RETURN OF THE SHADOW

"The one in my hand will pull the skin off an animal if it strikes the animal. It is not the same as using the ones you have heard of. You don't use the whip that you have on animals, it would injure and them and repeated strikes could cripple them or drive them mad," explained Lucian.

"Oh! This is completely different from what I thought," said Balthazar. "I have heard of those cases of animal harassment and thought that use of whip is a common thing."

"Those animal harassment cases probably were scenarios where such methods were used. There are a number of tamers who when unable to tame some aggressive wild animal tend to use such methods," said Lucian. "These are rare cases. We take extreme care to not hit the animals."

"Then, how do they even work?" asked Balthazar who was confused. He was quite surprised as he found this to be quite different from the things that he had seen in vita-nova. In the game, he remembered that big wh.i.p.s were used against mounts.

"OK. You seem to have observed situations where tamers frightened animals in the wild or something like that. It works on docile species only. It is to be used on such species which are trespassing in a secure area. Most aggressive species like many wild cats, tend to attack back if you land an attack on them. It also injures them heavily. So, if your plan is to tame them properly you don't let it hit them," explained Lucius.

"The best way to control the whip is by their sound and attack objects close to them. Animals are quite perceptive and most of the ones that move on land have a good sense of hearing. So, the crack of the whip and shattering objects close to them puts fear in their hearts," said Lucian. "This is used to direct their movements. Whenever they come close or stray from their path you use the whip to intimidate them."

"So, most strong animals wouldn't be hurt by this whip?" asked Balthazar.

"No. They will be hurt. Most definitely. Many times, they get crippled too. I wanted to say that the whip is to be used to kill the animal or cripple it. Both of these aren't great options if you intend to tame an animal. Tamer consider the health of an animal to be extremely important and they protect their pets and even teach them tricks to protect themselves."

"Oh, now I understand your point. Can I try it out with some of these?" requested Balthazar.

"No. I can't let you practice on these. All the ones here are rare ones like Anubis. We have a number of common animals like cougars in another place. Why don't we go there," said Elric. In a few minutes, Lucian Elric brought him to a cabin to gather a few supplies before they reached a new training ground.

"We have a couple of cougars here, which we can try this on. They are bred as kids from captivity and are afraid of me," said Lucius as he pulled out an electric prod used to shock and control animals. "This is also used to frighten them and not actually hit them unless they try to attack you. You develop a sense of mutual respect between you and the animals, when you behave in that manner," said Elric.

"I will release one from the cage. Try to make it move along a plain running track for starters," said Elric pointing to a location for Balthazar to stand.

A few seconds later, a cougar arrived near him. It was growling and Anubis beside Balthazar also began to growl back in response. The cougar was moving closer to them to attack, when "Ttwack," rang out the sound of the whip as Balthazar aim it at the ground close to the cougar's feet stopping it in its tracks.

"Not bad, repeat," shouted Elric who was at a distance behind the cougar. A couple of more strikes at the ground cause the cougar to turn back and move away.

"Good. You have decent skill. I half expected that it would end up hitting by pet," said Elric as he came closer to them. After that, he called Anubis and shouted instructions for it to get back to its kennel. It came close to Balthazar and rubbed against his legs before making its way to its kennel.

"It is better that you don't have Anubis with you during this training. It would aggravate the other animals you are practicing with," he explained.

"Can I have a second try?"

"Maybe later. This is the time for most of them to rest. These things wake up much earlier than you and have just had a lot of exercise and are tired. You got the basic idea for now. We can try again later," said Elric.

"Thanks. So, what do I owe you?" asked Balthazar.

"Nothing. Consider it a freebie. If you're still interested to learn tomorrow, we can consider some proper lessons later," answered Elric. He led Balthazar out of the grounds to a safe zone and returned back to his work.

"Not bad. At least I understood the basics of controlling the animals. Could come to practice again later," thought Balthazar as he got back to his room and into the V.R. pod.

He started the somnium tech and began to browse the net as the game's upgrade didn't yet finish and about 20 minutes were remaining which is about an hour in the somnium technology. He began to browse information about tamers, incidents involving animals and similar things to get a better understanding of tamers.

Then, he opened the vita-nova website to check the information that it posted about the upgrade. The official reason for the upgrade was given that they had to do it because of unexpectedly large number of patrons that purchased the somnium gear.

They also put in a line that this was due to the extreme similarity of the game to real-life which spurred a large number of people to experience the game and enjoy the feeling of living in an ancient era of swords and magic. The team responsible had decided that this could be the best reason for the unexpected increase in the number of players.

Apart from that, the website also listed the changes that would occur in the game.

1. The number of beginner village and towns are increased by five times. This also resulted in a corresponding increase in the map size and the number of kingdoms and empires doubled.

2. Introduction of the new stamina gauge along with HP and MP gauges for the players of all races and professions. This measures the capacity of the player for physical exertion and a player would feel tired out without stamina value. It is required to complete special actions and fills up automatically on resting. It is introduced to simulate real-life exertion that occurs due to strenuous activities.

3. Lifting the cap on the number of trade professions that could be learned. A player can learn as many trade professions as he wants to. Need to learn the profession from an NPC or book before one could use them. Also need few basic tools or toolbox for every trade profession. The tools or the toolbox that are required for trade professions are to be stored in the bag.

4. Increasing the default bag size by 50%.

5. Introducing new weapons cache to store armaments aside from the space in the bag. This space is independent of the bag space and has multiple versions. It is not provided by default and has to be purchased. The basic version is readily available at the Adventurers Association and it has enough space to accommodate the gear required to fully equip three persons.

6. Introducing Bounty quests that enable a person to clear one's red name which happens on killing other players outside arena. Any settlement that prevent a red-named player from entering has a guard outpost where one can submit these quests without interference from the guards.

7. The fighting arenas for fights between the players at the colosseums in various cities are linked. Player could use them to challenge players irrespective of the races and their factions.

8. One can only use their hearthstones to return to the beginner village or beginner town or the city directly connected to it. For every other location, the player needs to gain enough reputation to become a third-class citizen to be able to use the hearthstone for travel.

Further details about each of these changes were provided in the other parts of the website, but Balthazar didn't care. He knew about all of them from his previous life experience. There were a lot of players discussing the changes, their pros and cons in the forums during this time, but he didn't care as he heard of them all in his previous like. In fact, he found these new rules more comfortable as he had played for five years with these new rules in his previous life

Balthazar wanted to join the Fight Club to which he was recommended by Merlin. He bought a new contact number to use it for the game account, registered the same as an alternate for him and opened an account with the name "Shadow Tyrant" on Bicker. He went to the forums to accept Boris Blade's challenge before he went ahead to check out the details of the mass quest that Boris Blade had triggered.

Though it was a mass quest, it was quite simple compared to the ones in other games. It spanned over a period of three days where repeated invasions from the quingol bandits would occur.

Quingol Menace:

1. The guingol race managed to set camp at the Canterbury lake and have managed to set up a portal from which they are receiving reinforcements.

2. Provide support to the guards of the city. The guards have set up a line of control at the middle of the plains to prevent the quingols from causing damage to the town. A number of quest will be provided by the guards during the quest.

3. Reinforcements will arrive by the third day from the capital of the White Heart Kingdom. The special forces will serve as vanguard to conquer the quingol camp and defeat all of them.

4. Special rewards will be provided to the adventurers at the end of the mass quest based on their contributions.

The information from the website was quite informative and he realized that he couldn't capture the bandit camp with the guild. "It looks like that Boris Blade's interference screwed up my plans with the bandit camp completely," thought Balthazar as he saw the information on the website.

As the game didn't start yet, he contacted Merlin on Bicker and asked him to provide Boris Blade's information so that he could contact him for the challenge after the game starts.

"Contact me after you log in. He won't accept your request," said Merlin. "Right now, he hates you almost as much as he hates me and he would definitely not accept your friend request."

"Ok. I am will be at the arena and waiting for him. Inform him to come to the arena at White Heart City," said Balthazar.

"Ok. But don't start till I come. I intend to spectate it. There are also others in the Fight Club who are going to view your challenge. We need to wait for them to view it. At least one administrator should be there for you to be allowed into it," said Merlin.

Out of boredom, he tired to log in to the game and was unexpectedly transported to a large hall, which was filled with the avatars (characters) of many players. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who tried to login before the upgrade of the game and they were all sent to some sort of waiting area. There was a large clock showing a countdown of the time for the upgrade to finish. As he was looking around, a notification popped up in front of his eyes.

"The upgrade of the game hasn't yet been completed. The communication features provided by the game is still available. You can either chose to remain here, go back or select to be put into sleep till the upgrade is finished. Then, you will be logged into vita-nova."

Three buttons popped up in front of him for him to select what he wanted. Balthazar had entire forgotten about this feature that was provided when the game is getting upgraded. He could always select to sleep and get logged into the game when it starts up.

He immediately selected to sleep. He was in no mood to converse with the other players or his friends. Most of them would be interested in discussing the new upgrades for which he had been waiting for some time.

He went into sleep and after what felt like barely a second, he was in the game. "It didn't feel like, I went to sleep at all," thought Balthazar. He had never used the somnium technology to go to sleep without playing the game before.

Unlike normal sleep, the sleep with use of somnium tech without any activity provides a dreamless sleep which make a person lose his sense of time and feels like they woke up the very next moment. The feeling is only noticeable when the user takes catnaps for a small duration. It was recommended in the forums to avoid that as it gives a drowsy feeling to the user.