted to ask the test for a bone club, she got another idea and fetched the multitool-scepter. With a flick of her wrist, she changed the top to a wrench.

Flora smacked the training dummy over the head.

<Power Strike>!

<Smite>

"Did both skills work with the correct bonuses?"

"Yes, Milady."

"Excellent!" Smitten, Flora stared at the wrench in her hand. The handle of the multitool remained the same, but the upper part was now as long as her arm. She had cursed about the magical interior mechanics of the multitool when she had tinkered with it, but she couldn't deny the awesomeness.

After fetching a second multitool-scepter for the left hand and donning an armor set that raised her Physical Power, she was ready to smack more heads.

Flora looked over her team of 2 octopussies, 4 turrets, and one ice elemental and focused on the latter.

"Bliz, dear, follow Aidan's lead. Only shoot when he shoots and choose the same target. Use your other spells to protect you."

The icicle shaped elemental swung rapidly back and forth with such enthusiasm that Flora feared it would smash its not-existing nose on the ground.

The same team of Natives and the same group of insectoids awaited her.

"Okay, team. Wait until I've caught their attention. I'll mark the focus target, gun it down. Mind your aggro. Ready?" The Fireling tank said.

"Yes!" Flora yelled with the team.