Azimuth: The Elden Throne

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"Another issue? I imagine it has nothing to do with your sisters." Dale asked with some suspicion

'Although Ermin generally says he feels greatly impeded by his sisters' actions towards him, I don't think he hates them enough to call them an issue in his life.'

'Though you can't say they're a positive influence either…'

"And you would be right to think so, this has nothing to do with them."

"In fact, they would likely be very eager to move to Resko if they could since the prospect of fighting the powerful monsters of the South excites my older sister."

"She takes this game as a place for her to vent her frustrations and I can't really blame her, each plays the way they want to.

"..."

"While my younger sister would definitely dislike Resko due to its rustic nature, albeit I'm sure she would prefer the place over the one we're currently at due to the way the NPCs treat us."

"And you think things would be better further South?"

"Definitely, at least over there, they wouldn't be blatantly racist towards us." Ermin said with a scoff

"Besides, wouldn't you help us settle in?" He asked with a smirk

"... I don't like doing blatant favors like that for players but… Maybe an exception or two wouldn't matter much." Dale replied with a chuckle

"Then it's a deal."

"What do I gain from this deal?"

"My inradiating and honest presence?"

"Heh, sure, I was in need of a meat shield."

"Ah come on, I can do much more than that!" Ermin said in protest

"Is that so? To your knowledge, the last monster I fought was challenge Level 250, what about it, you in?"

"H-Huh?... 250? Really?... Wait, what is your Level now?" He asked with a pale expression

"Me? Level 69." Dale replied nonchalantly

"Nice… WHAT?!"

"You're already double my Level, almost triple! H-How did you do it? No… I can imagine how given the difficulty of the Fields around Resko… But..."

"The thing is… How strong are your Stats?"

"Well… Things happened." Dale replied as he closed his eyes, remembering moments of his adventure till here

"With the exception of a few Stats, without any items, all of my Stats are over 300, they increased quite a bit after I put them on."

"... You're like a Raid Boss… No, you are scarier then one."

"Really… Woah… I'm more than impressed. Even if you're a Harcore player, by being Level 69, your Stat gain should've been around… Let's see… 100 by 49, 160 by 69…"

Ermin stopped, looking at the camera with a poker face. .

"We're just halfway there man…"

"Haha… Things just… Kind of happened." Dale said awkwardly

'If you add my starting 50, that becomes my base Stat of around 210, then there's the need to add my Buffs and Ratio modifiers.'

"That's quite the story man…"

But as he realized how awkward Dale looked, he changed subjects:

"A-Anyway, I don't want to meddle in your business, sorry about that…"

"No, you're misunderstanding." Dale said quickly, not wanting his friend to think he wished to keep his methods a secret

He had so far kept a secret regarding what he was doing due to his fear of what was at stake.

But he couldn't keep quiet forever, at least, he had to think of something to say.

"It's… A bit hard to explain."

"I… Urg…"

Dale tried to think of a way to explain, but the words didn't come.

"The best way I can describe this is… You know that HardCore characters are very much like NPCs right?"

"Yes, that's what everyone believes." Ermin replied with a nod

"So far, everything points that the way the System of Azimuth interacts with a player is similar to that of an NPC, even the way NPCs interact and refer to HC players tend to be smoother and less mechanical."

"Yeah… The problem is, everyone is fucking wrong." Dale said deeply

"A HC player isn't similar to an 'NPC', we are the same!"

A lot of emotions were put into those words, causing Ermin to frown as he thought something was wrong.

"Wait, how so?"

"Thats… It's complicated… This ties in with what I learned when I became Level 100."

"Then I don't want to hear…"

"No… Man… Ermin, listen to me."

Dale closed his eyes as he thought about what to say.

"It isn't that simple, think about it, how does an NPC trains? By Lore."

"Training?..."

"They grab their weapons, train their muscles, learn techniques, from sharpening their knives to making a soup."

"Just like them I can also train, learn, master things beyond the scope of just a Buff effect on my screen."

"An HC player isn't harder due to the Stat buffs, there is a much bigger reason for that…" Dale said as he paused between his words

"We are…? Free… To learn, to grow…"

"Of course, I still have my Skill Slots limiting me, but I can go beyond that, I can learn how they do it and do so myself."

"This is why I'm so strong… It's hard to explain."

'I spoke too much... But I managed to say it, at least in a way he can accept.'

'There is a lot I would wish to tell him, but as he is but a Standard Player, it won't matter if I tell that to him now or later.'

'He can only grow within the confines of the System, maybe there is something beyond Level 100, or maybe if I help him, he can learn and train in the real world.'

'But until then, it would be best to try and avoid pulling him into this side, especially since I don't really know Ermin that well.'

'He may be cheerful, but what would happen if he were to understand the significance of the world he treats as a game?'

"That's… Awesome!" Ermin replied with a smile

"..."

"So you can actually learn all of those cool moves we often see those NPCs perform in the livestreams?"

"... I'm sure most players can as well if they get the respective Skill book but yes, if I get the learning method and am given time, I can learn their Skill through effort and beyond the Skill Slot Limit."

"Woah! Like uh… Martial Art Novels?"

"... Yes… Just like those." Dale said as he exhaled

'Forget it, this dumbass won't really understand even if I were to tell him.'

"Dammit! Maybe I should've chosen to be HardCore too… I have yet to die too I guess I would've been fine?"

"Maybe, as a HardCore player, it's not just about not dying but about taking good care of your body, you might've been alive but riddled with injuries, debuffing your character into something completely useless."

"Still… We can continue this conversation later."

"As I was saying before, the circumstance behind my inability to go to the South, excluding everything we already discussed is that we got quite a few Questlines underway, but they haven't led us anywhere interesting, and now I'm a tad too invested to just give up."

"I already expected this degree of difficulty from the second hardest starting point in the game but this shit is making me go crazy."

"What about the rituals you talked about before, have you done any yet?"

"Their time will come, eventually."

"I heard there'll be a powerful storm coming soon, so I was preparing to perform a few Rituals and see what I can get."

Ermin started to count with his fingers.

"The Sword of Thunder, The Rain Harvester, Leprechaun Gold Pot, and those kinds of things..."

"But those three are my top priorities."

"You sure are well prepared…" Dale said with a helpless expression as he started to think.

'Not all of those are Rituals.'

'For context, what Tina did to me is a Ritual, or should be according to what I know.'

'If I assume that there will be a next game after this one is released and they share the same world and rules... If I still somehow remember everything Tina did to down the smallest detail, then I would be able to replicate it on someone else.'

'The Mark of the Witch being the simplest… Albeit I don't know if that would be possible.'

'If it were so easy of a ritual to accomplish, even without a Witch, the survivors would all have a mark on their hands, they're not that stupid.'

'The Ritual of the Sword of Thunder was something performed at the end of a lengthy Quest, not a line of Quests but just only very lengthy and chunky one.'

'After gathering many pieces of the weapon, learning the ritual dances, Skills, and everything there was to learn about the School of Cestavir which stands for Inversed Lightning, an old and forgotten school of Monks that were massacred during the old times, you could then revive their Artifact at the Heart of a thunderstorm, getting their Legendary Armament, the Sword of flowing Thunder.'

'It was a cool and rather embarrassing Quest that had you dance in the middle of the rain after going through dozens of equally embarrassing and frustrating Quest processes such as meditating under the rain with the risk of being hit with lightning bolts...'

'And you had to keep calm and ignore that...'

'Still, this Quest led to some very cinematic movies performed by all kinds of people over the years.'

'When I was younger, I watched many, particularly pretty girls doing it in revealing clothes…'

'Being a man is often very simple, people used to overcomplicate it, no wonder the early 30s were a fucking mess.'

"The Rain Harvester… Are you sure you can take on that?"

'This is a Boss rush event.'

'During a day of severe thunderstorms, there is a small chance for Spirits associated with wind, water, lightning, and disasters of all kinds of shapes and sizes to manifest in a Field.'

'But only to those that are sensitive to it, albeit their presence grows stronger in proportion to your distance to the heart of the Storm and the strength of the Storm in itself, sometimes so strong normal people can see faint figures dancing in the rain, much to their utmost horror.'

'If you approach an area affected by such a storm, just like the Southern Horizon Woods, there is a chance for an Event to take place that will change how things work, and from then on, you'll be bombarded with monsters that will get progressively stronger.'

'And all of them are Boss-type creatures, one monster per Party, which is rather good since that way the loot gets distributed.'

'But the problem is, if a party fails at clearing their mob and it goes to someone else, it can quickly escalate into a disaster.'

'There used to be many Trolls that would purportedly mess the event just so no one could get any rewards or out of anger if they failed theirs.'

'Though there were Guilds that would send many parties to the Event just to rake in some of its exclusive rewards as the longer you last, the better the loot becomes.'

'But the base Level of the event is always the same as that of the area it affects, and the Starting place Ermin chose is… Rather high.'

'And from the looks of it, he plans on lasting to the end so he can kill the Rain Harvester, a creature with some pretty good items, with one of them being its scythe, a Legendary Weapon.'

'You can trigger/increase the odds of the Event happening by doing certain things and this must be what Ermin is after.'

"Don't worry about it, I have a plan." Ermin replied with a confident smirk

"It better be good, because if you die, then you'll have to say goodbye to everything else…"

"If you're unlucky, what if the storm happens one day before Babylon and you die? You might even lose the Special Event."

"Don't say it like that, you're giving me second thoughts…" Ermin said as he scratched his head

"Good, you should think more about these things..."

'Lastly, the Gold Pot... It's kind of a Gacha event.'

'After the rain ends if all conditions are met, a rainbow will appear.'

'If you run to the end of the rain you have a 50% chance to either meet an extremely horrendous monster or a bunch of Leprechauns dancing around a Gold Pot.'

'And from there, if you satisfy their urges for playing tricks, you can get a chance to draw items from their Pot, but it's random how much you'll get.'

'Some players got just a few coins while others got high-end items.'

'It's normally an Event left for when you're higher Level as you can get better items that way, but no one would refuse free items...'

...

For the next few minutes, Dale and Ermin continued with their conversation, and after a while, Dale left his PC to put on his suit.

It was time to return to Azimuth.

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Notes

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