Chapter 115 - First Upgrade (2/2)

”Get me a comprehensive report of him. I need all the details whoever minor in the report sent in a minute,” said Victor. ”I need to sort out all the relevant information before the meeting today. There is a high chance that he could help with the development faster than expected,” he thought.

”Sir, it was suggested to remove the special quests after the first upgrade, but an extremely small percentage of them had been triggered and almost everyone was concentrating on the getting into the city. If we remove it now, the few who managed to get them will be a lot more powerful and disrupt the balance of the game.”

This put Victor into some thought. Though the main purpose of the game was different from many other virtual games, it is hard to maintain the game if it doesn't have a certain balance among the players which could cause people to stop playing. So, he had to do something about this.

”Just let it continue for about two weeks. Yeah, two weeks should be enough. The special quest would need to silently end by the 15th of February. Inform me if any other thing causes a spike or lag in these special quests at the beginner regions and cities. Anything else?” asked Victor after providing what he considered a decent chance for the players.

”About the reason for upgrade. Do we continue with the initially prepared one? We expected this to happen a few weeks later and at that time, implying the need to upgrade due to having an unexpectedly high number of player inflow was sensible,” asked the team leader.

”How close are we to the target?” asked Victor.

”Sir, we reached 47% of it. The number which joined today were a lot more than the projected ones. There is a rumor going on that the game can be played by people who are good at any trade in real-life as the game was very close to real-life practices. This is being considered for the high inflow in the second day.”

”Well, there you go. You already had the perfect reason for us. Let the official reason be that. Openly, inform that the similarity to real-life gathered players from different professions to the game. We don't need to be modest about our tech,” said Victor waving his hand as he went back to his work.

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Back to the game, Shadow who had seen the notice was also surprised. He had heard that the first upgrade happened in the second week due to high inflow of the number of players. He never expected that the upgrade would happen so fast.

He didn't have any issue with the upgrade as he already knew the changes that happened after the upgrade. He told Slaine that as they had now been given time, it is best that they gather fruits sold at market as they would help with filling up the stamina, if they plan to spend long time in the Canterbury plains hunting for the quingols.

He knew that once Slaine would see the information about stamina bar on the website, he would immediately try out a fruit and most probably get hold of as many as possible before the others. This was the only thing he could do without suggesting prior knowledge of it.

He immediately logged out after that and after freshening up, went to the gymnasium. He was actually a few minutes early and decided to spend that time lifting a few weights. He was still quite thin and lean compared to how he used to be at the end of his previous life. So, he wanted to bulk up his muscles a bit.

In a couple of minutes, Robert came to the gymnasium followed by Salazar and Lucius. They immediately went behind the other two into the combat room.

”Balthazar, you are going to be first today and I have something special for you,” said Lucius as he pulled him into the fighting ring. He pulled out a whip and a knife from a bag which he brought to the gymnasium. It was the whip that was according to the specifications that he asked Ellie. ”I know you have asked for this from Leon. It is a hard to use which even I am not well acquainted with. You have already shown him using that new tech, but I just want to make sure that you could use it well in physical practice.”

”How can you determine if I am good at it, when you don't know how to use it?” asked Balthazar surprised as he took the whip and the attachable knife from him. Leon did tell him that he could collect it from Ellie but didn't expect that he would get to use it so early in the morning on the same day.

”You can practice with the beast reared behind the mansion, the trainers there can help you. But to use this outside, you need a license until then you don't get to use this other than for practice. He already applied for one indicating you to be his apprentice” said Lucius pulling out an three 3-feet long sticks from his bag and attached their ends to one another forming a long pole that was 9 feet long. ”Leon did tell you to practice with it a bit, right? I might not be able to use a whip, but I have had mock fights against Leon where he used various weapons including this.”

”So, don't worry, I am quite good in handling you and am quite faster compared to you. Moreover, I am wearing a light armor, so without use of the blade, you can't injure me,” said Lucius as struck the floor with his pole. ”This shall be your practice. Come on,” said Lucius beckoning Balthazar in a taunting fashion.

Balthazar immediately pulled the whip out unfurling it with a flick of his wrist and swung it expand behind him. ”Let us have some fun,” he said as he attacked Lucius with the whip. The sudden and quick manner with which he swung the whip, he expected it to land a full hit on Lucius' body as Lucius raised the pole to block it.

”Even if you block it, I can pull the whip in a manner that it will still hit you,” thought Balthazar. He had intended to pull the whip at the exact time that it struck the pole causing the point of contact of the whip and pole to behave as a fulcrum. This would cause the part of the whip from the point of contact and the end not in his hand to swing much faster and strike Lucius

It was a good plan and required him to pull at the exact instant the whip hit the pole, but he was confident in his skill. Yet it failed as Lucius was much better than him. He had a lot of practice against Leon who was similarly good at using a whip. At the same time, that he struck the whip with his pole he deftly ducked causing Balthazar's strike to miss and once the whip made a circle round the pole, he rotated the pole pulling the whip from Balthazar's hand.