Itzal

Their intelligence was set to low. Itzal didn't want to be overwhelmed. He just needed to get a good feel for these new sword arts. Set to the normal setting he usually had them at, he charged forward and- didn't move anywhere as the menu flashed it's reminder for skill point allocation once again. Right. He was so used to activating the actual charge skill that he completely forgot he was doing so. By now the monsters were already almost on him, so he couldn't run forward anyways. He'd lost the advantage but that was ok. He was here to practice his sword arts and double check to make sure there weren't any unfriendly changes to them. Starting small, he activated snake bite and launched the attack against the monster in front of him. While he could have tested to see what would happen if he used a single target sword art on two enemies directly beside each other, he'd already done that and the sword art canceled itself out about halfway through it. While this test was made years ago, Itzal was over ninety percent positive that it would not be any different, or if it was then it wouldn't be changed in any significant way which would aid nor hinder him beyond the skill shutting down and just not being used. While it's possible that the skill may or may not prevent the cooldown from starting if used halfway, therefore not applying damage or status effects, it would be hard to weaponize such a change. It would take too much effort and time, and every second in a fight counted. Not to mention that the enemy could adapt just in time to avoid him, which would not only mean a failed attempt to force a cooldown on that particular sword art, but also putting him into a far more vulnerable position than he had been in previously. Overall it was not a very good scenario for him to put himself in. While other players who loved gambling, players who would no doubt love the risky enhancement, would take this chance without hesitation, Itzal preferred higher chance of success options, and preferred to use logic, reasoning and strategy to get through a fight.

As it was, the sword art activated without any flaws whatsoever. His damage was the same as it would have been prior to the three point oh update, but that was only due to the fact that most of his sword arts had barely changed save for the higher half, where the multipliers got stronger faster in order to keep up with the highest one. With snake bite tested and successful, he focused on dodging the slimes that attacked him, which wasn't difficult at all. They had absolutely no accuracy stats applied to them, and even without his evasion armor he was still very good at dodging. He didn't need the help of the cardinal system to avoid hits from weak monsters like this. There was no cooldown on snake bite so he could use it again immediately of course... But he needed to test everything. And snake bite was stupid to use against monsters, even his slime farm monsters. So with that in mind he decided to try out one of the cooldown sword arts: Star Quint Prominence. This one had the stun effect applied with it, so he could watch and see if there was anything new with it. Additionally it had a cooldown rating of one, so he shouldn't be able to activate it immediately afterwards like he normally did. It was time to test this out and see. Preparing the motion, his sword began to glow once more. As he landed the blow he could see the status beside the slime's health switched to 'stun', and the creature froze in place. At the same time, he also saw a new symbol in the corner of his vision with a tiny [r2] sitting over it, and a bar which quickly went from full to empty. While the cooldown was active, as he assumed this new bar was the cooldown, Itzal tried to activate Star Quint Prominence a second time, but he heard a buzz in his head and the symbol and cooldown flashed red for a second. His sword still made the swinging motion, so he wasn't physically restrained from using it. At least that was the case. He could fake attacks if he wanted.

With that test out of the way... Itzal avoided another hit and took his stance. With the way the cooldowns worked, he should design a pattern for himself. He targeted the first slime and activated Shadow Explosion. He knew that he could not afford to use this as his opening attack against a floor boss, as he needed all the damage output he could muster for those, but for this instance he would go with a sword art with a cooldown rating of three, then a sword art with a cooldown rating of two, and finish it off with one. That way he could continuously strike between the three of them without having to wait. Landing the first hit, the weak stats of the monster were cleaved through entirely with the strength of his attack. The symbol appeared again with the [r5] by it with the much longer duration of the cooldown. Not stopping for a moment he immediately turned on his heel and activated Meteor Break on the one he had yet to attack, dealing his full damage against it and shattering it into the crystals which deteriorated in the air. Finally he attacked the slime he stunned earlier with Nova Ascension, and finished it off. He heard the ding of his sword art cooldown finishing off and activated Shadow Explosion yet again, finishing off the final slime. One after another the cooldowns refreshed and everything was as it was originally. Taking a deep breath he smiled. "Alright... I can work with this... Hey Aldion! You out here?" "Caw!" The black raven glided through the trees and landed on the fence. "Caw!" Chuckling Itzal nodded. "I've got a little bit more reading to do, but afterwards how about we go for a walk?" "Caw! Caw!" Aldion answered while flapping his wings. That was a yes.

Post: 1,048
Total: 12,481

Itzal pulled back from the menu without closing it, and folded his hands together in thought. While he may not need most of the enhancements on the list, there were a myriad of potentially useful combinations if utilized with the right items, enhancements and skills. A player who relied on critical hits and luck could greatly benefit from holy, phase, and all manner of DoTs, unique thorns and the aura enhancements. While they didn't work for Itzal, they were perfect for another. However... He pulled out of the update and went to the skill point section where he dumped thirty into the sword skill: One handed straight sword. The skill flashed from red to white again, and the skill point count reset to thirty, ceasing it's glitching. With that done, he pulled his black sword out of his inventory and watched as it materialized, sheathed, on it's belt around his waist. It was a bit uncomfortable, but that was due to this being his casual clothing, not his armor. It wasn't meant to hang from here. However every second counted he thought, as he walked over towards the door and opened it, stepping out into the hallway. Passing the doorways that lead into the attic storage, which housed multiple chests, cabinets, crates and barrels. The familiar chamber which was designed to be a bedroom for avian, land, and marine forms of familiars, comfortable with obstacle courses, playgrounds and toys to keep them occupied. And the guest chamber which was as cozy and nice as the master bedroom, as Itzal didn't like the idea of supremacy, he reached the stairs and leaped over every step, landing safely on the bottom. He was in a rush after all. Moving through the living room where the base of the stairs were built, he took three long strides to the door and opened it up. The cool and refreshing breeze that hit him was even better than the one he received when he opened the bedroom window. He took a moment there to take a deep breath and close his eyes as a renewed life filled his lungs. He waited but a moment however, before he resumed his movement, heading straight for the backyard where the slime farm was.

Seeing it still intact was an incredible relief. For a moment he had worried that the system also took away the slime farm, but he was less concerned about it given that there was nothing in the summary that stated any changes to the housing system. Itzal's mega slime farm was designed with great detail and specialty. It was a very large area, split into different kinds of terrain. One being grassland and forest, one being full of sand as a desert, one filled with fake snow (the floor was too warm to contain actual snow), and the fourth area was a rocky and gravel covered area with small cliffs. This was for Itzal to practice fighting in any terrain he required. He had even considered a combat tactic where he set corridor crystals in very specific locations across the castle's floors, so that if he needed a home advantage he could just pick and choose, open the doorway, and either lead or force the battle into a location that better suited him. Along the edges of this area were simple fences, but whenever the farm was active the cardinal system set up an invisible barrier which could not be penetrated by player or monster. Beside the gate that opened into the yard, which Itzal now opened up as he entered, was a little pedestal with a single sphere shaped stone resting on it. By grasping the stone he could open up the farm's menu and set the details of how he wanted the slimes to generate. Besides choosing how many would spawn, he could alter their intelligence, their stats and strength, and even alter their physical form to be bigger, shaped differently, or even mimic the appearance and/or personality and fighting style of players or npcs which he programmed in. Normally they couldn't be pushed this far, but the yard was customizable so long as they remained slimes. For Itzal who was a pro at programming, while this took some time it was so very worth it. For now, he just set the slimes to a cylinder shape and adjusted their size to be around six feet tall.

The slime menu pulled up the option of starting but he turned his attention to his own menu first as he opened it, then navigated over to the sword art update. He could look at all of the sword arts at a later date, but for the time being he needed to know everything about his own sword arts. None of the names had changed for the most part. However there was one significant difference: He no longer had any area of effect sword arts. Which meant that the straight sword was to primarily be a one on one weapon. That was a little but saddening, but he completely understood the reasoning for this. The major plus was that his damage had skyrocketed as well. Jumping from a measly eleven points of damage to sixteen! Double checking by glancing at the other sword arts in other weapon skills, and he confirmed it. A multiplier of sixteen was the strongest a player could get from the one handed weapon skills. This made it all the more reasonable to reduce it down to a one on one weapon skill as opposed to take on one or many. Beyond that it had a lot of stun skills as well, which made it very useful against player killers. Even if one was on cooldown, he could use another stun art immediately and take out another player not long after the first one. Against bosses, well. He wasn't too sure. Most bosses didn't seem to be affected by stun ever, let alone paralysis. It was only on the rare occasion. Thus he felt like the damage output was a far better option to have than the stun, though it was useful outside of boss raids too. They still required the martial arts skill for some of the sword arts though. From what he could see the requirement dropped from a rank four in the skill, to a rank two. That was not only appreciated, but it made sense. The players had to prove they wanted it, but weren't subjected to a huge mass of skill point loss either. Once he'd gone over everything he needed to, he closed the menu and drew his sword... Then he pressed the button that read: "Start session."

Post: 1,113
Total: 11,433

Reading over the healing enhancements, and thinking carefully about the revamped healing mechanics, brought his thoughts over to Zandra and her healing build. She really wanted to be able to support the players and ensure that no one would ever die. Especially him. With these new mechanics and systems, Itzal wondered if she was going to have to sacrifice her dps skills just so that she could keep up the healing properly. While the percentage was indeed strong, the fact remained that player's health had dropped by half as a default. The risks were greater now, and they always would be. Players had to choose their builds far more cautiously from now on... He just hoped that they could continue on from here. That this update was not as dangerous as he was worried it would be. That they would indeed come out on top, and succeed in defeating the next floor boss. And the next. And so on until they reached the final floor, defeated the final boss... And went home... Home.. It had been five years since Itzal had seen his family. He couldn't imagine how terrified they must be right now. He wondered if they could even feel anything after five years of him being trapped in this death game. In this state. His hands tightened into balled up fists as he thought of his sister crying. "I will come home to you Aimi.... I swear it." With a long and shaky breath, he pulled his train of thought back to the unique skill list. He couldn't get home if he couldn't beat this game. And to do that he needed to research everything in this update, and master it to the best of his ability. He wouldn't let an update, nor any monster or boss, get in his way to the final floor. While healing had changed greatly, he knew that Zandra would find a way to meet her own goals. She would decide what she wanted, what she needed, and how she would get there.

The flame thorns enhancement was next on the list of changed enhancements. Well there was envenom defensive, but it was as straightforward as it's offensive other. Not worth mentioning here. The flames thorn originally dealt seven times tier in thorns damage, which was weaker than the normal thorns which dealt nine times tier damage. While the thorns damage had not changed in the three point oh update, the flames thorns was definitely nerfed in terms of raw thorns damage. They now only dealt a maximum of two times tier per slot of damage as raw thorns damage, although their bonus damage (which came via being struck with a critical hit) dealt increased damage. While the original flame thorns dealt seven times tier in normal thorns, and two times tier in critical thorns, the update increased the burn damage to four times tier. It was still weaker in general unless your opponent landed a solid critical hit on you, so Itzal wasn't sure if this was a better enhancement or worse. Definitely better if a tank took thorns and flame thorns on the same piece of equipment, but worse in other situations in his mind. Flame aura, which was next, was likewise nerfed. It had less mitigation than it's previous version, dropping by two points in fact, and it's return damage was also greatly reduced. Sensing a pattern, Itzal wondered if the cardinal system nerfed these effects to make them a "jack of all trades, yet master of none" type of deal. Like you could have two enhancements in one, but at the cost of their efficiency. Again, they would still be useful to a tank if stacked with other enhancements, but he didn't see that much use for a dps. Frost thorns and frost aura had been nerfed in exactly the same way, though this didn't surprise Itzal all that much. They were pretty much identical save for the type of damage each of them inflicted. One being burn damage, and the other being frost damage. After that the rest of the enhancements were pretty much the same as they had been before. Bloodclot was still one slot and made the player immune to bleed enhancements. Paralytic immunity in much the same way regarding paralysis but not stun. Antifreeze and Fireproof granted immunity to freeze and burn effects respectively. And then cursed matched the item's tier to the player's own, but kept the item from being traded to another player so long as it existed on said item.

To Itzal's surprise, these changes weren't really going to be affecting his build in any real way. He might use the static enhancement when fighting in an AoE battle, but overall he'd rather get his hands on fallen if possible, with holy as a secondary. If he could get a fallen and holy enhancement sword, that would be truly ideal. Phase would be perfect if it could activate with Fallen, but because that wasn't the case, he'd rather just boost his damage overall across the board. So a demonic weapon with two fallen and two holy would be the most ideal weapon for him. With that being said of course, he knew that the chances of him obtaining an item like this were next to impossible.. So he would just focus for now on getting stronger and grinding mobs until he came across something useful to him or Zandra. And she in turn could keep an eye out for something that he could use. For his armor, he doubted there was any enhancement he would prefer using save for one. He would really love to have a demonic armor with three evasion, and paralytic immunity. He hated the status effect, and wanted to be rid of it for good. If he could somehow acquire that ability, that immunity to such a horrible feeling of helplessness. He'd take it gladly in a heartbeat. Then there was the trinkets, though that was an incredibly easy solution to figure out. He'd prefer obtaining the absolute accuracy enhancement on a demonic item with three accuracy on it. That would give him plus four accuracy, and remove the chances of automatically missing, which he had noticed was indeed a mechanic and factor the longer he fought in this world. In total, his ideal build would be three evasion and one paralytic immunity cloth armor. Three accuracy and one absolute accuracy trinket. And finally a two fallen and two holy damage weapon. As well as a weapon with two paralytic venom and two frostbite if he could help it for when fighting player killers.

Post: 1,106
Total: 10,320

Before he got a good look at the list of enhancements within the unique tab, he noticed the room getting rather warm. This was a very new experience to him due to the fact that he always had the survival skill, and therefore nullified any uncomfortable temperatures or weather. However, since all of his skills were glitching out until corrected that wasn't the case anymore. Turning to see the source of it, the sunlight was pouring in strong and bright from the east window. The day was beginning to warm up, which made sense as they were steadily moving through spring now. Standing up and walking over to the windows, he began to open them all up to halfway. Upon opening the first he felt a single strong breeze that felt incredibly refreshing. The crisp morning air filled the room with a new sort of life. The other window had been opened by Aldion for certain, but the wind was not blowing in that direction, so the circulation wouldn't proceed. Now that two windows were opened, hot and cold air could blow through the room from one to the next with ease. With the second window open and the breeze circulating through his room, he sat down again at his bed with his menu still open, thankful that he couldn't have any allergies in this submersive virtual reality video game called Sword Art Online.

The very first enhancement he spotted was absolute accuracy. Originally that wasn't at the top of the list, it was somewhere in the middle. He wondered at first if all of the enhancements had been reorganized to fit an alphabetical order, but it wasn't the case. How did he know this? The second enhancement was holy, with the next after it being fallen. He wasn't sure what the order was supposed to be for the unique enhancements, but it certainly wasn't in alphabetical order. Absolute accuracy didn't seem to have changed at all, and neither had the fallen enhancement. Phase likewise hadn't changed at all, but honestly these four enhancements were very powerful on their own, so it didn't exactly surprise him all that much. Vampiric offensive had been converted from health times tier to straight percentages like everything else within this world, which made perfect sense after seeing the levels and skill changes. Once again, Cardinal and Kayaba knew what they were doing when they chose the order of reveal they did. If the cardinal had revealed the contents of the update in any other order, Itzal would likely still be panicked and confused as hell. Paralytic venom hadn't changed at all since the update either, and still could replace two slots of paralyze with a single slot. Very potent indeed, and very useful if obtained. Freeze was changed however. It no longer removed all evasion properties like paralyze did, and instead reduced the victim's evasion stat by only a single point.. Which didn't matter too much when your target had five or six evasion slots with consumables, enhancements and mods. However he could identify the reason behind this was due to the fact that the enhancement's damage had shifted from twelve times tier to sixteen times tier, making it stronger damage wise. Itzal still probably wouldn't get this enhancement for himself, but it was a nice upgrade to it. Envenom also got a damage boost from four times tier to eight times tier, which was always nice to have. It still lasted four rounds so that was perfect as well. Paired up with a single debuff and you could turn it's duration from four into eight, then another debuff to double it's damage to sixteen times tier, and you had a deadly DoT indeed. Burn's damage increased but not by much. It was simply boosted from twelve points to fourteen points of damage per round... Comparing Burn to Envenom, the burn enhancement kind of sucked. At most the burn enhancement dealt twenty four points of damage per round, while envenom dealt thirty two. That was more damage. It was longer sure, but that was part of the point. You had to get lucky to land a DoT enhancement, so the longer the better.

Then he reached a new enhancement he had yet to see during his time in sword art online: Frostbite. Curious as to what this could do, he read over it. From what he could identify, it was basically a bridge between bleed and paralyze. Not dealing the full damage, which was twelve times tier, and instead dealing a maximum of ten times tier, but also not paralyzing the enemy or reducing their evasion. Instead it reduced their accuracy by one point alone. If Itzal had a weapon with both freeze and frostbite on it, and paired the blade with two debuffs to reduce accuracy and evasion by two, he could easily nullify those advantages off of a player so long as he kept activating the sword's ability... But that wasn't his style. He'd still use debuffs, but he preferred to deal as much damage as he could or immobilize his target so that he could send them through a corridor crystal's gateway into the prison. He wondered if that had any changes occur to it with this update... Blight had changed significantly unlike the others which had tweaks to their damage or abilities. It dealt only eight times tier like the envenom, but it also reduced the target's mitigation by five times tier for the duration. That was certainly an interesting ability it had, but again it did not fit with Itzal's overall goal. If he could obtain the fallen enhancement, he could deal more damage than this took mitigation off of. Blight just was not the enhancement for him. So far in terms of DoTs, it was Envenom and Paralytic venom that were looking like his favorite picks. The next enhancement was entirely new too, and took him by surprise: Static. From what he could tell, it dealt less than the bleed enhancement, ten times tier, but also dealt six times tier damage to any enemy within the immediate area around the victim of the enhancement. Itzal couldn't really tell if this meant damage upon activation, or damage for each round it lasted, which was the typical two rounds. It would be amazing if it worked for the duration, as that meant twelve times tier points of damage to the surrounding enemies, or half of a bleed's total damage in it's duration. That might actually be an enhancement he'd want for when he took on multiple enemies on grinding missions... Then he came upon the enhancement known as holy blessing. It too had been converted into percentages, but somehow he felt this was stronger now with all of the other skills being percentage based. Regen was two percent as well as Holy Blessing, which made four percent. Battle healing went up to twenty percent, as did first aid as well. Potions could revive five percent as well, and survival increased the maximum healing everything did by another ten percent. The combination of these could keep a player very healthy for a long while.

Vampiric defensive was basically the same as offensive but upon being hit instead of landing a hit, with of course it's healing properties converted to percentages now. Life mending was actually not changed whatsoever within this update, but it's ten percent healing bonus seemed to have far more strength and meaning behind it now. After all, any outside healing done through first aid, aka the twenty percent of the target's maximum health restored, would be increased by ten percent of that. And on top of this, if the target has survival, ten percent of that total healed would also be added to the equation, making it incredibly effective. If used on Itzal, twenty percent would be one hundred and sixty four. Ten percent of that would be sixteen points of health, making it one hundred and eighty points of health restored instead. And ten percent of that was eighteen, making it not one hundred and sixty four health restored, but one hundred and ninety eight points of health, almost two hundred. That was pathetic before the update, but only because their health wasn't reduced yet. Now it was powerful healing being done.

Post: 1,385
Total: 9,214

The enhancements section seemed to be relatively the same, just with a few tweaks and one or two new enhancements... Which he probably would never be using. Overall the alchemist enhancements seemed relatively the same. That was good as it meant all of Zandra's consumables were still intact and untouched. However what he did notice was that the health points recovery for the healing potion didn't recover a set number multiplied by tier anymore. Instead it recovered about five percent of the player's maximum health. The exact same as a rank five battle healing skill. That meant that healing benefits had just received a huge reduction in their potential. In gaming terms, they got nerfed. Hard. However it made sense he thought. Players rarely needed healing as it was before this update. Most of the frontliners had huge numbers of health after all. This made things more challenging. And players could get their hands on skills to increase their healing abilities, like survival which increased any incoming healing abilities by a flat ten percent now. In addition to battle healing, the player would be receiving a total of ten percent, of ten percent of their maximum health if they used a potion alongside the skill. His health had dropped down to eight hundred and twenty now, so that would be forty one points of health from both battle healing and the potion, which made up a total of eighty two points of health regained without the survival skill. Adding that helpful ability into the mix, and you gained yet another four points of health from each source. Changing eighty two to eighty eight. It wasn't much, but that was the point. It was an extra skill that made you immune to damage and effects from the environment, while also providing a small bonus to healing effects from battle healing, potions or songs, the first aid skill, and any other healing applied to your person. What made it even stronger was if the healer had an item with an enhancement that made their first aid abilities even stronger... That is if it still existed. He was entirely unsure if it was removed or not.

Moving on to the artisan enhancements, he couldn't see much of a difference here either. Taunt was still pretty much useless unless you were a dps or supporter playing tank for lower leveled players against a low leveled monster or something of the like. He and Chase had discussed this at some length before they joined the floor boss raid that changed everything. The boss they were fighting he'd never forget, as it was nothing but annoying to fight. No fun at all, and it didn't even have any backstory to it or lore that made any sense. If anything Itzal felt like Kayaba just ran out of ideas he could use for this random guy and was just trying to come up with sh*t for the players to fight so they didn't get bored... Which was likely the case now that he thought about it. Itzal audibly groaned at the thought of fighting that stupid boss a second time, and really didn't want to check to see if his quest had changed in any regard. In any case, both Itzal and Chase agreed that players with howl could attain far more hate than they even needed half of the time. This resulted in taunt being useless as it just added additional, unneeded hate for the player. Perhaps if a player wanted to help play the roll of a tank in the floor boss but had yet to obtain the skill points to unlock and master howl, but they'd be suffering from other more useful enhancements... Though there was thorns that only had two enhancements on it, so it could technically work in theory. A dps player with a weapon, shield, and armor would be cool. He skipped to blacksmith real quick to double check and sure enough taunt could be put on shields. Awesome. When he looked back to finish artisan, he noticed that Quality had been added to the list. This saddened Itzal to some degree, mainly due to the fact that it meant the performer had that much less to offer players, but it wouldn't always be the case. Some players had to have lots of gear on them, so they might want to use the consumable instead of an equipped item.

Now on the subject of blacksmithing enhancements, not much seemed to have been changed there either. At most the regen enhancement had been altered, but that was a health recharging item so it was to be expected. It now regenerated two percent of a player's health, which was significantly less, but when stacked with every other healing item, skill and ability it made a significant difference. Cook enhancements also seemed to not change save for overhealth, which appeared to increase a player's maximum health by five percent, ten percent or fifteen percent, which actually wasn't that bad really. For Itzal that would be about one hundred and twenty three points of health gained. It was still nerfed, but since everything else had been nerfed, in comparison it wasn't that bad. Tailor enhancements were altered similarly, however there was one new enhancement he spotted, though it's name made him doubt he'd ever actually use the thing. The name of the enhancement was risky, which increased a player's overall base damage by an additional one per slot times the player's tier (up to two slots), but only when they received damage themselves. Itzal preferred to avoid incoming hits by stacking up his evasion as the system would allow, thus this was very very clearly not the enhancement for him to use on any occasion. Performer was up next, and while he was sad to see no significant changes other than health recovery adjustment to the HP Recovery enhancement, he didn't really expect anything different. The performer was a player's primary source of debuffs after all, and there were only so many debuffs you could use before it became game breaking. Though the fact that not a single debuff worked against the d**n shadow still threw him off and annoyed him significantly. If every boss became immune to all debuffs he was going to send Kayaba a personal message on how this world sucked even as a video game with no death as a consequence. That wasn't to say this world didn't have some good things about it. There was a lot within the world of Aincrad that Itzal very much enjoyed.

The scenery was incredible, and always breathtaking. The npc interaction could vary between basic and almost human-like. The quests... Left, much to be desired, but the good ones felt like a legitimate adventure the player could embark on! He still felt like pking should have been turned off with this being a death game, but he probably wanted it to be as life like as possible unfortunately. Players who were powerless in the real world like he was had a chance to stand up and make a name for themselves here. Total lack of pain was a bonus as well, though there were some subtle consequences as a result of it. Players who'd never had real friends made many. This didn't discount all of the terrible and horrifying things that this game has done to people of course, but in order to move forward one had to look at the bright side, and stand tall in the light. Not sulk in the darkness. Once again he caught himself losing his train of thought and gave a groan of frustration as he ran his fingers through his hair. He took in a deep breath and breathed out slowly, trying to slow down his mind so that he could refocus. Once he'd done so, he opened the last tab in the enhancement section: Unique enhancements.

Post: 1,319
Total: 7,829

Jumping to his feet, to the point of shaking his own bed as he did so, he withdrew from the skills tab, maneuvered to the sword arts tab and opened up one handed straight sword. Every one of the sword arts now had a range of cooldowns, save for the lowest of times two multiplier. These cooldowns all ranged between one and three in terms of length comparison. He checked the other sword arts from other weapon skills as well. Dagger had the same, despite it being a fast weapon. Same with the hammer skill as well. In fact all of the sword arts across each and every weapon skill had around the same range of time regarding their cooldown rate... Save for the two handed weapons which seemed to up to four in terms of general comparison of length. After observing these, he stood up and opened his menu, navigated it to his list of equipment, and grabbed his sword before he went and tried to activate one of his sword arts. However, it glitched out and didn't work. Confused, with eyebrows furrowed, he tried again. Again the sword glitched in and out of reality and did nothing. There was no way that he suffered an entire boss raid, got terrified as a wave of physical darkness crashed over everyone, and woke up to the biggest update he had ever seen, just to run into a game breaking glitch... He'd try one last time, using a basic sword art that didn't even require a cooldown. Once again it glitched, but this time that wasn't the only thing. This time a message appeared in front of him from the cardinal system: <<Please Reallocate Your Skill Points>> Itzal stared at this for a moment before facepalming. "Right, I forgot. It's so obvious." With the entire skill system being revamped, changed, and moved around, as well as extra slots becoming a thing, and on top of that experience taking the place of skill points, with skill points instead being the rewards handed out by earning levels and/or five paragon levels, the cardinal system wasn't going to just let him use all of his old skills. Checking his list of skills, he could see each and every one of them highlighted in red to show which had yet to be corrected, with the skill points assigned to them glitching out. Sighing, he sheathed his sword and put it back in his inventory, resigning to try this out later on. Maybe as he went on a walk.  For now, he should continue reading all of these skills...

Overall those were all of the extra skills. Now all that was left were the unique skills... Wondering what he would discover upon opening the tab, he moved his finger over and tapped the words: Unique Skill.

The tab shook and buzzed while flashing red. Puzzled, Itzal tried again but the same results. Another tiny message popped up stating that he did not have permission to view this list of skills. Realizing that Kayaba wanted to keep unique skills a secret to everyone else, he was going to keep the tab locked from everyone. This was just an official recognition that yes, the players knew of unique skills existence... Or, perhaps it was more? No one really knew how many unique skills existed. Perhaps he was hinting that there were more skills than any of the players had thought to consider? There were three of them currently known to Itzal, though he didn't know too much about any of them. It was always possible there were more. Maybe five? Or ten? Maybe even twenty? If so though he figured someone would have obtained them by now... He thought for a moment and wondered how powerful each of these unique skills were. His thoughts went to Death Adder who he read up on as being a cold hearted killer who was incredibly self centered. That one boss raid he showed up in made him despised by every other player. He was shallow. Itzal didn't want that for players like him. They shouldn't have such a powerful skill... If Itzal could obtain one, if only to keep it out of the hands of someone who would misuse it. That would be enough for him... Then something else occurred to him. What if Kayaba was trying to say that he changed some of the unique skills even further? What would happen in that case? He could try and contact Calrex to see if he wouldn't mind telling him if there were any changes to his own unique skill, but that was private information and he didn't know Calrex as well as he wanted to. The only way he'd be able to know anything was if he got his hands on a unique skill. But he somehow doubt that would ever happen... If he did though, he wouldn't want to broadcast it to others if possible. He wouldn't use it against player killers unless he had no choice. He wouldn't use it in quests or dungeons, unless perhaps it was alongside Zandra and no one else. He felt obliged to use it in the frontlines of course, anything to push the cause forward faster was a necessity. However regarding the general use of it, he didn't want most players to discover it's existence. That would likely draw the attention of those who would want the skill for themselves, and make him an even bigger target than he was before. In addition to this, he didn't want other players to come to him, work with him, or try to butter him up only because he happened to obtain a unique skill. He wanted to befriend people and be casual around them. He couldn't stand people who went to others for their abilities, equipment and gifts. They were nothing but leeches, and while he felt pity for them, he had no intention of attracting any. Especially for something as corrupt as gaining more and more power for whatever selfish ends they have in mind.

With that said, there was nothing else he could look into regarding the skills. With unique skills having been locked and access prevented, he had no choice but to move on to the next tab: Enhancements.

Post: 1,048
Total: 6,510

While processing, considering, and mulling over all of the potential familiar skills he could give to Aldion, primarily grappling for his day job of player killer capturing, and rending for combat against anything and anyone, primarily monsters and bosses, this wasn't getting him any closer to doing something productive he thought with a sigh. Rubbing his temples in mild frustration, he acknowledged that his habit of overthinking situations was proving to be an incredibly huge hassle with this particular update. There was just so much to go over, he wondered if he'd actually have enough time to go see Zandra today. He backed out of the update real quick and checked the time. Blinking with surprise and leaning backwards, using his arms to support him over the bed, he relaxed a little. "Huh... It hasn't been an hour yet... Weird." Not that he was complaining in the slightest. It meant more time to process things, go over them in his mind, and run simulations... No, no he didn't have the time to go over every little detail like this. He'd need to go over the majority of it, then meet up with Zandra and discuss the finer details with her. That's what he needed to do. Reaching for his shelf, he played one of the soothing songs he used to help calm his mind when he needed to focus on something, hoping that it would help with this rather big situation. He would not overanalyze this. Not yet anyways.

And of course overanalyze is what he did immediately after.

For the most part, just about every extra skill he was aware existed was still in the extra skill section. Except of course the familiar skills which had apparently become their own separate system and list. There was concentration and disguise, the latter of which Itzal noticed he still owned as it stated beside the name which he was grateful for. Survival was still there, only it was altered slightly. Instead of boosting outside health regen by a slight amount, it changed to increasing all sources of healing by a grand ten percent. Surprised to see this, but not upset, he gladly accepted this change. Especially since his partner in most things involving conflict, namely the more dangerous ones, was his wife who doubled as a healer- Oh... She might not be a healer anymore. Itzal took a pause to consider this possibility. If she went full on dps, then they would lose a healer on the frontlines. He didn't see the first aid skill among the combat skill lists... Did the cardinal system remove it in it's entirety? If it did then he would change his mind on Kayaba really quickly. Maybe they made it a unique skill? No that was just as bad. What about- Itzal's train of thought, while winding and long and often times jumping directions, finally returned to the topic that started him off: Extra skills. He quickly looked through it. Meditation was still unchanged. Shatter was- "Wait, shatter?" Apparently they added in a few new extra skills to the list. Was this why they added slots for extra skills? To keep players from owning too much? Or did they work like the mod cap in that you had to equip certain skills that you wanted to use? He had absolutely no idea. Unfortunately there wasn't any information on the skill other than just it's name. Now that he thought about it, the same could be said for the concentration skill. He knew that came from the Gemini quest but why wasn't it showing the information? Was it because he hadn't cleared the quest yet? So he needed to go back and discover which quests unlocked which extra skills... He'd probably wait for the info brokers to get information on that. He was going to need to grind quests and dungeons again anyways since he needed to level up desperately. Knowing that, he went over all the skills, both unknown, known and owned. Restorative strike he hadn't recognized. Neither did the Forgotten King's Authority look familiar, though he apparently unlocked it. To his utter joy it's ability nullified immobilizing statuses on the player when activated, which was something he despised. Dragons ascent was also hidden. Maybe the dragon hunter anthology? He never did finish that one... He'd hate to go back to killing infants again though. Lady luck was hidden. Photosynthesize was hidden. Brawler gave him a boost of mitigation which he probably wouldn't be using. Assault mode was hidden. Frozen hide was hidden, but that was likely tied to a floor four quest. Blazing bite was hidden. Parry was- "......Huh?......." Parry, Hiding, First Aid, Block and a new skill called Leadership were all moved into the extra skills section.

Parry he could kind of understand, but block, hiding and first aid were all fundamental elements to specific builds, namely rogue, tank and support. And what was more shocking was that first aid took up two extra slots... Or, additional extra skill slots. Meaning that players had to truly be dedicated to playing the support role if they wanted to be one, as they'd be giving up two entirely separate extra skills. From what he could tell, neither First Aid nor Hiding had been altered, and the same could go for the parry skill. Unlike all of the other extra skills they still retained a skill point cost to unlock, unchanged from what he could tell. So for the most part all that had really changed in reality was that they would take up an extra skill slot, and that was it. As for this leadership skill... It was certainly a supporter skill. Even the additional extra slot cost was there by it's name. Overall it could boost certain stats while reducing your own, move any status effect applied to other players onto the skill user instead, or reset a.... Itzal fell silent as his eyes sat wide with a multitude of emotions. Cooldowns... Not for skills, but for sword arts. Sword arts. Had cooldowns now.

Post: 1,010
Total: 5,462

The next on the list of skills he was about to go over were the combat masteries skills. This one puzzled him as it sounded similar to familiar mastery, but then what were the familiar skills? Were those possibly altered to unlock familiar types? They added in a cloth armor skill among the light and heavy armors, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to suspect familiar types as well. Perhaps they were types of familiars in the sense of them being avian, mammal, reptile or marine? That would be an interesting skill, that would likely have sub-abilities. Regardless of what it might be though, he needed to find out what they were. So, he opened the combat masteries skill tab. What he saw threw him off at first: Each of them were what a familiar provided you, except there was no familiar involved. They were literally damage mastery, accuracy mastery, evasion mastery, and mitigation mastery. It was so simple and straightforward, that Itzal was kind of taken by surprise based on everything else he had seen in this update so far... Though to be fair there was a lot. Even still, this meant that Familiars would be used for something else entirely from now on. What they were to be used for was still a very big mystery to him, but it did make him a little excited. It also explained why his familiar didn't seem to have any of the skillsets Itzal taught him... Looks like he'd need to take the training quest again for Aldion. That was fine, but he needed to plan out his skill points carefully. He lost most of them, and he doubted he could obtain as much as he had before this update, so he may not be able to provide Aldion with a skill for some time. That was fine though he thought as he smiled, seeing the raven fly across the window for a split second. He enjoyed the avian's company, and he was good friends with Zita, Zandra's own familiar. He wasn't about to steal that away from them. While Aldion was much more focused, collected, and serious than Velnia, he still reminded the black haired rogue of the amethyst dragon in a few ways. Not many, but a few. He was friendly with other familiars most of the time for one. However the two were mostly opposites. While Velnia would fly all over creation in a hyper state of activity and energy, Aldion would prefer staying in one area and observing others, maybe getting scratched once or twice. In a sense, Velnia was like a puppy and kitten, while Aldion was more like a mature and trained cat or dog. He smiled as he compared the two, but his curiosity grew again as he wanted to know what his familiar could now potentially do... So he opened the next tab: Familiar skills.

The first skill on the list was enough to get the gears in Itzal's mind turning fiercely. Thinking of how he could utilize it. Thinking of how others could use it against him, and the precautions he could take against them. Thinking about how they'd fair in a boss raid. The first skill was "grapple familiar", which allowed the familiar to essentially 'stun' the target for a limited amount of time before the grapple was broken. What made it more interesting, was that the cooldown for stun was different between a player's and a familiar's. Meaning if a boss wasn't immune to stun, they could send a familiar on him and stun him, then the next turn stun him with a sword art, hope for paralysis to land the third round, and then keep on going from there. However, Itzal had a sinking suspicion that Kayaba had planned for this loophole, and provided additional protection for his bosses going forward.. That being said, it could still be used against minions and minibosses most likely. If anything it would be useful against dungeon bosses, event bosses and quest bosses. And especially against players. If Itzal had a grapple familiar, he could pin two enemies down at once, which would double the speed in which he threw them into prison... But he wasn't sure if it was worth it to choose this type of familiar skill. He'd rather have something more rounded. And all this thinking was on grappling alone as a familiar skill. The hunting familiar was of course suitable for collecting monster drops without actually fighting monsters. This was extremely useful to most players, but if you were on the frontlines, this would be known as a waste of skill points. And Itzal would have to agree with it as there were far more important matters. The healing familiar was recognizable to Itzal, as it existed prior to this three point oh update, as were the protector familiar which reduced final damage against it's owner, and the profession familiar which helped the player to craft items. The others however either changed or were new, such as the rending familiar which landed it's own, weaker hit against a target. It didn't deal straight damage to the target, but instead applied the rending DoT which dealt seven times tier in damage to the target for two turns. It wasn't bad he admitted. Though the cooldown was slightly long. The scouting familiar no longer provided a bonus to any and all searching methods, and instead provided a buff exclusively to locating dungeons and labyrinths. Because Itzal was trying to boost his damage, it meant he would have to suffer some scouting methods like this one.

Overall Itzal felt that his best choice in a familiar skill was going to be either grapple, or rending. Which of the two he hadn't decided just yet however, and would need to think long and hard about it. Rending would be easy for Aldion, he'd just rake enemies with his claws. For grapple however, well... Maybe some cool cosmetic ability would spark up? He wasn't entirely sure to be honest. Grappling would be better for hunting down player killers, and capturing them. Rending would be better for quests, dungeons, events and raids. He'd need to talk with Zandra about this one, and carefully...

Post: 1,041
Total: 4,452

As he listened to her comment on the update being a bit... Extreme, Itzal couldn't help but give a firm nod in agreement with her. He crossed his arms over his chest as he thought about what had happened and shared his mind on the subject in return. "I get that Kayaba would want to do something big, flashy and impressive before putting us all to sleep but. I mean come on. They could have at least made it a bright flash of light. That's less of an: "oh sh*t I'm gonna die" concept at the very least." Darkness was often seen as evil or scary to most people in the world. Even people who weren't scared of the dark had their guard up when it creeped into their lives for the simple fact that it's whatever lies within the darkness that makes it dangerous. When people see light they don't have the same reaction by nature. Light can hurt your eyes if too intense, but it's most known for revealing areas, people, monsters, and everything else in the area. That was the primary reason light was considered to be good, while darkness was always considered to be evil. Because evil hides in the shadows, while the light exposes them to everyone's vision. That wasn't to say that darkness was evil of course, even the Japanese knew of this. The yin and yang symbol was a perfect example of this. However in an immediate, no time to react situation darkness would hold a far more fearful and suspicious reaction than light would ever have. Maybe it was to stay in line with the lore of the boss fight, but honestly that made no sense either. All of the npcs would have forgotten it anyways, and it was an update so it didn't matter to lore... Right? "Wait... Does it affect the lore of this world in any way??" He thought to himself, his expression puzzled as he put a hand to his chin in thought. Much of these floors had changed for good, that much was obvious. But how much had changed really? Were the quests touched? The lives of NPCs? What about secrets to Aincrad? So many questions....

That had to wait for another time  he thought to himself as he snapped out of his trance. Shaking his head to refocus, he looked at Zandra who cheerfully added to the description of the blueberry cake, and shared that they provided chocolate milk along with it as well. To this Itzal just became more hungry, abscent-mindedly touching his stomach. "Wonder what kind of chocolate the milk is.. German chocolate? American Chocolate?" He had no idea, but all his lore-piecing was thrown out the window with the promise of food. Smiling and gesturing for her to lead the way, he followed behind her. Despite the fact that they were seemingly alone, Itzal didn't lower his guard. His hand was always resting on his sword's pommel, his eyes scanning the alleyways and backwater paths, and shadowed areas for monsters, pkers or players in general. Zandra was most certainly right. They should not lower their guard just yet. Player killers would most certainly try to take advantage of situations like this. Either they rushed through their build rework or they were just very fast and efficient in it, but they would be out and about right now. As they walked into the shop however he relaxed a little more. Navigating his menu he switched from his armor to his casual clothes under the doorway, so that he could be comfortable, but also so that he and Zandra could show each other affection without worry of his identity being revealed. Thus the armored Zandra walked into the non pvp zone of the restaurant with Itzal, who was now clothed in jean pants, a red shirt, and a black trench coat with purple accents.

As they sat down she assured him that they were all npcs, and Itzal realized she made sure to pick somewhere they couldn't get caught. All the remains of his tension evaporated at once, and his expression softened as a warm smile grew. "Thanks Zan." he said. He didn't have to explain himself either, she knew why Are's identity had to stay secret. There were the average player killers he took down, but he'd interfered with some of the bigger guilds as well. He'd stopped one or two laughing coffin members, and an assassin sent by a rival player killing guild. He'd made big enemies as of late, enemies that could pose a threat even to Zandra if they weren't careful. So the two of them would be taking additional precautions to ensure the other was not harmed in any way, shape or form. The table she lead them to only reinforced how much consideration she had put into this particular reunion for the two of them. "Yes, this would work perfectly Zandra. Thanks." With the precautions set and out of the way, the two were able to sit down now. No one was around when Itzal changed garbs, and he was now sitting as Itzal, not Are. No one would ever get the connection between the two, and as such he was safe to be as carefree as he ever was. Itzal's foot was fidgeting as Zandra gave their order, and when she asked him what he thought his answer was obvious. "I think I'm the luckiest man in the whole world being able to try even more new cuisine with my wife." His stomach growled and he chuckled nervously. "That, and I'm starving for that food." Aldion glided in through an open window and perched on the top support beams. Itzal nodded to him and his familiar nodded back. The raven came in to help his eagle friend, as Zita was big and easily spotted. The npcs were generally set to drive animals out, but because of how small and insignificant Aldion looked they didn't have the same reaction towards him. Thus Aldion would ensure that Zita got his hands on some food. Itzal and Zandra would know this by now, having spent a great deal of time together. "As for the restaurant itself, it sure does take me back. I'm guessing it's player made?"

Post: 1,046
Total: 2,624

Only after he had read over the entire paragon level system three times over did he finally take a break from it and rub his eyes. There was so much data and information to process, and despite not being able to feel pain, he could feel the phantom pain of that ache you get when you stare at a computer screen for far, far too long. Giving a hefty sigh he fell back on his bed, letting the nonexistent aches in his shoulders fall away for a moment. That was an experience he missed too. He could feel and see and taste and smell and hear... But that wonderful sensation of feeling your muscles unwind after a long, hard day's work were no longer available for him to experience. If you wanted amazing experiences, well bad memories make the good ones all the more better... That being said... Given there were players who literally loved torturing others was a perfectly good reason for Kayaba to remove the pain filter. In fact, Itzal was pretty sure they were the primary reason he did so. Speaking of pain, Itzal began wondering how Domarus was doing. He had chosen to stay in isolation and keep care for Keres. She was a masochist after all, and with that option removed from her grasp, as well as him no longer being abusive, she was going through some serious rehab. It didn't matter too much at any rate. Both of their beds and homes were established as his shop, so when they woke up she'd still be locked inside. He felt bad for both of them though. Rehab wasn't easy, and Domarus had to live with her every way without anyone else for company. It must have been awful up to this point...

He lay there for ten minutes thinking about those two, and whispering a quiet prayer for them to make it through this. Once finished he gave his worries up to the Lord and sat up again. Determination on his face once more as he delved back into the enormous sea that was the update. Closing this sub-tab he moved his hand down slightly and selected the second one. Skills. According to the order of what was presented first, combat was supposedly next. However Itzal knew how intensely tied to skills combat was, and it made perfect sense that they would be directly tied to this. You couldn't get into the sword arts until you went over the sword skills themselves. Upon entering the sub tab for skills, he saw all the sub tabs for skill types as he would if he went to the actual skill section. To his surprise, there were far more types than before. Originally they were categorized into utility skills, combat skills, weapon skills, armor skills, and extra skills. But now there were three new types of skill branches. There were combat masteries, familiar skills, and what really took him by surprise, unique skills. He'd heard of unique skills, and he heard that Calrex had one, and also knew that Hikoru owned one. He even knew of the dual wielding skill that Death Adder, the one who killed Beatbox, owned which was said to be immensely powerful. However, he had never known the full on description and capabilities of one, let alone known the rest. Was this tab going to reveal to him all of the unique skills? Or just the ones already owned or made available to them? His hand hovered over that tantalizing tab for a moment or two, but he withdrew all the same. He would go in the order provided by the cardinal system. It had organized this very well, and knew which topics were vital, and important, and which ones were less so, or less confusing if read in the proper order it had written out for the players. As such he would heed the cardinal's decision in which order he should read it. With that decided, he opened up the utility section first.

From what he could observe, the gathering skill, the fishing skill, and the hiding skill were all removed. Or at the very least, they were removed from this list in particular. The skills for quick change, extended mod limit, extended weight limit, lock picking, searching and all their mods were still there. From what Itzal could see as he observed the list of skills, the overall costs of skill ranks had dropped from a maximum of fifty, to a maximum of thirty, which gave him a bit of relief. He'd have enough to work with at least. Not optimal, but enough. The first and second ranks cost four skill points. The third rank cost six skill points. And the fourth and fifth ranks cost eight skill points. There were still the rankless skills, which from utility alone appeared to range from eight skill points to ten. He was curious if the three skills were removed permanently or just plain old moved. He doubted that Kayaba would remove the hiding skill forever though, so they were probably moved elsewhere. Moving on to the next list of skills was the combat skills. To his utter shock, both block and first aid skills were nowhere to be seen. Beyond this everything looked the same, but there wasn't anything on support or shield usage. Itzal, finding no other changes, hurried over to the next list which was weapons. Another surprise waiting for him there were the claw and whip skills. It would appear that the two had made a resurface. He remembered a player who preferred claw skills, but he hadn't seen her in ages. Luckily she didn't really get into much danger or trouble, so he doubted she was dead. Still, it was interesting to see the skill return after such a long time. In armors, he noted that there were three types this time, the new one being cloth. All he had to do was glance at the three skills to know that the heavy was mitigation focus, cloth was evasion focus, while light was the in between. He was even more delighted to see that cloth came with an LD bonus too! That would make his evasive dps, scout and rogue build far, far more efficient than before. Of course in the end it was mainly just an evasive rogue build with scouting skills, but it all ended up the same... Now then... The new ones included combat masteries, familiar skills, and unique skills. Did one of these new branches possess the hiding, block and first aid skills? Itzal would find out momentarily...

Post: 1,102
Total: 3,411

The sound of his finger tapping against the bed-boards disturbed the ambience of the forest as Itzal processed this information in deep thought. Aldion shifted from foot to foot, beginning to get bored with staring at the screen this whole time. It wouldn't be long before he got bored enough to start flying off looking for something to do around the house. "Caw.." Itzal looked at Aldion and scratched the crown of his head. "You're fine Aldion. I just have... A lot to look through." Aldion nodded but didn't leave yet. He was indeed a very loyal familiar... But that could only beat boredom for so long he thought with a strained chuckle. He was nervous with the sudden drop in health points. He was nervous with how combat will have changed. He was nervous with how far his levels fell, and how difficult it would be to grind all of those back. From his calculations he lost a lot of skill points, and he wasn't sure if the skill change involved skill costs. The cardinal system told him to reallocate his skill points, but it may be a difficult decision if they're becoming far more limited than they were before. He was also worried about monsters. Did they get stronger? Were they the same? Or did they grow weaker than before? So many unanswered questions laying on top of this massive level system change. He didn't hate it, if anything it was a perfect revamp for a game. But given this was a death world, this made him very concerned regarding their enemies.

CREEAAAK. Itzal jumped to his feet with his hands moving to grab his blade which wasn't even there. His searching skill had activated almost by instinct, but it was all glitchy and hurt his eyes with the broken visual. "Argh!... Wha- huh?" He turned it off and looked around the room. The window was open, and he almost panicked again until he saw a black feather at the base of it. Turning to see Aldion, the black raven wasn't there. "Guess he got bored..." Letting himself fall sitting down onto his bed again he exhaled a long sigh. He needed to get back to reading this update. All these unanswered questions would be answered if he just finished. Moving on to paragon level milestones, he read about a laurel wreath. At paragon level ten the player received a three percent bonus to all experience gained which was very helpful. At paragon level twenty five one received an equipment change ticket, which he could only assume changed the type of an item, though he wasn't entirely sure. Maybe it would be described somewhere else in the update list. They also received the ability to change all their skills for free, and three items called gleaming scales, though he had no idea what those were as of yet. At paragon level fifty the player unlocked the ability to design their very own custom skill, or a custom sword art of their choosing.. Within parameters, which made sense. At paragon level sixty they received three paragon tier up tickets for equipment, non-stackable, and three demonic shards. At level seventy five players received a fifth extra skill slot, which made Itzal even more confused than before. At paragon level one hundred the player's stats for paragon levels double, and they received three rainbow scales and three demonic shards. And those were the paragon level rewards.

Tapping his foot and tapping his fingers, he processed the potential of paragon levels for anyone who had the time to actually grind all of these out. If someone could reach the highest level of paragon, they would quickly be able to dominate other players, and hold an edge over bosses and dungeons and the like. Just by glancing at this, he'd guess that there were things players could do with demonic equipment, as well as something else looking at the rainbow scale but he wasn't sure. Extra skills seemed to have a limiter, so he'd need to look into that one as well. It was difficult though. Just to get anything from paragon levels you needed to at least grind five levels. And to reach them you needed to get experience points equivalent to a supremely high level. As he thought of this, he figured out why he'd lost levels so quickly. When skill points translated to experience, there were some digits lost. The remaining experience points were converted to levels, and the remainder experience points became his paragon levels. That would mean that when the next floor was eventually reached, they'd lose one paragon level, but gain an actual level. Losing nothing in stats, even potentially gaining more on top of the paragon ones, but also making it harder to increase paragon levels by a full level's worth of experience. It was a double edged sword, but it was worth it in the long run. Itzal lowered his chin onto his enclosed hands supported by his elbows as he went over simulations in his mind. "Kayaba.. You really thought long and hard about this didn't you? This isn't just a whim is it? Is it possible that you actually..." He shook his head. No. This was NOT the time to think about this. He was sitting on a delicate matter which required much, much deep thought. This one change alone would change his entire build. Not just his but everyone's build. This was a day to restrategize, not pondering on what their captor is or isn't. First he needed to survive this. Only after they reached the end, could they take a moment and question him for real. If he ever gave them the chance that is...

Post: 954
Total: 2,309

It was so warming to see Zandra and her smile again. He even felt his body lose a tension he wasn't aware of previously. He even felt a little bit taller, though he believed it could have been his posture. Being concerned, stressed, and confused regarding 3.0 and the safety of Zandra had been concerning for him after all. His eyes flitted to where her wedding ring would normally be, and could see it there over her armor. Another relief of tension knowing that they were still digitally married. While it wasn't a heavy tension, it was nice to know they didn't have to go through the entire wedding ceremony a second time. It was hard on Zandra he knew, and while she needed to push through it to get stronger, and to help put her at ease knowing this wouldn't be like her prior relationships, he didn't want her to have to go through that stress again. When Zita flew in Itzal smiled and laughed a little before giving a slight bow and nod to the majestic creature. "I missed you too Zita! It's good to see you again." Aldion flapped his way over to the bench and landed near Zita, his head bobbing up and down in greeting as he gave small caws here and there to the larger bird of prey. The two had become decent friends in the time Zandra and Itzal had dated. Although they had no recollection of the floor boss or the catastrophic event that had occurred, they greeted one another as long friends would after weeks apart... In their own weird bird way.

"I am. I wasn't sure at first when I woke up. I've never seen anything like that before, so I was scared Kayaba killed us off. Seems he's more gracious than we give him credit for." Rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment, he heard her reminder that they were not nearly out of the woods yet. Itzal's face went neutral somewhat with a firm nod. True, they managed to clear the twenty fifth boss, and not only survive it but the update... If that was hostile in any way that is. They were still seventy five floors away from the finish line. Not only that but with this new update, things were going to be more challenging than before. He wondered if Kayaba wanted to make it more difficult to clear, or if he wanted to make the game more fun for the players... It could easily go either way if he was being honest. "It all comes down to if Kayaba is a homicidal maniac, or if he just wanted to enjoy his world to some extent..." Monsters had grown stronger regardless, and the players had all lost at least half of their health and energy, as well as lots of skill points. While you could regain those through paragon levels, it wasn't an easy feat in any sense of the word. With that in mind, the sword arts had seemed to have vastly improved, and with the right combination of skills you could be just as strong as beforehand. Furthermore, players could even get their hands on unique enhancements and demonic equipment more easily by combining equipment and going to the merchant... Or wait, appraiser.

This of course was something he needed to jump on immediately to catch up with other players like Zandra. Players who had the edge before with the floor drops, able to deal huge amounts of damage to increase their chance at getting the final drop. With his new chances at getting those demonic and unique materials, he had to hurry. Lots of grinding, with loot level monsters, dungeons, chests, bosses. Even some of the quests out there. There were one or two he hadn't taken yet so he may as well try them out. But... For now, he wanted to be with his wife. And when she mentioned blueberry cake. His stomach audibly rumbled. "....Good food sounds amazing." Food was always one of his weaknesses ever since he'd entered this world. He loved trying new foods of every type, and from every country. Hearing about one that he hadn't had before only made him even hungrier.

Post: 706
Total: 1,578

It did not take very long at all for the player to hear the ring of a message appearing on his menu. According to Zandra the twenty second floor was also changed, which Itzal had guessed might happen. From what he could identify, the entire world of Aincrad had been completely altered in it's entirety from changes in the system, to it's physical world, to the lore behind everything as well. Of course he also figured that the events of the twenty fifth floor boss raid wasn't supposed to happen. Between the shadow boasting about attacking and conquering all of Aincrad, as well as the fact that no npc seemed to notice any darkness or shadow, which players say engulfed the entire castle, nor did the npcs have any knowledge of it. The strange event only lived on through the memory of players. Not even Aldion seemed to recall the event when Itzal questioned him. His intelligent raven simply tilted it's head in confusion. He was after all, an npc. Part of the program. If Itzal had to guess, the boss was given too much sentience by the cardinal system, became self aware, and in effect became a virus in the system that needed to be purged. It probably would have been destroyed with or without the players beating against it, but he wondered if the answer behind the boss becoming seemingly weaker against them was. Perhaps. The cardinal setting limiters on it, and/or Orgoth himself. Whatever the case, while they may not know what happened exactly. It was nice to know that Kayaba wasn't cruel enough to just leave them like that.

When no one was looking he jumped to the teleporter and whispered: "Floor twenty two: Coral Town." And just like that he teleported to the other floor. Once he teleported there he was immediately welcomed by the sight of Zandra standing there waiting for him. Before he greeted her, he activated his scouting skills and scanned the area for any players that may be in the plaza... Despite it being a very popular floor, he didn't see anyone. Players must want to place their homes in locations of isolation away from all the business. Either way. He smiled and relaxed a bit knowing that there weren't any players around. He had to keep this deception up. That Are and Zandra were friends/ish, mainly allies. Itzal was Zandra's wife. Not Are. Are had many enemies, and he would not allow them to target Zandra, or any of his friends... "I really need to talk with Mina.. Maybe Jonathan. I don't know how far gone he is though. I need to double check there. They've been kept from my secret for too long." And he knew they could keep his secret. They weren't about to slip up at all anytime soon. For now though... He just wanted to be with his wife.

Encouraged by the absence of any players in the area, Itzal ran over to Zandra and hugged her tightly. "When I woke up I was so worried you had died. Thank God you're alright." Itzal didn't cry.. But he could have. He was very close to doing so at the very least. Aldion landed on the top of the well nearby. "Caw! Caw!" He cried, joining in the celebration, his wings flapping strongly as he stretched upward. Itzal chuckled at that, and when they finally pulled away from their embrace he smiled warmly to her. "Well. We both came out alright. Though I have a feeling that our thanks should be given towards the cardinal system specifically."

Post: 602
Total Words: 872

The forest was unnaturally quiet as Itzal made his way through it in his shadowy armor. More than likely players were staying indoors, reading the update and taking much longer to process it and/or adjust. As a result it felt as if he had the entire floor to himself. He'd run into a few of the monsters on this floor, which had in general changed to common and uncommon mobs. One of the benefits of his level, despite it being cut, was that significantly lower level monsters that were at least ten levels below him, (identified with pink cursors) would flee from him and not bother him unless he attacked first. This likely wouldn't be the case on higher floors, regardless of paragon levels however. But with his hiding skill he wasn't too concerned. Aldion may not be have combat bonuses anymore, and overall no real mastery just yet, he was still family to Itzal, and so the raven stayed with him. As Itzal made his way to the teleport pad he typed in a message to Zandra.

With that written out he hurried over to the town. He was right. Most of the players that lived on the second floor were crowding around the area. Most of them seemed scared, others just talking with other players trying to figure stuff out. Itzal took precautions of course, and used alleys and rooftops, as well as the hide skill, to avoid being noticed by players. He couldn't have them figure out that Are came from this floor after all. He snuck up behind the teleporter pad and awaited Zandra's reply.

- 270 words

"Caw!" Itzal looked up to see Aldion sitting in the familiar house he and Kasier built originally for Velnia. It took the raven some time to get adjusted to the home originally, but he now waddled out of it onto the rod that stuck out for flying creatures to stand or sit. Shaking his feathers he cawed again at Itzal, and the player chuckled. There was a sense of ease knowing that his familiar had survived. He reached up and rubbed against the back of the raven's head, the creature's eyelids falling slightly as it enjoyed the attention. Especially after... Whatever it was they had witnessed. When the raven had enough it gave a friendly peck to inform him and Itzal withdrew his hand. "Aldion. Zandra.. I'm so glad you two are ok." He thought aloud. "If they both survived, it's a safe assumption to say that everyone else did too. That's a relief... I wonder if Orgoth survived it too." Aldion started grooming his feathers, so Itzal turned his attention to the menu again. Before he started navigating it however, he noticed... Rather late, that his armor was missing. Looking at himself he had been put in his vanity clothes. His every day clothes so to speak. Consisting of a cotton short-sleeved red shirt, navy blue pants, black boots with silver accents, and a black trench coat with purple accents, it was far more comfortable than his armor actually was... Did Kayaba set up the system to give them the most comforting return? Or was this some type of glitch? He wasn't sure which it was, but he had a feeling he'd be aching a little if he woke up in his armor. Aldion glided over from his perch and landed on Itzal's shoulder. "Caw!" Itzal chuckled. "Alright, you're right. It's time to see what this update's all about."

This was the first time Itzal had ever seen an update with a summary, before the actual details. In fact, the actual details were placed within sub-tabs in the menu. Very curious, and a bit uncertain, he went over the summaries:

• Leveling System has been dramatically altered
  • EXP System added.
  • SP Reward System added.
    • Player required to reallocate their skill points.
• Combat System has been dramatically altered.
  • Sword Arts Updated
• Skill System has been dramatically altered.
  • Skills Changed
  • Skills Moved
  • Skills Added
  • Extra Skills Added
    • Extra Skill Slots Added
• Player Stats have been Dramatically Reduced
• New Functions have been Added to Certain Professions
  • Merchants Changed to Appraisers
  • NPC Merchant Added
• Tiered Materials Condensed to Materials
• New Items Added

He didn't move for a long while. He was still trying to process the magnitude of how much SAO had just changed. He looked at the name of the update: Three Point O So this wasn't some patch update. Some upgrade or anything. He looked at these changes, and realized that the game had just changed in it's entirety. Nothing would be the same moving forward. For one, players couldn't level up by collecting skill points anymore. It was only by experience. He checked his level and his eyes widened with horror as he saw his level had dropped to thirty one. He quickly opened the experience section of the sub-tabs and began to look over it all, trading his panic with confusion when he saw 'paragon levels'. As he read through the detailed changes in levels, the soft level cap, and the paragon level systems, as well as the rewards for paragon levels, he became more and more quiet and invested. Occasionally muttering something to himself. "Ok... Ok... So this removes the infinite levels problem, but it also doesn't stop players from- Ow!" He turned to look at Aldion who pecked the side of his head. "Oh right. Well basically instead of players leveling up via skill points, they level up via experience points. Every level you get five skill points. Every five paragon levels you get five skill points. Originally players could level up to infinity, but then cardinal put a level cap... At level eighty eight. A weird spot. But, now you reach the soft level cap, which according to this is five levels higher than the highest floor, you can earn paragon levels to infinity. While you can grind these, it takes longer to earn anything, though there are milestones."

Actually. He double checked his stats and, sure enough. Given his level, he was declared a tier four level player. But since they didn't have any tier four level floors, he would likely have to rely on events and raids in the hopes that tier four drops would occur. He'd have to look at those later though. Right now he was focused on the actual leveling update. According to the system, his health was reduced down to eight hundred and twenty, and his energy likewise down to eighty two. "Player stats reduced dramatically huh? That's no understatement." From One thousand seven hundred to eight hundred twenty. That was over half of his health stripped away. More interestingly, if players gained another level, they would lose paragon levels with that total experience. This made sense to Itzal, it meant they didn't have to wait or anything. And items or bonuses gained through milestones were not stripped away either.

Words: 802
Total: 1,355

Mega Slime Farm Used in this thread: +10% Experience Bonus

Clash! Clang! BOOM! The noises of warfare and battle rang clearly and loudly across the darkened chamber. Slash! Smash! CRASH! A small army of warriors of various skill and power. A monstrous beast who serves his floor. A dark entity with too much ambition. Hack! Stab! WOOSH! Darkness envelopes the warriors, but not a single one is discouraged. Taunts and jeers from evil whispers falling apart as light breaks through. A false strength stripped away. And when all seemed to be at an end with victory at hand. rumble rumble rumble rumble BOOM!

Itzal practically leaped up from his bed from the nightmare with a cry of shock. He sat there breathing heavily, limbs shaking as he put his right hand on his face. "Had that really happened? But.. What had happened?" The most he could remember was that nightmare. With his last thoughts before being struck by the wave being one of terror. Against bosses and monsters, he had no fear. He could calculate chances, decipher an option... But that... There was nothing natural about it. Well, as natural as you could get in this digital world. In his split moment to think, all he could process was terror. Terrified that they were suddenly going to be erased from this world, and the real one. It was the most negative outcome possible, but it's all he could process before being washed away. After that, he just... Itzal's breathing began to slow down as he took longer breaths. He took one hand and touched the other. He could still feel. That meant he had a physical body, or digital at least... Which meant he was still alive.

Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, he could feel his heartbeat return to normal. That was, of course, until... His eyes shot wide open. "ZANDRA!" He immediately opened up his menu to reach the message section, but was interrupted by the cardinal system:

Itzal smashed accept, curious but to the smallest degree. His wife came first. He opened his messenger and sent her a message:

Quote

To: Zandra
From: Itzal

Zandra are you ok?! I just came to after the boss raid, please message me back if you're alive!

Every second felt like a minute. And every minute like an hour. His heart pounded faster and faster as he grew worried, memories of reading Kasier's name on the monument flashing across his vision. He begged, he prayed to God that she was ok. And just as he was about to start crying:

Quote

To: Itzal
From: Zandra

Itzal? Was just gonna contact you. Im fine, how are you?

Itzal let go of his breath and felt his body slump down in relief as he learned to breath again. "Thank you Lord.. Thank you." After a moment or two he started giving his reply.

Quote

To: Zandra
From: Itzal

I'm alive. I'll meet up with you in a bit, just gotta get my bearings first.

With that sent, he finally took his first look at his surroundings since his awakening. To his complete and utter shock and surprise, Itzal was in the bed of his house. The one he and Kasier designed. It was quiet other than the forest ambience coming from outside. He could even smell the trees from here. Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, he sat at it's edge and took a moment to process. "...What on earth happened?" That's when the update message came back to the front of his mind now that he wasn't in a panic. There was an update. Did it have something to do with the shadow? Or that wave of darkness? Gingerly, he opened his menu.

Words: 553
Total: 553

Current Level: 87
Current SP: 519
Link to SP Tracking: [Link to Roleplays]

Item Upgrades:

Main Character:

Reward choice: SP
Loot Reward: Elder's Grace <HEAVY ARMOR> (Flame Aura, Flame Thorns, Frost Aura, Frost Thorns)

ID# 187489  LD: 17

Nodding with a hidden smile at Chase's reply, he said "I'm glad to hear that. There used to be a guild that hoarded every item that had any sort of unique enhancement, and almost always landed the last hit. It's good to see unselfish players joining the frontline ranks. Refreshingly so actually. As for need, I'm always there for others. I may be busy chasing down as many pkers as I can, but if you can find a way to reach me, I'll be there." Of course, Itzal couldn't let him send messages. You needed a username to do that, and it was an incredibly guarded secret of Itzal's. When Chase mentioned the boss raid, Itzal nodded. "Yes, I saw you at the meeting. Just be careful, and remember to bring every precaution. From what they said, it's going to be a very, very dangerous raid. The most dangerous yet." Oh how far Itzal could have been from the truth. With that he began to walk away into the shadows, silently switching to his hide skill. "Until next time Chase." As he made his way into the darkness he couldn't help but smile. It had been too long since he fought side-by-side someone outside of the front lines like that. Maybe he should take breaks from his daily hunting more often.

Itzal watched as the col was sent into their inventories, and the skill points added to their levels. Itzal received quite a lot from his given it was his first time completing this quest, and he'd trained earlier today which increased his experience rewards greatly. As Itzal sheathed his blade he said: "Agreed. I'm never touching this quest again. It isn't worth-" He fell silent as he noticed that neither one of them received anything. No menu popped up on Chase's side stating any items. Itzal was silent for a moment. "...Are you serious? They build a boss that's supposed to be difficult and doesn't drop anything?" What was even more infuriating was only if you were stupidly lucky could you get any decent gear from the boss. The rewards just seemed to suck save for the skill point reward. Sighing he signaled for Aldion to return to him. "Well, I came here for the skill points anyways. And I wouldn't have gotten anything anyways since you added me to the party, and not the other way around."

ID# 187444  LD: 4  -  Nothing but col and SP

"Sounds like you heard me backwards. I was suggesting an enhancement that primarily doubles any thorn damage you deal to enemies who hit you." Itzal explained. Unlike Chase, Itzal was good with calculations, and was in fact studying to become a game developer. At some point near the beginning of his time in Sword Art Online, Itzal actually kept a journal where he wrote ideas for video games for when he finally escaped. It hadn't been touched in forever of course since he'd been focusing on the lives of others this whole time. Upon seeing his sword flash with light again, Itzal slowed down to let Chase take the action first. He watched it's health go down. "At this point two of my attacks or one of yours will finish him off." He stated. He'd charge forward on the off chance Chase missed his attack. Always take precautions he thought. Itzal rushed forward and thrust his sword into the chest of the boss where it's heart would be, and twisted his blade to make as big a wound as possible. Normally this would be where it bled, but obviously this king had the power to defy any form of logic, so it had no blood to speak of. Itzal leaped away, signalling for Chase to target the... Target, on it's chest.

ID# 187440  BD: 8+3=11  19*11-150=59 dmg

-11 EN, +1 H

+1 EN

@ChaseR

"Agreed." He said very simply before taking his turn to charge forward. "Maybe if it had a side effect like doubling thorns damage should you be hit though." He dodged a blow that the boss tried to land (poorly), and jumped over it as it bent over for it's attack, slashing his blade across it's back before running in a circle again. "Wouldn't be a half bad enhancement either. For tanks going for all mitigation, hate gaining and thorns damage build. But adding hate that really isn't needed is just wasted slots." Of course Itzal was more partial to an evasion build himself. Even Evasion tanks were superior to mitigation ones in Itzal's mind. You just had to make sure they kept the hate up, kept their evasion at maximum, had as high a health you could have, and have healers at the ready. The boss wouldn't hit often, but when they did you'd be able to take it... Most of the time. Unless of course someone used both light and heavy armor, one with mitigation one with evasion. Then have a shield with thorns on it.

ID# 187437  BD: 7+3=10  19*11-150=59 dmg

-11 EN, +1 H

+1 EN

@ChaseR

"It's annoying on screen and infuriating in person." Itzal said in simple response. He couldn't help but think back to all of the player killers he'd ambushed. Using paralysis and stun attacks to immobilize them, forcing them to watch helplessly as their comrades were ruthlessly hacked, pierced, pinned down and beaten to a bloody pulp by yours truly. He felt a little bad, but it didn't last long. Given that they were murderers and half of them enjoyed the profession of theirs. As for his additional hate factor... "Fighting Spirit or Taunt?" He asked simply as he went in for another strike. The boss didn't have much time to react at this point. It wasn't defending itself, but it was so disorientated with the players running and jumping around him that it couldn't aim properly anymore. Itzal slashed his blade across the back of it's legs, and by the time the boss swung at him he wasn't there anymore. At this point it was just a matter of keeping him disorientated while they whittled him down.

ID# 187435  BD: 8+3=11  19*11-150=59 dmg

-11 EN, +1 H

+1 EN

@ChaseR

His plan seemed to be working, at least for the time being. The boss continued on it's berserk rage for a bit, but it's growing frustration was starting to affect where it's swings landed. Watching his enemy carefully he waited for just the right moment before rolling to the side just before the boss made an enormous swing at him. The blade got stuck in the ground, completely throwing the boss off it's rhythm. It expected the blade to come right out, therefore it tried swinging again but was held back by the stuck blade. It tried again and lost focus on Itzal for a moment as it heaved at it's weapon. While it was trapped doing so, Itzal ran up the boss's back and thrust his black sword into the back of it's neck, pulled it out, and jumped off of it's head like a ramp and rolled across the ground coming to a slide. "Don't bother drawing it's hate. Just keep attacking it. It's down to nine hundred or so health and we're healing quickly. It's damage isn't a concern so long as it's luck is over. Otherwise... It wouldn't matter anyway."

ID# 187433  BD: 5+3=8  19*11-150=59 dmg

-11 EN, +1 Hate

+1 EN

+97 HP  BH

@ChaseR