Chapter 85 - Engineering (1/2)

”I think I need to work a lot on my fighting skills. I could definitely use a bit of practice along with you,” said Rudra accepting his offer. He realized the importance of this far quickly than most players would.

The game would be mostly dominated by players who were good at physical co-ordination and had strong co-ordination. Due to this game most people who spend used to spend their lives playing games or software companies and other jobs which didn't provide much exercise, slowly started to divert their interest in physical games and activities. Most guilds would soon hire even coaches and experts to help them with physical activities.

Balthazar had already been planning for the same. The reason he was able to become a vice-leader of a guild was because he had good skills due to him being an assassin for two years and that experience made him an extremely, cautions and ruthless man. Many other players were wary of going against him and that gave him quite a good reputation and respect.

He knew that doing this as soon as possible would benefit both his friends and him. Moreover, the fights against the alien apes would also intensify, soon and the better their physical skill and stamina, the better their chances of survival during tough times.

He already had plans to send Lucius and Salazar somnium headgears so that they could practice his skills with them. It would provide him thrice the time compared to real life. He also knew from his previous life, a few people he could hire.

Moreover, he could also contact Rodrigo and few other old military men who had been in special operation, to teach players. They would have enough experience and skill to teach players at least the basics of fighting and a few techniques. It could be considered as a job for them who are past the retirement age.

Such people would soon be contacted by the military in a few months to help train new soldiers. The somnium technology would become a method to teach and train various things. Not only old people at military but a lot of old people who were famous at their fields and physically inept or incapable of using it began using the somnium technology to teach others.

”Yes, we can go and practice fights in the arenas. I think most players would be interested in this. If, we want to have a fixed room, we better keep a room booked with password and let our guild members fight against each other, so that at least one of them always has the room. Many others would realize the need for practice, and it would get harder later,” continued Shadow.

”Yes, we might need to do that. I will inform Slaine and have a few guys maintain a few rooms. But I think, it might not be enough. We need to hire a few coaches to help with the same. I will contact my father. He might actually a bit helpful at this,” said Rudra

”Why don't we go and try to check the engineering trade profession?” asked Shadow. It was the best time for them to try out engineering. Being the only ones in the city, they wouldn't have much competition. They could easily search and gather for materials and tools for it. They just collected a decent amount combat points and they could get whatever they needed from the shops here.

Engineering was a profession that was concentrated around making tools. All engineering items are considered tools and they are used by almost all main occupations and trade professions. From this perspective, it looked like they have the largest consumer base compared to any other trade profession. The only issue was that most of their products would be considered luxuries by a large number of players.

Virtual Games had begun as a way to entertain and enjoy oneself. Though professional gaming organizations and competitions are a common thing, a majority of the players wouldn't be professional and played to escape from the troubles of daily life. Armaments and potions were a necessity to enjoy the game due to the nature of the games, but tools were not. Only gaming organizations who needed to have a relatively higher speed and quality of progress in the game or the rich who didn't like to work much in a game were the frequent customers of tools.

Thus, engineering trade profession has a smaller consumer base than one would expect compared to alchemists and forgers. The good thing about this was that the price of the tools was higher as they took lot more effort and finesse than potions or armaments. As they game progressed, the difficulty of it would increase exponentially.

Engineers could produce a bunch of tools like firecrackers, explosives, diving goggles, etc that would be allow a player to quickly hunt monsters and explore places. Though explosives could be used to speed up the process of getting experience, it wasn't very profitable as it would cause the dead monsters to be useless. Vita-nova was far too close to reality. A player actually needed to spend time to forage dead monsters and if the monster sustained many injuries most of its body would become useless. To prevent this from happening, players would try their best to only attack on the known weak spots of monsters.

Even with these drawbacks, the competition among the players and zeal to see the name on leaderboard would tempt many players in using explosives. These explosives and bombs created by engineers would also be very useful in clearing quests, especially the quests like clearing the path to the city.

Armed with a bunch of explosives, the players would have a chance to escape life threatening situations. In situations, a player surrounded by monsters, they could use these tools to find a way out of the encirclement. They could also be used to frighten monsters or thin their herds.

Shadow and the Crimson Realm guild had plans to get more players to the city, the next morning. Having a few tools like explosives in their arsenal would allow them to finish this mission with much more ease and speed.

Though Shadow Tyrant had already used up all his four trade profession slots, he could replace one as long as he was in a city or town. He decided to forego herbalist skill for now as he could easily get hold of all the materials from the shop and auction house anyway. He also has a guild to support him in collecting materials. Moreover, he already knew that the first upgrade of the game would remove the cap on the number of trade profession slots. So, he would be able to relearn it later. To him, engineering was of vital importance in his immediate quests.

He planned to go and find the daggers that the lord of shadows left in the cave as shown in the memory fragment. The cave would be occupied by a number of gnomes and there would be trials to reach the weapon. He would definitely need some fireworks and bombs. Fireworks tend to act like flash-bang in the game. Though they don't deliver any damage, they tend to confuse monsters. Bombs deliver both fire damage, confuse monsters and also have blow-back effect.