Ascension: Online

I stayed inside my inn room sleeping a bit and reading the new entries in my Database until it was 8 AM. To be honest, I didn't really learn much, except for one useful entry in the 'World' category:

[Death]

[Upon dying, you will feel immense pain all over your body for a short duration of time before being teleported back to your spawn point. Once you reach Level 15, there is also a chance you will forever lose certain items in your inventory upon death, so be careful! Equipped items will not be lost.]

There was also a separate entry on 'spawn points' in the same category, but since A.R.X.A. already explained those to me, I already knew what it was about. In any case, it looked like dying after I reached Level 15 would be quite a pain - especially if I ended up getting any of the eight tablets needed to Ascend. If I lost any of those, god knows how long it would take me to find them again. Still, as of right now, I was only Level 10, so I didn't have to worry about any of that just yet.

I strolled out of the inn and headed for the restaurant after returning the room key to the receptionist at the front. She had been one of the spectators at the fight last night, and seemed to have thought I already died, given the surprise she had on her face when she saw me perfectly fine and alive.

It has only been a little over a week since Ascension: Online was introduced back in my old reality plane, so we, the players, were still a 'new species' to the natives of Ascentia. However, that would change very soon as our abilities were exposed to the public. We would be regarded as heroes that could instantly increase in strength with the click of a few buttons, and had infinite lives.

I headed for the restaurant I ate at last night, since the service there was good. I noticed it was far more crowded than last night. The same server walked over to me and led me to a table meant for two. It wasn't in the corner, much to my dismay, but I couldn't exactly complain - that would be far too selfish. I decided to just order the same thing as I did last night, because I was still unfamiliar with this world's foods. Better to play it safe. It was probably more of a lunch or dinner dish, but to me, all three meals were the same. They were just a way of refilling my energy - nothing more, nothing less. I didn't have any standards or rules as to when I eat what, or anything like that.

I still had 40 gold remaining because I got to stay at the inn for free last night, which should be more than enough to get me some breakfast. That being said, I really needed some money soon. Luckily, there should be plenty of ways to do that, from selling items to completing quests.

Ah... yes, speaking of quests...

As I waited for my food to arrive, I opened up my System, and clicked on the tab with an exclamation mark - the 'Quests' tab. The hologram changed, and turned into a list of quest types on the left side, with the actual quests on the right. I was currently in the 'Completed Quests' section, which had three quest inside. Actually, they weren't real quests - they were called 'Triumphs', apparently:

[Triumph: A New World - COMPLETE]

[Acquire your first weapon.]

[Rewards: 500 XP]

-

[Triumph: A New World II - COMPLETE]

[Eat and drink for the first time in Ascension: Online.]

[Rewards: 250 XP]

-

[Triumph: A New World III - COMPLETE]

[Sleep at an inn for the first time in Ascension: Online, creating your first spawn point.]

[Rewards: 250 XP]

I claimed it without any hesitation, and saw that I had just barely hit Level 11, gaining 10 SP and 2 AP. Apparently, while SP gains stayed the same for every level, AP gains increased every ten levels. I was pretty happy about that, since this meant I could unlock more skills. Pair this with the 3 AP I had leftover from before, that will leave me with a combined total of 5 AP to spend. I would've liked a monetary reward too, but perhaps quests of the 'Triumph' archetype only rewarded XP.

Still, I was sure I completed more quests since I arrived here... or perhaps the quests in this game are just really long. I clicked on the next category.

This was the 'Primary Quests' section - there was only one quest in here, and it read:

[The Beginning (rec. lvl: 1)]

[Descend Mount Valgan.]

The description of the quest was short and simple...is what I'd like to say, but in reality, it's just abstract and completely useless. 'Descend Mount Valgan'... okay? But how exactly do I do that? Where do I have to pass through? What kind of problems will I encounter on the way? The quest description told me none of that, as if telling me to just 'figure it out myself'.

But then, I noticed a little arrow, and clicked on it.

Immediately, a drop-down list appeared beneath the quest's description - a directory of quest steps. Beside each step was a checkbox - if I had completed it, there would be a check. If I hadn't, there would be an X.

Seeing this, I was overjoyed - maybe the quest system of this game wasn't so bad after all!

I looked over the quest steps:

[✓ - Leave Xiyang Village to begin your descent.]

[✓ - Reach Tianyin City.]

[X - Leave Tianyin City through the eastern gates and continue descending Mount Valgan.]

It only showed me up to there. Undoubtedly, there were more quest steps, but for some reason, the System didn't tell me what they were. The reason behind this was probably that A.R.X.A. could not predict the future, even though she was a supercomputer. Although she was the one setting up all of these 'quests' to make it seem like a video game, she could not directly control the beings of this reality plane, because they weren't just NPCs programmed to act and talk the way they do.

No matter how powerful A.R.X.A.'s calculation abilities are, she cannot precisely predict every decision of all the beings of this reality plane - who will cross a player's path, who won't, at what time, et cetera. Because of this, she could only plan out general, very abstract quests for all the 'players' from my old world, and then give them additional quest steps as they encountered them. Therefore, if my guess is correct... certain players will have different quest steps compared to others.

That wasn't uncommon in video games - in fact, it was an excellent feature to have in the case of ARMMORPGs. Players doing different things from one another helped contribute to the sense of realism in the game - if everyone was doing the exact same things as you, that would make the game less diverse, creative, and immersive.

Of course, all this was just a guess on my part... though I was 99% sure it was the case. I had no intention of asking A.R.X.A. about this though, since for one, she probably wouldn't answer, and for two, it wasn't all that important, anyway. I knew which things I had to ask her, and which things I didn't.

The 'Curry Chiken' I ordered soon arrived. I continued exploring the 'Quests' tab as I ate. The waitress who placed the food down at my table seemed curious about my System, but she figured it would be rude to me, her customer, so she refrained from asking and just left quietly after a quick 'enjoy your meal'.

I didn't pay her any mind, and just switched to the next quest category, labeled 'Side Quests'. Nothing was under here, so I just went to the next one - 'Tournaments'. This piqued my interest, but when I looked over to the right side of the hologram, not only did this one not have any quests under it, it wasn't even unlocked yet. The screen read:

[Restricted. Reach Level 30 to unlock.]

Sighing, I continued on to the next category - 'Vaults'. This one was interesting. However... just like with the last...

[Restricted. Requires completion of the 'Corruption' primary quest.]

Shaking my head in disappointment, I switched to the second-last section - 'Triumphs'. There were a bunch of quests in here, and spanned multiple pages. However, they were all marked with a question mark, and didn't offer any info as to how to do these 'quests'. It seemed that triumphs were essentially 'hidden' quests you could only complete by chance. Still, they offered decent rewards, as seen from earlier.

I clicked on the final category, hoping to find something that I could actually do.

'Public Events'. There was one quest I had in this category:

[Exterminating the Beasts (rec. lvl: 10)]

[Head into the steep forests of Mount Valgan to exterminate the Magic Beast horde that has plagued Tianyin City for years once and for all.]

I clicked on the arrow, showing me the quest steps.

[X - Accept Captain Ling Ye's invitation to join the Hunting Party.]

Beside was a timer that read '00:09:45:08', and was slowly going down. Since it was 8:15 right now, it seemed that I had to accept his invitation before 6 PM this evening in order to participate in this event.

"Hm... I might as well just go to him, to speed things up," I muttered to myself, taking a bite out of my food.

I quickly finished up eating after that, and headed out the restaurant after paying the bill.